(00:00) Dolphins place Tua Tagovailoa on IR (concussion)
(28:19) Mike McDaniel on signing QB Tyler Huntley
(43:38) Mike Tomlin on Justin Fields as starting QB
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Dolphins place Tua Tagovailoa on IR (concussion) + Mike Tomlin on Justin Fields as starting QB
At Sling TV, we'd like to know, do you want to take your love of college football to the next level? Does a bulldog bark, and a duck quack, and a long horn, uh, moo? With Sling, you get access to hundreds of games on the biggest networks all for the best price. Go with the obvious choice, streaming the games you love, and saving on them too. That's taking your fandom to the next level. Visit Sling.com and start watching live. The college football you love, the live TV you love. Sling. Hey, Mackeyberry here. Subscribe to Fantasy Life Plus featuring the Rotorworld draft guide, and get award-winning fantasy, betting, and DFS bulls, including a mock draft simulator. Just go to fantasylife.com/rotorworld, and use code Rotorworld10 to save 10% on your subscription. Well, I'm in a part of some of those things. I mean, Randall Cobb threw a moo test down his first game, was the first player in the 90s to score. It just gets a little weird when, you know, you're playing against head coaches you played against, uh, uh, you're playing with guys that could be your kid age-wise. Um, you know, it's a good reminder of how special it is to be playing at, uh, at 40. It is special to be playing football at 40. It's special to be living at 59. I know that. Hey, we're all going to get there one way or the other. I came to terms with that. You know, it's funny. I refer Michael Holly and welcome in, welcome back. I'm glad you agreed to do it again. Most would say after one hour of exposure to me, no effing way. I'm never doing it again. So I appreciate your charity returning to the program. But I refer to the Tuesday edition now as Tuesdays with McCordy. It's a slight twist on the book that I read in the 90s called Tuesdays with Maury by Mitch Alba, massive bestseller and a great perspective book. Anybody out there who's feeling young and like the end of the line is so far away, I don't even want to contemplate it. Tuesdays with Maury was great for me. I read it in my mid thirties and it just gives you, I think, as you start getting older and as you migrate toward numbers that you'd rather not think about, it really does. At least it did for me. It helped me understand. It happens to us all. It's better than the alternative. And we just keep going forward, making the most out of the time we have. Exactly. You mentioned it. Thanks for having me back. And I'll probably be freaked out by you. Maybe after today's show, like the hour really wasn't, like you said one hour. That's true. That's true. You're showing, you're showing your best side. You're being polite. After a while, you're just going to dismiss me or something. You'll say something that pissed me off. I'm sure. So we'll see what happens today. But yesterday with McCordy, you hear him say, "Hey, you know, Mike, when you're talking about Andy Dalton, hey, I'm 37, like 37," and he's talking about how he's old at 37. And I guess what you say, perspective, live a little bit, Devin, 37 is pretty good. You'll be looking at in about 10 years, you'll say, "Oh, 37, those were the good times. Those were my peak years." I remember turning 40 and not really being all that upset about it. It's a milestone for anyone who makes it that far. And, you know, hell, the 20th anniversary that's coming up next June. So it just keeps going. I mean, that's really the reality. Life rockets by one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, one year at a time. And I've learned. And this is the message to anyone out there. I'm sure you all tuned in to Pro Football Talk Live to get this kind of shit that you really don't care about. See, I was good the last time Michael was on. I didn't drop an S-bomb, but now I did. It was like, the last time was like, you know, they do little strips on your arm to see what you're allergic to. That was what the one hour was. To just make sure you wouldn't have a massive allergic reaction. And now you get the full dose. But I mean, it's true. We just make the most of the time we have. And we don't know how much time we have. And hey, Michael, you don't know me well enough to know my story from six weeks ago when I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was dying. I had a horrible vertigo incident where I had, and we all have calcium crystals in our inner ear that can trickle out, and your whole world violently spins and twists and shakes. And I just thought, hey, this is what happens when you die. Here we go. I hope I see the light and not the alternative. Yeah, right. And I'm sure you're thinking when that happens, because I don't like, well, like I have the answer, Mike. Like anybody has the answer of how it's supposed to happen. We all think, okay, we'll get to be like, you know, late nineties, maybe even a hundred. And everybody will be around you and it'd be nice and calm. You think, not like this. Come on, this can't happen. I'm spinning. I don't know where I am. I'm in pain. I'm panicking. No, it's supposed to be, you see trees and it's a nice, you know, 78 degree day and it's sunny. And, you know, you've accomplished all the things that you want to accomplish. But in the middle of the night, panic attack, vertigo, that's not supposed to happen. I think whenever it does happen for me, and we will get to football at some point, see, this is the indoctrination that Michael Holly is going through. And frankly, you're getting to the point where I'm comfortable wasting everyone's time instead of talking about the things we're supposed to talk about right out of the gate. So this is good. We have a good connection here. We have a good audience, but I don't care. I feel like talking about other things. I feel like when the time comes from me, my attitude is going to be like strapping into a rollercoaster and it's too late to get off because here we go. And I feel like because any, because that's kind of what I thought six weeks ago, when I thought it was happening and I've had dreams from time to time where like your car's going off of a bridge. I mean, you know, we all have dark dreams from time to time. And my attitude has always been here. Here we go. Here we go. Let's see where it ends. Hopefully it's not hot. Let's let's see. Let's see where this one goes and hopefully I won't be taking that ride anytime soon along with with any of you out there who are in our fine audience. Again, he's Michael Holly. I'm Mike Florio. It's PFT live. It's a Wednesday edition and and I am glad you came back even though I I did inadvertently scar you a little bit after our last program. Hey folks, I told him the story about how I used to pee in the garbage can. When I was too excited on Saturday mornings, I wanted to watch cartoons and I forgot to go and I came down and I didn't want to miss any of even the hearing of it from the kitchen into the TV room. So I I went in the garbage can until mom said something about why is this bag wet and I realized I better stop before I get busted. He still came back even though I told him that story, you know, I came back because, you know, got my own traumatic stories that I share with you. The audience doesn't know me well