Speaker 1: H M. Welcome to another edition of the Around the
Speaker 1: League Podcast. My name is Dan Hansas. I am joined
Speaker 1: by the great Mark Sesler and also great Greg Rosenthal.
Speaker 1: What's up, Fellas? He sort of hesitated about calling me great.
Speaker 1: You weren't going to do it. I was gonna say
Speaker 1: not quite as great, But then I didn't want to
Speaker 1: hurt your feelings pleasure my boss would have gotten weird,
Speaker 1: so I said, also great, we're all even in that sense.
Speaker 1: But now you've told me that I'm not that great
Speaker 1: and in a bit of a hole to start things off.
Speaker 1: But I am great because this is the first time
Speaker 1: the a t L Around the League Podcast, whatever it's
Speaker 1: been called in the past, the A t L at
Speaker 1: the Bate Club has gone for a second time in
Speaker 1: one week. Isn't that true? I was fine with the introduction.
Speaker 1: I knew you would be fine with it. You know.
Speaker 1: Chris Westling, who is the fourth member of this podcast,
Speaker 1: still missing an action. He's on any Land off the
Speaker 1: coast of Georgia. We don't know if he'll be back,
Speaker 1: but we're excited that he could be back next week.
Speaker 1: We also may never see him again. He's catching up
Speaker 1: with some locals down by the Bayou. Well, we're we're
Speaker 1: Facebook friends with Wes and he's a character. I'll just
Speaker 1: be honest, but he you know, he's a very rapid
Speaker 1: Facebook or constantly posting photos, messages, updates about his whereabouts.
Speaker 1: Total radio silence as of about what ago. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: lives on some strange or he used to live on
Speaker 1: some strange small island that we found him on in
Speaker 1: Georgia where a bunch of alcoholics that don't really do anything.
Speaker 1: So we don't know if he's gonna be back. Hopefully
Speaker 1: he's back next week. I'm gonna be going to Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame uh game next week in Canton, so I
Speaker 1: won't be here after Wednesday. But training camp has already
Speaker 1: been rolled. I mean, yesterday was about as busy a
Speaker 1: July day as I can remember. Yeah, we are rolling again.
Speaker 1: I mean there are a lot of so many subplots.
Speaker 1: After weeks and weeks where thing was happening, it felt
Speaker 1: like even though things were happening, it just wasn't happening
Speaker 1: at a rapid pace, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this we could hit you in the face. And yesterday Thursday,
Speaker 1: I should say, in particular, Uh, Greg, let's start with you, like,
Speaker 1: what's jumping out at you right now? Friday, Well, I think,
Speaker 1: to me, the biggest takeaway so far in campus Percy Harvin,
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking about what story is gonna have the
Speaker 1: most resonant for the rest of the two thousand and
Speaker 1: thirteen season. And this is the key offseason acquisition, perhaps
Speaker 1: the key to the entire offense of the Seattle Seahawks
Speaker 1: for a team that we think could maybe go to
Speaker 1: the super Bowl. And right off the bat, we're hearing
Speaker 1: he might have hip surgery. If you have hip surgery,
Speaker 1: who knows, You're probably not gonna be a factor this year.
Speaker 1: We don't know what's going to happen with him, but
Speaker 1: it just reminds you. I mean, doesn't it seem like
Speaker 1: we've heard this story before with Percy Harvin? Yeah? We have,
Speaker 1: And I think that was the caution. Although the idea
Speaker 1: of plugging him into Seattle's offense was so sexy that
Speaker 1: I think that ei there were no issues going in.
Speaker 1: I was funny because last night I was watching the
Speaker 1: opening of that Niners game where Seattle just romped them, Like,
Speaker 1: as a quick backstory, I watched that at a local pub.
