What The Football w/ Suzy Shuster and Amy Trask: Mike Florio

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Not available in all states. Well, hi there. We are back for another season of What the Football. Susie Schuster, Amy Trask, thrilled to be with you after a nice break, but ready to get back to talking about football on a regular basis. Amy, how have you been? I've been well, but I've missed you.

I know. It's been a minute, as the kids would say. It has been a minute, and it's really good to see you, and it's great to be back here on What the Football.

Thank you. We are looking forward to another great season. Mike Florio from PFT Live will be our first guest.

He'll be with us momentarily, but let me ask you a broad question leading in. What are you most looking forward to in this upcoming season? Expecting the unexpected, because it doesn't matter what we expect going in. It doesn't matter what we predict going in. Every season, expect the unexpected, and I love that.

The league is designed around the concept of parity, that any given team can win any given game, and any team can win it all in any given season, and that's the fun of it. One of my favorite things to do on the Rich Eisen show is to play the win-loss game with fans, where they call in and it's recently rapid-fire, go through. Oh, right. I love watching you do that. I watched you do that today. Oh, yeah. There you go.

I did. Well, it's fun to do, because it's fun to see people's expectations as high as they can possibly be leading into the season, where somebody will go in and suddenly they're like, are you sure that you want this to be 11-1, or what have you? And it's just fun to see the expectations where they are right now. As a Patriots fan, I'm holding my breath, seeing how Drake May holds up. I love the idea of Rabel being home again. I'm psyched for week one.

I'm looking forward to seeing Pete Carroll starting, coming back to New England for that week one. Rich and I were lucky enough to go to Pete Carroll's last class at USC for The Game Is Life, and he would bring in a guest every week. I can't say who it was, because it's a secret between Pete and the class and the guest.

So neat. But it was one of the most impactful experiences I've ever had being back at USC, which is where I met Pete right after he came out West, and right after Paul Hackett had just mentally destroyed Carson Palmer's brain by handing him the Jets' offensive schemes. You can't throw that to a kid. He was coming out of high school. He was in college, but Carson Palmer was a mess, and Pete Carroll just basically tossed it out and gave him a break and let him build a confidence that he then built to become a Heisman candidate and to be a Heisman winner and to go on into the National Football League. But I just loved being back on campus and watching Pete teach this class. We were in tears, Amy.

When we left the room, we were emotionally wrecked. And I thought to myself, he may be the oldest coach in the National Football League, but I would suit up. I would pad up to get out there and run out there for Pete Carroll. What are your thoughts on him as the Raiders coach?

Well, I'm going to talk about you for a minute first. The respect and admiration and appreciation that Pete has for you was so extraordinarily evident when Pete joined us on What the Football. We were the first podcast he joined after being hired by the Raiders.

So his respect and admiration for you is just tremendous. And as I shared on that podcast, I love the hire. I love the hire of Pete Carroll by the Raiders. And as I shared with Pete when we spoke, I think Al Davis would like that hire a lot too. And thrilled to have Mike Florio joining us as promised back here on What the Football.

Thanks again for your time. Oh, it is great to be with you. How are you both doing? It's been a great break. We've been well, but it's nice to be back. I missed you, Suzy.

Said by very few people, but then what are you going to do? My question for you, week one came out, obviously we saw Jet Steelers. How done of a deal is it with Aaron Rodgers going to Pittsburgh? I think that it's just a matter of time before he announces it. I think he'll be there at some point during the OTAs, which begin on May 27, possibly at some point this week leading up to the Memorial Day weekend, he'll make the announcement.

I think that that meshes with everything that's kind of been out there. And I was told by someone who knows Aaron Rodgers, but doesn't have specific knowledge on this issue. And it makes sense from his perspective there's two ways he could have been a distraction. One, by not being signed with the Steelers and kind of hovering, or two, by being signed with the Steelers and staying away from the first two phases of the off-season program, which he hates, by the way.

He does not like phase one and phase two. And from his perspective, it's less of a distraction to not be on the team at all and have everyone wondering when he's going to show up than to sign and not be there and have these questions lingering. Why isn't he there? Is he committed to be with the team?

Yada, yada. So it makes sense. And he views the OTAs as the more important preparation. They have six days, I believe, of OTAs before their mandatory minicamp.

So I think he'll be there by the time the OTAs start, or if not when they start at some point during the OTAs. By the way, I think he's right. If you're choosing between those two distractions, I think he chose appropriately.

Absolutely. And look, the guy's always a distraction, but the Steelers don't care because he's dramatically better than anything they've had at the quarterback position since Ben Roethlisberger retired. And they know that. And that's one of the reasons why they've been willing to wait. And I really don't think their plan is Mason Rudolph backed up by Skylar Thompson. They're waiting for Aaron Rodgers. And if something completely unexpected happens and they don't get him, then they'll make another plan. But they expect Rodgers, and Rodgers could be the difference between them getting to the playoffs almost every year and not winning a playoff game at all since the 2016 season. And Mike, so no resentment then from players that are saying, well, I don't get to pick and choose when I'm coming in.

