Albert Breer Joins T&H In-Studio! | The QBs Around The League | Gonzo Contract - 9/4 (Hour 2)

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1:00Hardy on the ticket's not a friend. You got a bunch of stuff wrong when you talk so much for this country. Touch your in hard days. These countries a bunch of buffoons that don't know the rules. You idiot. The sports app. We are touch your in hardy. Bird Brear is here. You can watch us all on YouTube. Subscribe to 985. The sports app on YouTube. Bird Brear of course from the MMQB. People love his weekly appearances here. Bird, how you doing? I'm good. How you guys doing? We are doing well. You have a quarterback poll that you're working on. Yeah. So I think we've talked about this one in the past. So basically what I do is every year after the cut down, I send out, I don't know, 150, 200 texts, whatever. And it's to everyone who is quarterback adjacent. I would say so it's the general manager's, the pros scouting directors, the quarterbacks coaches,

2:02the offensive coordinators, the head coaches. And I, you know, it's anybody who basically either evaluates or coaches the quarterback. And I ask them, who do you think the top five quarterbacks are going to be at the end of the year? So that's how I try to differentiate it. It's not like who the best quarterback was based on last year. It's who do you think the best five quarterbacks are going to be at the end of the year? And then I tally that up. And right now, I've got like 94 and I've tallyed 91 of them. And I ask what the incentive is for the general managers and coaches to like answer your question. I just, good relationship with them. I've always had good relationships with them. I think they're interested to see what the league thinks. Oh, good. You know, like I think that there is, you know, when I include new people, I like a lot of times the feedback I get is like, oh, that was a good exercise for me to do, you know, like in like sort of thinking not about what things are right now, but projecting what it's going to look like

3:07at the end of the year. And so yeah, Josh Allen's going to win pretty clearly. But I drank beans going to wind up in them probably eight somewhere around there. So, but again, it's a good exercise because it's over the last few years, you know, you sort of start to notice trends and everything else and how people are voting. And I've always felt like, you know, I said to you before, I think Justin Herbert's an interesting one for me because I think he'll finish six here. And, you know, he, to me, he's sort of similar to Matthew Stafford. And this, I heard the two compared yesterday as a matter of fact. Yeah. So like the reason why I view them as similar is because Stafford, when he was in Detroit, I think a lot of people thought like he's no good, but people in the league continued to like think very high. Like the, if you ask people who work in the NFL coaches, scouts,

4:12front office people, like what they thought of Matthew Stafford when he was in Detroit, it was more, he's just, he's a really good quarterback in a bad situation. And, you know, I don't think Matt, I don't think Justin Herbert's in a bad situation, but I think it's similar to Stafford in that the people in the league think a lot more highly of them than the general public. So Herbert's thrown for five thousand yards in a season before. Correct? I think he has. I'm not sure if he has five, there aren't that many five. I think he has thrown for five thousand yards in a season, but I will, I can check that. I heard that yesterday. And so I don't take any responsibility if I'm wrong. Okay. Just know that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, five thousand fourteen in the twenty twenty one season. There you go. Boom. Freddie, Freddie T. Three for three today. He's rolling because I don't think there were that many, that's actually not. Not that common. No, it's not. That's why I mentioned it.

5:13Right. Yeah. I thought that was going to say, that's actually not that impressive. Yeah. It's not that simple. No, it's not very common. It isn't. And there's Justin Herbert, but one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. There are fifteen five thousand yards in an NFL history. Right. And so, uh, Drew Brees has five of them. Oh, wow. So when I heard that, because I heard the same thing, there was saying, you know, they said the same thing. You just said they were like, Justin Herbert, Matthew Stafford, and you know, everyone thought Matthew Stafford could win. And he wasn't a winner. He was just a guy that racked up statistics and, you know, and then when it comes to, you know, Herbert has been terrible. And yeah, and Herbert's been terrible in the playoffs, but Jim Harbock could be the guy that can kind of like maybe coach that out of them and dah, dah, dah, dah. So yes, I, I, you know, have seen Herbert play very poorly.