enough for the story. Yeah, it may be maybe down the road, maybe down the road, share my story, which is pretty crazy. I'll know you're fully and completely comfortable in this space when you're willing to tell me the story that you told me before we get started today. Okay. So I think too, when I saw you were going to be on this week, I was like, Hey, this is great because, you know, Friday was like, I was looking forward to it and it's like, Oh man, it's kind of a heavy topic and it's stressful and we got to navigate all these different things and articulate our thoughts the right way. So no one misunderstands what we really mean. We have concern for to a talk about low in the aftermath of this concussion. So this time around will be free of all that. Oh, the first topics to a talk about low again. So, so here we go. Here we go. Time it's not, it's not as, it's heavy. We've had a chance to digest it. It's been five days. The news from yesterday to no one's surprise really to a talk about low being placed on injured reserve by the dolphins, he'll miss at least four games. They're giving him the full and complete chance. And that's the vibe we've gotten from the get go Michael that they're going to give him a full and fair opportunity to see where things are. But the doctors make good decisions, let him make good decisions. Let's not rush this. Let's let him take his time. Mike McDaniel, like I said, he had made that clear when he addressed it. After the game on Thursday night, when he addressed the media on Friday, we all kind of knew it was heading this way and they made it official on Tuesday. Yeah, and Mike McDaniel has had the perspective the entire time, Mike, that we shouldn't be talking about to his future, it's all on the player. They seem to be, unless he's doing a very good acting job, which I don't think he is, this seems to be genuine affection by Mike McDaniel toward to a advice versus they really seem to click and get along and understand the other one football is not just personality wise. They seem to be a good match. But that being said, of course, you have to, that's what a good employer and let's call Mike McDaniel the middle manager, that's what a good middle manager does. Hey, we're not going to focus on the job right now. You're going through something that is, is life altering. You have a brain injury. I'm going to focus on the injury before I start talking about the job, but it does make you wonder what do the dolphins want? This is time for two woulda think, but it's also time for the dolphins to think of what they want. If I ever shared that publicly, that would be too crass. That wouldn't be, that wouldn't be empathic if they just, you know, kind of go to an insider, one of these NFL insiders and say, hey, you know, this between us, we're hoping he retires or we're hoping he does this. But don't you wonder what do the dolphins want to happen? We focus on to a, what is the dolphins perspective the next four weeks? You know, that's an excellent point because one of the things I'll say here from time to time, every NFL franchise is a giant football machine with parts that will be changed out. It's just a question of when and how, when does this part get removed and replaced with something younger and cheaper or, or just we aren't expecting this to happen and we have to do an emergency repair on the engine. New parts got to go in. It always happens. The teams are always going to be here as long as the NFL is around and the players are always going to cycle out. And sometimes the player chooses, but usually it's the team that chooses and at some level, the dolphins want something out of this because here's the fundamental problem. We don't typically see guys who have concussions land on injured reserve. And guys who have concussions, as we said on Friday, Michael, a risk that is at the center of the radar screen of the things that can happen to you while playing football. When it happens, it's all about the player wanting to be cleared, the team wanting him to be cleared, the process playing out so he can be cleared, sometimes a player like last year, a Brock Purdy got concussed on a Monday night and was cleared to play the following Sunday. You know, it used to be the default was you'd miss a game, then it became, hey, guys are getting cleared to come back right away. It's rare that a guy goes on injured reserve. I tried to do the research earlier. I can't think of many, actually any players who have gone on injured reserve with a concussion other than to a talk of law. I'm sure there have been some, but it's not the case. This isn't usually-- I think you're right. I can't think of any either. So let's sit back and wait until he's cleared. And the question is, will he be back this week or will he be back next week? And for a guy to miss two games with a concussion, that doesn't happen all that often, but for a guy to be put on IR with a concussion, now these rules that don't shut a guy down for the whole season, they're a product of the COVID experience and there's been a move that way anyway to let guys come back from IR. Once upon a time, not that long ago, if you were put on IR, you were done, done, done, so that would explain why it didn't happen 10 years ago. But this is a guy who's been on IR twice now with concussions. 2022, season ender, Christmas day, the one that no one knew happened until the next day when he came in and they said something's wrong with Tua. And now this one, so that's what I'm struggling with, Michael. He's cleared to come back, okay, it's not like the risk of another concussion is going to be magically gone, he's walking right back into the very thing that gave him the brain injury that now has him on injured reserve. And that cycle doesn't end until he's either not cleared to play or he chooses to not continue. You know, you're so right, this is a new world for the NFL. Like, I was thinking as you were talking about players being on injured reserve with concussions, I can't think of any, not for four games. As you said, you miss a game, you miss a couple of games, and two games might be a lot for concussions. I don't think there are many guys, and that's a short list too, missing two games because of the concussion. It's happened, but it's not like 30 guys have done it. But Tua is, he's the example of, he's really precedent setting right here. The dolphins and Tua, what do you do in this situation when you've got a guy who has multiple incidents and everybody knows his history because he's a high profile player. He went to Alabama, so it happened in Alabama. We all watched Tua kind of grow up as a football player, watched him in the championship game, and we've seen these incidents that happen to happen in high profile games. They think about all of Tua's incidents, they haven't been Sunday at one, and to 15% of the country, most of the incidents have happened for all of us because we've been focused on that one thing. I can think Mike and hockey, I know there are a couple of players who have had their careers changed by concussions, either changed and ended or they missed 30 games because they were having post concussion syndrome, all these issues. I really can't think of anybody in football, so what happens with Tua sets the precedent going forward for a player who's really struggling with brain injuries. Last week, we touched on this a little bit and I acknowledged