Listen, the way you sleep is unique to you, and that's why having a sleep number smart bed is so crucial. Cause you can adapt to your changing needs for just right. Can't wait to nestle into bed, luxurious comfort.
So whether your needs are softer or firmer, cooler or warmer, you are never stuck. You can adjust your comfort whenever you like. And it gives you your best night's sleep night after night, year after year. I love my smart bed. My sleep number setting is 60.
My wife's is 70. Just 10 numbers apart, but it means the world of difference because I can change my side of the bed to however firm or soft I want. And the same thing. For Suze.
So, why choose a sleep number smart bed? Again, so you can sleep just the way you like. The only bed that lets you make each side firmer or softer whenever you like your sleep number setting. Sleep number's biggest sale of the year is here. All beds on sale up to 50% off the limited edition smart bed limited time, exclusively at a sleep number store near you.
Sleep number, official sleep and wellness partner of the NFL. See store or sleepnumber.com for details. The Rich Eisen Show watching Travis Hunter go back and forth live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles between different positions in different jerseys and prices. I've never seen anything. Hunter, he wanted the ball in the The Rich Eisen Show.
I want to play both sides. With guest host, Tom Pellisero. Earlier on the show. Browns Radio play-by-play voice, Andrew Ceciliano. Coming up.
NFL on Fox analyst Greg Olson. Plus, latest news and more. And now, sitting in for Rich. It's Tom Pellisero. Welcome back to the Rich Eidman Show.
Tom Pellisero sitting in for Rich once again, our host, I believe, still in Paris. We did not get blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute updates from breakfast today. I assume you go back to the crepe, right? Once you've had the crepe. Every day you're like, well, I got to add one at the end here.
Or a croissant. He did post some art. He was in an art gallery earlier today. We got art. This post is merely to show I am cultured, AF.
And we throw Susie under the bus saying she wanted to go someplace else. TJ, you know how there's like a thing like, how old is too old to wear Jordans? Remember when we got into that with Sebastian Van Escalco? How old is too old to use AF? There is none.
How old's rich? It's no different than fifty-six. Yeah, you could use it. C's fine. He's fine.
He's young at heart. That's really fine. That's really what. All right. What matters?
I'm on this guy. He's fine. I'm happy to be in the chair. I'm not going to say anything that's going to get me kicked out of the chair. Watch out, Tom.
Andrew Ceciliano. Yeah, I'm not saying anything's lit. I can guarantee you that much. You're out. Andrew was just here, Ceciliano, who was at the Shadur Sanders extravaganza in Charlotte here.
There is other quarterback news to get into quite a bit, actually. There's a lot happening. Veterans around the league mentioned it in the last day. Matthew Stafford. Not on the practice field again.
Jeez. Uh-oh.
So. To rewind here, three days ago he goes through a throwing session, like 65 balls, everything goes well, no restrictions. Sunday, Sean McFay says, hey, what great. They'll be out there tomorrow doing some individual. Yep.
Get the Monday, no Stafford. It's now Tuesday, no Stafford.
Well, the big thing Monday was the picture of the van. No, the Airstrip. What is it? A rejuvenation. Airstream of Silver Chicken.
This guy's literally literally. How do I get one of those? Is it possible this entire Stafford thing is just an ad and he's an investor? In this metal tube. That would be incredible.
Hey, you know, I was, boy, they were going to have to amputate the whole spine. And then I got a mortal. That's some 4D Jerry Jones level chest right there. Look at that.
So amortal is similar to immortal, I assume. It's like you are anti-mortal. Which makes you immortal, but it's amortal. Right? Is that the alien?
According to their website, the taglines here are unlock your potential. transform your being. the amortal chamber is the fastest way to reset, recharge, And rejuvenate the body muscles. It's a good read, Rockman. Anything in there about fixing an aggravated disc?
Hold on a second. I think you gotta scroll. I think rejuvenation. I'll drink like, you know, a rejuvenation smoothie, and it's usually just like, it's got some chia seeds in it. I don't need to get into a metal box.
And rejuvenate myself. But if I have a bad back, which I did, I had something very similar to what Stafford apparently is going through here. And it was just a series of epidurals and additional MRIs and medical opinions until finally someone told me, you're actually fine. Just go live your life, but learn to stretch better. And then I started doing Pilates and I was.
cured. That took like eight months. The season starts in three weeks. Hence, Amortal. We're ramping it up.
For Matthew Stafford. Jordan Love also sounds like not going to play the rest of the preseason. Yeah, what's going on with John? He missed at least a week. Suffered what.
GM Brian Goodakoons described today as a ligament issue in his left thumb.
So It's not his throwing thumb. That's the good news. If you're the coaching staff, I'm sure there's a level of frustration here. I mean, better than the right thumb. Barely had happened when he got clipped with a helmet on a scramble in the preseason opener here.
You remember last year, it was a mess of injuries for Jordan Love. And it was nothing long-term, but he hurt the knee in the opener in Brazil against the Eagles. Missed two or three weeks with that injury, then was kind of obliged. Then another injury later on. This isn't what you want, missed reps for Jordan Love.
But also. You know, this is probably the best case scenario, the worst case scenario. If you're going to get hurt right now, because if this happens in the regular season, is Jordan Love playing this week? Maybe not. If you're holding him out for a week, and I assume that the thumb's got to go through a process and stabilize here.
Better to have it in August than happen in the regular season. But this is also why you still have some coaches who are just simply opposed to playing your guys in the preseason, especially your quarterbacks. Raheem Morris. Once again, saying today. Nope, no Michael Panics this week.