6:14Obviously, I've seen him play poorly in the regular season, but he, but I, he's lit it up before and he's obviously very physically gifted. And so, so the people before May are what like Jackson, Alan, I say, the, the five that I really viewed it as the last couple of years, four separated themselves. And that will be Alan, Jackson, Burrow, and Mahomes. And then Stafford, I think there's been a, like a greater appreciation for him. I think he's going to finish second. My poll based on the way it's looking right now. So I think those five are sort of seen as a separate class. And then I think you get into the class, the Drake's moved into now. And he can elevate past this, of course. But I think Drake would then for most of these people be in the class of Herbert, Prescott. I think Jaden Daniels has a chance to get back there. Most people thought he was there. Caleb Williams is in that group now. So I think that that would probably be, you know, Smith.

7:17Yes. Right. You know, I'm wondering how much of a push Herbert's numbers are going to be with the different offensive coordinator. And that's going to be fascinating because I mean, Mike, Daniel, when he first took over in Miami, and that's the complete. That's a great question because that's the conversation. Look what he did with two and two blows. And Herbert, he's like, the way the two look has looked in the preseason is like making, I think should make you like reevaluate Jalen Waddle to go into Denver. Oh, yeah. Like, like, like, you watch two and it's like, holy crap. And it makes you start to reevaluate some of these things. And so now you give Mike McDaniel, Justin Herbert. He doesn't have Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle with him. But he also doesn't have the responsibility of being the head coach of the team either. He can completely focus on offense. He can put all those guys in motion. And he's so good in the run game. Yeah. The other part is like, he's so good in the run game. He has those tackles. And so they don't like, he's not going to ask Justin Herbert to be Superman.

8:19He didn't ask to it to be Superman. You know, like, I, and I think that's what, like, a lot of times what happens is you get more out of a quarterback when you ask less of him. It was interesting because I did a story with Burrow earlier in the week. And well, I taught, I was with him about a month ago, but it was really interesting talking to him about it. He's got so to unique what, because as a coach, we have sort of like a coaching view of all this. And he said to me, he's like, yeah, like, he's like, you play differently when every possession is due or die. And he's like, I'm now confident we're not going to have to do that anymore. But he's like, the last couple of years, it was like every possession, it was, it was all on us. Like we had to score every time we had the ball. And we would fall behind and now you can't establish the run. You can't run, play off of play action. He's like, there's a million things that people don't think about that affects the way you play.

9:20As much as the quarterback affects everything else, the quarterback's also more beholden to the other 10 guys in the huddle than anybody else in the field. You know, and his performance is more affected by everything else than anyone else in the field. So I think like giving just in Herbert the Mike McDaniel run game, you know what I mean? And all the things that a defense has to deal with when they're having to defend what Mike McDaniel brings to the table from a run game perspective, both like what he did in Miami, what he did in San Francisco too. Because Kyle Shanahan, like when they were together there would say to Mike McDaniel, like, we'll see you Wednesday. After a game, like he would go and work on the like he was building the run game in San Francisco that was so effective. And now Justin Herbert's going to have that, you know, which I think could bring out another level of who he is. Yeah, it's that will be interesting to see how he plays this year.

10:22So it's back to the whole, when you ask less of a quarterback, you wind up getting more out of him a lot of the time. Right. And were there any surprises on that list that you saw? Um, I mean, I would say like the respect for DAC, I think is, is, is was one thing that was sort of interesting. You know, Caleb Williams, I, I just think a lot of people think Caleb Williams is about to take off. You know, like I think that there's a lot of people that I was communicating with through doing this, that think the Ben Johnson effect and you guys saw Detroit, like that this is going to be kind of a launching point for Caleb Williams and that he's got a real chance to go to another level now. See, I, and I wonder, you know, how Ben Johnson is going to be able to take advantage of that because, um, you know, golf was certainly steady, but my take on golf has always been,