Speaker 1: I think it was like Week sixteen. It was a
Speaker 1: forty two to thirteen win, and I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: we're in California. There was scattering of Niners fans that
Speaker 1: were just shouting at the screen as Russell Wilson was
Speaker 1: just rolling over them, like who is this guy? And
Speaker 1: I was watching thinking, imagine plugging Wilson into what we
Speaker 1: saw in that game, sorry, Harvin into that game, and
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's a shame almost that we won't
Speaker 1: get a chance to see that. Potentially well let's we
Speaker 1: don't know, We don't know, but we don't. But you know,
Speaker 1: if it is a worst case scenario and he is
Speaker 1: after the year, I do see some symmetry in this
Speaker 1: with the Niners, who you brought up their biggest rival
Speaker 1: there without crab Tree, their best receiver. But Harvin is
Speaker 1: an even bigger blow than losing crab Tree is for
Speaker 1: the Niners, because he had a chance to completely make
Speaker 1: that offense a real, you know, almost unstoppable force. Potentially,
Speaker 1: if Wilson continue to progress and Lynch stayed healthy and
Speaker 1: you know, all those things came together, he could have
Speaker 1: been the X factor. And now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're gonna get or if you're
Speaker 1: gonna get him at all. And it reminds me so
Speaker 1: much of what happened in Minnesota because you're already getting
Speaker 1: a sense maybe there's a disagreement between Harvin and the
Speaker 1: team about how to proceed because it leaked out, are
Speaker 1: you know? Ian Rappaport of NFL dot Com reported that
Speaker 1: the Seahawks basically said that he doesn't need surgery. They
Speaker 1: don't believe he needs surgery, that he can try to
Speaker 1: rehab it or play through it, whatever it is, but
Speaker 1: he wants to go see a second opinion, There might
Speaker 1: be some disagreement. There was a lot of drama between
Speaker 1: harvn uh and the Minnesota Vikings. This guy just got
Speaker 1: paid and it's like, okay, now it's all starting all
Speaker 1: over again and this is a team. Yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with Dan. I mean, I think they need Harvin. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to have golden tape really step up if
Speaker 1: he's out, and you think and you hear, whenever you
Speaker 1: hear something about a tear with a hip, it's almost
Speaker 1: never good. So I mean for that to drop out
Speaker 1: of nowhere yesterday, versts always on the puff list. I
Speaker 1: wonder what that's about. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's like Ian Rappaport, our colleague on Twitter, he sends
Speaker 1: out the tweet that we're dealing with the potential serious injury.
Speaker 1: To me, that the biggest story of the week by far,
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, And I think it drowned out what
Speaker 1: I would pick is potentially the second biggest, which was
Speaker 1: Matt Ryan signing that contract, because this has been the
Speaker 1: off season where you've seen a wave of big franchise
Speaker 1: quarterbacks inking huge deals. You've got Flacco, then you've got
Speaker 1: you know, Romo, you got Stafford in there, one after
Speaker 1: the other. And I feel like with Ryan, this is
Speaker 1: just my take almost as a football fan, something about
Speaker 1: the Falcons and me don't click. I find them. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're so they're so good on offense last season that
Speaker 1: they were almost a dull to me. And it might
Speaker 1: because they play in a dome. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the deal is, but they bore me. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: we were saying before, it's like the whole narrative around
Speaker 1: Matt Ryan and I don't I think in that city too,
Speaker 1: I think they fell deeply in love with Michael Vick
Speaker 1: and I don't think that Matt Ryan is what that
Speaker 1: city is looking for as a as a come up
Speaker 1: to Michael Vick. I just don't think he fits with
Speaker 1: that city, is all. You know. Boo who if Atlanta
Speaker 1: can't connect with my with Matt Ryan, you know, we've
Speaker 1: been waiting for forty years for another good quarterback to
Speaker 1: come around. This guy is a stud and he you know,
Speaker 1: he put up his best year last year. He's every
Speaker 1: year he's been in the league. I feel like he's
Speaker 1: gotten better. And now he's a guy that's right about
Speaker 1: to me, is at that edge where he's to me,
Speaker 1: he's better than Joe Flacco, I think, and Flacco won
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl. I think Matt Ryan is capable of that.
Speaker 1: And what they did here by giving him this extension
Speaker 1: is they basically guaranteed that they were going to be
Speaker 1: competitive for another five years or six years. Well, they
Speaker 1: did the right thing, and they I think by the way,
Speaker 1: they have one of the best front office teams in football,
Speaker 1: potentially the best, and like they've made one solid move
Speaker 1: after the other. Am I wrong or do you? Is
Speaker 1: the Falcons that you yearned to see week after week?
