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Hey, welcome to He the Call on NFL podcast.

Dan hands us with Mark Cessler, Connor,

or Justin Graver on the ones and twos.

And Cessi, we are inside one week

until the NFL draft them the long road.

And I don't know what it is.

Maybe we've been doing this a long time,

but that road feels a little bit longer every year.

I'm looking forward to that finish line.

And once we have that,

you have that meat reset of what things look like.

So we're almost there, but not quite.

Yeah, I can't tell if we are an operation

that is exiting the womb of draft season or entering it,

because I'm not sure what direction we're going in,

but we're heading towards a major event of some sort

and we will continue to report on it.

I don't know, exiting and entering the womb.

I don't know, something about the wording.

Didn't love it, Connor, your thoughts.

Once you're out, you're out.

I don't think you don't think that there's a scenario

where you go back in, right?

That's what that song closing time was about.

Yes, you're right.

Semisonic, one of the underappreciated bands of the nice.

Okay, anyway, yes.

In addition to the drafting less than a week away,

also, we're now days away from the Moxessler mark draft

with the big, big heavyweight showdown

between Cestog and Zeerline.

And for some reason, this one,

speaking of entering and exiting the womb, Connor,

this one feels like it's got a little bit more heat on it,

more than any of the others before it.

Yeah, because I think Lance was high stepping into last year

and then to not only get dominated by Mark,

like this, it wasn't close,

but then to see Mark coin a new widely accepted industry term

to demonstrate his knowledge of intimate knowledge

of other team's draft boards.

I mean, there's no doubt that I think some of the jokingness

that's going back and forth between the two of them,

where they say there's truth in every joke, right?

And I think that's true for Lance, you know?

Yeah, I would just say that, you know,

unlike last year where it,

our encounter on the show seemed friendly out of the gate

and it grew with his snide dismissal of me

as a human being and an analyst and a professional.

This time, it started much earlier.

On Twitter, I was on an airplane at one point

and we're landing and I see a tweet that I got from Lance.

Again, trying to debase me as a character,

as a human, as a persona.

And I don't agree.

It did cross over from a bit to reality.

Yeah.

Into the womb out of the womb.

Into the womb out of the womb.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Yikes.

All right, let's do some news.

Oh, by the way, coming up today at the second half

of the show, can't wait.

One of our best buds in the industry, Zach Kiefer

will join us as we make a return.

One of our most celebrated series Flashpoint focus

Las Vegas Raiders, as we look ahead to a uncertain future.

But one that's bright, but also murky at the same time.

I mean, it's like barreling down the Palisades Parkway

towards the GW Bridge on one of those nights

where the fog rolls in and you put your flash,

your brights on and somehow you're even more blind

and you're just like, don't hit a deer, don't die.

Get me to the bridge.

That's how I feel about the Raiders right now.

We're going to really dig into that.

You illustrated that in a way that only you could feel

like you're more likely to hit a person than a deer

on the parkway there.

Well, what are they doing on that?

That's on them.

I think you probably get away with that.

Yeah.

Well, maybe you maybe you'd get away with it.

Maybe not.

But anyway, let's do some news.

I like the background.

I like to fit.

Feels lionzy to me.

A tackle who does seem kind of lionzy to me and Kate

and Proctor Omar Cooper Jr.

He's a more Ramsey's a more Ramsey receiver to me.

I mean, listen to that.

It's taking over one of the things that Lance got on you

the most about is how you described a future line last year

and there's Mina Kimes and Danny dribbles both using

the same terminology to the more respected people in the game.

I would call Lance an analytical professional who does

this job very well.

I wouldn't say he's hardwired into the zeitgeist

and that that's maybe where the oversight happened

with that particular moment in time, unbelievable.

It's all building towards Monday show and I think all of us

are equally excited.

Let's get into the news.

All right, we're looking for what's going to spice up a draft

that maybe doesn't have the sex appeal

of other years, right?

How about some traits?

How about some big name veterans on the move?

We all know AJ Brown is a name to watch.

You could probably draw and connect some red string

to a couple other prominent names.

But how about Dexter Lawrence?

This is one of the best defensive lineman in the game,

New York Giants star and what at first appeared

to be your typical stalemate between team and player

about money turns out it might be something more.

Jonathan Jones reports that Dexter Lawrence's trade request

was not just an attempt for more money from the team.

Two sources tell Jones.

He does indeed want out of New York.

The Giants don't necessarily agree according to Jones

and they don't have to make a deal by next week.

However, if this is where things are headed

and Lawrence is making himself unhappy

and the Giants kind of have an opportunity to move him.

He is a blue chip talent that can,

although it would hurt to lose him,

it could also again position the Giants

to go in a new direction under John Harbaugh

and I guess there's excitement there as well.

So your thoughts on the situation?

One of the best interior rushers

over the last five or 10 years.

I mean, he's just behind Aaron Donald and Chris Jones

that when he's healthy,

the amount of havoc that he can cause in a game

is incomparable, especially now.

I mean, I think he's still got another year

to left on his prime.

But I do enjoy the back and forth with this.

I think that Dexter Lawrence probably thought

that he had them in a tough spot

because I mean, Joe Shane has let go

of so many good Giants players over the years.

And he's really going to be the guy

that let's go of the fifth guy

who's going to go on to make an all pro

or Super Bowl somewhere else.

But I think the return serve,

which I really enjoyed in the New York Post today was

the Giants basically leaking to the local press.

Hey, no one's calling, bitch.

Like, you know, you know, you're in a trade?

Like, you know, no one called us.

But we don't believe that, right?

I mean, there has to be a market for Lawrence, right?

Even if his price tag is exorbitant by some view.

What's complicating all of this

is the deal that he wants on the back end of this.

There's no more guaranteed money left in his contract.

He's coming off of his worst season by large measure.

I think that there was the idea around here

that he was out of shape, unprepared

and totally disinterested last year

and not really playing well,

not helping the defense in any way.

And so if you're a new team

that's got to give him top of the market defense

of tackle money,

you're probably a little bit nervous about that.

And so I would say it's not a preventative,

but it's complicating the discussion.

I think I could heat up.

I tend to still think this will get done.

They keep using the word impasse,

which is not a positive word in these situations.

That's coming from agents, camps, all that business.

I mean, I guess I'm kind of wondering,

like if this were to cook closer to the draft

or in the middle of the draft,

like what do we think you get for him right now?

Like a late first to high second?

I think maybe even like,

I was kind of looking at a couple teams

that might say we want to win right now

and use a Giants player,

the way that other people have used X Giants,

like the bills at 26,

the Bengals at 41, the Saints at 42.

Can you get a deal done if you want to go get

one of these guys instead of a rookie?

I mean, it's possible.

That's where I'm at.

And I don't want to paint all players

with the same brush,

but the guys that sometimes you worry about their motor

or whether they are doing the job

with the level of professionalism

that you would expect.

And then they want out like being a contender,

I'll use the bills as just a random example,

like you cited Mark, the bills say,

all right, we'll take Dexter Lawrence on.

We think he has one or two years reads one

of the very best players in this league at what he does.

We'll give him his money in our mind.

It's one or two year deal, right?

And like that will,

and then if it's not working out,

we'll get out and we'll deal with the ramifications.

But if you bring him in, bring him to a new surroundings,

get him in a better headspace.

He's in shape, he gets his payday.

You can squeeze out that year or two

for a team that's in a win now place.

Where it leaves the Giants,

we'll see Cave on Tibido, by the way,

another guy in their front seven

that a former first round pick

that could be out the door.

So the Giants are a team to watch obviously.

