Is Baker Mayfield the Carolina Panthers' starter in 2023?

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Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. And then a six-pack of abs, oiled up, glistening, flying down the ice, and scoring goals. Cruz Lucious is like instantly molded into my top five favorite canes right now. Cruz Lucious is in. He wants to party hard for a year, grow his hair out, do a lot of push-ups, but he's like, look, I'm gonna crush a lot of things in Madison for a year, okay?

Cruz Lucious is not playing air hockey at a bar. That's for nerds like you and me. When he gets to Raleigh, North Carolina, he will find himself at Cornerstone. You like that. He's just gonna crush a lot of things, and you can decide what they are. I might be talking about video games. He might be crushing video games. That might be what I mean. Maybe.

You don't know. I just said he's gonna crush a lot of things. This is the Adam Gold Show. I'll be honest, when I heard the name Cruz Lucious, I thought, man, that's a cool name. It's a great name. Do you know what his older brother's name is? No. Chaz.

Yes. What a family. Chaz. What a family. Chaz Lucious.

What does Chaz Lucious do? That's a family that walks around with no shirt on. Yeah, exactly.

That's what Hayes was saying. None of the men own shirts in the summer. No, man. You know what they do? They take their shirts off, and they put it in their back pocket. There you go.

Just walk around with a t-shirt hanging out of your back pocket. Thanks to Hayes Permar for sitting in this chair all last week. I am Adam Gold. This is the Adam Gold Show.

Dennis Cox is here. Thanks for doing that all week. Apparently, Hayes didn't make any money from me. No. But he definitely was the cooler. He was the William H. Macy for you. Seriously.

You were dangerously close to break even. Yeah. I went, whoa, what happened to you, Dennis? I was around Hayes.

We're dreaming up of Cruz Lucious too much. That'll do it. So we do have a lot to do because when I leave, when I schedule vacation time, things start happening.

Yeah. It's an absolute rite of summer. Gold's going on vacation. Let's see how much crazy news we can break. So here's what happened either as we were going to, going on vacation or while we were there. The day before I left, we had the bombshell news of USC and UCLA murdering college football. That happened the day before. I think it was Thursday at around two o'clock is when it happened.

And then we talked about it, obviously on Friday. The ACC's demise was counted down by basically everybody with a great smile and a microphone. So everybody, like all on television, we were talking about how the ACC was done.

The big tent is going to swallow the entire Pacific coastline. Yes. And all the other schools were going to the SEC.

No, no, I'm sorry. The big 12 was going to regenerate as this super conference with 20 teams that don't matter. Yeah.

They're going to respawn. Okay. But serious discussion about the ACC. Baker Mayfield finally became a Carolina Panther.

Yeah. Tony D'Angelo became a Philadelphia Flyer. And Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon. His 21st Grand Slam, first of the year.

He won't be in the field at the US Open. We'll talk about that. So we're dealing with a lot of stuff. That's the meeting on the mound during Bull Durham. When they go out there and they don't know what's going on, they're going to the mound during Bull Durham. When they go out there and they don't know what to get, Billy and Millie, or was it Jimmy and Millie? Jimmy and Millie for a wedding present. Yeah.

They have the, you know, Jose has the curse on his glove. Stop calling me. Is anybody else getting tons of telemarketer calls lately? Of course. Like more than usual?

Okay. It's been telemarketer season. Yes. It has been telemarketer season. It's really filling the void of sports. Really, really annoying.

So when Larry Wall, the pitching coach comes out to the mound, they're dealing with a lot of stuff. Yeah. And that's sort of what we're dealing with a lot of stuff here. So we should start so we can get to it. I think the biggest upset there was that I did not mention the sport of golf at all. Wow. And there actually is interesting sort of, I don't know about sexy, but gossipy, petty behavioral news. I do like petty. In the sport of golf, but we'll see if we have time for it today.

I'm sure I'll figure out a way to work it in. So we're going to start on Mint Street in Charlotte for months. We've been hearing about how the Panthers were in hot pursuit of Baker Mayfield. And we had been talking about it and speculating about it, figuring, well, it's probably going to happen because the Panthers want it to happen. The Browns have to get Baker Mayfield out of town. He doesn't want to be there. They don't want him to be there. They have Deshaun Watson, who may or may not play this year. We don't know. They have Jacoby Brissett, who will be the backup and be the starter if Deshaun Watson misses. Well, he's going to miss time.

