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Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com or just stop by, Granger, for the ones who get it done. Last year Americans ate 32 billion chicken wings. Who knows just how many helpless sides of celery were heartlessly thrown away. But this year celery neglect stops with you and irresistible Jeff Peanut Butter because every bite counts and you can make a snack to make a difference. Buy a jar of Jeff Peanut Butter to save the celery. You made an offer to Geno, tried to extend them. It became apparent that they're working to be what you're going to deal on. It wasn't like a very long negotiation and so as a staff, we had to be prepared to pivot. So we had sat down with the offensive staff and obviously the personnel guys were on before anyway but always having a contingency plan that happened to Peanut. So we had several guys we registered in, made the trade and were able to get the guy out of the top of the list. John Schneider, choosing his words as carefully as a dad explaining to a small child why their dog is now living at a farm permanently. Explaining why Geno says, by the way, that's good. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. John Schneider explaining why Geno Smith was traded and it was just 17 days ago that John Schneider sat with Chris Sims and I at the combine and I said, is there any doubt Geno Smith is the guy? And he said no. But then he said, we're about to meet with, we're about to meet with his agents or we'll be meeting with his agents. So something went off the rails and it was clear. It wasn't a long meeting. The numbers started with four average per year. They got Sam Darnell for 33. It would have taken probably between 40 and 45 to get Geno Smith and they just weren't going to do it. It was that simple. It's analytics. It's the original application of analytics in football, personnel management dollar for dollar value from the players you have on your team. It's morphed into dictating to coaches when they should go for it on 4th and 2 from their own 43. But the original analytics in football was how you assess your roster, height, weight, size, speed and how much it's going to cost relative to what my option is. They got an option cheaper and they do with the most important position on the field. You know, we've been saying, when is one of these teams that's drafted a quarterback that's gotten to the end of the rookie contract going to say, Nope, we're just not going to do it. That's what the Seahawks did with Geno Smith. Nope, you've played well. You played extremely well, surprised everyone, including yourself as to how good you've been the past few years. We're not going to do it. We're not going to do it. We'll go get somebody else who we think will be the next Geno Smith. And when he has a couple of great seasons and he comes back and he wants something that starts with a five, we'll go find the next Sam Darnold. I wonder if that's I know that's part of it. I think something else is happening here in Seattle and it's Mike McDonald spent one year with Geno Smith spent one year with them. They did a good rookie year. If you look at it for McDonald's, it's a good rookie year for the youngest coach in football. Okay, pretty good. But he didn't have the history with Geno. He didn't see Geno turn in turn from the Reclamation Project or was the Reclamation Project come back player of the year better than Russell Wilson. Now at this point, he was better than Russell Wilson. His first year in Seattle, his first year as a starter, he was better than the Wilson was in Denver. And he's been better since. But Mike McDonald didn't have that story. So it's almost like a lot of coaches are like this. And on one hand, you say, I haven't worked with this guy. I'm going to bring in my own players. A lot of coaches get credit for that. But I want to give credit to the guys who usually get slammed by fans. Fans usually say, okay, yeah, you want a championship or you want to play off game with somebody else's guys. Big deal. No, it is a big deal because you know what it tells me? It tells me that you have the, your ego is not out of control. And you know, you don't just go in and assume that everything here previous to your arrival was all wrong. And you need to do it your way with your people. If you can win with somebody else's people, I'll give you credit for that. And so I think Mike McDonald just looked at it with Clint Kubiak and said, no, I got more of a history with Sam Darnell. Gino, I'll only spent one year with them. Now, I'll go with, I'll go with somebody else. I think it was just history. And I agree that that all makes sense. What gets weird is, and this is why I say never take anything at face value from coaches, players, general managers, owners, et cetera, because they say what they have to say. They say what the circumstances dictate that they say, because if you deviate from that, you create things that guys like us can talk about for 45 minutes on a Friday morning. Period. That's why they say what they have to say. And Mike McDonald was saying all the right things about Gino Smith. Mike McDonald was saying he's definitely absolutely our guy. We can win a championship with him when Clint Kubiak showed up. He said, Gino Smith was part of the draw. There was none of the, the weird vague, oh, maybe they're sending a message. There were no tells like his Clint Kubiak said, Gino Smith was a huge draw. He didn't say, yeah, Gino Smith was a huge draw for me to come here. There was none of that. It was all believable. When Schneider told us there was no doubt that Smith would be back. It was believable. That just reinforces my broader point. Don't take anything they say at face value. And we fight that battle all the time. Because when somebody says something and I say, it might be bullcrap. No, it's not. They said it. How dare you doubt? Who are you to doubt the thing that they said? They said it. Therefore, we must believe it. So that, that I think is the big takeaway for me. This is another shining, glaring example, not quite as much as I'm not going to be the Alabama coach, but it's a glaring example of don't believe anything because the circumstances dictate what they say in the sport of football and probably in most sports. So, so this is a hell of an experiment because now Gino Smith goes to Las Vegas. We'll see how he does there. And we'll see what Sam Donald does. I just think they're taking a very calculated risk that when the chariot turned back into a pumpkin week 18 of last year in Detroit for Sam Donald, that