Hottest NFL Combine Story Lines From Indy: Is Malik Willis Worth $30M? Plus, Tua vs. Kyler, A.J. Brown's Future, Coach/GM Interviews, and Nick's 30-Foot Cuddy

Summary

The Ringer NFL Draft Show – February 26, 2026

Episode: Hottest NFL Combine Story Lines From Indy: Is Malik Willis Worth $30M? Plus, Tua vs. Kyler, A.J. Brown's Future, Coach/GM Interviews, and Nick's 30-Foot Cuddy
Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, Craig Horlbeck

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Overview of Episode Theme

This episode dives into the hottest storylines from the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, ranging from trade rumors around quarterbacks and stars (Malik Willis, Tua Tagovailoa, Kyler Murray, A.J. Brown, Maxx Crosby), front office/coach dynamics, hopeless franchise rankings, philosophical shifts with NIL and transfer culture, combine cynicism, plus some lighter tangents about car horns, rain smells, boat etiquette, and hilarious name stories.

The tone is loose, funny, and irreverent, with plenty of inside-baseball chatter and friendly mockery, while providing deep insight from the hosts’ conversations with coaches, general managers, and attending media.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. Real Combine Takeaways: Coach/GM Vibes

• GM vs. Coach Pressers ([03:18], [04:13])
  • GMs give away more than coaches because coaches have superior media training from weekly post-game responsibilities.
  • “I think coaches are better at masking how they actually feel because they're doing so much more press.” — Craig [03:53]
  • New GMs seem nervous and surreal: “Oh, you run a team now. That's weird.” — Danny Kelly [04:23]
• Absent Owners/Teams ([04:31])
  • Jaguars didn’t show up to the Combine again, which is discussed as a possible organizational philosophy.

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2. Quarterback Carousel and Trade Market

• Miami Dolphins GM – Tua's Future, Malik Willis Heat ([05:07--07:13])
  • Miami's GM John Eric Sullivan described as having “Chad” energy/appearance.
  • On Tua: “I think Tua believes he could still be a high level quarterback in this league…Where that happens remains to be seen. Whether that's here or elsewhere.” — Danny Kelly simulating GM [06:36]
  • Hosts interpret this as a veiled “goodbye,” likening it to a college bar ejection.
  • Tua news overshadowed by Malik Willis chatter: “They talked about Malik Willis like 10 times more than Tua.” — Craig [07:10]
  • Parties speculate on Malik Willis' next contract, hitting potentially $30 million/year.
• Malik Willis Debate: Hype vs. Reality ([07:45--12:24])
  • Willis’s tiny starting sample in Green Bay but electric, athletic upside.
  • Small sample caveats: Great in limited games, but with a run-heavy, had-some-help, system.
  • “The pessimists are often right and optimists are often rich.” — Danny Kelly [10:23]
  • Comparison to Silicon Valley logic; better to swing for upside than run out of QB retreads.
  • Discussion: Would you rather pay Kyler or Willis the same money? Kyler probably wins, but Willis is the “mystery box.”
  • “Sometimes you don't need better, you just need different.” — Danny Kelly [13:17]
• Cardinals and Kyler Murray Fallout ([13:53--15:13])
  • Arizona GM Monti Ossenfort and Kyler’s camp have not spoken since the season, suggesting an impending trade.
  • Kyler speculated as a fit for the Jets or Miami, with debate about his character vs. Jalen Hurts and possible landing spots.
• Steelers Blues: Franchise at Crossroads ([16:06--20:25])
  • Omar Khan, Steelers GM, described as “energy vampire” and uncommunicative.
  • Hosts rank Steelers among the five most hopeless franchises, citing lack of franchise QB and “purgatory” at the position.
  • “The Steelers have no franchise quarterback within a hundred miles of their windshield.” — Craig [19:07]

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3. Trade Rumors: A.J. Brown, Maxx Crosby & Others

• A.J. Brown/Eagles Drama ([21:44--26:28])
  • Ongoing saga: Will Philly trade A.J. Brown, and for what price?
  • Howie Roseman quoted as saying “you don't make your team better by subtracting.”
  • Hosts note: “The firmer a team says they won’t trade, the more likely they will.” ([24:04])
  • Details of contract make post-draft trade logical; Roseman wants a first-rounder, possibly next year, but likely to settle for less.
  • “I love the tradition of saying next year’s draft is really good. But this year’s draft…” — Craig [27:25]
• Maxx Crosby and the Raiders ([28:36--30:36])
  • Crosby (DE, Raiders) rumored as a big-name trade candidate; GM John Spytek uses familiar “not in the business of giving away good players” language.
  • Hosts see this as code for “we’re gauging offers.” Debate whether he commands a 1st rounder, with Detroit Lions named as dream fit.
  • Spytek said: “I'm going to be up front from the start. When I got here. We're in the business of having really good players on the team, and we need a lot more of them.” ([29:39])

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4. Roster-Building Philosophy, QB Development

• Rookie QB Sits or Starts ([30:43--34:18])
  • Raiders GM hints Fernando Mendoza (rookie QB) may open 2026 on the bench (“you want to limit amount of pressure on a young QB at the start…”).
  • Hosts advocate for more patience in QB development; link to Mahomes, Packers models.
  • “No one's even tried since other than the Packers who put Jordan Love behind Rodgers and Rodgers behind Favre.” — Danny Kelly [33:47]
  • Discuss how pressure to start rookies leads to rushed/failed prospects.
• NIL, Transfers, and NFL Evaluation ([35:06--39:49])
  • GMs remark on how NIL/portal have changed the Combine — now more about interviews/medicals than workouts.
  • Nick Caserio (Texans GM): “Does it matter what drills they do? No…The idea that I would change my rankings off of the drills here is asinine.” ([39:38])
  • Players now asked why they stayed rather than why they transferred. Ty Simpson (Alabama) noted for refusing transfer/NIL money.

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5. Combine as a Business/Networking Event

([40:07--41:46])

• Combine less about athletic measurement, more about “tamper-fest”, networking, and getting deals done — much more so than widely publicized workouts.
• Bills coach Joe Brady values observing “how players interact when they don’t know you’re watching,” for behavioral assessment.

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6. More Interviews—Personality and Control

• Sean Payton (Broncos) Press Conference ([44:06--46:36])
  • Payton goes double the allotted time, “alphas” everyone, puts a reporter “in timeout” for pushing Bo Nix questions.
  • On private QB coaches: “I'm comfortable if you have a swing coach, but do it in your own time. When the season starts, they're mine.” — Payton [46:23]
  • Announces he’s giving up playcalling duties to Davis Webb. Hosts anticipate he’ll likely reclaim play-calling at first sign of trouble.
  • “How many games do the Broncos need to lose before Sean Payton rips play calling? … Three?” ([47:11])
• More Playcalling Changes ([51:53--54:07])
  • Dave Canales (Panthers HC) and Aaron Glenn (Jets HC) also yielding/gaining playcalling duties—seen as indicators of shifting power/trust (or lack thereof).
  • “Giving up playcalling duties is weird because it does feel like he's willingly giving up power—which is not something you typically see.” — Craig [52:53]

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7. Team Hope Power Rankings ([18:00--20:25])

• Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Browns, and Steelers listed as the five most hopeless franchises—from a fan’s perspective.
• “It is purgatory. And I would argue…the Giants for example…have 10 times more hope. And I would way rather be a Giants fan right now than a Steelers fan.” — Craig [20:15]

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8. Deep-Dive: Giants and Harbaugh Takeover ([55:37--59:53])

• Organizational shift as John Harbaugh takes over as Giants head coach, pivots power to Donna Ponte and himself, diminishing previous GM Joe Schoen’s role.
• “John Harbaugh is, like, so in charge. It's unbelievable.” — Danny Kelly [56:12]
• Harbaugh seen as an authoritative savior who can “root out 50 years of organizational rot” in the Giants’ structure.

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9. Referee/Replay Admission and Impact ([63:26--66:41])

• NFL exec Troy Vincent admits to several major instant replay mistakes that flipped major games/results during the 2025 season.
• “We were just wrong. We actually overturned it, it was wrong.” — NFL on controversial plays ([63:51])
• Ravens especially noted as a team shafted by two missed/overturned calls that cost them playoff spots.

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10. Combine Odds and Ends: NIL, Financial Behavior, Interview Weirdness

• Both Nick Caserio (Texans) and Dan Morgan (Panthers) bemoan evaluating college players’ maturity and financial savvy post-NIL.
  • “Do they buy eight cars or do they put it in an S&P index fund?” ([35:42])
• Players’ multiple transfers complicate character assessment; coaches now want to see “why’d you stay?” (not “why’d you leave?”).
  • Brandon Beane (Bills GM): “You used to have to ask kids in interviews why they transferred, and now you have to ask kids why they stayed.” ([36:06])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• "The pessimists are often right and optimists are often rich." — Danny Kelly on Malik Willis [10:23]
• "Sometimes you don't need better, you just need different." — Danny Kelly [13:17]
• “I think Tua believes he could still be a high level quarterback in this league…Where that happens remains to be seen. Whether that's here or elsewhere.” — interpreted John Eric Sullivan, Dolphins GM [06:36]
• “Our quarterback needs to fit the AFC north style.” — Omar Khan, Steelers GM [17:10]
• “The firmer a team says they won't trade someone this week, the more I'm like, they're going to get traded.” — Danny Kelly [24:04]
• “The point of this is to maximize one on one time to sit down and talk to these guys. Otherwise, the drills…The idea that I would change my rankings off of the drills here…is asinine.” — Nick Caserio, Texans GM [39:38]
• “No one's even tried [having a rookie QB sit] since...the Packers who put Jordan Love behind Rodgers and Rodgers behind Favre.” — Danny Kelly [33:47]
• “I'm comfortable if you have a swing coach, but do it in your own time. When the season starts, they're mine.” — Sean Payton [46:23]
• “Our team missed the playoffs, but the Dow is at 50,000.” — mocking Nick Caserio and his stock market analogies [42:33]
• “John Harbaugh is, like, so in charge. It's unbelievable.” — Danny Kelly [56:12]

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Key Segments with Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|---------------| | Coach/GM Combine Pressers Analysis | 02:57–05:07 | | Miami GM on Tua & Malik Willis Discussion | 05:07–12:24 | | Kyler Murray/Arizona Fallout | 13:53–15:13 | | Steelers QB Purgatory, Franchise Hopelessness | 16:03–20:25 | | Eagles/A.J. Brown Trade Speculation | 21:44–27:28 | | Maxx Crosby/Raiders Trade Speculation | 28:36–30:43 | | Rookie QB Dev/Philosophy | 30:43–34:18 | | NIL/Transfer Portal Crash | 35:06–39:49 | | Combine Interviews, Networking, and Tampering | 40:07–41:46 | | Sean Payton Broncos Press Conf recap | 44:06–46:36 | | Playcalling Duties Drama (Multiple Teams) | 51:53–54:07 | | Team “Hopelessness” Rankings | 18:00–20:25 | | Giants: Harbaugh Era Begins | 55:37–59:53 | | NFL replay mistakes, impact on season | 63:26–66:41 | | Lighter: Car Horns, Rain Smell, Boat Signals | 68:22–79:15 | | Hilarious name stories, Peru, Osama bin Laden | 79:40–84:50 |

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Fun & Offbeat Moments

• Big Dom/Joke About Security Guards ([22:01–23:46])
  • “Dom is the most famous security guard…Isn't their whole point to keep a low profile?”
• Boat Horn Signals & Nick's Cutty ([72:43–73:36])
  • Nick (producer) explains the horn system for boats; “Do you have a boat? Just a 30 foot cutty cabin.”
• Name Hall of Shame: “Osama bin Laden” Footballer ([80:24–84:50])
  • Peru has a pro player named Osama bin Laden, brother named Saddam Hussein, ran in a mayoral race versus Vladim Lennon Valverde.
  • “You have to change the name. I'm sorry.” ([80:17])

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Takeaways & Summary Flow

This episode mixes deep, insider reporting (often mocking the coded language and fake drama of NFL pressers) with classic Ringer looseness and banter, balancing actual scouting/roster insight with cultural and meta-commentary on how the NFL does business at the Combine. The quarterback market, especially for Miami, Arizona, and the Steelers, is top of mind, along with the ongoing A.J. Brown/Maxx Crosby drama. The hosts delight in decoding GM/coach subtext, charting the QB carousel, and revisiting old tropes (“next year’s draft is always better”). Despite the football heaviness, the show’s heart is in the looseness: amusing combine skepticisms, stories about Big Dom, bizarre name fates, and car/boat horn etiquette.

For anyone wanting quick, up-to-date executive insight and why new cycles matter—or want to laugh at the Combine’s quirks—this episode delivers.

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Further Listening:
The hosts tease deep-dive positional previews and mock drafts for later in draft season. For more combine gossip and detailed rookie scouting, check the next episodes.

Transcript

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[Danny Kelly]

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[Craig Robick]

Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show,

[Danny Kelly]

AKA the Ringer NFL Draft Show. My name is Danny Hy. Today I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Robick in Indianapolis. Dicky, we're here.

[Danny Hy]

We are here.

[Danny Kelly]

NFL Combine DK or NFL Draft expert here at the Ringer. You got your top 50 big board up at NFL draft the dot com.

[Danny Hy]

We do indeed.

[Danny Kelly]

And we have. Craig, you're our insider.

[Craig Robick]

That's right. Boots on the ground here in indie. Talking to my sources. Crushing a lot of pods that are available to everybody else. Yeah, but getting a lot of great information. I talked to close to 32 GMS and coaches over the last 24 hours. Everybody else got the chance to talk to them as well. And I didn't ask any questions. But I. I did. I've taken in a lot so.

[Danny Kelly]

But other people were asking them questions.

[Danny Hy]

You listen.

[Danny Kelly]

Yelling at that and then you listen to the answers at the press conference.

[Craig Robick]

So yeah, we have a lot to get into today. We actually do.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, we actually do. So the press conferences, they do actually have all the gms and coaches stand up and I think, I assume the owners just kind of make them do it for content's sake. And so you actually kind of get like a little taste of all what the off seasons are going to be like for all the teams. And it's funny because all the coaches and GMs try really hard to

[Craig Robick]

not

[Danny Kelly]

do anything newsworthy or controversial or just make it whatever narrative they want. But they also are talking about, frankly, work drama that they care a lot about.