on one hand, it's too early to talk about money. On the other hand, we have to be aware of the factors that become relevant to the decisions that Tua will make. When he decided to keep playing in 2022, he didn't have $162 million in injury guarantees that would have been lost if he had just tapped out because you can't say, "Okay, I'm cleared, I'm not going to play, just give me my injury guarantees." The injury guarantees get paid to you only if you're prevented from playing and that's the ugly, sour, sweet spot in this conversation, he could be cleared and he could decide not to play and as you suggested, the Dolphins, look, if they aren't having strategic conversations about a nine-figure financial consequence, then they have no business being in business. At some level, at the Dolphins headquarters, Tom Garfinkle, Steven Ross on conference call because he doesn't live there, which has been one of the problems, frankly, for the Dolphins over the years, but they've seemed to get past that inherent dysfunction. But high-level conversations have to be happening about how does this play out? There's a flow chart that somebody's devised somewhere and there's one way the flow chart goes that they're at $162 million, less whatever insurance they purchased because his contract gave the team the right to buy up to $49.3 million and insurance, that doesn't, you know, not even half offset of what they may have to pay them or if he retires, then we can shut it off and, you know, I've thought all along, Michael, there's a way that this thing ends with kind of a mutual deal where, and I know this is premature, but again, it's not premature for the Dolphins organization. They have to have been thinking and talking about this because it is one path that they could be on, where there's just a mutual understanding, we'll give you half the money. We'll give you 80 million. You retire, you don't get 162, you get 80 million or some other number, whatever they negotiate, and everybody moves forward because we can't get past the fact that you're going to come right back into the thing that keeps giving you concussions and there's no way to avoid it. There's no way to avoid the risk of future concussions. That's a very likely outcome. I don't want to say it's likely. It's very possible and my gut at some level is telling me that maybe that's where this ends up. A mutual deal, he doesn't get 162 million. It's some number negotiated less than that and everybody just kind of moves on. I'm not going to be surprised with that happen. I'm not saying it's going to happen. I've heard nothing to that effect, but it's just one of those things that it feels like it feels like a possible outcome. It's a plausible outcome. It makes perfect sense until you bring in the player, until you bring in to it. We talk about him and we're focused on the concussions. I don't know how you feel about him as a player. I think he's a winning player. I think he's got some limitations but he's competitive. He understands what defenses are trying to do to him. I don't think he's a top five quarterback. I'm not saying that, but I think he's just a good. He's always in a situation where his team has a chance to win. I know there's some criticism about playing in cold weather games. Can he handle that? Can he handle the tougher competition? We're not talking about a guy who's 35. He's 26 years old, so he hasn't reached his peak yet. I think he's pretty good. Bill Parcells used to say this. I know this is controversial, not in a grand scheme of things, controversial in football circles, because everybody doesn't believe in quarterback records. Parcells did. I'm kind of on Parcells aside, too. He would always say he'd do his press conference, and then he'd pull people aside. He'd love doing press conferences. I don't let him tell you anything different, but Parcells would pull people aside after the press conference and talk for 20 minutes, kind of off the record, just kind of like a little fireside chat. Anytime you bring up players around a league, because he'd like talking about players around football, he'd say, "Oh, that quarterback, why don't you look up his record and see what you think?" Because I think there is something to that. Toa, when he plays, his team usually does well. He may not be the number one reason, but players respond to Toa, and I just feel like it's going to be hard for him to say, "I understand, I'm going to walk away." Look at it from his perspective. He had this incident last week, and that's the third diagnosed concussion, but then he could say, "Look at last. We're not having this conversation last year. You guys didn't bring it up." I had my training. I was concussion-free in 2023, and now you're telling me I should walk away. I'd just be surprised if he did. I don't think he's going to. And I think that's a great point, and just so everyone's clear, look, we're not advising. I'm not advising what he should do. He's got to make the decision for himself. I'm a firm believer that we all have the right to make decisions to do things that put us at risk when the concussion stuff first started 15 years ago. He said, "Look, people ride motorcycles without helmets. They jump out of airplanes. They go rock climbing. We're a nation of risk-takers. We're free to take risks that could result in things that mess us up. The right, the pursuit of happiness, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, I screwed up, I usually have a better delivery of it, but the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness included within that is the right to do dumb things that can screw up our lives. That's part of what we're entitled to do. So if we're allowed to take all sorts of crazy risks away from an arena that pays millions of dollars, then we're allowed to take risks within that arena. As long as he's cleared to play, he has a right to play. He has a right to come back. I told Maria Taylor a couple of years ago that he likes being part of football and what it means to communities. He wants to be part of that and you're right, he's in the upper half. I mean, the dolphins didn't accidentally pay him $53 million. He didn't win a lottery. He earned it and they decided to pay it to him and he runs that offense extremely well. All the stuff with the quick sleight of hand and the timing, he does that all incredibly well. They came in, they weren't doing all that stuff. There are some limitations. There are some issues. I'm glad you mentioned Parcells because this gets back to how Mike McDaniel is treating him. Chris Sims tells the story all the time about how, you know, when his dad broke his leg in the 1990s and he might as well have been dead. If you're not available to me, get the hell out of here. I'm focusing on the guys who can play. I wonder how Parcells would have dealt with a situation like this and there's a very basic analysis to it. You're going to get concussions when you play football and now Parcells coached before the NFL was forced by Congress. You know how you would have dealt with it. I was going to say Mike, you know how you would have dealt with it. Yeah. I mean, if you're, if you're not here, you're of no use to me and I'm not given a big contract to a guy who is going to get a lot of concussions in a sport where if you're not available to play to me, if you're not available to play for me, you have no value to me. That