11:29you can win a lot of games with him. I don't know that he's going to go out there and single handedly win a game for you. He's just not that type of quarterback. Caleb Williams has that ability, I think, and we, you know, you see it in, in glimpses. He's just able to make plays that maybe, well, we want touchdown pass falling on one, falling backwards. What game was that? I mean, it's stuff that no one or two other quarterbacks in the league may be having in them, but you don't see it and whether it's youth or what, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't think Ben Johnson is going to try and drill that out of him. I think he's going to see it and he's going to lean into it and say, oh, that adds another dimension to what I already want to do offensively, which is pretty good. And this guy can, can do things that I haven't had the ability to do before. His trajectory to me is a lot like Josh Owens where he came into the league raw and like, here's a guy who's capable of taking over on any play, but you have to coach into him

12:31that he can't do that on every play in the pros and like that sort of a process. I think one of the most interesting things I've heard anyone say this off season was JT Barrett, their quarterbacks coach in Chicago said something along the lines of, and I don't I'm paraphrasing, but we need to get him to take the easy stuff. You know, we need to take him to get him to take the layups and it reminded me so much of a conversation I had with Brian Debal when he was coaching Josh Allen. Debal, this was probably in like nine, I think this is probably 19 or 20, right? When Josh was still really new and Debal all said to me, like Debal told me he put together a cut up of like a hundred and fifty Tom Brady throws because Debal had, Debal came from the Patriot system and there was carry over and everything else. But every one of the throws slant flat route, checked down and it was like, and he showed

13:36it to Josh and he was like, look, he's like, this is the greatest quarterback of all time. Look how much, how many of the easy things he's taking. Like he's taking every layup that's available to him. If I can just get you to do that, you'll be the best quarterback in the league. You know, and like, but that was what Brian Debal, Brian Debal was trying to show him like, yeah, it's great. If you're trying to be Superman on 25 plays, awesome. You're going to be more effective if you're only Superman on 10 plays because then the defense doesn't know when that's coming and you're taking other things and you're making them defend all these different things. And so they coach that into him. And that's why I think like the Caleb Williams trajectory is similar to Josh Allen because I think they have to coach the same stuff into Caleb Williams that the bills had to coach into Josh Allen. All right. Well, listen, it's going to be interesting how that all plays out. Who do you think's winning the NFC North by the way that you mentioned Chicago?

14:37That's right. Okay. I just, I have the lions as the number one seed in the NFC. I think I just made hearty nervous. You just feel like a deep breath. The Brear curves are already so ancient. They're already have like a million injuries. Yeah, but that stuff settles off. I think that stuff levels off and I don't think people give them enough credit for the job they've done building that team and how talented they are. Like I just, you know, we talk about Seattle and all the core pieces they have and how many guys they've drafted and developed and now paid Detroit. I mean, Penais Sule, Amanaraw, St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Jamir Gibbs, Aiden Hutchinson, Jack Campbell. They haven't paid Brian Branch in San La Porta yet, but that's probably coming like that's really good. You know, and like those are all guys that still are ascending. And I think their quarterbacks really good.

15:38Like I think Jared golf doesn't get the credit for being a really good quarterback who took, I mean, look at what the Rams and Lions were before Jared golf got there. You know, like he went into both places and was on the ground floor. And a rebuild and was part of really awful teams his first years in both those places. And he got both those like franchises which hadn't done anything forever to the conference championship round on one of them to the Super Bowl. It is the defense good enough though. It was my recollection. It was nearly the road last year. They have to stay healthy on defense. Well, they're already missing both safeties. Right. Yeah, Branch is still, but Branch, they branched the hope is that he comes back. I know the Kirby Joseph thing still ongoing. They they have I think it's like if you look at their injury rate, the last couple of years on defense is really, really bad. Yeah, that's what sunk them. But I think they have player. I mean, I think you guys have agreed corners an issue, but they have they have Aiden Hutchinson.