And always when new coaching staff,

when a new regime comes in

and John Harbaugh obviously is carrying the stick here as well,

they like to put their imprint on a team

and a lot of guys on the, on the old team

don't tend to survive the new regime.

So the Giants could be busy.

Brian Burns and other star on that line had this to say,

speaking for me,

the Giants ain't the Giants without number 97 in the middle.

So we are going to figure out this,

that out to keep him here regardless.

I hope that's my boy.

And I don't want to play this season

or any other season without him.

Guess what?

The Giants ain't the Giants ain't shit.

And the Giants haven't been shit.

Since, really, they won their last Super Bowl

a dozen years ago.

So this idea that, you know,

the Giants want to be the same without him,

that's a good thing potentially.

And, and finally Brett Veach, the Chiefs GM.

He did his pre-draft Zoom press conference.

He didn't have to cancel his.

Like here's an example.

Brett Veach doesn't have to cancel his pre-draft press conference.

Correct.

He speaks to the press, no issues.

And he also threw a little morsel out there.

Let's hear what Brett Veach had to say.

I think it should be an entertaining night

and look to probably be a lot of trades.

And I think that's what a draft like this

when you don't have two or three franchise quarterbacks

and, you know, a Will Anderson or Miles Garrett,

I think it does lend itself to open up

to a lot of fun and a lot of excitement.

So I think from a fans perspective,

they should have a lot of fun next Thursday.

And you'll notice, Mark,

there are about $1200 bills stuffed in his front pocket

from ESPN.

Sure.

And we'll pay off there.

Tune in to the NFL draft

where many trades will happen.

It is not at all boring at all.

Pump up the telecast.

We are at the point in the process

where multiple front office people are saying

there's a sharp drop off in talent

after the first 12, 13, 14 picks.

So I do think that can increase some movement

here and there.

But I kind of feel like this draft

feels somewhat vanilla to me.

So spicing it up a bit would be desirable.

There's just nothing.

Yes, Justin.

There was also a report earlier this week

from Jordan Schultz,

where he said that he's expecting

or the word that he's hearing

is that this will be a heavy trade draft.

So a pilot or just a crumb.

I mean,

he's trading up for like something very smart.

Mark, you're just going to have to tune in to find out.

I guess I will.

For 17 months.

A lot of money please this pocket right here.

All right.

Let's move on.

Let's get, let's get Conner fired up.

Conner, who's John Eric Sullivan?

John Eric Sullivan is the general manager

of the Miami Dolphins.

Why do you ask?

Absolutely correct.

Sometimes I hesitate on those hyphenated first names.

I'm like, can I take you seriously?

Okay.

Especially when John is spelled J-O-N

and Eric is spelled E-R-I-C.

I'm just like.

There's a lot going on there.

What's going on here?

You're throwing hyphen in the middle.

Anyway, he's the GM of the Dolphins.

Dolphins have a lot of work to do.

The dolphins are paying Troy Ackman,

the Hall of Fame quarterback and chief analyst

of Monday Night Football Four.

Wait for it ESPN.

They're paying him to help oversee the reboot

of their franchise,

which of course leads to a lot of now familiar questions

about the intertwined nature of the media

and the league itself.

There used to be a big old wall between these things

and the walls are coming down

and it's hard to make sense of what that all means.

But Troy Ackman will be in the draft room

with the Dolphins in their war room.

They went away from war room about 10 years ago.

Somehow that was deemed to be culturally insensitive

so they don't say war room anymore.

I like war room.

So I'm going to call it a war room.

Sure.

Troy Ackman will be in the war room

but also kind of silly that they would call it a war room.

I mean, can we all just call it a hotel?

Could they call it a now just a good old conference room

or they came up with something

that couldn't possibly offend anyone.

Gathering center.

It's a gathering spot of other humans for football players.

Justin, can you look up what they call war room now

in league parlance?

In on the real internet, Justin.

Not.

Great, real internet search.

Not cloud play.

Give me a good old 2007 internet search.

I don't have the real internet.

Yeah, I just ask cloud.

Now go through a bunch of like blog spots.

Yeah, okay.

In 2009 NFL dot com published a story called

what goes on inside draft war room shapes.

Well, that's what I mean because Mark and I

and during Conor's run at NFL media,

there was a shift around 2013 or 14 where

there was an internal memo saying we don't use war room.

2011 K and KX posted a story called

no room for war room in NFL draft quoting sources.

When I hear that, I understand the NFL is a contact

sport. It's about getting real estate or losing real estate.

There's a different definite analogy to the battlefield.

But please, this is a game.

I don't know draft room draft.

And double is staying up for a long time.

This is a big getters command center.

Welcome to the Titans Titans.

The four are draft room draft center team head quarters

or command center.

Okay, terrible.

I like gathering spot.

I'm sticking with that.

Anyway, here's John hyphen Eric Sullivan on Trayegman

who will be in the draft room,

but will not be consulted about picks.

My ass.

He will not be consulted for picks.

He may be in the draft room.

Oh, he looks like a John hyphen Eric.

I can't say anything about Troy and quite frankly,

Dan for that matter as well.

Why is he there?

What's he?

Well, what is what are they assuming?

Because he's going to tell them who to draft and then they'll do it.

I try to why try to sell us on the idea that he's not

verbal or part of the trust me.

Oh, you got to take this big old DT.

I like him.

You take him and you'll be all right.

So yes, yes, Troy right away, Troy.

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing.

Like the Brady thing I'm getting upset about

because there's a world that we can see him utilizing his intelligence

based on where he's come from in New England,

the reputation that they had

to give the Raiders an unfair advantage.

If someone's like, oh, man, I'm really upset.

Like, Troy Ackman's making the dolphins picks.

It's like, okay, let him.

Like, I'm not worried about a quarterback

who last played in 2000

to have a comprehensive understanding

of everything that's going on in the NFL.

Even if he calls games from week to week basis,

I've found him to be maybe just a little milk toast

in his analysis as it is.

And so that either means he's doing that

for a television audience

or that maybe he's a step behind

everything that's going on in the game.

I mean, I would say in the, in the, in the like,

like in the world of, like in a recent,

in the recent world of questionable journalistic integrity,

it feels a little light compared to some things.

But I would say that like you,

I feel like he's probably spent more time with the dolphins

face-to-face than Brady seems to have with the Raiders.

Oh, here comes Cessler of this Troy Ackman defense.

No, I'm not defending it.

If anything, I kind of find it like the league

feels to be in a really weird spot

because I bet there's two more of these

over the next year and a half or two years.

And it's like, what are we doing here?

They made John Hafenairick.

I got an idea.

I want you to go on and take that big old boy

from Indiana for Nando Mendoza.

Troy, he was taken three and a half hours ago.

All right, well, you take another big old boy, big old arm.

Why are we assuming he has like a negative IQ

or as a developmental project mentally?

Like I, am I wrong though?

Like Tom Brady came from the,

So what we do here, Mark?

Tom Brady came from the deep state New England Patriots

where like they were literally, I mean, I reported this.

They were using like black ops military tactics

to gain intelligence advantages.

Aren't you a little bit more worried about him?

Aren't you a little bit more worried about him

using his access as a broadcaster than Troy Ackman

to the dolphins?

Nope.

I mean, Tom Brady played like two years ago.

Troy Ackman last played in 2000.

They're like positions on the football field

that weren't even used back then.

Mark's response.

Troy Ackman does nothing wrong.

Well, hold on.

Hold on a minute.

Like, he'll be to call me on my shit here

because that's the last thing I want.

I think I'm in Conor.

I thought it's just a, just a, but I think

we're on a dipshit.

Doesn't understand that Troy Ackman's a genius.

Like maybe he is.

But like, am I, I don't think I think we don't know.