was his attitude, right or wrong, probably wrong, especially in comparison to the way players are treated. They should be as they should be as they should be. He was, he was a relic of an older era in football, but we know what he would have done. And there are other coaches today who might be saying all the right things publicly, but privately they're, they're saying or thinking, I got to move on. I can't have a quarterback who every time he's out there, every snap, I got to worry, is this the next time I'm thrown into a month or more with my backup quarterback? I need a quarterback who's going to be available, who's going to do the 17 games like two did last year, 18 if you include the playoffs. Again, I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying there are coaches out there who would be privately thinking that and saying that as you strategize going forward, what are we going to do? Because when tour comes back and we all knew this, that's what was so stunning about last Thursday, Michael. We all knew he was one play away from his next concussion, but we got numb to it because last year he went wired a wire. It's like, Hey, this is not an issue anymore. It was still always one play away. And now we're reminded of that. So when he is eligible to come back, if he is cleared and if he does want to play every game, we're going to be right back where we were two years ago watching and waiting kind of edge of the seat. Is he okay? Is that next concussion coming and what does it mean for him and the team when it happens again? And we know we've been reminded that it's not quite inevitable, but it's closer to inevitable than it is impossible. Mike, we all watched hard knocks off season with the Giants and was fascinating told us some things about how they feel about Daniel Jones and how they lost Sequat Barkley. We're pretty much pushed Sequat Barkley out the door. When you love hard knocks in season with the dolphins right now, just to be a fly on the wall and understand some of these discussions that they're having and what they're thinking because there are many scenarios. So there's Tuah, is he going to be cleared, if he is cleared, what do we do with Tuah, how do we protect him, how does Tuah look at this going forward? And the other thing is, and I don't know how they're going to respond, this is a big challenge for Mike McDaniel, the biggest challenge of his head coaching career because now he's going to have to change his strategy with Skyler Thompson. The focus becomes even more on all those playmakers because Skyler Thompson, I'm guessing, is not going to be the guy who does things that Tuah does. Maybe it's changing half of the offense or 35% of the offense to kind of accommodate Skyler Thompson. But to get way ahead of this thing, let's say Skyler's decent, but not enough for them to win games. And so you wind up 6 and 11, 7 and 10. Now you're having another conversation. What do you do? What do you do at draft time? Are you the giants having that conversation about trading up for Carson Beck or Shadora Sanders or one of the quarterbacks is going to be out, Jackson Dart, are you having that conversation? So there's so many things to think about, I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but these are all the things I have to consider that they weren't thinking about three weeks ago. You're absolutely right. The owner of the team, Stephen Ross, has a history of becoming infatuated with certain quarterbacks. He was infatuated with Tuah and then he became infatuated with Joe Burrow to the point where they were doing anything they could to try to get Cincinnati's attention in the 2020 draft. They wanted to move up from five to one to get Burrow. They settled for Tuah at number five. And now you have to be thinking at some level, if you want to have stability at the quarterback position, predictability, you need a quarterback that isn't going to be a constant every single play. Is he going to take a hit? However, it is, whether it's falling down, whether it's dropping his shoulder, whatever it is, is he going to take that hit that gives him his next concussion? It isn't just a matter of maybe he'll be cleared by Sunday. It's a matter of we got to put him on injured reserve and who knows whether he's going to come back. Is he going to be cleared? And it's going to get worse each and every time. So those are real conversations that if there wasn't in season Miami Dolphins hard knocks and they didn't put those conversations on the cutting room floor like the Giants should have, frankly, with the whole Daniel Jones, we need to trade up and get another guy or say, Juan Barkley, do we keep him, do we let him go? That was great for us, bad for them, that it made its way to HBO's screens. But yeah, that's got to be happening. It's got to be happening. And for now, they had to make a move at quarterback. They had to add somebody. I did a lot of work over the weekend trying to figure out who they were looking at because they have some guys that were floating around who have some experience either with the Dolphins under Mike McDaniel or with McDaniel elsewhere. CJ Bethard was on the short list of guys they might bring in because he was in San Francisco for four years when Mike McDaniel was there as the run game coordinator. So they have that connection. They know that offense. Bethard didn't get the call. Mike White, who was there in Miami, got cut is on the bills practice squad. He didn't get the call. The call went to a guy who's got no experience with McDaniel, no experience with that offense. Tyler Huntley, but the one thing he has is experience playing and starting in place of an injured starter in Lamar Jackson. Here's McDaniel from yesterday talking about the decision to bring in Tyler Huntley. Shoot, he was replacing the league MVP and you could tell from far away that he was a guy that the team absolutely believed could lead them to victory. I think that's a very huge tangible thing for a non QB1 necessarily. And so for us without knowing exact timelines, you know, we got to learn firsthand. A nice reminder of how it only takes one play and what you think your depth is changes abruptly. So that's a move for moving forward to secure some depth in case of the unforeseen, which is timelines. Again, it just feels like the dolphins are making plans for the possibility that they're not going to see to any time soon that four games is just the first phase and we don't know and nobody knows at this point, but it feels like and it's smart. You got a plan for the possibility. The two is not going to play again this year, even if he will be back. The first possible return date after he misses four games. Yeah, it is smart and it's smart for the four and we're focused on four, but I don't know. Mike, do we see two again this season? I just look at it from the perspective of a football fan. You are and not even a dolphins fan. We just all, you know, following football, we're all into it and fantasy football, everything. And so you know that, you know, when Christian McCaffrey is supposed to be back and you're okay. Okay. We'll see him. We'll see him week five or week six and you know, Jonathan Brooks is going to be back with the sad, sad Carolina Panthers and you're waiting for him. Are you really waiting after this IR stint? If it's okay, hey, two is going to be here in this game, game six. We're