Speaker 1: America agrees with you? I mean America is bored by
Speaker 1: the Falcons this. You know, we kind of pay attention
Speaker 1: to the numbers on NFL dot com. People were not
Speaker 1: that interested in the Matt Ryan story. I I used
Speaker 1: to agree with you every time the Falcons were always
Speaker 1: on TV and it was like Michael Turner for three
Speaker 1: yards and just there was something so vanilla about them.
Speaker 1: But once you throw a little Julio Jones into the
Speaker 1: mix and you get a new offense, and you get
Speaker 1: Mike Mularkey out of there. I think that's the common
Speaker 1: factor of boring offenses is Mike Malarkey. So you got
Speaker 1: him out of there, and they're throwing the ball around.
Speaker 1: You got Julio Jones, you got right A wait, now,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm alright with we did we forget that
Speaker 1: Seahawks Falcons playoff game and Richard Sherman and Roddy White
Speaker 1: going after each other that I mean this or the
Speaker 1: or the NFC Championship. People don't remember what a great
Speaker 1: game that that was a fantastic game. And this is
Speaker 1: not how I want to feel. I'm just saying this
Speaker 1: is how I can't control it. It's like something about
Speaker 1: Matt Ryan doesn't feel like a real intriguing narrative or
Speaker 1: a figure that kind of draws that out of you
Speaker 1: storyline wise, like some of the other big quarterbacks, and
Speaker 1: so you much rather have Brandon behind center. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: writing this down, don't talk Ryan. He starts falling asleep. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess the other story that jumps out for me
Speaker 1: personally as a Jets fan is Santonio Holmes, who today
Speaker 1: I don't know if this was a new situation for
Speaker 1: him or someone just had an posed the question to
Speaker 1: him in this way, but they said, do you think
Speaker 1: you'll be playing at all this year? And he said
Speaker 1: I I don't know. And it just underscores just what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with. First of all, catastrophic foot injury that
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people I don't think even
Speaker 1: realized how serious that this thing was until now is
Speaker 1: recruping toward the new season and the guy can barely
Speaker 1: put any weight on the foot. Now, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: is he a guy that we're not going to see
Speaker 1: again or he's never gonna be close to the same guy?
Speaker 1: It's fair to wonder if we've already seen the best
Speaker 1: of Santonio Holmes. Now this should send a chill up
Speaker 1: the spine of Dan Hansis and the rest of the
Speaker 1: Jets fans around the nation, because who's the best player
Speaker 1: on the Jets offense. I mean Santonio Holmes, right if
Speaker 1: he's healthy, and like Harvin, you don't this is a
Speaker 1: guy that's had a history of being a guy maybe
Speaker 1: you don't count on. I don't know if you want
Speaker 1: Santoni Holmes as your leader. He already took a pay
Speaker 1: cut to stay with the Jets this year. Maybe not
Speaker 1: too thrilled about that this is his last year in
Speaker 1: New York. He knows it, the coaches know, everyone knows it.
Speaker 1: Is he gonna be rushing to get back onto the field.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked yesterday about a couple of people
Speaker 1: that were essentially on their last legs, last chance in
Speaker 1: the league, and I had to put Rex Ryan in
Speaker 1: that category and not. I think he's an extremely talented coach,
Speaker 1: a creative coach. But it concerns me because I think
Speaker 1: he's going to be tied to the fact that during
Speaker 1: his tenure that team went from having quite a bit
Speaker 1: of talent is arguably the least talented offensive team of
Speaker 1: all thirty two squads right now. Yeah, and from for me.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the Jets and obviously this isn't a
Speaker 1: super Bowl team, probably not a playoff team, but with
Speaker 1: Gino Smith and Smith is gonna get in there eventually.
