NFC West Non-Negotiables

This radio commercial was made to convince you to stop speeding.

We can't use siren sound effects on the radio, so we'll use other equally jarring sound effects to get your attention. Like telling you that whether you drive a little over the speed limit or a lot, you can crash just the same. You could hurt yourself or worse others. I'm at the scene of the collision.

And the damage you cause will be beyond repair. See, we didn't have to use crash or siren sounds after all. Speeding catches up with you. Brought to you by NHTSA. This radio commercial was made to convince you to stop speeding.

We can't use siren sound effects on the radio, so we'll use other equally jarring sound effects to get your attention. Like telling you that whether you drive a little over the speed limit or a lot, you can crash just the same. You could hurt yourself or worse others. I'm at the scene of the collision. And the damage you cause will be beyond repair. See, we didn't have to use crash or siren sounds after all. Speeding catches up with you.

Brought to you by NHTSA. This is the Rich Eisen Show. What was that? The Rich Eisen Show with guest host, Tom Pellicero. Tom, you don't put dirty drawers and melon to yourself? Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles.

Not a gift. It was Tom Pellicero. I underlined my name, and then I rode all over it.

Laundry. Earlier on the show, Yahoo! Sports Senior NBA Writer Vincent Goodwill, TBS MLB Analyst Jeff Francore.

Coming up, latest news and more. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pellicero. Final hour of my week here at the Rich Eisen Show.

Always so fantastic being in the studio with my guys. TJ Jefferson, the only regular who has finished out the week. Del Tufo's off doing some other job.

He's got like 13 or something like that, you know. Brockman's eight beers deep on the turnpike from Pittsburgh to somewhere in Maryland. He had a master plan.

He's in the caravan on his way to Maryland right now, you know. That was a biggie line. I caught it.

Thank you. Who was the DJ Herc? Was that the Scott Hansen reference yesterday? Like I said, Scott Hansen breaking down the history of breakdancing was not something I ever imagined was going to happen. That's why I like that Scott Hansen's doing the Gold Zone and guys like Andrew Siciliano because they're going to be able to pull things that you've never heard of before because like that's how their brains work. I'm going to learn a lot. You can bet I'm going to have the Gold Zone on whenever I can.

If I'm in transit or something, I'll be checking that out on on Peacock there. He said he had 145 pages for one... For Handball. A 145 page pamphlet for Handball. I don't think I've got that in me. It sounds like a fun job. I don't think I want to do it. You gonna turn that one down? I think I'm okay on that.

We got a lot to talk about too. NFL training camps underway as we've been discussing. The Texans were the first full squad to be in the building. The Bears also fully back to work today.

They will be out on the practice field tomorrow. No longer in Bourbonet, Illinois. I do miss the days of training camps from just a fan sort of perspective. Growing up in Minnesota, the Vikings were always in Mankato. And then in Chicago, you used to drive out to Bourbonet.

It was like an hour and 15 minutes from O'Hare. And different teams used to go. Now there's like only a handful of teams to go off site.

The Bears now are back. They got a beautiful field that's outside surrounded by trees. Every now and then a train goes right by the field, which is an interesting thing. The Bengals also have the train that goes above the field, which is always because they have theirs right basically underneath the highway. And so you'll catch those through. But I miss the days of going away. What I don't miss is when I have to do, when I get to go on my training camp tour and pending the airlines being back online by next week, hitting 12 different teams in 12 days, the added hour and 15 minutes of driving to a place after you land at the airport, I can live without it.

In a lot of cases. The Colts are up in Westfield, Indiana. I will be at that one. The Steelers still go to La Trobe. I'm going there.

There's a couple other ones that are still off site that I know I'm going to be going to be hitting as well. I enjoy it again for the scenery. Logistically, this is better. So the Bears are back home. Caleb Williams, of course, one of the biggest stories I said, my five biggest training camp storylines, it's not just Caleb, it's that whole Bears offense. It's the pressure that's going to be created because of all the moves that they've made through the course of the off season, adding Swift and Keenan Allen and Roma Dunze already having DJ Moore. They've drafted tight ends. It seems like high for every year for a decade here. They've got a ton, a really big arsenal around Caleb Williams. But now let's see what it looks like when you're seeing it every day.

And when it's being covered the way that the Chicago media tends to cover the Chicago Bears. So here was earlier today, Caleb Williams position to thrive though. He's absolutely so far.

This is the best. But it also, when you're in that, the pressure's on. Drake May does not have that pressure.

Not this year in New England. Jayden Daniels, I think, does have some of the pressure, but it's not to this degree. Because I don't think people look at the commanders and say, they should be pushing and they're definitely a team that makes noise in the playoffs this year. Chicago does have that pressure.

They're not, nobody can say they're like the surprise or the sleeper team. They absolutely have that pressure on them from go. So it all starts out with reporting day today with Caleb Williams. Here's what he had to say when talking about, you know, maybe what will happen when he faces a little bit of adversity in training camp. How will you keep perspective when inevitably there's some rough days out there on the practice field in training camp?

Yeah, I mean, I've had rough days. I expect myself to go out there. I think I'm the toughest on myself. I might go out there and I'll mess up a play.

I've thrown a pick in mini camp or things like that. You know, so being tough on myself, but also having an understanding of where we are and where I am and the progression, like I said before, is key. And those bad times, it's not a time to have self doubt.

