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Four More Coaches Fired on Black Monday · The MMQB NFL Podcast

0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can edit our podcasts.
0:09
[SPEAKER_01]: There's Albuquerque on the bottom floor.
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Happy Black Monday, I guess, to all those who celebrate.
0:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's really celebrating.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a good day.
0:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to just start by saying this.
0:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk the openings today.
0:24
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to preview the playoffs on Thursday.
0:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And,
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: if you are listening to this show and you're one of the people who left an Instagram comment on Tyler Loops page, you're an asshole and we don't want you as a fan of this show and so just delete yourself from our subscriber base.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you see that?
0:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not.
0:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not.
0:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad I did.
0:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Good God.
0:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I have seen this stuff before?
0:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just holy crap.
0:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean look like I'm gonna put it this way to you.
0:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, last Wednesday night was a tough night for me.
0:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did not react real well in the morning because of what was happening.
1:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But I chose to keep that in my basement where I was watching the game.
1:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you have this need as an adult to go lash out at somebody on a social media, just because suddenly we all have access to people that we maybe didn't have 25 or 30 years ago
1:23
[SPEAKER_02]: It was probably less common because all you, because you had last, like, you know, in 1991, you had to go through the process of, like, writing a letter to somebody, which will be like a real psycho.
1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So, like, you took, uh, it's just pregnant one of these guys, right?
1:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to clip out all the letters from the different magazines and put them together.
1:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to go through the process of writing a letter, and you have to find the person's address.
1:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You, you didn't have to walk the envelope
1:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you, and even then like you probably have a few hours before the mailman comes to pick it up.
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have a few, you have a little time to reflect there where you can reverse your decision, right?
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Give yourself that time your reverse your decision to do shit like this.
2:10
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I have.
2:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I just say that in, in my head, I was funny because I had, um, I had Patriots fans last week.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: like somehow got out there.
2:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had my kids, I got them some frame jerseys from a trip we made to California a couple of summers ago and one of them was a Matthew Stafford jersey which we took my kids to Ram's camp.
2:33
[SPEAKER_02]: The Ram's people were great with them and they got them by one son Stephen got some autographs on a Stafford jersey.
2:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So I took a picture of the gifts because the guy who does the framing has been doing like framing work for us, which isn't easy, because you're not framing work for us.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, really since we moved down here like 10 years ago and they're awesome and they do a phenomenal job.
2:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, you know what?
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, let me take a picture and put it up on Instagram and like help this guy out a little bit.
3:01
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like, right, we're sure everybody the great work that he's done.
3:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe he gets some business off the notoriety, the little bit of notoriety that I have.
3:10
[SPEAKER_02]: easy enough, right?
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So I posted that whatever in the day after Christmas.
3:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for making my kids Christmas a little narrower, you know, with this, with this work frame center, inhale over mass, thank you.
3:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And so then Patriots fans got a hold out of it.
3:28
[SPEAKER_02]: after Matthew Staffer through three ticks last Monday night, and basically use it, and somebody actually, they basically used it as a, you are not, you are.
3:41
[SPEAKER_02]: not unbiased, you hate the patriots, you hate Drake may, I hope you should die, I never have a career again.
3:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and so it's like, I did something nice for my kids and these lunatics, this group of people, I don't care if you take shots at me, but it's like now involved with my kids.
4:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like I just kind of like think about that.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like what has to run through someone's mind when they're doing that?
4:14
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And like you kind of feel bad for them at the end because it's like and I hope Tyler Loop has this thought too because I think it's like the grown-up way to look at it.
4:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm as long as there's no like real threat for sure.
4:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you just like look at this and it's like I kind of feel bad for you like I have teams that I wrote for real I have one team that I wrote for really hard word affects my mood when they lose I would never even entertain the thought of tweeting at a player
4:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean, or tweeting it out?
4:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I was never entertained that, you know?
4:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I don't know, I guess I probably shouldn't look at what was out there on Tyler.
4:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my God.
4:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Just disgusting.
4:58
[SPEAKER_01]: The worst piece of fan mail, I think as if he doesn't, as if it isn't harder on him, exactly.
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
5:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:08
[SPEAKER_01]: and like none of these dipshits are gonna realize that kicking at Heinz Field in sub-30 degree temperatures on that rocky chunky surface is like one of the hardest things to do in sports and yeah no one's gonna give a shit about it and obviously it's really hard to think to prepare for just very quickly my worst possible mistakes or point like and
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, love Tomlin's celebration by the way right after like this is how he drew it up, you know, uh, let's have my defense scout get gouged and give up like three massively long touchdowns, but then, uh, we're going to defend three chunk plays and set them up for a reasonable field.
5:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's exactly how we drew it up, baby.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But my worst piece of fan mail, and hopefully this brings solace to the Tyler loops of the world is on my wedding day.
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So I speak of Mike Tomlin.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I was writing for NFL.com at the time, and I wrote something complimentary about his fourth down decision making.
6:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is back when fourth down, you never went forward on fourth and down, you just punt it on fourth down, like blanket punt it.
6:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But this was when the analytics kind of started to kind of get a ground swell and I remember talking to some people from Princeton and they were kind of the OGs of this idea that maybe you should start going for it.
6:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wrote a little bit about that.
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote, you know, the statistics support the decision to go for it on fourth down.
6:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone found my wedding page on the not.
6:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And the day after my wedding, my wife and I are up, getting ready to go to our honeymoon and cheating pizza on the couch.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get an email that says, you like statistics, hot, we'll here's one, 50% of marriages end in divorce.
6:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that yours is one of them.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty good, I mean, you got to hand it to the guy, right?
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, I mean, it was, I still think about it.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I still think about it.
7:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know once a week and that guy occupies a rent free space in my head.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope we have a way to talk about like throwing a report.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like, that's like a team that's different than like, yeah, like I hope, no, again, the stuff with loop was disgusting.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my original point stands, if you're going to be funny about it,
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And not torture someone who's probably just in a very fragile mental space, cool, you know, that's great.
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to do it, you did the Tyler yesterday get out of here.
7:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not welcome.
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
7:51
[SPEAKER_01]: back to black Monday and I want to point a new term Albert because it was black Monday, but then I was looking for a color that started with the letter S that was almost as dark as black to go with Sunday and so that ship gray ship gray ship gray is almost black.
8:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So we had ship gray and I had like black and German which I believe is Schwarz.
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, shwax Sunday.
8:15
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go, and we had Reheem Morris on Sunday.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We had Kevin Stefanski, Pete Carroll, and Jonathan Ganon on Monday, and that brings us with Brian Dable and Brian Callahan to six.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say at this point,
8:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I, there's still probably some tough conversations being had with Todd Bowles as we're taping this.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know exactly where they go.
8:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that Mike Tomlin and TV is still a possibility, even though they've made the playoffs and they survived.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And John Harbaugh is another one that, like, again, I think there's going to be some tough time.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: conversations, but at this point, we roll with the six, and I want to bring it to me the one, another one, but I don't anticipate that.
9:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Like if you look at the people that they're interviewing for the GM job, a bunch of them line up with Mike McDaniel.
9:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
9:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just feels to me at least like,
9:13
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to set it up again, this is going to be like a Detroit type of model, a Rams type of model, a Panthers type of model, where you have like a cap operations analytics guy over here that'll be brand and sure you have the GM who's ostensibly the head of scouting and you have the head coach and you know my my guess would be at this point at least I know
9:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, as far as their search goes, Steve Ross, his son-in-law, Danny Sillman, there are team president Tom Garfinkle, or all going to be involved.
9:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're still the process of digging out from under the season, but it's the sense you get talking to people there is, you know, when they come out, whether that's when they come out from under that, that where are others, Tuesday, Wednesday that might be downhill, probably still be the coach.
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I think so too.
10:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Out of all of these, I would say if you were to rank them in terms of surprise, I thought Reheem Morris going as soon as he did, I thought that Terry Faughtno was definitely gone.
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that Reheem probably had a plunger's chance to do the one year, survive the GM thing, like Mike McDaniel might be doing down in Miami.
10:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jonathan Ganon was always a coin flip, right?
10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess I've been looking into it, but in Cardinals fans are probably going to be smashing their face against the desk when I say this because they know this better than anyone else.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He's only had three wins against the NFC West since he's been there, and the last four games.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: against these divisional opponents.
10:53
[SPEAKER_01]: He's given up at least 37 points and I think in three of those four games, 40 plus points.
10:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Your defensive head coach, you're watching the rest of the division schematically escape you and I just think that you could probably consider on your hands there.
11:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
11:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be fair, they've invested a lot in the defensive side of the ball, like I think they've put less on, less into the offense, and there's been a few a high draft picks, Marvin Harrison, you know, the Gabe Traymic Bride a contract, they drafted Paris, Johnson early, but there has been a lot of investment from a monetary perspective on the defensive side of the ball.
11:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So you would expect that that part of the operation would be ahead, which I think is kind
11:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, one thing you heard leading into all this was that well, maybe again, and could survive with staff changes.
11:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are two reasons why I don't think that that, like, that wound up having number one, I have a hard time seeing if it came to this that Jonathan again and was gonna say, yeah, go ahead and fire those five guys, no problem.
11:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I think for all his faults, JJ's loyal and I think he might have been, been, you know, in a spot where he would go down with a ship.
12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
12:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, number two, like the name you heard most was Drew Petzing.
12:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't think Petzing was really the problem.
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like it's like, all right, like, well, you do that.
12:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that really fix anything?
12:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you've made this investment on defensive and you acknowledge the problem you've had an offense primarily at quarterback,
12:28
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, where does that lead you?
12:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm with you like the JG firing doesn't shock me.
12:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a little more surprised with what happened at Atlanta.
12:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I'm not totally, but I mean, we can go through that too, like why that happened, why I think that happened the way it did let's do the new openings first and then we can kind of circle back to the giants and Tennessee because we've had separate episodes on them in the past you guys can go back through our through our timeline and and do that, but we will we'll we'll hit them here today as well, but
13:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to start in Cleveland and Albert, I try not to be too magnanimous on days like this and you try to take your, this year I had a concerted effort to kind of put the hot take in the back pocket and wait to see how the process plays itself out.
13:16
[SPEAKER_01]: However, in watching Andrew Barry deliver a press conference about firing Kevin Stephansky, a lot of what they seem to be looking for in a head coach is Kevin Stephansky.
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and if I were if I were to have a leadership smarts was EQ IQ and football acumen and then expertise on one side of the ball So check check two things here if I'm JW Johnson who for those of you don't know is one of the top ranking Officials in that organization that Brown's organization.
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the GM and head coach of the teams last search Which brought Andrew Breary and Kevin Stephanski together
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be pissed, man.
13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you're JW, you deserve credit.
14:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You hired the best coach in the new history of the Cleveland Browns, like in a quarter century, and there's a 20 of them, and it's not even remotely close.
14:12
[SPEAKER_02]: For the Oscars, by the way, new Browns means the Browns since 1999, and they were out of the league for three years there, but go ahead.
14:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
14:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd be like, okay, in my second theory, and I think I finally put my finger on this, I think the reason that the Browns and Andrew Barry had a good draft, but again, parenthetical, part of the reason some of these players from the 2025 draft played so well is because they were coached well, how verded?
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They were developed, they were developed, like, but I think I'm starting to get it.
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and I think that the reason that Andrew Barry is so valuable in Cleveland Albert is because he doesn't add a quick job of intellectualizing the whims of ownership and and and so it's like the browns will always be the browns but now Andrew Barry kind of puts it in this neat Harvard box for everybody to be like oh okay there seems to be a plan here whereas before it was like good god what's going on um
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's been good at that, but I think that this could be his last stand because this is Mayfield 2.0.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So defense he's going somewhere like now.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and my guess is his dance card is going to be very full.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to interview thoroughly over the next couple weeks.
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a team and you haven't seen you don't interview him, I think there's something wrong with you.
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's going to win where it goes.
15:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you an anecdote, right?
15:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I think that this kind of applies to this, and this is something we have to look at with the browns, right?
15:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I was talking to somebody from the Jets about interviewing like Frable.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what their conclusion was when they walked out of the interview room, like last year?
15:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What's that?
15:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Why the fuck would you fire this guy?
16:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought about that a lot because, you know, things weren't perfect in Tennessee, right, and like there was a divide in that building, and there were the variable people and then the other side of it.
16:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the owner comes in and she doesn't live there.
16:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And so for her, it's like, I'm coming.
16:22
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh my God, like, this does not feel healthy.
16:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if she's in there once a week, it doesn't have the full context of the whole thing.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Not realizing you have a head coach.
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like in the top 25% of the NFL, right?
16:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and you're just looking at it through that prism of like, okay, like,
16:42
[SPEAKER_02]: This doesn't seem healthy, so I need to blow it up, right?
16:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not the job of the owner.
16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the job of the owner is to go in and look and say, okay, I've got good people here.
16:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I doing enough to make sure that these good people are in the best position to succeed?
17:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you look at the carnage in Tennessee, like who's the winner in all of that?
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Who looks that's right now?
17:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it even close?
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, variables running the score up on everybody else, right?
17:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
17:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
17:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what would have, what would have been best for the Titans in that situation?
17:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously order to go in and figure it out.
17:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
17:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of blowing up.
17:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: For the only way to go and say, like, I've got a freaking stud as a head coach.
17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And I need to go out and find a way to make all this work.
17:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, time will tell with Kevin Stephansky,
17:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the reason they let go let them go is because that relationship between coach and organization have gotten so tangled up by all the different things that had happened and by the disson Watson trade and by the fact that he had this miraculous year in 2023 and was the coach of the year for the second time and there were different timelines and
18:08
[SPEAKER_02]: like can's just consider this, right?
18:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay?
18:11
[SPEAKER_02]: You're really for three years taking yourself off the quarterback market.
18:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're not looking at quarterbacks for for minimum three years, right?
18:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you've invested so much on them.
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And you have given up what 20% of your cab space every year, right?
18:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And annual basis on average, 20% of your cab space every year, right?
18:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a huge financial component to it that's going to live on from this point forward as
18:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you've killed your ability to draft, because now there are three drafts where you don't have first round picks.
18:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So not only does that affect you and not having the first round picks, you're also less flexible, you might be making taking more chances on guys because you've got less access to premium talent.
18:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've hurt yourself financially against the cap, you've hurt yourself financially in cash, you've hurt yourself from a draft perspective, and you've taken yourself off the quarterback market.
19:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think going through that, the whole group,
19:06
[SPEAKER_02]: which I think that they over the years have done a lot of things right created a tangled up relationship and I just think it got to the point where we've had this sort of been so much water that's gone under this bridge like it's just too much and we love Kevin and I think that I think you know Andrew Barry, Jimmy Haslam, JW Johnson, all those guys still love Kevin.
19:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the question at the end of this is going to be
19:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Should you have done whatever it took to untangle that or wasn't just the point of no return?
19:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's where I compare it to variable.
19:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you look at the variable situation and you look at like what variable left behind and what's left of what he left behind now just two years later.
19:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's very clear the answer was to just untangle everything yourself.
19:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, yeah, they should have done.
19:52
[SPEAKER_02]: The question in this case I think is going to be whether you should have untangle the whole thing yourself or whether it was just time to say goodbye.
20:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I, at this point, I, and that by the way is going to be determined by how Andrew Barry does, how their new head coach does, how all the talent left behind does, that's what's going to be determined by.
20:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So in digging around, and I'm curious, bounces off you as well.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: In digging around just preliminarily about the Browns opening, I've gotten like two hours of sleep.
20:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't speak at this point.
20:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what is it?
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The, by the way, I was feeding my, I have a 10 month old.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: and she gets a bottle at like nine o'clock in the morning and then she goes down for a morning nap and so I get everything done wake up you know in the morning and you're and you're doing stuff again and you're you know you're making sure all your work is done from the night folks went to bed at like three o'clock in the morning feeding the baby a bottle I put her down
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And then just like, ah, let me just, you know, let me just roll because the crib's next to our bed.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, let me just see how she's doing real quick.
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, she's got a cold and I want to listen to her for a second.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden I closed my eyes and I wake up and I've, I've got like three missed phone calls and it's like 1115.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I'm on that one of those days today.
21:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm time traveling a little bit.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But in checking out about the Browns, checking around about the Browns situation,
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I had three kind of distinct theories presented to me.
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The first one is that you're going to roll with one of your coordinators.
21:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They like Tommy Reese and they love Jim Schwarz.
21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And is that just what you do?
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Jim Schwarz fostered Miles Garrett's record breaking season.
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It probably wouldn't be unpopular.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: He has head coaching experience.
21:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he would fit the profile of that division in terms of a head coach.
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you just keep Tommy Reese's your offensive coordinator.
21:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the direction you wanted to go.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: The second is that the Browns are poised to make the wild card higher of the cycle.
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is maybe where one of your off-ball.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The odd, what's that, please stop it, stop it.
22:03
[SPEAKER_01]: don't even do that.
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Conor does me well enough to know I'm a fan of chaos.
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would I would cover Bay I would go cover baseball honestly if that was the case.
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I would I would go into the office and I would say please let me cover baseball.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This is professional wrestling and I don't want to do this anymore.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And the third theory was, you know, maybe you try to hold on to your coordinators and you do almost with the Cowboys did, which is you bring in, you just import Mike McCarthy into your vacant spot, right, because stable eyes,
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: for a first timer.
22:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really not like at all.
22:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, if you're going to come in here is like a one or two year coordinator on either side of the ball, I think bullets are going to be flying, and this is a bad roster, and you're going to have to deal with the shudder thing right away.
22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's a no thanks to me.
23:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Hard no.
23:02
[SPEAKER_02]: They,
23:04
[SPEAKER_02]: have they ever don't I think they're only time they ever hired a guy with head coaching experiences Hugh Jackson right there's Hazeln the hazelnuts because they inherited that Sharmer fired him they hired Rob Chitzinski fired him they hired Mike Patton I think was next fired him
23:23
[SPEAKER_02]: they hired Hugh Jackson that obviously didn't work out.
23:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Greg Williams was the interim if I remember right that year.
23:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So that doesn't really count.
23:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Eric Minjini was a head coach.
23:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Now it's before they were there.
23:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So like that was the old one.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yes.
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Go.
23:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And then 19 was Freddie and 20 was Kevin, so they've only really done it with Hugh Jackson, right, of all their hires.
23:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I, I, I understand what you're saying and I think it'd be interesting to look into.
23:56
[SPEAKER_02]: in Andrew Barry's background, right?
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And where can we find somebody in Andrew Barry's background that makes sense?
24:04
[SPEAKER_02]: As somebody, and that's the trouble.
24:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like the Eagles, like if you want to say, okay, like, you know, he was with Philly for a short time.
24:12
[SPEAKER_02]: What is that Doug Peterson then?
24:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't know, you know what I mean?
24:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I think you'd have to,
24:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It was he was with the Eagles in 2019 and he was with the Browns before that and then the Colts for six years and so I actually went through I went through like all six or seven years of that before it's for me.
24:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it was a roster he was there under Bill Paulian and Jim Caldwell, I believe right.
24:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah
24:40
[SPEAKER_01]: and honestly like the one connect that I found to like let's say an up and coming what like so Harold Goodwin who's with the Panthers now was on a couple of those cult staffs and he's a big part of Brad Idzix offensive staff in Carolina and Brad is like a young
25:00
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of up and come and that turnaround in Carolina was really impressive and maybe the brown season parallels there.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That was my big kind of takeaway, but I mean, this was like this was like a pagano team and Aryan's team, like a lot of these people from Indianapolis have kind of phased out at that point in time, you know.
25:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I'm just sort of interested to see, okay, so, and that equals team that he was on was not very good either.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was the 9 and 7, I guess they won the division.
25:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But, um, I mean, well, you talk about making, like taking a big swing though, are you saying like college then?
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I, so Atlanta was the one team that everybody thought,
25:40
[SPEAKER_01]: when I talked to last night that they could go college, but if you're Cleveland, maybe you go college too, I just don't know who's who's left, like who in college hasn't signed a mega extension yet.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you have to be willing to pay the buy out, which is, is Sark, the only one that hasn't signed like a big, I'm not going anywhere extension yet.
26:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Elgo did.
26:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
26:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, maybe, like, if you wanted to look at something like that, they do a relationship with people to a higher state.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I do, like, I think eventually, like Ryan's going to be on the radar.
26:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that it'll be this year, but like, eventually.
26:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, and I don't, that'll happen now.
26:20
[SPEAKER_02]: But I, like, there aren't a turning thing.
26:23
[SPEAKER_02]: The one thing, the one thing that I'm intrigued by is Signetti.
26:26
[SPEAKER_02]: just because what he's done is so ridiculous.
26:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like one of the best coaching jobs I've ever seen in any sport in my lifetime.
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it.
26:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I've talked to people, I was actually asked a male bad question about him maybe two months ago.
26:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, so I asked around, you know, I called some of the guys that I know who were on the college scouting trail had been through there.
26:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And the universal answer that I got was
26:55
[SPEAKER_02]: He's 64 years old, so you have to be comfortable with that.
26:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And you have to pay, I think, a $15 million buy out.
27:01
[SPEAKER_02]: He's just signed a new deal there.
27:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, I don't know.
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, I...
27:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just such a weird year because we don't have a lot of obvious candidates, you know.
27:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you start to go down like the vans Joseph, you guys who've been former head coaches, Matt Naggi, that could be in that mix, Robert Sala, you know, sort of could be an interesting interview for their head coaching job the last time.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I did well if I remember.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
27:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
27:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you have to kind of go into this with an open mind.
27:36
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not, there's just not an obvious one.
27:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do think like this is one.
27:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I would argue like that might be the best football city in America.
27:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It is phenomenal, like a smart.
27:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like the how the fan base is locked in the knowledge of the fan base.
27:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it is if you win there, you will, I mean, you will be a hero forever.
27:56
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll build a statue statue of you in front of the stadium.
27:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
28:01
[SPEAKER_02]: you have to want that, you know what I mean?
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you want to have to voice like Philly or Chicago, like you have to want that level of scrutiny.
28:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, wherever your game is a referendum on you, and you have to shake off the history, you know what I mean?
28:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Like in all the bad history of the last, you know, 25 years, like since they came back into the league, like, are you willing to inherit that and brace that, take that on, and ultimately defeat it?
28:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And can you count on a 40-year-old guy who's only called one side of the ball?
28:30
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm going to bring his name up a lot, but it'll have to make sense as a good head coach before yeah I mean I think he fits there too So I mean Cleveland, you know, it's just like I mean the other one the other one So they love the Ivy League guys, right?
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: See if Matt, no, wasn't Matt Burke.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Who am I thinking of?
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Matt Burke.
28:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, who is and also by the way tied to Jim Schwarz guy.
29:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so that's that's one to me that like I think if you ever been around Matt like he's very he's defiant.
29:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean like and he's very much like
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: He's perfect for Cleveland.
29:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect for Cleveland in that way, yeah, like I think like he'd be like a good fit for that place.
29:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he's got like a little bit of like the screw loose defensive coach thing while still being an Ivy League, right?
29:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Matt Burk would be an interesting one for sure.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's move over to the Falcons because what really interests me about this Atlanta job, and I think now that you've Matt Ryan in the building,
29:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think that there's any way I may have found something by the way what's that when did Andrew Barry play it Harvard when did Andrew Barry play it Harvard I don't know well Matt Burke was an assistant coach there in 2003 uh huh well I'm glad I put him on my shortlist yesterday I think Andrew Barry might be a little younger than that give me a second here but I think I think
30:07
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... doesn't say here he always born in eighty seven so yeah he would have been sixteen and two thousand three so that doesn't match up oh well nearly a uh... close but at the same time it's it's something that very he that's in his network right you go and you can ask about him and yeah well his college coach and his college head coach i think would have been ten murphy and harvard would have employed not for us so there is a connection there
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Another, so Atlanta, I think is interesting to me, because with Matt Ryan in the fold there, Albert, I just don't think that there's any way this team isn't looking at an offensive focused head coach.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Matt Ryan, I think, will go in and he will tell you having played for Kyle Shanahan that this is the way, right?
30:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the way.
30:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you nailed it there because I think that you have to judge these guys based on their experiences and he had his greatest success under Kyle Shanahan 100%.
31:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And things went south for what was a very successful program.
31:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not only Kyle Shanahan, but Matt LaFlor, Mike McDaniel, left that building.
31:15
[SPEAKER_01]: A hundred percent.
31:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that
31:18
[SPEAKER_01]: when that informs your knowledge base, I think, and it's crazy because Albert, a lot of this is still true, like Climp Kubiak goes to Seattle and fixes that offense.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everywhere these guys go, it works and they succeed.
31:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And like Liam Cohen is in Jacksonville and turn that place around.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, if you're from the McVaetry, if you're from the Shanahan Tree,
31:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It works.
31:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and these guys aren't getting fired.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's crazy.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're they're retained.
31:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Zach Taylor is still in the coach of the Bengals.
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Really, I mean, I guess you could say that Zach Robinson is like the one.
31:59
[SPEAKER_02]: person from that McVatry that had badly did he fail and how badly did he fail not really I mean I don't know like I have a hard time hanging that on him.
32:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
32:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you still a good coach like I don't know I so I think first we should do the background here, which is what like what like what I think happened with for him right?
32:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is just, I want to, I want to, I want to make sure I couch this the right way, Connor, this is informed speculation.
32:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, but I was a little surprised, right?
32:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, because I had heard over the last couple of weeks, oh, where he could survive, Terry's probably gone, but where he could survive.
32:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So why didn't he?
32:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, they brought in sportology two months ago.
32:39
[SPEAKER_02]: and we reported on it in, like, to start doing a health check on their whole operation.
32:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Sportology is run by the former head of Chelsea FC, so like what they were looking to do, ostensibly was, look, you know, get a outside view of people from other sports into their NFL operation.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And unsurprisingly, what those guys came back with was, you should have an over-the-top guy and a president of football ops, much like you have a platform president of basketball ops in the NBA now, right?
33:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Or a president of baseball ops, I think they even have like chief baseball officer now, and major league baseball is that right?
33:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Something, right?
33:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
33:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You go down the, you go down the road on that and you spend two months with sportology as they do this like health check on your football operation and so you've been talking to them for two months and I think like eventually gets the point and I want to hear your take on this and eventually gets the point where it's like,
33:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like keeping Raheem anymore.
33:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's preventing us from going forward with this plan that they're starting to put in place.
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And like Raheem Morris and Terry Fontno may have been fired in these guys' heads six, seven, eight weeks ago.
33:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were going forward and building something new.
34:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So by the time you got to the last two weeks, the regular season, it's not, do we keep Raheem Morris?
34:07
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, do we really wanna veer from what we've already been doing for the last two months?
34:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
34:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's sort of it.
34:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I think that's why Raheem in particular kind of had like an uphill climb that he was looking at there.
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think that if you're not aligned and like this is like Corpo speak at this point.
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But you can go back to the, you can trace teams, lineages back to the moments where it's like, well, okay, I had a GM here and then a new head coach here.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got rid of that GM and then got a new GM and that got rid of that coach and then you play this game of Jenga to the point where you're just completely dovetailed.
34:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And you lose all sense of self and who you are.
34:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think Atlanta first and foremost wanted to hit a hard reset on that and I think that they wanted two guys to come in together with the same idea because we can say what we want to do.
35:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Although I would say this though.
35:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It has worked, so if we take the four top seats, right, in the playoffs, right, it is Denver, New England,
35:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Seattle and and Chicago none of those four have a coach and GM that came into the same in the same hiring cycle and in fact three of the four had GMs that were hanging on and then wound up inheriting the head coach, right?
35:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's George Peyton with Sean Peyton, right?
35:52
[SPEAKER_02]: The one that's not quite the same as that is Seattle, because John Schneider did hire Mike McDonald.
35:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
35:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, so John Schneider had won a Super Bowl, so it was a completely different situation.
36:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But I do think, like, we've seen now a few examples of where it can work.
36:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You are, I'm with you though, like you are to some degree through the needle.
36:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's much
36:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's much harder to do keeping the coach in the GM than the other way around.
36:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Does that make sense?
36:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so.
36:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Because like I think if you're hiring a new GM and keeping the coach, the coach is immediately under a valuation and that makes it more difficult because now you're going to have trust issues right from the beginning.
36:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like the minute something goes wrong, the first thing the coach is going to think is I'm going to be I'm I'm I'm cuffed here, you know.
36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I'm looking at the Falcons and so I put together kind of a short list of coaches who I think would fit that job Albert and it's harder, right?
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going offense first, this is a, this is a difficult ask because again, I mean, this is not your, this is not your typical like five coordinators, five hot coordinators
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: for Atlanta in particular.
37:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that, um,
37:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Cliff is interesting to me because I think that he could run an offense for panics that might get him out of his head and might get him just playing a little bit faster.
37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Falcons didn't run a lot of sugar huddle or tempo stuff with panics, Ryan grew up did a lot of tempo stuff with panics at Washington, and I think that that's something, you know, worth mentioning.
37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I don't know if you, let's go back to when the Falcons hired Rahim Morris.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a candidate who had two interviews.
37:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Second one at Arthur Blankshouse.
37:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Second one went very long to the point where I thought he might have gotten the job.
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know whom talking about it wasn't Rahim Morris, who wasn't?
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: What Bellachet?
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, say it again.
37:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So, so, with the last time that the Falcon's hired a head coach for hemores, they Bellachet, they went deep with Bellachet, they went deep with their hemores, they also went deep with another offensive-minded coach who got a second interview, and I think that wasn't going to be slow, it wasn't going to be slow, it wasn't going to be slow.
38:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Bobby slow.
38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm going to say, like, I was like, I want to make sure I had that right.
38:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
38:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, Bobby, I think, you know, Bobby got pushed out and Houston, and
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: he ended up going to Miami where he's kind of revived himself there and I think is a super important part of that stuff and I think it's kind of a defacto offensive coordinator for McDaniel there too.
38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think what Defalkans were enamored with was that shanahan philosophy where it's like
38:43
[SPEAKER_01]: you have to understand both sides of the ball deeply in order to attack a team well offensively and slow extended on the defensive side of the ball.
38:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Kubiak is one of those guys Albert that like, you know, you're born with a football under your arm.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be able to understand this at a different level.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that's a place where Kyle advises him or is somebody in his network to be like, listen, this is not a job that you pass up.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you take the Falcons job and you just then you run with it.
39:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I like that.
39:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I like the idea of it.
39:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think like looking at connections here is important too.
39:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like Matt Ryan's Boston College ties, I think could be a factor in your interest thing.
39:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, both general manager and head coach.
39:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
39:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, general manager, Ian Cunningham has been running for a bunch of these has been on the doorstep.
39:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Ian Cunningham's boss is Ryan Polls, who was Matt Ryan's right guard, and they were in each other's way.
39:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So hello, like I do think like Ryan Polls would naturally be one of the people that's.
39:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Matt is going to lean on and learning how to do the job, right?
39:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's something to consider.
39:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know who another one of Matt Ryan's Boston College teammates was?
40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: See, if you can get this one.
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this person a coaching candidate or a GM candidate?
40:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Coaching client.
40:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Another one of Matt Ryan's BC teammates.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: How old is Matt Ryan?
40:17
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the draft class of 2008.
40:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe Matt's five years younger than me, so he would be right at 40, 41 years old, right in there somewhere.
40:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Five years younger than you and he's 40, holy shit.
40:28
[SPEAKER_01]: How old are you?
40:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
40:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Got to do this again.
40:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I don't know.
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's it?
40:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Brian Flores.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, okay.
40:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I,
40:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's at least interesting, you know, because Matt Ryan played against Bellachek.
40:48
[SPEAKER_02]: He went to college in Boston at the height of the Patriot Dynasty.
40:54
[SPEAKER_02]: He was drafted by a former Patriot executive in Thomas Dmitroth.
40:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are all these ties and a guy he played college football with and Brian Flores and I just, you know, I've thought a lot about like where flow is going to get his next shot.
41:16
[SPEAKER_02]: for a long time felt like God Baltimore would be interesting for Flores, you know what I mean?
41:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is one where I look at it and I'm like, man, like a lot of those things line up, you know, and I wonder if Matt Ryan looks at this and says, I can, we can figure out offense, flows work with some good offensive coaches.
41:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe he can bring Josh McCown with them from
41:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Kevin O'Connell let West Phillips leave to go call plays in Atlanta, you know, we like that we can we can do something here, you know, we've got like and I just I don't know, I look at it and it's like
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Man, like, you know, like, you're talking about the connections that Matt Ryan has, and there are two guys in Ian County, Ham and Brian, for as who are both coming from both becoming from the NFC North, who faced off against each other, who, like, he's going to be able to have, he's going to have the best information on, right, because of his own personal relationships with, in one case, the guy, and then the other case, the guy's boss.
42:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like that lines up and if you're talking about alignment and I think that Matt is going to prioritize alignment.
42:35
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, like last week when I was talking to somebody about this opening and we were talking about Rahim surviving this one person said to me, So I don't know about that.
42:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, what do you mean?
42:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I, you know, there was that hole, there's this whole thing out there, the last couple weeks about mats involvement in this and like, like, if you look at Raheem and Terry, like, well, he was once Raheem for five years in Atlanta, I've like, Raheem was on the staff for five years when Matt was the quarterback.
43:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Terry came in and traded Matt, right?
43:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, there was that thought process, okay, like, maybe keeps Raheem and walks away from walks away from Terry.
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But this one person said to me, Matt is going to prioritize alignment.
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be the most important thing to him because he's seen what it works, how it works when you have the thing in the line and he's seen how it works when you don't.
43:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So like the idea of being able to create that level of an alignment, I think it's going to be really important.
43:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
43:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I mean, Ian Cunningham and Brian Ford's haven't worked together.
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And they've got different backgrounds.
43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Brian Ford's background is New England.
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's been a head coach before he and kind of hands background is Baltimore and Philly but you're bringing in like a lot of good systems and you know, maybe you can project that out a little bit because you do have such strong personal ties to the two guys.
43:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just it's something that gets my attention, you know, and you can take the Boston College thing to another level to you can, I mean, obviously Matt Ryan is going to be able to get every internet on who Jeff Hathley is because Jeff has.
44:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Back coordinator in coach at Boston College, but I think there are at least some interesting options where, you know, Matt Ryan is going to come into this job and I expect that he'll have the sort of humility that John L. way had and kind of like coming in and like knowing he doesn't know everything, these leaning on some of those people, it could, there are some interesting potential arrangements there I'd say.
44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
44:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we have the cardinals now in the Raiders that I want to talk about, uh, jump briefly, um, before we get out of here.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, Arizona is one, you and I talked about this a couple weeks ago on the podcast that if Jonathan Ganon went,
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, that this is probably a opportunity to take a big swing because you have all these other coaches in your division who are just so good and so lights out and, you know, maybe Flores is one of those guys where, you know, he can
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop the bleeding for you a little bit and We liked him a lot.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: They were the first team to interview Florence in 2018 and so and they he got a second interview I believe when Ganon got the job as well and pulled out if I'm not mistaken to take the job in Minnesota So we have flora's there we have Vance Joseph.
45:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I think being a strong candidate there because
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Michael Bitwell, we'll remember that when Cliff Kingsbury came in, I mean, Vance had to do a lot of head coach stuff.
45:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Vance was essentially like a de facto head coach of that team or like a associate head coach for a long time and I think he'd audition there, but I want to talk about the swings, okay, because I think that this is a place where you and I brought up Grant you didn't ski, maybe this is the place where you interviewed Grant you didn't ski, you interviewed Declan Doyle Davis web, I think to, um,
46:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, the staff on Seattle is so interesting to know what perverse, the filibre, yeah.
46:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that thing has kind of come out of, you know, but to that point now, but I put Josh McCount on my list.
46:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, he was drafted.
46:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
46:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually, yeah, I think Josh got dragged a little bit.
46:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Like when they used to think was happening a few years ago.
46:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
46:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and like
46:27
[SPEAKER_02]: that wasn't necessarily really his fault that was just a really messed up situation there that he was caught in the middle of right now he's got like real coaching experience you know what i mean like and i i don't think it's the craziest thing in the world he's been working under a cabano connell who i like they don't have identical backgrounds but it's not that different along like they were both backup quarterbacks in the league and
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, it built tours that even when they were playing, you know, both of those guys.
46:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I, I think Josh McCown would make a lot of sense.
47:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I, if I were them, that's someone I would really look at.
47:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Davis Wibble would make a lot of sense.
47:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I, and I think it's important that we say this again, because I know we said it the last time, but I think,
47:17
[SPEAKER_02]: like the the girl who got away from Michael Bidwell will always be scamming fake and that they identified him early and they were I mean I think Sean was 29 when Steve time was like this guy is the next guy you know and if I remember right I can't remember exactly how the timing worked but the timing didn't quite work out for them um
47:41
[SPEAKER_02]: However, it was, whether it was, I can't remember if Iran's retired a year later, whatever it was, it didn't quite line up the right way for them to do it, but there had been that thought process that this is, this is the next guy.
47:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, the ram is swooping in higher in when he's 30 in the rest of his history.
48:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And so who fits that mold?
48:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the guys we're talking about.
48:03
[SPEAKER_02]: you know.
48:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So not all the same.
48:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got the X-player category in web and in McCown and then you got like some of the younger offensive assistants like the you didn't ski who I don't necessarily think is ready yet but a lot of people would have said McVay wasn't ready.
48:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, 100% and you pair him with West Phillips and your Wade Phillips and you go.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean that that's how it works.
48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You give him a you give him a vet Show him the way it's still a love way.
48:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait.
48:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one of my people have recovered his way still cover is he still coaching the rough next You know, he was the he was the cowboys coach when I was on the beat down there.
48:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Love way.
48:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, he's a I like I honestly I cannot say enough not nice things about Wade Phillips just forget about the football part of it.
48:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a unbelievable human being a great great guy
48:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Two more names for the Arizona Cardinals one is a name that I'm like, it is getting out there slowly now and is sort of making me not mad because I'm happy with like this is the thing about doing the head coaching thing.
49:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's like seeing them all like get to it's like all your pupils getting to grow up and have like fun and like all these people that you.
49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Obsess over and learn over and then they all end up getting big jobs and then you're very happy about But two names in particular that I think would be interesting, but I haven't heard anything directly connected to the first one is Clayton Adams And I think that Clayton Adams He was in Arizona the previous two seasons went to Dallas to become the offensive coordinator That's a top five unit in the NFL by the way One of the best rushing success rates in the NFL
49:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say, um, yeah, I can't reveal my votes, but Tyler Booker got all pro mentions a rookie, you know, and we know what Tyler Smith is, you know, he's another all pro level player, Cooper BBs developed at center.
49:55
[SPEAKER_02]: They got a better level player.
49:56
[SPEAKER_02]: When he's healthy, at least out of Tyler, Guy, and like they, they're responding up in that group and Clayton Adams is a huge part of it for sure.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, he is one of the, one of the five best offenses in terms of rushing efficiency this year.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he left Arizona, I mean, that unit fell apart.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think it's very obvious.
50:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And Monty also, for it's certainly at a front row seat to that.
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other one is, is Adon Dirty from Seattle.
50:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm so so this name is sort of come on my radar a little bit late in the process and some people are being like, it's next year or it might be the year after that, but this guy is a dude and great, like, I like ain't a lot like he's he's got like the British accent, which would be like, she would be the first I believe.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: None.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: What would he be the first?
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly the first English born head coach, but would he be the first foreignborn?
50:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I have to think somebody was born.
51:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like a military base in Germany or something.
51:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I there's got to be somebody who was right, but who like lived a significant portion of their life.
51:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You actually grew up grew up in another play.
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
51:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we could look into that, but
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of people are raving about him.
51:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, if you're the Cardinals and you don't do, I love AI.
51:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I just took a quote form born in a fellow head coaches.
51:36
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, the three examples that came up.
51:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I just did this is funny.
51:41
[SPEAKER_02]: While rare form born and a fellow head coaches do exist with notable examples like Tom Fierre's Mexico and figures with international heritage, like Robert Sala, Lebanese descent, and coaches whose parents have immigrated, like Steve Mary Ochi, like I think.
52:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
52:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, AI.
52:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Glad we're just knocking down the door today.
52:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So, like, good for Adrian being in there.
52:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I guess not.
52:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
52:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't know why Mike Dango is in this thing, but like, as growing international presence, I guess.
52:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, glad we're knocking down forests to build data centers so that we can have more shit like this to fuck up our day.
52:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, I think this is a it's pivotal search for Arizona and I still stand by my thought that here that they need to take that swing or you go with fans, Joseph or Brian Flora's to just stabilize.
52:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We should mention two floors has a connection to money awesome for it.
52:42
[SPEAKER_02]: They came up together and the and the knowing on personal apartment.
52:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
52:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Last but not least, we have the Raiders and then we'll touch on the Giants and Titans just very quickly before we get out of here.
52:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Raiders Albert, I mean, you nailed it.
52:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a couple weeks ago when you talked about
52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: John Spiteck, Tom Brady, and Jesse Minner having the Michigan connection, and then there's Tom Brady having the Brian Flores and Brian Dable and the Patriots connection, and then there's the Raiders having the Robert Solid connection, they offered him a lot of money to be the defensive coordinator.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's where this search kind of starts and end somewhere within that pair of parentheses.
53:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think I'm wrong?
53:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think like this is, this has got to be bigger than that though.
53:25
[SPEAKER_02]: They need to align that place, and I think it's so interesting because Tom Brady came from a place in New England where Scott Peole who drafted him had this saying that like became like kind of the
53:41
[SPEAKER_02]: the one line description of how they were building.
53:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It was we're building a team.
53:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not collecting talent right and I think last year the Raiders collected talent they were Pete Carroll good program leader will keep Pat Graham even though he doesn't run the same system as Pete Carroll and who cares if Pete Carroll subscribes to what ship Kelly's doing offensively like we're just going to.
54:02
[SPEAKER_02]: We just want to get the best coach available, so we'll pay him $6 million a year.
54:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Pete Carroll, of course, had his ideas on how the defense funder run, how the offense funder run, and made everyone miserable, because everyone has their own ideas, how they want to do it, and they're trying to fit it into what somebody else is doing.
54:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is in Pete's fault.
54:20
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just a situation that they were in.
54:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it created issues on that coaching staff and then you point to the fact that Pete had two of his sons on that staff and now they're learning all those coaches you're learning to work with John Spitech and the personnel department.
54:34
[SPEAKER_02]: He's put together, you have people in the building who are reporting now a sclero so that's part of it as well.
54:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think they need to find a way to make sure and I use that word alignment and it is a buzz term of cliche whatever you want to call up.
54:49
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, like with the Falcons is the same thing with the Raiders like how is that whole thing going to line up and how do they get everybody in the same page there because that thing like I've talked to people who are in that building who said it was just a mess this year you know and there are you know veteran coaches, good coaches who are there who won't be there any
55:16
[SPEAKER_02]: about as weird a place to work this year as they've been in and like they need to find a way to figure that out and make sure that was the next group, everyone's on the same page.
55:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And because what they had this year was not it, I think this is one that
55:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll just bring this up because I think it's interesting and I'm just going to leave it there and then we're going to talk about the giants and the titans, just very quickly.
55:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Nick Cassario is now viewed as one of the best executives in the NFL and rightfully so he's done a great job turning the Texans around.
55:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, dude, they're roster by the way.
55:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I just will say this, like as I'm filling out my all-probe ballot, the amount of Texans players that came up was mind-blowing.
56:07
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like on defense, like every position.
56:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just like a holy crap, you know?
56:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the amount of guys that they have that are at that level is wild.
56:19
[SPEAKER_02]: He's done an unbelievable job.
56:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, with that in mind, Albert, I think we conveniently forget that some of the, the, what helped ultimately build this roster was hiring David Cully to a non-traditional like two-year contract and firing him after a year and then hiring Loveysmith and essentially doing the same thing and like bottoming out the organization.
56:48
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're Brady, and you go from Pete Carroll after one year and you have the number two overall pick, or the number one overall pick, and all of a sudden, you know, whatever happens during this cycle, and we're just looking at each other like who the hell are they hiring?
57:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do you draw the parallels between that at all?
57:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Brady worked with Nick Casserio.
57:12
[SPEAKER_01]: He sees what's happening in Houston.
57:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you're, if you're the raiders and you don't get your guy again, and the raiders miss their guy last year, do you just throw up your hands and be like, you know what?
57:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's just crash this thing.
57:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like,
57:24
[SPEAKER_01]: like the plane and lost, and then we'll figure it out in a couple of years.
57:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm just saying, like Houston now did Deshaam Watson trades a big part of it, but David Cullion and and and and and lovey Smith or a big part of that, too, you know.
57:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
57:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And it took time for them and look like they're probably, I mean, the experience that Demiko Ryan's got in the interim, you know, in those two years running Kyle Shanahan's defense in San Francisco was is probably serving them really well.
57:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been asked them about it, but I'm I'm sure it's serving him really well now, you know, in Houston.
58:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,
58:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
58:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we all viewed Pete Carroll as a, not an interim, but like a guy who, you know, was going to have to hand up a ton off relatively soon, and so who's the next guy and they didn't really have that guy and staff and they wanted that guy to be sola.
58:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, I mean, I think you have to view this as we, like, we have a chance to, while we're building,
58:32
[SPEAKER_02]: take us to a young guy figure figure some things out as we go.
58:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You have a little bit of runway to do that here because of where the franchise is.
58:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and you also have like hanging over this whole thing the fact that you got the number of overall pit, you know?
58:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
58:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I don't know.
58:49
[SPEAKER_01]: New England's going to be interesting because Tom Brady makes them interesting Albert and... Hey, guess you mean not knowing a big of Jesus.
58:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
58:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, good.
58:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, not for it.
59:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a long 24 hours.
59:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a long 24 hours.
59:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a long 24 hours.
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a long 24 hours.
59:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we get out of here, Titans had their first slate of interview a quest, I think, in a roomo, Matt Nagi, Fans Joseph, not a lot of surprises there, and the giants are kind of waiting in the wings here with Kevin's defense key now available.
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I would guess Albert that's defense key lands in either the giants or the Titans.
59:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That would just be my very early.
59:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think he's a perfect fit for the Giants and like you know he's almost like ready made if you you're looking at like what a giant's coach is like he kind of feels like he he fits the suit there and you know he's you know hiring him as an investment in your young quarterback too and figuring out just you know where you can go with Jackson Dart I think from that perspective for Kevin it would be attractive just in that like
59:56
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, he dealt with such a weird quarterback situation over his six years in Cleveland that it probably would be refreshing to go to a place where it's just, okay, it's just developed this guy and like, let's see what we've got, you know.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that makes sense for a ton of different reasons.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the titans are going to cast a wide net, you know, I'd expect
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_02]: mentor, trying to think of advanced Joseph's name is already out there.
1:00:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris Shula will be involved in that one.
1:00:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So they've got a relatively long list.
1:00:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I think that there's that feeling like we do need to bring in somebody with experience after what we just went through a Brian Callan.
1:00:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but I don't think that they're ruling, you know, some of the young defensive names out.
1:00:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, like that's one where, like, halfly kind of threads the needle a little bit.
1:00:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, like, he is a young defensive coach.
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And, um, still has a lot of good years in front of them in a lot of room for improvement.
1:00:57
[SPEAKER_02]: But he has been a head coach before.
1:00:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I don't I view halfly more of as a generalist that has a happens to have a defensive background versus a specific defensive coordinator, which is why I think he's been La Flores best higher at the defensive side of the ball since he's had that job.
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_01]: that's what we're looking at Albert.
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be a long couple of weeks here and, you know, I don't anticipate any more moves famous last words.
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but yeah, I don't know.
1:01:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I fall back more than me.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Baltimore will probably hang over us.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I would that feels to me a little bit like this is a Wednesday, Thursday, either.
1:01:38
[SPEAKER_02]: you know statement that he's coming back or something else maybe but like I think that probably that's that feels like the type of situation that maybe takes a couple of days to sort out like we said like the dolphins isn't that that isn't completely in the clear but you know it's trending that way you know in Tampa be the other one that we haven't
1:02:05
[SPEAKER_01]: we will see and we will be back with you guys on Thursday, break that down, preview the playoffs, button up everything from the, uh, forest.
1:02:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we got, we got, we got one thing that we want to just mention here really quick.
1:02:23
[SPEAKER_02]: What's that?
1:02:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So, art stable to veteran giants writer.
1:02:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, baby.
1:02:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Went in the locker room and asked James Winston about Kevin Stephansky.
1:02:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Here, near Shamus, Coach DeFansky is a brilliant offensive mind.
1:02:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Great leader.
1:02:40
[SPEAKER_02]: He would be an asset for any team as a head coach.
1:02:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Wood, Stefansky work here, art staple can ask.
1:02:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
1:02:47
[SPEAKER_02]: He can lead anywhere.
1:02:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:02:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Take it to the bank, man.
1:02:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, James says it, I'm on board.
1:02:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:02:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you heard it there.
1:02:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the giants will take that and absolutely motor with it.
1:03:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, because again, when you're eating dubs, you should be able to also pick head coaches.
1:03:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we've always known that about James Winston.
1:03:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you guys for everything.
1:03:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening.
1:03:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Happy New Year.
1:03:17
[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't come back to the pod since we started taping again, we've missed you, and we will see you later on this week