they can turn the pumpkin back into a chariot. Yeah, but you know, Mike, I gotta, I gotta say, I know you watched him a lot as a Vikings fan. Those are a lot of those are some pretty gaudy numbers for just to be a pumpkin. And so maybe somewhere in between. He's not, he's not, I'm seeing ghost New York Jets, Sam Darnell. He's not Carolina and Darnell. And maybe he's not quite Minnesota. What we saw last year either. He's somewhere just, you know, in between there. And what does that get you? So I think they're hoping it gets you a younger version, essentially what we had in Gino Smith, he's just younger. And he'll get, he'll approximate Gino for us, especially we're at Minnesota is a good team. We're a good team too. We're not bad. We're not dysfunctional like the teams he played for. So we have the right infrastructure around him. We've got good receivers. We got a good scheme. We can get what we can get from Sam Darnell, what we got from Gino Smith at a better price and we'll have it longer. There were some rough spots for Sam Darnell during the course of the 2024 season and very few quarterbacks go wire to wire spectacular. He had a not great game against the Jets in London. Now the Vikings scored a lot of points early and held on, but the Jets defense put the clamps on the Vikings. There was talk coming out of that. Did they provide the blueprint for how to deal with the Sam Darnell Vikings? Now after that, the Vikings, you know, they lost two straight games. He wasn't horrible in those two games, but then he had a couple of interceptions on a Sunday night game against the Colts against Jacksonville. That was the low watermark for him. They won 12 to seven. He had three interceptions and no touchdown passes of 48.2 rating. And if they had J.J. McCarty healthy on the sideline, that's when you start wondering is Sam Darnell in trouble. And this is why I believed firmly Michael that if he had stayed in Minnesota on a one year deal, because I think if he had stayed for two years, firm two years, J.J. McCarty would have said, I'm out. I want to be traded. If he had stayed on a one year deal and McCarthy was the backup, you couldn't have replicated 2024 because Darnell didn't have to ever worry about any serious threat to pull him into the sideline and take his place. So that thing last year in Minnesota was a rarity. Everything lined up just right. And although it, it seemed a little iffy at times as to whether or not the Vikings were going to come to that conclusion, they ultimately did. And now the Seahawks are hoping that they can just plug and play. We're going to plug and play. We're going to take out Gino Smith and we're going to plug in Sam Darnell and we're going to be as good or better than we were that when you're talking about the most important position on the field, that is a bold strategy. And when we have seen teams do this in the past, when they have let the bird in the hand go, they usually go try to get the two in the bush. This is the bird in the hands gone. We just got a cheaper version of the same bird. We think that's what makes it I think different. This isn't like we're like the Vikings in 2017 going into 2018. They let case Keenum go after he'd had a special season with the Vikings, even more special than Sam Darnell, because actually want to play off game. What a game. NFC championship. Let case Keenum go going all in and all out for for Kirk cousins. It made sense. It made sense. Could it kept case Keenum for a lot less but more than case Keenum had ever made in his life. We're going to let him go. We're going all in. We're taking it next level. This feels like Seahawks are taking it same level, but cheaper. That's where I think this is different from some of these other bold quarterbacks movies that we've seen where you let a guy go who's good enough and you go try to get a guy who's a lot better. This is we're letting a guy go who's good enough and replacing him with someone who we hope is good enough to. Yeah, same level, but cheaper and our guy knows him. Our guy has worked with him before, so we feel better about it, but you're right. It's less of a risk now because of, well, frankly, because of Sam Darnell's quarterback class. Top of that draft, Baker Mayfield, with the same path as, really, same path as Darnell, wasn't the Jets. It was Cleveland, Cleveland to Carolina, and then finally on to McVeigh, and then he makes it in Tampa, and Sam Darnell has done it. Geno Smith did a version of it, a much longer, much more adventurous version of it, of leaving a bad team, finding a good one, and then finding success. I think a lot of these coaches look at them and say, look, we're not, we're honest with ourselves. We're not a bad organization. So bad organizations make mistakes, and they do stupid things. We won't do stupid things. We'll be able to get the maximum. This guy has any talent at all. We'll be able to get it out of him. And so it's just a matter of how do they, how do they view Darnell versus Geno? Do they look at him as similar, or do they like Darnell a little bit more than Geno Smith? Do they think that, you know, he's got a better arm, I can't imagine, better arm, or is he a better decision maker, or is he more scheme specific for what they're trying to do? Because otherwise, it is. You're right. It's, it's very, it's very similar. It's not like they drop down to a five win team. It's not like they become a 13 win team going from Geno to Sam. I think it's as simple as you know, Smith wants too much. Let's go find another Geno Smith and pay him a lot less. I think they just view him as equal as interchange. Mike, that's how that's what I think. Mike, you can't make that up. Look at the yards. You can't make this up. Yeah. Yeah. One yard. Look, that's the bottom line. We're getting the same guy for a hell of a lot less than what the other guy wanted. And that's what we're going to do. And to reiterate a point that I've been making all week, folks, there's no way the Seahawks did not know they were getting Sam Darnell. Yeah, when they traded Geno Smith, you don't play that kind of game with the most important position on the field. And it was funny, Michael, earlier in the week, you know, there's, there's a couple of rules to being an insider rule number one, when you copy and paste the contract information, add the names of the agents who negotiate it. But also I was watching some of the coverage on Monday when Twitter was down. So we had to go like old school and watch TV to hear what people were reporting to see the even even more skillful than explaining to little Jimmy