waiting for two at Tonga Viola. I don't think anybody's doing that. It's four games for now. They should say it's four games for now. It's wait and see. Anytime and if he's clear to go back on the field, we're all going to be extremely uncomfortable because this, he has become the face of concussions because other players in the league, their players who had to leave games on Sunday with concussions, and we may not even know their names. It happened, it, it, it, maybe it was off camera, no, they were non-quarterbacks. So we're not really thinking about it, but it's him. It's him and it's history and the profile that makes everybody nervous. Yes, you got to think about what if we don't see him again this year and you got a plan for that. I agree completely. I can't remember, frankly, if we got into that angle on Friday, what does the league want here? I kind of vaguely recall that we did, but at some point the league is going to have some say here and I don't know how many more primetime games the Dolphins have, but I don't think if you're the league, you want a player on the field again this year who brings that constant discussion, conversation, and focus on when's he going to have his next concussion and what's going to happen when he has his next concussion. We've seen the fencing posture twice with Tuotongovailoa after concussions. The first one was obvious the way he was violently thrown down to the ground and banged his head against the turf. It wasn't quite a routine hit on Thursday night. It really was a crunch. It was a crunching of the head, but we see running backs take hits like that all the time and they spring right up. I mean, that be John Robinson, CJ Gardner, Johnson collision from the other night was as violent as you'll see in a game and both players sprang right up. So I mean, it wasn't a routine bumping of the head, but it was still a hit that we see in football from time to time and Tuot went straight into the fencing posture. I just I think the league would prefer to not to not have that hovering over every dolphins game where Tuotongovailoa plays and I think the the the way to put it and this is the right way to put it. We need distance and time, we need to get through the season before any big decisions are made and any decisions made in the throes of I got to get back and play. I got to help the team win games. We got to get to the playoffs that urgency, you know, the short term urgency that Mike McDaniel so rightfully tried to to stop that extends all the way to the end of the season. You only get truly and fully clear from that. I got to get back. I got to get back. When you accept you're not coming back this season, this is a bigger issue than that. We got to get through the season and then the long term decisions will be made. Yeah, Mike, we did talk about the league what the league wants here a bit on Friday, but I thought of something else that the league counts on us and we do it. We comply. I'm as guilty as anybody else. The league counts on us to look at something that might be it might be uncomfortable that might be tough to watch and then to move on from it. We do that sometimes during games, you know, it's almost like, okay, this guy is down. He's down for a minute. Now he's down for a couple of minutes. Okay, now he gave us a thumbs up. He's good. All right. Let's get back to the games. They count on that just we have a rhythm of we know there might be a slight interruption or might be a slight pause, but then we're going to get back to football. But think about this, you're right about the Hamlin hit on to it. We've seen already this year 30 hits that are worse. As a matter of fact, I watched it again last night and I just kept watching Hamlin. Hamlin was not bold over. He wasn't knocked off his feet. He actually went down. He had one, he was standing on one leg and then he went down to a knee and then bounced back up. So two is the one who lowered into him and you would think in that situation, a tough hit. Hamlin goes all the way back, he didn't. So it's like, okay, yes, little contact, I didn't expect you to do that. But here it is. I'm back up for another play and two is down. So it's for the football, for the people who defend the NFL and defend pro football, I'm one of them. It's easy to say, oh yeah, well, concussions happen on big hits and that's not really true. This is what the NFL doesn't want to focus on this for the critics who say, wait a minute. That's not even a big hit and he's concussed on that. Now we start talking the conversations we had 10 years ago about the danger of football and how youth football is down. Remember, all this stuff happened because of head injuries and there was a focus on it. And I think that those numbers haven't come up, by the way. Now my son plays football and I can tell you, we're proud, we're all excited. We sent a message, we sent a text, a picture of him, his first game to his Godmother and she lost her mind. She lost her as he called us like, we're bad parents. How could you do this? But there are a lot of people like that listening to us and watching us right now who are still adamant that this is not the sport. It's the sport for somebody else, but it's not the sport for somebody you love. You make an excellent point. I focus on the bright, shiny objects that are always a day or two away that get us to move on from any and all controversies that happen. And the NFL has it worked out perfectly now. You got Thursday, Sunday, Monday, and then other days sprinkled in and there's always something that plays out that gets us to stop talking about the thing they don't want us to talk about. The issue with just the culture of football, guy gets injured, guy gets assistance, guy gets removed from the field, whether he walks off on his own power. I always love that one. Well, who's other? What a power? Whether you got a battery, he's off on his own power. He walks off or he's helped off or there's a stretcher involved or in very limited cases. There's an ambulance that actually goes out onto the field, but the game always goes on. One of the things the NFL is still sensitive about to this day. The idea that they wanted to keep playing the Demar Hamlin game, of course, they did. That's the way it works. And there's no shame in saying we initially intended to keep playing the game. That's what happens. That's what's always happened. Injury happens. We show the appropriate respect. Everyone applauds. We wait for the thumbs up and the game keeps going. Yes, they initially wanted to keep playing the game between the Bengals and the Bills. The night Demar Hamlin had cardiac arrest on the field because that's how it always goes. And if you are going to watch football, cover football, consume football, that's what you sign up for. Guys are going to get injured and they're going to deal with the guys that are injured and the game is going to keep going. This game, the next game, the next game, the next game. So yeah, this just brings it all into focus that we have one guy who is susceptible to one specific type of injury that is a central risk of football. Where do we go from here? All we know for now is where we're going is four games without two. And it's hardly implausible to think we won't see him again this year, four more primetime games on the schedule for the Dolphins two on Monday night, two on Sunday night. If I had to guess and