[Danny Hy]

A lot.

[Danny Kelly]

And you can only hide so much of like these work drama things that they're really passionate about. So we're kind of going to go through all the hot work mess in the NFL. Yeah, it's drama rankings. And we're going to kind of just translate what they're saying.

[Danny Hy]

Sure.

[Danny Kelly]

Because they're kind of talking in code, but they're also very much trying to say stuff.

[Craig Robick]

Did you find that coaches or GMs leaked more of how they are actually feeling?

[Danny Kelly]

GMs? Probably.

[Craig Robick]

I think so too.

[Danny Hy]

You think that they're giving away more?

[Craig Robick]

I think coaches are better at masking how they actually feel because they're doing so much more press.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Every game after a terrible loss, like they just have to show up and talk their way through it. And they're much more media trained. GMs, you know, they're less public.

[Danny Kelly]

Way more public speaking too. Because even talking to a team of 60 people is also kind of public speaking. So, like coaches are talking.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

To big groups all the time.

[Craig Robick]

I enjoyed the GM part of it, actually. I think a little bit more interesting just because I don't know these coaches. I'm like, hey, all these press conferences after games, they sound the same.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And it's funny to see new gms.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't know why. Because they're like coaches at least are still coaches. But a GM walks up and they're just like, oh, you run a team now. That's weird. And they were like, oh, it's real. Like they're actually nervous.

[Danny Hy]

No Gladstone this year though.

[Craig Robick]

No. Either. The Jags didn't come.

[Danny Kelly]

Should we actually lead with that? Like what's out of the frame is the Jaguars didn't show up last year.

[Danny Hy]

Doing that again.

[Danny Kelly]

Last year the Jags GM showed up right after he'd been hired, like days after he was hired. His wife was nine months pregnant and he was moving and he still showed up. And then Travis Hunter, suddenly they traded for Travis Hunter and then now Travis Hunter's gonna play full time quarterback and then they don't come.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, maybe. Cool. Maybe quarterback. That would make him worth his.

[Danny Hy]

His job. Sure.

[Danny Kelly]

Why don't we go through. I think honestly, there's a bunch of buckets of just things that happen. I want to start with just players that might get traded or cut or whatever.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And I want to start with the gym. Miami's gm, John Eric Sullivan, AKA the Chads. Because Miami has the GM and coach who look like they're like fraternal twins.

[Craig Robick]

They do.

[Danny Hy]

I think John Eric Sullivan might have gotten a haircut. He looks a little different now.

[Danny Kelly]

I think they were told they look too similar.

[Danny Hy]

We can't tell the difference between you two. Someone needs a haircut.

[Danny Kelly]

I gotta tell you. I went to his press conference and he was very impressive. And I was like, I would have hired that guy as a gm. I was like, it was. I was.

[Craig Robick]

We all divided and conquered because a lot of these, these pressers happen at the same time. So.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. What.

[Craig Robick]

Tell me what the Miami takeaway was.

[Danny Kelly]

I actually was pretty impressed with the guy. I, we. We kind of made fun of it when they were hired because they just look a lot like the coach. They both came from Green Bay. Jeff Halfley, the defensive coordinator for Green Bay, became the Miami head coach. And then John Eric Sullivan, he was really impressive guy, but I think that the one that stuck out to me was I asked him about. Basically I was like, how'd you think Tua played last year? Because they can't pretend they haven't watched the tape.

[Danny Hy]

How'd you think Tua played last year?

[Craig Robick]

What if he was like, that's a reasonable question.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, you know what's funny is because they get people ask them about other players and they're like, well, they're not under contract with my team, so I'm not allowed to talk about great. You know, it's under contract with your team. How do you think he played? Which is a funny gotcha question. That's your quarterback play.

[Craig Robick]

And what do you say?

[Danny Kelly]

So he had. His answer was basically he was like, I think 2 had some highs. I think Tua would tell you himself

[Craig Robick]

that what day was the high?

[Danny Kelly]

Some lows should have asked like, which one?

[Danny Hy]

But then he said, is that really high throw that?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, it was the one that over Tyreek Sell heads. So John Eric Sullivan said, I think Tua Believes he can still be a high level quarterback in this league. I think that's what he's all right.

[Craig Robick]

I think that's what his Tua believes.

[Danny Hy]

Like how that sounds.

[Craig Robick]

I think he thinks he's.

[Danny Kelly]

It's like, I'm sorry that you're upset about. Sorry you feel that way.

[Danny Hy]

Like talking about your 6 year old. I mean, he thinks he's pretty good.

[Craig Robick]

Yes.

[Danny Kelly]

I think Tua believes he could still be a high level quarterback in this league. I think that's what his desire is to do. Where that happens remains to be seen. Whether that's here or elsewhere, which I kind of just heard it in my head. I was like, I thought about getting kicked out of a bar when I was in college and they're like, we don't care where you go, but you can't stay here.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And this dude's getting released also.

[Craig Robick]

Didn't you say that they talked about Malik Willis like 10 times more than Tua?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, it's always weird. I think this is always the thing to keep in mind when you see quotes from a coach is sometimes I think there's a big difference between things that get brought up unprompted, which are things they're talking about on purpose or let's slip versus what comes up organic. People asking about Willis because they came from the Packers. I think it's Jeff Hafley in particular. Like they were being asked a lot about Malik Willis because he started games and everyone's putting the dominoes together. Malik Willis, who filled in for Jordan Love when he got hurt the beginning of 2024 and the end of 2025, now is going to get paid like $30 million or whatever, which I think is I per.

[Craig Robick]

I feel like everyone's come around on the fact that they think Malik Willis is worth a shot.

[Danny Hy]

Coming around.

[Craig Robick]

Well, I'm not Doug, dude. I think it's crazy. Him getting like 30, 35 million dollars a year I think is kind of ridiculous.

[Danny Kelly]

Can you explain? Dk, can you please give the brief reminder of who the fuck Malik Willis is?

[Danny Hy]

He was in the Kenny Pickett draft class a couple years ago and did not work out. He was a third round pick, I believe did not work out in Tennessee. He went over to Green Bay. He's had a couple opportunities to be the starter for Green Bay when Jordan Love is in her. And by and large, the numbers that he's produced when starting over the last couple of years have been extremely good. Now the question for the Packers. Sorry, what did I say?

[Danny Kelly]

We just Said the number. Well, it's the Packers. His first two seasons he had three picks.

[Danny Hy]

Right. But coming in in relief in the packers system for Jordan Love, there's. He's played very well. And so obviously they're. They're kind of massaging the offense to not put a lot on his shoulders. He is, you know, a good runner, so they kind of make that part of the offense. But I think the big question here is obviously one, how does that small sample translate to a full season where, you know, and then what does he look like outside of that system or outside of the LaFleur system in particular?

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, this guy's a third rounder out of Liberty. Was terrible in Tennessee. Like I remember when they tried to start him. We all were joking. This is like one of the. This is the worst quarterback we've seen

[Danny Kelly]

in one of Rabel. Mike Vrabel's best coaching performances ever was some almost beating the Chiefs with Malik Willis as the quarterback. And that was like the code for like, he's the worst quarterback.

[Craig Robick]

Couldn't complete a pass.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes.

[Craig Robick]

So he went to Green Bay. Do you know how many times he started the game for the packers in the last two years?

[Danny Hy]

Six.

[Craig Robick]

Three. Three times. He started three games.

[Danny Hy]

Three games. And how many appearances does he have?

[Craig Robick]

I. I think he. I think there were two other games where he filled in halfway through. Okay, so you know, four games maybe if you add it all together. But I. That is such a small sample size to me. Also. Lafleur is such a good schemer, play caller. And every Malik Willis game was like designed around, you know, he was. He had like 13 completions in one start. He had 14 in another, like 18 in another. They're not airing it out with him and I guess that could be the entire offense wherever he goes to, but I don't know, like squeezing out wins, running the ball really well with. With Josh Jacobs and the packers and like scheming around Malik Willis for two to three games is a lot easier to me than. Than just designing an offensive route around him full time and giving him 35 million bucks a year. That's crazy to me.

[Danny Kelly]

I'm of two minds. You're almost. You're probably right. Like you're. It's. Expecting Malik Willis to succeed is kind of crazy. If you're like, it's more likely than not Malik will succeeds. That feels wrong. Like, to your point, he's played however many few games. It's worth noting though that he is the fastest quarterback in the NFL. And like, I think at this point, he's much faster than Lamar Jackson. There are games I think you can see the last couple seasons where he's kind of faster than some of the cornerbacks on the field.

[Craig Robick]

Justin Fields is really fast.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes, but. But Link Willis has a cannon. Like, she's got a cannon. So he has a crazy. The physical talent's crazy. I think the short answer is, it's not that you're wrong. Be like, how are you going to pay $30 million? This guy's barely played. I look at it as that saying, like, this is like the Silicon Valley thing. Like, the pessimists are often right and optimists are often rich. And it's like, yeah, you're. He's probably going to fail, but if he does not fail and he's good, you have a quarterback who, what is he, 26 years old? And you have one of the best quarterbacks entering his prime and like. Like one of the most physically gifted guys in the NFL. And if he fails, who gives a. Like, if he goes to the Dolphins or the Cardinals, they're probably going to fail anyway. It's just another season. It's $30 million. Who cares about $30 million? It's 1/10 of the cap in a given season, a $300 million year. And it's like, if you like, oh, we'll get a better quarter, we'll bring in Derek Carr.

[Craig Robick]

All right, cool.

[Danny Kelly]

Then you need another quarterback next year anyway. It's like, you might as well take a swing.

[Danny Hy]

Gives you an opportunity to have the upside that we've seen. Now, there is a downside, obviously, and he could be completely different with. In a different system, on a different team, with different people, players and all that stuff.

[Danny Kelly]

It could suck.

[Danny Hy]

I mean, but like, you look at his numbers from. He's at 11 appearances in games, three starts total in the last two seasons. I mean, he averaged like 11 yards per attempt. And, and this is the difference to me between him and Jordan Justin Fields, because Justin Fields got What, whatever it was 20 million last year to start. It was pretty much a disaster from the start.

[Craig Robick]

Well, he's four and two with the Steelers.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

But I think the thing that's just

[Danny Kelly]

funny, more games than Malik Willis has played.

[Craig Robick]

I'm just saying, I don't know if it was a disaster, but they just be him for Russell Wilson.

[Danny Hy]

But I just, I feel personally that Willis is a better passer already. He has better processing skills. He's quicker, protects the ball processing. And that was the big thing with Fields is like, he just Everything happened too slowly with him. I would do it. Like, if I was on, if I was a fan of the Dolphins, I would be rooting for this.

[Craig Robick]

Well, what I'll say is I think you're right. I think we're both right. And I think because the free agency market for quarterbacks is kind of crap, Malik Willis looks a lot better.

[Danny Kelly]

That's like, your options are only as good as your alternative. So what's the alternative to Malik Willis?

[Craig Robick]

It's like Tua has to leave Miami. So then Miami. What are you looking at? You going to bring in Kurt Cousins? Are you going to bring. Arizona is going to probably get rid of Kyler Murray. So what are they looking at? Are they going to bring in Tua, Kurt Cousins, who like Derek Carr? So, yeah, when you compare them to who's available, Malik Willis looks like a worthy shot. Even if it's a little bit more money than you want to spend.

[Danny Hy]

I'd rather have Kyler or Tua or Kyler or Willis.

[Craig Robick]

How much am I paying them?

[Danny Kelly]

Just call it even. It's probably not, but call it even

[Craig Robick]

for I thought I'd rather have Kyler Murray. What the Are we talking about?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, probably.

[Craig Robick]

This is what's crazy. Like, I feel like we're talking ourselves into mal.

[Danny Hy]

It's always the. It's the unknown versus the relative known.

[Danny Kelly]

The mystery box is like, do you want a mystery box or the boat? And you're like, the mystery box could be anything.

[Danny Hy]

This is like with the quarterbacks for the Steelers every season. You're like, well, I've already seen what Russell Wilson did. Let's get Aaron Rodgers. Well, I've already seen what Aaron Rodgers did. Let's get Kirk Cousins.

[Danny Kelly]

Sometimes you don't need better, you just need different.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig Robick]

If the money's the same, I would take Kyler Murray. There are some numbers that if Malik Willis put. Put up four of the seven seasons that Kyler Murray has put together, you'd be thrilled.

[Danny Kelly]

Kyler is just a bizarre. You know what's so funny? Kyler is one of those guys where the moment he's released or traded or whatever, you're just like, where should Kyler Murray fit? And you look at the teams, you're like, man, he'd work in Arizona. They should take a shot at him. You know what I mean? It's almost like they need to cut him and bring him back and everyone. Wipe everyone's memory. But the Cardinals GM also talked, so Monte Austin Fort, who we've talked in the past is like, A little bit of an energy vampire tendencies.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. I have another. I have a new nomination for the energy vampire belt.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh yeah, we have to talk about that. So he was Monty and for is the gm. The Cardinals has asked if he's talked to Kyler Murray at the end of last season because Kyler played like five games. They put on injured reserve. They stashed him, pretended he was hurt and it was like a whole like, let's just go away. And Monty Ossaford said, yeah, I've always had a good dialogue with Kyler saying basically like, yes, we've talked. And then Josh Winefeld said ESPN reported basically someone Kyler Kyler, his agent. Someone was like, no, we haven't. And they literally like within an hour on espn, the headline was after was the two have not talked since the season ended and have not spoken. So I do think Kyler's gone from Arizona.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

But I think he's gonna get traded. I don't think he's gonna get cut. I think the Cardinals could get like maybe a hot like a third round pick form or maybe a high fourth rounder.

[Craig Robick]

I think you're right.

[Danny Hy]

Do you have a favorite for which team that would be too?

[Danny Kelly]

Dude, I think he's such a jet. Kyler's such a Jet.

[Craig Robick]

He is such a jet. But I man, you just know that's not working. Yeah. I don't know which quarterback.

[Danny Hy]

I would think that's not working well.

[Danny Kelly]

Because if you go through the options for Kyler, I just keep looking through it. I'm like, the jets work about Miami. Miami. I think those are the two things. You know, it's funny because Miami more.