I'm just going to show up on time and be a team player. Cam Hayward had the comment fairly early in this courtship of Aaron Rodgers that you either want to be a Steeler or you don't. Now he backtracked on that, but that meshes so thoroughly with what I hear from Steelers fans.

And I've been in and around Pittsburgh almost my entire life. And Steelers fans think it's unbecoming the team to be in this posture where they've bent the knee and they've made the proposal and they're just waiting and they're waiting and they're waiting. In the minds of Steelers fans, Aaron Rodgers should want to be a Steeler. There should be nothing to think about.

He should rush through the door the moment the door is cracked open. And I just generally believe Mike Tomlin has done a good job of keeping guys on the same page and they've done a good job of keeping this a secret if at the end of the day they've been told. And the belief is they've been told he's going to be there. The belief is he's been given the playbook and whatever other information he would need to be studying so when he shows up, he'll be ready to go and put in that preparation that comes in advance of when it really matters in training camp. Yeah, it just feels so on three rivers.

I was talking to TJ Jefferson about that on the Rich Eisen show today because he's from there. And it just seems like it's anathema. It's just so not a team first mentality.

So I think it doesn't work. Yeah. Well, and another thing that the Steelers have done this year, and this may be the desperation to try to finally win a playoff game, the trade for DK Metcalf and the contract for the former Seahawks receiver, three years, no, five years, excuse me, 150 million, they've never done anything like that. They've never given market money to a stranger to the team.

And that introduces a whole host of dynamics. What are they going to do with TJ? What? And we knew what it meant ultimately to George Pickens.

The town wasn't big enough for both of them once they made that investment in DK Metcalf. So they are breaking from a lot of the things that we're used to seeing from the Steelers because ultimately what they've been doing for nearly a decade hasn't delivered a playoff win. And they seem to be intent on trying to change that.

And we'll see if Rogers makes that difference. You mentioned the Steeler organization and the manner in which they're addressing this. Hats off to them. I think the Steeler organization from Art Rooney throughout the organization has shown a remarkable patience and a remarkable grace and equanimity in how they're handling all the questioning, all the media. I think they're handling the situation and the apparent uncertainty, even if they're not uncertain, really remarkably well.

Yeah. And it's easy to be calm and confident if you know deep down he's going to show up. It'll be interesting to see what they do if he doesn't, if he changes his mind and retires. But there has been just this quiet sense from the key players, not players, but the owner and the GM and the head coach that this is all going to work itself out.

And everyone will be very happy when it does. I think back to 2009 when Brett Favre signed with the Vikings halfway through training camp, maybe deeper than halfway through training camp. And there was a report that there was a schism. That was the first time I was introduced to that word since SAT prep. There was a schism in the locker room over Brett Favre versus Taveras Jackson, who was the incumbent starter.

You know how long the schism lasted? Not even one practice. Brett Favre shows up and starts throwing darts all over the place and the players understand, okay, now we know.

Now we know. And I think the same thing's going to happen when Aaron Rodgers shows up and the Steelers players see what he can do. They'll be like, okay, we understand why you waited as long as you did for this guy to make up his mind. Yeah, the Saints don't share the same feeling that they have that same relationship with their slew of quarterbacks. Their current QB room is 0-7 in the NFL as starters.

What happens there? Well, Kellen Moore, the new head coach, has said it's going to be an open competition. And when you look at what both Spencer Rattler and Jake Hayner have done when they've been given a chance to play, it seems like Jackson, not Jackson Dart, Tyler Shuck.

Tyler Shuck will have every chance possible to win that job. And you just don't want to hand it to him. We see that almost every year with a rookie quarterback. You want him to earn it. You don't want the locker room to think that somebody has been given an opportunity that they haven't fully earned. So I think when it's all said and done, and what Moore explained when he first met with reporters after Derek Carr retired, these things have a way of working themselves out. We'll get to training camp. We'll get to the preseason. And one of these guys will separate. And I think they're confident that Tyler Shuck will be the guy who separates, otherwise they wouldn't have used such a high pick on bringing him into the organization in the first place. Who do you think ends up the starting quarterback in Cleveland? That's a hell of a question, which is not something I'm saying to buy time.

Usually when someone says that's a good question, that's the device for buying some extra time to think about it. Right now they have five quarterbacks. And I have assumed Deshaun Watson isn't going to play this year.

Now Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reported yesterday that Watson is accelerating his rehab efforts. He's at the organization. He's throwing two receivers on the team. So he may expect to get into this competition at some point. But if we take him out of the mix, you've got four guys, Kenny Pickett, Joe Flacco, and then the two rookies, Dylan Gabriel and Chidor Sanders. I can't help but think either Flacco or Pickett will be gone by the time they open training camp, possibly via trade, or if all else fails, you just eat the guaranteed money and move on. Because you don't have enough reps to go around to get the two rookies ready if you're doing what you can to get the two veterans ready.

And somebody is going to be frozen out of meaningful opportunities to get themselves prepared for the season. There's been some indications. Kenny Pickett's the leader so far. Dylan Gabriel has looked good.

Chidor's looked good. It's still very early, but it's almost like what will happen with the Saints. When it's time to get to training camp, when it's time to play in the preseason, someone will stand out. And I am suspicious that if it's close, whoever the owner wants to play is the one who's going to play. Because they seem to have a bad habit in Cleveland of doing whatever the owner wants.