16:41No, the Lee McNeil obviously, the Lee McNeil is super dominant. But I mean, that's the thing they can score with anybody. Hot rods and clunkers, baby. Hot rods and clunkers are the Vikings. Oh, that's a story right there. Well, but I mean, it's an obviously, well, number one, they've they've got a dog on defense now. So, you know, that's that's true. You know, you that's true. You might want to you might want to change your end of scene North prediction. Yeah, with KVN. But is that a team that just it seems like almost perpetually now for the last three years. Should be better than they're going. Yeah. And I wonder if the quarterback situation has completely. I like their core. Like are they as has started to are we starting to get on the other side of that where did they blow the window? And I hate saying that because I think like. Window can be kind of like an oversimplification of things, but like their defense like some

17:43of the guys they had on defense are older or gone. Harris and Smith, Jonathan Grinard's gone now. You know, and then offensively, I still think that there's the pieces there to be really good, but can Kyler Murray who doesn't throw the ball that effectively over the field, over the middle of the field. Can he help you maximize what you've got with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison? I'm not sure. Well, Jay Jay McCarthy ever be a starting quarterback in this league. I don't think it's necessarily likely. Yeah. But in a world where we've seen the resurrection of Sam Donald and Baker Mayfield and Daniel Jones and Gina Smith, I don't think you can ever rule that out. But as we stand here today, I mean McCarthy, there was a lot discussed about him on draft day. I don't think it's likely. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because that draft class has a chance to become an all-timer

18:43with a quarterbacks. I mean, Caleb Williams, Drake May, Jayden Daniels, Bo Nix is a really good player. Say what you want. Like he's made the playoffs. No, no, every year. And McCarthy was taken before Nix. So like I look at the, you know, I, McCarthy and Panix are the questions, right? And Panix really is more injury than anything else. So it will be interesting to see what happens, but I don't think it's necessarily likely. All right. Let's take a break. When we come back, we can talk about Christian Gonzalez's comments yesterday. We can talk about Diana Rossini, very exciting report in the athletic. All of those things coming up in just a moment. You ever have one of those nights where it's getting late, everybody's hungry and you open up the freezer and realize, no protein. It's happened to me. That's why I now keep my freezer stocked with the Omaha steaks. Dinner's handled in minutes with restaurant quality protein delivered right to my door.

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20:50It's like having a financial advisor right in your pocket. It brings everything together. Your accounts, investments, savings goals and spending so you can finally see the whole picture in one place. What you can really like is the AI weekly recap and flag a spending spike before it turns into a big problem. And monarch's AI assistant can answer questions about your money like where you spend the most or whether you're actually on track to reach a goal. Most apps just tell you what you already spent. Monarch helps you look ahead. Set goals, plan for big purchases and make adjustments before it's too late. Write your own money story with monarch. Use code THPOD at monarch.com to get your first year of monarch core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code THPOD. I didn't know if anyone knew this but Christian Gonzalez is looking for a new contract.

21:55The Patriot season starts in earnest on Wednesday. He was asked at his locker yesterday about the contract and here is the audio. Have an idea if you are going to play week one. You're not focused on today. Right now. This practice. How do you focus on today with the contract still lingering? I mean it's football. It's my job. I got to do it. I got to do so. Do you have any impression of whether or not the contract will get done before Wednesday? I'm not sure. I don't know. Thank you. Appreciate the talk. Do we have the Seattle clip where they ask them about Seattle? Hang on John, I want to get to this one as well. Go ahead talk. I was just going to say that was an exclusive interview by Fox 25 who got him alone at his locker. That's all. It's exclusive audio for that. Who is the reporter? Good job. I seem to have just got to avoid it.

22:56It was a new video video. You told me not to improv. Don't you enjoy it second and third right? It's awesome. Don't you like that. Dave Brown. I'm not. Can you follow for a minute. I demand a little extra. That's it can give her a Kind of background. I like that. I don't want to add this into public. What did you say Fox 25? You know, for talking about that yes, the judge should push. I guess TV was looking at guys and call it as well. just trying to add that in. All right, do you have that? I appreciate your principles on that. Yes. Fantastic. What in your mind sticks out when you think about a rematch with Seattle? Yeah, I mean, just this is a great team, a great organization. You know, they've built pieces. They've kept their team and did what they've done. And you know, respect the organization and their players. And now we look forward to it. We've reached the passive aggressive stage of the negotiation. Right. It sounded like when we talked to Christopher Price yesterday,

