Marc Ross | NFL Network Analyst

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Call 562-314-4603 for complete details. Mark Ross, who's a long time scout and player evaluator and of course was in a front office for years in the NFL including those New York Giants when they were winning two Super Bowls now with NFL Network as an analyst and often works game day on Sundays. Which is one of my favorite shows. Mark, I'm blown away by the Wednesday just specifically in the NFL. Even after Pete Carroll said he wanted to keep coaching, he had energy, he had joy for the journey, he's out as coach of the Seahawks. What's your reaction? That was definitely a shocker. Pete Carroll, still one of the best coaches in the league. It seemed as if he had plenty of energy and plenty of want to but I guess whatever the decision making with the powers that be decided they need to do something a little different going forward. We don't know how it is on the inside when the coach is there a long time no matter how great the coach is.

Sometimes the players when they're here in the same matches year after year after year maybe that was getting lost or something I don't want to speculate. All in all definitely was a surprise. You're going to hear that. You're hearing all the rumbling about all these other coaches that weren't going to make it but to hear Pete Carroll that definitely was a shocker. The most successful head coach in Seahawks history helped the city earn its first Super Bowl title.

They went to another Super Bowl. What made him such a successful coach, Mark? I think his energy and his relatability to players. I looked at him on the outside looking in and I even interviewed for the GM job there in Seattle when Schneider got its interview with Pete.

I knew him at USC with scouting and whatnot. His energy was just unmatched and his relatability was kind of unmatched. It really made him unique.

Forget X's and O's and all that. The great coaches I've been around. Players are motivated by those guys and they sense the authenticity and consistency in them.

Pete did it a different way. No other coach has done it. I think that really is what motivated those guys and got them to play hard for him. Outside of the organizational things and hiring great coaches as well was just that unbridled passion that he always seemed to have.

He could coach a water bottle and a pair of socks. It seemed as though he would get the most out of a group of players. He went through a couple of different rebuild iterations there with the Seahawks. The most recently being post Russell Wilson.

And even with Geno Smith and with a group of guys that most people rode off, they still made the playoffs last year as a wild card. Always seemed like he could maximize the talent that he had on his roster. Yeah, no doubt. And that's what you want as a coach. You want coaches who are going to take what they've got and maximize it as you said and not coaches who want the world and then complain about it too and don't want to coach anybody up. And yeah, definitely as you said, his history of success.

It's there. It's clear and this really cemented these last couple years kind of. They're right in the mix there this year. I was shocked that they didn't make it.

I thought they were going to make it in. But you know, the Geno injury threw him off a little bit. But yeah, his success now the last few years has really cemented his greatness. We're so excited to have Mark Ross back on the show with us from NFL Network, a guy who spent years in front offices in the league and also in player evaluation. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Mark, we were asking our listeners on the last show to rank him, so to speak, the most attractive jobs from, say, a coaching standpoint. Now we've got seven openings. Which of these head coaching gigs do you believe are most attractive?

I've got to go with, number one, the Chargers, just because you got the quarterback. Everybody's trying to get a quarterback. There's only a handful, under 10, walking around the face of the earth that you can say, this guy is going to be the guy for us and we can build around him. Every offseason, if you don't have one, that's the goal to get one. I know they've got other issues there, but if you've got that guy, that's really the start. That's really where you want to be so that you can just build around him. I think the Washington situation is very intriguing for those teams that don't have one, just because you've got a high enough draft pick that you should be able to get one if they're the right one. Who knows if any of these guys want to be the ones, but at least you're picking that high to make it the right one. You've got a ton of cap space and you've got a new owner who wants to do things the right way and wants to make his mark. I'm sure we'll put everything together to make it successful.

Those are the pillars that you want. High draft pick, a lot of free agency money, and an owner that believes in you and gives you a chance. Outside of not having Justin Herbert, that one really I'd take. It seems as though you're talking about a situation that's completely opposite of what the Panthers have, where the owner has made some dubious decisions. They gave away their top draft pick, which they would be selecting number one overall. What is your reaction to what we saw in Carolina this year?

Yeah, I was really shocked. I had high hopes coming into that situation for Bryce, where I thought that they did have a nice foundation for him. Whenever you've got a young quarterback that you're trying to start out, you want to have a nice foundation on the field and off the field. I really thought they had that with the coaching staff and with some veteran players that they surrounded him with, but it really just all fell apart quick, where it just seemed as if there was not a lack of competency in the coaching staff, shockingly, despite a bunch of guys.

Then all those players that they had sort of fell apart and did not live up to what they thought they would be. Really, it was just Bryce, go do it. It was a bad situation for him. I know he's going to take a lot of blame, and when you're the first pick of the draft and you're the franchise guy, of course he will. He really had no chance from the start, and it looked bad there, and it just kept getting worse.

I believe in Bryce. I believe in him coming out. I thought he was going to be a really good player in the league, and I think he still can be.