[Craig Robick]

I don't know why. It's probably a little bit too simple to just only associate Kyler with like indoors or warm weather and think he couldn't succeed in the cold. But I do kind of think that he would be better in Miami.

[Danny Kelly]

You know what's funny? I'm curious who you think dk. So you know who's. Who's in Miami right now. So Jeff Halfley's the head coach, the other Chad and then the defensive coordinator. He's the defensive coach. But the offensive coaching staff at Miami, Kevin Petullo went there from the Eagles who he like they threw him to the Wolves and threw him to the Philadelphia Volcano. Kevin Petullo was blamed for the entire Eagle season and they threw him overboard. He's in Miami now. And it's funny to think of Kevin Petullo working with Kyler Murray after working with Jalen Hurts because Jalen hurts. Has all the things Kyler doesn't. I think what people want from leader. No one questions Jalen hurts. His work ethic or leadership or whatever.

[Danny Hy]

Right.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, maybe. But, like, the limitations around Kyler's play and Hertz's play are in very different ways. Also kind of similar.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. Because Kyler also pocket passing, middle of field passing. Kyler bailing. And.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

One hurts bailing from the pocket. There's some similarities there.

[Danny Kelly]

But also, like, part of me is like, maybe it would work. So I don't know. So I think. But I think it's Miami or the jets for Kyler, but we'll see. But speaking. I think the team can cross off as the Steelers because you came back from the Steelers podium with Omar Khan, the gm, and you were like, I hate this team.

[Danny Hy]

He's demoralized. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

I. I think Omar Khan is in the running for energy vampire of the year. Wow. Just. I. I just don't think he gives a whole lot. And I don't know if it's like, institutional arrogance about the Steelers and it's just like, we're the Steelers and. And we deserve respect and I don't need to say anything and everything's fine. But I just. I. There's no juice with this team. And the quarterback situation is. So even if the team is decent and they're gonna, you know, eight to 10 games or whatever, I'm just like, Tomlin did so much to keep you, to keep the faith a little. And now it's like, now that he's gone, I'm looking at this whole situation and listening to Omar Khan talk about the one, the only. He basically said nothing for 20 minutes. The only thing he said was he filibustered. He did. The only thing he said was our quarterback needs to fit the AFC north style. Which to me is like, I guess,

[Danny Kelly]

no Tua, no Kyler, no Kyler, no Tua.

[Craig Robick]

Yes and no Derek Carr and no Derek Carr. But I'm like Kirk Cousins for the Azula.

[Danny Kelly]

I think kind of more so than I think, and to be clear with the code we're talking through is Kyler is like, frankly, too small to play in the AFC North. And I think the perception is the most rampant bias all football players hold is small people, they don't respect them. It's kind of an insane thing.

[Craig Robick]

I think the Steelers want Rogers back, and I think they want Will Howard to have a season behind Rodgers healthy. And they're. They're. Weirdly, they talk about Will Howard a Lot for a six rounder.

[Danny Kelly]

It's. It's bizarre how much that like talk

[Craig Robick]

about him a lot. We all kind of like Will Howard, but I'm like, it's because we met

[Danny Kelly]

him and we looked him in the eyes, we shook his hand, we're like, all right, that guy's gonna make everyone up.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. He looked at me in the eyes. He was like, nice to meet you.

[Danny Kelly]

Strong handshake.

[Danny Hy]

I like you this guy.

[Danny Kelly]

Love this guy.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. I don't know. We were talking about this earlier and I want to bring it up on the show. I think the Steelers, you wouldn't think it on. On the surface, but I think the Steelers, if you do it kind of power ranking the most hopeless NFL franchises right now from, from a fan perspective. I think the Steelers are bottom five. I think there's a clear bottom four and it's Jets, Browns, Cardinals, Cardinals, Miami. And then I think the Steelers are five.

[Danny Hy]

I feel like the Dolphins aren't in that hopeless vein anymore because there's like now hope with this new coach.

[Danny Kelly]

But Quinn Ewers is the quarterback right now until like if even if the Dolphins sign Malik Willis. I think that.

[Danny Hy]

Not saying, I'm just saying hopeless.

[Craig Robick]

I think it's those four and I think the Steelers are fifth.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't know.

[Craig Robick]

I give me another team that has, that has less hope than the Steelers.

[Danny Kelly]

The Colts got hit in the nuts with this Panthers.

[Craig Robick]

Such a fun. The Panthers made the playoffs. He almost beat the Rams.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

It's weird. I think that the. Some fans are probably getting insulted right now.

[Craig Robick]

Bryce Young's getting better every year. You have McMillan Canales, you like, like there's a lot to. To be optimistic right now.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. The Raiders have Mendoza, you have Clint Kubiak.

[Danny Hy]

What are the. What are the tights? Titan. Where are the Titans?

[Craig Robick]

Like talking yourself into a year two leap and you could found your franchise quarterback. The Steelers have no franchise quarterback within a hundred miles of their windshield.

[Danny Kelly]

You guys are just like on the road and you're, you know, have you guys ever actually been in the situation where you're going to run out of gas and you're like looking up the next gas station. You're like I'm not going to make it. And like that's you guys where you're just like all right, do we go with 43 year old Aaron Rodgers?

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And back with Mike McCarthy which literally didn't work eight years ago or do you go with the young buck Kirk cousins who's 38, three also three years off at Achilles. Right. And those are. And that's going to be your options.

[Craig Robick]

And I, you know, the other teams. Yeah, the Colts, but they had such a great start to the year. I think there's optimism in what they could be if Daniel Jones is healthy. Like, they saw that. And then I thought about the Saints. I think the Saints are on the cusp, but maybe they feel like they.

[Danny Hy]

Some optimism.

[Craig Robick]

Tyler Shock.

[Danny Kelly]

No, Tyler Shock. They like Tyler.

[Craig Robick]

Good enough. Yeah. So it's like maybe the Falcons, but I think, you know, Stefanski and maybe Pennocks, you give him another year. The Steelers is like, okay, Rogers and McCarthy, do they win nine, 10 games? Once again, they're going to get worked. And then when they have the 20th pick again, this is just ground.

[Danny Hy]

But you're going to the playoffs.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, but it's, It's. I understand.

[Danny Kelly]

It's purgatory.

[Craig Robick]

It is purgatory. And I would argue that, like the Giants, for example, I think have 10 times more hope. And I would way rather be a Giants fan right now than a Steelers fan. I don't think that's a hot take.

[Danny Kelly]

Please keep that one in the vault the next time he makes one of the Giants.

[Craig Robick]

You have Harbaugh, you have Jackson Dart, you have neighbors.

[Danny Kelly]

You're right. Like, you're right. It's better. Which is funny because the top five pick. Like, people speaking with the Giants, though, because John Harbaugh, I made sure to get the front row at the John harbor concert. These things are like festival music festivals. The John harbor concert felt like that to me. But it's like music festivals. Sometimes you have to go in the middle of an act. You know, maybe sometimes as a country singer than an EDM artist, you get a weird crowd there waiting in advance.

[Danny Hy]

Right, Right.

[Danny Kelly]

So I was like, you know, everyone's been asking me how I feel about the Giants, and I have the same answer to everybody, which is again, like, nine of the last 10 Thanksgivings have been with my family. The Giants were mathematically eliminated. And it's just funny to hear anyone say, like, the Giants are a better spot, but he's probably right.

[Craig Robick]

What do you think?

[Danny Hy]

I think you could make a case for it, but I don't know. I feel like however many years straight of winning seasons is like, you're not the most hopeless franchise.

[Craig Robick]

Do you think it's more likely that the Giants or the Steelers win a Super bowl in the next three years?

[Danny Hy]

Steelers.

[Danny Kelly]

It's the Giants.

[Craig Robick]

Really? Like what?

[Danny Hy]

As soon as they start. As soon as they start scoring some touchdowns, maybe I'll change my mind.

[Craig Robick]

But like, what? What? Like I can. I just never score touchdowns for the Giants. What's the path for the Steelers? Rogers gets generation.

[Danny Hy]

I don't know.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. Honestly, Mike McCarthy does defense. I don't know. But let's keep rolling here. So the other. The other stuff in terms of just players that might move the big. So A.J. brown and the Eagles, which is just this drama that never ends. I don't know what's with this team, man. The Eagles.

[Danny Hy]

I. I went to the Sirianni one. Did you go to Siriani?

[Danny Kelly]

So there was Sirianni. There's.

[Craig Robick]

How.

[Danny Kelly]

First of all, can we talk about how Big Dom just actually does walk around everywhere?

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't know if this is obvious and people know this, but Big Dom literally is like Nick Sirianni's body.

[Craig Robick]

I kind of was shocked that he's here. Why is he here?

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, well, I would argue that he's the most important guy they bring here because what he. He is. So he's the head of security for the team. They all have these guys, like the Texans guys. It's like former Secret Service agents, former FBI people. And they are like the fixers. Big Dom's like the fixer. So they're friends with cops in the city. So, like, when they drafted Jalen Carter, Big Dom gets sent down to Athens, Georgia, and he knows cops. And they asked the cops what the happened. Really? That's Big Dom's job at the Combine. So you could Art. Big Dom is getting real intel.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

Like, a lot of teams have a. Whatever. The. The guy who's in charge of wrangling the media. And then the Eagles have Big Dom.

[Danny Kelly]

It is true. It's a bunch of head of pr and then.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. There's like a PR guy or Big Dom.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes.

[Danny Hy]

The other teams don't have Big Dog, like a security guy wandering around with their coach.

[Craig Robick]

Also, who's super, super famous. Dom is the. Is like. Is Dom the most famous security guard? I mean, there's Big. From Robin.

[Danny Kelly]

Big Paul Blart.

[Craig Robick]

Okay. A real security guard.

[Danny Hy]

He's a mall cop. He's not a security guard.

[Craig Robick]

That's true.

[Danny Kelly]

You guys looked at me like, I don't respect law enforcement right there.

[Danny Hy]

You're like, how dare you?

[Danny Kelly]

But Mall cop. But like, that implies that Mall cops. A real police officer. It's a rented private force.

[Craig Robick]

That's right. Whatever. Okay. But you know Robin Big. And then. And then Dom. Dom is extremely famous. And it's where he's like security guards.

[Danny Hy]

There's no other security guards. That's it.

[Craig Robick]

That are famous. Isn't their whole point to keep a low profile?

[Danny Kelly]

True. Big Dom is the highest profile. I don't know if I. I keep going back and forth in The Eagles with A.J. brown. The thing Howie Roseman said, and he said this earlier in the week, he said, basically he was like, you don't make your team better by subtracting.

[Danny Hy]

And they all say that, don't they?

[Danny Kelly]

They. I will say the firmer a team says they won't trade someone this week, the more I'm like, they're going to get traded. Like Pete Carroll went triple down that he wouldn't trade Russell Wilson a few years ago. Like everyone says that the only team

[Danny Hy]

that I trust will not trade a player when they say they're not going to trade a player are the Bengals. Yes, in this case. And we heard this from several different people, which we'll get to. But the. We're not in the business of like getting rid of elite players. That kind of thing. That immediately to me is just. They're trading him, but they're just trying to. They're pushing the price up. They're basically saying, we're not going to give this guy away.

[Craig Robick]

He's too good.

[Danny Kelly]

I think that the Eagles. The difference is they think. It's funny how it's never complicated. They just think three steps ahead or two steps ahead. And so the difference is I think Howie Roseman can say we're not going to sell low, but then sometimes you have to. The difference is AJ Brown has this bonus that kicks in. Most teams do it in March. I believe AJ Brown's bonus kicks in in August or September, which means they could trade him up until the season and they're going to eventually take like a 35 or $40 million dead cat pit. But if they trade him after the draft, basically it becomes like a $20 million dead cat hit. So I think that Howie's either. I think they want a first rounder. I think Howie Roseman will really want a first rounder next year's draft. I think that Howie Roseman, because next year's draft's better. No one wants to do that, but I think it could be a George Pickens timeline in May where that was really random. That deal got done right after the draft ended. It could be like that or in the middle or even in the middle of trading camp. But I do think Howie Roseman is like, I want a first round pick for this guy. And if not, like, we don't want to take a $40 million.

[Danny Hy]

I think they're going to get a first rounder for JG Brown.

[Danny Kelly]

So I went through the teams and the teams at the back of the first would be like, it depends. Mike Vrabel, like the patriots have the 31st pick.

[Craig Robick]

They're not going to give a first up for him.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't think so either. But I think second, though. Well, that's like Buffalo picks 26. Tennessee, ironically, if you want A.J. brown went back to Tennessee. They have the 35th pick. That's like the, you know, you know, early second round and the Raiders are picked 36. But I keep thinking about like next year maybe there's a team that frankly guys are worried they're going to get fired and that maybe they give up a Knicks first. But I think teams want to hold on to 20, 27. But I think how he wants and

[Craig Robick]

I think historically the receivers that when you trade a receiver around 30 years old. I don't know.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

That I feel like that stint is never. It's a low likelihood of that being a smash hit. Oh yeah. He'll be 29, I think this summer. All the drama around him, how healthy he is.

[Danny Hy]

I don't know.

[Craig Robick]

First rounder is a lot.

[Danny Hy]

No, I think it'd be. I don't think that I. I mean it could happen.

[Craig Robick]

But even an early second feels like a lot.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. Well, if they all. If they got a. But here's. You say that. Would they do a third and a fifth. Part of me is like, just fucking keep A.J. brown.

[Craig Robick]

It is funny to think of the Eagles now with a diminished offensive line and now Goddard's a free agent. They'll probably bring him back. But it's like, okay, what is the offense now? You have Jalen hurts you who you've kind of lost faith in. A.J. brown's gone. You have Devonte Smith.

[Danny Kelly]

That's the other reason I don't. That they. I do think they should hold out for a better pick because if they take the dead cap, if they ever need to move on from Jalen hurts, that's also to a like dead calf. And so it's just. It's just. We'll see. I think they're gonna get a good deal for him.

[Danny Hy]

Your point is right though, Craig. Because after that they basically have no one.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

It's like Darius Cooper, Johnny Wilson, Britain Covey. Yeah. John Dotson is a free agent.

[Danny Kelly]

The.

[Danny Hy]

And I mean they're not going to break the bank to bring him back.

[Danny Kelly]

I like Dotson I think how he would be fine to just skip this draft and get a pick next year. And even if he has to wait till the season begins.