That's just a waste of time. It's a time to keep growing, keep progressing, and keep believing in yourself. I've been impressed with what I've heard from Caleb Williams, what I've seen from him in terms of how he's handled everything going all the way back to the combine. During the pre-draft process, he did virtually nothing the way that every other prospect has done it, not doing his medical at the combine. He didn't throw. That's not totally uncommon, but he was out there, right? He was on the field. He was still interacting with people, with the other quarterbacks. Every time that he's spoken to the media, he hasn't done a lot of sit down one-on-one type interviews, but every time he's gotten up there in a press conference setting, from the first time at the combine when he had everybody around him, when he came over, did a one-on-one interview with me on NFL network. And I just thought for a guy who entered the NFL, and there were so many questions about all this non-football related stuff, and the people wanted to poke holes in Caleb Williams. It was about the brand and living in a penthouse in LA and painting his fingernails and driving certain cars and all those things that made it seem like he was this celebrity quarterback who would just drop in and play games. The more the teams dug into it, the more they heard, no, he is around. He's not showing up to class and then immediately leaving. First of all, he was showing up to class, but also he'd hang around and he'd have lunch at the facility and he'd see people and he would bring his offensive linemen out to the Heisman Trophy ceremony. He would get headphones for all his teammates and then realize, hey, the support staff deserve him too, and then go out and do something nice for them, show up to the back of quarterbacks, birthday party, all those different things.

And I think that what he's presented so far, publicly, knowing that he's going to be under an extreme microscope. I mean, this is a guy who, and I understand the gravity of what I'm about to say, because I grew up in Minnesota in the 1980s and 90s, Timberwolves didn't start playing until 1989. So my idol in sports growing up was Michael Jordan. And I had Michael Jordan posters on the walls and I wore Jordans. Everything Michael Jordan did was the biggest thing possible. You were not alone in that.

I certainly was, yes. I mean, he was Gatorade. He was McDonald's. He was a human business and still is. Still makes ridiculous amounts of money off his Jordan brand.

Off of me alone. Caleb Williams has the opportunity to be the biggest thing in Chicago since Michael Jordan. Yeah. And he is going to be handled by the media, by fans, like he has the opportunity to be the biggest thing in Chicago since Michael Jordan. In other words, with the great power comes great responsibility. And so to this point, he's passed the tests in terms of how he's, you know, how he's just gone through things. And everything I hear behind the scenes in Chicago, going all the way back to their interactions with him prior to the draft, were all very positive. And the way that he's been around teammates, they sent him out to dinner with some of the veteran players as part of his top 30 visit. That's not a totally common thing that people do, but they wanted to see. And they got great reports back from the other players being like, yeah, we can, we can rally behind this guy. Now the real work begins of actually being out there on the field.

I would say the other thing that I'm entertained by, and this is in no way a critique. I'm not saying that this is a negative. I don't think we're in full Broncos country, let's ride a territory or prior to that with Russell Wilson, go Hawks, which worked pretty well in Seattle for a long time. Cause go Hawks after a win pretty good. They won a lot of games Broncos country, let's ride when you lose that is great. And then eventually that became Broncos country and then just walk it off. And then eventually it just became no sign off. But Caleb Williams, starting on draft night has done something signing off his press conferences here. Here's this sign off.

This is from today. Here's how he ended the, the press conference you just saw. Here's how he ended the press conference today. As well as blocking, you know, those guys get, get paid a lot and maybe I'll be in the trenches a little bit more than they'd like to be. So, um, you know, but all those things I'm willing to do. All right. So the very quick, very quick, the bears. Okay.

So now let's go back to draft night, April 25th, 2024 after he gets drafted by the bears. And here's what he said. Thanks everybody. All right.

So that one little extra, extra sauce on that one. Like I told Feller, I've been ever since that day, I've been singing it like that on this show. I haven't, I've been walking around the studio as Hoskins knows.

I've walked back and passed his office five times. They'd be going the bear for a minute. So melodic before. So, you know, it's, it's the hashtag, right? That they use on Twitter. It's what a lot of fans say. It goes back to a late 1980s SNL sketch with everybody knows the super fans bear, bear, bear, bear, bear, which was said in a certain, a certain different way. That was, that was how it originally began. So what I have to imagine is Caleb Williams was born in like 2002.

I want to say well after this was a thing. And so I imagine we saw it on Hard Knocks, for instance, where Drew Locke was asking the PR guys after he signed in the episode the other night, like, well, what's, what's the saying? Do we have like a thing that people say a hashtag or whatever they're like, big blue, go big blue. He's like, you know, somebody was like bleep the Eagles. He's like, let's go with go big blue. And so he does that in the thing. I can only imagine somebody said to Caleb or people were tagging him on social media and be like the bears. So in his head, it's not George went, it's not ed Swarovski. Wasn't that, it wasn't that what it was.

It's, it's not right. It's not that he sees the bears. And so here are some of the various iterations of the bears that we've gotten from Caleb Williams so far. Awesome. Thank you everybody.

Go bears. Awesome. Thank you everybody.

Thank you. So it's, it's evolving over time. None of those sound like the SNL sketch, but again, you have to wonder, has he ever seen Ed Swarovski super fans?

I never even thought about that until just now. You know, Caleb put his own little twist on it and the bear bill Swarovski, excuse me, sorry, bill Swarovski. I can't put his own little twist on it now. I'm not a bears fan, so I'm, I'd have to reach out to a bears fan to see how they feel about the way he's saying it. But like I said, I picked up on it.

I've been using it. I kind of liked the, the melodic bears, but you know, maybe, you know, Tom, how comics stand up comics before they shoot a special, they'll go and they'll pop up, you know, at a comedy club at like after midnight to work out some, you know, work out their act, you know, try out some jokes here and there before they're really ready to go film. Maybe this is just a dress, the bears dress rehearsal for Caleb. He's trying to see which one of these sticks, which one gets the most response. So maybe that's why he's hitting us with a different one all the time, just to see, you know, which way he's going to go with this. It's, it's definitely gotten quicker. It's gotten quicker over time, which is probably the right move. So then the next question becomes, does he do like Russell Wilson, go Hawks Broncos country.