Chose some flashes, and I'm just encouraged by the young man, the whole thing with the size. He made it through after taking up beating the whole year with that bad offensive line that he made it through unsafe and relatively injury-free, but also mentally, I think he'll bounce back. This won't crush him. What happened to him this season won't crush him, and he'll bounce back, but a lot of work to be done there in Carolina. They need a lot of players with an owner who's shown that he has zero patience, so yes, that is the opposite of what you want and what's going on in Washington. From your scouting brain, why did it work so well in Houston for C.J.

Stroud? The flip side, I was in Carolina and Houston for training camp with the network and covering both those teams, and I really had more high hopes for the Panthers than I did for the Texans because when you look at their roster, they don't have much here. First-time head coach in D'Amico Ryan, how would he adjust? I really loved him as a coordinator.

I thought he was a home run higher as a head coach, but I just looked at that roster and said they don't have much. With C.J., the big thing was how quickly he would adapt and adjust to it because at Ohio State, for 11 games there or two years, you saw a good C.J. Stroud. It was like, okay, there's some things here that he really doesn't do great, and then he played that Georgia game the last game he played, and he absolutely looked like a star, a superstar in that Georgia game, if you remember that. But the quandary was, okay, are we going to get that C.J. Stroud or the 95% C.J. Stroud coming into the NFL? He was that Georgia game C.J. Stroud where everything to him right from the start, he just looked like he'd been playing for five years, confident, poised, big-time playmaker, and he raised the level of everybody else in that organization, not just on the offense, but in the organization and gave everybody confidence. And it started game after game after game. It just kept happening. It wasn't a first-game fluke, and they didn't go conservative with him. It wasn't run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, throw some play-action passes. It was wide open right from the start with C.J., so he has really just crushed it in that aspect of he has stepped in and mentally, physically, confidence-wise has played as if he's been playing in the league forever.

And it's going to continue. He got hurt this year and had a little bit of down stretch, and then he bounced right back and looked like an absolute superstar. And when you look at, you count quarterbacks around the league and you say, how many more guys would you take over C.J.

Stroud, you might not get it off of one hand. So it's really been amazing how quickly he's adapted and adjusted and became such a big-time playmaker. What a story there in the AFC South with D'Amico and C.J. and a young crew. Mark Ross is with us from NFL Network. It's after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. The number one pick now belongs to Chicago, so the Bears decide to keep their head coach in Matt Eberfluse. What direction would you go? Yeah, I think when you have a player of Caleb Williams, of his talent, that you have to, you got to go there.

You got to restart and reset. And I like Justin. I've always liked Justin Fields. But it's been, you know, really just, he's shown flashes of a playmaker with the legs. Mostly just hasn't really developed as a passer like he needs to and the consistency with certain things. So when you've got that number one pick, you got to go with a guy like Caleb Williams.

Now, there was another year where there's some question marks about the talent and the quality of whatever quarterbacks was coming out. Then you say, all right, let's keep Justin. And he's trying to build around him, take a Marvin Harrison Jr. or a trade out of there, get more picks to help Justin.

But where they're sitting, I think they've got to do that. And they've got a bunch more picks. So, you know, keep building around Caleb from there.

And yeah, yeah. And it's just, yeah, I thought there'd be a total reset. You know, it's with Ivar Flus and even Ryan Polls. Yeah, I thought maybe start over, but because they've made some questionable decisions in that Chicago team. I just didn't have a lot of confidence in them throughout the season about the way they played. But Justin's up in the air. Do you keep them?

Do you trade them? There's a lot of questions with Chicago, not just what to do with the first pick or what to do to Justin. And they're really fascinating to see how they're going to attack this off-season. Do you think there are other teams who will line up or be interested at the very least in Justin if he's offered as trade? Oh, without a doubt. As I mentioned, Amy, there's not many guys around the earth walking that, you know, are top 10 cal or quarterback play.

Well, Justin feels there's not many people that can do what he does either. I think some other teams will be intrigued by that and say, you know what, if we do this with him or do that or have a certain system to maximize what he does. I think that there will 100 percent be a market for Justin Fields and what he's shown. Mark Ross is with us from NFL Network as we head into supersized wildcard weekend. Some really cool reunions as we go into this first weekend of the playoffs. And the NFL is actually putting Dolphins Chiefs on Peacock Network.

That's exclusively on Saturday at 8 o'clock Eastern Time, which is interesting. I know a lot of fans reacting to that, though it certainly seems to be the new wave of sports, Mark. But I'd love to ask you about momentum going into the playoffs. The Dolphins continue to lose guys to injuries. The Eagles have not played well. They're kind of backing into the playoffs after their hot start.

How much does it matter when you get to this point how you played in, say, the last month of the season? You know, your situation is different when you talk about momentum. I mean, when you get decimated by injuries, that's a different story than momentum. You know, when you've got no pass rushers left, you're talking about, you know, Miami. That's different than, OK, our pass rushers just aren't playing very well right now. The Eagles, you know, they've got a lot of issues that's messing up their momentum. There might be some things in the locker room that are questionable.