How much time? We just don't know. So they're all set at quarterback and Baker Mayfield wasn't ever going to play another game there. So here's how it happens. Baker goes to the Panthers to Cleveland, a fifth round pick, whatever. And the money, the bonus money that was paid to Mayfield for this year is all there. It all stays there. Right? So the Panthers basically pay $5 million of Baker's $19 million cap.

I think that's the total cap for the Panthers is $5 million, something like all those lines. Look, it's good that they're not giving up anything. Okay.

It's good. But and I found this to be hysterical because I'm not moved by it. I don't think this is that big a deal. And Panthers Twitter was ablaze over how, oh man, how could you be against this? They didn't, I know they didn't give up anything.

I actually said that in my initial tweet, like whatever. But Baker Mayfield doesn't move the needle for me. Here's Keyshawn Johnson from Keyshawn J.

Will and Max, who takes it one step further. I don't think he's going in I don't think he's going into the season as a starting quarterback. I know everybody thinks that based on his tenure at Cleveland and Carolina Panthers trade for him. So automatically people think, okay, he's a better quarterback than struggling. Sam Darnold in the second half of the season last year, Baker Mayfield injured.

If he was healthy, maybe Cleveland Browns look a little bit different. He's not on the move to Carolina, but I don't think that he starts the season. I think Sam Darnold holds him off. And if McCaffrey stays healthy, it's a different team. All right, I think he called them struggling Sam Darnold. Is he running for president? Maybe. Anyway, first of all, if Baker Mayfield doesn't beat out Sam Darnold to be the starting quarterback of the Carolina Panthers, everybody should be embarrassed.

Yeah. Scott Fitterer, Matt Ruhl, Baker Mayfield. Hugely embarrassed if Baker is not the starting quarterback for the Panthers against Cleveland in week one. I did a guest hit on ESPN radio. I think it was Thursday of last week. We played cuts from that. Oh, did you really? We did. Oh, gosh. It was on the ESPN audio log. Oh, was it really?

Yes. So they were kind of blown away that I was like, I mean, how hard could the bar be set any lower for Sam Darnold? Like, what do you think the chances are of him beating out Sam Darnold?

I'm like, what? Did you watch Sam Darnold play last year? Sam's not that good. Like, have you ever watched Sam Darnold play football? Look, Darnold has flashes. I would even argue that Darnold's best is probably better than Baker's best. Yeah, but Darnold is at times horrendous. I don't think Baker is ever horrendous. Sam Darnold likes to throw interceptions that get returned for touchdowns.

I think he likes it. He's bigger. He's a better athlete. Might have a better arm.

I don't know, but it's certainly there's very little difference between the two. But I do think on the whole that Mayfield is an upgrade over Darnold. But we talk about like getting your team to the Promised Land, right?

It ain't like Moses just showed up. I mean, it's still just Baker Mayfield. So it's not like the next, oh my gosh, our long search for a franchise quarterback is over. No, that ain't what happened. They got a slight upgrade at the position over Sam Darnold.

That's what they did. I think Mayfield is a bottom third of the NFL starting quarterback. I think Sam Darnold is also a bottom third of the NFL starting quarterback.

Just lower in that bottom third than Baker. So, and this is, this is my overall point. What was the point of this? Yeah. Okay. Mayfield's better than Darnold, but is he the guy? Objectively, the answer has to be no.

So what's the, what's the point of all of this? If he goes nine and eight or my gosh, 10 and seven, and you sneak into the last playoff spot, all it does is mess up track position for the draft next year. And I'm not saying you should tank, right? Just let Darnold be the guy. And who knows, maybe if, you know, you get six, seven weeks into the season, Matt Corral looks okay in practice, and you don't mind throwing them out there, let Matt Corral play, find out if you have anything. But all this is going to do is delay the process to me.

And again, I will say this saying, yeah, I could be wrong. None of us really know any, anything about all of this. Are we really trying to save Matt Ruhl's job? Because that's, that was the comeback I got. Well, Matt Ruhl's got to, you know, he's got to win games.