and Jenny why the dog is living at the farm permanently now. Like not come out and saying they already know they're getting Sam Darnell. Like, and this wasn't just negotiated today. Like, and so, oh, well, you know, when they when they negotiate when they found out Geno Smith and then they had to, yeah, and now they have Sam Darnell. Like everybody with any ounce of common sense knows the Seahawks blatantly tampered with Geno Smith or with Sam Darnell, excuse me, and had this deal set up before they pulled the pin on the Geno Smith trade. It would be ludicrous. It would be malpractice. It would be a fireable offense. If John Schneider traded Geno Smith without knowing who the replacement would be. And I guess we're not supposed to say that out loud, but I don't care because that's exactly what happened. Well, when you talk about these, and I just want to make sure when you talk about these, these coaches and general managers, not always telling the truth, especially this time of year, like this time of year, I expect everybody to lie. If you're saying something, I expect it's going to be some version of the truth, but not the actual truth. You're not saying you're offended by it, are you? Because I'm not offended. I'm not offended by it. Here's what I'm offended by. The people who are in our jobs going along with it and covering for them. I was reading some stuff about John Feinstein who died yesterday at the age of 69. He's written 45 books. He's one of the most respected sports writers of all time. And I did, I think I was on his radio show once or twice years ago, but I didn't know him personally, and I didn't know much about him, but I plan to learn more about him because he strikes me based upon what I've seen as somebody who took no bullshit, who did the job the right way, who didn't play games for access, who said what needed to be said. And for those of us who try to live our lives that way, when everybody else is good soldiers, and they won't say the quiet thing out loud, and they won't tell the audience how the sausage is made when the audience has every right to know how the sausage is made. That's what I get upset about. I expect the coaches, the GMs, the players to lie because they don't want to complicate their lives. Look at what happened with the Marcus Lawrence and Michael Parsons for telling the truth. I expect more from the people who do what we do. Let's not get so and I understand. Oh, people have mortgages. They have families. But when the whole industry is kind of morphed into this, we're an external branch of the team and league PR, it makes it harder and harder for the people who are committed to telling the truth because the subjects of the coverage are now spoiled by the fact that the media that covers them is bought and paid for and will never say anything that might offend the emperor. That's the problem. I think that's one of the reasons why Vienna fell from time to time will complain to NBC about me because they've got a whole army of reporters who are on the payroll who know they're never going to step out of line lest they be fired. Yeah, it's a fair point. 100% fair point and you made the statement about John Schneider trying to explain it to the kids. The reason he said it that way is because he understands at the time I did real timeline, you can't really tell the real timeline or the whole, the whole, I mean, like everything is exposed. We'll find out the entire thing. There's no way. I'm sorry, John. There's just no way that you're having conversations with Geno Smith and then you decide the conversations are going well and we've got a pivot and all of a sudden we've got a multi-year contract with Sam Darnold. That's not how it happened. This is no way. If these contracts come together, they don't come together that quickly where you wait until 1201 and then all of a sudden you talk for a minute and then oh, you're going to sign this docu sign? No, it takes a lot of, there's some work that has to be done before the actual contract is agreed to and that work is usually not done in 24 hours or 36 hours. So you're right. I think most people with common sense understand this. We need to start saying it. And the tampering is rampant. This isn't just a Seahawks thing. What happens is it's so rampant, but if you're not blatant about it, the NFL looks the other way. And my frustration is I feel like the people who cover the NFL will refrain from saying it was blatant because they don't want to get a phone call from their source in Seattle saying, Hey, man, what the hell? Why are you? Why are you putting this on blast? Everybody else does it too. Why are you saying that we tampered and and I get your Seahawks information from somebody else? Asshole. That's, that's the access game. That's the access game. And, and I think the more that we have reporters who are beholden to that so they can get to Twitter 37 seconds before their competitors, the more willing they are to set aside the duty to the audience because they're more concerned about having somebody mad at them in Seattle because they dared to say what we all know that the moment they found out that Gino Smith wanted 45 million a year. They're at the Combine in Indianapolis. They got on the phone with Sam Darnell's agent and said let's have a drink and they worked out a tentative deal and then they knew they could trade Gino Smith. I don't know that that's exactly how it went down, but there's no way in hell the process to pivot away from Gino Smith started at 1201 Eastern on Monday. Yeah, the the tampering happens before the legal tampering period. We know that it's just a matter of when did it start? Who knows, but it wasn't. Hey, we gotta we gotta wait until this moment because this is what the league says and the league knows it too. Hey, they'll just get you they'll just get you when you when you just put when you make it too blatant. I'll give you the come full circle. Since it's the theme of the day, I'll give you a baseball example of baseball years ago as a picture for the Yankees on a cold day. Everybody understands and the hitters want this too in baseball. They want you to rub something on your hands. They want the pitchers to do it. The hitters do because otherwise, on really cold days, pitchers can't control the ball and that puts them in danger. So if you have like some pine tar on your hands, okay, umpires get it, hitters get it. It's illegal, but it's helping us all cool. Just don't make it blatant with us. I can't remember the Yankees pitchers name. He had it on his neck. He had like a god of it. All of his neck. And