[Craig Robick]

I love the tradition of saying next year's draft is really good.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, yeah, it is.

[Craig Robick]

But this year's draft.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, at some point we have to talk about this though, because at some point, though it's more true now because players are, that would have came out of the draft are literally going back.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, last year we said this draft was going to be good because we thought guys like Arch and Dante and, and all these dudes were going to come. And then now it's like, oh, actually, right. It's the following year.

[Danny Kelly]

But again, here's in a nutshell. Carson Beck is a good example. He had to go back to college because he had this elbow injury. He got $4 million to go to Miami. And then I think with incentives, because he almost won the championship, probably got to 6 or 7 million dollars. Tyler Schuck's like entire 4 year contract is worth like 10 or 11 million dollars. Like Carson Beck made probably double, almost triple what Tyler Schuck did this year to be an NFL starting quarterback. So it's like at some point. Yeah, I don't know. The other guy that might get. The Max Crosby thing is ridiculous. What is good? So Max Crosby, the defensive end for the Raiders, they shut him down to Tank for the week and he was really mad. This is the guy that doesn't come off the field in real life and then like plays 100 of snaps like a psychopath. They had to convince him to like not play an actual game. He was furious. He made the three pointer, put up an Instagram, and now they're trying to. Do you think that they're trying to actually get him to come back to the Raiders and be not mad at them or do you think they're going to trade?

[Danny Hy]

No, I think, well, who knows? There's a chance they bring him back. But I mean, I think he is the perfect type of player for them to trade for a lot of reasons. I mean, he's, he's 29. He has no more money guaranteed past 2026. So that makes him a little bit more attractive on the, on the trade market. And they're rebuilding team, you know, I mean, like, he's not gonna, they're not

[Craig Robick]

gonna be different timeline.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. So I will say though, the. What? Spytech. John Spytech, the GM for the Raiders. What he said at his presser was. And it was kind of, it was the same Sort of deal a lot of these other guys did where they're like, you know, we're not, we're not getting rid of good players. This is our elite player. We, we're not in the business of, you know, giving these guys away and kind of said all that stuff. He said that we have a great relationship. I'm talking to him all the time. He's in the building every day. Like, all this stuff. To me, again, it was like, that was, to me, the flag was they're trading him, but they're just like, you know, the price is going to be high.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, it's also funny, I love that specific phrase when they're like, we're not in the business of giving away good players.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

I mean, that is literally the business all the time.

[Danny Hy]

We're in the. I got here. Sorry. He goes, I'm going to be up front from the start. When I got here. We're in the business of having really good players on the team, and we need a lot more of them. It's hard to build a great team without elite players.

[Craig Robick]

That's kind of your mantra.

[Danny Hy]

I mean, built. Yeah. Draft good players or like, keep good players. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Having good players is good.

[Danny Hy]

It is good.

[Craig Robick]

You think they could get a first for Max Crosby?

[Danny Hy]

I kind of do.

[Danny Kelly]

I, I, if I. Bill, I'm stealing this shamelessly from Bill Barnwell, who has been saying this at ESPN for a year or two, that the Lions should be trading for Max Crosby.

[Danny Hy]

And there's a lot of teams that could use that type of player.

[Craig Robick]

This would be the most elite white pass rushing team ever.

[Danny Kelly]

I know. I was going to say it's like the, the, the Eagles trading for, like, Riley Moss. They could get the two white cornerbacks, and then I think the Lions should get Trey Hendrickson or Max Crosby. And then they could have the white defensive ends. The. What was the other thing? So John Smites, like the Raider again. Just the Raiders. Tom Brady. Having a general manager whose name is Spy Tech is just unbelievable.

[Craig Robick]

But how is that his name? That's a crazy name.

[Danny Kelly]

High Tech is crazy. And also spelled with the K. So it actually sounds like a company.

[Craig Robick]

It does.

[Danny Kelly]

Spytech.

[Craig Robick]

It sounds like it's in Terminator.

[Danny Hy]

It's pretty tech. He's a Tech bro.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

But he, he said that Fernando Mendoza might sit to start the year. They're also, like, we're all barely even pretending they won't take him. But the Spytic said, you want to limit the amount of pressure that you have on that young quarterback. At the start, if you have a young quarterback, I'm not necessarily in favor of running him out there right away either. And they talked about the importance of the whole team. I think this is the right move. And Brady has been on the record about this for years.

[Danny Hy]

That's.

[Danny Kelly]

Quarterbacks should sit more. I think Mendoza might not start to begin the year and they might get a quarterback.

[Danny Hy]

Well, the question is, do they keep Gino and run that out again another year and, and kind of just let Fernando Mendoza learn or like, Gino's gotta go.

[Danny Kelly]

Gina was there for.

[Danny Hy]

At this point, maybe that's not even the best for their organization.

[Craig Robick]

But Gino's gonna go to the Jets. Can you imagine?

[Danny Hy]

No, no, I can't that.

[Danny Kelly]

No.

[Danny Hy]

I do think also, though, this is another situation where it's just really the safe thing to say for the GM to be like, look, I don't know if we necessarily think it's right to have this guy go out and start. Just keep it, keep the, keep the thought open that we might sit this guy in the case that he either gets like a little bit nicked up early in the year and then they decide to kind of like, wait a while. They're basically just like setting expectations very low. You're not going to see Fernando Mendoza in week one.

[Craig Robick]

Also, you come off as practical and you know, they're thinking of the long term. There's no downside for sitting him for the first eight to 12 weeks.

[Danny Kelly]

Also, sneakily, the thing with Mendoza, and this is not like me pretending he won't go first or doesn't deserve to be first, but they ran a lot of RPOs at Indiana. Look, there is a lot for him to learn. He's perfect to learn. I think the Kubiak system that the new coach, Clint Kubiak, is going to run, but again, Sam Darnold just won a Super bowl. And I know we're all used to this, but Sam Darnold won a Super Bowl. Sam Darnold sat for an entire year in San Francisco. Like, and then he won 14 games with the Vikings, and then he did it against Seattle. Like, sitting and learning, digesting and marinating. The system is good.

[Craig Robick]

It's been a while since, like a highly drafted quarterback has sat an entire first season, right?

[Danny Kelly]

Yes.

[Craig Robick]

It doesn't really happen at all. I mean, I can't homes.

[Danny Kelly]

But. And that, that's a perfect example. 10 years ago.

[Danny Hy]

And it's the Green Bay, partly. Lamar came in late even then.

[Danny Kelly]

Even then Harbaugh and then panicked and Halfway through the season, 10 years ago, whenever that was. And that's because though. It's because of the Packers. It's because Andy Reid, who Andy Reid drafted Mahomes because he was like, this is Brett Favre again, is Brett Favre, if he like, could do no plays. And so the packers are like the. We need a ton of quarterbacks models. Ron wolfe, I mean, McShay was talking about this the other day with Elliott Wolf was Ron Slut. It's like the. If you hit Ron Wolf's thing was if you hit one out of every 10 quarterbacks, you'll be in this business forever.

[Danny Hy]

Right?

[Danny Kelly]

So packers just keep throwing darts. And the packers people that have spread out actually develop quarterbacks. But Andy Reid was the one who like, you need to sit for a year, but it took an old school guy from an old school team to do it. And no one's even tried since other than the packers who put Jordan Love behind Rogers and Rogers behind Fart. But like, no one's tried. And everyone's like, what do we do with the most important person in the entire company? And they're like, maybe let them learn. And like, no, they got to do the whole thing immediately.

[Danny Hy]

But it is a situation where you have the luxury of letting a guy sit.

[Danny Kelly]

If you wait because you have a

[Danny Hy]

good quarterback, that means you have a good enough quarterback.

[Craig Robick]

And the higher you take in, the more pressure there is. The first overall pick.

[Danny Hy]

Right.

[Craig Robick]

Sitting for a year.

[Danny Kelly]

But this is why I'm open to

[Craig Robick]

love Is like the what, 26th Packers?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, this is why I'm open to some of these flawed quarterbacks this year. Ty Simpson from Alabama or like even Carson Beck or Nussmire where I'm like, I don't love them, but if they go to the Rams and you get to sit behind Stafford and McVeigh for a year or three, or you go to the Steelers and you sit behind Rogers or you sit behind Kirk Cousins

[Craig Robick]

for a year behind Will Howard.

[Danny Hy]

Learn from Will.

[Danny Kelly]

That's true. That's true. Will can teach them.

[Craig Robick]

Will can teach them. But yeah, you're right.

[Danny Kelly]

The other what?

[Craig Robick]

It's boring but smart. And usually those are the best decisions that you could make.

[Danny Hy]

Yes.

[Danny Kelly]

Just get a quarterback when you don't need one. The I missed the Nick Casario press conference. Nick is there. Is the GM for the Texans. Very super intense guy.

[Danny Hy]

Did you make eye contact?

[Craig Robick]

I don't think I did. I kind of hit in the back because he was scary.

[Danny Kelly]

He's eye contact with Nick Cassario. Is like, very much. You're like. It's like the eye of Sauron. You're like, oh, he sees me.

[Craig Robick]

I get that now. Yeah, it's. He. I mean, he. It's weird that a GM represents the team's vibe, but he does. I'm like, man, you kind of seem like the Texans defense is a human

[Danny Kelly]

being, and he keeps the stock. He always. There's nobody in the football that talks more about the stock market than Nick Casseria.

[Craig Robick]

Yes. There was a moment where they were. There was this one guy going around. I noticed a few people who would just go ask the exact same question to every gm, Right? Which is kind of interesting to see how the answers differ. But somebody asked about how NIL has changed your ability to judge a player's maturity, Right? And he said, it's, you know, it's nice to see what they do with money because usually the first paycheck they get, the big one, is obviously in the pros, and then they, you know, that can alter their life and what directions they go down and what choices they make. And he was like, so it's kind of cool. You can see a guy who's making millions of dollars and. And he was like, do they buy eight cars or do they put it in an S P index fund?

[Danny Hy]

Right.

[Craig Robick]

He's like, that's what I would do.

[Danny Hy]

This is something that Dan Morgan, the GM of the Panthers, also said.

[Craig Robick]

Basically the same thing.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, it was. I thought that was interesting because it. There's probably a lot of downsides to it, I guess, because you never really know who's going to come out. Everybody's changing schools every year. I mean, going through. Doing the draft guide, it's actually really rare to see a guy who just went to one school now. I mean, half this class, more than half the class, has, like, been to two or three different schools.

[Danny Kelly]

Brandon, being the gym for the Bills, had this line that really stuck in my head more than anything I heard the other day where he. He just. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said you used to have to ask kids in interviews why they transferred, and now you have to ask kids why they stayed.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And that one really stuck with me. Like, the weird guy this year is Ty Simpson from Alabama, who sat for three years, didn't take NIL offers to leave, and then waited his turn to be a starter. And they're like, we want to know about.

[Danny Hy]

That really hurt him.

[Danny Kelly]

And it probably hurt him.

[Danny Hy]

It is interesting. And, yeah, it. That's like, if we're gonna. That's like a funny, ironic part of this whole thing is like, like, okay, so were you not good enough to leave?

[Danny Kelly]

Do you not like money?

[Danny Hy]

The other part of the analysis that you have to throw in here and that it helps to like, have connections is you hear about the offers they got and then turn down like, you're going to hear about this a lot in the next couple of months or whatever. It's like, oh, he got a seven figure deal from wherever. I'm like. And that's kind of thing that you have to take into account. Said he stayed because he loved his teammates. I think it was like Gray Zabel last year maybe was one of the people that got offers to go play at a bigger school, decided to stick it out and stay with his teammates, that kind of thing. And I think teams liked that. But there might be some situations where you're like, okay, but why didn't, why didn't you go to that other school where you could have potentially put up big numbers or whatever?

[Danny Kelly]

No, but people do want that. The people want people who have the foresight to, like, we're. They want players who have the idea of, I'm gonna stay somewhere for four years. An NFL contract's four years. They want someone who thinks that we'll be able to develop.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, there's also a little bit more stability. This might be more of a case in college basketball, which I, I'm, I'm the nil situation there. I spend a lot of time thinking about because I'm an SSU basketball fan. But there, there is an argument to be made that going to a different school, there's just more risks at play now. It's like a new system. It's a new coach, it's. It's new players around you. If you are already good on one team, you can reasonably assume that you will progress. You know your role is safe and you know your coach is developing you in a way that you like if you like the team and you're good. But if you go somewhere else, like in basketball, you go somewhere else. It's like, like, you know, you're the bell of the ball for that week. But what if you pick Michigan? And then a week after you commit to Michigan, oh, they actually signed an even better point guard. And now you're coming off the bench and all of a sudden you're playing 18 minutes a game when you were going to play 36 at the team you were on, that, that was, that knew how to develop you. So there is A little bit of like a balance there. Of.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Do I do. How confident am I in the situation I'm going to and how secure is that? So I do kind of get it.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. One guy that actually comes to mind in this is Max Claire, the tight end from Ohio State who was playing at purd and he was putting up bigger numbers. He didn't actually put up his. His numbers went down this year playing at Ohio State. But he obviously is going to get a lot of attention. You're on. You're on that offensive. You're in that offense at Ohio State where there's a lot of eyes on that, that team. But I mean, again, this is kind of what you're saying. He's playing with big time playmakers like future top 10 picks at receiver and running back. And so you kind of get lost in the shuffle, get out shined a little bit. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

But it just, it just goes to show, and Casario talked about this a lot, that it basically now feels as though the combine. The only purpose of the combine is interviews and medicals because all the other. Kasario was saying some funny stuff. I wrote it down. They were asking about 40 times what drills he wanted to see. And he goes, and this is a quote loosely, you know, I tried to jot it down as best I could. Most accurately, he said, it doesn't matter what drills they do here. We'd like to get a 40 time. Does it matter? No. Kamari Lasseter's 40 didn't reflect his actual speed. It's fine. None of us will be here Friday when the workouts start. Eventually we'll get the info. We can just watch it on tv. We'll get it whenever he said the

[Danny Kelly]

idea I, I walked over.

[Craig Robick]

We'll get it whenever he said the

[Danny Kelly]

idea that I would change my rankings off of this, off of the drills here, he said is asinine.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. He's like, the point of this is to maximize one on one time to sit down and talk to these guys. Otherwise, the drills.