I'm like, yeah, you don't even like Matt Ruhl. So what are you doing? What are you now arguing? Yeah.

Like, and here's, here's my question. Is it possible that we can watch a head coach and say, man, that head coach is good. And that head coach had a losing season.

Is it possible that we can recognize when a head coach knows what he's doing, even in a losing season? I will submit that the answer to that is yes. Yeah. Right.

Remember the first year of, um, now why am I drawing a blank, Brian Flores in Miami? What did they finish? 6 and 10? Maybe even worse. Right. Whatever the record was. Yeah. Most of us watched the dolphins that year and went, holy crap, this guy knows what he's doing.

Yeah. Now I don't know if that lasted. I ultimately got fired. He got fired because he wouldn't tank for the owner. But like I thought Brian Flores during a losing season kind of said, well, okay, this guy's pretty good.

He knows what he's doing. How are we able to tell when they were one of the worst teams in the league? Hmm.

Because there are certain things that are obvious. So another thing they asked me about, what does Matt Ruhl have to do to save his job? I'm like, I mean, I don't even know how to answer that question.

When? Yeah, but even like they can go 10 and seven and we can still see the same garbage of wasted timeouts and unsure of, you know, how to game plan and all of it. We can still say all of that and go, yeah, they just made the playoffs because easy schedule, uh, the underbelly of the, uh, six, seven playoff spots was kind of soft. I mean, we can see that and we could know like it ain't that good. So that shouldn't change your opinion of whether or not a coach is good and deserves another year. Just like going six and 10 might not be in certain, in some situations might not be the death knell of a coach. So like these are unanswerable questions, right?

Unanswerable questions. I just Baker Mayfield doesn't move me. That's my point.

And man, I had one guy on Twitter said that this is the most talented quarterback the Panthers have had in a decade. Processed that for one second. Here's two.

I have two problems with that. Okay. I assume that this was a Baker Mayfield burner account or a bot, uh, but just process that for one second. They're not the same. The most, maybe the most talented quarterback the Panthers have had in a decade.

You're drunk. If you think that Baker Mayfield is more talented than cam Newton today, he is, but cam pre-injury, what, why are we even having that discussion? Not even a conversation.

And then it gets to wait, wait, wait a second. If it ain't cam, have the Panthers had a more talented quarterback? I mean, ever then like Baker might be on the, you know, the top two or three, if cam was completely eliminated from the situation, I would Baker Jake, the loam, Chris Winky. What are we doing? Steve Berlin, Jimmy Lawson, like Rodney, Will Greer. Rodney. Yeah, exactly.

I just didn't understand all of that, but yeah, that was just, uh, that was just silly. All right. Let's, uh, let's try something else. Tony D'Angelo. The era lasted one year.

I was bummed on Friday. First of all, I think I can't decide, or can't remember if we talked about it here, Dennis, or if I just talked about it on a podcast, this is sort of the hurricane's mo right. Can't come to a, an agreement on a contract for an RFA trade is right. Yeah. That's what they do. And it happened with Elias Lindholm. Yeah.

Right. And no Hennepin, but I think that was more about Lindholm than it was about Hennepin. They tried to bring Lindholm back. And this was the, uh, the year after bill Peters tried to bring Lindholm back. And he had a figure that he wanted to be paid and hurricanes at a figure that they wanted to pay him. And those figures did not match traded him, except this, or you're out.

He didn't accept it. They traded him. It happened with Justin Falk. It happened with Tony D'Angelo.

It's what they do. We're not sitting around. We're not waiting for an arbitration award. And then D'Angelo signs. We're gonna talk to Tony D'Angelo in a little bit. Um, D'Angelo signs two years, $5 million a year with Philadelphia.

And all I could think of was, huh, that doesn't seem like it would be so hard to fit. And it basically comes down to this for me, or for the team, not just for me. They viewed D'Angelo as a third pair of defensemen who would run their power play. And D'Angelo viewed himself as more than that.

So if you view yourself as more than that, you're going to price yourself accordingly. And the hurricanes were trying to convince Tony that he was worth about $3.5 million per year. And if he had agreed to stay for two years, $3.5 million, or even one year, $3.5 million, I think he might have done it. I think they would have definitely done it.