Raheem didn't play Michael Pennix last year in the preseason finale as a rookie who wasn't even starting. That's how little. Raheem, you know, for right or wrong, I'm not criticizing it. I'm just saying that's how little he believes in preseason reps. Normally, a rookie quarterback.
Who, if things go differently than they did, is not going to see the field for the rest of the season. You're like, this is your time. Go up and take 40, 50 snaps. Like, let's see what you got here.
Now Raheem also said, we'll see if Kirk Cousins plays this week. Doesn't sound like that is likely. But even the fact that you might roll Kirk out there. and run the risk of him getting hurt. And then being on the hook for 27.5 million until somebody, Rams, might call you and say, we'll take that money off your hands because we got an issue here.
That seems like more of a risk. Then you're really wanting to to take on at this point. Back in April, I was out here. It was pre-draft. And We decided, you know, see, it's mid-April, right?
It was like April 10th. And we're two weeks out from the draft. It's kind of, we're in the cycle. We're past for agency, we're past a lot of the trades. And we got a couple weeks to the draft.
And so we decided, fun exercise. You guys love top 10 lists. Every post-production meeting. Brock Magoz, can you do a top 10 list? What do we got?
Top 5 top 1 list. I did top 10 stories, storylines. to be sorted out For the rest of the NFL offseason. I think we framed it as sorted out potentially by the draft.
So this is where we landed. With the top 10 questions, we're going to review. We're going to check my work. on exactly where we were. Let's go.
Number one question. Was who will be Steelers QB1? That point? did not have A commitment from Aaron Rodgers, and it was real. There was not a commitment there.
Herco came around on it late May, early June. Finally showed up for the minicamp here. Stay by your phone, man. I may need you. That one obviously got resolved.
No, don't stay by the phone with Aaron. Remember, he's got bad cell reception. You got to FaceTime him. That's the only way to get him. Number two, where does Shadura Sanders land?
Ah. I did not listen back specifically to that answer because I guarantee it wasn't fifth round to Cleveland.
Now, I did leave open. There was a real possibility, as much as everybody to that point, and I think it was pretty clear by April 10th, Cam Ward was going to be the number one pick, but there was still enough discussion of, all right. QB2, that's set. Rich said that to me, I remember Draft Week. All right, QB2, who's QB3?
And I said, I think the issue is who's QB2? Because you can find it every different way for those next four guys. And we'll get to more on that in a second here. Shadur, the question at that point was. Does he go to the Giants at three or somewhere later if they trade back in?
Does he go to the Steelers? Those are the only two teams that I believe I mentioned in that segment because if he doesn't go to those two, I don't know where he's going. There is not a planet. There was not one second in my brain where I thought we're going to be sitting there on day three of the draft, and this guy's still going to be on the board. Crazy.
I then didn't think after day three of the draft, we'd be sitting here going, should you be QB1 in Cleveland? This is how far along we've come. A lot of twists and turns. Over the last four months in change. Number three question at that time back on April 10th.
Does Kirk Cousins get traded? Uh no. That's still a no. There was already, remember, he's got a no-trade clause, so he controls it. Dude, 27.5 million.
The Falcons have been unwilling, were throughout the process. There hadn't really even been a lot of movement recently here. They were unwilling to take on much of that, if any, of that contract.
So it was a tough deal to move. And then as some of the other Puzzle pieces came together, you were left with a place where there's no spot for Kirk. The last spot was resolved with question number one when Aaron Rodgers commits to Pittsburgh. Because the Steelers had gone down the road with Russell Wilson, excuse me, with... Justin Fields, who ultimately chose the Jets.
They were interested in Matthew Stafford, which can you imagine if somebody traded for Matthew Stafford and then readjusted his contract and then he's not ready to play? It's a whole other can of worms than what we're talking about right here because now you got draft capital out the window, too. In the end, it didn't go that way. Steelers, they toyed with Russell Wilson. They really never came after him.
He ultimately. Took the spot with the Giants because the Sealers couldn't tell him. We want you back. We're waiting on Aaron. Maybe we get to you.
Right now, we're waiting on Aaron.
So Kirk, still a Falcon. Number four. Does Trey Hendrickson get traded? April 12th. August 12th, rather.
We are now. That's when a time warped in my own brain. August 12th. It still seems unlikely that Trey Henderson is going to be traded. I can tell you, they have gotten calls recently from, they have gotten calls.
recently from other teams that could use a pass rusher. Who couldn't use? Like a team led the league in sacks. Like a team like 30 minutes south of Boston, maybe? They've gotten calls from multiple teams about Trey Hendrickson.
And as much as they're in general agreement on the big numbers, the years, the total money, like that part's easy. They're not on the same page on the guarantees. That's what's been holding it up. Hendrickson has made clear publicly and privately: I want a multiple-year guarantee. I don't want to be back in the same spot in a year.
The Bengals. Whose history is we only guarantee the signing bonus. We don't guarantee anything else, we guarantee the initial bonus. Nothing further, but they broke that with Joe Burrow. They broke it with Jamar Chase.
They bent it slightly with T. Higgins, although T. Higgins ended up doing a sub-market deal that in a year, he's probably gonna be the one coming back going. Yo, if he was healthy and he plays like this and he's making catches like I saw the one in practice yesterday or two days ago, and people were saying, This looks like Randy Boss. Like, D.
Higgins is legit. He just always seems to be, he's got a hamstring. It's going to be three weeks. That's been frustrating for him, too. But if he comes back and has the type of year he can have.
He's going to be the next one who's coming back to the Bengals and going, Well, I can't be making $28 million a year now. What are we doing here? Trey Anderson's still on the bagels. What do you put that percentage-wise?