23:58he kind of knew that Gonzales wasn't happy with the trainer for going on Falker and Maz. But it certainly sounds like the camp has shifted to a little more pissed off. Look, I think having the trainer talk gives everybody like plausible deniability. Yes, I agree. I think that the, because, and I said this to Christopher Price, and I don't know what he knows, but it's out that guy works with a lot of NFL talent. And don't think this wasn't game plan. Right. Exactly. And so it's that guy's not dumb enough to like blow up his business because it's not only going to hurt him with Gonzales. It's going to hurt him with other players. Right. It's like if I'm a, I mean, I'm not comparing the two professions, but if I'm like a high end prostitute that works with famous people, and then I come out and start exposing one of the famous people, well, guess what? You've lost all your famous clients. Right. So it's like, and my point is, is like, so you're working like on the high end. Right. Right. Like so pillow talk, like, if you're like exposing pillow talk, which is what that basically is in the training situation.

25:01Yeah. Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, I'm advertising in the L.O.P. The way I look at it is Fred cuts this conversation done with the bare bones. He tells us what we need to know. He boils it all down. That's a perfect way to do it. Thank you for making up for your Fox twin. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Lauren Walsh, by the way. Okay. So very good. Obviously there's someone has a crush photographer Walt. Oh, there you go. I don't know what I'm doing there too. Thank you. All right. So I'm sure there's a lot of people are going to dismiss. I would I found what interesting the most was the comments about Seattle. I you could say that people I'm sure are going to go like, well, it doesn't mean anything. I mean, they just kept their players. No, no, they asked him about Seattle, his friend and another guy that is agent represents his playing. And I who plays the same position is playing. In Seattle and got resigned in Seattle. And he made he made the comment that yes, they keep their own players. And that's what they do. And then we don't. I mean, fans want to believe that like that we're over blowing everything

26:03when we're not like it's like this is all this is high. This is like high end stuff. This is not people just shooting off at the hip. There's a strategy to the way they're handled. And also like I don't know why anyone couldn't sympathize with him. Right. Has any that that's what kills me? Can I yeah, can I say something here? Yeah. That's what kills me is I hear people say and I understand your fan. But it's like he's under contract like it's some sort of principle that you have about somebody who has a contract like fulfilling that contract. Do you know who's not honoring the contract? If you know Christian Gonzalez gets doing into a car accident and like now can't play football anymore. The new England Patriots are an honor of the contract. And these guys have such a small window, such a small window to make the money that they do. And they're in a literal car crash every week.

27:05And their value vanishes. And in a lot of cases by the time they're 30 and they've worked their whole life to get to this position and they are the elite of the elite. I mean, are you marching into the CEO at Fidelity's office and saying like, you make too much money, like stop complaining about what you make? Or do you view that as no, that guy just negotiated what he was worth? I just it the players aren't the bad guys here. The players are and I'm not saying the players are right in every single situation. But the players are not the bad guys. The players are not being greedy when they at 24, 25, 26 years old, try to maximize their value. Because unless we're talking about quarterbacks, that may be the only chance they have to do it. They may not have another chance to do it. Because when those guys that those other positions are 29 or 30 years old,

28:07their value is a fraction of what it is when they're in their mid 20s. So Christian Gonzalez is right now at a point where, hey man, if you're going to, like whatever money you're going to make, how wealthy you are for the rest of your life, the chance that you have to set up generations of your family to be set and to put your grandkids through college is right now. So don't tell me about honoring some contract. It's just ridiculous. And we talked about this last week, I think. I find it hard to believe because one of the other, I guess, justifications I hear is that, well, Gonzalez must be asking for something that's completely out of, you know, I was asking for the market. He's, and his agent understands the market perfectly. You know that he does. So is it, is it really believable that either Gonzalez or his agent is asking for something that's so out of bounds right now after they just did the other deal to think that their ask

29:09is out of line? Well, so their ask is so out of line that it can't be used as a base to negotiate from right? Yeah, like obviously you're asking for more than they're willing to give. They're offering low less than they, than they're going to give in like you meet. Like it would have to be such a preposterous ask that they're like, we can't, we can't even talk about it. And also you would think that if you're the Patriots, you would be like so eager to do business that you would just keep, keep at it, keep at it, keep at it until like until you could find something. Well, and this is why you had an opportunity earlier in the off season when Trent McDuffie got done. Okay, like there's a market center. You know, now we're not just working off of previous deals. We're not just working off of sting, stinglier, gardener from the year before. Now we actually have some basis to work off of. Let's be aggressive and get it done now. And again, I hate to keep bringing up the Eagles,