[Danny Kelly]

You know who else is leaving for the drills? Mike McDonald just won the super bowl and the Seahawks.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. I'll go home. Tell me how fast he was.

[Danny Hy]

There's a handful of teams that don't even come. We talked about it at the beginning of the show.

[Craig Robick]

I mean, Jags, Rams, McVeigh. And is it bad that we just

[Danny Kelly]

changed their name to NFL draft show? We're like, like.

[Craig Robick]

Well, it's not the NFL combine show. That's. That's a good point for a reason.

[Danny Hy]

There were a couple people. So. Yeah, you. You touched on it. The reason to be here is to.

[Craig Robick]

Obviously the medical staffs have to be here because that's.

[Danny Kelly]

Free agency's getting done here and the trades are getting done.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig Robick]

It's more just like a networking event for everybody to be in the same room and tamper.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, it's a tamper fest.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, it's the NFL tamper fest.

[Danny Hy]

Joe Brady was saying something that was interesting, which I think this isn't anything novel or new, but it is kind of a reminder. He was talking about how new Bill's coach, Bill's head coach, Joe Brady, who's a young guy, he's like in his 30s, and he was talking about the one value for being here is watching players interact with each other when they're not. When they don't actually really know that you're watching them kind of deal. So it's just more opportunities to evaluate like kind of creepy player they are. Yeah. Are they? He was talking about how they're in there when they're in there, when they're in their individual groups, like going from. From different, whatever stations because they're going to interviews, they're going to the workouts, they're going to weigh ins, they're going to whatever he likes to watch. Kind of how they interact with the other guys in that group, like who's the alpha kind of deal, who's on their phone, things like that. So there's. I think that the team. It is a fine line. There are teams that still really value that stuff.

[Craig Robick]

But I understand the one on one experience you want to like. But there was. Shafter was saying this on some video. I forget who was. He was in. Who was interviewing him. But he was talking about how there are Even coaches and GMs now who don't even necessarily need to be in person for the interviews. And it was like they can have members of their staff interview the guy, film it and then they'll send it to him and they'll watch it.

[Danny Kelly]

Do you talk to the players? No, no, no. My secretary does that. AI does that.

[Craig Robick]

My AI assistant does that.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

So anyway, Casario, just hilarious being like, we'll get the info eventually. Also 40 times, don't matter. And they said Kamari Lassiter was. Was slow.

[Danny Kelly]

And then they asked him about C.J. stroud getting traded. He said moronic.

[Craig Robick]

Who asked about that?

[Danny Kelly]

Someone. Nick Casseroa said trading CJ Stroud was moronic.

[Craig Robick]

Didn't you? Did you ask that question?

[Danny Kelly]

Well, I mean, you're saying I'm a moron. No, he called someone else moron.

[Craig Robick]

Oh, I thought you asked the question about Strat. Did you or did you not?

[Danny Hy]

He didn't say. He said, that's a moronic question.

[Craig Robick]

No, no, no.

[Danny Kelly]

I asked him because he, he brought up the stock market every also. Well, the joke with the Texans is that 31 teams headquarters, the general manager has NFL Network or ESPN on their TV. And in Houston, Nicocera has CNBC.

[Craig Robick]

That's right.

[Danny Kelly]

All he talks about the stock market

[Craig Robick]

is the stock down even one point on CJ Stroud.

[Danny Kelly]

Like every other coach wants to be a player.

[Danny Hy]

Our team missed the playoffs, but the dow is at 50,000.

[Craig Robick]

He literally said, like the stock market. The stock market has been down for five straight days.

[Danny Kelly]

He referenced the stock market and I was like, so if it was out of, if your confidence to CJ Stroud was out of 5,000, like, or 7,000, like the S and P or whatever, did the playoff performance, I was like, did it drop even one point? Did it go to 6,999?

[Craig Robick]

He said, no more on and he

[Danny Kelly]

said no, and if it did, I would buy more. It was like, because you're an idiot. Anyway. This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. TaxAct helps tackle taxes guiding you step by step so you can get your maximum refund. Get tips along the way. Add expert assist to talk to tax experts or let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service. TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details.

[Ad Voice 2]

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[Danny Kelly]

All right, I will say though, I think the the number one person who just held court was Sean Payton for the Broncos.

[Danny Hy]

He went like 30 minutes.

[Craig Robick]

They usually get. They get 15 minutes allotted. He went 30.

[Danny Kelly]

Has no PR person helping him. He just shows up. He honestly alphas everybody in the room and spends the whole time trying to alpha everybody. And he just like holds court, talks slow.

[Danny Hy]

He talks a chess mess, chess match out there.

[Danny Kelly]

It's.

[Craig Robick]

He put in A reporter in timeout, basically.

[Danny Kelly]

It was actually, it was uncomfortable.

[Craig Robick]

A guy I kept asking about like the Bo Nicks injury thing and what, what Payton said about him and he's like, look, I'm not going to talk about that anymore. No more questions out of you. And then the guy, he looked at

[Danny Hy]

the other guy that had originally reported, he goes, you can ask him.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

So the Bonix thing. So Sean Payton, the thing where he's like, oh, like if I had known about your ankle, I wouldn't have even drafted you. And then like this is. And then he. The press conference where Sean Pap was like. Yeah, I guess I forget the phrase he used. He was like inevitable or. He said it was going to happen at some point.

[Craig Robick]

Well didn't. Well, he pointed out how many surgeries he had.

[Danny Kelly]

Right.

[Craig Robick]

Multiple surgeries.

[Danny Kelly]

And then Bo Nicks was told this, I guess on a. By reporters in a conference call and Bo Nick said that it upset him and then he got the information wrong.

[Danny Hy]

Be talking about my medical history.

[Craig Robick]

So then I guess an out. Out of your mouth.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes, exactly. And then he hit him. And then. But Sean Payton, I guess blames the reporter for poorly representing what he said. Which seems like it was somewhat represented.

[Danny Hy]

Do you think?

[Danny Kelly]

But then he blamed it at the press conference.

[Danny Hy]

The man doth protest too much. Did you get any indication that that was like making it worse?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, but just to be clear, every time Sean Peyton was asked about this, he then pointed at the reporter he blames for and says, ask him, ask him.

[Danny Hy]

And then I think he should have just said this. This is a non story. I was joking.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, I don't think he possesses that ability.

[Danny Kelly]

It was. It was wild.

[Craig Robick]

P was hilarious though. Like him, by far the most entertaining took place to listen to by 10x.

[Danny Hy]

Really?

[Danny Kelly]

Yes, 100%. I was having a. I was having.

[Craig Robick]

You're captivated by him. He's so interesting.

[Danny Kelly]

You never.

[Craig Robick]

Cuz. Cuz it actually feels like he is just like improvising, has no plan. And we'll just say what he feels.

[Danny Kelly]

He asked. He was asked about quarterbacks having private coaches, quarter throwing coaches. He said I'm good. And then he like had to elaborate.

[Danny Hy]

It was like in. In reference to Russell Wilson, right?

[Danny Kelly]

I think so. And he was like I'm. And then he said, he usually. He said, I'm comfortable if you have a swing coach, but do it in your own time.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. When the season starts, they're mine.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Which is. Honestly I think that's kind of fair.

[Danny Kelly]

It is weird to think that teams can't help the quarterbacks throw for like months and months a year. It's always ought to be that Josh Allen has to go to a third party to learn how to throw football. It's always just strange.

[Craig Robick]

He also announced he's not calling plays anymore.

[Danny Hy]

This is burying the lead.

[Craig Robick]

Yes. Davis Webb.

[Danny Kelly]

Webb.

[Craig Robick]

The 30 Year Old Wonderkid that everybody loves Davis Webb.

[Danny Hy]

There is a real talking about Davis.

[Craig Robick]

There's a real big like backup quarterback play calling.

[Danny Hy]

Boom.

[Craig Robick]

Right? You have like guys like Sean Manion and Davis Webb and Scott Tolson, Tolzine.

[Danny Kelly]

They ran out of young offense. They ran out of Sean McVeigh and Kyle Shannon's friends. And so now they're just like they need quarterbacks to go back to being David Blau.

[Craig Robick]

There's a lot of backups who are. I'm surprised that Payton is giving up play calling to Davis Webb, but maybe he needed to to keep him in Denver.

[Danny Hy]

I think Sean coaching career since he was a head coach that he's done it. I believe.

[Danny Kelly]

I think.

[Craig Robick]

How many lot how many games do the Broncos need to lose before Sean Payton rips play calling?

[Danny Hy]

How many weeks into the season are we talking? Like six?

[Danny Kelly]

Three?

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, he's like, oh, and three.

[Danny Kelly]

They're, they're.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, he's like, I tried. I tried.

[Craig Robick]

You know what else I noticed about Sean Payton that was weird. That stood out to me. He has a terrible memory. And, and I find that.

[Danny Hy]

Well, that's relatable.

[Craig Robick]

That's. Well, coaches. I feel like Sean McVeigh could tell you any play that's ever happened in his life.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, you know my theory about that?

[Craig Robick]

What?

[Danny Kelly]

He just doesn't remember other things.

[Craig Robick]

What do you mean?

[Danny Kelly]

Like, I bet he doesn't know people's birthdays or like, you know, he probably

[Craig Robick]

has so much brain capacity. He gave it all to remember.

[Danny Kelly]

Probably needs Google Maps to get anywhere.

[Craig Robick]

Sean Payton didn't know how many games his team won last year. I found that to be fascinating. He was like, what, we win 13 games? And I was like, no, you won 14. He didn't know that. And every time they talked about coaches and, and, and, and, and players who have come in and out of the Saints or the Broncos, he didn't know when the coaches came or left. He's like, yeah, I can't remember when I, exactly when he came or when he left. Oh, I don't, I can't remember the exact years when we had this player. Coaches know that. He kept saying like, I don't remember when I Had this coach on my team. And also I. I don't know how

[Danny Kelly]

many games we won in defense. He's been in the NFL for, like 40 years. And I'm like, I'm 30. And I'm like, I already.

[Danny Hy]

I actually find this.

[Craig Robick]

You remember everything.

[Danny Hy]

I remember this. I. I think this is the most relatable part about Sean Payton.

[Craig Robick]

Okay.

[Danny Hy]

Everything else, I'm like, a little bit.

[Danny Kelly]

The other thing. The other thing he said that was so funny was the. They asked about the tush push, and he just said what everyone has been dancing around. When he was like, that was good.

[Danny Hy]

He, like, was taking your talking point points. I felt like I was talking to high Fitz.

[Danny Kelly]

Wow.

[Craig Robick]

Because he. He maybe talked about more similar than we thought. Hi, Fitz.

[Danny Hy]

I think you said this on our show. You're like, if. If they're talking about the tush push being a safety issue, it is the biggest load of. Because they just did all this stuff with the kickoff rules. What do you think?

[Craig Robick]

Like, there was a thousand more kickoffs,

[Danny Hy]

zero people injured on the tush push. And then he. And then they added. And this is essentially what he said. He's like, we added, like, what? Thousand.

[Danny Kelly]

Over a thousand kickoffs. And he's like. Then they're like, all right. Touch push dangerous.

[Craig Robick]

He's like.

[Danny Hy]

Then he said. Which I thought was great. He's like, basically, we ban the tushbush. It's just because we don't like it. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

And he's like. Which is fine. But don't. Don't pretend it's because of health and safety.

[Danny Hy]

Did you think it was weird? Because this is the other thing that came out this week is they're not going to even contest the tush bush anymore. It's. The tush bush is going to live on it only.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. So they're not going to.

[Danny Hy]

That's a surprise to me.

[Danny Kelly]

You know what? It affirms my deepest thoughts on this, which was everyone was just fucking jealous of the Eagles.

[Craig Robick]

It's fine, actually.

[Danny Hy]

We're fine.

[Danny Kelly]

Eagles sucked. And then everyone's like, you know what? We're over it.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

They just want. Everyone was just mad about it and was sore losers.

[Craig Robick]

However, in even bigger news, the UFL banned the tush push.

[Danny Hy]

That is huge.

[Danny Kelly]

What?

[Craig Robick]

Yes.

[Danny Hy]

So they also made really long.

[Craig Robick]

I'm no longer going to watch really long.

[Danny Hy]

Field goals are worth four now. Oh, I don't remember what the field

[Danny Kelly]

Goals are worth 4. Where are you getting this?

[Craig Robick]

UFL News chapter tweeted, UFL ban the tush push. And the NFL is going to keep it.

[Danny Kelly]

I. I don't know why you did that. I.

[Craig Robick]

We had to look up what the ufl. I thought it stood for.

[Danny Kelly]

I thought it was the xfl.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, me too.

[Danny Hy]

The United Football.

[Craig Robick]

United Football League. I thought it was like old.

[Danny Kelly]

That's probably why they banned it.

[Craig Robick]

Is.

[Danny Kelly]

So that we talk about it.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

That's how advertising works.

[Danny Hy]

The people going.

[Danny Kelly]

Anything else? Yeah. The champagne play calling thing. We'll see. I. I think it was maybe not. I think it was to keep Davis Webb.

[Danny Hy]

I think that he got a couple of head coaching opportunities.

[Craig Robick]

People thought he was gonna be the head coach of the Bills for.

[Danny Kelly]

I think Davis Webb played the off season very well for himself.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. I think that he's been best friends with Josh Allen.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

I. That's. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

You can't have your best friend be your head coach, right?

[Danny Kelly]

No. That'd be weird.

[Danny Hy]

No.

[Craig Robick]

Would you let Heifetz be your head coach?

[Danny Kelly]

Were you laughing at that?

[Danny Hy]

I'm like, this is a trick question.

[Craig Robick]

It's not that, is it? I. I don't think I would. No way.

[Danny Kelly]

I would not.

[Danny Hy]

The insinuation was that he was my best friend.

[Danny Kelly]

I think that was what he was laughing at. He's like, I have way better friends. Please.

[Craig Robick]

I mean, your best friend is obviously your wife. Right? Right. Would you let her be your head coach?

[Danny Kelly]

Which.

[Danny Hy]

No.

[Craig Robick]

Okay. Jeez.

[Danny Kelly]

I would totally. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

I would.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. Yeah. That's. Hey, D is over too.