Speaker 1: You want to give him a chance in his rookie year,
Speaker 1: and you want to have some people will that know
Speaker 1: how to play on the field. And right now I'm
Speaker 1: looking out there and you're hoping that you could pencil
Speaker 1: and Kellen Winslow Jr. For seventy five catches and you realize, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really dark. Well, I mean, they got the
Speaker 1: two thousand and five Browns back together, you got Winslow
Speaker 1: and Edwards. I mean, Dan and I were talking about
Speaker 1: this the other day. How sad it was, how small
Speaker 1: a story. You know, Braylon Edwards returning to the Jets
Speaker 1: is like, oh, Braylon Edwards returned to the Jets. Who cares? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: and it's like all you need is to make a swing,
Speaker 1: a trade for Derek Anderson and you've got to make
Speaker 1: things potentially, But it is, it is. It is a
Speaker 1: dark time. But I think the Jets are one team
Speaker 1: that could potentially surprise us because I kind of like
Speaker 1: Rex Royan backed into a corner where everyone's predicting three
Speaker 1: or four wins and it makes sense logically, but maybe
Speaker 1: he does something, uh coaching wise, you know that he
Speaker 1: was born to do. Yeah, but you still got to
Speaker 1: score points, and if Holmes is not on the field,
Speaker 1: it's going to be very hard for that team to
Speaker 1: score more than seventeen points a week. I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been kind of driving the Jets are going to
Speaker 1: be better than people think Bandwagon, you know, just because
Speaker 1: I think the defense and what you said into a
Speaker 1: wall and I like Rex, but now that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of they're convincing themselves into Braylon Edwards and
Speaker 1: Winslow as potential, you know, help to this offense. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a big, big problem. So those are the big
Speaker 1: stories of the week. What about the stories that maybe
Speaker 1: maybe they don't have the big long term impact but
Speaker 1: but struck your your fancy so far in training camp?
Speaker 1: Mark Wow? I mean the story with Terrell Brown and uh,
Speaker 1: his issue with his agent. I think it's interesting because
Speaker 1: there's the role of the agents obviously evolved and changed
Speaker 1: so much over the years. But basically, you know, if
Speaker 1: you didn't hear about this, you know he was going
Speaker 1: to get a two million dollar bonus right to participate
Speaker 1: in offseason workouts, and he diligently, we assume, was working
Speaker 1: out on his own. And this was, you know, find
Speaker 1: printing his contract that he was not aware of and
Speaker 1: that his agent did not inform him of. And so
Speaker 1: bang he found finds out what on Twitter yesterday that
Speaker 1: he's lost out what is essentially two thirds of his
Speaker 1: salary because his agent never picked up the phone or
Speaker 1: sent him a text. And you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: bad news to receive in your life, finding it out
Speaker 1: from the slant Santa Clara Register beat guy that you
Speaker 1: just lost two million dollars, It's probably the worst thing
Speaker 1: that could ever happen. And then you can even imagine
Speaker 1: if he's if you're in the same position, you click
Speaker 1: at the at or the mentions and just people calling
Speaker 1: you an idiot and calling you stupid. You probably if
Speaker 1: I'm not, if I'm that guy, if I'm I'm Brown,
Speaker 1: i am going and I'm finding my agent and forget
Speaker 1: about firing him, which he did, yes, which he did,
Speaker 1: which is the right move obviously, But I am going
Speaker 1: after the agent physically in a very angry manner. Does
Speaker 1: this top the Elvis Dumerville facts blows it out of
Speaker 1: the water, doesn't Yeah, I don't know if it does.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's worse. I mean this, he
Speaker 1: was set to make almost three million dollars. He was
Speaker 1: a late round draft pick who signed a contract. I
Speaker 1: mean this, This is big time. Not that two million
Speaker 1: dollars ever small money. But it's not a guy that's
Speaker 1: made a ton of money throughout his career. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's devastating just to take take money off the table.
Speaker 1: And the only way to look at the bright side
Speaker 1: of it is is that he is a talented cornerback,
Speaker 1: he's a starter, and he's still twenty eight. So as
Speaker 1: long as he doesn't get hurt this year, you know,
Speaker 1: he should be able to make some money as a
Speaker 1: free agent, whether it be with the Niners or someone else.
Speaker 1: But still, it's rough speaking rough. Alex Wilke is back
Speaker 1: behind the glass. Will who who was missing an action?