Even if the owner doesn't say, do this, the people around the owner have a way of gleaning from the questions he asks and the things he says, what he really wants. If anybody other than Chidor Sanders, assuming that's what Haslam would want, is going to win that job, they're going to have to win it conclusively and convincingly where there's no way you could go with anyone else. Otherwise you have a mutiny in the locker room. And I was intrigued by your segue, Susie, from New Orleans to Cleveland, because my immediate thought was, if I'm New Orleans, I'm looking at Cleveland and saying, can I get Joe Flacco?

Can I get Pickett? Because they need a quarterback. Yeah. And it's an asset. And I think at one point, GM Andrew Berry referred to the quarterback contracts as assets, and they can decide how it's going to go with Flacco or Pickett or even Dylan Gabriel, if they decide they want to trade him, that's possible too.

It would look weird, but it already looks weird. You use the 94th overall pick on Gabriel and then 50 picks later, you take Chidor Sanders. The whole situation is strange. And I understand the analytics driven concept of getting value for your draft picks. And as you're sitting there deeper and deeper into round five, and you've got your best available players up on the board, and Chidor Sanders is number one, and there's a huge gap between him and everyone else, at some point you have to take Sanders, fine. But now you've got Sanders along with four other quarterbacks, how do you work that out from a team development point? And they've got a decision to make before they get to training camp.

Are we going to take all those quarterbacks to camp and neglect one, maybe two of them, or are we going to find a way to get value for that asset for a team like the Saints that needs a quarterback? This whole draft was weird, Mike. Come on. It just felt like a weird draft to me. Watching Chidor this year and watching this sideshow go down just felt off to me.

It felt like an alternative or alternate reality, I thought, this year. Well, and the problem is, and I think Amy understands this well from working in the league for as long as she did, I'm very leery about the pre-draft chatter regarding players, especially the negative stuff. Because there is a weird sort of Machiavellian incentive, if you really like a guy, to participate in bashing him anonymously to reporters in the hopes he'll slide to your spot on the board. And the flip side is, if you don't like a guy, and this is something Chris Simms shared during PFT Live in the run up to this year's draft, he worked for a while with the Patriots. And John Robinson, the former Titans GM, was working in the front office at the time. And Robinson told the scouts, hey, if you're out with your buddies and this guy comes up, talk him up, say he's great.

We want someone in front of us to take him. So the pre-draft grind of anonymous sources and opinions, that makes me nervous. Afterward, though, it all made sense. Because afterward, the reason that Chadore Sanders fell so far, he just didn't take the process seriously. He viewed it as one GM told me who was looking for a quarterback. He viewed it like he was being recruited by the NFL, not that he was being interviewed by the NFL. And the quarterback position, it's a kiss of death if you show up for these meetings and you act like you're doing them a favor by being there.

They want to see you show the kind of commitment level that is going to make it a worthwhile investment. But isn't it so ironic you say that? And yet Aaron Rodgers can right now do whatever he wants and play with the season. Well, Aaron Rodgers could throw a ball unlike most human beings, even at age 41.

That's the difference. See, I think it comes down to Chadore Sanders approached the draft the same way his dad Dion did. And there's a great story that Dion tells about showing up to meet with the Giants. And they drop a giant binder in front of him with this long test that they had all of their prospects take. And Dion looked at it and he said, when do you pick? And they said, number 18 in round one. And he got up and left. He said, I'm going to be gone by then.

I don't have time for this. So if you have rare talent, you can get away with things like that. Aaron Rodgers has rare talent. And for any other quarterback that was looking for a starting job, if you wait this long, they're going to fill their spots.

They're not going to hold a seat for you with a team, especially like the Pittsburgh Steelers, unless you're an incredible talent. And if Chadore Sanders demonstrates that he's an incredible talent, he'll reach a point in his career where he can do the same thing Aaron Rodgers is doing. In the NFL, there's zero margin for error. As we all know, one single mistake can change the outcome of a game, a season, livelihoods, my goodness, as the official sleep and wellness partner of the National Football League, Sleep Number knows all of that and makes it their mission to provide players with data and insights to optimize their sleep for the ultimate competitive edge. And thus you get a Sleep Number bed, you get the same exact thing.

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Visit chevy.com to learn more. Mike, I'm interested in your thoughts on something I would add to what you said about the draft process at one point. And as I said, interested to hear what you think about this. My view of the draft process is what I have described as a march of the lemmings. And by lemmings, I am of course referring to those little animals that get in and they're like, what are lemmings?

Are they birds? They're I don't even remember what a lemming is. I'll have to look that up. I'll look it up.

Look that up. It's kind of like a rat or a mink. Is it a monkey? I thought it was like a penguin, but whatever it is, these little lemmings get in line and they're known for marching in line and never stepping out of line. It's a small mouse like rodent typically found in cold northern regions like the Arctic and surrounding area.

Well, there you go. That's why I thought it was a penguin, but it's not. Why do they have questions like that when I'm watching Jeopardy?