Let's try it. Does he do it after a loss now? You know, the best, best idea you can have is just win a lot of games. Everyone will love it after the, after the wins, but there is a choice that's going to be, have to, that's going to have to be made. Yeah. I just, I just like the reinterpretation through a different lens. That's what artists do, Tom, you know, they, they take something and they re-imagine it in their own vision.

Right. So I would think that maybe, you know, after a win, we'll get the sing song you won, you know, then after a loss, it just might want to answer the questions and be done like the bears and be out. But you know, he wins, he's happy.

He's going to draw that out a little bit. I would think that's the one, that's the one that's in my head all the time. And when now I see the bears, it always in my head was, you know, George went now that's every time somebody, you know, tags me and puts that hashtag. And I hear that one. It's sing songy.

It's got a nice, it's got a nice little harmony to it. If I was a bears fan, that would 1 billion percent be my ringtone. Every time I got a text message, you would hear, you know, my phone rings, you're going to hear it.

You know, somebody rings my doorbell. You're going to hear it, especially don't let them start winning. Then it's just going to be on for Caleb or, or could that be the sounder in the stadium? Because there's different teams, you know, the Vikings have the, the gala horn, the Patriots have that like siren, right? Don't they have a no, a foghorn, excuse me, the foghorn, the siren is, is that Pittsburgh? Somebody's got a siren. But imagine if before, before every third down stand over the stadium loudspeakers and the opposing quarterback just hears, you hear that we were harmonizing right there, me and Caleb. But imagine that that's a, that is some stuff that will burrow in the back of your head.

It's one thing just like, Oh, this is noise. Just hearing Caleb over and over saying, I think can be extremely intimidating. I dig it. I I'm, I'm excited. I'm very excited to watch with Caleb Williams, just exactly how this entire thing plays out with the offense. One of my top five training camp storylines. We'll be seeing Caleb and the bears, the bears very soon. All right, let's take a break here.

NFC West non-negotiables coming up right after this, as we wrap up our divisions training camps, kicking off Tom Pellicero in for rich. We all know about the speed of sound, but have you ever thought about the sounds of speeding? If you drive over the speed limit, there are lots of different sounds that you might hear drive too fast. And you could hear the sound of your vehicle crashing, the sound of ambulances and first responders, desperately trying to free you from the wreckage. You could hear the beeps of a heart monitor. You could hear doctors and nurses in an emergency room as you're being treated for your injuries. You could hear the sound of worried family members in the hospital waiting room, hoping to hear that you're okay. You could even hear the sound of people crying at a funeral, because if you drive over the speed limit, whether by a lot or by a little, you could do damage that's beyond repair.

You could seriously injure yourself or worse, you could hurt and even kill someone else. When you speed, you put everyone on the road in danger. One way or another speeding catches up with you.

Paid for by NHTSA. This radio commercial was made to convince you to stop speeding. We can't use siren sound effects on the radio, so we'll use other equally jarring sound effects to get your attention. Like telling you that whether you drive a little over the speed limit or a lot, you can crash just the same. You could hurt yourself or worse others. And the damage you cause will be beyond repair. See, we didn't have to use crash or siren sounds after all. Speeding catches up with you.

Brought to you by NHTSA. What goes through your mind when you hear everybody wants one of you? You know, it's flattering and humbling, Rich, but it's a result of the success we've had as a team. And, you know, it's just like, you know, but you know what, though?

It is true, though. Like, we got great coaches on our staff. We got good players. It's a great reflection of our organization and what we've done. And I think, you know, that's the biggest thing. And to see guys that we've worked with over the last couple years get opportunities with Matt and with Zach Taylor, you know, they're deserving of it because of what they've done on their own merit. And when they go in and compete for jobs, people say, man, we can see this guy leading our organization.

And, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing those guys thrive. Have you told Kingsbury that he has a job because of you, too? No, that's it. Cliff got his deal on his own. Okay, no, I'm sure he did. I know you had it. You know, you were knocking on his door, too, to join your staff.

I know that. So, you passed him, according to you. I got him good, didn't I? I think you told that to Schefter.

I did. What did you do to him? Well, basically, you know, he obviously has a pre-existing relationship with Patrick Mahomes. He was out here doing some things.

And Cliff was having dinner with him and a group of people. And we have a mutual friend. And I tricked him into thinking that, you know, he was tampering and that he was gonna lose some picks. It was what you changed somebody's name and your phone to Roger Goodell. I did. Our mutual friend, he... Yeah, I couldn't let this go on too long. So, our mutual friend, a guy named Chaz Gessner, we put... I put his number in my phone as Roger Goodell and had him send me a text that said, you know, hey, this is tampering.

You know better than this. You guys are both, you know, and I showed it to Kingsbury and I said, you know, Mr. Goodell, he never texted me. I said, you better call Steve kind of right now. And his face, he was like, he said, I thought I was gonna throw up. He's like, that's wrong. I mean, I couldn't let it go on for more than 30 seconds.

It was a good, but a bad joke, man. I mean, he's like, you ruined dinner, man. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show.

Tom Pelissero here in for Rich. We've been making our way through the NFL through the course of this week, talking about the non-negotiables for every team division by division. Last, but certainly not least, the NFC West. Of course, this is all framed. The bear, all those Emmy nominations for comedy.

It's such a funny show. The non-negotiables on that, the setting up the kitchen, getting the bear to get that Michelin star. This is how these NFL teams, they're non-negotiables for what it's going to take for them to be playoff contenders in 2024. Let's start with the Seahawks here.