But nope, that's not where it was. And so, because this is what the hurricanes are about, because this is what the hurricanes do, they just cut bait. And regardless of what the return was, we can go back and forth on that all the time. I thought that two point or two times five wasn't outrageous for the value that D'Angelo brought.

51 points. He partnered with Slavin. It was a much better partnership than I think the organization is giving it credit. Jacob Slavin had a great year. D'Angelo had his best all-around season in the NHL.

The underlying numbers, while defensively it appears that Slavin regressed, offensively he progressed, and the overall numbers are better than they were at any point in his career. It's a tough loss. They're not going to resign. I don't believe any of their free agents restricted. I mean, Natures, I think, is going to be resigned. Lawrence is going to be resigned.

Maybe they revisit Ethan Bear now because they need bodies. But they're going to need three NHL defenseman and five NHL forwards. Three NHL defenseman, if Jalen Chatfield is here, gives them an extra extra defenseman on the NHL roster. Five NHL forwards will give them an extra NHL forward on the roster. So they need eight players with about 23 million dollars to play. That's less than three million dollars a player.

That ain't a lot. So we'll see. We got one more thing I want to get to before we hit our first break. Will Brinson will join us at the bottom of the hour. The ACC is still alive.

It's very exciting. I know a lot of you are surprised, yes, that the league hasn't shuttered their doors. I could just see in Greensboro right now, plywood, you know, they're boarding up the windows and whatnot. Well, let's further move to Charlotte. That's true. I know USC and UCLA killed the Pac-12. So we, and we always overreact.

We overreacted on Friday. That doesn't mean that long term that the ACC is on solid footing because they're not in a great spot. The league is not on on good footing right now. But it ain't going to be like the ACC is suddenly going to become the Southwest Conference. It's not going away. It will definitely in time look different.

It will either be larger or it will be smaller. I don't think you're going to see the ACC survive as the league. It is right now 10 years down the road.

Maybe not even three years down the road. But we were sitting here on Friday, you know, essentially moving pieces around a Monopoly board. You know that we were doing that.

Yeah, I thought it was more like a game of risk. Okay, what territory are we taking over here? You know, it's interesting is that and I've mentioned this before. I've mentioned this before. This goes back now.

Almost 10 years. We had a college sports expansion draft. And the rules of the game where you pick a school first and then the next school you take has to be the state that that school is in must be attached to the school, to some school in your roster.

Okay. So if you took Ohio State with your first pick, the next school you took in the draft, that state, whatever state that school was in had to border Ohio. So you could take Kentucky, right? Just saying, I'm not, I don't even know.

Michigan or something like that. Right. You could do that. So we did that and we had four people drafting and we drafted 10 schools and it was very simple. There was a situation where North Carolina and Southern Cal were in the same league because it's very easy to get from coast to coast. Tennessee brings you pretty close. Anyway, so that was, that was our fun.

We had a fun time with that. But a lot of people are under the assumption that that's what's happening now. And it's hard to say it isn't because college sports has become only about money. Nothing else matters to the people who run it.

The people who watch it and consume it, I don't think are really, I mean, on the surface they're into it, but I think that there is going to be a lot of downside that people aren't ready for. We'll get to that in a minute. Anyway, the guy from swim swam, he was, he was the one breaking news last week. He had four schools, he covers swimming. He had four schools, including North Carolina, actively negotiating with the Southeastern Conference to join that league.

Reece Davis from ESPN on who would be most attractive? Ultimately, I think the ACC is still vulnerable. Doesn't mean that they, that they can't make it. But at the moment, the brands that would really bring value to the other big conferences, the big two, which is where we're headed, it seems, are few and far between. But there are a few. If those brands, and I use that word because that's what they are now, as you know, North Carolina, Clemson football, those are the two primary ones in my judgment.

There are others, but those are the two that I think are most attractive and would bring some value. Should they try to test it? Should they try to go? Then the ACC will have a hard time standing up. Yeah, I don't think those schools are going to test the grant of rights.

And we'll talk about what grant of rights mean with David Teal coming up in the second hour. But the only school I think that is going to really challenge that is Notre Dame. If they are interested in joining the Big Ten, I think the ACC can still make a relatively attractive pitch to Notre Dame. Hey, you can be big fish here.