30:11but this is what I really respect about what the way Philly does it, is that Philly will go to their players in February and March and say, let's get it done now. And sometimes they wind up, I mean, it's, I Devonte Smith, Jordan Davis, Jordan Melata, Lane Johnson, they've continuously renegotiated his deals. And you almost never hear about them being in some sort of weird contract fight. Even Jalen Carter, who, I mean, the reason they did it later is because they don't fully trust him. Right. But they were able to come to an agreement so it wasn't a problem and it wasn't. And the main thing for them, and I've talked to them about this, is like, we don't want it to affect our season. You know, every year's valuable, we don't want it to affect the season that we're gonna have. So one way or the other, we want this business taking care of early. And I just, again, maybe they get it done in the next four days. And I applaud them for getting it done because it is not in their history.

31:12And I'm not talking about Mike Bravel, I'm talking about outside of it. Like just the organization's history isn't to pay premium players at premium positions at the top of the market. But clearly this is a player who feels like he should be rewarded at the top of the market. And the other thing I've heard is like, oh, well, he's not Sir Tann. If at every position you waited for the number one player, not the number two or three player, if in every position you wait, that NFL players waited for the number one guy to move the market, the market would never move. He's an off-road. Yes, Sir Tann will be the highest paid corner when Sir Tann's contract comes up. Tim, go ahead. Bert, does Bravel seem a little bit nervous about the dealings of this contract? Because to me, that performance on the field, the other day, the last preseason game, it looked disorganized. Is this creating a problem behind the scenes? Or do you feel that it's just the particulars

32:16in the contract and everything will work out? I think there's two different parts to it, Tim. I think from a team perspective, I think that the coaching staff is pretty buttoned up. And I don't think it's necessarily going to start affecting the performance of other players now. Could it affect how players approach the team going forward? I think that's something Mike might be nervous about. And I would say this too, I can just tell you that in Tennessee, Mike sort of intentionally stayed out of contract negotiations and I don't want to speak for him, but it always seemed to me like it was a little bit of a separation of church and state thing for him there, where it was like, you have an agent for a reason because you don't want to get in the mud with your bosses. Everybody in this room has an agent for a reason because you don't need to be having that fight with your bosses and your boss has somebody

33:17who's negotiating for the company. And I think that, and again, I don't want to speak for him, but it always seemed to me like Mike's philosophy was, I don't like, if I get involved in the contract negotiations, that's going to affect my relationship with the players, which is vital to how I build this program. So I'm going to stay out of it. Doesn't mean that he'd ever, that there never was a contract that he was like, oh, I wish we hadn't done that. But like I've never known him to be involved in the nitty gritty of contract negotiations. And I think that part of that is intentional to preserve his relationship with the players. The other thing that I can say is the idea that he doesn't value corners is kind of ludicrous because, and that's not the colony buddy out, but like my understanding has always been, they are so multiple on defense, particularly in the backhand. It's one of the reasons why he valued Kevin Biodz so much. They affect the quarterback by throwing a lot of the quarterback. They need smart, capable defensive backs who are capable of doing multiple things. That's Christian Gonzalez.

34:18He can play in any defense. He can play multiple roles within the defense. Like, Christian's the type of DB that he values. Now it doesn't mean he's a perfect program fit, because he's now always been the most physical player. And so that's part of it too. But just as far as like what he values and like what he can use tactically. I mean, and this is something I double back on with people who are with him in Tennessee, who aren't with him now, so they have no skin in the game who said, yeah, the idea that he wouldn't value, that sort of defensive back doesn't make sense. It seems like a pretty like rudimentary way of thinking, well, he's a defense guy, but he didn't play that position. It's not what he's most familiar with only come on. He understands. Well, they had to do it. Jackson there, they paid Kevin Biodz. Yeah, he had said he lost. They drafted Caleb Farley in the first round who was injured too. But at the same sort of physical profile. Yeah, we don't need to make the argument that Vray Bull would won Christian Gonzalez. And also it just seems like a lot of justifying to me.

