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- [00:00]
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Bruce Feldman
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James Palmer
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Bruce Feldman
Can I make my site firmer? Can we sleep cooler?
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James Palmer
Do you remember the Mountain back then?
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Bruce Feldman
I do, I do. I remember. Yes. I remember Javen's operation there.
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James Palmer
Yeah. Yep.
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Bruce Feldman
Yeah.
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James Palmer
Yeah. So I worked at the Mountain with Todd Christensen and James Bates and all those guys.
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Bruce Feldman
Oh yeah.
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James Palmer
Started my career there and then went Atlanta SEC a little bit for Comcast Sports Southeast and then yeah, Houston and then came back here when we when I did NFL Network. So when we had a chance to get back to Colorado, we were jumping at it. Well, welcome into Scoop City on a Wednesday. I'm James Palmer. Don't forget to like and subscribe. You gotta do it. Throughout the course of this entire off season, we'll be covering the draft, free agency, everything better than anybody else with our stable of writers that we have here at the Athletic. And I think I bring a little something to the table. Maybe. We'll see. Speaking of writers, we are gonna have the great Bruce Feldman joining me on this show. We're gonna talk about his article about the rise of Fernando Mendoza when from two star recruit to essentially the number one overall pick. He also has that freak list, the guys that just wow you in terms of the measurables and what they'll do. The combine's right around the corner. We're going to talk about a couple of guys that he has his eye on. That is some Buckeyes. Also, Ian o' Connor is going to join us. And Ian, he has been covered this John Harbaugh thing better than anybody, has an outstanding article about Harbaugh's first 30 days. We're going to dive into that a little bit later in the show, but first, so let's chat with Bruce. All right, we're joined by Bruce Feldman, the athletics national college football insider. Bruce, I love that you're joining the show here because the combine's right around the corner and I have a lot of questions about who everyone knows and believes is going to be that number one overall pick in Fernando Mendoza. When there is a situation that comes along like a year like this, do you have any idea what his week will be like in terms of how many teams he will speak with? You know what I mean? Because this, this type of setup for a particular player doesn't come around very often, but it has in years past.
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Bruce Feldman
Yeah, I would think James, just the nature of his personality, I think he probably wants to manage it and meet as many people as he can just to be respectful of the process. You know, he's this very gregarious. He's going to be come across a little differently than most projected number one quarterbacks have. You know, I think he's, he's an interesting kid. He's, you know, very intelligent. But he, there's like, he's very gregarious and there is zero entitlement to him because I think he was so late to the star process. He really.
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James Palmer
Yes.
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Bruce Feldman
You know, our own Dane Brugler thought he had a chance to do some of these things coming into the year, but I don't think most people saw it as, oh, this guy is going to be in the Heisman mix much Less could lead Indiana to a 16 season and do the things he did and then be the projected number one pick. I mean, it's just that was not the pedigree anybody saw. But it's a really neat story. I mean, just in terms of his perspective on it, what he was able to do, how he kept on getting better. And as good as they were in 2024 at Indiana before he got there, when he was at Cal, they struggled on the big stage. You know, they were over. Over two in their two games against ranked opponents. And this past year, you know, they. They kind of ran through the top 10 and it was. Impress handled it. And it's really impressive how he handles adversity.
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James Palmer
Yeah, he ran through my Ohio State Buckeyes. Bruce, by the way, too, which was a devastating aspect for me. I thought we had a good squad this year. But. But you know, Fernando and Kirk Sined. Congratulations to them. You mentioned a lot of the stuff in terms of his makeup and it's in a great piece that Bruce has on the athletic. Please go read it. About how Fernando Mendoza got here. And my brain started going through this. Bruce, and you're around college football and know it better than anybody. Are we going to start maybe seeing Fernando Mendoza being a little bit of an example that some players could use or programs could use where it's. It's not strictly nil money. What can we offer you when you're in the portal, however it is, but we can develop you. That's a big part of the piece that you wrote in terms of the development. And I feel like that's a sales pitch that Kirkstone used so well. Is that something other players are going to see? Fernando Mendoza, what he became number one overall pick and want that similar path?
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Bruce Feldman
I think so, James, because that's playing the long game in the long term.
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James Palmer
Development.
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Bruce Feldman
Because you got to keep in mind now, especially as it relates to quarterbacks in college football, a lot of them may make more money. Most of them actually are going to make more money in college than they probably will in the NFL. Because if you look at the scale as we're talking right now coming into 2026, a lot of starting college quarterbacks are in the 2 to 3 million dollars range. Then there's level up, which is, you know, 4 to 6 million, which is maybe 5% of the starting quarterbacks in, in FBS football, but a, a sizable number we're making in the 1317 range. As you know, like there's not a lot of guys in the NFL who are, you know, who aren't playing, who make that right. So if you're a third, if you're a third team quarterback and you're not like Chase Daniel who'd been in the league forever and you know, you can, your contract builds up, you're not making that money. So I think, you know, if you sit there and say, all right, I'm going to go where somebody can turn me into, if I, you know, like you're going to believe in yourself and say, hey, they can, they can turn me into an NFL starter that is worth the investment to go because you're already going to make a good amount of money anyway in there. So my point is if you think the development piece is more important than maybe you're, you're giving away on the front end, maybe a million dollars less if it is that compared to, you know, again. And Indiana has plenty of money now, certainly especially says they're seeing success. But I think that played a long game. The development piece. I think he was very shrewd to, to make the decision he made and it paid off huge for him and probably ways that nobody could ever dreamed.
