Leger Douzable, CBS Sports NFL Analyst

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Void where prohibited. Lije Dussebullis here with us. Lije, how you doing, man? I'm doing great. How about yourself? I'm amazing.

Thank you for taking the time to hop on. We know the biggest moves of today, obviously. Kirk Cousins and Saquon Barkley. What are your early thoughts on both of these guys switching teams? Yeah, when you look at Kirk Cousins, right, to make a funny gesture, right, where they say happy wife, happy life. Kirk Cousins wife is from the Georgia area. But other than that, when you look at it, it just makes a lot of sense because you look at where Kirk Cousins is coming from. He's coming from the Minnesota Vikings with Kevin O'Donnell. Where did Kevin O'Donnell come from? He came from the Rams.

Well, the Atlanta Falcons new head coach, Raheem Morris came from the Rams also, and he brought Zach Robinson with him from the Sean McVeigh tree. So when you look at Kirk Cousins, a veteran quarterback, it'd be a lot of the same nuances. You don't have to learn a whole new offense. I think you look at the division, right?

It's a winnable division. And then you add the pieces that they have that Kirk Cousins can throw the ball to, right? You got Bijan Robinson out of the backfield. You got Drake London, also Kyle Pitts, who has not really had a consistent quarterback. Maybe they finally get that unicorn type trait up out of him because you got a guy like Kirk Cousins who's been a confident pro. One of only five quarterbacks in NFL history have eight straight seasons with twenty five or more touchdown passes. So I thought it made a lot of sense for the Atlanta Falcons.

They wanted to go all in in the Kirk O'Chains race, and they ended up getting them. We can take Juan Barkley, right? The only is this a power move by the Eagles because they get one of the best running backs in the league, but they make one of their division foes a lot weaker by taking them from the Giants and going to the Philadelphia Eagles. And if you look at the history of the running back position while Nick Sirianni has been the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, look at Miles Sanders and what he did career year right in that offense. And then you look at DeAndre Smith, what did he do career year in that offense? Just imagine Saquon Barkley with Jalen Hurts in the same backfield and he's still got the slim reaper on the outside of Devante Smith and A.J.

Brown. Like this will probably be the lightest box that Saquon Barkley has ever seen going back to high school, probably. But he won't have to worry about eight, nine, ten guys in the box just trying to stop him because the Philadelphia Eagles have so many explosive weapons, you have to account for everybody. So I thought this was a power move by the Philadelphia Eagles. And also, we also saw something that week that I think a lot of people were surprised. The running back, Margaret Connick came back, right? Saquon's going to be making more than what he would have got if he got franchise tagged by the Giants. I don't think a lot of people saw that. And then we'll see if the true number, what the true numbers are for Jacobs.

He left the Raiders and went to the Green Bay Packers. But right now, it looks like that's twelve million dollars a year or two. So we've seen a resurgence in that running back market. Absolutely. Lije Duzable is here with us, CBS Sports HQ analyst.

You played in the New York metropolitan area. You are very familiar with how the fans are. How are Giants fans supposed to feel? There's an understanding about what's taking place here with Saquon. You think the New York fans understand this? Obviously, Tiki Barber doesn't understand.

I don't know if you've been on Twitter. He said Saquon is dead to them. I was a little appalled by that, to be quite honest, just because it wasn't like Saquon didn't lay it on the line for that team, right? He not only did the fifth-year option, but he got franchise tagged as well.

And again, we talked about it earlier. He was the focal point of that offense. So when Saquon Barkley trotted out on that field on Sunday, he knew he was going to get eight-man boxes, nine-man boxes, and he was going to have to make a couple of people miss to have an explosive play because he was the focal point of that offense. And he gave the Giants every opportunity to resign them. I thought the Giants played it smart because I didn't think he was going to get what he got in the open market. And not only that, I didn't think he was going to get that from a divisional fold as well.

But this is the business, right? You win some, you lose some in negotiations. And I'm glad for Saquon because he got what he truly wanted, kind of put the running back market back where it was. I think it also says a lot about what NFL teams truly feel about this upcoming running back draft class.

It's not really a good draft class. So that's why we see so many veteran running backs that we're not accustomed to seeing on day one get signed to the type of money that they're getting signed to. So I know Zion feels they're going to be hurting because again, he is the pivotal point of the offense. He was the focal point of the offense. So if you're sitting back as a Giants man, you're like, where do we go from here? Like people have been, you know, up and down, how they feel about Daniel Jones as a quarterback to the Giants potentially take a quarterback at the number six route, even though they still have so many holes on that offense and defense now. I thought another another big loss and people talking about Saquon.

McDaniel McKinney won that one. I scratched my head on because the Giants had every opportunity to give him the transitional tag to make the other teams actually do the bidding for them, because at the end of the day, they would have been able to match whatever a team bid for his services. And yet they didn't do that. And he got paid handsomely, I believe 17 million per year on the open market.

So a lot of people thought the safety market was getting devalued. But Xavier McKinney single handedly brought it back to life. So if you're a Giants fan, you're a little bit perplexed. I think they feel a lot better because there are there is rumors they could potentially trade for Brian Burns. Now, they're able to get Brian Burns via trade. And I think, you know, Dine Nation will feel a little bit better losing Saquon and Xavier McKinney.