I think we don't know because the one thing

that Troy is doing that like other USA beer right now.

Troy is inside like over the course of a season.

30 other team facilities, you know what I mean?

Or 17 of them.

And so it's like it's his ability to pass

on information or if he is.

I mean, I, I don't spend, I'm not sitting up at night

worrying about this, but I'll tell you this.

Like I, Troy Ackman is one of the reasons

that I'm sitting right here.

I was a fan of Troy Ackman and it's being turned

into the fact that I'm like a country bumpkin floating.

Like, like this is, this feels like a conflict

of interest between a media figure and NFL team.

I feel like similarly, that's what we're dealing with.

And we're just calling it for what it is.

That's what we do.

We keep it real on this show.

I mean, the only time that we've seen this work.

Okay, and then I'm going to let this go.

The only time that we've seen this work is like John,

when John Lynch came out of the booth

and paired with Kyle Shanahan,

came right out of the booth and paired with Kyle Shanahan

to be the GM of the 49ers.

But the reason that worked is because Kyle's like,

hey, John, here's exactly what I need to draft.

Can you draft those guys for me?

Sure.

This is completely different.

This is like, and again, they're saying they're not

going to take his draft advice.

Even if they do, it would be incongruent

with what the GM has gotten placed.

Like, I'm not afraid of this one.

I don't know, I'm just not.

I just know what he's doing there other than probably

looking good in the back corner of the room.

Looking great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Drinking his hand beer.

He does.

He's aging very well.

In other news, the Washington commanders,

man, this is such a great snapshot

into the confused state of our American culture,

where we just, we're going to look back

at these last 15 years or whatever

and be like, whoa, we were having some type of crisis

where we couldn't get on the same page.

And look at the Washington football team

as an example, right?

And I'm not making any statement one way or the other.

Okay.

They were the Washington Redskins.

That was deemed by many to be culturally insensitive,

dating because we have a very complicated unsettling history

with the Native Americans who originally were on this land.

Right?

Okay.

So that built up for decades and decades and decades.

And then finally, I think this was under the Daniel Snyder

regime in the late period.

They say, all right, Uncle, we are no longer

the Washington Redskins, where the Washington comm...

Well, first we were the Washington football team

and that lasted for a year or two.

And then it's like, all right, we need a name.

Where are the Washington commanders?

And Joe Thiesman gave it his thumbs up memorably.

A lot of commanders in Washington DC and the Pentagon.

And so we started to get used to it.

It was a W on the helmet.

Okay.

It was a little boring.

But, you know, it is what it is.

It was decided.

Now, in a shifting culture once again in the mid-2020s,

there is increasing push to kind of reclaim the old name

or maybe find some type of common ground.

So here we are.

Here is the...

And check it out on YouTube if you want to see it.

Here is the new commander's updated logo,

which I had to say Mark is just confusing to me.

Because now you have...

Now you...

This is what I mean by the jumbled state, I feel,

of where we are in so many ways.

Now we have the Washington logo for the commanders.

And the commanders, you know, a lot of commanders in Washington.

So it's a military name.

But now you've brought a spear and put it through the W.

So now that's tying back to the Redskins name.

But these feel incongruent to one another.

So just like this mismatch of two errors,

which I guess they're trying to claim a middle ground.

But instead, it just seems really messy and a half measure

that really makes no one happy your thoughts.

It's, yes.

I think in their words, it's a...

The old world of this franchise and the new being blended together.

I had the same thought.

Like commanders typically would have been fighting those with spears

in most world conflicts.

Like they're not of the same ilk.

What really bothers me though is...

And we can take a look just...

And we have another image here.

This is their alternate helmet.

The spear through the W.

The other one typically is just W.

So here's one look at it.

People are saying that the physical logo,

the way they've illustrated it, is completely impossible.

This is a homemade one.

But here's one with the helmet if you're looking on YouTube.

Where the spear...

This is in theory like a W is folded, like the piece of paper here.

And the spear is showing up somewhere that it cannot to the human eye.

I first saw this at 313 in the morning.

I don't sleep well often.

And it drove me wild.

It's like I don't...

I think the number one...

So I have just a picture with an accessory just like bug-eyed

and like going out of his mind in the middle of the night in downtown Hollywood.

Well now I see it because other people are up in arms about it too

because if there's one rule in logo design,

especially if you're one of 32 NFL teams,

it's like don't bust my brain with what you've done here

because Justin, can we show the Texas Rangers alternate logo they have as well,

the flag one?

This people brought this one up.

Dan, you guys are baseball guys like this is their flowing Texas flag

but then if you can see the other side of the flag

and it's blue which suggests that the backside of the...

Not accurate.

Right and also but again it's like you're making my mind detonate into many, many particles

and Washington again you had one job

and you've created an illusion visually that I can't...

The ends don't meet.

I think you have the mind of an artist Mark

so something like that is going to catch your eye in a way.

But so should the logo designer correct?

I mean it wouldn't have to happen.

Very fair.

Very fair and I would think that commanders will address the physics issue they have with the logo.

But I did look this up Connor because I said all right let me just...

Let me try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So did the US military?

Because the commanders is a military rebrand.

Did they use spears at any point in combat?

And they did way back in the American Revolutionary War

and that was only though by necessity due to shortages of muskets and bayonets

so they would have to do some savage hand-to-hand combat with the...

with the Brits both in the Siege of Boston and 1775 and also the Battle of White Plains.

Oh, White Plains.

Journal news paper.

A lot of battles in White Plains and I was over there and 1776.

So okay so I guess we could park our car in that garage.

And then I said okay were there commanders in the Native American world

and not technically they weren't called commanders

and this is where they get into trouble a little bit.

They were war chiefs and we know war, we don't touch war.

Yeah.

And the chiefs is already taken.

So you know that is not a neat situation but listen,

they're trying Connor, put a bow on it.

I just think that this is another reminder of the grave mistake

that this franchise made and just not calling themselves the hogs when they had the chance.

They had the chance?

Like we're doing this pseudo military stuff which by the way,

another one of my takes that has been blacked out in history

is that the commander's uniform is offensive I think to active duty military

because you join the military to earn those stripes and those stars

and your name on that chest.

And you know I actually received some emails from some people who agreed with me

when I started espousing this so I feel emboldened in that.

And so I'm just saying you avoid all of this

and you actually make like a fun situation

where you're blasting like pig squealing noises at your stadium.

It was dressed up like a big fat barnyard animal and like they all big.

Oh, it's just so it's so modern.

It's so American.

It's just it's very I like every minute of it.

Yeah, I like how Connor is able to take that mirror and point it at all factions.

Anyone who sits around rubbing their bellies thinking in a soft chair that they're correct.

No, you're not.

Like it.

Yeah.

Yes, Justin.

Last point on this just to offer a counter opinion.

Wait a second.

We have a word Justin.

It is a spear right?

You don't have to necessarily fold the W around it because the point of the spear

could just just penetrate the logo in any way.

In the room out of the room.

In the room out of the room.

Yeah, beat it.

All right.

Just saying.

Finally in the news, a little update to an item from earlier this week as predicted.

No Barry Harowitz padding on the back here, but it's it was not something that anybody thought was going to end any other way.

I don't think.

But NFL reporter Diana Rossini has resigned from the athletic less than a week after published photos of her and Patriots coach Mike Vrable at a Sedona Arizona resort prompted an internal investigation at the New York Times own sports outlet.

Two things of note here.

Diana released a statement or sent a resignation letter to the the athletic sports editor, which then also was circulated publicly in which she was, you know, pretty fiery and and let it be known that she doesn't she wasn't acknowledging or admitting anything.