so he kept going to his neck. And the umpires just say, look, man, come on. Don't you have any game? Don't you know about subtlety? I'm allowing you to cheat, but I can't allow you to cheat when you have it on your neck and you keep rubbing your hand on your neck. So he finally threw him out of the game. And I think that's right. And it felt that's the way the NFL looks at it. Don't don't put it. Don't make it so obvious that it's in our face during the break. I'm going to ask Google AI about this. And I guarantee you that it will tell me about the time that that pitcher saved someone from a foul ball. That'll be the first line. And look, here's the best example. I know we have to go because his name Michael Penade. We got it. We got to complete the circle on this because I was asked this yesterday at WDAE in Tampa. Why is it that the NFL ever punishes anyone for tampering? And the example was the dolphins getting hammered a couple of years ago for tampering with Tom Brady and Sean Payton. And in that case, it was blatant. In that case, it was one hand at the bottom of the cookie jar and the other hand, given the middle finger to the league. And it never would have gone anywhere because Sims and I were talking about the whole off season. Hey, the dolphins had this plan where they were going to hire Sean Payton after he quit the Saints and Tom Brady was going to go to work there as an executive. And then he was going to go from executive to quarterback at some point in in April or May. And nobody and and to our point, none of the other insiders said Jack Diddley poo about it. And they all knew. But man, we can't Oh, we can't go down that path. We're going to get people in trouble. And it never would have happened but for Brian Flores filing the lawsuit, Brian Flores accusing Stephen Ross of offering $100,000 per loss. Mary Jo Ross, Mary Jo White, Mary Jo White, Stephen Ross, Mary Jo White, not Stephen White, Mary Jo Ross, Mary Jo White hired by the NFL to go in and investigate. And it's like getting audited. They go in there looking for one thing, they're going to find something else. She found the evidence of the tampering. And boom, they it was like everything had to just happen just right for one of the most blatant acts of tampering to be punished by the NFL. They don't want to do it. Michael, I'm firmly committed. And after this, I promise I'll take a break. They don't want to show the world all the ways these teams cheat. Because at some point, if they do, you're going to have a prosecutor, you're going to have a member of Congress, you're going to have somebody stand up and say, there's a hell of a lot of corruption going on in the National Football League, we better go find out just how much there is. And we better make those folks accountable. I think there's a lot that goes on that the NFL looks the other way on because the NFL doesn't want the heat from the outside. And if everybody knew everything that was being done to cheat the injury reports, tampering, every way that cheating happens, there would be hell to pay. And the NFL would be putting out a ton of fires dealing with grand juries and hearings and this that and the other. All right, now we'll take a break. We're returning his DK Metcalf nervous about the Pittsburgh quarterback situation. If he's not, he should be more PFT live right after this. 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And then secondly, they made me feel like they had the they had the right decision, you know, with who was going to be throwing me the football. And, you know, I'm not making a decision in the quarterback room. So I'm just going to try to do the best of my abilities to, you know, help whoever they have out there throwing the football. So, you know, they make the correct decisions, you know, to bring the quarterback in here. So I'm just going to roll with that. I must say, I must say, DK Metcalf looking pretty good in Steelers colors. Not that he didn't look good in Seahawks colors, but there's something natural about the fit 150 million dollar contract will make the fit even better from the players standpoint. I'd like to know what they told him, not that he's going to tell us, but they had to have a plan and how much of what they told him a week ago has or hasn't come to fruition. Michael Holly, because we get the Aaron Rodgers thing still hanging out there. Russell Wilson's taking visits, Mason Rudolph is back. I'd love to know what they told him and whether it meshes with what's unfolded. This is what they told him. Hey, DK, do you know where PNC Bank is? Everything's going to be fine. The contract we gave you is insured. It's going to work. The money is already there. The guarantees are there. So he's got his money. I think that's the number one thing for him. And the other thing is, it's not what they told him. It's what he knows about the Steelers. Somehow they figure it out. Somehow they're going to win more games than they lose, or worse case, they'll be nine and eight. That's just what's going to happen. eight eight and one. Eight eight and one. Eight eight and one. Yeah. That's the worst case. Eight eight and one. Yeah. And they'll figure this thing out. I don't think Mason Rudolph is the answer. And Russell Wilson's probably not the answer, but whatever they said to him or whatever he feels, I think when you go to the Steelers and you know the tradition is, the baseline is competitiveness. They haven't won a playoff game in a long time, but we know they're going to be competitive. And if they can make a shrewd move or two, you know, maybe they'll get to the point when a when a playoff game, maybe it's Aaron Rodgers. Maybe that's what they told him. The stakes are higher though, because now that you're paying this guy 30 million on a on a five year deal, 33 million new money. If we care about that analysis and I really don't, it's just winning Rome. They're paying 150 million over five years period. How do you get value out of DK Metcalf? You got to have a quarterback that can get in the football. You got to have a commitment to get in the football and you have a quarterback who can get in the football. And that's why I think Aaron Rodgers has a little extra leverage now. And that may be one of the reasons why he's out there strolling around the beach in his Darth Vader Cape. I don't know. But Mason Rudolph is back on a two year deal. Last year, 2023, it's easy to forget little details like this. Mason Rudolph took over for Kenny Pickett late in the year. Kenny Pickett was soft benched by the Steelers late in the 2023 season. Rudolph went 