Seriously, right? I feel like an idiot when I'm watching Jeopardy. I kind of know what a lemming is and that's it. And by the way, it's a rodent everybody.

I thought it was a penguin because it's from the Arctic. But you know, look, my view of the draft during my years in the league was that lemmings are known for getting in line and marching along and no one steps out of the lemming line. And that's what I found the draft to be.

Nobody wants to be the one to step out of the line. Al Davis did that. He was ridiculed for it at times, criticized at times, but generally speaking, GMs don't want to step out of that lemming line. Do you have a similar view? Oh, absolutely. There's a certain way that things are done.

It's a lot of CYA. I think it's one of the reasons why they obsess over the tangible measurements. Because if you take a chance on a guy and it doesn't work out, you're in that awkward meeting with the owner who wants to know, why did you think a guy that ran two tenths of a second lower than his peers is somebody we should draft? Why do you think a guy with short arms like Will Campbell? Why did you think that guy was going to work out?

Nobody with arms that length works out. So I think there's a certain amount of job security that is baked into, well, this is the way we always do it. This is why we did it. I didn't know he was going to be a bust. This is a guy who checks all the boxes.

We checked all the boxes, and this is him. And the reality is, and this is one of the things about the draft, that you never hear this during the coverage because it's impossible to point it out. It's also bad form to rain on the parade of these players who are achieving their football dreams.

But half the first round picks are going to stink. Now it may not be their fault. It may be the team's fault. It may be some other circumstance. It may be they've never lived away from home, whatever.

But nobody knows. And if somebody cracked the code, their first round pick every year would be a Hall of Famer. Their second round pick would be a perennial Pro Bowler. Their third round pick would be a starter, and it would just go down the line, and they would never miss. And the batting average is low, but I think there's a lot of that, I need to do a conventional pick here because if it doesn't work, then I've got my excuses ready. Well that's why so many GMs get differentiated based on instinct alone. And I would say Les Snead would be one of those guys where it's like, this is all about control, isn't it? In a bigger sense, you're going with the intangibles based on the tangibles because you can't control the intangibles.

But when you see those numbers on the paper, it gives you some almost false sense of security as to what you're bringing home. And look, Mike mentioned that there's men drafted in the first round that won't succeed. There's also men in the Pro Football Hall of Fame who went undrafted. The draft is not a science. The other point that Mike made is, and these are kids when you draft them, we drafted men at times that weren't even 21 yet. And I recall one instance you referenced coming across the country, Mike, we drafted someone from about 3000 miles away. And when he came in, at one point I had a conversation with him and he was close to tears because he didn't want to be 3000 miles away from his family.

So all of these things are factors. You want to share who it was? If I remember who it was, I would share it. So when I think of it, you know, that's how my brain works.

It'll pop in at some, Hey, I just know I'm going to go back through the draft every year. We're there trying to find the guy who was from Maine. And I just found, Hey, I just learned that a lemming isn't a penguin.

It's a rat. So I'll get back to you on who it was. Oh, please don't even ask me. I forgot what your name is.

So I mean, I have no memory whatsoever. There are some really cool quarterback rooms to look at. So I'd love to know what you think is the most intriguing of all the quarterback rooms or whose room, you know, the giants they're Seattle. We talked about Cleveland and Atlanta.

What do you think is the most interesting to you? Well, I mean, we've talked about some of the most interesting right off the top, the, the, the Seahawks deserved some attention because I think Jalen Milro has the potential to be really special. And if you listen to the things that GM, John Schneider and head coach Mike McDonald say about Jalen Milro, do you get the impression as to why they took him where he did. And they probably would have taken him even higher if they felt like they had to, they value that four, three, seven speed, because the thing that separates good from great quarterbacks is the ability when the play that's called goes sideways to make something happen and basically come up with something on the fly.

The great ones do that. The best of the best can take a bad play and turn it in to a good play either by extending horizontally or by extending vertically. And Milro has the speed to do both. Now, can he, can he develop the passing skills necessary, but the Sam Darnold contract, it's really one year they can get out of it after one year. And so let's see, let's see if Darnold can do what he did for most of last season. Let's see if what happened against the lions in week 18, where the chariot reverted to a pumpkin pretty abruptly.

Does that continue? And if it does, how long until we see Jalen Milro. At a time when people look at the Seahawks and I don't think they really know what to expect from them, the quarterback position is critical anywhere, but I think it's very important there. And if Darnold can't duplicate what he did last year, we're going to see Milro and he can end up being a fascinating prospect for them. What about Kirk Cousins?

Where do you expect to see him? Well, I think at this point, the best play for the Falcons and for Kirk Cousins is just wait for a starting quarterback to suffer a serious injury and have an opportunity arise there. Cousins has the ultimate hammer with the no trade clause, but the Falcons, they allowed a $10 million guarantee next year to fully vest because they wanted to have the flexibility to trade him. At some point before the draft, I think it was Albert Breer reported Cousins wasn't going to waive his no trade clause until after the draft when he could get an idea of where the needs are because he didn't want a repeat of last year where you go to a team and, hey, you're the starter. Oh, wait, we drafted a quarterback in round one that's going to replace you. But the problem is once the draft came and went, where's the spot?