[Craig Robick]

Right Now I'd like. You're watching my wife's name out your mouth.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Now you gotta hit him. Was.

[Craig Robick]

Did anyone give you the ick other than Omar Khan? Sorry. I'm just so depressed. Craig was actually just like charges or what did.

[Danny Hy]

You're like, oh, God, this is no juice. This team has no juice. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Their offensive play caller's a man I've never heard of.

[Danny Kelly]

I thought the Jets. The jets.

[Craig Robick]

I guess McCarthy's calling place. But their offensive coordinators are good. Brian Angelico. Who's that? Titans. Coach of the Vikings. Who is that?

[Danny Hy]

Don't know.

[Danny Kelly]

Tight end coaches are all the rage now. They ran out of quarterback coaches. They're just hiring tight end coaches.

[Craig Robick]

If he can just keep throw. I guess he'll just dial up plays to Darnell Washington. So I can't be upset about that.

[Danny Kelly]

The other person giving up plays. So it's Was Dave Canales for the Panthers. Yeah. Yeah. And then.

[Craig Robick]

Which surprised me as well.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And then Aaron Glenn for the Jets. I'm curious. Didn't Dave Canalis have a whole explanation.

[Craig Robick]

He basically just said he. I mean Peyton more or less said the same thing. He's just like, I'm too in the moment and it's hard. I'm focused so much on calling the play. It's like kind of simple. He's like, I'm focused so much on calling the plays that I can't like see the rest of the game. And I trust Brad. He's been Brad Isaac, who's calling, going to call plays on. He's like, I've been with him for so long. He's an extension of me. But like I just wanted to. To be able to kind of manage all the other things going on and not have to focus on calling the next play, which I get. I mean. Right.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. I mean honestly, I'm always.

[Craig Robick]

It seems incredible that it's understandable.

[Danny Hy]

But it is also usually indicative of the thought or fear that you're losing your leverage with the team.

[Danny Kelly]

Right. What got you hired?

[Danny Hy]

Right. I. I feel like he was known as the QB guru, like get the people in the right.

[Craig Robick]

Baker Mayfield. He revived a lot of guys because he was the first guy in Tampa with Baker Mayfield. Yeah. Going.

[Danny Hy]

Giving up play calling duties is weird because it does feel like he's. He's willingly giving up power, which is. Which is not something you typically see.

[Craig Robick]

The ideal scenario is basically what the Niners have and like what the Bears have where they. Or the Seahawks too, because it's just flipped. But even though they.

[Danny Kelly]

No, well, I guess I see what you're saying.

[Craig Robick]

The quarterback. Yeah. You basically need the head coach to be the offensive play caller like Ben Johnson. And then you have it. The defensive coordinators, like a pseudo head coach like Dennis Allen or Robert Salic, guys who have been head coaches and just like handle all of that.

[Danny Hy]

That's like Leslie Frazier with the Seahawks. He's the assistant head coach.

[Craig Robick]

Yes.

[Danny Hy]

You don't ever hear anything about him, but he's probably just running a lot of this stuff.

[Craig Robick]

And that's why Dennis Allen is like probably not going to get another head coaching job.

[Danny Kelly]

Sean McVeigh got the head coach job for the Rams and he was 30 or 31 years old. He hired Wade Phillips, was the oldest defense coordinator in the NFL and literally was in the NFL when Sean McVeigh. Before he was born.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. There's a little bit of like Andy Reid, Spagnolo, where it's like you basically get these defensive coordinators who have been fringe head coaches, maybe under qualifies, overqualified, had defensive coordinators under qualified head coaches and you just slot them in next year. Play calling, head coach. That's like the perfect scenario.

[Danny Kelly]

And then you have Aaron Glenn, the coach for the jets, who said he's going to start calling plays again.

[Danny Hy]

He's going the other way with it

[Danny Kelly]

because he said, I really missed calling plays. I think it's my superpower.

[Craig Robick]

If you smoke him, if you got him, you know, one more, you got one year left.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Might as well have a good time. I circle in place.

[Danny Kelly]

I thought it was not get to

[Craig Robick]

again have a pick. Right. Right. It can't be worse. No negative picks.

[Danny Kelly]

Hiring a cornerback.

[Danny Hy]

It can always be worse with the jets.

[Danny Kelly]

It can always.

[Danny Hy]

Don't ever always be worse. But I like, I like generally, you're right.

[Craig Robick]

Sean Feny, who works at the Ringer, huge Jets fan, told me, he's like, I actually think I'm just going to skip this year. It's like I'm just taking a vacation.

[Danny Kelly]

We should do take gap years from teams. It's pretty good.

[Craig Robick]

I'll check back in in 2027.

[Danny Kelly]

I think we should normalize that. That's okay. Yeah, I think. I think that's fine. It's probably smart. I. The jets thing. The jets are so weird because on one hand they have having two firsts and two seconds this year and then they have three firsts in 2027, which is allegedly going to be an amazing draft. And yet if the jets weren't the

[Craig Robick]

Jets, I'd be like, they're in kind of a nice spot.

[Danny Hy]

Right?

[Craig Robick]

A lot of picks, some decent pieces. Their offensive line's not bad. I'm like, I don't know.

[Danny Kelly]

But they're also the people making the picks are the same people who decided that Justin Fields should enter last season with no competition position, which makes no sense. So I'm a little.

[Danny Hy]

That thing doesn't really bother me as much as just generally the Jets.

[Danny Kelly]

The Woody Johnson.

[Danny Hy]

History of the Jets. Why point to the Justin Fields thing? It's just one of like a thousand different things that they've done horrifically to Craig's point.

[Danny Kelly]

They should just rebrand. Yeah. They change new colors.

[Craig Robick]

Pinstripes.

[Danny Hy]

I'm into that.

[Craig Robick]

They just call themselves the Football Yankees.

[Danny Hy]

Sure.

[Danny Kelly]

New York Football Yankees green pinstripes. That's pretty.

[Craig Robick]

Speaking of, I feel like we buried the league. We haven't talked about the Giants yet.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, my God. All right. The biggest dick I got was at Joe Shane's press conference. The GM for the Giants.

[Craig Robick]

The biggest dick I got.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, thanks for Clarifying the biggest ick you got. Biggest ick.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. We saw Joe Shane and. And Harbaugh speak.

[Danny Kelly]

Joe Shane at one point says, my role has not changed.

[Danny Hy]

Translation, it's changed.

[Danny Kelly]

I was like, buddy, he's gonna tell him.

[Craig Robick]

Assistant to the general manager.

[Danny Kelly]

Assistant to the general manager. Yeah. John Harbaugh is, like, so in charge. It's unbelievable. Like, John Harbaugh, the court, a little tiny moment that I thought was representative was the Giants and Jets went at the same time, and then they stood up. I think they got there like a couple minutes early. And it's. John Harbaugh and Aaron Glenn go up at the same time, and they kind of give up, and they give each other, like, a look and smile. And then the New York media kind of realizes that, like, they're getting there. And John harbor literally looks at the media, is like, divide and conquer. And I'm like, that mother.

[Craig Robick]

Like, he's great.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

I was all in on him. He is. I just. You just get it immediately, the way he's talking about, like, how we need to be aligned and integrated. No hierarchy, no silos. Everybody needs to be on the same page. He talked about Don a lot, which probably pissed Joe Shane off, but she was mentioned quite a bit.

[Danny Kelly]

Bit Don the Giant that was pointed. The things that. So Donna Ponte, who the Giants hired to. I mean, honestly, she's. It's funny because Joe Shane's title is the general manager, but if you ask John Harbaugh, what is Dawn Aponte's job, who is this woman who came from the NFL League office and was highly thought of. It seems that Dawn's job is to manage generally, like, she just kind of manages finance and contract negotiations and various departments and all this stuff. And so Joe Shane, what does he do? Well, he does college scouting and. And pro and scouting. Like, oh, so he's the scouting head of.

[Craig Robick]

Or whatever.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, he doesn't see. He. Joe Shane's like a very specific manager. And so it's. It's just a funny arrangement. But they all. Yeah, everyone reports to John.

[Danny Hy]

What was the highlight of the Harbaugh thing for you? Like what?

[Craig Robick]

Where are you at?

[Danny Hy]

Anything give you hope in your heart?

[Craig Robick]

Did you go from 6 to midnight? How did you feel?

[Danny Hy]

I feel he's just up there looking at him with puppy dog like a wiggle.

[Craig Robick]

I had to feel incredible. He was wearing a Giant's quarter zip.

[Danny Kelly]

It's funny you say that that was the part, because I've been to these for years and he's just always Wearing Raven. The thing I wanted to ask him was so weird. It's not worth wasting his time. I wanted to ask him what he did. What did you do with 20 years of Ravens gear? What did he put that. But like, yeah, you could get a good number for it.

[Craig Robick]

But I game worn Ravens qz.

[Danny Kelly]

Seeing him wear Giant stuff, I like that. For better or for worse, he's a chip on his shoulder. John Harbaugh does. And I think that feels a little weird when your protege, like, you know, Mike McDonald is not quite half his age, but almost. And he worked for John Harbaugh and he worked for Jim Harbaugh, too. And he's winning a Super Bowl. He's on the cutting edge. Jesse Minter is now getting the old. Like, his old Ravens job went to Jesse Minner. The Ravens basically fired John Harbaugh to hire Jesse Minnow, who again, like, is the son of John Harbo's old boss. So, like, people, it's like the. It's like the. Scottie Pippen's son. Scottie Pippen's wife is with Michael Jordan's son. You know, and you're kind of like, I used to babysit this kid and now he's taking, you know.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Like, literally.

[Danny Hy]

You're waiting into this analogy right now. Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Too much. But I'm just saying John Harbo, like, knew Jesse Minter is. When he was a child.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

And then he took the Ravens job. That is very weird and it's just strange.

[Danny Hy]

That's pretty common in football, though.

[Craig Robick]

I feel like Calvin taking my spot on this pot.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes. But that is what happened to John Harbaugh. And I think that he really wants to. Fucking Dom. And also he's a Harbaugh. Like, they're crazy. He wants to win really badly.

[Craig Robick]

And like, he is way less quirky than. Than Jim. At least on the surface.

[Danny Hy]

Oh, yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

There he's. If he weren't a football coach, I really think John Harbaugh could have been like a senator from Michigan. Like, he probably would have ended up too late. And honestly. Right. But I just think. I do think it's going to work. I don't know if they're going to win a Super bowl, but I think they will be immediately competitive. And I just.

[Danny Hy]

Any world in which the Harbaugh thing turns out to be like the Pete Carroll thing.

[Danny Kelly]

Like, like one done horrific. No. Because he has complete organizational control. It's closer to John Harbaugh has halfway between what Pete Carroll had and what Tom Brady has where Tom Brady's like ownership and they have. Harbaugh's not that, but he might as well. He is running the organization and he is in charge of everything for at least two full years. But I think the difference is, even if Harbaugh flames out, what he did is they needed someone so much juice that they could root out 50 years of like, organizational rot where, frankly, the Giants were. Ownership was handing out jobs to family and friends and they were like, they couldn't fire people. And they were just littered throughout of like, the Giants head trainer was replaced. He seems like a really nice guy. I had nothing against this guy, but he was hired as the Giants head trainer, I believe, 1978. And he's been the head trainer for 45 years. And like, the NFL and AFL merged in 1970. This guy's been the trainer for 45 years. Nobody should have any job for 45 years. Imagine anyone doing any job for 45 years. And you're like, yeah, like, like in charge of the. Think about the. I'm watching, like, players are probably still smoking cigarettes in the 1970s.

[Danny Hy]

Sure.

[Danny Kelly]

And I don't know, but it's stuff like that. They needed to be replaced. The. There were some other vibes that were kind of funny. Anything else stand out to you guys?

[Craig Robick]

Andrew Barry for the Browns. The GM for the Browns I thought was interesting. I. I had never really. I don't know, I spent a lot of time watching him speak. He's very smart, very calculated, very well spoken.

[Danny Kelly]

Energy vampire.

[Craig Robick]

A little bit. He says every. Every reporter's name who asked him a question. Yeah, that's right, Ashley. That's a good point, Derek. Thanks for asking Andrew. Like, he does that every time move.

[Danny Hy]

Or is that just actually respectful?

[Craig Robick]

Probably both.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

He. He had a couple things. He was like, look, somebody asked, why don't you just draft a quarterback every year if you need one? He's like, I don't think that's a problem. Maybe we will. And then.

[Danny Hy]

Sure.

[Craig Robick]

The other thing that was that he. They were like, what do you need to work on? And he was like, patience. He's like, if you ask my wife, my kids, my staff and Todd Monken, they will all tell you, I'm not a patient person and I'm learning patience.

[Danny Hy]

Okay.

[Craig Robick]

I was like, is that because a year into your tenure, you gave to John Watson $230 million guaranteed and spent three first up picks on him? I didn't realize he was the youngest GM ever at the time. 32 years old.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, he's.

[Danny Hy]

Did no one. No one asked him about the questionnaire for the head coaching thing. Right.

[Craig Robick]

I tried, like why nobody wanted to coach.

[Danny Kelly]

Why did you have coaches take a written test? Yeah, yeah, I wanted to ask that.

[Craig Robick]

It is interesting, these young GMs coming in and making a splash like James Gladstone did. The same thing came in. Travis Hunter, big thing, didn't really work out.

[Danny Kelly]

It's funny to Andrew is funny to me. Everyone thinks Andrew Barry, the GM for the Browns, is really smart and yet he wasn't smart enough to turn down being the GM for the Cleveland Browns.

[Danny Hy]

Right.

[Craig Robick]

Also.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

I mean, yeah, also, Todd Bunkin is the oldest first time head coach in the NFL history. Did you know that?

[Danny Hy]

How old is he?

[Danny Kelly]

63 or 60.

[Craig Robick]

Oldest first time head coach ever.

[Danny Hy]

Oh, wow.

[Danny Kelly]

Which is what it took for him to not go back to the Giants in the offensive quarter. That's what the Browns had to do to get a coach because no one would even talk to them.

[Craig Robick]

I know it.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, I kept thinking of that when I saw Kevin Stefanski being the head coach of the Falcons. That is like just walking around this week because again, the Browns fired Kevin Stefanski as their head coach and then 10 openings happened and I think if a different team had fired Kevin Stefanski, Stefanski wouldn't have even interviewed for the Browns job. Like the Browns had no chance of rehiring the guy that they gave up.