3 and 0 and and went to the playoffs and did not embarrass himself in Buffalo on that game. They got bumped from Sunday to Monday because of the snow. It was 31 to 17 and it was actually close for a while. It actually was, oh my god, the Steelers might have a chance here with Mason Rudolph at quarterback. He becomes a free agent. He wants too much money and they have this Russell Wilson minimum salary fall into their laps because the Broncos owed him the balance between the minimum 1.2 and 39 million. They trade for Justin Fields in the last year of his rookie contract. They had Wilson Fields and Kyle Allen for less than Mason Rudolph got last year for the Titans. Now that ship is sailed Rudolph's back and I think we need to take Rudolph seriously as a potential plan A. I think that Rudolph closes the door on Russell Wilson. I don't think they ever wanted Russell Wilson back. I think they said all the right things. They acted respectfully when they said we want to bring back Russell Wilson or Justin Fields. I think they meant we want to bring back Justin Fields and we're going to use the possibility of Wilson to squeeze fields to take less. I don't think they have any interest in bringing back Russell Wilson. And the fact that Wilson has visited the Browns and now is visiting the Giants tells us he knows that doors shut in Pittsburgh. And I think I don't know this, but I think bringing back Mason Rudolph shuts the door on Russell Wilson. Okay, if it shuts the door on Russell Wilson, do you think it shuts the door also on Aaron Rodgers? No, no, just Wilson. It's going to be Rodgers. It's going to be Rodgers and Rudolph, or it's going to be Rudolph and name your guy Joe Flacco, James Winston. They're going to bring somebody else to compete with Rudolph, or it's going to be Rodgers one and Rudolph two. All right, this is where I have a problem with the Steelers then. If Mason Rudolph is a legitimate QB one for you, if that's your starting option, then you're doing the same things that you've always done. You've done since Ben Rauffersberger retired. You're just trying to cobble it together. You know, Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, they had a guy. What was the guy, Duck. Duck Hodges, Devlin? Duck Hodges. Remember the duck? They had a duck in there too. You know what that does, Mike? All it does is get you to eight, eight and one or nine and eight. You keep the street going of saying you haven't had a losing season. You make the playoffs barely and you get into the playoffs and you lose. So that can't be it. If Kenny Pickett is the number one option, okay, so you're not the Carolina Panthers. You're not the Browns. You're going to win game. You're not the Tennessee Titans, but you're a playoff team with really no shot of advancing in the playoffs. You know, what would you rather do? Just keep getting to the playoffs and ownership. You know, get to the playoffs and you got to you got you open up the gates and you sell more beer, hot dogs and popcorn, but you're not winning any games. So what's the point? Devlin Duck Hodges started six games in the 2019 season and actually was, you know, not horrible. Like he's long gone from the NFL now, but he wasn't horrible in part because they have a good team around him. Here's the difference between the Seahawks and the Steelers, Michael. When the Seahawks do the deal in principle to trade Geno Smith to the Raiders, they know what their quarterback position is going to be. They know they're getting Sam Donald. There's nothing anyone can say that will change my mind on the fact that they knew they were getting Donald before they said to the Raiders, you're getting Geno Smith contrast that with the Steelers doing the deal with the Seahawks for DK Metcalf. They should have had the deal with Aaron Rogers in place. That's the time to do it. Hey, Aaron, Aaron, listen, we're considering making a trade here for a high end receiver and we're paying them a lot of money and we need to be sure we're going to have a quarterback who can deliver them the football. We would like it to be you. Here's our offer. We need to know by five o'clock Eastern today, otherwise the offer is revoked and we're going to move forward with somebody else. Whoever it was, they needed to get their quarterback lined up before they did the DK Metcalf trade. Would it have been tampering? Yes, but welcome to big boy NFL where tampering happens as long as you're subtle about it. You can't put yourself in a position like this where your fan base has spent the whole week crapping their pants, wondering what's going to happen. All the Steelers fans I know, think, uh, what, what are they going to do? What are we going to do? What are we going to do? Who are we going to get? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. They should have known all of this before they did the DK Metcalf trade. They should have known exactly who the guy is going to be and there should be no guesswork and no let's wait and see. I know it's kind of good for intrigue and they're going to press F five on Steelers.com. This isn't good for your fan base to have a peer to time where it looks like the organization doesn't know what the hell it's doing. Yeah, and this is one of the we applaud the Steelers a lot. I love, you know, I love my Mike Tomlinisms and the Tomlin quotes, but we have to say they've done a bad job. They've done a bad job at the quarterback spot for several years. If you just step back and think about some of the decisions that they've made, whether it's holding on to Benton, Roethlisberger a year too long, whether it's having Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, both in that room last year and now you're walking away. You don't have either of them and Fields goes to the Jets for a deal that, I mean, theoretically, you could have given them that deal if you believed in Justin Fields. You don't believe in Justin Fields. You don't believe in Russell Wilson. You moved on from Mason Rudolph. Now he's coming back, having an offer out to Aaron Rodgers. You don't know what he's going to do. You draft Kenny Pickett. He doesn't perform to your expectations. So they really have fumbled the most important position in football. And that surprises me because you'd expect that from a lesser organization, not necessarily the Steelers. They drafted Mason Rudolph 2018, round three. And Mason Rudolph was there for six years before his one year journey to Tennessee 2018. So they're thinking quarterback. They're using a fairly high pick on a quarterback late in Ben Roethlisberger's career. That same year, they