But she didn't want to go through the indignity of the review process.

I'm not sure if she knew that the times would then counter and say or the athletic would say, okay, cool.

We accept the resignation, but also this process will continue, which is what is happening.

They will continue the internal review and we'll see if anything comes of that.

But yeah, Diana and the athletic are no more.

I guess the only thing Connor and I don't want to dwell on this too long because we have a we have a special guest about to join us.

If this I don't know what is the level of the internal review by a New York Times owned outlet like if we're going through text, is there is there a potential and you were kind of hinting at this a little bit like can Vrable everyone's like Vrable gets away scot free.

What if there is some things in their correspondence that could dug up here that do put the patriots and Vrable in harm's way.

That was the only thing last point I had on it now that this investigation is apparently continuing.

Yeah, this is a hot potato for the New York Times for sure because the one thing that Diana did mention in her exit speech was that she felt and this is her reasoning.

The reason that she decided to resign was she felt that the review process was already rife with leaks and she didn't trust the times to handle this with any modicum of secrecy.

So the New York Times is now tasked with somehow executing this review, reviewing her work, reviewing the professionalism while at the same time absolutely something might come up.

I mean, you know, whether it's Mike Vrable giving information, it's the text between the two of them, you know, the nature of them.

I mean, is this stuff ever going to get out into the public because I think all of it has the potential to be explosive potential.

There has been, I'll say quickly, there's been like an interesting cone of silence around all of this in terms of us learning more and more each day.

I don't code of conduct for teams. I don't know what it happens, but no matter what, like you're paying the price with your family, with your children, with the people around you, not to moralize it.

It's just that there's prices being paid. I don't know if it links to the Patriots, ultimately, we'll see.

All right. We'll continue to follow that story. It's a big one. Stay right there. We will get into our flashpoint focus, but first, a break.

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All right, we are back and as you see, we have a special guest.

Excuse guys.

This was yes, there's a bit of a, this was a bit of a sneak attack, but also one that I would imagine Connor had to see coming.

Coming off his, I said, I would reach out.

I said, you had your opportunity or, you had your opportunity to give you 10 full minutes to reach out before he did.

After Connor shared his very strong opinions also in written word over on SI dot com about his feelings against the expansion of the NFL brand in physical for the peacemakers added again in physical form to Australia with a game between two of the best teams in football in week one.

We thought it was very important to get the other side of the story and where else to go.

But to the top of the food chain, one of our good friends going back to the NFL media days and now one of the top dogs.

In fact, he's the vice president of international, he could have been promoted mark three times since then.

I would just say the Connor, uh-oh.

The vice president of international for NFL ever heard of it, Henry Hodgson.

What's up, Hank?

Hey guys, how you doing?

Good day, Connor.

You're well as well.

Good to see you.

All right, so Henry, I'll get it going this way.

So, and yeah, this is not a gotcha, Connor.

This is just.

It's not.

Nope.

This is not a gotcha.

This is just a conversation between.

Telling you shit about this and then all of a sudden I go to check my email and I turn around and hangs here.

Yeah, it's not a gotcha.

Well, it's show business.

Yeah, show business.

So here we are.

Um, Henry, your thoughts, and I know you're, you're a fan of the show is just, you know, and, and, and your fan of Connor.

I know as well.

Um, your thoughts on this commentary.

Yeah.

Your, your thoughts on, and Connor's opinion, which I thought is a fair one to share on why the NFL needs to chill a little bit, especially when it comes to Australia.

I mean, look, I'll, I'll start with a few things before I dive too deep in.

First of all, I would say to, to Mark, yes, I listened to the show.

So, um, no worries there.

I was listening.

I did hear it.

In fact, I got a text from Dan at the same time as I, um, as I was listening to it.

So that, that was great.

Um, my second piece is, and I will, you know, this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, I have an enormous amount of respect for Connor.

And I know that he's being a contrarian because every time at the Super Bowl, I get a cool Super Bowl week from Connor.

Hey, I want to do a story about.

Are there any Hungarian fans at the Super Bowl?

So I know that Connor actually has a love for, for, for international.

And this is clearly just, you know, him being a contrarian and, and growing his stock as a contrarian among people.

But I will still address his points anyway, because they do bear addressing.

And, and the good news is I do have answers as well.

And, and you did, you did, you did, you asked one fundamental question that was a hot at the heart of your route, which is,

why is the NFL doing any of this international stuff at all, right?

I think that was kind of at the heart of what you were saying.

You took a couple of cheap shots at the UK along the way, which I didn't appreciate.

Um, but ultimately, along the way, I was, I was listening.

But ultimately, why is the NFL doing it?

The NFL wants to grow its fan base around the world.

You guys have, you know, Mark and Dan and Connor, I think you as well, and Grava have experienced, you know,

what that fan base looks like in the UK.

Incredible.

How passionate those people are.

Wonderful.

And then, you know, all across the globe, there are those people.

They're listening to, to heed the call right now.

I would think they're heating the call themselves.

And, and the ones in Australia, especially just to address them.

They've been heating the call for decades.

And they heat the call.

They get up at 3 a.m. to watch a 1 p.m. Eastern game.

And they do that every single week.

And they'd be doing it for years.

And they've been doing it in large numbers.

So for them to get one game to be able to celebrate their passion.

And again, you guys have had the chance.

I think all of you to experience games in London.

And what that feeling is when those stadiums, the big, the big, what's it called?

The big toddy.

The hot toddy.

The hot toddy.

Sorry.

Not the big bell.

Let me say this.

Let me just interrupt real quick.

Goose bumps on top of goose bumps whenever we're out there.

Okay.

Good.

Exactly.

And why is that?

Because those people are showing up.

It's their first chance.

They're only chance to see the NFL in their country.

And they might be wearing a, a jet's jersey, a falcon's jersey, a packers jersey.

And it's the Viking against, Vikings against the Browns.

But they're there and they're showing up.

Imagine what that's like now in Australia, where it's never happened before.

And they get the chance in, in like the country's most iconic stadium.

To see the NFL for the very first time.

That is goose bumps.

That really will be goose bumps.

So yeah, it's a long way to go.

And yeah, you know, there are inevitably coaches who hate being taken out of their comfort zone

are going to say, oh, I don't want to do that, that kind of thing.

But the reality is, it's an incredibly special thing to be doing.

And that's how the NFL is going to grow, keep growing around the world and get more fans.

Well said, perfectly said, Henry.

Connor, your reply.

You know what?

I'm going to dig in here.

I got.

Of course he is.

You know what?

Okay.

So what about like the kids growing up, Henry, in like Lennox South Dakota, Volga South Dakota,

Springfield South Dakota?

Mine up.

It's going to take them almost as long to get to an NFL game for someone in Australia to try to make it

or someone in the UK to try to make it.

And so I'm like, why aren't we worried about like, you know, kids in Arkansas,

what happened to them, you know, all these kids, all the St. Louis, Missouri, you know,

all of these, all of these people, weren't we concerned about them?

To put it another way, Henry, I think Connor, I'm with you.

Why not?

Let's just build a wall.

Let's just build a wall.

Right.

Exactly.

I mean, I don't know.

The NFL, you know, there isn't a single person.

Those fans are fans already, I suppose, at the point.

They are consuming the NFL, they're watching on TV, they're playing fantasy,

they're listening to heat the call, they're doing all the things that the NFL fans would do.

What we're trying to do is get more of those people in Australia and the UK and Mexico and Brazil

and all over the globe.

So the answer is, those guys are in already.

They're in the boat.

We want more people in the boat and we want more people to be from all over the world.

Yes, Mark.

Can I ask a gross question from a gross American?

First of all, I think everyone...