Something gets done before week one. It's the Bengals, man. That's the thing. They have adjusted their business principles. But in this case, they're sticking to a 30-31-year-old pass rusher.
And we don't want to be stuck holding the bag three years from now or in 2027 if he's not the same guy. To which the response of Trey Hendrickson is. You just challenged me two years in a row, and I have 30-plus sacks over the last two seasons. I led the lead. What more do you want to see?
What evidence have I given you? That I'm not going to be available. TJ Watt, who's the same age, they're separated by like a month in birthday. TJ Watt has been hurt, he's played through a lot, but he's missed time. Last year, he was banged up down the stretch.
He didn't register, I believe, a stat in the Steelers' last three games. That's a guy who you're like, all right, hold on. TJ Watts, franchise player, one of the faces of the organization, future Hall of Famer. But are we wise to commit? What did he get?
$120, $100, $100 plus million dollars guarantee. Is this really a good idea to do this right now with TJ Watts? You don't have that. Trey Anderson, you certainly can argue he's not as freaky of an athlete as TJ Watt is, but production-wise and durability, He's been one of the best.
So does it get done by week one? This is the same organization that basically forced Carson Palmer to retire and then traded him to the Raiders in the middle of the season. And then he went to Arizona and had a career renaissance. and went on a deep playoff run there. A lot of different things can still happen.
You'd say the smart money? Can't give gambling advice. Wouldn't ask for it. But the smart money. Parochially speaking here.
would be on something getting done.
Okay. Number five on my list of top 10 questions entering draft weekend from April 10th. Will we see any other big trades?
Well, the big one ended up being involving a draft pick. At that point, There was not a whiff of the Browns actually moving out of the number two slot. They ultimately felt like they got such great value getting a future first-round pick, getting additional draft capital. That it made sense for him to go down, still get a solid player to help their defensive front, Mason Graham, and then let the Jaguars have a guy who their GM, Andrew Berry, two days before the draft, compared to Choe Otani. I mean that that's how highly thought of he is.
We'll see how it works. I know Brockman thinks that Travis Hunter is going to be a big flop in Jacksonville and they're going to regret it's going to be one of the worst trades in NFL history. Not what I said. It's that's what I heard. That's what I heard.
We did have the Jalen Ramsey trade, although that ended up being... Months later, that was 4th of July week. Yeah, Darren Waller got traded the next day. Those were pretty big trades. But Ramsey was already on the trade block at this point.
I think we technically, it wasn't. public until maybe a week after that? I should remember, we were the ones who broke that story, but It was around that time. It was apparent that he was going to be potentially triggered, but it didn't happen. There wasn't- there weren't those big veteran trades.
During the draft, right before the draft, like we've had in recent years, you did have some trickling down, and we still got someone hanging out there. Number six: this was an interesting one. Which wide receiver gets taken first? In the 2025 NFL drop. We were not counting Travis Hunter.
He's in the unicorn category. Uh At that point. Teteroa Macmillan was the one that had been talked about a lot through the process. But then he didn't run. Matthew Golden did run and ran really fast.
And you had at least some variance in terms of what style of receiver do you want. It ended up being T-Mac. at number eight overall. And I remember getting a call, and I can say from whom. But the night before the draft, I'm at a pre-draft party with like the families of the players and things like that.
T-Max on the dance floor, just absolutely cutting a rug. Like, best dancer by far out there, just a cool kid all around. Talked to him last week at Panthers camp. I remember getting a call and walking back in and going, I think T-Max is going to go number eight to the Panthers. Like it was pretty apparent.
They were exploring all kinds of trades down. and they just weren't finding the type of value they thought. There were other teams that were going to come and take T-Mac, probably right behind him, including the Cowboys who were at 12. There might have even been a team that would have leapfrogged the Cowboys to go and get T-Mac. Panthers ultimately said.
We're going to stand in and take this guy at number eight. And when you talk to people there, I was there. What a week ago, time has stood still for me. It was sometime last week. And just talking to everybody there, they're all like...
Dude, like this guy every day. Interesting. The one-handed catches, the splash plays. He's also a really smart dude. You see that when you talk to him, they've already cross-trained him.
So what they're going to try to do is because he's such a rare guy. He's not, I've heard like the Mike Evans comparisons. He's not really Mike Evans because Mike Evans, besides the fact that he's a future Hall of Famer and has had 13 or what, 11 consecutive thousand-yard seasons. Not Mike that. But he's also like a big physical, like he will push, especially when Marshawn Lattimore is across from him.
Of course, get in a fist fight and maybe get ejected. But he's also like a big physical dude. T-Mac, one of the things they had to teach him in the early going, he realized right away, hey, you're going against JC Horn and Mike Jackson in practice. Like those guys are going to have their hands all over you. Took him about a week into camp and then it was like, all right, I got to learn to do that stuff.
He's more of a shifty type of a guy. You saw it in the preseason game a big play down the field from Bryce Young. That's what you're going to see from T-Mag. They actually have to digress on a Panthers tangent here. But you look at what they've got right now in their receiver group.
You have. Tetoreau Macmillan. T-Mac. I can't say his name the way that he says it, so I'm just going to go with T-Mac. You have Xavier Liguette, who was top pick last year.
Who got ejected from a preseason game? He was here. I think he was the 32nd overall pick, but he's a, I mean, he is a big physical dude. You got Adam Thielen, who's still there, and is now going into like year 14 or something in the NFL, which is unbelievable. For a guy who Got into the NFL by, he was out of Minnesota State Man Cato.