could have had Lamar Jackson. They took Terrell Edmonds, four picks before Lamar Jackson was taken by the Baltimore Ravens. Think about that alternate reality, where Lamar Jackson is a stealer. And they were so concerned about tiptoeing on eggshells around Ben, just like they tiptoeed on eggshells around Terry Bradshaw and then take Dan Marino. What a difference that would be for the Steelers if they had Lamar Jackson and the Ravens didn't. All right, let's take a break. Is there a new veteran quarterback in play for the New Jersey Giants? We'll look at that next year on PFT Live. My first pin, I'm gonna go with the popcorn. Listen, it's a safe put. Next pick, I'm gonna go with the dipping dogs. Damn it. You got to get the, you know, the younger generation involved. Kids love dipping dog. I'm gonna stick with the pretzel. I'm gonna go back salty. You say to the people that say that food is soft. Well, listen, he's got experience. He's been doing it for a long time. In the third round, I think it's a steal. I'm gonna get the frozen strawberry lemonade. If you're at a baseball stadium, seventh inning, I mean, you turn to that frozen lemonade after you've had the popcorn after you've had the pretzel, it's good to end the game. Crispy Coke, we're good to go. I like it in five because it's been around the block a long time. You think Coke will coke me or captain? We're gonna have to have a team discussion when we get all the players in. Sure, sure. So yeah, I don't want to run together. They don't want to rush them. No, you can't draft the guy in the name of captain. You know, he's got to earn that right. Oh, there we go. Courtney promised that that would be relevant to something we discussed. I didn't know whether it was going to be pine tar. I didn't know whether it was going to be saving a kid who didn't hit by a foul ball. But it all comes back to you can't give the guy the captain right on the way through the door. Well done. Bonnecks. Bonnecks. We hadn't seen much of his personality in a year. And I remember, I remember interviewing him at the combine last year and look, combines a difference because the guys are uptight and they're worried and they're nervous. But I like that. I like that from Bonnecks. The bread basket podcast, by the way, don't want to upset anyone by not mentioning it was the bread basket podcast. He bought into it. That's, that's what made it great too. He went all in on the food draft. And I'm disappointed in you, Mike. I wanted to say earlier, you said popcorn. You have a popcorn machine. No, the way to do it is to actually do it. Do it the Michael Holly way. Put some oil in a pot. You got the kernels. And you do it yourself, you shake it over the stove over the over the flame. And you have authentic homemade popcorn. And you can dress it up any way you want I am. I'm serious about my popcorn. We know machines do that. We know machines do that. That was how we did it when I was a kid. The oil at the bottom of the pot and the popcorn starts to go. And you hear the, you hear them pinging off the inside of the pot. And then, and then, and then the lid starts to rise a little bit off of when the, when the lid separated from the pot, you knew it was getting close. I just always worried about like, when do you take off the lid? Because you don't want that last pop to go in your eye. You could, you could injure your, your cornea. I was always worried about that last pop once you took the top off. And when you do it that way, you are destined to get some nasty ass burned kernels at the bottom. And they were nasty, but they were also good, probably carcinogenic, but, but nasty. Sometimes they'd be brown. Sometimes they'd be like black, like nasty scorched. So yeah, we used to do that all the time. And then, and then Michael, hey, you already had a hot pan ready to go. You just put some butter in there, put a little bubble, swish it around, swish it around that pan, sizzle it down, and then, and then drizzle it over the top of the popcorn. You were good to go. Just a little, you ever put any Parmesan cheese on it too? Yeah, it gets a little nasty, though. It creates a cloud of nasty, funky smell in the house. Smells. Nothing like a great popcorn smell. Nothing like it. No, but when you get that cheese on there, it can just, it can, the combination is kind of like to Marcus Lawrence and Michael Parsons. It just, that's right. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work. All right. My kids, my kids go microwave popcorn. And I feel like I feel like there's just that they're spitting in my face. It's just so different. Did you do Jiffy Pop? Yeah. Yeah, I should do it. Now that would burn. Jiffy Pop would burn like 60% of the time. Well, my mom would never buy Jiffy Pop because to your point, you don't need that fancy stuff. All you need is your pot and you need some popcorn and you need some oil. You don't need Jiffy Pop. Pre-made with that, that foil crown that, you know, who cares? Who cares? That's all, that's all fluff. That's all sizzle. That has nothing to do with the popcorn. We can make better popcorn here. All right. Now I really want popcorn and I really want my, and I can't remember the brand of it, but with the chocolate drizzle and the tiny little M&M's problem is the tiny little M&M's you think you're getting a kernel of popcorn and you think you're going to break your tooth and then you realize it's a little chocolate M&M. It's a nice surprise to find out you're not actually going to break your tooth on the kernel. Okay. The Giants, Giants fans breaking their teeth from gnashing and grinding them, trying to figure out who their quarterback is going to be. Joe Flacco, Joe Flacco visiting the Giants on Thursday, they're bringing in Russell Wilson today. Hey, hey, you know, I asked Chris Sims about this yesterday. Are you queasy as a Giants fan about the quarterback position? Yes, he is. Why wouldn't you be? Who the hell do they have? And unless they trade up the number one to take Cam Ward, which it looks like the Titans are locked in on that proposition, you can't draft somebody at three overall. You can't justify your door Sanders at three overall. They got a mess. And maybe it will be Flacco back the new jersey with the Jets at one point. Maybe he goes back to New Jersey with the Giants. The hell you can't justify should George Sanders, Sanders and number three overall. If you're the Giants, if you are, you'd have to trade down. If you take him at three, you're going to get dragged by your fan base. You'd have to come down a little bit. I think that's okay. All right. You