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James Palmer
Yeah, it's, it's, it's an unbelievable story. I look at other positions as well, Bruce. When you look at like receivers across the college football landscape, many of them are going to be struggling to find reps when they get and it's going to be difficult to get on a football field. If some of these guys and they made a decent amount of money in their college game and just the numbers game of the NFL and the development aspect of it just plays so big in my head now in the way we're seeing so many also quarterbacks coming in with a lot of snaps and a lot of games under their belt. The coaching staff, you mentioned this quite a bit in the piece as we stick with Fernando Mendoza here in the role that they played in that development and very specific in terms of the footwork and connecting certain things together. Is there enough of a sample size when he gets to the league that like the same type of coaching has to happen or this is secured that he is this player? What is the kind of perception that this was a small sample size and what he did at Indiana, but that it's going to continue and it is a surefire Heisman winner, number one overall pick?
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Bruce Feldman
Yeah, I think that's the part that we're not going to know, to be honest. It's like it's still largely a crapshoot about how many of these first round highs picks live up to it. You know, Kenny Pickett was a first round quarterback. It was a bad quarterback year. This is a bad quarterback year for the draft. And so would he be the first pick in the draft if he came out the year? Josh Allen and you know, Sam Darnold and all those guys came out Lamar? No, I don't think he would be. It's, it's interesting towards the end of the story and I debated whether I was going to put this in. So Chandler Whitmer was Indiana's quarterback coach last year and now he's, he's since got hired by the Bucs to be their quarterback coach, but he spent three seasons with the Chargers. And so at some point I think I had asked him about, you know, we talked about Justin Herbert, who I covered quite a bit when he was at Oregon and he saw a lot of similarities in there. Now obviously Justin Herbert is a, like, Mendoza is big. He's 65 to 25. Herbert. Justin Herbert's like, yeah, he's a giant. He's like a tight end. Justin Herbert, I mean, Mendoza's arm is pretty good. You know, Justin Herbert's got a canon. Justin, Justin Herbert, like athletically armed, talent wise is next level. Yes, but there are some parallels in terms of like Justin Herbert grew up right in Oregon's backyard, was not a big recruit for them, was a kind of a late bloomer and, but was like a high, high academic guy, like a 4, 2 GPA in biology or some heavy duty major and very intellectual and just kind of probably a little different personality. Not like Mendoza in that regard, but a different person than some of the elite quarterbacks coming up. And so he saw a lot of similarities in their makeup between the two. Now having said that, and it's not like, you know, Justin Herbert's impressive, but it's not like he's Josh Allen or he's some of those guys who are. People are saying, oh, this is the, you know, he's really talented, but no one's calling him the best quarterback in football. Right. We'll see what it's going to be like with Fernando. I mean, there's a lot of reasons to like, I think he's really smart, his work ethic is really good. And the thing that I thought bodes really well and we tried to hit this in the piece was his resiliency. He throws a pick in the fourth quarter, comes right back. And when I had talked to coaches who played him that they said the thing that stood out the most was you can affect him, you can't rattle him. And the point being you may get him one play, he's going to come back and he's going to go right back to work. And that is a big thing, as you well know. It's like adversity and how you handle it. A lot of quarterbacks coming out of college football really haven't had real, real adversity until they got to the NFL and then what happened, you know, good on Sam Darnold. He responded from it earlier and is, you know, in the jets, you know, as you well know, all that stuff and ping pong it around and now we won a Super bowl, you know, and I think that bodes well for, for Fernando. But so much is like a wild card in this is like what is the system you go into, how, you know, how is everything around you play out. And you know, some people compare him a little bit to Alex Smith who was at Utah and also really, really intelligent. Alex Smith had like 10 coordinators in his first like four years, it seemed like in the NFL. So it's, it's a, it's a roller coaster ride, as you well know.
- [12:43]
James Palmer
Yes, specifically if he does land at that number one spot with the Raiders and I think we know their inability to be patient, we'll see with Tom Brady and John Spytic if that's not the case. And we hope that Fernando Mendeza doesn't have a, a similar start to what Alex Smith went through or Sam Bradford. Remember he went through kind of, I think something when his career started. And so many people go wonder, what if you had a certain system in place for you. I love that you mentioned Whitmer, by the way, on our show on Monday that Chase and I were doing, he mentioned that Whitmer hit him up in the off season about what did he do with Herbert, what did him and Drew Brees do together? And Fernando Mendoza wanted to know that type of preparation that Chase went through with those certain guys because Chase actually was Whitmer's coach at an elite 11 camp. Actually that's how far back they go. So it's kind of a cool story that Chase told on Monday. Some of these other quarterbacks. Bruce, is there a chance and I'm hearing some buzz from the NFL side of things that as this process goes on and because that's what it is, so many different pieces of the puzzle in the draft process with Ty Simpson has a chance to climb as people get to know him better in this process goes, is that someone that you could See, climb maybe into this first round and into the, maybe the middle of the first round. There's several teams with two picks in the first round.