No one even thought that he was a prospect. Shows up to the Vikings trial camp. Rick Spielman used to call the Call of the Wild, where they invite everybody from every local college. There'd literally be like 150 guys in uniform. It was crazy.
But they'd find like one or two guys every year. And I get a DM from some local kid saying, hey, Tom, like I follow you on Twitter and just letting you know, like, I'm signing with the Vikings. I'm like, oh, good for you, dude. That's really cool. Thinking, all right, I'll tweet this, never see him again.
Adam Thielen is that guy. 14 years later. Wow. And millions and millions of dollars. It's turned out okay, but he's there.
Hunter Renfro's there. They have Coker who played well for him last year. They've got a lot of interesting parts around Bryce Young, not to mention they want to be a run-first team. They invested a ton of money in the guards last year. I think they're going to be an interesting offense to watch because you do have more weaponry than you had in the past.
T-Mac ended up going there. Number seven, I'll speed this up a little bit. From April 10th, top 10 questions entering draft weekend: how many quarterbacks go in round one? Mike Hoskins played that clip back for me earlier today. And again, the caveat I gave: the over-under.
was two and a half. At that time. And while I could not give gambling advice, we wouldn't ask for it. That was my caveat on the whole thing was. Cam Ward is going one.
Beyond that, we don't know. But I thought it would be either two or three in some combination of whether it was Shadur, Dart. Milro and Shuck. Would end up going in the first. It ended up being the under.
It ended up being Dart, who the Giants trade up for. That was the round pick 20 somewhere around there. I can't remember the exact numbers. Number pick 20. There you go.
Number 20. Shuck ended up going 40. That was QB3. Then you had a long wait till you got to Dylan Gabriel, who snuck in there, and Jalen Milro, among other quarterbacks, before Shadur in the fifth. Number eight quarterback, who will, or number eight question rather, who will be the Vikings' other quarterback?
was the way it was framed.
So that actually did. That is one trade that did get done during the course of the draft, which was them bringing in Sam Howell as number two. There were still at that time people pushing the idea that Aaron Rodgers was waiting for J.J. McCarthy to fall on his face in OTAs, which was just not the case. Aaron Rodgers, Kevin O'Connell, have known each other a long time.
And they had conversations about it, absolutely. It's a four-time NFL MVP, have that conversation, but they had committed to J.J. McCarthy.
So, who's the backup?
Something happens to JJ again. Sam Howell.
Now that guy... in Minnesota Weird, weird tangent on that. I was at the league meeting there. in May, I think it was, the the spring league meeting. And I'm walking through the hotel and all of a sudden I'm like.
Sam? It's just Sam Howell. And I was like, that's right. And like, I had interviewed him so many times at the senior bowl. I hadn't seen him since, but I'm like, in my head, I'm like, Sam, that's right.
He's here now. He's living out of the hotel. It's a weird life, man. If you're not a starting quarterback in the NFL, things can get weird really quick. You're all rooting for the Sam Darnold story.
Which Darnold went from the Jets to the Panthers to the 49ers to the Vikings now to the Seahawks. And it took him. A solid, how many years is that? Six years, seven years to get his real opportunity in Minnesota. He was what, 2018, drone?
And if JJ McCarthy doesn't tear up his knee in the preseason opener last year, you have him breathing down Sam Darnold's neck last year. It's just, it's wild how that happens. We saw it with Baker Mayfield, who went. Cleveland to Carolina to the Rams to the Bucs. I think that's it.
Right? Yeah, that's it. That's what it took for Baker Mayfield to get it. Maybe that's what's out there for Sam Howell. Everybody loves Sam Howell, the dude, and he's super tough, and he can run.
It's just. A little bit undersized.
So that's. You could see Sam Howell starting again, although the Vikings don't hope so, because that means something happened to J.J. McCarthy.
Number nine. Where did big name free agents land? The only one of the names I mentioned, we played it back this morning, was Keenan Allen. I said, does he end back with the Chargers? It took four months.
We're back. And number 10: Will Green Bay win the draft? The answer was yes, because I was talking about the city of Green Bay. They actually won the draft. My one regret in that segment, we played it back this morning.
I said. I'm not talking about if you draft a wide receiver in round one. We all know that's not happening. You got me. Brian Goodakoon, Sam.
Matthew Golden Green Bay. Looks awesome so far. We got Greg Olson coming up right after this. He's got the Sam Darnold debut for the Seahawks against the 49ers in week one. We got a ton of stuff to get into.
One of the best analysts in television. Greg Olson with us next. Tom Pillicero, Infra Rich. Listen, the way you sleep is unique to you, and that's why having a sleep number smart bed is so crucial. Cause you can adapt to your changing needs for just right.
Can't wait to nestle into bed, luxurious comfort.
So, whether your needs are softer or firmer, cooler or warmer, you are never stuck. You can adjust your comfort whenever you like. And it gives you your best night's sleep night after night, year after year. I love my smart bed. My sleep number setting is 60.
My wife's is 70. Just 10 numbers apart, but it means the world of difference because I can change my side of the bed to however firm or soft I want. And the same thing. For Suze.
So, why choose a sleep number smart bed? Again, so you can sleep just the way you like. The only bed that lets you make each side firmer or softer whenever you like, your sleep number setting. Sleep number's biggest sale of the year is here. All beds on sale up to 50% off the limited edition smart bed limited time exclusively at a sleep number store near you.
Sleep Number, Official Sleep and Wellness Partner of the NFL. See store or sleepnumber.com for details. Bombus makes the most comfortable socks, underwear, and t-shirts. Warning, Bombas are so absurdly comfortable, you may throw out all your other clothes.