I'm going to say utilize all those weapons. I think that John Schneider has been building an arsenal for years now, used high draft picks on guys at the skill positions. Just at the wide receiver position, the fact that you bring back Lockett, you've got DK, who certainly is going to anticipate a big role in this offense. Jackson Smith and Jigba, who was a first round pick last year, who I think blended a little bit, not by his own fault, just that Seahawks offense was a little bit rocky for them at times. You've got Ryan Grubb coming in, who did a lot of cool stuff at the University of Washington.

He is going to, they hope, innovate things a little bit here and do some things a little bit differently. If they can get Geno Smith going, because Geno's played pretty efficient football, and just get the ball out there. I'm not saying throw it 50 times a game, but make the most of all those weapons. I know it's been a point of frustration at various points for Seahawks fans, in part because, let's be honest, Pete Carroll is a defensive background coach who wants to play ball control, play good defense, don't turn it over, win games that way.

Now you're maybe into a little bit different type of a situation here. Mike McDonald's a defensive background coach too, but you don't go and get Ryan Grubb if you're expecting to win game 17 to 16. They're going to get the ball around the field. They've got the weapons to do so. Let's see how they utilize all those guys in 2024. For the Rams, I'm going to say the young defense has to grow up fast. You no longer have Aaron Donald. They used a lot of resources to try to, over the past couple of years, since they finally have draft picks again, to fill out things on the defensive side of the ball to be able to try to make up for the loss of one of the greatest defensive players we've ever seen. That is easier said than done.

That is a difficult deal. Oh yeah, your defensive coordinator is no longer there, so that's another significant change that Sean McVay is going to be dealing with here. As long as Matthew Stafford is healthy, which Matthew Stafford gets hurt like eight times a year and plays through everything, he's got broken bones and torn ligaments and everything, somehow he always gets to the finish line. I mean, I know they drafted Blake Corum. That is going to help out with Kyron Williams in the backfield. They've certainly got weapons on offense. I'm not concerned with Sean McVay's offense. My question is, can they play sufficient defense without a guy in Aaron Donald who, just realistically, it's almost like having three good players.

It's almost like having, you know what I mean? You can make the impact of several different players. Taking a guy who's that great away. It's not just well, hope Braden Fiski steps in and can make an impact here. No, it's a lot of guys have to step up and play better for you to be half as good as you've been in the past here. Kobe Turner looked really good last year. So, Kobe Turner's a very good player and you're going to reunite Jared first and Braden Fisk. So, like you said, let's see Kobe Turner now without Aaron Donald. But like you said, you're going to have multiple guys to replace one dude and that's right. And there's nobody getting triple team now in the middle of your defensive line.

So, that has a trickle-down effect on how everybody else is getting blocked. 49ers, this is the obvious one, stay healthy. Because on paper, they remain the team to beat in the NFC. I know that the Lions had a strong season, took them to the wire. I know the Packers took them to the wire.

I know that the Cowboys have won 12 games each the last three seasons. 49ers are defending NFC champs. They were that close to winning the Super Bowl again and they've got Brock Purdy who is a rising top 10 caliber quarterback.

They've got all the weaponry around them. They got Christian McCaffrey on the cover of Madden. Their defense is stacked. The only thing that's really gotten the 49ers really throughout the entire Shanahan-John Lynch era has been when they've been hurt and they've had a lot of injuries.

A lot of times, it's an undersold thing in the NFL. The teams that have success a lot of times are the healthiest teams. They're the teams that at the end of the season, they've got their dudes. And the 49ers, outside of having a linebacker jogging on the field and popping Achilles last year, they were pretty healthy throughout the course of the season. They had the guys that they needed toward the end of the year.

It has not always been that way. They've had other seasons that have been a complete train wreck from an injury perspective, a health perspective. As long as they can stay healthy, they should be there at the end again.

But that's been easier said than done through the years. And then for the Cardinals, this is ambitious. It's something that it's come up a bunch of times when I've interviewed Trey McBride.

I've talked to other people with the Cardinals, Paris Johnson as well. They don't think it's crazy to talk about Kyler Murray as a dark horse MVP candidate. They think that it's in Kyler Murray. Remember last year, he's coming off of a serious injury and wasn't ready, obviously, at the start of the year, comes in and plays, lost a lot of time on task with Drew Petzing's offense. Now you've got a healthy off season. Everybody has said positive things about how Kyler's preparing, which has always been something that people have harped on with him.

And you gave him Marvin Harrison Jr. Maserati Marv. So Kyler is still, I mean, he's still in his prime athletically. He still can make people miss like anybody this side of Lamar.

And it's a matter of harnessing that and trying to get the most out of it. I'm not saying he's got to win the MVP. There's a lot of good quarterbacks in the NFL. He's got to be in the talks though, right?

We've got to, if the Cardinals are going to be relevant, if they're going to be a playoff contender, we at least have to be talking about Kyler Murray in that conversation. Everybody praises Drew Petzing too. A guy that I don't think a lot of people knew. He was on the Vikings staff a long time. He was more recently the quarterback's coach in Cleveland, now entering his second year in Arizona. So as a play caller, he's finally got more experience than he did going into last season. He's really smart.

One of the players there, I think it was Kyler, called him a genius. We're going to see now with a fully healthy, fully prepared Kyler Murray and the best receiver in the draft, what that Drew Petzing offense is really going to be all about. I think it's a fun division. I think there's a lot of intrigue there because of some of the new parts in places like Seattle.

There's also some of the guys that we've seen, the Kyler Murrays of the world. It's a matter of what do you get out of them in 2024? And right out of the gate, they got a big test going to Buffalo. The pressure will be on the Bills in that game.