either hear your options. You can get dragged by the fan base by taking Shador Sanders at number three. And it's funny. And I'll get back to that in a second. Sanders at number three, the fans don't like it. Oh, why why'd you take them there? You could have had them at 15 or 20. I don't know. Versus your jobs on the line. So you're putting your job in the hands of Russell Wilson or Joe Flacco or Tommy DeVito or Aaron Rodgers. I don't know. I mean, I would rather, if I'm them, give me the rookie quarterback. A lot of people, we just heard from Bo Nix. A lot of people thought that that was a stretch at 12. Like, oh, Sean Page is going to go with Bo Nix. This guy's not a first rounder. He's like a second or third rounder at best. And he turned out to be a really good pick for them. I think, I think the over analysis, I think we've gotten into over analysis with Sanders too. He's a good quarterback. Is he unbelievable? Is he the best quarterback prospect we've seen in the last 10 years? No, is he the Deon Sanders of quarterbacks? No. But I think he's pretty good. And I think he helps the Giants. I would much rather go that option, go that route than what they're, but what else they're left with. The alternatives don't look good to me. I don't disagree with you. The problem is the Giants are sufficiently dysfunctional, where they're in this weird spot where they've kept Joe Shane as GM. They've kept Brian Dayball as head coach. But John Maris says in basically the next breath, I've about run out of patience. So there's this vibe that they need to win now. So you bring in should or Sanders, you don't win now. Somebody else develops should or Sanders, you're gone. That's the argument against even a cam ward. You go young at quarterback, you need John Marra to give Shane and Dayball more time. The vibe can't be playoffs or get the hell out of here and someone else would develop the on quarterback. And I don't know if I've shared with you, and we don't have time for me to go all the way down this theory. I think Dion Sanders is playing 4D chess. I don't know if we've talked about this. I think when Dion Sanders says he would only come to the NFL to coach his son. At some level, he is scaring off the coaches of the teams where the coach isn't sufficiently secure in his position. Because if you draft should or Sanders, you're signing your own pink slip. This is a way I think to engineer should door to land with a coach who's not troubled by the possibility that Dion would want his job. That the team is properly functional and will put the most around him. I think it was next level genius by Dion to put that out there because that's a way to scare away the crappy teams that would potentially ruin should door right out of the gates. Give me a quick thought on that and then we'll take a break. Yeah, it is a it's a great thought. I love the theory. I don't think so. I don't think that that Dion would want to coach his son and his son would want to be coached by him in the pros. Worked at Jackson State, worked at Colorado, the pros he wants to go his own way. And the only other thing I'll say Mike is whether the Giants have Joe Flacco or a veteran or Shador Sanders can ward. I think they'll win the same amount of games. I think it's the same amount of games. Seven, eight. So hey, you're going to go with Joe Flacco. Is that going to get you not, you know, win 10 games? Well, Flacco is your full time starter. First of all, he won't last as your full time starter because he's just not at that point in his career. So I think just go with go with the young quarterback and see what happens. All right, we need to take a break. But just on my point on Dan, I'm not saying he's serious about it. I'm just saying he's saying it to scare off the coaches that would be threatened by it. That's a way to beat out the bad teams. I think that's the genius of it. Let's take a break. When we return, Pedro Holmes has a new backup. We'll tell you who it is next here on PFT Live. Girlfriend who's a teeny while I play around. That girlfriend is in Canada or goes to a different school. If the Cardinals are 10, there's a lot of 15s and 17s and 18s in the National Football League right now, Michael Hawley. Yeah, I mean, that's, I love the line. I just wish he had said it about somebody else. All right, the Cardinals. I don't think so. Let's go back to the Mike, let's go back to the NFL PA survey and see if he the only one who thinks the Cardinals are a 10. I don't think so. Now maybe there are 10 from the standpoint of were they willing to offer him what he wanted. If that's the only team that's going to pay him what he wants, then maybe that makes them attend in that category, but not even the most ardent Cardinals fan would be able to not laugh when hearing Baron Browning describe the Cardinals as a 10. They know what they are. They know who they are. They're trying to change it and maybe they will. Maybe Josh Sweat makes a difference. Maybe year three with Rich, Jonathan Ganon, not Rich Ganon, no relation as far as I know. Jonathan Ganon, maybe year three, they turn it around. But come on, they got a long way to go to be competitive. They got a long way to go to be a 10 if we are truly grading it on a curve that way because there are plenty of better spots right now in the NFL. All right, one team that would fall closer to 10, far closer than the Cardinals, the Kansas City Chiefs. They have a new backup quarterback, Gardner Minshew, Gardner Minshew, who entered the league in 2019 as the backup to Nick Foles, six round pick out of Eastern Washington, ended up playing week one against the Chiefs. Minshew came off the bench. Nick Foles fractured a collarbone. Gardner Minshew came in, played well, did pretty well as a rookie, earned a second year as a full-time starter, and that didn't go well. They drafted Trevor Lawrence. He's bounced around the NFL ever since last year as a starter. The Raiders didn't work out, but now he'll be the backup to Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. And what that tells me is, I mean, not that he had a starting option, but like Pittsburgh and the Giants weren't in play, the Browns weren't in play, places where he could play weren't in play. He's going to a place where he knows he's only playing if Patrick Mahomes gets injured. Yeah, and he's, he's probably, I haven't counted, but he's probably made decent money considering his profile. And so, Gardner, he knows what he is, I think. What he is, Mike, is he's a guy who comes in for the cameo on the show. He's a special guest character. He comes in for a few