again, I'm not recommending anything, but if I had to just guess based upon everything I've experienced, learned, whatever, following football for 50 years, covering it for 25 almost, I don't think we're going to see him again this year. And then the bigger decisions get made after the scene, the not and the plausible outcome is some sort of negotiated resolution where he gets a certain amount of the money under his new contract and and he doesn't play anymore. And again, I'm not saying that should happen. I'm not predicting it will happen. I'm just saying it's it doesn't it doesn't seem like a crazy outcome. It seems like a natural logical ending point because whenever he comes back, we're going to be right back where we were wondering right where we were in 2022 wondering when is that next hit going to be the one that is his the last hit he takes because they're never going to let him play again after that one. And if it's not that outcome, which I think makes perfect sense, maybe it's just this conversation of take the rest of the year off, take the take the rest of the year off. We just we don't have enough information. You don't have enough information. We're going to do this for you and for ourselves. Just take the take the year off. And then you then you revisit it and I think it'll be it'll have a hard time like most most pro players who are really into it have a hard time stepping away. I don't know about you, Mike, but I had a the first time I probably was much older than I should have been to realize this the first time. I think a pro athlete told me a fight like 28 said, Hey, you do realize that everybody who plays pro sports is not really in the pro sports. Do you know that? What do you know about that? Everybody like like woke up thinking about their sport and wanted to do everything they could to get better at it. Some guys do it because they can do it, not because they love it, but two is not one of those guys. He can do it. He's into it. So it's going to be hard to tell an athlete. Most football players are really into it. It's hard to tell those guys. This is in your best interest. They'll keep shopping, they'll keep looking for somebody who tells them what they already believe about themselves. And you know, I hadn't really thought about it this way, but a lot of us have jobs we don't like. I've had jobs that I hated. It makes me appreciate the job that I have now even more. I have a job that I love. I love to do it and not on the radar screen for me is the possibility that at any given moment, at any given time, within the normal course of doing my job, something's going to happen that might keep me from doing my job for a period of weeks, months, years, or forever. And that's the reality for professional athletes, especially in football and hockey, the higher contact, more naturally violent versions of it at any given moment. That thing that if you are one of the players who loves to do it, Michael, it's always there. I mean, think about that. If you had a job you really loved that paid you well, gave you and your family a good living and everything's fine, but always lurking. The monster under the bed that really is there is that monster's going to pull you off the bed and say, that's it? No more. You're done. And it can happen at any given time. I mean, think about carrying that around every, I don't know how, I don't know how. I guess you just have to ignore it. That's the only way you're going to function, but that's the reality for all professional football players, the ones who love their jobs and enjoy and appreciate what they have earned and what they have built. It's the combination of God given skill and discipline and will and sacrifice, et cetera. And it can all go away in any one moment. And that might be ultimately, we don't know, but that might ultimately be what's happened for Toa Tonga by Loa, whether it's for the rest of this year or possibly, you know, possibly for the rest of his career. I have scary, I'm glad you love your job, by the way, I'm glad you love it. I had jobs. I had jobs where I swore the clock was going backward. I'd look at the clock and I swore it was going backward on the, on the pace to five o'clock when I could get the hell out of there. It's like, wait a minute, I thought it was 10 till two. Now it's 20 till two. I'm telling, Mike, this is like Chris Rock has a bit about this. He said, those who, those of you who have careers, you have to understand the difference between a career and a job. Some people have jobs, it's not a career. And they keep watching the, they're scraping the food, they're scrapes, scrapes, scrapes, scrapes. Oh, that must be an hour. Look up. Oh, only five minutes. Scrapes, scrapes. Only five minutes have passed. So we have, we have careers, we're fortunate we have careers and our jobs. eBay Motors is here for the ride. With some elbow grease and a whole lot of love, you transform 100,000 miles on a body full of rust into a drive that's all your own, LED headlights, spoilers, whatever you need. eBay Motors has it at affordable prices. And with eBay guaranteed fit, it's guaranteed to fit your ride every time. Keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com. At Sling TV, we'd like to know, do you want to take your love of college football to the next level? Does a bulldog bark and a duck quack and a long horn, a moo? With Sling, you get access to hundreds of games and the biggest networks offer the best price. Go with the obvious choice, streaming the games you love and saving on them too. That's taking your fandom to the next level. Visit sling.com and start watching live. The college football you love, the live TV you love, Sling. After the 26-week grind, 16 gather, heroes, hopfolds, hot shots, hot heads, their demeanor may vary, their determination does not. Fortune brought them to this moment, now it's up to them, the racing you've waited for, is now the NASCAR playoffs on NBC and USA. Okay, so in Pittsburgh, the issue isn't, do we have a starting quarterback, the issue is we have two of them and what are we going to do because one of them has been playing pretty well in the absence of the one who was supposed to be the starter. There is Mike Tomlin from yesterday. He does his midweek press conference every Tuesday, talking about the situation with Justin Fields, who started both games and won both games and Russell Wilson, who was supposed to be QB1 and had that calf aggravation and has yet to play in a regular season game for the Steelers. Justin, do enough to earn the starting job out, right? Again, I'm not talking hypotheticals. We've got one of those two guys available to us as I stand here today, so it is a waste of my time to speculate and hypotheticals and all of that. Justin's got a game to get ready for this week, and so I'm not doing him any justice by talking hypothetical. I want him focused, I'm focused on the next task, and until Russell gets to a state of readiness where he's a consideration, I won't be speculating on any of that in any way. You know, it's a very Mike Tomlin way of invoking the 100% rule. And that's really where they are, and this is the best of both worlds for the Steelers because they can ride Justin Fields for as long as it's working, and the moment it's not, Russell Wilson's 100%, and at some point, it reminds me of the 98 Vikings where Brad Johnson broke his leg week two, Randall Cunningham