The gross American delegation would like to speak.

Just a grossed comment.

Just a grossed comment.

Look like...

You're not a gross American.

Famously, you lived in the UK for 13 months.

And I am of the group of people and we all are...

We have been to London and we've seen it.

And I think that...

I can't think of a group of podcasters that have done more to express why that mattered and why it was cool.

And we connect with...

We've got...

We did that map.

We have like 180 countries or whatever that listen to the show.

And I think we've done a lot to care about not just the Americans.

I would ask you this, though, because when you're here in the States, part of it is...

It's not so much of a trenching complaint, but suddenly it's like four weeks in a row

where the games start at 6.30 in the morning if you live in LA, right?

Or it's earlier than you normally would in general.

Cool.

We get it.

You got to coach it, you got to live with it.

Is there a point?

Because it feels like full steam ahead to such a degree.

With each new year, there's new countries in the fold.

A two-part question.

How much is too much?

And secondly, can you name a country that you know right now the NFL will never try to play a game in?

I want to know what country is in that red zone off limits, but how much is too much?

Yeah, and let me just piggyback off a mark for one second.

If the people from Australia are so deserving, what about the people of Japan, China, Hungary, Austria, Russia, India?

Don't they don't they deserve football games?

So what we should be doing is actually just export the entirety of the schedule.

And then like maybe it sounds like you've come over to my side.

Yeah, so like maybe like one game, one Eagles game in Philadelphia and then 17 of them in Brussels

or New Delhi or Bangalore.

Yeah, let's just do that.

I mean, I feel like you may be taking that a little bit further than you meant.

But I guess you, I mean, to some extent, the answer to one of Mark's questions you just answered.

How much is too much?

I think the commissioner has said out loud that if the NFL gets to an 18 game schedule,

the desire will be to play 16 international games in that 18 game schedule.

So that would be one a week for 16 weeks presumably.

So I mean, that's kind of the short answer to the question.

Where would those happen?

I mean, some of those countries you just mentioned, yes, probably they would, you know,

I'm sure that the likes of Japan would be on a list of amazing places for us to play games and grow fandom.

I mean, I think some of them, there's diminishing returns.

If you go to Luxembourg, no offense to our fans from Luxembourg.

You're in there guys.

Well, there's our poll quote.

I have stepped in it.

But, but the fans in Luxembourg are flocking to games in Germany and France and Madrid and London and Dublin now.

So that, you know, they're well served within exactly the same distance as the people in South Dakota.

And I think I think this is all heading towards this final question, Henry.

Right.

What, what the hell are your Miami dolphins doing?

Why don't you ship them to Australia's week one?

Leave them there.

Well, they were in Madrid last year.

I mean, the dolphins have been, I think outside of the Jags, have been the team that has supported that international growth the most.

That's why you are a dolphin fan.

By play, it was one of the reasons early on was because the dolphins were, were embraced by the UK community.

You guys have seen that as well.

Unbelievable.

Absolutely.

That's why there's a Dan Reno jersey hanging behind you.

That's why Henry is the vice president of the NFL UK.

His love of the sport that grew out of the mid 80s and has taken him to the top of the world in the corporate football landscape.

I think I've done it again as the peacemaker.

I feel like we've heard both sides of the story.

I think respect has been doled out in both directions.

Connor, do you now understand that this was not a sneak attack?

This wasn't a gotcha moment.

This was important dialogue between two respected figures in our world.

It's like, oh, you don't like Obama.

Here's the president.

Here he is right here behind this door.

Listen, I'm never going to be upset about an opportunity to see Henry.

And I am going to bother him about international theme stories at the Super Bowl again this year because it's something I like.

I love it.

I love it.

And I will always try and help.

So I'm so glad we found this time to get to better and down.

And I was like, you've lost none of your ability to be a stinky Davis, which is my first man.

It's my gift.

It's the case.

But actually now I've come around to the fact that no, he's just a peacemaker.

He's a guy who brings people together.

Thank you.

It's that simple.

There's a way to go to Pakistan right now.

Absolutely.

To come back to a new story.

I might also be a hog that likes to roll out in the mud sometimes and bring people in with me.

Exactly.

All right.

Hank, we love you.

We miss you.

I love you guys.

I love you guys too.

All right.

There you go.

Henry Hodgson, vice president of the NFL UK, set the record straight.

Let's take a break and do some flashpoint focus.

Draft season is here and the commanders are getting closer to decisions that could shape this roster for years.

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Yes, flashpoint focus.

It is the series where he'd the call gets ahead of the story before the story happens.

And we have an outrageously successful track record in that regard.

And with that said, our topic today with a very special guest.

Oh, baby.

The Raiders are on the clock.

What could possibly go wrong 30 years ago?

It was just win, baby.

After a quarter century of constant dysfunction.

Maybe it's just keep a coach in GM in place for two years, baby.

Yes.

Expect expectations have been lowered in the Mark Davis era.

Maybe fair.

Also like the final decade of the Al Davis era.

And yet here we are again, optimism around the silver and black who, yes,

are on the board with the first overall pick and joining us.

One of our favorite people in the industry from the athletic Zach Kiefer,

who just dropped an absolute dime over at the athletic inside John Grudens disastrous.

Second run with the Raiders.

Which in addition, Zach to be in a great read about the Grudens era.

And, you know, he's such a fascinating figure.

I think sets up well for this next chapter for the Raiders.

Yeah, thanks for the warm welcome.

As always, it's great to be back with you guys.

This is fun.

I can't take credit for the idea.

But to kind of to your point, Dan, one of our editors was kind of like,

it wasn't that long ago, the Raiders went out and hired a coach

who had been on TV for nine years and away from coaching.

And then a year later, hired a GM who had never worked in an NFL front office,

who was also on TV.

Like, it didn't go well.

They didn't win in big ways.

They had some of the worst drafts we can really remember.

There was tons of controversy like, what happened and how bad was it?

That was sort of my misstep to go find out.

And oh boy, did I find out.

It's the kind of piece where I'm sure you agitated the Raiders to the nth degree.

No one really comes out of it looking good from this whole fiasco from the past.

And you know, it reminds me because I asked Justin before we started here like,

how many coaches did the Titans interview before they made their hire?

It was 16.

And instead you have Mark Davis who had this lifelong ongoing obsession with Gruden

and just skipped the entire process of learning about the league,

what modern coaches are doing.

And then you've got all these details of Gruden coming in and being obsessed with old veterans

from like eight years ago that he liked on television and blowing up the whole

scouting staff's idea of what a draft could look like.

And it was just the most unmodern hire, even though it was still John Gruden.

Where it, I guess my question is like, what's at the core of the rotten apple here?

What did you discover as the absolute darkness inside of all what occurred with the Raiders?

You were right, Mark, about the like long standing fascination that Mark Davis had.

And here's a trivia question for you guys.

So this was the 2017 coaching cycle when Gruden was hired after four previous failed attempts

by Davis to hire him.

So he finally lands his white whale who were some of the other coaches hired during that cycle.

I bet you no, Connor.

Anthony Lynn.

Uh, but more importantly, Sean McVey.

Uh, Kyle Shanahan.

Uh, uh, Doug Marone.

Interesting lead with Anthony Lynn there, Connor, but I'm trying to do them all.

Uh, Doug Marone, Sean McDermott.

Look at this.

Uh, uh, am I missing anybody?

So it would have been Gruden, Anthony Lynn, Doug Marone, Sean McDermott, Kyle Shanahan,

Sean McVey, my missing one.

Maybe.

That's pretty good.

I mean, you can just start with, I mean, even you can throw in Sean McDermott in that

right.