[Craig Robick]

It's a last ditch effort, I feel like from Barry to be like, well, I guess I'll get rid of Stefanski.

[Danny Kelly]

Whoops a daisy.

[Craig Robick]

What's that? What else can I do?

[Danny Kelly]

All right, any other stories, any things we're missing here from just like wrapping up? There's a ton. I mean, oh, the referee, Troy Vincent, who's like an executive in the, in the NFL does a lot of officiating a competition and mentioned the replays and kind of acknowledged that they did, I think 171 replay overturned from the NFL office remotely. And he admitted for them, yeah, five. We, we were just wrong. We actually overturned it. It was wrong.

[Danny Hy]

I wonder what the strategy on this is, you know, because basically so this week, I don't remember exactly when it came out, but the referees or the league admitted they got some very critical over plays overturned or whatever that they got them wrong. So for instance, the one, the Week 14 Ravens Steelers game, we. We've talked about this play multiple times.

[Craig Robick]

I stand by it.

[Danny Hy]

Where Aaron Rodgers tried to throw, pass, it got batted, he went to catch, was in his hands essentially as his knees were on the ground. And then the Other. The Ravens player took it out of his hands. Hands and ran. That play was overturned and called incomplete or sorry. It was called complete or whatever. It was not an interception.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

And they said they got that wrong. It should have been an interception.

[Danny Kelly]

That was. I will give you credit. You. You did that.

[Danny Hy]

There was no difference between that and the Bills play against the Broncos. Remember the. The.

[Craig Robick]

Of course. Brandon.

[Danny Hy]

Not pick. Whatever. I was like that. That's like almost the exact same thing. And essentially that's what the league said. That that should have been a pick.

[Danny Kelly]

And the other thing they admitted was there were like five. Did you know that? Shocking.

[Craig Robick]

Craig, he's like, I don't care.

[Danny Kelly]

The other one that. That. Well, that play screwed over the Ravens. And the other one that they admitted was wrong was that the Isaiah likely touched down in the first Raven Steelers game that the Steelers won.

[Danny Hy]

That should have been a touchdown.

[Danny Kelly]

They said it should have been a touchdown. Which someone asked John Harbaugh, does it make you feel like maybe things could have gone differently since two of those plays would have flipped two games. You probably would have made the playoffs. And like, maybe you probably would have made the playoffs.

[Danny Hy]

House.

[Danny Kelly]

And John harbor takes the longest pause and he's like 10. He's like answering your question. How I feel. I get. You know, I. It's pretty normal to feel upset and think about those things. Yes. Yeah, I do think about that. Yeah. That's. Nor. That's a natural thing.

[Craig Robick]

Remind me the likely play.

[Danny Kelly]

He scored a touchdown, took three steps,

[Danny Hy]

Took a couple steps, and then it was like slapped out of his hand.

[Danny Kelly]

The first Raven Steelers game, bang play. And he caught the ball and he had it outstretched. 1, 2, 3. And someone knocked it out. And they're like, oh, not a touchdown.

[Danny Hy]

Complete the play.

[Danny Kelly]

But he had three steps. What does that mean?

[Craig Robick]

Right. I do remember that. That was a bad call.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes. So anyway, that one. He's like five plays. Two of them flipped the Raven season, but the other one was they said, yeah, four to five plays in the one o' clock window, the early window. A lot of games, you know, it's harder then. So is what it is. And then another thing I. We kind of knew, but I couldn't believe they admitted it. We're like, yeah, it's obviously harder for them to officiate remotely 11 games than one in prime time. Yeah, but, Sean, that's the thing.

[Danny Hy]

That is the thing you've kept saying all year. I was like, it can't be that. That it actually was that not enough

[Craig Robick]

people hire More people with the NFL.

[Danny Kelly]

No, they. That's what the money.

[Danny Hy]

They want to keep the money busy.

[Danny Kelly]

That would require giving money to other people. They. They want to keep the money.

[Craig Robick]

They'd rather admit they were wrong on five plays a year than pay more people.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes. That's. Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

It gets buried under a deluge of other news this week. I'm sure a lot of people, I mean, Laura Jackson tweeted about it and he was basically like, oh, well, so our first offseason win, you know, because they should have won that game, essentially.

[Danny Kelly]

Huge. Yeah. Everyone's like, row zero and zero. But yeah, yeah, could have been.

[Danny Hy]

Could have been different.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

The sliding doors in the rabies is crazy, but if Jesse Minter works out that it's good for them.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Anything else from this week? And we're going to get into a bunch of, like, players and everything, like later this week. We have obviously a ton of draft stuff coming, but this was a lot, a lot of off season stuff coming. I do think it would be cool if AJ Brown and Crosby and Kyler get traded in the next week or so.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Anything else before we just do some email else?

[Danny Hy]

No, I think that's it.

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[Craig Robick]

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[Danny Hy]

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[Danny Kelly]

Okay, we have some. We have some. Good. We made a lot of prompts. We asked people for. All right, Starting with Craig. Asked about car horns.

[Danny Hy]

All right, yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Something calmer, right? More soothing, less aggressive.

[Danny Kelly]

We got an email from Joe. This from today.

[Danny Hy]

Joey.

[Danny Kelly]

Hi, guys. Breakfast this morning. Holiday Inn Express. Continental breakfast. Scrambled eggs with cholula potatoes, turkey sausage and coffee.

[Craig Robick]

Coffee. Oh, he went for it.

[Danny Kelly]

Cholula and eggs was great.

[Craig Robick]

He went for it at the Holiday Inn.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Joe says when you guys started talking about car horns, I had to write it because my wife and I were just talking about this. The biggest problem is that you can't see people when they're honking. The only way we have of communicating is a loud, obnoxious horn, and we can't see each other. So we tend to assume the worst. My wife's proposal is to replace all car horns with three different sounds. One that says one that basically communicates my bad, one that is the same which communicates your bad, and then a third one that says something's wrong with your car.

[Danny Hy]

Car. Yeah, I like that one. It's like your back tire is flat. You've been driving on it for 10 miles.

[Danny Kelly]

Sometimes you're trying to beep, and it's like your trunk is open. You like your trunk is open.

[Craig Robick]

The problem is, is I feel like honking is so impulsive. I don't know if you'd have the wherewithal in the moment to be like, is this a my bad or a your bad?

[Danny Hy]

You know, it has to be the length, but little. Little tap.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, little tap.

[Danny Hy]

That's like, my bad.

[Danny Kelly]

I think, because sometimes you should be like, to Hong could be like, my bad, but you can't communicate that.

[Danny Hy]

Can we just have a horn that just says, like, sorry? Really sheepishly sorry.

[Craig Robick]

I like that as an idea. I think this bad. Something's wrong with your car. Yeah, that's my bad would be great.

[Danny Hy]

Car is on fire.

[Craig Robick]

If you. If you honked and it was like, my bad, my bad, my bad. That's on me.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

If that's. If your car actually said that, that's on me. My bad.

[Danny Kelly]

And then you'd be like, all right.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

You feel better?

[Danny Hy]

I feel like the lawyers wouldn't sign off on this.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, yeah, that's true.

[Danny Hy]

You never admit fault in any accident.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. You know, now there is no solution, unfortunately.

[Danny Kelly]

I think that's too bad.

[Danny Hy]

All right, Turns out they've been doing it.

[Craig Robick]

They've been doing it right now. Cars have won.

[Danny Kelly]

All right, you guys ready to lock in right now?

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

All right.

[Craig Robick]

We.

[Danny Kelly]

We got a lot of emails about smells.

[Danny Hy]

Oh, boy.

[Danny Kelly]

So 1. We're good. Follow ups on rain smell. We're talking about how it smells after it rains. So this is from Cameron C. Bone

[Danny Hy]

Cam K Bone or SE Bone.

[Danny Kelly]

Cameron C. Cam Chancellor. Fair enough. Don't judge me like that.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Go birds. Go birds.

[Danny Kelly]

It's true. Why do they get the birds?

[Danny Hy]

Go hawks.

[Danny Kelly]

Why do they get the birds? Cameron says, black breakfast, black coffee, peanut butter, banana oats, and a toasted everything bagel with cream cheese.

[Craig Robick]

Okay, that sounds really tasty.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, that's going to fill you up.

[Danny Kelly]

There's a lot. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

One day out of them. Probably needs the energy it is.

[Danny Kelly]

But he doesn't eat lunch. Cameron says. Just thought y' all should know that thunderstorms have a scientifically distinct smell from regular rainstorms. Storms, really? I blew my mind.

[Danny Hy]

Thunderstorms of, like, the electrical fields.

[Craig Robick]

So this is when people are like, there's a storm coming. They can smell it.

[Danny Hy]

I can feel it in my knee.

[Craig Robick]

Yes. Yeah, my mom claims to kind of have that.

[Danny Hy]

Claims?

[Danny Kelly]

You don't believe her spells are in her knee?

[Craig Robick]

My mom's a liar. Connection to weather, though.

[Danny Kelly]

Text her right now and be like, can you smell when storms are coming? So Cameron writes, that's crazy. I blew my mind.

[Danny Hy]

That's crazy.

[Danny Kelly]

Get ready. Cameron says the smell just before or during rainstorms. Before, because there's an after smell, which. Which is the stuff that it's raining on.

[Craig Robick]

Well, that's the whole thing. There's like, people in movies who are like, there's a storm coming.

[Danny Hy]

A Bruin.

[Danny Kelly]

This blew my mind. The stuff before a rainstorm. I think he means a thunderstorm is ozone. Lightning splits nitrogen and oxygen atoms and releases ozone, which is the kind of clean, metallic smell you get during a storm. Wow. That blew my mind. You can smell ozone. Ozone, like the layer that your generation put a hole in. The last thing the world actually, you guys, it up. I don't know.

[Danny Hy]

I recycle.

[Craig Robick]

We're screwed now.

[Danny Kelly]

This is the last problem we the world tried to fix.

[Danny Hy]

Did we ever fix that?

[Craig Robick]

There still a hole up there. I'm going to give you the recession, too. That was you. That was your squad.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. Now, you were too young for that kind of. Yeah. The boomers. What else?

[Danny Hy]

My dad actually was texting me about. Yeah, I'm an elder millennial or geriatric millennial. The. He was telling me that in rainstorms and also sometimes when you're sitting by, like, a creek, a lot of people like sitting by moving water because it positively charges the ions around you with, which is healthy for you. It makes you feel good.

[Danny Kelly]

If Aaron Rogers said that, I'd be like, get the out of here.

[Craig Robick]

So moving water literally gives off good, positive vibes.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Craig Robick]

I love it. I love hearing about all that, about, like, why people like looking at water, being near water, sleeping when it's raining. I think that's fascinating.

[Danny Hy]

Forest bathing.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, wait, hold on, wait. We have an important update here.

[Danny Hy]

Nick.

[Danny Kelly]

Nick. One of our. Just get in here.

[Craig Robick]

Nick.

[Danny Kelly]

No, I'm. Just get in here. So. Nick, wait, explain. Can you please talk to us about boat horns? One is for port, two is for star.

[Ad Voice 2]

Starboard if you're passing.

[Craig Robick]

Oh, oh, there's different horns.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, so there's different horn signals. Do you have a boat?

[Craig Robick]

Wait, one is. One is for passing and one is for What?

[Ad Voice 2]

One is for passing on the port side.

[Craig Robick]

Oh, okay.

[Danny Kelly]

Two.

[Danny Hy]

HORN beeps Left. Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Left two is for starboard.

[Danny Hy]

Right.

[Ad Voice 2]

Three is backing up and five is warning something's happening.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, but you have to count to five horns. Yeah, you gotta go the one with four horns.

[Ad Voice 2]

No, no, no, no.

[Danny Hy]

This one yet. No, no, that would be too confusing.

[Danny Kelly]

What kind of boat do you have?

[Ad Voice 2]

Just a 30 foot cutty cabin.

[Craig Robick]

This is a Cutty cabin.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't know what any of those words mean.

[Danny Hy]

There you go. I think it sounds sick.

[Danny Kelly]

Okay. All right. Wow, that was awesome.

[Craig Robick]

Thank you.

[Danny Kelly]

Do you know what a Cutty is?

[Craig Robick]

It's like. It's just like a 30 foot cuty cabin.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. Wooden. Their own language.

[Craig Robick]

What are you not getting?

[Danny Kelly]

Real real.

[Danny Hy]

An old wooden ship.

[Danny Kelly]

An old wooden ship.

[Danny Hy]

When was the last time you got

[Craig Robick]

honked out at all the time? Weekly.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, he lives in Los Angeles. You live in a suburb.

[Craig Robick]

I would consider myself a good driver. But the problem is, is that you often times don't know who's even getting honked at. There's like honking going on. It's just all.

[Danny Kelly]

It's contagious.

[Danny Hy]

It's like honking at the world.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. Just angry at the world.

[Danny Hy]

Craig just gives him the thumbs up.

[Craig Robick]

Big thumbs up. Have a good day.

[Danny Hy]

I like, that's rage bait, passive.

[Craig Robick]

That's going to get me worse than the bird is a thumbs up.

[Danny Hy]

That's true.

[Craig Robick]

Well, my friend Chris, go. Thumbs down. Down.

[Danny Kelly]

That's what the Yankees did. They a whole season of thumbs down.

[Craig Robick]

You think that's better than thumbs up?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Make you less angry.

[Danny Hy]

If I honked at someone, I was mad and you gave me a thumbs up.

[Craig Robick]

I'd be like, but if they give

[Danny Hy]

you this fly off the handle, I'd

[Craig Robick]

be like, you're okay with this? Okay, buddy?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

Thumbs down.

[Danny Kelly]

You're right. Thumbs down is you're going to go to rage.

[Craig Robick]

You're going to. You're going to be furious if you

[Danny Kelly]

go in your face.

[Danny Hy]

I mean, thumbs down is funny too.

[Danny Kelly]

He's booing me. It's so funny to think thumbs up and thumbs down has almost become more in real life than in, like. Or in more online than in real life. When's the last time in real life you were like, thumbs down?

[Danny Hy]

No, I give a lot of thumbs downs.

[Craig Robick]

Ironically or. Or legitimately? No.