So there's certain things, I think, that play into that. Of course, you sort of want to say you're playing well. But, you know, our 2007 year, Eli threw five picks against the Vikings, you know, two games before the season was over. It's like, man, we aren't going anywhere. And we end up winning the Super Bowl. So we didn't have the best momentum going on then. So you never know how that's going to play out.

Now, of course, you kind of want to be peaking at the right time. But, you know, if you're looking at a team like the Eagles and, all right, you know, this is a new season. We can go down and beat Tampa. And you go down and beat Tampa and you get a whole new set of confidence and say, you know, we're that team that was at 11-1.

And we can still do it. Miami's a different story just because, again, the injuries. And they've shown to be seriously flawed with their offense and with Tua and his capabilities and lack of playmaking.

You know, they're kind of a different story. And then going into a terrible situation to go play in minus five degrees against the defense and chance. And Patrick Mahomes, you know, that's just set up for them to get crushed.

But, yes, ideally you want to be playing well. You want to be healthy going into the playoffs. What's a matchup that you think will be really competitive based on where the teams are right now? You know, that Browns-Texans game, to me that's just a toss-up right there of what's going to happen. The Browns are a favorite. I'm pretty surprised that they're a favorite. And we talked about C.J.

Stroud. And I think that could go either way. Are we going to see the Joe Flacco that has been on the five-game hot streak or the Joe Flacco over the last couple years that was sitting on his couch, you know, before the Browns signed him? So, you just – I keep waiting for the wheel to fall off of him, but he just keeps exceeding expectations. And, you know, the young Texans, like, another step, right?

Who cares, right? With playoffs, we've over-exceeded expectations already. One of the vision, all right, let's go. We're going to go crush that. So, you know, I think that one will be really tight and really competitive. That Rams-Lions game, you talk about reunions, of course, with Stafford going back to Detroit. And, you know, the Rams could very easily win that game. I could see them going in there winning that game, especially since everybody talks about Stafford. But that coaching staff for the Rams, they know Jared Goff. And they got rid of him for a reason. So here it is, a team of coaching staff that got rid of their quarterback going to play him.

So they know more than anybody his strength and weaknesses, what he can do and what he cannot do. And Raheem Morris has got to be sitting there with Sean McVay and they're cooking up stuff to say, he can do this and he cannot do this, you know, outside of the film that they just see anyway. And really, it wouldn't shock me if they go in there and the deadlines often struggle just because of the familiarity that Sean McVay has with Jared Goff. So, you know, to me, those two were the really, really close competitive games.

The other one's slight favorites. But, you know, the Packers, I would love to see them upset and the run that they've been on with Jordan Love because I've always loved him. But that might be a little bit of a tall task going into Dallas. And I think the Eagles will go down to Tampa and go win that. As I mentioned, you know, I just think they'll right the ship. Because the Tampa team, to me, is not great.

Right. Offensively, they've really scuffled along. Jared, before I let you go, you were part of two Super Bowl champions with the New York Giants. What does it feel like at this point? You're on the cusp of a playoff weekend. You've got everything you want in front of you, right?

The regular season's behind. What are the emotions? You're just, everyone's just excited and everyone is just focused. And you're trying to eliminate all distractions and you want everybody to be all in. And it's just, it's just a really fun feeling. Especially if you start winning a couple games.

But, you know, I think for different teams, there's different emotions. So, I say that and, you know, everyone knows with the Giants and winning two Super Bowls. I started with the Eagles way back in 98. And that one drafted a big nab. And, you know, we started becoming good and made the playoffs. And we made the playoffs, you know, after being 3 and 13 and 6 and 10 and then making the playoffs. And that was the Super Bowl. You know, just making the playoffs, it was amazing. That was the mentality.

This is awesome. We made the playoffs and then you lose. You're like, okay, what's next? And then the next year, making a playoff isn't good enough.

All right, where do we go from here? And then you make the NFC Championship game. And, you know, each year you want to take a step and have that mentality of getting better. So, for different teams, getting in the playoffs now this year, you know, their mentality is different. A team like Houston might be, yo, we're just happy to be here.

This is amazing. The playoffs, we made the playoffs and that's kind of the feeling around everybody in the building. Whereas KC is just like, yep, okay, win the Super Bowl.

Win the date. You know, what do we need to do to get there? And they're not phased by being in the playoffs. It's all about winning the Super Bowl again. So, all these teams that are in it right now kind of have different feelings and mentality of where they are as an organization, the goals. Of course, they're all going to say they're trying to get to the Super Bowl. But, you know, certain teams have been there, done that. They know they can do it. And their goals are a lot higher than a team that says, this is amazing just to be here. But, you know, overall you better be all locked in with everybody in that organization to have a chance. You can find Mark on Twitter, at Mark Ross and Mark with a C. On NFL Network, always enjoy listening to your insights on Sundays during games.

And now we head into Wild Card Weekend. Thank you so much, Mark. We'll talk to you soon. My pleasure, Amy.

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