Just any with the bills who had a lot of success there and did things that they haven't

done in a long time.

Kyle Shanahan, one of the best of the game, Sean McVey, just completely ignored for this pursuit.

And he gets up at this podium and Jerry Rice is out there and Tim Brown is out there and

how he long is out there and he's saying, Raider Nation, this is a big F and deal.

He is selling this higher as something that's going to return this team to their glory

which is all he's trying to do is the owner, right?

Return them to what they once were under his father and Mark, I dug in and I honestly didn't

know a lot of this.

I had a really long conversation with Mike Mayock, who was very polite and he was actually

a really good interview and he did not throw the blame on anybody else.

But then when I talked to the people that were in the building, they said, wait, wait a minute.

This was John Gruden's show and he ran this show and then I started to ask about like the draft

and how the teams were built and they said, well, he loved cut-ups and I said cut-ups like

like little video clips like five to eight to ten seconds long and they're like, yeah, we call them kill tapes.

And then I started to learning about how John Gruden attacked the personnel department,

ignored some of his scouts, the guys he was chasing and it just kind of unfolded for there.

It's crazy how, and I said this at the time, Dave Damishack actually said it at the time

to the parallels because this was 2017 between Gruden's like initial quirks and preferences

to like that of even like the president at the time, right?

There's all these stories about like short attention span, like just these like hard and fast

takes on things that were not grounded in any sort of realism.

And I thought the kill tapes were such a great example of that where I mean that first draft

and I'd love it if you could go a little bit deeper into that Zach because I remember covering that.

I believe that was my first draft for sports illustrated.

And having like Cleveland Farrell come off the board at number four.

And that was like the first holy shit moment like what's going on here?

Like that was wild.

Do you guys remember that moment?

Like watching that in life?

I remember where I was.

Yes, absolutely.

More than Alex Leatherwood, greatest hits of the Raiders draft.

Absolutely.

But you have a lot to choose from.

Yeah, we'll get to that, Dan.

No, I mean, it was like a holy shit moment.

We were in the A&A was cold strapped and watching.

And we were like, wait, what that guy?

And then you get the backstory of like, well, he was a good character guy and we didn't want to miss, you know,

really bad with our first pick.

And we thought we could get him later in the draft.

So we just pulled the trigger at number four.

And it's like, whoa, and then you hear a couple months later.

They're like mini camp and OTAs and training camp.

And like every person in the building is like, who is this fifth round picked?

It's out playing Cleveland Farrell in every single day.

That turned about to be Max Crosby.

And it's just to hear from the guys that were in the personnel room, in the draft room.

And they would spend four to five months on a guy.

They would have this prospect profile ready.

Right.

These are really nuanced things, right?

There's a lot of context that goes into this.

They're putting this all together.

And Grootin would come in and they said it was like the win.

You just never knew which way he was going to blow.

And he'd be like, I don't like this guy.

Here's a video of his five worst plays.

He's out.

Like he's out.

And the quote from the story is really telling.

Also, it's kind of hilarious that they singled out Tom Brady.

Because they're like, you can make Tom Brady look like a ball with these skill tapes.

The greatest player we've ever seen.

And oh, by the way, Tom Brady is now the guy that's sort of trying to save this franchise.

Yeah, that's that's a good way to lead into.

So how does the past now find a way to pound this thing in there?

To the present and the future of the Las Vegas Raiders.

Because they have the first pick.

They're expected to take Fernando Mendoza at Indiana, the Heisman Trophy winner.

And Max Crosby, the former fifth round pick, is still on the roster.

At least for now, I still feel like there's a decent chance he can get moved before the first game.

But you never know.

You never know with this team.

And here's a quote as we kind of look forward and see what's coming up next with the Raiders.

Is there, of course, it's a time for optimism.

You have the Super Bowl winning OC as your head coach.

You have the first pick.

And it's a quarterback and the excitement around that.

You spent a bunch of money in free agency 281.5 million in contracts to be exact.

And yet a lot of that same structure is there at the top, of course.

At ownership, here's a quote that a source told Zach key for right here.

Antonio Pierce was given a shit roster.

Pete Carroll was given a shit roster.

The underlying issue is that Mark Davis has never really respected the GM position.

He let Groot and pick Mayock.

Then he let Josh McDaniels pick his best friend is GM Dave Ziegler.

Now he lets Tom Brady do the same thing with spy tech.

And obviously, Zach, you have a lot of, you have a lot of power for Tom Brady here.

And it sounds like the owner doesn't value general managers as much as he values a huge personality,

a grudin or a Brady to kind of do this for him because the owner at least knows he doesn't know enough to try to do this himself.

But are they just doomed to make the same mistakes if they keep on setting up the structure the same way without a real brain trust working together?

This is crazy when you think about it.

Like, I don't think enough people have talked about this.

Since 2017, the Raiders have had seven different coaches.

That's nine years.

And it's including interims.

Seven coaches and six different general managers.

Like Mayock said, that is, that is recipe for failure.

The other thing is, this is one of the signature teams in the league, right?

They haven't won a playoff game since the AFC championship they won with Rich Ganon when Bill Callahan was the coach.

Like, that's amazing to me when I dug in to answer your question, Dan.

I mean, this constant shuffling at the GM position speaks to that.

This was, you know, the source that told me that was not someone that was in the building for one year.

He was there for a long time.

He lived through all this change.

And it does seem like there's something there.

I mean, you know, there was the pressure from the players to hire Antonio Pierce.

So you hire him.

You bring in Telesco and he's out in a year.

And his first draft pick was Brock Bauer.

So it was an excellent pick.

You bring in Pete Carroll and you got spy tech.

And now spy tech and Brady are running it.

But who's really running it?

There's just a lot of confusion and, you know, they spend a lot of money in free agency.

That doesn't always mean you're going to have a lot of success.

I do like a couple of things though.

They got the center to play in front of the young quarterback.

And the other thing that was really interesting to me,

this was from Clint Cubiak, the new coach at the NFL owners meetings,

just a couple of weeks ago in Arizona.

He said in the perfect world, this rookie quarterback is sitting behind a veteran and watching.

And I think Clint is really convicted in that.

And allow a guy say that in April and May and June.

And then they buckle in September and October.

We see it every year.

But for some reason, I think it wouldn't be stunning to me

if Mendoza's on the bench to start the season in Las Vegas.

And Kurt Cousins is the guy for eight weeks, even a year.

I really think Clint is really convicted in that belief.

And they certainly in Kurt Cousins have the guy you'd want to sit in the quarterback room with a rookie.

Like he's got the persona.

They seem like they could be personality twins on some level.

I would ask this though, because, you know, if you're a hot coaching candidate

and you're Clint Kubiak, and like you're obviously talking to tons of people around the league

that have been dipped in the past of the Raiders.

And the owner remains.

But why, if you're Clint Kubiak, it's not why do you take the job?

Because people take the Jets job and the Browns job.

It's a chance.

And you can make the change there if you want.

But what is different for Clint Kubiak?

Is it Brady and Spytech? Is it the whole structure?

Is Clint Kubiak facing a different type of franchise challenge than what wrecked everyone before him?

I think the one thing that separates it.

If you're Clint Kubiak, you had probably a couple options, right?

I would imagine later in this coaching cycle that he had a couple options.

Maybe Arizona as well.

I think the thing that sealed it is the number one pick in the quarterback, right?

I think that gives you a runway.

I think that gives you a couple years.

You're kind of banking on the reality that this team has churned through so many coaches and GMs.

With this number one pick coming in there, at least going to give him a little bit of lead way and a little bit of runway with this young kid.

Especially if Mendosa doesn't play this year.