Yeah. And if you're, if you are not about money, if you're not about raking in money, then this is the way to keep college sports looking kind of like what it looks like right now. And if that's good for you, then you should join this league. But that's for Jim Phillips to negotiate. And honestly, it might not be worth it to Notre Dame. And I am not speculating one way or the other. But if Notre Dame joins the Big Ten, they're just another, they're just another body there. No offense.

No offense. I mean, I might be throwing shade on the ACC, but Notre Dame steps in to the ACC. And in terms of football, they're right there with Clemson.

In the Big Ten, man, man, they're just another Southern Cal, Ohio State, Michigan. Adam Gold here from my man, Coach Pete DeRuda with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement.

All right, Coach, simple. When do we start tax planning in retirement? We should start as soon as possible because here's one thing, Adam, taxes are not going away.

Right. And so the game here is we know the rules. A lot of people want to ignore the rules or act like they don't, aren't familiar with them, but the IRS knows the rules. And so when we get to retirement, they're going to reach in and start taking some of their money out of your accounts. So the secret here is to put a force field around as much as possible by strategically moving some of our money to Roth IRA or some of the other vehicles that aren't taxed, like special life insurance policies.

You can borrow against your money there and never have to pay tax on your money that you build up inside your cash value. So there are a lot of strategies here. The one strategy that does not work is ignoring it.

So let's make sure to not ignore it. The next 10 people will do for you your very own tax and retirement plan that will help you minimize taxation all the way through retirement. 800-661-7383. All you got is call or you can text Adam to 2-1-0-0-0 for coach Pete DeRuta.

You know, it sounds good. Also, my friend will Brinson senior NFL writer, CBS sports.com pick six podcast moderator. They've they did an emergency podcast for Baker Mayfield's trade from Cleveland to Carolina. I have to ask, did it? How many of you guys laughed when you did an emergency podcast for that transaction? Okay. I mean, I realize it's the summer.

No, no, no. It was, it was actually like so perfectly timed because I was supposed to be doing these, like, like we, we long story short, like some stuff had happened. The time you got off, we were behind on like getting our podcast getting our podcast out and we were basically going to go be like screwed and have to miss a day. And then also the trade goes out. We're like, yes, thank you, Baker. Right. But I mean, I mean, I think it's, I mean, I mean, you can laugh, we can laugh about it, but like, I mean, Baker, Baker is a clear upgrade for a team that you know, has, I think maybe it's the, maybe it's the natural optimism of, um, you know, like of, you know, May, June, July for NFL teams, all, you know, all the way into the beginning of the season. It's easy to like say, well, you know what, you know, if you look at the Panthers hard enough, offensive line is improved. Yeah.

They have some players that can take a step forward. Lots of, lots of weapons, some weapons. Okay.

There's some, some weapons. Yeah. I mean, Baker's clearly, Baker's clearly an upgrade, clearly an upgrade. You and I agree. Yes.

And so that's the thing for me is it just had to happen. You and I agree that Baker Mayfield is better than Sam Darnold. I find it hysterical that there is some speculation. Keyshawn Johnson said today that, uh, Sam Darnold will be the starter on it for week one.

I don't see it. Uh, you mean us USC alum? Yeah. Keyshawn Johnson says USC alum Sam Darnold will win the starting job. Carolina Panthers alum Keyshawn Johnson. Um, so I was, I was a guest on ESPN radio last week and they asked me, what are the odds that Baker Mayfield unseats Sam Darnold? And I'm like, that bar ain't high.

I mean, Sam, see, it's the other way around. What are the odds that Sam Darnold can unseat Baker Mayfield? Who is now the number one quarterback in Carolina. Yeah, no, look, we, we agree that Mayfield is an upgrade, but here's, and I, and the fact is Carolina is not paying a lot of the contract and they really didn't give up anything. So there are a lot of positives about the deal, but he's not the guy he, he's, he's at best a guy.

I don't think he's ever going to be a franchise type quarterback. So I just wonder why, why, why go through this, uh, if he's not the guy, um, what, what did the win probably, what happened to the win probability? How much did it go up? Um, I believe our simulator, my simulations, um, no, we, uh, we actually do have simulations that they send us for CBS. So like, I'm not, you know, like these are not my simulations.