[Danny Hy]

Ironically. Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. An earnest thumbs up is kind of wild.

[Danny Hy]

Hey, you should play at the Canterbury Open next week.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, the other smell one. This was great. So this is from. I forgot to write the name down.

[Craig Robick]

Forgot to write the name down.

[Danny Hy]

Okay.

[Danny Kelly]

I'm sorry, but they had two Sunnyside eggs and sourdough toast for breakfast.

[Danny Hy]

Love.

[Craig Robick]

Love it. Fantastic.

[Danny Kelly]

They heard.

[Danny Hy]

I said I would do that.

[Danny Kelly]

I said on the last show that I love this. I love the smell of gasoline.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, smells great.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't.

[Danny Hy]

I'm not into that.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, so this person said. Heard me say that, and they remembered that gasoline doesn't actually have a smell.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. It's added so that you. You smell it in. Yeah. I knew that.

[Danny Kelly]

All right, well, I'll go myself. I didn't know that.

[Craig Robick]

You didn't know that?

[Danny Kelly]

No, I didn't. They added smell the gasoline to make it.

[Craig Robick]

So, you know, when there's gas around that.

[Danny Kelly]

I mean, that's a good idea.

[Craig Robick]

But let me ask. Ask this. When there's a gas leak in your house, can you smell that?

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. Because they add the additive to it to that. Sound like natural gas? Yes.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, I think they do add it. Yes.

[Danny Hy]

Smells like they learn the hard way.

[Craig Robick]

Is that right? I feel like sometimes there's these stories about people. There's a gas leak in the house.

[Danny Hy]

That's different. That's like a byproduct.

[Craig Robick]

Okay.

[Danny Hy]

If you have just, like a gas leak, I think it smells like.

[Craig Robick]

Smell it.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, yeah. Or it smells bad. Whatever it is. I don't know.

[Craig Robick]

Know.

[Danny Kelly]

Okay, so you guys knew that I was pretty mind blown. Okay, so here. Fine. Then smells in general.

[Danny Hy]

We're still.

[Danny Kelly]

This is from Dr. John. Yes, this one's great.

[Craig Robick]

Dr. John, Dr. J.

[Danny Kelly]

Breakfast. Breakfast for Dr. John's a 6mg Zen and a cup of coffee, which is ironic because I'm a doctor and that shit's awful for me.

[Danny Hy]

Which one, Zen or coffee?

[Danny Kelly]

He said both for you. Probably both. Probably Zen. I don't know. All right, so, Dr. A lot of.

[Danny Hy]

Lot of doctors smoke.

[Danny Kelly]

So Dr. J says listening to your discussion on rain smells triggered a feeling. It triggers a feeling in humans. It reminded me of a lecture I got in medical school, and I Apologize if this is too scientific, but smell is the oldest sense that living things developed. Smell is essentially what we call chemoreception. And our nose takes a molecule and converts it into an electric signal and our brain can interpret it. So even single cell organisms have chemoreception. And because smell is our oldest sense, it is the only one of the human senses that has a direct path into your brain. So your olfactory nerve, your cranial nerve one takes smell, it travels directly into your brain and the synapses to a part of your brain connected to your hippocampus. And that is the important. Because your hippocampus is where your long term memories are formed. Which is why we often associate smell with our strongest memory back somewhere.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Because we always say, oh, smells the strongest memory. It's like because it's the oldest thing and it's actually got a direction correct line.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Do you ever have something from your grandparents or that they pass down and you smell it and you're like, oh my God, the next my grandparents house.

[Danny Kelly]

Funny you say that. The next one spot.

[Craig Robick]

Yes.

[Danny Kelly]

He literally says that's why you can like smell your grandfather's cologne and immediately just picture him in front of you.

[Danny Hy]

We're here. Yeah, that's great.

[Craig Robick]

Even like an old T shirt can smell like a great. Like you're like, oh yeah, it smells like my grandparents house.

[Danny Hy]

Right.

[Danny Kelly]

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, but like it's just floating stuff and you're like, oh, that reminds me of back in the day. Smells crazy. Yeah. Okay, the last one here around store side. I was just scrolling through emails.

[Danny Hy]

No, this is good.

[Danny Kelly]

So this one's from Jess. I don't. I need more information. And if you're listening to this and you're a horse person, I need to know about horses.

[Danny Hy]

Horse guy.

[Danny Kelly]

I've gathered a lot of an horse horse person and I. I need a centaur and we got a lot of information.

[Danny Hy]

No, not half horse, just a horse person.

[Danny Kelly]

Full horse. So Jess emailed in and basically explained mind that we talk about rain because you were saying how people can smell rain. Horses tend to give birth around storms and drops and barometric pressure and obviously not all horses, but like it seems like a lot of horse owners had this experience where horses either wait till after a bad storm or during a storm because they think that they'll actually, if they have like they'll be safe from like predators and stuff.

[Danny Hy]

Oh, interesting. I was gonna say what, what is the advantage of giving birth during a.

[Craig Robick]

Well, some people prefer a water birth.

[Danny Kelly]

There you go. But, yeah, so.

[Danny Hy]

Jesus Christ.

[Danny Kelly]

So I was like, there's no. That was wild, but there's no way this is true. And then I Googled it. It's Reddit threads of just all these horse people being like, storms coming. I think I'm. They're going to give birth.

[Craig Robick]

So wait, well, do they prefer giving birth during a storm or do they wait till after? Or is it either?

[Danny Kelly]

That's why I'm asking for a horse person to explain. I want to know more about.

[Craig Robick]

Sounds like they just give birth whenever, and we're applying theory to it. During a storm or not during.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't know.

[Danny Hy]

By the way, sometimes they also give birth before.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, interesting.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. Also, while we're on the subject, don't go look up baby horse hooves.

[Danny Kelly]

No, don't do it. One of you is going to do it.

[Danny Hy]

Don't going to throw that out there. Do not do it. You will regret it immediately.

[Craig Robick]

You didn't need to say anything. Nobody would have done that. We weren't talking about this, Craig.

[Danny Hy]

I really wanted him to do it.

[Danny Kelly]

The last one here before we get out of here. We're talking about bad names and unfortunate names.

[Ad Voice 2]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Because of Adolf.

[Danny Kelly]

Because of a. Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Sonny. Jurgen.

[Danny Kelly]

Sunny. Jurgenson's middle name is Adolf.

[Craig Robick]

Different spelling, right?

[Danny Kelly]

Ph, not F. So the last year there was a mayor, a mayoral election, a race between in Framingham, Massachusetts, and one of the guys running for mayor was named Jeff Epstein.

[Craig Robick]

Oh, wait, didn't we already had this? No, different Delaney. Do a joke with us.

[Danny Kelly]

No, no, no. That's Harvey Epstein. He was running for local council, New York. The guy running for mayor of Framingham was named Jeff Epstein, but his. It's with a G, different spelling, and it's pronounces it Epstein.

[Craig Robick]

You got to change the name.

[Danny Hy]

Sure.

[Craig Robick]

Straight up.

[Danny Kelly]

But it was just everywhere. It was Jeff Epstein for mayor. In this, like, small town.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

You have to. I mean, I suppose that, like, get your name out there, but you have to change that. I'm sorry.

[Danny Hy]

By the way, Ryan o', Hanlon, former ringer employee, sl. Our friend texted me, and there's a soccer player, famous soccer player, whose name is Osama bin Laden.

[Danny Kelly]

I saw this, too.

[Craig Robick]

We got.

[Danny Kelly]

He knows about the.

[Craig Robick]

What?

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, yeah. His brother's name's Saddam Hussein.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah. And his.

[Craig Robick]

Are we talking about his dad?

[Danny Kelly]

His dad thought it was interesting, and then his dad regrets it.

[Craig Robick]

Now very famous people.

[Danny Kelly]

The dad the dad wanted.

[Craig Robick]

How old are these guys?

[Danny Kelly]

They're like 25.

[Danny Hy]

Osama bin Laden is so they were named 2001 23.

[Danny Kelly]

Yes. His. The dad is. I think he's Craig.

[Craig Robick]

Right. So right after nine. Eleven, they named him Osama bin Laden.

[Danny Kelly]

And the brothers.

[Danny Hy]

October 2002.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, he's from Peru and his brother is named Saddam Hussein.

[Craig Robick]

The are we doing.

[Danny Kelly]

I don't know.

[Craig Robick]

I. That one's crazier. Is there a different spelling there? Is it just Saddam Hussein?

[Danny Kelly]

That one's the same spelling.

[Danny Hy]

Okay. There might. I think it's only one D. Oh, yeah, sorry.

[Danny Kelly]

I took a D out. So it's just.

[Craig Robick]

No.

[Danny Hy]

So it's fine. Actually. No. Yeah. Anyway, they wanted. He said if he had a third son, he was going to name him George W. Bush.

[Craig Robick]

This is like. I feel like you guys are not reacting strongly enough to this. This is insane.

[Danny Kelly]

It's pretty weird. It's. It's weird to experiment.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

This is a real boy, boy named sue type situation. You, you know, he's going to grow up tough, remember?

[Craig Robick]

Sorry, I'm just reading the Wikipedia.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, no, it's pretty, it's pretty mind blowing.

[Craig Robick]

When Vin Laden had a son of his own, his father suggested George Bush, but he chose a conventional name instead. He was like, he's like, hey, dad, my life's been misery being named Osama bin Laden. I'm. I'm gonna just name my kid name

[Danny Hy]

a Bill or George or anything but Sue. Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Craig Robick]

He has a quote. My friends used to make fun of me at the beginning and it bothered me. But you learned to live with it and I feel normal now. This is crazy.

[Danny Kelly]

Imagine if your friends just never brought it up.

[Craig Robick]

I asked my dad the reason. He just avoids talking about it. Hell, Ricky, I was hiring.

[Danny Kelly]

I did that. They asked what I wanted in the birth certificate. I just. It was joking. But when do you think the dad regretted it? Like you? Definitely. Because he can't.

[Danny Hy]

He doesn't seem to regret it whatsoever.

[Danny Kelly]

He can't admit he regrets it. He can't give it.

[Craig Robick]

Dude, this is unbelievable. In a radio interview in 2020, he made the connection when Osama bin Laden knocked down the Twin Towers. The name was in the news. And I was born a year later, October 7, 2002. He added that his father liked the name. He also stated that he had often thought about changing his name, but had not done so because he had come to accept it. To avoid criticism, him, only his first name, Osama, appears on his jersey. He liked the name. Oh, okay.

[Danny Kelly]

I would have gone with something else.

[Danny Hy]

Sure.

[Danny Kelly]

Personally. Okay. Any other. I Think that's the best name? I don't. Or the worst. I think that's the bottom of the barrel.

[Craig Robick]

It's up there.

[Danny Kelly]

Down there, there.

[Danny Hy]

I made a list the other day. The other one that's not along the same lines. That's not great anymore for a woman is isis.

[Craig Robick]

Was that a name?

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, I knew. Oh, I, I, I knew someone named. Then she's from Spain. Is named Decease.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Oh, and I remember using like, Facebook messenger, and it was across countries and I. And then there was a whole thing, like Facebook swept a bunch of global data. Like, if you talking outside America, like, they would sweep it up. And I realized that like, like The FBI or CIA was 100% going to pick up me having conversations about when are we meeting ees, when are we. Yeah.

[Danny Hy]

And then like in, In Archer, when the. Their spy agency was called ISIS at first and they're like, okay, well, got

[Craig Robick]

to change that now. I want to continue once more on this Wikipedia. Craig's just, I can't believe Bin Laden was interviewed. He said, I do not believe my name to be problematic, citing Peruvian politician Hitler Sanchez, who won a mayoral election over the ironically named Vladim Lennon Rodriguez Valverde.

[Danny Hy]

Wow.

[Danny Kelly]

What is going on in Peru?

[Craig Robick]

Hitler Sanchez beat Vladimir Lenin Valverde. I'm, I'm in awe. I'm gobsmacked.

[Danny Kelly]

Well, on that note, okay, we have more draft shows coming this week.

[Craig Robick]

We have a real dicey decision of what we put in the title of this episode. Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah, we're gonna have to break and have a couple conversation. Thank you, dk. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, Austin. Thank you, Tucker. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Jake. Shout out to Nick's boat. I love that.

[Craig Robick]

Just a 30 foot.

[Danny Kelly]

A 30 foot cutty cuty. Thank you, everyone, for listening emails of Ringer Fantasy football gmail dot com. Thank you, Lauren.

[Craig Robick]

Lauren.

[Danny Hy]

Thank you, Harry Belafonte.

[Craig Robick]

Oh, how come?

[Danny Hy]

I don't know. I just saw it. You know the, you know the song from Beetlejuice?

[Craig Robick]

Which one?

[Danny Hy]

That Come and Me Want to go home.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

I got to be honest. That's one of those people that I don't really know anything about.

[Craig Robick]

I kind of agree. It's a name.

[Danny Kelly]

I know the name, but that's all I know.

[Danny Hy]

It's a famous one.

[Craig Robick]

Oh, Jump in the line. That's a great song.

[Danny Hy]

Yeah, I don't know that one. It's like, sing it.

[Craig Robick]

Mak your body in line. Okay. Is that the song?

[Danny Kelly]

Song?

[Danny Hy]

I don't know.

[Craig Robick]

I wish I could play it, but I don't want to get sued. Listen to that. Next to a moving body of water, you're cooking.

[Danny Hy]

Also the opposite of sitting next to a body of water. Moving body water or rain is, according to my dad, a desert wind, which is negatively. It negatively charges the ions. So it sucks.

[Craig Robick]

Okay.

[Danny Kelly]

You're like, interesting because the sands hitting

[Danny Hy]

your face in your lungs.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah, that's.

[Danny Hy]

And in your eyeballs and stuff. It doesn't feel great.

[Danny Kelly]

Yeah.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah. Hot desert wind. Thumbs down, thumbs down. Moving water. Thumbs up.

[Danny Kelly]

Boom.

[Craig Robick]

Yeah.

[Danny Kelly]

Goodbye, everyone.

[Danny Hy]

Sit next to a creek. You know.

[Danny Kelly]

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[Ad Voice]

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[Craig Robick]

It's better this spring.

[Ad Voice]

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[Danny Kelly]

Life's a trip.

[Ad Voice]

Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit Best Western.com for complete terms and conditions.