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Bruce Feldman
Yeah, I could definitely see it. He's, to me, the next most impressive guy. He's got a good arm. He made a lot of tough throws at Alabama. They could not run the football. They were really one dimensional and a lot of pressure there. And I thought he responded to it pretty well. He's a good athlete. He can really run and get himself out of some trouble. Coaches kid, he hasn't played that much football. You know, he was there for a long time, never left. But last year, it was really his first year as a starter, and I thought he played very well. I could see people, I don't want to say, talking themselves into being like, hey, we're gonna take him. We, you know, maybe we can sit him for a year and develop them and, and, you know, at some point he's gonna have to play more. But I, I think there's a lot to work with there. To me, he's clearly the next guy. And if you told me five years from now that he had a better career than, or was off to a better start than Fernando Mendoza, it may just be he, he may be in a, in a better situation. I think his arm is, is, is good. I think he can run probably as well, if not better. You know, a little bit of different personality, but I like him. I think he's, you know, I go back to that Kenny Picket draft. I mean, I think he's a more of an intriguing, more upside guy than Kenny Pickett was. Now, it's not saying much given Kenny Pickett's career, but I, again, guys get talked into the late first round a lot, and I could see it. You hear a lot of talk about, you know, the Rams and could he be the, could he be the, the guy after Matthew Stafford? I mean, those are big shoes to fill, but I think people can look at and go, yeah, there's some intriguing talent there, certainly.
- [15:37]
James Palmer
And you, you just mentioned earlier when we were talking about Fernando Mendoza setup and the situation you're in and if you can sit and learn from Matthew Stafford and be with Sean McVay, like, man, that's an incubator for, for growth, for sure. Yeah, he does a lot of what, NFL stuff, right? Center play action, turn your back to the defense type of things that obviously I think some NFL people will go, okay, we do that. The third, third quarterback I want to mention is, is Garrett Nussmeier. Interesting. Like, two years ago. I think we all thought after that season was over, Bruce, it was like, oh, what are we going to see in 2025?
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Bruce Feldman
Right?
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James Palmer
And it maybe didn't play out exactly as they wanted it to. What type of prospects are our teams going to be looking at with. With Garrett Nussmeier?
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Bruce Feldman
I mean, the word that I've heard about him since he signed with LSU five or six years ago was gunslinger. You know, he's not super big. He's probably six, one and a half. He moves pretty well. It comes out at different arm angles. And I will, you know, I will bet Garrett Nussmeyer's on NFL roster for, like, at least eight years. You know, he's got the stuff where you could say, oh, at the very least, he's going to be somebody's backup down the road. Everybody likes him, you know, coaches, kid. His dad, Doug was an NFL quarterback himself. You know, just everyone's like one of their favorite people, and Garrett has a lot of those kind of intangibles. His arm is pretty good. It was just inconsistent. I mean, you got to remember this was a kind of a disastrous year for AT in Baton Rouge. On the front end, they had not just Will Campbell, they had three other offensive linemen who were starters last year at the Senior Bowl. When you lose four guys of that caliber, it's really hard to replace. The offensive line was not good. They couldn't run football. They had a bunch of, you know, there's going to be a bunch of LSU receivers AT in Indy. Those guys are like a track team. They are really dynamic athletes. But there was just no go to guy there. And I felt like the whole program was kind of spinning it, you know, spinning its wheels under Brian Kelly. He was a bad fit there. And I feel like to some degree, Nussmeier was kind of collateral damage to the Brian Kelly, you know, era there. And, you know, and then it seemed like the people I talked to there, he was a little played, banged up, and so I would not be surprised if he ends up as a starter in the NFL. I mean, I, I don't see him going in the, you know, first two rounds, but I think there's stuff people will like him. I imagine he will interview really well, and people will. Will want to, you know, he's a guy that I think people will want to work with, and there isn't. There is talent there. It's just. It was such a. Such a rough season. I mean, went to Clemson, had a nice win out of the gate against A Clemson team that has a bunch of guys will be at the combine, a bunch of talent on defense. But that program stunk. It turned out to not be very good this year, and obviously LSU wasn't either. But again, I think. I don't want to say you're going to give him a mulligan on what was a very disappointing 2025 season in Baton Rouge. But I think he's got a good amount of potential. And I could see people saying, you know what? This is a guy who's going to be around the NFL for a while. You just don't know. Is he going to be, you know, is he going to be a legit starter at some point? That remains to be seen, but I could see him eventually working his way up a depth chart and getting a chance.