They are done by a sports line. Um, I believe it jumped like almost a full win up from like six, three to seven, one or something like that. But look, you know, here's, here's the thing about Baker that I think is important too, is that like the Baker trade in and of itself in a move to get a quarterback for a team that clearly does not have a quarterback, but not have a quarterback that can, can help it compete in 2022, um, was fine. Like giving him a fifth round pick, getting to take $3.5 million off of his salary and converting that into, um, into incentives, which you would assume it's like, all right, if the Panthers make the playoffs, you get $1.5 million or $2 million back, which sounds crazy, but if the Panthers make the playoffs and that rule saves his job, and that's really the impetus for this whole trade in the first place, the problem, when you start thinking about the Panthers long-term and this particular trade is that you have to, like, if you're going to be reasonable about analyzing this trade, you do have to take the Baker trade. You have to take the trade up to get Matt Corral in the draft and the trade to get Sam Darnold and put them all together. And when you do that, then you realize that while the Baker move and the cost associated, but financially and in terms of the draft picks is perfectly reasonable and a pretty strong move by that team, this, there's a clear pattern of desperation and poor management when it comes to asset allocation to get quarterbacks. Sam Darnold was a second and a third, I think, or a second and a fourth. Matt Corral basically calls you two thirds to go get, and now Baker has a fifth. So we're talking a second, two thirds, a fourth and a fifth. That's like a draft class. Yeah. Yeah.

Look, I don't think they gave up, I will say that they gave up nothing for Baker Mayfield. That's the way I look at it. I do think that is it a conditional fit that becomes a fourth based on either playing time or team record or something like that.

I was at Pauly Shore on Friday night, so I'm not really checked into the Baker. No, no, it's quite all right. If playing time, I don't know, whatever the threshold is, it becomes a fourth. That's more problematic for me than a fifth. But regardless, I'll still, I will still say that they basically gave up nothing for Baker Mayfield. If Baker plays so much that he ends up that the fifth becomes a fourth, it means that the Panthers have won enough games because if Baker, if Baker is binge, if Baker doesn't play, he's either got hurt and you're not, you give up a fifth or he played and played so poorly and the papers were losing. So we got benched for Sam Darnold because why the hell not we're losing. Um, so it's like, it's, it's either a fifth or Baker played well enough that, you know, the Panthers were, you know, in, in the, in the slightly, like just off the horizon of playoff fringe teams. So this is where I basically am here that we really didn't move the needle too much in terms of win loss playoff or no playoff. I don't understand what the urgency is from, whether it's Scott Fitterer or David Tepper to save Matt rules job, because I think we'll all be able to understand whether or not Matt rule has made progress as a head coach.

There are very easy things. Uh, well we can stop with the pre snap penalties. We can stop wasting timeouts for no reason.

We can make what, what, what if we instituted a two minute offense, right? So w wins or losses aside, I think it will be obvious to most people whether or not Matt rule is any good at this and, you know, going nine and eight, as opposed to eight and nine, probably isn't going to probably isn't going to tell us. Uh, so I don't even understand why we're trying to save Matt rules job. Um, because we'll find it'll be obvious to us by week six, whether or not Matt rules good at this or not. I mean, I think it's, I don't know that it's like Fitterer and David Tepper desperately trying to save Matt rules job. I do think it's like, I mean, I think, I think that David Tepper is doing exactly is acting as a, as a, uh, as an owner, exactly the way we should have expected David Tepper to act, which is come in with us. Like, it's like, oh, look at this plan.

Slow build. Just going to take our time and get our faces kicked in for a few years while we figure this thing out and win some games later. No, like that's, that's not what people who have $16 billion like to do. They want to win now. And when they didn't win now, you know, be like, he's maybe like fired half the people who work for FC Charlotte or something like that. He did. He did the coach right away. Yeah. That poor coach, that poor coach was nothing more than a, I can't fire Matt rule right now. So there were some things happening behind the scenes in that.

I don't know. I don't know anything about FC Charlotte. It's just like, David Tepper is like sitting in his office. He's like, I got to fire somebody.

The coach wouldn't talk to the players. That's can't, you can't, he didn't want to be there. He took the job.