Speaker 1: We were waiting and waiting for him. We had to
Speaker 1: have Dylan Milner, his colleague, fill in for the early
Speaker 1: part of the podcast. But now he rolls in as
Speaker 1: if we wouldn't notice. There was no There was no
Speaker 1: ill intents, I promise Is this the first ever NFL
Speaker 1: dot com producer pinch hit in the middle of a podcast. No,
Speaker 1: oh no, certainly not. There was actually to to give
Speaker 1: you an idea of the old uh A t L
Speaker 1: debate club as I poured some out on the carpet.
Speaker 1: Uh There was one podcast Mark and I did a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago where there was no producers, so
Speaker 1: they basically had somebody come up here, hit record and
Speaker 1: then just leave the room. And there's just marking I
Speaker 1: in an empty room looking at a ghost behind. Then.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it's that much different right now. Man, Here,
Speaker 1: I am gathering important content for our draft three six
Speaker 1: blog that I'm sure you've worked on in some capacity,
Speaker 1: and you're just dumping on me. To his credit, Will
Speaker 1: because sober this time, Yes, so close to physically. That's good.
Speaker 1: All right, Well thanks for joining us. Well, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: the story out, Yeah, exactly. Um for me, Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 1: speaking on the topic of Ryan Braun was pretty fascinating. Uh.
Speaker 1: Greg brought it up downstairs in the newsroom point that
Speaker 1: I agree with it. You know, we we all thought
Speaker 1: both Bill Bill Belichick for his press conference about Aaron
Speaker 1: Hernandez and then Aaron Rodgers today would kind of be
Speaker 1: tight lipped or be you know, not want to get
Speaker 1: into it at all. But both both of them, both
Speaker 1: Belichick and Rogers, were very open about this. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was surprised. Aaron Rodgers came out and basically, you know,
Speaker 1: said he feels like he was you know, wronged by
Speaker 1: Ryan Bran. Like he didn't hesitate at all. He basically says,
Speaker 1: I don't like being lied to my face, and and
Speaker 1: that was that. I mean, I think Rogers going to
Speaker 1: score a lot of points for that. I just want
Speaker 1: a live webcam set up in that restaurant to a
Speaker 1: c you know, the diners dispersing one by one. But secondly,
Speaker 1: what is what happens with that business? I know it's
Speaker 1: a weird side issue, but does that restaurants touched on it?
Speaker 1: They're not. He's not really sure. Rodgers isn't sure what's
Speaker 1: the next step with that. So it seems like one
Speaker 1: of the situations where they're gonna let that the dust
Speaker 1: clear a little bit. I mean with Rodgers, a lot
Speaker 1: of people find him unlikable, potentially in some of his
Speaker 1: saltiness and maybe his higher than higher than now situation.
Speaker 1: But I I think he handled it pretty well today. No,
Speaker 1: he was good. I thought it was good. I mean,
Speaker 1: he he got burned by his friend, and you can't
Speaker 1: really get on the guy for backing his buddy that
Speaker 1: was lying to him essentially, and he finds out along
Speaker 1: with the rest of us that this guy was being dishonest,
Speaker 1: and he he was open about and said he was
Speaker 1: upset and didn't see it coming. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: see that conversation and the conversation of uh Terrell Brown
Speaker 1: cornerback asking for his money back from from from Jim
Speaker 1: Harbaugh in the front office. But he said he was
Speaker 1: going to try to date. Well, I was. I was
Speaker 1: actually gonna say, if you had to be one person
Speaker 1: for a horrible conversation, would you rather be Ryan Braun
Speaker 1: when you see Aaron Rodgers come up on your call
Speaker 1: I d Or would you rather be the agent of
Speaker 1: l Brown? Stop? That's close. I'd rather be Ryan Braun,
Speaker 1: a good looking, rich, young Jewish man with an m
Speaker 1: v P in his closet and a hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: coming his the Hebrew Hammer. No, we just fell down
Speaker 1: a wormhole where Greg wants to assume someone else's idea.