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James Palmer
I love it. I also can picture, you know, some of these guys do so much preppers on obviously the combine, and everybody's talking to them about their interviews. He can just be like, hey, dad, what are you guys looking for when you sit down at the quarterback?
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Bruce Feldman
Like, what do you have that conversation? So James, like, yeah, I'm not exaggerating. I think the first time I ever met Doug Nussmeier was at one of those. It might have been at the first QB collective event that they had in Southern California. This is when probably Caleb Williams might have been like 10th grade. And Doug was there with, I want to say, Jeep Chris, who, who had a son who was also a high school quarterback at that point. And the conversation, I. I would not be surprised if. If Garrett was as savvy when it come to those things of just growing up in IT with his dad, having a long career, you know, as a quarterb, as a coach. He just had that kind of demeanor where you're like, oh, everybody likes this kid and they see it in him. And it never quite hit to the. Hit the, you know, the level we thought it was going to hit with him, but, you know, there's ability there. So again, I just think he's just a very savvy guy and I think that he will probably do really well in this indie setting.
- [20:21]
James Palmer
Okay, love it. Stay right there, Bruce. We're going to be back in just a second. More Scoop City coming up with Bruce Feldman. We got to talk to computer.
- [20:26]
Bruce Feldman
Bye.
- [20:29]
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- [21:29]
Bruce Feldman
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James Palmer
Just a click and we've got ourselves a car.
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Bruce Feldman
See so many cars.
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James Palmer
And check out the financing options payments to fit our budget. I mean, that's Clickonomics101 delivery to our door.
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James Palmer
And what?
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Ian O'Connor
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Bruce Feldman
B-A B-B-E-L.com acast rules and restrictions may apply. All right.
- [22:41]
James Palmer
Welcome back to Scoop City on a Wednesday. James Palmer here with you, having an outstanding chat with Bruce Feldman. The combine is next week. Bruce. We'll both be there. I know it's not out yet, but I have to ask you. You're freakless. I read it every year. How many years have you done this now? Is it.
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Bruce Feldman
Are we getting it? Is 20? Yeah. So.
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James Palmer
Oh man. Okay. It's not out yet. Can you give me any hints on who we might see? I don't know if you want to tease anything, but I love it so much. I want to know if there's any.
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Bruce Feldman
I'm going to play to my aud audience here So I know the school that's nearest and dearest to your heart and they're gonna have a bunch of dudes go in the first, you know. So look, the best player they have is not draft eligible. He's gonna stay in Columbus for another year. I'm sure you don't mind that. It's funny. So Sonny Stiles is super freakish linebacker. Every bit of 6 4, 240 pounds is gonna run around 4, 4 0. I bet he'll also broad jump 11ft, he'll vertical jump. Probably over 40 people will be wowed when they even just see him walking around the facility. Right. When I did the freaks list in, in August, when it came out, before the college football season, James Laurinaitis, who I've known since he was a player at Ohio State and he's in a, he's the linebacker coach at Ohio State, he sent me a text, he was like, I think you missed one. And we started talking about Arvell Reese and Arvl Reese, you know, if you're a die hard Ohio State fan, you knew about him. If you're somebody who covers college football, you knew about him but know probably that much about him. And James, you know, was really going to bat for him. And I remember I early in the season I talked to a coach who was team was about to play Ohio State and that guy was like the best player on their defense is actually not Caleb Downs. Really, it's Arvel Reese. And I was just like, whoa. I was like, he's that. He goes, yeah, he affects the game. Don't get me wrong, Downs is a really good player. This guy is a big problem.
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James Palmer
Problem.
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Bruce Feldman
If you have a quarterback who can run, he's going to run him down. They'll spy, spy him. And I don't care who you have, you're not getting away from that guy. So I think both linebackers will light it up in Indy from Ohio State. I mean I just think that because I think if you're an NFL fan, you've probably seen Reese's name and mock drafts and obviously you've probably seen him play because it's Ohio State. So they're playing on a big stage. But it's not like he has this like Caleb Downs, you know, I remember when he was at Alabama and he's making plays as a true freshman and then he was a big get. He was supposed to go to Georgia and all this stuff and a terrific player. But the other two guys I think will wow people next week in Indy.
- [25:24]
James Palmer
Okay, I'M excited. Obviously, I was a fan, but okay, I love that. I won't make you divulge too much more on the Freedoms, but make sure you read everything that Bruce has there in terms of the combine. You're more plugged in than anybody. Is there anybody that you have your eye on that maybe has the most to gain or there's like a question mark that might need to be answered and could possibly be answered in Indy on a player or two, Whether it's medical, whether it's character, whether it's performance on the field in terms of the.