There's no question. Home opener, first game without digs. Jonathan Gannon will have them ready to go just like he did every week last year, even though he didn't have the talent. Mani Austin Ford's done a great job in terms of making the most of his assets, the trades he made back in the 2023 draft to acquire future picks and high picks and really build out that roster. It's a similar formula minus trading a quarterback for three first-round picks that Houston had.

Yeah, you're bad. You're drafting up high. Not only get good players, but also maximize what you're getting with those good players by getting additional picks. And Casaro actually made the trade with Arizona to go up and make sure he got Stroud and Will Anderson Jr. last year. Mani Austin Ford's given them the resources to be aggressive on that front. And if that's the team that I think most people out on the outside looking in are probably going to say going into the season on paper, they're fourth out of four.

But they have Kyler Murray, they have Marvin Harrison Jr. They're getting a lot of other pieces still in place. That part's a work in progress.

Let's see how they come out of the gate in 2024. You still got some questions over there for me in the helmet of destiny, TJ? I definitely do. I definitely do.

You want them now? Let's grab a call first. Find the next good one here. Let's go to Paul in Syracuse, New York. Paul, it's Tom Pilacero.

What's up? Tommy P. What's happening, baby? And you've been doing a spectacular job.

The big man in the chair. I greatly appreciate that, Paul. Thank you.

Give yourself a pat on the back, man. Well, Tommy P., this is what I want to ask you. The judge just points to Mike Williams on the PUP list. He's going to be out for a bit, and we don't know how he's going to be coming back from the torn ACL. What's the Devante Adams stuff to decide? Is there a wide receiver move that my New York Jets can friggin' make?

Because it's Garrett Wilson and a bunch of friggin' question marks, Tommy P. Well, you're hoping, and thank you for the call, Paul. You're hoping Mike Williams, who tore his ACL, I want to say week three last season in Minnesota. You're hoping that as you get around to the regular season, he's going to be able to get back into action. Is that in week one?

We don't know. Putting him on reserve PUP just means he's not practicing with the team out of the gate. Doesn't mean he's missing games. Just means first week of camp, he's not going to be ready to go.

I mean, no question. That's one of the question marks about the Jets team going forward this season, just like it was going into last year. You paid Allen Lazard a bunch of money last year, and Lazard did not play well. He was a healthy scratch in the middle of the season. All the things that made Lazard a really good player, the willingness to go in and dig out of safety, being the war daddy, blocking, that stuff he wasn't doing at an effective level.

After the benching, after the healthy scratch, it sounds like things turned around a little bit. I would think with having Aaron Rodgers back, you're going to get a better version of him. Randall Cobb was toward the end.

He's now going to be in the broadcast booth. Garrett Wilson's the one who all the reports, all the tweets I saw throughout the off season said the Aaron Rodgers, Garrett Wilson connection has been phenomenal. So Garrett Wilson is that good.

And he's a great dude. And one of the people they think could be like the hallmark, the cornerstone type of a franchise player, that plus what they got going in the backfield with Breece Hall coming off the season that he did. I think there's a lot of reason to be optimistic that Aaron Rodgers has enough around him. Does he have a Devante Adams? No, not yet anyway, but maybe Garrett Wilson is that next Devante Adams. And maybe after the first month of the season, we're sitting there going, why would they trade for Devante Adams and take targets away from Garrett Wilson moving forward? Especially if by that point, Mike Williams is back in the mix as well.

TJ, what do you got? Well, we spoke about this team earlier. Last year there was a lot of talk. We heard this word, this title a lot, Tom, Mr.

Irrelevant, right? We heard it literally 10 times a week, every week when we're discussing the Niners, but I kind of feel we're at the point. And I want to know if you agree where we got to put that Mr. Irrelevant title to bed because Brock Purdy is a legit starting quarterback in NFL and there shouldn't be any more doubts about that.

Well, wasn't there some poll that came out that didn't have them in the top 10 recently or somebody ranked quarterbacks didn't have them in the top 10? I understand why you look at him. Just the measurables, the size, the arm, it's not off the charts. He's never going to be Josh Allen. He's never going to look like Daniel Jones or Trevor Lawrence. Any of those guys were the bigger types of quarterbacks. But there's a reason Kyle Shanahan was willing to draft him, waited all the way till the final pick in the draft.

And it's the processing ability. It's the ability to get the football out of his hand quickly, to see it and rip it. Every quarterback that Kyle Shanahan has ever had in his career has been that type of a guy, whether you're talking about Kirk Cousins or Matt Schaub, you know, you can go down the list of different quarterbacks that Kyle Shanahan's had. Not, you know, RG3, that was a different type of a deal, but the quarterbacks that he likes, Jimmy Garoppolo was another one. See it and rip it.

Yeah. Sometimes when you do that, you throw interceptions. Brock Purdy doesn't turn the ball over like Jimmy Garoppolo did. Brock Purdy doesn't get hurt like Jimmy Garoppolo has throughout the course of his career. Other than obviously breaking his thumb and trying to play left-handed in the NFC championship game, which was unideal. I just don't know what more, other than continuing to do it and winning a Super Bowl, people would want from Brock Purdy. Is he going to be the highlight reel of a Lamar or a Patrick Mahomes?

No. But Kyle Shanahan and his system aren't built around making plays outside the scope of the offense or needing to make sidearm throws and things like that. It's Kyle's greatest skill is getting people open.

He can scheme people open. What he needs is a quarterback who knows where the open guy is going to be based on the look that they're getting and gets the ball there without any hesitation. It is a rhythm timing based offense and Brock Purdy has shown he'd do that at a really high level. I mean, if you want to, you want to split hairs and say, well, he'll never be Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, he won't.