There's no spot for him now. And the biggest spot would be the Steelers if Aaron Rodgers doesn't go there. And if Arthur Smith, the offensive coordinator in Pittsburgh, if his intelligence from people he still knows in Atlanta allows him to say, we think this guy can still play because the way things fell apart late last year, there's an argument to be made that this wasn't just some temporary thing, that sometimes father time wins abruptly and earlier than you would have expected. So I think he's going to have to wait for someone to get injured, and then that team is going to have to be willing to trade with the Falcons in lieu of going with the next guy on the depth chart. Well, as you both know, teams don't like to do things within their own division, but there is a team in that division that needs a quarterback. But teams are so loathe to give an asset, even if they get something in return that's a nice return, they don't want an asset going to a division rival. I must say, I think it can be a Trojan horse situation, like when the Eagles traded Donovan McNabb to Washington.

Remember that? And the Eagles, Andy Reid knew. Andy Reid knew what he was giving to Washington at that point, and it ended up being a disaster for Washington because Donovan McNabb was done. And if the Falcons believe Donovan McNabb is done, sure we'll trade you to the Saints.

And I think if the Saints would ever get the inclination that the Falcons are willing to do it, that's probably the sign to run for the hills, that this guy is not going to be what we need him to be. Yeah, there's no doubt. I think that it would make a lot of sense for Kirk to go south, but at the same time, south, east, west? I think you're asking the one who didn't know whether a lemming was a penguin or not.

That's such a good point. I can look that up. Southwest, all right. Sorry, Don Bui. Our resident Saints fan is like, Southwest, you dummy. Yeah, I'm sitting here like, wait, where am I on the map? There's California.

My geography, there's California, and then there's everything to the east, and I don't know what's in between. I know. Well, there's a reason why. Well, forget it. I'm already in trouble with half of America.

What did you make of the Brock party? Well, three quarters. Go for 90% like me.

Three quarters. Listen, I always say if people love you across the board, that you're doing something wrong, right? I mean, otherwise like- Well, I love you both. That's nice. I practiced law for 18 years, and the life that I lived, by definition, half the people I dealt with hated me, half the people I dealt with loved me, and my only obligation was to make sure that the people in the love category didn't end up in the hate category.

That was it. By the way, that's a very smart way of looking at it. I can take 50-50.

I can do 50-50 in my sleep. And by the way, Florio, often on television, often on podcasts, I will say something to the effect of objection, calls, assumes facts, not in evidence, objection, calls, asked and answered. You're the one I can do that with, and you can sort of either grant my objection or deny it.

Yes, overruled. Exactly. All right, let's hit pretty fast, and then let's move on to a couple other things before we get to the news of the day from Minneapolis. So what are your thoughts on this pretty contract?

It's not terribly surprising. Well, the reality when it comes to big contracts, when the deal is done, the agents love to present the contract in the terms of the new money average, because that's the biggest possible number you can massage the contract into. Because you take the money that was still left on the deal, which gets subsumed in the new contract.

Amy, I'm sure this drives you crazy. They act like there are extensions in the NFL. There are no extensions in the NFL. The old contract gets ripped up, there's a new contract. So you take the new contract, you subtract what he was already due to make, you subtract the years that were left on the prior deal, and you get this massive new money average. And at $53 million, wow, that's a lot. That's a lot for a guy who was the last pick in the draft, and he doesn't have top five skills.

I'd say he's a middle of the pack quarterback. And the reality is, at the end of the day, now we haven't seen the full details yet, and the full details will be very revealing on the extent of the commitment the 49ers have made here. I have a feeling that this is going to end up being a middle of the pack contract within a year or two, when more deals get done, when he drops farther and farther down from being tied for seventh in new money average, you're going to see CJ Stroud. You're going to see the guys from the 2024 draft clash. You're going to see Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes jump up.

And when it settles in around 15 or 16, that's where it should be. And there's no shame in being the 16th best quarterback in the NFL. The guy went from being the last pick in the draft to a guy who 15, 16 quarterbacks in the world are better than him. That's a pretty good spot for Brock Purdy to be. So I think it's a win-win.

I think it's a fair deal. OK, I just want to explain why I was giggling so Florio doesn't misinterpret my giggle. Last year on What the Football, I said something very, very similar to what you just said. And boy, oh boy, I don't want anyone to ever say to me again, wow, Raider fans are tough. Because let me tell you something, 49er fans said, hold our beer. Because, oh my gosh, I said very, very similar thoughts to what you just shared, Mike. And I was eviscerated.

So anyway, that's why I was giggling. And look, I love, hey, the fans are one of the reasons why we have jobs. Absolutely.

And they love to do content. But they circle the wagons when there's no need to circle the wagons. Any attack on any of their players is an attack on them. Why do you hate my team? Why do you hate this player? Why do you hate this? Why do you hate that?

And at a certain point, you know, as Chris Collinsworth says, when someone says, hey, why do you hate the Giants? He'll say, I just do. That's the easiest way to do it. Susie had to hug me. Susie took care of me. I told her, Mike, get your face out of the comments. You can't read the comments. The comments, it's only people who have so much extra time in their hands, unless they want to say something nice about me. Then I'm like, thank you. Otherwise, it's like, if you really want to take the time out of your day to go attack Amy Trask, you've got to be kidding me.