Sorry, do we legally have to say that? No, this is just how I talk, and I really love my Bombas. They do feel that good, and they do good too. One item purchased equals one item donated. To feel good and do good, go to bombus.com and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase.
That's bombb-as.com and use code audio at checkout. I thought to myself, okay, in the few minutes that are here, let me. Let me write an Ed Hockley retirement letter and read it out on the air. We then post it on the Rich Eisen Show feed exclusive. The number of people that retweeted it and said they thought it was real.
Is Alarming is the only way to put it.
So... God bless him. You know how much we love SVP. Is Scott on the line now? Is Scott there?
Yeah. You thought it was real.
Well, I mean, as you said, you are a guy that has a reputation. He works at the NFL Network. He got storages. And when it was brought up to me in our meeting, hey, you see the letter Hockey Lee wrote. And I thought, well, that's funny.
And then later, as I'm trying to write this script, I'm not finding it anywhere on Google searches or whatever, but I'm like, we don't see that. And then the producer that had it's like, oh, it's on Isaac's feed.
So I read your feed, and I'm like, there it is. I see the quotes that work. And I just slam it in there on the script and read it on television. Fake news. Fake news.
Hashtag. Yes. Hashtag. Fake news. I'm mortified.
Apologies to Mr. Hocky. I'm sorry. We did not know. That was not our intent.
We didn't know it was going to happen like that. That's entirely on us for not vetting. And alarm belt. It goes off to me that I'm not able to find this anywhere but there. But again, and this is where I'll turn it and point at you and blame you.
You enrich them. When you're a source of information and you got stuff no one else got, you think, yeah, sure, I got the Hockey Lee Retirement butter. And it's, I guess, believable that he's got his own stationery with himself on it, with a watermark of him as a rat. As believable as it is that he's going to go sort out the lactic acid with a stretching regimen. Vigorous Regiment!
Vigorous Regiment! Vigorous, I beg your pardon. You're the best, man. You're the best. I'm sorry.
You're the worst. Don't spoof me like that. We did have one other piece of veteran quarterback news a short time ago. Coming out of the New York Jets. Do you think we need one more?
Jets coach Aaron Glenn announcing Tyrod Taylor. Having a knee procedure. Hope he's back. Week one. But they'll see.
No more preseason for Tyrod Taylor. Again, Tyrod Taylor, who has. Had more ill-timed injuries maybe than any quarterback I can remember. Yeah, man. Keeps coming back.
Great guy. He's a pretty efficient quarterback when he plays. I mean, he was. The quarterback on the Buffalo team that went to the playoffs in 2017. I mean, he's got some things that he's accomplished in this league.
Here's my question for you. Brockman, I'm going to test you on this. Don't look. Don't cheat. Eyes up.
Okay. Name another quarterback besides Justin Fields and Tyrod Taylor on the Jets roster. Whoa. All right, so TJ loves Mike White, but we saw him play for Buffalo over the weekend. Can I get a hint?
One was an undrafted free agent. Who played at, I think, Kansas State. A couple years ago. And the other one was drafted, played at an SEC school. Ooh.
This year was drafted this year. Drafted this year. Drafted this year from an SEC school. TJ, jump in if you got it. One of the, like, one of the good.
Is it a good SEC schools or? And I bring this up because if Tyrod's not ready to go in week one and you don't acquire somebody else, this is the guy who will be in the lineup. For the New York Jets. If they name either of these quarterbacks. Yeah.
Absolutely not. I will give you. I have no clue. I will give you initials.
Okay, great. Here we are. The initials of the quarterbacks. Undrafted free agents. We're talking about their Jets.
The Jets, right? The Jets. Or the Jets. Initials are AM. played at Kansas State, is on the Jets' roster.
Austin Matthews.
Okay, that's no. That's a hockey part. That's not it. All right, hold on. A, M.
This is... Nope. This guy is... This is like you not being able to name the vice president. This guy's one step away from having the nuclear codes.
Something happens to Justin Fields right now. This guy could be played. A.M. This is the Kansas State guy? Played at Nebraska and Kansas State.
Look at him. Adrian Martinez. Adrian Martinez is the answer. If you had said Nebraska, I would have got it. Currently listed as the number three quarter.
All right, now this guy was drafted. This guy was drafted this year from an SEC school. All right, which one? Ha ha! Initials are B C.
There's so many now. One step away. Jofts and Fields gets stepped on again. This guy is playing in week one against the Steelers. If Tyrod's not ready to go, BC.
Blake Corum. Wrong school, conference, position, and name. Did they play in the bracket last year? They did not play in the bracket. I have interviewed his head coach on this show.
Oh my God. His head coach's first name is Eli. Yes, I do remember that. No. No idea.
Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. No, no, not gonna get it. I thought he did. His last name's Cook. There you go!
I'm going to give Brady Cook. Brady Cook. Never heard of Missouri quarterbacks. Brady Cook. He was a legit player, drafted.
Missouri. No one thinks about Missouri as an Spanish. MJ. He was undrafted. I thought he went in the seventh.
He was undrafted. I'm sure that's pretty well. Brockman down. That was the drafted quarterback. This could be an entire game.
We could do a full three hours on just trying to name the third string quarterbacks on roster. That would be after me if a minute. Unless it's like a Detroit, where you kind of know because they're going through it, where Hendon Hooker's out there. Right. And now year three, coming back.
He had the knee at Tennessee. A fun player to watch. I could do Cleveland. Cleveland's easy. Cleveland.
There's six on the roster right now. I'm constantly talking about this. I think everybody can go six deep on that roster. Exactly. Hang on.