35:20Right. And it also seems like a extraordinarily odd time, not to resign Christian Gonzalez, that you've just made a Super Bowl, you're on the come, like you're a rising team. Like this would be exactly the kind of guy that you would sign. A great player in a premium position in the league. Fred, Fred Brab at Great Point last week and kind of going through the Seattle, like what Seattle had done. Right. In this calendar year, Charles Cross in January, Jackson Smith and Jigba in March, Devon Witherspoon in August, and then Leonard Williams last week. So that's four guys that are at their core, right? Like that are part of their core. Now it doesn't mean they didn't say goodbye to players because they let Kenneth Walker go, they let Kobe Bryant go, they let Tareek Willing go, but they were aggressive in taking care of their core players. And if you wanna hear about budgets, this is a team that was up for sale. And in this calendar year, they've taken care of four of them.

36:21Yeah, it's just, and they have a quarterback deal coming next year too. Yeah, the quarter back, I mean, the Rams gave darn old $20 million that they found in their pocket. I don't, yeah, it's just such an odd time not to get this deal done. Like in where the Patriots are, that you know, if they were, if they were like declining, you could see trading them for picks or something, but like not, certainly not now. All right, we'll be back in just a moment here, that one. This podcast episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes, and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary,

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38:28Hey, listen, if you've got to go, we understand, but make sure you bring the sports hub app with you so you can hear more of Tadja and Harding. That's what I want on my tombstone on this board. So we are toucher and hardy bird brewers here in bird said that the lions would be winning the NFC North. This is an email from Paul Burmost have gotten a bad batch of crack picking the lines to be the number one NFC team. Guess he hasn't been paying attention to the Rams defense and that they put together miles Garrett and Aaron. I think the Rams to win the NFC. Did you know that the Rams got Aaron Darnell back and they have miles Garrett? I have the Rams winning the Super Bowl over the Bronco. That you'd pick the Rams to win it all. Yeah, the boss had the plus five. I view, I hate predictions because it's like a no win situation for me. So I sort of take the approach of like, I'm like an offensive lineman. Like if I get out of it without anybody talking about me, then I did a good job. So this is the one way it's to give up slide. This is the one like, you know, you're looking for attention

39:29with other things with this. I'm just kind of like looking, it's like, you know, I'm a referee. Like I just don't I want to get out of the game without anybody talking. I'll funny would have beat the Rams defense was just okay. Like if they like they were just like middle of the road and like Aaron Donald and miles Garrett like, okay. And then they just were like, okay, there was the the story like earlier this week where the Rams were like, you know, plus 500 or something, you know, some like crazy. Five to one. Yeah. Like that's that's unbelievable because there are teams that are 50 and 100 to one and that one team in 32 at only plus 500 to win it all. And there have been 16s in the last 25 years, something like that to be that. And not one of them has actually won the Super Bowl that year. Yeah. And it's I think I saw something like it's only happened four of the last 32 years that the odds on favorite the start of the year one. The whole thing. Ooh. I'd like and I don't know who those four teams are, but that was a

40:31statistic I saw somewhere a million and like never when it's been plus 500 that there may have even been, you know, like a team or two in there that was less than that. Like at four 50 and they didn't win it. And like and I think that's sort of the nature of football too and that like so many different things can affect it. It's not just parody. It's also like the injury right in football is way different than it is in basketball or hockey or baseball where, you know, I think pretty much every year. And injuries play a pivotal role in how things play out. And also who gets injured the most in baseball that's like pictures and, you know, starting pictures pitch every fifth day and you know, so there's like a lot. It's a lot easier to like mix and match in that sport. And yeah, football is if you get an injury to keep positions or keep positions, several keep positions, you're at your screwed. The strength, the schedule is always a little stupid too because that can shift based