Like what are we talking about though? Brock Purdy has already won more playoff games than Lamar Jackson in the course of his career. So if the goal is to win football games and you can rely on Brock Purdy to get the ball in the right people's hands, that should be what you're targeting. I guess the question then becomes, once you pay Brock Purdy, can you afford to have this level of running backs and receivers, an expensive tight end, a really expensive defense?

Can you have afford to have those parts? But that goes for everybody. Patrick Mahomes can elevate the level of the people around him. Brock Purdy, is he elevating the level or is he playing up to the level of really good weapons around him? That's the next step for Brock Purdy, but you still have to worry about it this year because he's still not eligible for a contract extension this year. I think it's hard to look at the past two years and say Brock Purdy, just based on those two years, has not been top 10 quarterback in the NFL.

Interesting. All right, here's another thing, you know, I've been watching receivers and when it comes to the Raiders, of course, last season was just like a tale of two seasons, right? And when you watch Devante Adams, he wasn't happy at all the first few episodes and then the change at quarterback and at head coach came through. Antonio Pierce kind of changed the culture everyone brought in. I mean, if you watch it, the locker room looked dead the first few episodes, Pierce comes in and everyone's attitude changes. Do you feel he's going to be able to like keep that type of enthusiasm and keep that type of change up to make the Raiders successful?

Well, to me, you start with that, right? The successful interim coaches are the ones who make an immediate impact and change things. A lot of times that's just playing to what the players want.

Whatever the players' complaints were, it's, yeah, let's do those things because it's going to make people feel like things are different around here. It is a different type of a challenge for a guy like Antonio Pierce with the Raiders to be able to say, all right, now we're going to do it for the whole season because there has to be more to it. And that's where I think Antonio Pierce, he's a sharp guy.

He played in the league. He knows what players want, but he's not going to be an offensive or defensive play caller. He's not going to be, you know, at this stage, he's not going to be out scheming people to the extent that like a Bill Belichick did throughout the course of his career, right? So I think that what Pierce has done through this off season is make sure he's got the right people around him to be able to elevate everybody else. He brings in Luke Getze as the offensive coordinator.

Why? Well, in part, because Luke Getze and the Bears came into Vegas last year with Tyson Bajan, an undrafted rookie quarterback on a division two shepherd and kicked their asses at Allegiant Stadium. And he saw what Luke Getze was doing in that situation and liked how he was utilizing the players on the field. Now you remember, they very briefly believe they had Cliff Kingsbury wrapped up.

He leaves the building. They can't agree on a contract. The Raiders weren't willing to guarantee enough years.

And so Cliff bolts and goes to Washington. I don't think though that that diminishes why they really like Luke Getze and they believe he's going to be able to elevate them and run the offense that helps them on that side of the football. Defensively, he's got Patrick Graham. Well, Pat Graham has interviewed for head coaching jobs before. He interviewed for the Seahawks job last year. He had a second interview with Minnesota when they hired Kevin O'Connell. He has done, from everything that I've been told, a really good job too, Patrick Graham has, of adapting his approach and having the emotional awareness to see the first year there, some of the negative reinforcement wasn't landing the way that these guys wanted it to.

And I think that that's kind of the transition from Josh McDaniel's to Antonio Pierce too, which was more positive reinforcement. Pat Graham is one of the smartest defensive coordinators in the entire league. He's got Max Crosby. He had Chandler Jones for a while. He's got Tyree Wilson, who's going to be going into his second year. They don't have just a stacked defense from front to back, but he changes things up. He's very game plan specific. Pat Graham learned under Bill Belichick. And after some questions about was Pat Graham going to stay there, Antonio Pierce convinced him. He's under contract too, but convinced him to be on board with it.

So I think that that's the difference here. You're not going to go through the entire season and just be able to win on, yeah, we're going to be tougher than him. Let's just go. Let's go get him.

No, you need to have the depth to it. And you know, Antonio Pierce, I give him credit for this last year when he took over that job, he didn't come in thinking he had all the answers. He brought in Marvin Lewis and he brought in Tom Coughlin, who he played for with the Giants. He brought in Adam Gase for a week to sit in with the offense.

He was trying to learn and soak it up and learn on the job. He's got, you know, Antonio Pierce had experience in business. He worked in college football, but he had never been a head coach anywhere. Not in, you know, at a high level of football. And so, you know, I give him credit for that.

It seems like he's gone through the same, the same approach here. I also know he's in a division with three of the best coaches in maybe football history. Certainly Andy Reid is on that list. Jim Harbaugh, you have to say on that list. Sean Payton, if he turns around the Broncos, is going to be on that list too. So you're coaching against some of the best. Six games a year, every week you're going up against very talented teams.

And he's got, I won't call it a powder keg, but he's got some things brewing under the surface. Same reason I said earlier, non-negotiables for the Raiders start fast. Because if you don't, and with the questions that'll be raised about Devante Adams, a quarterback situation where I don't know that regardless of whether it's Aidan O'Connell or it's Gardner Minshew starting week one, I don't think you have anybody in there who solidified enough that week to week you definitely know who the quarterback is.

You got a lot of these potential pitfalls lying out there for you. Him being able to kind of overcome some of those things I think is going to be pretty important. It'll be interesting to see.

All right, so I think we got one more. Earlier we talked about the new kickoff rules, right? What team, and I know this might be tough because you know the team's obviously they're not even in the training camp yet, but do you predict that any team is really going to find a way to kind of work these new rules to their advantage based upon the way their roster is already made up? In terms of the kickoff rules? I think that I think that there's going to be a lot of horse trading among the coaches and the different units and teams. In other words, if it's me and I'm the special teams coordinator, I'm going, give me our fastest, most elusive player and I want that guy returning the kicks.