And by the way, Greg Olson is going to join us shortly here. I don't know if Greg Olson could go. Three deep on every one of these rosters. He's calling the Seahawks game in week one. I mean, I don't even know who the Pat's death chart.
Hold on. Seahawks depth chart right now.
Something happens to Sam Dardold. Oh my gosh. Actually, this is an easy one. You should know these. One guy's back there.
Oh, God. And one guy was drafted this year. I've mentioned him on this show. Mad Flynn. No.
I saw him in play the other day. I saw the Tavaris Jackson. That was 2012. This guy was drafted this year. I talked about him on this show today.
TJ Hugo. Oh, it's Drew Locke and Jalen Milro. Because I watched them. Jalen Millow honestly should just be the starter. All right.
49ers. 49ers depth chart. Can you name another quarterback? Besides Brock Purdy, On the depth chart of the 49ers. Absolutely.
They currently have three more. Jimmy Garoppolo. Ha ha.
Well, one you should be able to get. I know you have to get, I know that. One, Brockman, if you can't get this, I think we have to ask you to leave the show. For the rest of the day. I'm just going to say this: Faux Lye.
No, I know. Mac Jones. Faux. Mac Jones is on the roster. They also drafted a quarterback.
The 49ers drafted a quarterback. Who is that quarterback? But school. Yeah, give him a hint. He was in the college football playoffs this year.
Top four teams? That's in uh initials KR. You have five seconds because Greg Olson's here. Oh, Curtis Rourke. Curtis Rourke!
TJ Jefferson just dominated TJ. What I have to say was one of the great four-minute drills we've ever run on this show. As we awaited the arrival of our guy, uh, Greg Olson, right here, Greg, thank you very much. I'm not going to test you on uh third, fourth-string quarterbacks, but we figured just in case a lot of things go wrong in your week one game, the 49ers and the Seahawks, we wanted to know. Who is going to be able to step in?
How you doing, buddy? How's everything going? Yeah, I'm glad you're not testing me on that. I'm getting ready for the Bills Bears preseason game this Sunday that I have up in Chicago. And.
You know, as anyone who's ever participated in a preseason game, it's really going to test your knowledge of NFL lobster depth.
So you just pray that as many starters at least give you a series or two as they can because. With these roster sizes not being cut down like in years, like it used to be in the old days, it's uh. It's certainly a challenge. You're going to see a lot of Tyson Bayant in that game, so that's going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully, his dad's around, get to see one of the great arm wrestlers of all time, and the guy who handed me the worst loss I've ever had at anything in my life when I arm wrestled him at the Senior Bowl a couple of years ago here.
So, you got a lot going on, including the launch of Youth Inc. today. It's a content and commerce platform. And you got some cool stuff coming in terms of your guests. Tell me about this.
Yeah, so it's cool.
So it's kind of a two-pronged approach that we're trying to tackle here in the youth sports space. The content piece was something we've been kind of exploring for a couple of years now. And as a dad of young kids who coaches a lot of their teams, both my sons and my daughter, I grew up playing for my dad. He was my high school football coach.
So, like, this has been my world my whole life. And I found myself saying, I don't know what we're doing. Like youth sports, I don't recognize youth sports anymore for middle school and high school and younger kids. Like, it doesn't feel like it used to. And we're going to go and find out why.
And we've had some really cool conversations today. Our episode with Tom Brady launches. We got Malcolm Gladwell and CJ Stroud and Ryan Day, and world best-selling authors to mental sports psychologists like Michael Gervais, athletes, coaches. And then on the other side of that, through the education and the entertainment, through the content piece. We've also said, listen, there's a huge disconnect in the experience for families as far as supporting their children's teams through fanware and team gear.
If anyone's ever tried to buy a sweatshirt through their kids' school or travel baseball team or whatnot, it is not the same experience as you would get, you know, going to buy a Panthers, you know, jersey or a t-shirt or something more, you know. more college or pro oriented.
So we're trying to take that model and bring it down to the youth sports.
So you can go on there, find your team, find your high school and buy premium, high quality stuff, all customized with your kids' high school team or middle school team's logo.
So we're looking to kind of take on that youth sports commerce platform that doesn't really exist at any significant scaled level. And we think the ability to provide this content as a consumer-facing brand awareness kind of acquisition type piece, the two aspects of the company go very well together. And overall, just trying to improve the experience of everybody that. That's participating in the youth sports atmosphere. I've had a lot of thoughts about this subject, Greg, in recent years, because I got two daughters.
They're 11 and 8. The eight-year-old is kind of just coming into it and getting really excited about the sports. And frankly, the 11-year-old kind of Kind of lost some level of interest because you had this very early splintering of your friends who are good at soccer. Are gonna go play club, and it is gonna be year-round basically one long season, and they're practicing four times a week, and they're going and driving to games. Or you stay in the house league, which is just kind of it's the same.
Team. It's like the same club that puts it on, but it's just kind of this smattering. There's no officials. It's parent coaches. Like there's no in between.
I remember growing up in the 80s and 90s. I think I'm a little older than you, but it was like you played in your house league, but you played basketball and then you played baseball and then you played football and you had this rotation and everyone you knew did that. And it was like fifth or sixth grade before there was even like weekend travel stuff. How much has that in your mind and through your conversations altered the dynamic surrounding new sports? Oh, it's everything.
What you just said is happening in every American city. At every age level, and it's just getting younger and younger and younger with each passing year. What used to not happen for the specialization that used to happen late in high school for some people that's now happening in elementary and middle school. And it's really, of course, it's the adults, right? We're not creating environments, we're not creating spaces that tolerate, but more important, encourage kids to say, this is the time to go out there and explore what you like.