It's not like anyone expects the Raiders to compete in that division right now with the Chiefs, the Broncos, and the Chargers who are all playoff teams just about every year it seems.

So it feels like at least at the very least, Mark Davis has to give this time.

You've got the number one pick.

You've upgraded and free agency.

Maybe the offensive line can be a little bit better because it was a trosious last year.

But again, like it's easy to buy into hope this year.

We're talking about the draft that's coming next week.

Fans do it.

GMs do it just as much.

They buy into hope and hope is a dangerous thing in this league.

Especially like when you consider so we had 11 Raider draft picks last year.

The first round pick.

Yeah.

You know, what about the receiver they took in the second round?

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, Jack Besh barely saw the field last year.

Ash and Jenny, you can make an argument that the team wasn't prepared to facilitate a running back at that point or the offensive system wasn't matched with what the coach wanted to do, whatever, whatever.

But now we have 11 more draft picks or I think maybe that number changed with the cross betrayed falling through whatever 9 or 11 draft picks.

I forget what it is.

But the fact that like this could be even more catastrophic in some ways than Gruden is wild to me.

I mean, Dan Zajetsvani, your members, the John Idzik 11 man draft class that probably set the franchise back half a decade.

I mean, you know, you're taking players that are you're just amassing all this draft capital that ends up being useless.

And I'm wondering like, did you get the sense that like Mark Davis learned anything?

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, because it's like, I mean, whatever history, if you failed to learn from it as a tendency of repeating itself.

Like, I honestly think in his chaotic scenarios, you laid out with Cleo Mack trade, Amari Cooper trade, Cleveland Farrell, Leatherwood, all that stuff.

Like, this could be worse.

Like, it could be, it could be.

And I'm wondering if you feel like Mark Davis has learned anything or if he's still kind of victim to these cult of personality type people that he's just going to keep laying over for.

I don't think Clint Kubiak is that cult of personality guy.

I don't know if you guys have been around him.

He's very measured.

He's very understated.

He is certainly not that star coach that Peter was that persona that Antonio Pierce was.

And obviously, Gruden.

And to go back to your point, the biggest pushback that I got from the article from Raiders fans was like, you know, Gruden won more games every year.

And we were eight and eight.

And we made the playoffs his last year.

It's like, well, he resigned five games into the season because of the email scandal.

And Rich Bessachia got them to the playoffs.

And even Mayo was like, man, like, it took a lot of time that season to get those guys going because we just didn't have the guys in the pipeline.

It goes back to your point, Connor.

Like, these drafts, if you're, if you guys are like a pro football reference, like nerd, like I am, like these drafts will stun you.

They are horrific.

And there was a line from Mayo one year.

They had three second round picks and he goes three second round picks is like stealing.

It is if you land starters.

And one of those second round picks didn't even make the 53 man roster, which is a huge mess because they were worried about him influencing Henry Ruggs.

And then Damon Arnett, as well, who both were off the team within 18 months.

The player was Ted Bundy, by the way.

I mean, these are like historically bad drafts.

And as you guys know, like you're never going to win in this league consistently unless you can draft and develop.

And Grootin didn't want to do that.

He wanted to establish guys, guys he knew the names of, guys his brother in Washington total were really good.

That was my favorite line from this article.

Can you just hear him say no?

He came storming into the room because Jay Groot and said he didn't like a player.

Our boy Jay.

We like Jay.

I mean, like you just totally see that happening.

And the ironic thing is as a reporter, you're like, okay, you hear some things, you hear some things.

When you talk to multiple sources and they're starting to tell you the same story over and over again, you're like, yeah, this is, this is pretty accurate.

So the drafting just, it just cleared them out of young talent and you just can't live like that in this league.

Again, what about their last year's draft is really encouraging.

He's a stud, he's really talented, but they got a ways to go in terms of building up this roster.

And I know Raiders fans are listening right now and they were probably excited when the segment started and they're like, this is skew and negative.

I don't, I don't mean this to be some type of hit piece on the Raiders, but I think what we're trying to do with Flashpoint focus is lay out the case that despite this time of optimism, which is good.

Optimism is always good. I talk about all times at Jets fan. You need to have hope. There is hope around the Raiders.

But like, I think about the way they're set up right now, because you mentioned, and you're right.

Like Columbia is not the type of figure, a cult of personality, a Pied Piper, like Grootin or Pierce or Pete Carroll.

But what would concern me as a Raiders fan is that that guy is now Tom Brady.

The big figure and the man carrying the stick that Mark Davis is just like fix this. So Daddy's proud of me in heaven is Tom Brady.

And then I think back to the last piece that I enjoyed about this organization. It was in January over at ESPN.com, Caitlin Collar and Ryan McFadden wrote it.

And buried within that piece was continued like references to how little Brady's really around because of the amount of other things he has going on in his life.

I'll read from that piece Brady is a business mogul involved with wellness apparel and media brands. He lives in Florida and travels to work NFL games every weekend during the season before chip Kelly was fired in November.

That was the outgoing OC. He said he and Brady spent time over the summer talking football on zoom while Brady was traveling all over the place.

Colton Miller, the left tackle said Brady has been in the building five or six times this season.

Multiple Raiders players said Brady spoke to the team a couple times this season sharing wisdom and detailing his vision for the organization to become a winning club.

I think also in this article, it was said that because of his Fox duties and everything else, he was only at like three or four Raiders games last year to win in this league and to build a champion.

You got to be all in, right? And I just wonder if Brady's confidence, which I would imagine is a never ending waterfall cascading down upon the world.

And the fact that he doesn't have like a strong owner in place to be like, Tom, if you're going to do this, you got to do this for us.

If it's all set up for failure because of there's a bit of a built in arrogance, well Brady will figure it out, but is Brady truly all in, even if he thinks he's all in, is he actually all in?

And if he's not all in is all this going to go to shit like that would be my flashpoint focus like, right, blinking red light.

If you're giving Brady all the power, is he actually invested or is it just one of his many things in his pocket right now?

Oh God, I'm tired. I bet he is.

I mean, I mean, you're dead on, Dan, like you can't be halfway in, you can't be 75% into run a team.

Again, do we know that Tom Brady knows how to run an NFL team just because he was a great player.

How many guys, how long is the list of guys that were mediocre to bad coaches who were great players and then mediocre to bad GMs?

The list is really long. I'm not saying Brady's going to end up like that.

We know he knows so much about this game, but like you said, if he's just tiptoeing in because he's got so many things on the side, that doesn't mean he's going to save the Raiders.

What has he done successfully to get this team in the right position right now?

Like what positive steps have they taken in the last three years, two years?

Maybe the higher of Clint Kubiak, they've won seven games in the last two years and climbed through three different coaches.

I just got to say this. I'm just, I'm just psyched that we have Kiefer here and like I saw on, and this is not a slighted anybody or anything.

I saw this Q&A with this great writer the other day on Twitter and it said a Q&A with the last great magazine writer in America.

And I said, God damn it if that's not true because you're not talking about Zach Kiefer.

And he's one of the best and that's why I'm so happy that like we just get to talk about his reporting.

We get to talk about him digging into stuff. That's all I had to say.

And that interview was with Connor or by the way.

And let me add to that because when it comes to our friend Chris Wessling, who left us five years ago.

There's always a, we talk about, I actually spoke with LaKisha. Chris's wife yesterday and things are going great with her right now.

And with Chris, there's always these things in the air like LaKisha points out butterflies, like she sees butterflies around and it's Wess.

And I wanted to just pull up the incredible profile that Zach wrote about Wess.

And I went to check the date and wouldn't you know it as we tape this. That was published exactly five years ago today.

Wow. So check that out as Zach, you did such a beautiful job.