Because you know, as we explained earlier this week, we got a great call on the subject from somebody very knowledgeable about the rule who explained it better than even I could at that moment. The thing that I kept hearing from coaches is this is almost going to be like you're playing cover zero every snap because you've got the kick return team and the kick off team that are lined up very close to each other. You've reduced the space and the speed, which was to improve the safety of the play and cut back on concussions, which was always the concern. But in order to do that, you might be putting bigger people on the field and because, what is it, 10 players are in the setup zone, if you get past that first line of defense, there's no one back there to stop you. So I mean, if I'm Chris Horton in Baltimore, I'm going, can I get Zay Flowers back there? Can I get Lamar back there if we're in a pinch in the fourth quarter? You definitely don't want to do that though, right?

Well, this is what I'm saying. So then you're going to have the head coaches and the offensive coaches going like, no, we can't do that. But I think you probably, I think over time, and again, this is one of the things I'm excited to see in training camp too, is who's on the field for these plays. I think you will see better players with the ball in their hands because now you've gone from a play where there's an extremely low percentage chance of an impact game-breaking type play to a play that, depending on how this plays out, and unless and until those teams coaches decide it's too punitive, too dangerous, and so you start kicking the ball through the end zone, where this play could be one of the highest percentage plays for something crazy to happen.

I think that if I've got a team and I've got a player that I think gives me the best chance to get through that initial line of defense and house it, I'm having them out there. Because not only am I potentially going to get the ball in one of my most unique playmaker's hands, injuries can occur on any snap. This play is supposed to be safer.

We'll find out if it actually is. Injuries can occur though on every snap. I'm taking my shot to flip the game by having a big return here and, oh yeah, if the other team sees that that guy's on the field, maybe they are just kicking the ball through the end zone and taking the extended touchback out to the 30 because it's just not worth it. Either way, I'm giving myself a better chance to make plays or I'm improving my field position. That is going to be one of the things I think is going to be really interesting to see. It's not just about, you know, what's the schematics look like on the new kickoff play.

It's who is on the field. Yeah, I feel like the Dolphins are in a perfect spot to really make something exciting happen with all this speed. You got like five different guys back. You want to put H.M. back there. You want to put Tyreek back there.

You want to put Waddle back there. That could be really exciting, man. Any of those guys. Put two of them out there because you're allowed to have, I believe, two guys back.

Put two of them out there. Now you don't know which one's getting it. You don't know if they're going to run a reverse.

You got the two of the fastest dudes in the entire league. I just think that it's going to be a different dynamic. I don't think it's going to be overly gimmicky. That's always been the concern. That's why the NFL didn't want to have it called or referred to or anything as like the XFL kickoff rule because the NFL is a different game. But it's going to look different.

It's going to take some getting used to. People are going to complain the first week, the first time they see it in the Hall of Fame game. This is stupid. Why are they doing this? In the end, it is about reducing concussions and reducing injuries. They want to make the game safer. They want to do it in such a way that's not what they did last year, which was you guys can't come up with a rule.

All right, fine. We're just going to make a rule where basically every ball gets kicked through the end zone and now you have a dead ceremonial play to quote Troy Vincent. This is not dead.

This is not ceremonial. This is potentially game-breaking type of stuff, depending how as we get toward those real games, teams decide to handle it. All right, we got a couple more questions. We'll get to those on the other side of this break and stick another call or two in as well.

844-204 Rich. It's Tom Pelissero in for Eisen on the Rich Eisen Show. It's kickoff time and Believe podcasts are here to get you ready for the season.

He wanted to change the culture and he wanted me to be a part of that. With Believe, you get immediate reactions, game previews, and expert analysis from all 32 teams, plus all of your favorite college teams. He's just rare in just about everything he does.

Sideline to sideline, end zone to end zone. This was good for everybody. Just search Believe. That's B-L-E-A-V podcast, wherever you listen. I got to bring this up since we haven't spoken. The cart, you know the cart, what I'm talking about, the cart, you know? Oh yeah, my cart.

Yeah. What happened? Did you go up to the cart and ask for a ride to take care of your business? Like what happened? What happened? I would never ask for a ride to the locker room. But no. What happened?

People never ask for money too, but when you present it to me, I'm not going to say no to it. So I came off the field. I come off the field like two plays, three plays before that. I told my coach, like, hey, I got to take a number two.

Like, you're not looking good. And then we got a first down and got close to the red zone. So I was like, you know what?

I'll hold it. So we end up scoring and I come back to the sideline and the trainer and the head trainer and the head equipment guy was like, hey, there's a cart down there ready to take you into the locker room to go to the bathroom because we're playing in Detroit and it is a hike from the locker room to the field. And plus we're on the other side. So I was like, you know what? You can't miss an opportunity like this. So, you know, up the tunnel I went and the rest is history.

Just know I left my mark in Detroit. DK, you gave a scare to everybody who loves you and roots for you. I mean, you know, seeing you carded, we're like, wait a minute, what's going on?

And then what a relief, you know, to use another analogy as well. I mean, did you have people after the game saying, what the hell did you do that for? Everybody after the game was like, bro, don't scare us. Like I was not, I wasn't worried. So y'all shouldn't be worried. But I, I watched the video and I wasn't smiling on the way to the locker room. So that's probably where everybody was a little worried. Yeah. I mean, we, we, we saw the tweet. You're like the, that clench walk wouldn't have made it. That's what you, that's what you tweeted.

And we were wearing white that game. Welcome back to the rich eyes and show radio network. I am sitting at the rich eyes and show desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call click Grainger.com or just stop by. It's been a fun four days here, boys. This has been, it's been a treat. It's been a great, you know, we don't, we don't even need Brockman. I mean, we've ripped the shot of the empty chair again.