minutes, then gets out of there, gets a few laughs, walks off stage, and then it keeps it moving. When he's a starter, his all of his flaws are exposed. As a backup, a backup who doesn't have to play for two or three weeks in a row, you can do a lot worse. So I think it's a good fit for him. There's a great video of Gardner Menchoo celebrating with his dad after in a game with the Eagles, Menchoo played and won. And Menchoo's got like this Tom Cruise bomber jacket and his dad's in full Eagles regalia and they're hugging and they're punching and Miles Simmons with one of the all time great lines. When he saw that video, he said that video smells like cigarettes. And I'm watching it now. And I can smell, I can literally, the old factory sense has triggered the odor of burning tobacco, even though as far as I know there is none in my house right now. Let's take a break. More PFT live right after this. On a week with plenty of new guys in, David Andrews is out and we've said this probably about every team at some point. You've just fired someone in no workplace. When you are fired, do they put a billboard out in front of the facility saying thank you. There's a another word that ends in K preceding the U that is put up there typically in situations like that. But that's went and wrong. That's what happens. Thank you, David Andrews. Now pack your stuff and leave. Michael, I was surprised are you by that move and and what do you make? Just big picture of what the Patriots have done this week. As I've said, they're spending like drunken sailors on a sinking ship. All right. Well, I would say, what do I make of this move? It tells me that David Andrews's career is over because his his personality, his makeup is exactly what what Mike Vable would want. It's one of the great free agent classes in Patriots history. Vable was a part of it. So he, Vable understands the value of somebody like David Andrews. That's his kind of guy. And this just tells me he'd like to have Andrews and Andrews, you know, was was out last year with the very serious injury. And he probably can't recover. And it's something that has been discussed the last couple of years here. How long will Andrews play? He's tough. He's one of the toughest players who's been through Foxboro in the last 10 or 15 years. He's a eight time captain, just a stand up guy. So there's no way Vable would say that guy can't help us if he's healthy. So I think he's not healthy. And I think he's going to retire. Overall though, Patriot business, Mike, they have the worst roster in football they did in 2024. All those guys, even though a lot of overpays there, they needed them. Just that's just how bad they've been the last couple of years. At some level, is this either directly or indirectly a slap at what Bill Belichick left behind? Yes. Yes, they've drafted terribly. So even even when you bring in, you know, good players, Milton Williams, that's a really good signing. I think Spelane is a good signing. Not like all these guys. These are good players. But now you put them with what the Patriots already have. And they just, they've drafted terribly. Their offensive line draft picks since 2016. It's embarrassing. A lot of these guys aren't even in football anymore. So yeah, that's on Belichick and whoever he was relying on or whoever, whoever he was relying on or whoever he was silencing when he said, yeah, I want that guy. I want that guy. I want that guy. Lots of misses. Well, we'll see how it plays out for the Patriots. They definitely have work to do to turn it around, but they've got the right coach and they're spending the money and they've got the right quarterback. A lot of people around the league very impressed with Drake May. This 2024 quarterback class could end up going six for six when it's all said and done with guys who come to the NFL. The big question marks continue to be Michael Panex. We haven't seen much of him, but he looks good so far. We don't know anything about JJ McCarthy yet. The other guys have all been very good. Even even though the Bears struggled last year, there's a lot of good in Kayla Williams. So we'll see how it plays out. Let's take a break. We're going to wrap up this Friday edition, run PFT, PFT Live, an important Jim Rice update right after this. We were talking about this during a break. One of the great all time sports illustrated covers Jim Rice and Dave Parker, the Cobra back to back. Michael Holly remembered it. I found the image. I think I have the episode in my archives up here, the episode, the edition, the issue would be the word and you're right. Dave Parker was a large human being. I mean, my Jim Rice is not a small man. He was not he was not small when he played. He's not small now, but back to back with Dave Parker, it looks like, okay, here's this little guy who's going to challenge me as a great hitter. And I think that was coming off. I don't know what Dave Parker did in 78. I know Jim Rice, one was American League MVP that year over four. It didn't hit for the cycle, but had over 400 total bases and probably 14 or 15 triples. So he was he was immense. He was a force. He still is. Didn't also didn't save anyone in the stands that year. That didn't happen until August 7 of 1982. Dave Parker, 1979, back when the all-star game actually mattered. A long time ago, kids, there was a time when the all-star game actually mattered. Parker was tour de force in that game. And the one thing that that still resonates, somebody hit a ball into the Bermuda Triangle right beyond first base where he could hit there and a guy could get inside the park home run potentially. Parker got that ball on a bounce and fired the guy out at third. One of the one of the great, I got to find that video. If I find it, I'll send it to you. Everybody else, you just got to find it. I'm not sending it to all of you. Oh, great hat, great hat with the stars on it. The willy stars and stars. We are family. Have a great weekend. Experience the flavors of Latin America event at Whole Foods Market with deals on vibrant ingredients and zesty creations store wide. Save on no antibiotics ever meet like chicken thighs and marinated skirt steak, fresh avocados, plus street food inspired items and more through March 25. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. 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Hour 2: Mike Florio (@ProFootballTalk) and Michael Holley (@MichaelSHolley) discuss latest news in NFL including Seahawks GM John Schneider on Geno Smith departure, Seahawks HC Mike Macdonald on Sam Darnold arrival and DK Metcalf on joining the Steelers.