- [25:54]
Bruce Feldman
Measurables, you know, the character one is an interesting one because from doing a lot of stuff for the athletic about the draft process, you always kind of get into this gray area where you're talking about stuff you've heard from like as I'll talk to coach college coaches who played against these players and know them or they probably even recruited them coming out of high school. And then as I get further into the process, I'll do another story on talking to a lot of, you know, NFL coaches. I know about what they've seen on tape. And last year, one of the ones who is like a red flag guy for some coaches, especially some D line coaches, was James Pierce Jr. With the Falcons. And the way we ended up writing it is. It's kind of cryptic, right? I remember this. You know, obviously he had on the field, he made a big impact for the Falcons. And then all of a sudden it was like, you know, within the last month, it's like, oh, man, here's some of the stuff that people were kind of why he's not on their board. And I go back to a few years back, you know, there was a lot of negative on George Pickens out of Georgia from coaches who, they knew him as a recruit and they're like, I'm not messing with them or whatever. And I just remembered I have a dad friend. Our kids play sports together, and he's from Pittsburgh, huge Steelers fan. And we happened to be at something the day the Steelers drafted George Pickens. And I remember saying a lot of the stuff that, you know, I'd heard in my reporting about it and, and Pickens had some, you know, spectacular moments for the Steelers or whatever. Now there was also some turbulence there, too.
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James Palmer
Very much so.
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Bruce Feldman
So. So it's kind of interesting when you get into that. I saying all that to get to this is. I don't know how much players who have character questions into the process can extinguish those concerns of how they come across in a meeting or whatever. Cause I'll be honest, there's so much digging, right? There's so much information, and I think it's like already some of the cake has been baked in that, right? Like, I got a, a buddy of mine who I've known for a long time was a college coach. He's been in the NFL for like seven or eight years. And we talked about Pierce and he liked Pierce in the, in the interview and said he was pretty sharp and thought he was like, I didn't. I go in there not knowing what our scouts know when I do my interviews. And so he goes, I didn't know a lot of the other things that I've since heard about, but I know in my interaction I was pretty impressed with it with him. And so as you said James earlier, like, there is a lot of prep that goes into this. I mean, guys train to run a shuttle run and, and abroad and do a broad jump. They also train for these interviews as best they can. And so I think it's hard to kind of, if it's there and it comes out here, it's, it's, you know, it's certainly not only going to make it worse, but I think it's hard to get rid of that. On the, on the medical piece. I remember a few years back, one of my freaks list guys was Peyton Wilson. And if his body wasn't being like. Seemed like it was held together by glue at that point, I think he probably goes 30 picks higher, even though he plays a position that typically doesn't go that high because he's just films terrific and he tests off the charts. But the medical issues were a big concern and I think, you know, like we had, I want to say Michael Penck Jr. Had some question marks. I knew his, I knew him pretty well and I knew his agent. And I think, think that going in was like, okay, what are, you know, what are people going to find? How comfortable are they going to be? Or whatever. And he would always been very confident that, like, look, these rumblings about him are not true. And obviously turned out the Falcons had no qualms about jumping up to grab him when they could. So, you know, it's, it's, it's. It's fascinating to see what kind of, what kind of goes on behind the, behind the curtain with all this stuff.
- [29:44]
James Palmer
Yeah, you're exactly right. And that medical, it's. I hope everybody knows that every team does not equate it the exact same. Right, Bruce? I remember talking to the Falcons and they were like, we, we're one of the teams that does a line. If they're above the line, they're draftable. If they're below the line, we're not driving. That's not the same system in every building. In terms of some of the medicals with this, the one I was, I was thinking of Jordan Tyson a little bit. If people were curious about the knee or, or, or something there. Just because he's such a good player, you know, you want to make sure you make the right move. Okay, before we go, is there a position group that you have your eye on when, when draft day rolls around? I'm going to put my two cents in first and tell me what you think. Think, okay. I'm fascinated by this receiver group that is so deep and how they are picked. Our team's going to go, I can get guys later. So I need this. That's a lesser commodity early or they are talented. I'm going to slide forward and I'm going to make sure I get the guy that I want because there's a variety of flavors. I wonder how that position group could maybe shift the way the draft goes down. That was just my two cents. But I'm curious, just what kind of, of look are you looking at with some of these positions that, that are and how they're going to fall?
- [30:51]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah, I think like receivers. Interesting because I know there's some guys who are really productive who are going to be later on, you know, in the, you know, out of, out of the first round. The, the position I'm most. And I want to say not just edge, but I want to say D line because there's a bunch of like, I don't say boomer bust guys who feel like they're interior guys, but like there's a guy at Florida State, Daryl Jackson, he was number four on my freaks in 2024. Started out at Maryland, went to Miami, then transferred to Florida State. I mean, he's a giant of a man with like, you know, 11 inch hands and super long arms and he's really twitchy and how much is, you know, how much is on film, you know, and, and is he somebody who can be just a dominant player if the, you know, all the planets line or is it, you know, is it a gamble? And then you have a lot of these, you know, I talked to our old friend Daniel Jeremiah the other day, just kind of catching up for like an hour and we were talking about this group of nose tackles. Dominique Orange is another twitchy, explosive Guy from Iowa State has some looked really good against him, you know, against Iowa, which has a really good offensive line, a really good center. And then there's a guy, the Godfather, Dante Corleone, who's had a lot of medical issues, but really disruptive, fun character, you know, big personality, really good player there when he's been on the field. And I want to see where those guys inside go. And then I do think there's a pretty good group of edge guys that are. That are going to be out there. If you look at now how this plays out, obviously there's two of them at Miami. One's Akeem Mezador, who's a little older but pretty dynamic. The other one, Reuben Bain, was a monster in the playoffs, and he doesn't have the arm length you probably ideally want as an edge guy, but nobody could really block him and he was a tone setter for them flipping Miami around. You know, is he. Is he a guy who gets suited into the inside? Maybe on some situations? I mean, it'll be interesting to see where he goes. I mean, I think he gives a top five talent. I just don't know. You know, when they look at him, there's always some things where it's like I. Because I have a bunch of old D line guys that I'm friendly with who are now coaching in the NFL, I think some of them are just so focused in it has to be this size. It has to be like there's certain things where they'll gong like a really productive player because they just don't look like what he wants them to look like in his system.