If you have insomnia like me and you never sleep well, then you kind of scroll. But you know, I've learned my lesson. You were very clear with me. I'm very proud of you, Amy. Thank you.

Because it's garbage. And most of the people who say the hateful things would never even come close to saying it to your face. They'll be nice to you. Of course.

Because if they see her, they're going to be like, oh, Amy, I love your podcast. There was a guy, T.J. Simers, I don't know if you remember him, but he wrote for the LA Times on editorial. He wrote with a lace tongue. I mean, he really put it out there. But he would show up after he wrote something the next day. It was terribly uncomfortable, by the way. But he would show up in the clubhouse or the locker room or wherever we were to say, if you have any questions about what I wrote, I'm here. I wrote them and I'm going to stand here in front of you. Part of it was a challenge.

And part of it was because he believed that he had a duty if he was going to use his pen to be able to show up to somebody's face. And like, let's face it. I mean, there's a lot of like, you know, I always say like the keyboard monkeys who live in their mom's basement and they just make a lot of nasty accusations. You say something mean about Amy Trask. It's like, you've got to be kidding me. So whatever.

You can say mean things about me. Well, I live in my own basement, not my parents' basement. Are you in a wine room?

Like, where are you? Yeah, that kind of looks nice. There's wine glasses. There's a bottle of wine. People think it's a kitchen or people think it's like from the Olive Garden. When we bought this house 11 years ago, it came with a wine cellar. We're never going to have enough wine to fill because I drink it as fast as I buy it.

So this is where I do my stuff that isn't in the NBC studio that they put above my garage because it's right next to a router. Oh, that is so fantastic. It makes me happy.

Rich is a huge wine guy. I was going to say onofile, but then I was like, you're going to sound obnoxious. So I throw up both. I'm going to go both ways. You don't sound obnoxious. You sound erudite. We'll see.

We'll see what the trolls say. What's your favorite bottle of wine? Oh, I like Caymus. It's just expensive enough and just good enough to hit that sweet spot. I can't justify buying anything more than that. I can't remember who ruined me on cheaper wine, but somebody gave me a bottle of Caymus once. That's the problem. When somebody gives you a bottle of expensive wine, they're giving you a lifelong bill because then you're going to go buy that same bottle of wine over and over and over again.

And that's what happened. Whatever it was eight, nine years ago, somebody gave me a bottle of Caymus and that's it. I'm done. Well, here's an offer I shall make to you, Florio. And it's a standing offer I've made to Susie and Rich.

I served on the board of directors of Farniente for a number of years and I now have Farniente for the rest of my life in our home. So she said that, but it's been two years of doing this podcast and I've yet to see a bottle. Well, are we supposed to drink while we're doing the podcast? We do all the time.

All right. Well, I was going to invite both of you over to our deck to share some Farniente when Florio's in town. But you know what? When we kick off the season, Susie, I'm bringing a bottle in. Wait till Charles Woodson sees that. Then he's going to throw down.

It's going to be ugly. She's actually good if I get her a champagne and then she spills the tea a lot more freely. Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday wardrobe, discover stylish options under a hundred dollars from tons of your favorite brands like Mango, Skims, Princess Polly and Madewell. It's easy too with free shipping and free returns, in-store order pickup and more.

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Ask your doctor about Evglis and visit evglis.lily.com or call 1-800-Lily-Rx or 1-800-545-5979. Okay. Before we start wrapping up, because I always have so many more questions, what is the, oh, really quick. Don't sleep on a Rosso di Montalcino. I mean like you have to understand, like you can get a multiple ciano bottle of wine for 20 bucks and it's amazing. So you don't have to get Camus.

Get a Rosso di Montalcino, Rosso di Montalcino, or anything from multiple ciano is not expensive and it's awesome. So there you go. Don't say I never did anything for you. What is the storyline that we're not talking about that you think we should keep our eye on? Damn, that's another great question. It seems like every storyline is front and center right now, especially as the owners are gathering in Minneapolis. And I don't know when this is going to post relative to when these decisions are going to be made. But, but, but you know, I probably said too much on PFT live today and I tend to do that. I feel like so many of the decisions that are currently being made, well, and let me back up a step. One of the first things I learned about journalism, because I'm completely self-taught, there needs to be a firewall between the news gathering and reporting function and the business operation.

And there should never be influenced back and forth, especially business toward the journalism efforts. I feel like with the NFL, there needs to be a firewall between football integrity and the best interest of the game and the effort to turn the game into the most possible profit. And I feel like they've taken a sledgehammer to that wall with some of these rule changes they're considering the whole idea of reseating for the playoffs and ignoring the division champions, just going one through seven based on conference finish in order to make the late season games more compelling, which I'm not sure that that logically flows, but it's driven by the desire to make those late season games more valuable, not more interesting, but more valuable. The Olympic stuff, I don't know that it's good for the players.

I don't know that it's good for the teams to have NFL athletes on loan to a form of football they've never played before and you introduce injury risk. And when do you properly prepare? And when do you come together as a team?