41:32on, you know, the teams that you think are going to be good or the hard stretches in a schedule oftentimes become not that. Yes, John. The four betting favorites that won in the Annapolis 2006 Patriots twice in 16 and in 18 and the Chiefs in 2023. So the four speaking of thank you speaking of the last 32 was that right about that? Yes. But it's speaking of the Patriots Diana Rossini. There was an article in the athletic. It's real boring. You know, no one has to read it. It was more about journalism, blah, blah, blah. It was definitely written by a lawyer. Yes, of course. Yeah, it's, it's not unless you are someone who's grading the reporting prowess of the New York Times, I don't think it's going to be much interest to anyone. Just your thoughts on where this is going and what's happening. Yeah, I mean, I, I think it's hard to say this is like completely over. Look, you guys saw the numbers on YouTube and on the podcast and I saw the numbers at

42:37SI like I, it, there's just for one reason or another, there is intense interest in this story. And, you know, I, I think as long as there's that intense interest in the story, people are going to be pursuing it. And so like it wouldn't surprise me if there was a story next week before the game on Wednesday. But like I do think like when you, when you read this is sort of like, okay, we've dug through a lot of it now. And unless there's something like outside of the bounds of what we've already covered, then this probably is going to be a point where you, you turn the page. And again, like I, I hesitate to say it's completely over because there are good reporters out there that have dug on this and that will continue to dig on this. And there's also the possibility that if they don't get off to a good start, what do you think's going to be?

43:37No, yeah, sure. I mean, like, and rightfully so, like I think a big piece of it's going to be if they're two and four or they're three and six. Well, what was happening there in the off season and was the team focused as it needed to be and was the coaching staff where it needed to be and whether that's fair or not, that's sort of the cost of what happened. Let's just say in some because of the timing of it, you know, I guess you would say of an article before the first game in the season for the team that you're writing about. Is it because I know page six, like calls people before the page six thing comes. And you know, like I know the New York Times calls in like asks for comment before they release something. Do do like if some sports publication or something puts something out, would they let Vrayble know beforehand? Yeah. Okay. I mean, that's as long as the reputable place, like I can't imagine there are very many places where that's one of one.

44:38You know what I mean? Like as like you're not going to do an investigation into somebody or dig into somebody without, you know, like giving them a chance to weigh in, giving them a chance to respond. You know, and I've been in those situations before I may give you guys some insight into what I did a big story on Gidele last year that wasn't overly complimentary, but it was like a look at his 20 years as commissioner. And I didn't get, you know, the Roger wasn't going to talk for it. Okay, fine. You know, I think the story may have wound up being better because he didn't talk for it. But I went through, I had a list of 30 or 40 things that I took people at the league office through. Like he has ever a chance to respond to all this, you know, and they had responses to some of it. They did never response this to other things, but you always give people who you're covering a chance to respond to anything that you're reporting for sure.

45:39All right. Well, Burke Breer always appreciated. He's a good time today. Thank you. A lot of good information. We look forward to talking to you next Friday. We'll have a game to talk about. Yeah. Things happening on the field. It will be almost overwhelming. Well, this is exciting. When we come back, guess who had to resign? Mike Lombardi, that stupid idiot buffoon. And it's like you're super bowl. I was just the warm up act. Yes. Correct. Correct. That's why I was glad you were very good today. Okay. Yeah. No, because typewriter are the curse of the idiot. And last, I don't, I feel actually bad for Steve Belauchek. And not just because of like maybe the chemical stuff. Like I just think that he's been caught cast kind of a tough lot in life. I really do. Brian and Steve Belauchek, I've never insulted them to my knowledge, like except for facial expressions and questioning why they, and even now, I mean, I think you have some

46:42sympathy for Steve and acknowledge that when you're providing it to other players and the team, yes, but I, but I've always had sympathy for their like lot in life. For sure. Like it's just, there seems to be a dynamic between them and their dad that whether taking jobs with them. And I think that's got to be a psyche thing from like when you were a kid. I just, it's just my own. What I dig into this, it's, I, and what I've heard is like it's not always been the greatest with between the families. But and you know his wife obviously is no fan of Jordan. So we got all that going on. But we will discuss everything that's come out as quite a bombshell. North Carolina didn't get a chance to celebrate that win for very long and not even a week. But we will have that for you in just a moment. This podcast episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Let's drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when

47:44you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states.