He didn't really want the job. Anyway, my point being is that like, I think David Tepper, David Tepper would like, uh, while he's probably already ready to move on from that role in the sense that he's like, just there's too much losing early in week two. I remember I talked about this for two years now, the availability of Matthew Stafford and Carson Wentz. And I guess even Jared golf tour, just these quarterbacks who, you know, like at one point in time had been considered Deshaun Watson to be considered franchise quarterbacks.

Their availability caused an artificial acceleration for David Tepper's approach and timeline. And that resulted in the Sam Darnold trade. And then when they couldn't get a Baker deal done on the clock, they're like, all right, after you, we'll try to get Matt corral. It's like, what is the trade for Baker anyway? It's, it's just poor.

It's just missing. So they're, to me, they're throwing bad money at bad money. Um, but if, if Mayfield, if Mayfield proves to be good enough where they win enough games, then what a waste it was to trade future assets, to move up and get Matt corral in where they got him, where he might've been available, where they picked in the fourth round. So let me ask this question and then we'll take a break. What are the chances that Baker Mayfield is the week one starter in 2023?

I actually think it's higher than you would guess because, and I, and I'm doing this, I mean, like I knew everything off the top of my head, but, um, like the free agent class, I'm just trying to think if there's, I just don't think look, Carson Wentz told the Panthers, no, when they tried to trade for him. Okay. So clearly right. For sure.

For the, for paintless fans for sure. But I'm saying like, clearly this is not an attractive, Deshaun Watson probably never really had any interest in coming. Matthew Stafford told them, my point being is that this is clearly a spot in Carolina that is not extremely attractive to, you know, these quarterback camp. I mean, Carson Wentz should have been willing to go anywhere. Right. Um, and so I think that as a result, if you were Carolina, you know, you were going to have a very difficult time luring somebody either in free agency or, or, you know, via trade where they have to improve the trade.

Russell Wilson didn't want to come. Um, it's just, in other words, if Baker is above average, if he plays anywhere in the realm of 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, he's had two good years. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's yeah. 2018 and 2020 Baker were good. And Hey, look, maybe that's David timbers. He's like, Hey, even your baby, you know, and it's, it's a proven year.

Mayfield is going to come here with a chip on his shoulder. Uh, let's say I would, I would say, I would say 64.35%. That's uh, that's fine. I like, I like 64.35%.

Uh, maybe it'll work out. I have my doubts June 19th, 2006, but it all started May 6th, 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition of heartbreak of figuring it out on the fly.

The canes corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the aluminum company of North Carolina. Listen now find James 25th anniversary, wherever you get your podcast, senior NFL writer, CBS sports.com that will Brinson on Twitter pick six podcast moderator. They did an emergency pod for the acquisition of Baker Mayfield, which I don't know. Made me chuckle. Uh, so can I give a quick takes? Sure.

Okay. One, I think zap is, I mean, definitely one of my favorite of all time, but I think they've actually become a little underrated, just relative to main, like not, not probably not by people in our demographic ish, but like, I don't know. I think it's absolutely a little more underrated than other classic rock bands. And then, uh, we were at the world drugs concert downtown, uh, like two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago. And, um, as we were getting some drinks pre, uh, pre show, we, we ended up like sitting next to like a guy who was working on the tour, talking about being up, talking about how he also worked for Robert plant when plant was doing the tour and like plant, he said that plant doesn't even want to do Zeppelin songs. He just wants to play the blues and people are always annoyed when they go to the shows. He's like, he's like, but I don't care. I'm rich, I'm famous.

I'm playing the stuff I want to play. I'm not going to J I'm not going to like blitz through the catalog, just because that's what you expect. They did. I saw him and Alison Krauss last month. They did about three Zeppelin songs. Yeah, exactly. But he plays more art, you know, blues, old traditional blues, uh, than he does anything else. But yes, that's the root of all of that. It's the, the root of Zeppelin is blues, right? Same thing with, uh, with the Beatles. Same thing with the Rolling Stones. Uh, their roots are all in the blues. So yeah, if you like the blues, which I do, uh, it's, uh, it's all good. And I agree that I think Zeppelin has become somewhat underrated, uh, is Lamar Jackson also somewhat underrated or maybe even forgotten among elite quarterbacks.