comes in better than he ever was, or at least as good as he ever was after he'd been out of football for a year, and Danny Green started talking about the 100% rule. And at some point, we just forgot about the 100% rule because they were winning every week, and that's kind of what could happen with the Steelers. Justin Fields keeps going, and it just gets to the point where we all accept the fact that he's the guy, and it is no longer about when is Russell Wilson going to be 100%, Justin Fields is just the guy. And we still got a way to go, but so far so good, and I feel like that's what the Steelers are slowly settling into if they can keep this going. Mike, excellent point, and you know what? They may be there now. They may already be there with Justin Fields. Not that he has been, um, lights out so far in a year, but I mean, this is a Pittsburgh thing, this is why we keep talking about Mike Tomlin, and can you believe he hasn't had a losing record yet in his career. They just focus on wins as they should, doesn't matter how pretty they are, they focus on wins. So if Justin Fields gets another win in the Steelers, who I, look, I did not have them starting the season three and oh, even with what you could call a soft schedule, if they start the season three and oh, with Justin Fields as your quarterback, then you just kind of go back and say, hey, it's Russ's job. It's not like he won the job convincingly anyway. He won the job because he's got more, he won the job because of his resume, honestly. He's got more experience. He's got more credentials than Justin Fields, but if you just look at these, look at both of these guys and say, who's about a quarterback, it's, it's probably 50-50. Yeah, half the crowd says that guy, half the crowd says him, but the guy who's playing and continues to win, he may, he may have a grip on the job already, but Mike Tomlin is too smart to say it right now. The competition, I believe, ended up being closer than they expected it to be. I believe the Steelers in vision feels as the guy who better fits what they're trying to do offensively now and in the future. I think the goal was, and I think at a certain level, there's, I don't want to say loyalty because the relationship is too new, but it's just a matter of basic fairness. And I think Mike Tomlin at his core is very fair and you don't get very far in life in any job if you're not fair to the people you work with and who work for you, but Russell Wilson was the first guy in. Russell Wilson took $1.21 million and stuck the Broncos with the balance of his $38 million guaranteed salary and then the Steelers, boom, they, they stumble into the Justin Fields trade for peanuts from the Bears, but Wilson was the guy who came here not realizing that there might be another starting quarterback who comes through the door. So in deference to his accomplishments, his experience, his skills, he's the guy. And that's where it becomes a little awkward because at the end of the day, and I said this back in March, Michael, when Wilson signed for $1.21 million, the problem is if you're not the starter, why would they trade you? Because that, that may be the thing that comes up next. I always keep an eye on the Russell Wilson PR machine and I would advise against him activating it because Mike Tomlin will shut that down immediately. If he has any whiff that some of the stuff we saw last year that came out about the benching and the threat that they were going to bench him, if he didn't renegotiate his contract, all that stuff that got ugly late in the season. If that, if that PR cycle ever starts to spin against the Steelers, that's going to be an ugly day in Pittsburgh when Mike Tomlin approaches Russell Wilson about that. But the problem is why would the Steelers move on from Justin Fields has an injury history? We've got a backup quarterback, a veteran Super Bowl winner who you have under contract for $1.2 million. They're not letting him go. They may decide Russell's our guy, or excuse me, Justin's our guy, but we're not letting Russell go. He stays because we never know where we're going to need him. We're one play away from needing him and we need both of these guys if we want the team to be as good as it can be this year. So I'm with you. They may have already gotten to the point where they're going to arrive with Justin Fields, but they're not going to move on from Russell Wilson. He may be thinking, hey, maybe there's a place, maybe I can be traded in Miami. No, no, no, no, no. You're still here, Justin's here and we're going to keep both guys around all year long. Yeah, you said it'd be an ugly day in Pittsburgh if Mike Tomlin gets a whiff of that, but it will be an entertaining day because I don't know, maybe you do it first, Mike. One of us should do a book, like a thin book, the poetry of Mike Tomlin, you know, he's got so many, so many of these phrases that, you know, it'd be easy, it'd be easy lifting. You know, you just go with the transcripts, some of the transcripts over the years, he's got a lot of transcripts in this time in Pittsburgh, you kind of highlight some of the most entertaining Mike Tomlin phrases and it'd be a good book, a big good book, put it out there, but right before the holidays. Well, it's Mike Tomlin, it's Jim Harbaugh, it's Jerry Jones, the pool string doll. That's what I would want to sell. You've got the eight sayings that they come back to, you pull the string. Now, I think for Jerry Jones, there has to be, you know, like an adult discretion warning label for some of his sayings, but still, you get the doll and you pull the string and off you go. We're thinking of the same. I bet we're thinking of the same one. Yes, one of my top, yes, one of my Tomlin's phrases is we want volunteers, not hostages. And that could be from Russell's position, the opening to try to launch this effort to get traded by the Tuesday after week nine. I would, I would not advise that Russell Wilson attempt to do that and to the extent there would be a pool string doll or a book, there's a new phrase, a new chapter that Mike Tomlin gave us yesterday in explaining the decision to give Russell Wilson after the win over the Broncos, even though he didn't play what was described as a petty game ball. Here's Tomlin from Tuesday. Mike Justin, mentioned how rewarding it was to get the win in Denver for us. He said, you gave out a petty game ball. Is that something that you've done often is it rewarding for you to get that win for him? You know, none of your businesses, respectfully, there's certain things that go on among teams that I don't talk about, whether it gets out or how it gets out is unimportant to me. And I'm not overly guarded against it, but it's just certain things as a leader that I talked to the collective about that I have zero intentions of sharing with the larger public because it's about our collective and how we come together and how we appreciate and support one another. And, you know, I can't give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it. That's true. Well, that's true. I would. I would. I don't want to eat the hot dog. I would like to know what's in it. I would like to know what's in it. And sometimes it tastes pretty damn good, even if you do know what's in it. But, you know, a few weeks ago, there was an interview of Mike Tomlin by South Palantonio before the season started and he was asked if he