You don't have to make your decision on what sport you are as a 10-year-old girl. I don't know what you're gonna be good at. I don't know what my 12-year-old son is gonna be good at when he's 17. How big is he gonna be? How strong?
What's his level of interest? Does he rather hang out with his girlfriend? Does he wanna go with his butt? We don't know any of these things yet. We're trying to rush these decisions.
It's a huge area of the conversations that we're having. And, you know, I had it with Malcolm Gladwell, who's obviously written some of the most pioneering literature on just exploring, you know, from his outliers to, you know, to leadership things like talking to strangers. I mean, just some of the books that he's written in that space are just so relevant to the conversation. And to be able to sit down with him and really get these answers, you know, talking to Tom Brady about his early childhood specialization or lack thereof.
So, yeah, what you're saying right now. Is the inspiration and a big part of why we're going on? Because I don't have a lot of the answers. I know what I'm experiencing with my three children versus what I want it to be, versus what it is, are not always aligned. But um We're gonna have a major reckoning here in America.
We're gonna have a major reckoning at high schools because they're gonna have a hard time filling all of these different teams' rosters every season. Because if every kid in the school just plays one sport, you're inevitably, unless you're a 3,500 kid school and you just have a million kids at the school and you can support it. You're gonna find high schools now just dropping sports because you just don't have enough kids to share if everyone's only playing one sport.
So I challenge coaches, I challenge administrators and parents to say, regardless of what everyone else is doing, we're not gonna tolerate that. I'm the baseball coach. I want you to go play football. I'm the football coach. You should walk into the gym after the state championship and go play on the high school basketball team in front of your school.
That's the way it should be. It's healthy, it's good for them mentally, it's good for them physically. And the pressure and expectation that the adults are putting on kids that if you don't just play for me, you're gonna get left behind, I think it's very dangerous. And again, it's not in the best interest of the kids. My favorite part of Outliers is in like the first 10 pages where it's the hockey roster and everyone was born in January.
And I'm like, I knew it. If I were born two months earlier, I would be a world-class athlete instead. I'm sitting here behind this desk. All right, a couple of hard-hitting football questions for you here, Greg. I know you know Travis Kelsey well through, you know, tight end university and everything.
Can we show the photo of Kelsey on the GQ cover? I really want your breakdown of this right now, Greg. Tell me about what you're seeing here from Travis. Listen, if there was a guy. in the world.
Forget in the NFL. If there was a guy in the world. Who should be on the cover of GQ with whatever that animal. Whatever that animal is around his neck, I don't know if it's real or not. I don't know how much they're into animal rights.
I don't personally care. But. I'd be curious. He is made for that. Like, he has, when you're around Travis, forget how good he is on the field, and I've gotten to know him personally really well.
He, I mean, he is not seeing this one. I did not see that one, but he's just so comfortable. He's so authentic. Like, he just is that guy. He is your, he's everyone's best friend in every room he's in.
He makes everybody feel like you've known him for 20 years. He's comfortable wherever he is in his own skin. Like, I can just see him down in South Florida in the Everglades or wherever they're doing this, just completely embracing everything about this photo shoot. And if that's me in that outfit holding a crocodile or an alligator. Assuming like I'm stiff, I'm awkward, I'm uncomfortable.
Like, that's just Travis, and he is just as good of a player as he is. He's that good of a dude. He's fun to be around. He's great to your kids. He's great to your family.
Like, he's just that guy. And I've really enjoyed getting to know him over the last couple of years at a personal level and just being around him and spending time. And, uh, He's arguably one of the most popular, famous people in the world right now, and it couldn't have happened to a better guy. You look at some of the quotes in the article on a serious note here. He talked about the last two years weren't up to his standard, which everybody reached a certain point, Greg, in their career where it's just like you might not be that.
That same guy anymore. And as much as you say, that's below my standard, that might be the new standard. When you look at Travis, or for that matter, some of these other really veteran tight ends in the league, guys like George Kittle, who are at kind of a different stage in his career, you're around all these guys, you see them. Like, what do you envision for them here in 2025? Yeah, so I think Travis is kind of a victim of his own success.
I think he ended his streak of a thousand yards at seven. It was unheard of for guys to go that the level of consistency in production year in and year out, especially at a position like Ted End, where there is such attrition and injury rates and just the falling off the other side of the cliff in your mid-30s is pretty much the standard. He was defying all of that for the position.
So then all of a sudden, you don't get a thousand yards a couple seasons in a row and people lose their minds. But I think when you look at what he's done, In the postseason, what he's done, obviously, in the regular season throughout his career. I mean, he's approaching the conversation. I think he's already there is when he retires being the best guy to ever play the position. And I don't think I ever would have expected that.
When I was coming up, it was Tony Gonzalez, and then Gronk kind of got onto the doorstep. And the longevity of Travis with the production. I never thought anybody would ever catch a Tony Gonzalez because you're talking 17, 18 years at that level. It was just, it was unheard of. That's Travis.
And then you factor in postseason success, Super Bowls, all the records that he has in the playoffs. His career really stands on its own. But, you know, the guys like Kittle and Kelsey, and those guys are just different. You know, they're just uniquely talented, their work ethic, their expectation that they hold of themselves. You just can't coach that.
You can't teach that, right? There's a lot of guys in the league you can coach to run routes. But you just, you can't find guys that just hold themselves to that level of expectation and accountability year in and year out, and can play like that.
So, those guys are special. I think we've got a young crop of tight ends that are coming up behind them and have a chance like Brock Bowers and Laporta.