How does that mesh with your team workouts? And I just feel like a lot of where the decisions are going, it's more about getting to the longstanding revenue goal of 25 billion per year and not what's in the best interest of the game. And again, when I say things like that, I fully expect somebody to complain to NBC, but I haven't complained yet today. And so maybe they're not going to, they're busy. They're busy making rules that are in the best interest of the business and not in the best interest of the game.

Yeah, there should be a wall. And I totally agree with you. And you were really clear about that on PFT live.

And that's part of the reason why we don't have to go into everything that happened in Minneapolis because you actually did cover it there on PTF live. And we talked about this with Albert Breer on the Rich Eisen show earlier today, flag football and tackle football are two very different animals. And there are people that devote their lives right now to playing flag. I love what the NFL is doing, wanting to make flag a part of varsity sports for women, for men equally as important.

My daughter, Taylor's 11, she's the quarterback on her league team. And I love that initiative. I understand it's a lot less expensive to bring flag other places in the world, especially in other countries that don't have the resources. No one's going to have the money for a tackle dummy, but you can just hand somebody a flag and a football, but it is a very different sport. And if I'm an owner, I am not going to want to have my prized possession quarterback go and play in an Olympics. Even if I am patriotic, even if you have visions of the dream team in your eyes, it's, it's two different skill sets, Mike. And when do you learn those skillsets?

When do you practice them? How do you come together as a team, especially since this, this delicate balance, the league is striking involves no more than one player per NFL team being eligible for the Olympics anyway, how do you make all that fit with the NFL calendar and how do you get these guys ready for the players? It's a no win proposition. If you show up and win gold, well, come on, what did we expect? And if you don't, because you're not ready to properly play play football in the countries with the non NFL players who have perfected their camaraderie and understanding the game and skill sets run circles around you. I mean, it's going to be an interesting experiment if it happens this way, but, but I think the preparation by the NFL players will be minimal.

So will their talent make the difference between lesser talent, them and lesser talented teams that understand how the game is played and know how to play it. I keep saying the best solution is make it a platform for freshly retired NFL players. That's what I said this morning. That's exactly what I said on the Rich Isenship. It's a great career achievement award.

You go off to the sunset with a gold medal. I think it's, it makes perfect sense. That's, that's exactly my posit was that, and that's your word, that's my posit, is that it would make perfect sense to reward these guys for a great career and now go represent us internationally.

Absolutely. And you know, we were talking about, well, who would be the players from the NFL who would be on the team? It's like, it's three years from now. We don't even know who the stars are going to be in three years, but I know this Tyree kill is going to probably be retired. Mike Evans has said he wants to play.

He'll probably be retired. There will be guys who are looking for, you know, think of all the great players that can't leave the game on their own terms as it relates to winning a Super Bowl and walking away. You can count those guys on a hand, but every year you're going to have 12 to 18 guys who can cap their football careers by representing the country, winning a gold medal and spending the time necessary to learn the sport, perfect their skills, become a team and then go take care of business. So I think it makes a ton of sense, but I don't think the league cares about that. The league is so obsessed with international marketing that they just think if we can put NFL, active NFL players on that stage, it's good for what we're trying to do, which is grow the sport and make as much money as possible. But can you imagine Matt Stafford out there with his beautiful family representing America, representing the United States and the NFL, he'd be like the perfect guy to get out there to be an ambassador overseas. Anyway, you're right.

But in 2028, he'll be retired and then they'll have him do it. Well, I have a total non sequitur for you as relates to flag football. I want to come watch Taylor play. Anytime you want, but you know it's basketball season so I mean. All right, well let me know when I can come watch her play.

I promise, I will. She is the quarterback. Last question, because I am mandated under national law to ask any grown man about the tush push. I feel like it's so ridiculous like the tush push. More men have spent more time talking about touches than I can ever think about, and it is quite ridiculous, but.

How do you think the vote will go? And obviously we taped this on a Tuesday. It could be dated as soon as I say it, but you know you can't. You can't end with that.

Asking about the tush push. Yeah, and you know, I resisted calling it that for as long as I could, but once it got to the point where I was like the last person in the world who wasn't calling it that, I just had to give in so. This is to me a strange and in many ways troubling aspect of how the NFL goes about making its rules. I firmly believe that what happened in that NFC Championship game when Frankie Louvou repeatedly jumped offside and Sean Hockley, the referee, had to inevitably say if it happens again, we're going to award a touchdown as a palpably unfair act, something that's never been invoked. The rule that's never been used in the history of the National Football League. Somebody decided that this thing has to go, that we can't have this. And when Mike Pereira, the former NFL VP of officiating, now the Fox rules analyst, said that in the days after the NFC Championship, that because of that ugly moment, it's going to be back on the radar screen to be removed.

I think that was the moment somebody said this has to go. And then it's become an exercise in identifying a justification other than we just don't like it. It's, well, it's an injury risk.

Well, where's your dad? Well, we don't have any data. Well, then how's it an injury risk? Well, it could be an injury risk. Just work with us on this. It could be an injury risk.