Who says, who says Brockman is, is needed in this equation. Seriously though, it's been, it's been a lot of fun with you guys out here all week. Perfect way to get myself back in the swing of things, you know, dry out a little bit and after a summer vacation and get my head back in the game before I hit the road for training camps next Friday. And also, you know, you've got to go back and face the wife after what you revealed yesterday about her going through the mail. So she's got so much going on at home between, there's just a lot going on at home right now. So she hasn't seen the segment yet.

I'm sure somebody is going to pass it along. Usually what happens is like one of her, her high school friends or something to be like, Hey, it's not Tom talking about you. And she's always like, Oh great. And then every time it ends up being that, but again, that wasn't a negative story about her. Yeah, but it's, it's not going to, other than accusing her of many felonies. Yeah.

The mail fraud is a big deal. So I think it's going to be a kind of uncomfortable weekend for you. I hope not.

I hope while you're out there on the lake or whatever it is that you're doing that she doesn't find out until after that. Well, and maybe depending, is the world back? Do we have an update on our computers back?

Are there airplanes? Jason fellow has been directly affected by this global IT. I was laughing in the beginning like, Oh yeah, this is not affecting me. And then I realized it's really quiet from my company. I thought it was just an easy day.

It's, it's affecting me somewhere. The Stanley cup is stuck in transit. That's the funniest one of all to me. I know it's not funny to Kyle Oposo, who was supposed to have it in at his day.

Everybody gets their day with the Stanley cup. Imagine that like you're when you're trying to catch up on the mail, right? I got, I got a email from one of the carriers being like, we're down.

Everybody's down, right? The mail, your packages, they're not moving forward somewhere. Somebody is like, got the truck and is sweating.

He's like, I kind of got, I got an important one back here. Which also, how does that get to, they just send it like FedEx, the trophy. No, there's no way because they're not driving it though from city to city.

They're shipping it. Somehow trophy has keepers keepers. Right. We've had one here.

There's I think at least two of them. So that trophy isn't just like, oh, that's right. It's like the guy, right? And he's got the trophy buckled in next to him.

It's like what I do with Chinese food, similar type of thing, right? You put, you put the bag on the, on the seat and then you put the seatbelt around it. That's the guy with the cup. I drove it around once.

The first year they won, I was working for the Kings and the handler was, he was next to me at all times. It does not in the big, the big like a trunk. Yeah. It looks like a TV case. There it is. There's the trophy. It's been right here in the studio comes in and has its own like Tiffany style, like carrying Kate, like a bag that I imagined.

Well, yeah, there's a trunk right there, Tom. So it goes around. It's it's yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's still sterling silver.

Must be Italian. So, but it's like we carry it in the case. Like we're protecting it, right? You have to protect, but then you, every day somebody's drinking a beer out of it. They're like checking it into their pool, the ocean, right?

It's been in the Atlantic recently. I'm trying to think what the equivalent would be if there's something that like you take perfectly good care of. Like if I'm, if I'm wearing a new pair of shoes, you're wearing your new Jordans and like you keep them in the box at home and you only want to wear them in the studio. You don't wear them out of the studio. I used to have shoes where I only would put them on when I got up into the putting green here.

I wouldn't want to step anywhere. Okay. So there you go. So imagine you've got those shoes that you keep, you keep them in the box at home. You only bring them out when you're wearing them.

But then for like a month or two, you give them to your buddies and they like go snorkeling while wearing the sneakers. Like it's, it's a, there's some cognitive dissonance to this in terms of, do we care about the trophy or do we not? Right. Yeah.

I actually had that happen back in the day. The polish in it. During sixes that my roommate took the plate and thought it'd be a good idea for him to play softball on them a month after I bought them. So yeah, that the Jordan six, the ones with like, kind of like the bubbles on the ankles with the toe, with the dots, with the two you can put. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

That's a great question, man. Because to me it is, it's the greatest trophy in all the sports. Right. And I never really thought about it the way you just presented it. Like, yeah, there's all this security and they take very good care of it. But when you get it, man, you just, you get riled up and you throw your baby in there.

You throw a bowl of cereal in there, a couple of brews, like who knows what else has been in that cup, man. I always wanted Jordans growing up and that was what everybody, again, my favorite player, they were expensive, man. They were like, you know, 110 bucks, which was a lot for sneakers back in the day. So the first time I finally got Nike Airs, I didn't get, couldn't get the Air Jordans. I got the Andre Agassi's, which if you remember had like the pink, like the lava on the back. And, you know, I think they had an orange or pink swoosh on the side.

Right. So I was wearing them everywhere for like a week, including up to the cabin. Well, I'm fishing off the dock, walking back in, talking to somebody while I'm walking on the dock, miss the side of the dock, fall in with the sneakers on. I was like instantly just save the sneakers and I saved them. But they smelled like that lake. Oh yeah. Until the day that my parents finally said, it's enough.

They have to be out of the house. Your mom chucked your air tech challenges out. And that was, that was the end. Finally got Jordans for my birthday the following year. So that's all I had to do. Ruin the other shoes and good things sometimes happen. Thanks for watching and listening everybody.

Have a good weekend folks. This radio commercial was made to convince you to stop speeding. We can't use siren sound effects on the radio.

So we'll use other equally jarring sound effects to get your attention. Like telling you that whether you drive a little over the speed limit or a lot, you can crash just the same. You could hurt yourself or worse others. I'm at the scene of the collision. And the damage you cause will be beyond repair. See, we didn't have to use crash or siren sounds after all. Speeding catches up with you. Brought to you by NHTSA.