Liget Duzable is here with us. The J.R. Sportbree show on CBS Sports Radio. You talk about Xavier McKinney. He's on his way to the Green Bay Packers for years. Sixty eight million dollars. Someone who's going to make about 40 million dollars and only about a mil and a half from the Pittsburgh Steelers is Russell Wilson.

We know he made that announcement last night. What does Russell Wilson do for the Steelers, a team that is used to going to the postseason every year? Well, first and foremost, it brings in a veteran presence that's one of the high level. That's a Super Bowl winning quarterback, a former pole bowler. Right. And if you're Mike Tomlin and the Pittsburgh Steelers, you're hoping that you're getting a Russell Wilson that can come in and help complement all of us. I think we're done with the days of us being the focal point of the offense.

Right. The Steelers have a really good run game. They have some really good receivers on the outside. And you talk about George Pickens and being the young monster that is far mute at the tight end position, as well as a really good young tight end. So I think they if you're Mike Tomlin because where you're at in the draft and you just took any picket a few years ago, you don't want to try to drive the quarterback when you just took one two years ago.

You want to bring in a veteran that's played at a high level in the past and hope that he can maybe turn back the wheels of time, the hand of time to get back to who he used to be. Right. As far as taking care of the football, not turning it over.

Right. Not putting the offense in bad situations as far as taking sacks that he shouldn't take and getting rid of the football. And then you also get the opportunity to push a young Kenny Pickett because people are still questioning. And I would say even people in the organization, if he is truly the future of the franchise, we saw a lot of up and down play from him. Then he ended up getting hurt.

And we saw Mason Rudolph kind of take off with his offense towards the back end of the season and lead them into the playoffs. So right now you get Russell Wilson for cheap, practically free because of the deal that he signed with the Denver Broncos, which is interesting because he didn't actually take a snap on that new deal. People forget he had two years on the past deal from the Seahawks before he got to the Denver Broncos. So essentially, the Denver Broncos are paying for his services and you got him for free. And if you're Russell Wilson, this is a smart move because you look at around the landscape of the NFL and trying to think of a place you can go and ultimately start.

And this is a place where you can go in and compete. And I'm sure he had those conversations with Mike Tomlin before signing. And Mike Tomlin probably gave him the go ahead and said, this will be a true open competition because other times as players and I let people in on a little secret, you know, upstairs, the upstairs people in the front office can tell you one thing. The coach can tell you one thing. But usually when you hear from Mike T, it's going to be on the up and up. So I'm sure Mike T told Russell Wilson, this is truly going to be a competition. It's not going to be a situation where you have to like thoroughly outbeat him.

Like I'm giving you guys both a clean slate, right? You got to go out there and win the, you know, the quarterback job. So I think Russell Wilson looked at the landscape of the NFL and said, this is my best opportunity. And I know it works with Mike Tomlin.

You know, he goes five hundred or better. This is not going to be a losing team. And without a shadow of a doubt, the man has yet to have one of those. Liget Doosable is here with us, a former NFL vet, CBS Sports HQ analyst. When you think about some of the other moves that have taken place, Christian Wilkins moving, the Singletary is now on the New York Giants. What move also has caught your eye that you think is going to make a major difference, an impact when we get to the season? Yeah, I like what the Washington commanders have done.

I think commanders have done another team in the NFC East. I mean, finding Frankie Louvoo, I think is an underrated signing. A lot of people, unless you watch the Carolina Panthers, probably don't know who he was.

He was in New York Jet before that. But Frankie Louvoo is kind of in the mold of Michael Parsons. And let me temper that, you know, temper expectations by saying he's not a true edge guy. He's like a hybrid edge and linebacker guy. So I think that's why Dan Quinn, you know, really why piqued his interest when it came to Frankie Louvoo, because this is a guy that can rush off the edge and blitz him off the edge.

This is a guy I can cover in space. Well, this is a thumper in the run game. So I can see him using Frankie Louvoo, kind of how he was Michael Parsons when he was with the Dallas Cowboys. You might rush him, you know, on the edge sometimes. You might put him at stand up, line back in position.

I think that was a really good sign. Doris Armstrong is another guy that he brought over from Dallas that he signed to the commanders. It's a guy that was there 30. Which of them he also has the flexibility and versatility to wind up inside on passing down on third down.

And then also getting tired of the artists again. We talked about Saquon making the Giants weaker about by making the Eagles stronger. The commanders did the same thing with the Dallas Cowboys.

They stole their starting center. And that was a major need for this Washington commanders team because somehow got that more than anybody I've ever seen living during the NFL season. So they needed to get some beef up front to protect their future quarterback because it's most likely going to be Jayden Daniels. So getting a guy like Tyler D. Addison was big. So those are some of the more under radar signing. I think the commanders have done a really good job to the opening of free agency.

Yeah, let's see what they do as we pull up on the draft. Hey, Lijay, I want to thank you for your time. Where can people follow you? Your work, your opinions and everything you got going on? Yeah, so definitely, as you stated, I'm CBS Sports HQ on there on the regular also CBS Sports Network HQ Spotlight is on at three o'clock Monday through Fridays. I'm usually on there all the time as well to find me on Twitter at Leashade Dozable and on Instagram at Leashade Dozable. Hey, Lijay, thank you so much. I know it's a busy day. Appreciate the time.

Of course, thanks for having me. Old Man Winter here. If I had it my way, it would stay winter all year long. Short days, wind chill, black ice and a good polar vortex.

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