Why do you have to ask us those questions? And then, well, it just doesn't look like football. Well, who's in charge of saying what does or doesn't look like football? If it complies with the rules, it's football.

So I feel like somebody wants this thing to go. And now to make it go away without what appears to be what it is, a direct assault on the Eagles' signature play, they're going to rewind the clock to 2005 when all pushing and pulling of the runner was against the rules. But you know why they got rid of the rule against the pushing of the runner? Because they never threw a flag for downfield pushing of the runner. The last time a flag was thrown for assisting a runner was in the 1991 playoffs between the Chiefs and the Bills.

The foul was called on Tim Grunhardt in January of 1992. That's it. So they're going to get rid of all pushing and they're not going to throw the flag when the pushing happens down the field, but they will throw the flag if there's pushing as part of the, the tush push. And at the end, the Eagles still have an unstoppable quarterback sneak and that's not going to change.

That's what's hilarious about it. If I'm the Eagles, I'm coming out week one and I'm running up and I'm running the quarterback sneak every snap of that Thursday night game, first drive against the Cowboys. I'm going to run it right down the field, five yards at a clip and just kind of, you know, shove it up everyone's you know what, who doesn't like the tush push. Mike, well said, well said, well put. Great way to wrap up the tush push conversation. Thanks again for your time.

Really appreciate it. I resisted calling it that too, Mike. What's that? I said I resisted calling that too, calling it that.

I'm still not quite comfortable calling it that. That's the only thing I like about it being gone. There you go.

Everything else about it I hate. There you go. Thanks again for your time, Mike.

Great talking to you. Susie, you saw me smiling ear to ear as Mike was talking about pushing the runner and that often flags were not thrown, even though pushing the runner was illegal. We're in Kansas City decades and decades ago, and we're headed towards the end zone and our running back has a few yards left to go.

Our entire team pushed him into the end zone and we all held our breath looking around. Is there going to be a flag? Is there going to be a flag?

No flag. We beat the Chiefs. Game over. I started walking out singing, Oh, what a beautiful morning. And I was told, calm down, calm down.

And by the way, it's okay that I'm mentioning this and Floria was still on with us. We would both agree the statute of limitations has run. That's hysterical.

That's hysterical. And that you were saying, Oh, what a beautiful morning, by the way, and got in trouble for that time. Calm down.

That sounded like a very like aggressive song. Well, I've done that a few times in Kansas City where, you know, we beat them. One time we knocked them out of the playoffs and I did. I was skipping out singing, Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day. And, you know, I was gently told, not a great look.

And I kept singing. Before we go, Amy, I met a really frequent listener of What the Football at the Beverly Hills farmer's market this past Sunday, which was really nice to talk to him. And he was looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the Madden cast in the new movie John Madden that's coming out, the new movie called Madden. So what are your thoughts on Nicholas Cage and Christian Bale? Christian Bale, of course, being your guy, Al Davis.

Well, first of all, having met this gentleman who's an avid subscriber to What the Football, I hope you bought him ice cream or a snack or something. But as to your question, I think that you know this, Constance Schwartz and Michael Strahan are executive producers of this movie. And so their attention to detail is going to be phenomenal. It'll be magnificent. I think Christian Bale, look, he's a terrific, terrific actor. He will try to study every single trait of Al's. Nicholas Cage, great actor.

And my confidence rests with Khan and Michael Strahan. I think as executive producers, they're going to just, as I said, pay attention to detail, which is what the best people do. Now, there's no Amy Trask, because as we mentioned, you're a very young woman and, you know, or as I really date, I'm not that old. But yes, who would you be? Who would you cast as your writer? 20, 30 years ago, a writer in the Bay Area wrote a piece for a newspaper in which they cast all the people involved in a business issue. They cast municipal leaders, they cast NFL people, they cast raiders. And as Amy Trask, Kathy Bates, as seen in Misery.

Now come on. I am dead serious. That's not nice. It wasn't just Kathy Bates, who's just a phenomenal actress and a lovely woman outside and inside. It was Kathy Bates as seen in Misery. That is so nasty.

Even with the ax and everything or whatever she was whacking that guy's ankles with. So, you know what, if they want to cast me, I think it should be Amy Trask as herself. No. Okay. What about Amy Adams as Amy Trask?

I see that. That would be quite flattering. That'd be cute. That'd be cute. Just don't let it be Kathy Bates in Misery. That is so mean.

There's always somebody out there willing to be mean. Thank you guys so much for taking in this edition of What the Football. And we will be back with you all for more wrap ups and more conversations and more podcasts of What the Football.

Not sure exactly right now what the cadence will be, but don't forget our first episode of the season will always be the great gym dance because it is a tradition unlike any other. Former MLB All-Star Sean Casey, aka The Mayor, keeps hitting it out of the park. Take my 30 years of experience. Take the wisdom and knowledge I've learned from the failures when I got sent down my rookie year, all the injuries I had to overcome. Your mind is the most important tool you have in life. Be relentless.

Keep charging. It matters how you talk to yourself, how you look at the world. That matters. We talk about that.

I don't know. I'm fired up. Baseball is back and it's going to be incredible. I love it. The Mayor's Office with Sean Casey from Believe. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.