Speaker 1: It I was just saying, for this phone call, what's
Speaker 1: the worst phone call to have to take? I think Braun,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I think the magnitude of what Braun did
Speaker 1: is is much larger. The agent could say, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with fifty different guys. I made a clerical are
Speaker 1: I'm gonna blame it on my you know, secretary Eleanor
Speaker 1: it was her fault was Braun can't pass the buck
Speaker 1: on his his situation. I mean, it's devastating because that
Speaker 1: agent name is out there and it's bad for business. Now,
Speaker 1: it's not the advertisement you want. So uh. The one
Speaker 1: story that stuck out to me more than anything probably,
Speaker 1: and it happens every year at training care. I feel
Speaker 1: like I've written this post many times before. Joe McKnight
Speaker 1: fails a conditioning test and Bryant McKinney shows up to
Speaker 1: Ravens Camp overweight. I literally went back and found the
Speaker 1: post that I wrote at Pro Football Talk four years
Speaker 1: ago when McKnight first passed his r didn't pass his
Speaker 1: conditioning test. I could go back and do the McKenny post.
Speaker 1: It was in Minnesota, it was at Baltimore, and it
Speaker 1: just happens every time. And Dan Dan made a great
Speaker 1: point talking about McKinny, just it's only been a month
Speaker 1: since they last saw him, So I mean, what happened
Speaker 1: in that month. Yeah. John Harbaugh was glowing talking about
Speaker 1: Bryan McKinney a month ago, saying that he looked great,
Speaker 1: he was moving the way he was during the Ravens
Speaker 1: Super Bowl run where he played so well at left tackle,
Speaker 1: and then you know, in four weeks, this guy must
Speaker 1: have had a great time over four weeks. Well, this
Speaker 1: is why I'm concerned about, you know, the whereabouts in
Speaker 1: the condition of West, because you know, I feel equally
Speaker 1: he could show up in a tattered, tattered for West
Speaker 1: in his fourteen day old beard, and you know, Destroid,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that the glowing reports on McKinney were
Speaker 1: as accurate as what we're receiving now. He's always had
Speaker 1: these issues, and I think it's like back in the
Speaker 1: old day, guys would use training camp to literally get
Speaker 1: in shape from doing an off season of sitting on
Speaker 1: their couch, would working or being insurance ment. Now it's like, well,
Speaker 1: now they're supposed to show up in prime shape, and
Speaker 1: I think for some of these guys that's not how
Speaker 1: their bodies work. McKinney has just always struggled like they
Speaker 1: were literally Green Bay Packers at the at the plant.
Speaker 1: With picking up, it's just easier to name their team
Speaker 1: what their actual occupation was in the off. Joe McKnight
Speaker 1: is a funny one because this is a guy on
Speaker 1: let's see when the date was. I did an around
Speaker 1: league post on May sixteenth, after the Jets had acquired
Speaker 1: Chris Ivory and Mike Goodson, and that you know, his
Speaker 1: roster's McKnight's roster spot was somewhat in doubt and he said,
Speaker 1: I don't care who they bring in, They're going to
Speaker 1: have to kill me to take my spot. And now
Speaker 1: he fails his conditioning deaths, Like, well, what is up
Speaker 1: with this guy? Their their skill positions with mcnight. I mean,
Speaker 1: think about the other running backs. Okay we have we
Speaker 1: have Mike Goodson. Uh, we don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1: he'll ever put on the Jets uniform. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: know if he'll ever be on the team again. He's
Speaker 1: on the did not report list and Rex Ryan would
Speaker 1: not say if he's ever going to play again. There's
Speaker 1: legal problems. He's like in the middle of Paris somewhere.
Speaker 1: We have Joe McKnight. We have Chris Ivory, who's the
Speaker 1: big hope started can on an exercise bike, not not
Speaker 1: fully healthy. You've pretty much got Ballal Powell running the
Speaker 1: ship right now. I'm sure they in the back of
Speaker 1: their minds. Three months ago I thought he would be
Speaker 1: the guy they would just cut, but now he might
Speaker 1: be the workhorse back as they head towards the like
Speaker 1: Chris Ivory. If he he's he's better than what they've
Speaker 1: had in years. I think finally today we should talk
Speaker 1: about you know, Greg, who I sit next to Mark
Speaker 1: is a little further away cities and see what's going
Speaker 1: on on a daily basis. Gregg has a monitor that's
Speaker 1: the size of like an old drive in movie theater
Speaker 1: that has um all the metrics charts about what's going on,
Speaker 1: what's doing with very robotic you know, it's it's very
Speaker 1: statn ord driven and Greg as the editor in chief
Speaker 1: of our blog, just tracking what's doing well. Some stories
Speaker 1: do better than others, obviously, but some stories do really
Speaker 1: well that it doesn't really make sense. So Greg, I
Speaker 1: ask you, as the man with the giant screen, what
Speaker 1: is the story this week or in the last two days.