- [33:34]
James Palmer
That's. Everybody's ears in New England are going, don't talk about arm size, Bruce. We've heard it too much with our left tackle. They're going crazy. I still think is a very good player.
- [33:45]
Bruce Feldman
I mean, like, I. Yeah, very much so.
- [33:47]
James Palmer
I agree. Thank you so much for spending the time with us, Bruce. This was. This was awesome. I'd love to chat after the draft if that's possible.
- [33:53]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah, definitely.
- [33:54]
James Palmer
And go through some of these fits. That'd be wonderful. I could have talked to you for two hours, but, you know, they're in my ear telling me we got to stop. So. Bruce, thank you so much. This was so enlightening to me. Hopefully everybody listening. Loved it. Make sure you read everything Bruce has on the athletic. It's outstanding. Thanks, man.
- [34:07]
Bruce Feldman
Thanks, James. Look forward to seeing you in Indy next week.
- [34:10]
James Palmer
All right, coming up next on Scoop City, Ian O' Connor joins us about the first 30 days for John Harbaugh, an outstanding inside look at when a new head coach arrives with a new organization. What do they have to do? What check marks do they have to to make? Well, we'll find out next with Ian.
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James Palmer
All right. Welcome back to Scoop City on a Wednesday. James Palmer here with you, very special guest Ian o'. Connor. Joining us, a senior writer columnist here for the Athletic. And if you haven't been following everything that Ian's been doing, I don't know what you're doing. If you're a Giants fan or if you're fascinated by this head coaching landscape, Ian, you have, have been all over it. Everything with John Harbaugh specifically has been outstanding. You have a great piece up right now on the Athletic about what John Harbaugh's first 30 days are like. It sounds very presidential, doesn't it, right out of the gate, the first 30 days of John Harbaugh, when you were kind of setting this up and designing kind of the makeup of this article, what was the first thing that kind of jumped out at you about how these first 30 days have gone.
- [37:29]
Bruce Feldman
Just.
- [37:29]
Ian O'Connor
How crazy the business is for one of coaching and how so many guys, as you know, James, in the league, are getting up at 2, 3 in the morning and starting a day and then trying to get back home at 9 o' clock at night if they're lucky. It's just, it's an unbelievable grind in the off season, maybe even more so than the regular season. But I think the, the thing that has stood out to me in terms of the response to it is Giants fans really had no idea how close it came to not happening on, on that Saturday, January 17, when after Wednesday night, the meeting, all day meetings in East Rutherford, New Jersey, they agreed to get married. They got engaged Wednesday evening and everybody thought the marriage would be pretty smooth. Well, those three days, it got dicey. And then Saturday morning, John Harbaugh's agent, Brian Harlan, is talking to the Titans like, you got to hang in there because this Giants thing might not work out. So John Mara, finally, at the end of the day, Saturday afternoon around 3 o', clock, 3:15 Eastern Time, decided for the first time in the history of the organization they'd allow a head coach to report directly to ownership. And that's what got the deal done. Wow.
- [38:39]
James Palmer
And so you mentioned that structure, and this is just a personal opinion of mine this offseason that I've been fascinated with these horizontal structures that are getting built across the NFL as opposed to also these vertical structures that are within the NFL with what Jon wanted. And I understand it because he had it in reporting to Steve Boschotti for so long in Baltimore and their relationship was so special in the way that they interacted. What does he want out of this structure? You know what I mean? Fighting for it and almost demanding that he has it. What does he get out of that structure that he desires so much?
- [39:16]
Ian O'Connor
Yeah, it's interesting, James, because he said he agreed with John Mara that having it or not having it really wasn't going to greatly impact the way they operate inside the organization. He did agree with that. So I think Mara took that to mean, okay, then we don't have to write this into the contract. And he said, even though I agreed with Mara, I still wanted it written in because if it ever came down to a stalemate, he wanted to have the authority to make a decision on a draft pick or on a free agent, whatever it might be. So I think having it in Baltimore for a long time with Steve Bischotti, well, if I don't have it going forward, it almost feels like a demotion in a sense. And it didn't ever make any sense for him, frankly, entering the organization as $100 million coach who's done a lot of winning while the Giants have done a lot of losing to report to a GM who's entering the last year of his deal unless he gets an extension and who's also 23 games under.500 in the last four years. So it did not make any sense from his perspective. And frankly, if the Giants did not offer that that last day, that Saturday 17th January, he would not be the head coach today of the New York Football Giants. And it's a scary thought. He really, the job, he saw it as basically a dream job after he got fired by Baltimore. But I do think he just wanted that in his hip pocket. In case I run into a problem in this new organization, I need to have that in writing. He doesn't want to really use it, but he wants to have it there just as an insurance policy, if you will.