And if you're newer to the show or maybe you read it when it came out and now five years of past, go revisit it because Zach, like that was a very sensitive topic.

Obviously for everyone that knew and loved Chris and us especially on the show and you knocked that one out of the park.

And I want to say real quick on that because I think Zach, that's the first time I ever spoke with you.

And I was in my garage at the time and we talked at length on the phone.

You talked with each of us and what many others about the impact that Wess had on us.

And I don't, it is a tough, it was a tough job because I remember we were breaking down, crying in the middle of it.

And like the sensitivity and the care and the research and the love that you put into it, that's writing.

I mean, that's why Connor is correct to say what he just said and that piece will live on forever.

Thank you guys. On a lighter note, there are times when I'm writing a long story and I'll think to myself, would Chris Wessling think this is shit?

It's like in my mind, this is a visible barometer. I'm like, okay, I think I did a decent one, but I don't know for sure.

I think he would have been very happy with how you told his story.

Where can people find the great Zac Efra? What should they be checking out right now as the draft approaches, Zach?

Yeah, you can find me on the athletic. I don't write that often anymore because as you guys can imagine,

rater stories or stories like the one I just did on the rater's take months of reporting.

So I'm kind of digging into some longer ones. I'll do some draft stuff next week.

And then I've got some logs in the fire. I always do.

So some big personalities will be profiled very soon. Hopefully I can jump back on and dig into those with you guys as well.

And you know what? The rater's piece was deep and nuanced and I thought fair reporting, even if it was critical.

But at the same time, are you a little bit bummed because I remember earlier in our NFL media tenure.

And it still felt like in some ways the Wild Wild West back then that the raters were so incensed by the Mike Silver Tommy Boy article about Mark Davis.

That for literally six months on the front page of Raiders.com was a picture of Mike Silver that said Mike Silver is a liar.

I don't see anything like Zach key for his liar or a villain or anything like that.

A little bit of a twinge of disappointment just a little bit.

Yeah, I don't think they loved it. I don't think they loved it.

But they're getting my guy. I'm an Indiana alum and I got to go to the National Tribune Chip and watch a fan for the first time.

And I don't know how long it was unbelievable. So they're getting Mendoza who's just awesome.

So hopefully the hopefully the arrow is pointing up in Vegas.

And I'm writing about Clint Kubiak as well who's kind of got an interesting story and his dad had some great stuff to say.

So I feel like they've got sharp guys in place. But again, like, you know, that's a tough division to climate. It's really tough.

Is that and of course you never know in the NFL look at Sam Darnold the journey he went on you have to get to the right place to truly thrive in this league.

But what are your what's your take on Mendoza is that guy a pro star in the right.

I think so. I think so. I think so that.

I think he's got the right mentality and I think actually like learning from Kurt Cuzz is going to be really good.

But I could tell early on in Indiana now maybe my barometer is really screwed up because so many quarterbacks I've watched play for my alma mater over the years have been like slightly better than me.

But not much better than me. And then Mendoza, you're like that's a pro quarterback. I wouldn't have said number one in the in the NFL draft.

But I could tell right away like that's guys got the stuff.

But again, like as North Turner told me who I just talked to who's son worked in the Raiders organization.

And nor was like look, he's got a lot to overcome there. And he meant there as in the Las Vegas Raiders. And we can't sidestep the reality of what he's walking into.

Thank you very much.

That was awesome. Thanks guys.

There he goes. Zach Kiefer on the Raiders. And yet that we'll see where this all goes.

Like if maybe Fernando Mendoza is absolutely the real deal.

And he allows them to overcome some of their behind the scenes stuff.

But we've been covering the game long enough where it had you cannot go in with blinders on you.

The organization has to get right.

And my only thought Mark was like, I know Kurt Cousins came into the building.

And this happens all the time though in our league.

We'll just assume that the guy is going to play and the other guy is going to sit on the bench.

But if the Raiders are one in four and Cousins is Cousins at this point, which we know what that means.

Mendoza is going to see the field sooner rather than later this all this talk.

I'm hearing about like, oh, he might just sit for a year because that's the way to actually do it.

I never buy it and I won't buy it in this case either. I think he plays by October.

I feel like we we've done this enough where it's like all we need these preseason predictions.

Like we're not going to see Mendoza till November. My ass.

Like first of all, like Kurt Cousins was an attaché, a guy available to come in and be part of this process.

But the Raiders have not had a chance to make a quarterback pick like this in eons.

This is the face of the franchise.

And if things get like thorny early with or without Cousins, like you've got a fan base.

You've got Tom Brady. You've got a general manager.

You've got the entire front office saying put the player that we picked on the field.

And you also I guarantee have the owner better or worse. Like he's going to play soon over on the.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

No, I just just to add one more thing for a third or two kind of.

I say all that, but then at the same time, like you look at the contract.

And this is why the Raiders are kind of tough to figure out. So it could go in any direction.

Now, of course, it was reported as a five year 172 million dollar deal.

That's horseshit. Okay.

But it's really a one year fully guaranteed 20 million dollars.

That's that's crazy, right? So like.

What am I missing, Connor? Like because if you pay a quarterback 20 million guaranteed.

He's going to play, right? So I don't know, man.

The Raiders pay 11.3 million of it. Okay. So some of that is going back to the Falcons and their their own.

But still 11 million for a backup quarterback is above the market rate,

which also a cloud's a little bit the strategy or no. Am I behind on it?

I don't think it's much further above, especially for like a premium backup.

And especially for what you're asking these guys to do at this point, which is, you know,

you're not only asking them to be ready in case of an injury, but, you know, dating back to like Josh McCown with Sam Darnell on the Jets.

These guys are essentially co-offensive coordinators, right? They're kind of learning what these guys preferences are.

They're relaying them to the coaching staff and they're helping translate some of the stuff that that may not make sense.

So I'll just make one more point in terms of Mendoza playing right away.

We had over on the MM QB pod Scott Turner on Scott is north sun. He's longtime NFL coach was the Jets passing game coordinator last year.

Dan. And he was breaking down some of the quarterback stuff. And I said, how long would it take you to teach for an end of Mendoza to play under center?

For example, that's like the one reason that everyone's saying this might not work right away. And he said 25 minutes.

You know, it's not this big mythical, like, you know, Rosetta's own thing that needs to be accomplished. Like I think we can do it.

He's also played in like five different types of offenses. Like I just, I think that the thing about Mendoza is he's mentally there.

I don't see someone that needs to wait for three months to get on the field. And I don't think that's the situation here.

But we'll see. But I mean, it's like, I always take the under on these bets. I think it's by week. Let's see where they're by week is.

But if it's if it's early, whatever it is week three, week four.

But again, like I don't care who you are, including Tom Brady, like the or how mentally sharp you are.

There is there's going to be a big transition for the him as a player. And that's when it's like, OK, the team has to be solid around them.

They have to have a good blocking scheme. They have to have a smart sensible attack that plays to his strengths and doesn't put him in uncomfortable situation.

I've seen it sadly. As a view mark a million times with our teams, Connor, you covered some of the more dysfunctional New York sports teams of the last half century.

And like you have to put him in position to be successful. Hopefully for the Raiders fans out there.

That's what happens. All right. That's it. Good week of shows. We'll be back.

Thank you again to Zach and Henry. We'll be back.

We'll be back on Monday, of course, with the 15th annual Moxessler mark draft and pinch yourself because it's coming.

And that means the drafts right behind it. So big week of the football calendar and we'll be here covering it all, including our now annual livestream.

On Thursday that we'll do for the first round. So lots of good stuff. Thanks for coming along for the journey and heat in that call.

See you next week.

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