Speaker 1: That's doing great right now? Shouldn't be. There's always a
Speaker 1: story or two that you don't understand. Why is America?
Speaker 1: Why does America care about this? Why is America so
Speaker 1: dumb this? This week, it's Cedric Ellis retiring from the Bears,
Speaker 1: which you wouldn't have thought would have been that big
Speaker 1: of an NFL story. Granted, a former first round pick,
Speaker 1: he decided not to show up for training camp and
Speaker 1: basically just told them like he didn't want to play.
Speaker 1: And this, this is the most popular story on NFL
Speaker 1: dot com for two days straight. And I can just
Speaker 1: feel will cringing back there because it's yet another deeply
Speaker 1: disappointing former USC trojan. It's all right. I spent all
Speaker 1: day at PACTULD Media Day hanging out with Marquise Lee.
Speaker 1: My buddy, Marquise Lee have high hopes for him. Let me,
Speaker 1: Why do you? Is it? Like? Are there are bots
Speaker 1: out on the web picking this thing up? Are people
Speaker 1: actually swarming to this story? There are weird trends like
Speaker 1: people really like retirements, I feel like and and first
Speaker 1: round picks that get cut. When Jamal Anderson gets cut
Speaker 1: by the Bengals and he ends up replacing Ellis in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Those stories tend to do all. I guess because NFL
Speaker 1: draft fan, I really, I really don't know. Well, I
Speaker 1: guess we're talking about this because we don't have a
Speaker 1: reason for I'm really upset because I had hopes, having
Speaker 1: written three stories about Cheetahs this week, that the Cheetahs
Speaker 1: would win the dumb metrics bomb of the Week. Sorry, Dan,
Speaker 1: your animal narratives um have struggled At times. They've done
Speaker 1: pretty well, I thought, but not well enough to be
Speaker 1: sitting next to the massive screens. Maybe it's the story
Speaker 1: that kind of a noise NFL fans the most, kind
Speaker 1: of like guys failing conditioning tests. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because those stories do well too. You can't like imagine
Speaker 1: this guy just choosing not to play football, But it
Speaker 1: makes total sense to me. He made thirty two million
Speaker 1: dollars off his rookie contract. He made more of his
Speaker 1: rookie contract than Andrew Luck the number one pick, will
Speaker 1: make off of his and he's signed to play for
Speaker 1: one million dollars this year. He's twenty eight years old.
Speaker 1: Do you really want to go through that all again?
Speaker 1: You got your money, and some don't love football. Some
Speaker 1: guys are just gifted physically and they keep rolling from
Speaker 1: level to level, and then they end up becoming millionaires
Speaker 1: because of it. At a certain point, you're rich and
Speaker 1: you're kind of over it. It kind of makes sense
Speaker 1: to me too. It's like, God, Seacrest out for Cedric Ellis,
Speaker 1: It's gonna be me in a couple of years. Wow,
Speaker 1: I've just gotta ignore that. That ever happened that. I
Speaker 1: don't know that was Seacrest reference. I think he's dropped
Speaker 1: off the scene. He's done. I think that's our cue.
Speaker 1: That is you gotta get out on that um. Alright,
Speaker 1: So we will be back on Monday. Correct, we will Monday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday our first three podcast week coming up. Exciting.
Speaker 1: Should we even tease the iTunes angle at this point?
Speaker 1: Hopefully you will go to iTunes and you will find it,
Speaker 1: and you will subscribe, and you will continue to support
Speaker 1: me around the league. And a lot of this is
Speaker 1: Wilke shoulders to get it done. iTunes is in progress.
Speaker 1: Many of these, many of you listeners out there, will
Speaker 1: be hearing this on iTunes. I promise you. That's a promise. Alright, Great,
Speaker 1: until Monday. Over the next weekend,