- [40:47]
James Palmer
Okay. Break glass in case of emergency. I get it. These structures are so fascinating. That's why I've been fascinated with it. I mean, you look at a two time coach of the year and Kevin Stefanski is reporting to a team's former quarterback essentially down there in Atlanta. So it's been just so interesting to see how some of these are designed. It's just really, really, really interesting in this early portion. So many people in New York and I'm kind of curious how, how close to this you were that it was. It's going to be Todd Monkin that that's Essentially what it's going to be. And I kept hearing everything out of Cleveland. It's Nate Shieldhouse or it's Jim Schwartz and all of a sudden Todd Monkin gets that job job in Cleveland. How quickly was this a pivot for John Harbaugh in terms of building his staff? And would we have seen the likes of any of these three on the staff if Todd Monkin would have been there? Would we still have seen Greg Roman or Matt Nagy or Brian Callahan as a part of this staff if Todd Monkin would have gotten the OC job?
- [41:41]
Ian O'Connor
That's a great question. And I would say no if Nagy, and I'm not sure about the other two, but it's a great question. I do know that I asked him when we spoke recently, was that a setback that Monkin got the Cleveland job? As proud as you are that a part of your coaching tree became a head coach in the league, which is a good thing, was it a setback? And he thought about it. He said, yeah, it's a setback, but really only in the sense that it maybe then it delayed other things and then I had to dive back into the OC process. And he said, but I ended up with a guy in Matt Nagy who I believe can be the greatest off coordinator ever. That's what we're shooting for. And that, that kind of knocked me back a little bit when he said that because I don't think a lot of Giants fans were thrilled with that hire and they wanted Monkin didn't get him. So hey, yeah, it is a little bit of a setback. But that staff, to me, Roman, Callahan, Nagy, it's, it's. And even John himself, you're surrounding Jackson Dart with a think tank of offensive minds, guys who've been head coaches. Even Willie Taggart was a great dual threat quarterback in college. Playing for Jack Harbaugh as a running backs coach can help out there too. So there's just a lot of institutional knowledge about that position, guys who've on that staff, who've coached great quarterbacks in the NFL surrounding Jackson Dart. And I think I wouldn't discount or exclude Harbaugh himself from that process because he won big with entirely different quarterbacks, a pocket passer and Joe Flacco winning the super bowl and developing the opposite of Flacco and Lamar Jackson into a. A multiple MVP winner. So there's a lot of good stuff still going on around Jackson Dart. But yes, your number one target was Todd Monken and you didn't get Him. So that has to be perceived as a setback.
- [43:28]
James Palmer
Yeah. You mentioned all the quarterbacks that these guys have been. I started going back. I'm like Callahan was with Peyton Manning back in the day.
- [43:34]
Bruce Feldman
Right.
- [43:34]
James Palmer
There's all these guys that they have been with at different stops that they have. That they've there. And Jackson. Jackson Dart, you mentioned him, is such a big part of obviously the future of this organization. And I look at that group and I'm kind of interested by it because Matt's so good in terms of passing concepts and Greg Roman's so good in terms of run game concepts and how they put it all together. What is kind of. Did you get any sense from John what a plan is for what they want to be around Jackson Dart or who they want Jackson Dart to essentially be going into year two?
- [44:08]
Bruce Feldman
Yeah.
- [44:08]
Ian O'Connor
It's interesting because so much of the conversation last year as the Giants were losing is one of their best players. Jackson Dart kept hearing about his play style and how that was a problem. And it almost felt like an organizational diversion to put this on Jackson Dart. And I think deep down he felt that was unfair. And obviously you can't take the hit that he took on the sideline. And he needs. He understands that now. And I think that the idea is, well, okay, John Harbaugh just came from an organization where he had a great dual threat quarterback in Lamar Jackson. And so how do you allow a guy to still be aggressive and take the running yardage when it's there, but not put himself in harm's way? Because the entire operation revolves around the quarterback. It is 75 to 80% of the sport, so it's going to be interesting. He didn't lay it out specifically for me. We did talk a little bit about. About the need to protect him now once you get in the playoffs and that changes. But I think that Jackson Dart is so confident in himself. I don't know. I've told this story a couple of times. I hope you haven't already heard it.
- [45:16]
James Palmer
I'm ready.