And is he going to get Deshaun Watson money? What a magnificent segue. Thank you. Um, and yeah, uh, I tried to derail it and you brought it right back. Um, the, uh, I think Lamar is extremely underrated, uh, in terms of where people perceive him, because even with his MVP season, you know, first player ever to go 3000, 1000 and leave the league and pass these touchdowns. And, you know, um, at the same time, I'd be like, well, you know, he does it a lot with his legs. Not really an accurate passer.

It's like, he's more accurate than you think. Um, the problem is Lamar has no agent and Lamar hasn't shown an inclination to answer the Ravens phone calls. Like the owner, Steve has got, he came out and said, he's like Eric, the customer, the GM, he's like, he can't just keep calling him. Like with no response. Like it's, you know, I mean, how many times can you, you know, if you're, you know, you're, you're trying to, you know, you're texting somebody, you know, like, you know, maybe communicating about, uh, you know, just interested in each other. Like how many unrequited texts can you send in 2022? The same thing applies to this phone call from the GM to the quarterback, who's looking for a contract. There's only so many times you can call in a row before you're just like, okay, now I feel like an idiot and I look desperate, et cetera. Um, maybe the answer is two for text. I think the call to the quarterback for the cash move is probably like seven.

Right. Um, you know, I, uh, I think that what's going to happen is they will probably end up playing out. My guess is they will put, because Lamar has no agent, they will play out this season, um, under his rookie deal, he's making 21 million or 23 million, something like that because of his mid pro bowls and his fifth year option, Excel increases automatically. Um, I think they'll play it out. I think they'll put the franchise tag on him. And I think next off season, they'll work something out.

That is just my guess. But it's primarily because Lamar has no agent and a lack of agent, a lack of urgency from the player, perhaps to get a deal done because you have no agent, um, makes it just a little more difficult than the normal streamline process. Like you might see with a Kyler Murray per se. Yeah. Look, the, to me, Lamar Jackson is in a great spot. If he stays healthy, he could just play next year on the franchise tag and then play another year. I mean, the numbers that I read are going to be staggering dude. Yeah.

Like he could, he could, he could, this is not, this is not hyperbole. He could end up, if you wanted to try to go the Kirk Cousins route and to play out his, play out his rookie contract and play out to potentially three years of the franchise tag, although the third year would be like, like ask $70 million. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, he could hit the open market and gets like 55 to $60 million fully guaranteed per year, um, as a free agent quarterback still in his prime. All right. We have two more minutes left and we're going to go right to the surprise with will Brinson about a little over a month ago, as may became June, the Mets were 10 and a half games ahead of the Braves. First of a three game series tonight in Atlanta, two in the last column, one and a half overall, how are you feeling about your Atlanta Braves? It's a battle of maxes, max freed versus max Scherzer tonight.

Yeah, it is. I'm feeling, uh, I'm feeling pretty good. The Braves. Um, this is kind of what they did last year. And you know, if you like, I mean, I believe when you have a team with a roster, like the Braves where, you know, mostly younger guys, good clubhouse vibes, um, you know, smart front office that, you know, and look, they last year, they bolstered, you know, people were like, why are they trained for these guys at the deadline?

This is crazy. And it was, it was like Jock Peterson comes in and Eddie Rosario, and you bring in these guys who just, you know, have a skill, an underrated skill set, but also fit the clubhouse perfectly. Like, I mean, I want the Braves to be aggressive again and to try to go for a repeat because you come out, you start cold coming off a title, and then you start to work your way back.

You can, I mean, that, that, you know, it's quote, Ray Lewis momentum is real. And like, I do think your brains are, or can feel that they're like making this solid push and do believe that they can steal the crown and maybe go get weird in the playoffs to get 29 and eight in their last 37. The Mets are 15 and 14 since June six. So good for the Braves. It should be a lot of fun in Atlanta this week.

We have three games, Jacob deGrom still not back yet, but Max Scherzer returns should be fun. Will Brinson, I would wish you luck, but I don't want to. Well, I would do the same, but I don't want to either. Thank you. Uh, I still love you. I'll talk to you later later, man.

You got it. This is the Adam gold show. June 19th, 2006, but it all started May six, 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The canes corner. Look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the aluminum company of North Carolina. Listen, now find James 25th anniversary, wherever you get your podcasts.