called Sean Payton, the Broncos head coach to talk about Russell Wilson before they signed him and Tomlin was, you got the impression I did that there's a belief in Pittsburgh, a belief by Mike Tomlin that Russell Wilson kind of got the short end of the stick in Denver. But they knew or should have known the quarterback they were getting. They tried to jam the square peg into the round hole and then they blamed the square peg for being square. And that that's why, you know, if he ever plays in Pittsburgh, they're not going to try to make him something he isn't. They're going to celebrate what he is as a player, play to his strengths, avoid his weaknesses and try to position himself to be successful. And I think I think that that petty game ball is another manifestation of a fundamental disagreement with the way Russell Wilson was treated by the Broncos. Yeah, I think so. I think in Justin Fields, even said, Justin Fields said it a little more colorfully. He said they did him dirty in Denver and from a player's perspective, whether it's a stealer or not, players around the league, even if it's an opponent, they don't want a team messing with their money that way and so I think most NFL players feel that way. Whether you think he was playing well or not, nobody wants any kind of salary interference. Let's put it that way. But I think this is the genius of Tomlin too, the petty game ball. He did a nice way of telling the reporter, none of your, he said none of your business is, but he could have said none of your business. I'm not going to tell you what we do, but the genius of Tomlin and why his team's always kind of overachieved, at least in the regular season, is I think he figures out like a lot of coaches do, okay, this is your issue. This is why you're here. I know you're why. I know why you. I know who you want to prove wrong and I'm just going to, I'm going to push that button a little bit. I'm going to push you. Mind you, why you're here, who didn't believe in you or you thought you were first wrong pick and you went in the third round or this is your second or third organization. Somebody told you you were too small or you couldn't play this position and so I think he kind of taps into these various streams in the locker room of guys who have things going on and they play like hell for him. They really want to satisfy him. They feel like he has their back and so I think there are a few coaches in the league who just have an ability to figure out who they have in the room as individuals and play it to their advantage. And I also think Michael, it's about finding a way to make someone happy who otherwise might be disgruntled. He could easily be disgruntled because he's not playing. So we go out of our way to do something for him that will balance out and it's just basic human relations, it's about being sensitive to what other people are feeling. Russell Wilson is feeling disappointed that he's not playing. So this is just a gesture that might help counteract the idea that I can't put you on the field but I can give you a game ball after we beat the team that did you dirty the last two years. You know, it's like a bank. We're not going to give you a raise. We're just going to make you a vice president instead. And I'd rather have the money but all right, I'm a vice president. I can tell my friends when I got to the bars, you know, I can tell people I'm a vice president even though I didn't get a raise. So I think that's that is smart because that staves off what could be that that PR machinery that we definitely saw. I'm thinking back to the late weeks of the 2023 season. The Russell Wilson PR machinery definitely went into overdrive. He had his PR people, whether he did it directly or whether it was his agent or lawyer or whoever, it was a PR machine that was pushing the Russell Wilson version of how things went sideways with the Broncos. And I think he knows not a good idea to do it in Pittsburgh. And I think Tomlin knows the best way to avoid that is to not put him in a position where he wants to do it because we do need him to be ready because Justin Fields could get injured the way he moves and we saw it last year that opened the door for Tyson Beijing on any given play any given game they could suddenly need Russell Wilson to play. Yeah, they could need them, Mike. I keep going back to it though. What Arthur Smith wants to do and think about the Steelers. I know you watched the Steelers from it added to went to school there. So I've watched the Steelers for years and years and you know, just your mind's eye how the Steelers traditionally play, you know, what they want to do, you know, good, strong, you know, tough defense, versatile running game. Arthur Smith wants to do that. Who gives you a better chance of playing that style? Is it Justin Fields or Russell Wilson, like Justin Fields fits as a, as a stealer, as a Arthur Smith quarterback, Arthur Smith, like this is really what he wants to do. They're challenged. You're right. Their challenge is to be, is to keep Russell engaged even if this thing turns in a way that Russell Wilson doesn't expect or doesn't want because his PR machine is elite. You ever noticed that camera crews just happened to be there at the right time. He's doing workouts. I remember the workout he was doing, like he was in Hawaii and it was like the right angle. It's like a video, you know, he's turning the right, you know, HD cameras, like over head shots, like at the gym camera kind of sweeping by, it's, it's a little much, it's a little much. And he's going to have to tone that down. This is not going to work in Pittsburgh. Well, Justin Fields gets a chance to sink his claws even deeper into that job. When he gets a little high estate, Michigan reunion, the Buckeye quarterback and the Michigan coach, Harbaugh, Jim, coming to town, they used to welcoming John Harbaugh to town in Pittsburgh. It's going to be Jim Harbaugh this weekend and the Chargers when we return, we're going to talk about the two Harbaugh's. One of them is 2 and 0, one of them is 0 and 2 and the one that's 0 and 2 is probably going crazy and the one that's 2 and 0 is crazy in a good way. We'll talk about both of them next year on PFT. When it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. With Indeed, don't search, match. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need, indeed. You can even use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging to connect with candidates faster. 93% of employers agree that Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites according to a recent Indeed survey and since Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. Plus, listeners get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/nbcsports. Just go to indeed.com/nbcsports right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast, terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need, indeed. At Sling TV, we'd like to know, do you want to take your level college football to the next level? Does a bulldog bark and a duck quack and a long horn move? At Sling, you get access to hundreds of games on the biggest networks all for the best price. Go with the obvious choice, streaming the games you love and saving on them too. That's taking your fandom to the next level. Visit Sling.com and start watching live. The college football you love, the live TV you love, Sling. [MUSIC PLAYING]