- [45:17]
Ian O'Connor
I had a conversation with him in July. Okay. So my first. I just met him, Jackson Dart, and seemed like a good kid, really. Actually, eye contact just seemed like a genuine person. And he looked at me like I was probably 120 years old. And so I said, yeah, I've been around New York a lot, a long time and I've never met an athlete who in your first press conference here, introduced yourself to all the beat writers and columnists and commentators who were there individually. You wanted to know their names. I said, why did you do that? He said, because I'm a people person and I want to know the people I'm working with. One, two. I said, by the way, if you could sign up for Eli Manning's career right now, obviously two Ole Miss guys, and I know he's one of your role models, would you sign up for it the two Super bowl championships and MVPs, or play it out? And he said, I'd play it out because I'm always going to bet on myself. No disrespect to Eli, but I'm going to play it out. So I thought that was a good answer. The guy who's not going to settle for two Super Bowl MVPs is a guy you want quarterback in your team. And Harbaugh is aware of that. So it's going to be interesting to see how they protect him, but how they also allow him to be aggressive when he decides to run the ball.
- [46:30]
James Palmer
I love that. Yeah, I, I don't think you could have a better answer than that, Ian, honestly. And, and I, I am fascinated by how they work that, that balance there, because I remember talking to Matt Nagy and, and all those guys in Kansas City when they were having to figure out after Patrick Mahomes dislocated his kneecap early in his career game. I believe I was at how they were going to manage the way Patrick played right outside the pocket office structure using his legs and what they were going to do with it. And they were very firm in going the. This is a player that can protect himself. So we're going to let him play in the style of what he plays. We trust him. I don't know if Jackson has shown that same ability that Patrick showed and will they handle it differently? Nagy was a part of that big conversation there in Kansas City. Okay. The last one I have for you, honestly, Ian, is I heard so many different things out of Baltimore from players locker room, different things about the way the last maybe season or two or maybe three went with John Hart. Is there anything he takes from his, his experience in Baltimore, maybe the back end of it, last couple of seasons, that he wants to even, you know, he'll even tell you that he's always growing and learning that he wants to maybe do a little bit differently that he's in New York with?
- [47:41]
Ian O'Connor
Well, I will say that the relationship with Lamar Jackson, he didn't say this in his words, but just people around him I've talked to, there was mutual fatigue there, there with Jackson and Harbaugh. I think Lamar Jackson was ready for a new coach. And I think. And I know John Harbaugh is ready to coach a new quarterback. So, yeah, I think it. Listen, I think on truth serum he would admit it did get a little stale there. That word has been kicked around quite a bit. 18 years. It's just going to happen where people are tired of that voice. No matter how effective the voice is and how good of a coach you are, I think he understands deep down it was time for him to move on. I do know this, James, that before he was fired, he was already looking at, okay, if I get fired, what are the teams out there, the franchises that will likely have openings and how do I rank them? And he had the Giants at number one. That was before he got fired. So I think, again, he hasn't expressed this to me on the record about changes he needs to make, but he's got to own a little bit his part in some of the playoff disappointments. I do realize that Giants fans, if the biggest problem they have is letdowns in the playoffs, that's a pretty good problem. They'd all sign up for that right now based on the way the last 14 years have gone in New York. So I think that's. We'll see how he grows as a leader and particularly how he coaches Jackson Dart. Does he do it any differently? And it didn't end well with Lamar Jackson. And frankly, Jackson looked to me like a little bit of a diminished player at the end and with the injuries and other factors. And I think that whether or not John becomes the first coach in NFL history to win Super Bowls with different franchises all comes down to how he coaches that quarterback in Jackson Dart, and we'll see how that plays out.
- [49:32]
James Palmer
It's going to be fascinating to watch. I like the roster. That's the other part. I mean, there's pieces there. So I'm excited to see what John does with this early on. Ian, thank you so much. Appreciate it. This was outstanding. And please come back. We'd love to have you back. This was wonderful.
- [49:49]
Ian O'Connor
Well, thanks, James, for the invitation and I look forward to it.
- [49:53]
James Palmer
That was just an outstanding conversation. I hope Ian comes back because he has all the goods on one of the most important franchises I think we're going to have our eye on in 2026. And also we have our eye on the 2020. Bruce Feldman, thank you for joining me. Ian O', Connor, thank you for joining me. We're going to have a ton of stuff from the combine next week, but we're not done this week. Chase and I are going to talk about his combine experience a little bit later in the week. Maybe George Pickens the franchise tag coming up this week. Great conversations continuing on Scoop City for the rest of the week before we head to Indy. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Take it easy. Enjoy Your Wednesday.
- [50:26]
Bruce Feldman
Season 3 of the Talent Transformation Podcast is here. Join Avature CEO Dmitri Boylan as he.
- [50:35]
James Palmer
Talks with HR leaders who are leveraging.
- [50:37]
Bruce Feldman
Disruption to stay ahead.
- [50:39]
James Palmer
Hear from the brilliant minds behind the.
- [50:41]
Bruce Feldman
Talent strategies at IBM, Siemens, Energy, Transcom and many more.
- [50:46]
James Palmer
Subscribe now so you never miss an episode. The Talent Transformation Podcast Redefining Talent One Conversation at a Time.
- [50:57]
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