Some of these young guys that have come into the league the last couple years, this could be a golden age of the NFL tight end position as far as just across the board, every team pretty much has a legitimate guy. And that was not the case when I came into the league early in my career. And as a reminder, a lot of those guys you just mentioned played multiple sports when they were kids, and it worked out just fine for them in the long run. Youth.inc is where you can find out more about Youth Inc. podcast and a brand that is being launched today by Greg Olson.
Greg, thanks a lot for the time, man. Great seeing you. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me. It's a fascinating thing with the tight ends and with a guy like Travis Kelsey because.
You watch it and for him to say it himself. You just watch Travis Kelsey on the eye test. And it looked different in the past couple of years, but Time is undefeated. Mm-hmm. Yeah, everybody hits that certain point here.
Does he have one last special season? And that might be the maximum that he has. For right now, he's holding alligators shirtless in a field of... Lily pads. I don't.
I mean, I assume there's more from this photo show. We could do the final hour of the show on that. Sure, we could do that. Backup quarterbacks and alligators. Here we go.
They'll actually do a lot more other stuff than that. Uh What are your feelings now that Alex Smith has been unofficially traded away to use phraseology here? It's awkward. It's awkward. I honestly don't know how to really accept it.
I mean, through my entire career, you can't say Travis Kelsey without Alex Smith. I mean, he's been my quarterback. He's been the guy that's.
Okay. Arguably the a lot of my success to him, you know, so it's um It's going to be awkward going into a huddle, like I said, with anybody but Alex, but I know Pat is ready for the opportunity. Sure. He's taken a lot of mental reps and a lot of notes from Alex and how this thing should be ran. Alex ran it to an absolute T this past season.
And, you know, obviously everyone's excited to see what he can do. Paul, how did you learn about it yesterday? They try it. Twitter. Twitter.
Yeah, my girlfriend called me and told me what's going on with Alex. And sure enough, I went on Twitter and everything told me that he was being traded to Washington.
Now, you know, we don't usually get into the personal life here on the show, but is this the young lady from Catching Kelsey? No, this is not. It's the young lady.
So it was a catchy day to put that show in like the archive. Really? It was a fun show, but it really wasn't that fun afterwards. And yeah.
So it was catching Kelsey and release. Yes, catch it. Fumble Kelsey. Yes. Not a catch.
It was not a cast. It was one of those. The ground isn't a cast. Jesse James is it. The relationship did not survive the ground.
It didn't. It didn't. But now we have a catch. We have a catch. We might have a touchdown.
Uh Ah, so there's a celebration dance then of some sort. There will be if. For the review, it's under review. The catch is under review.
So we'll see where it goes. All right. The red challenge flag's still in the pot for Travis Kelsey on the Red Challenge Show. And look, Mahomes, we had Chris Harris of the Broncos on game day morning in the playoffs. And he said when he was looking at film of Mahomes, and he played a couple of series against him, he says this kid's got some serious ability.
The Broncos said that. Yeah. Have you seen anything of that note, Bett? Without a doubt. I mean, what he does in practice is it's fun to watch him in practice because kind of he's on the scout team, kind of just being a backyard quarterback, throwing it all every way imaginable you can think of: sidearm, underhand, putting the ball anywhere on the field.
So it was definitely fun watching him in that regard. And like I said, it's going to be exciting to see where you can go with it because it's the. The expectation is definitely high. Travis Kelsey, that's seven and a half years ago, right there with Travis Kelsey on the Rich Eisen Show during Super Bowl week. I think the day after Alex Smith.
They had agreed to trade him away to Washington at the time. Ferris Kelsey. At that point, cool. Yeah. Pretty big celebrity.
Had that Catching Kelsey show. That was like an E, was that a. It was like before that was what his story was like, he was just kind of coming into his own as a football player, but obviously had aspirations and things like that. We've gone from that Travis Kelsey, again, cool guy, good-looking guy at that point, to this from GQ. That is a that's a transformation Let's bring the snake one up real quick, too, because the snake.
This is the one that really gets me. I should recreate these photos. That might be the hair I'm going for, too. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen show.
So, Travis Kelsey, we had Greg Olson on talking about Kelsey. And I've heard some of the same stuff that this is a motivated Travis Kelsey, that in terms of the type of shape he's in, where at times it looks like he was almost heavy. He's kind of pacing himself. He's looked good through the course of this offseason here. But it's funny, I think a day before the GQ shoot drops, Andy Reid was talking about distractions and saying this.
Well, you know, you you understand because there were so many close games. Uh, but that's the National Football League, so I was proud of the guys and how they handled those. Um, and when it's all said and you're done, it's winning the game. And we have winners, and they figured it out. And so I was proud of them for that.
We don't listen to all the noise. I mean, you know, if you do that, you're gonna go crazy. Then you're not gonna have fun, right? But you don't use the noise? I don't care about that.
That's why I love you. Let's go in the game. And the thing about noise is. This isn't bad noise. The Chiefs have had plenty of bad noise surrounding them.
various run-ins legally and injuries and things. Travis Kelsey playing dress up. Not all bad.
Now, there's inevitably going to be people who look at just everything here. Going all the way back over the last couple of years and just say, was anything related to conditioning or the play? The fact that he's in the highest profile relationship, maybe in the world right now. But it also might just be. He's getting older.
Nobody's sustaining that level of play. At that stage in life. And if he does come out and have that type of year, he'll be defying a lot.
Now this is also a Chiefs team. that found ways last year. And I've said many times, and I will continue to say, Patrick Mahomes may be. The greatest player we've ever seen. I believe he's the greatest player I've ever seen in my lifetime.
And I know that, Brockman, you're going to chime in with the guy who won seven Super Bowls, which is a completely fair argument. That guy. But the things that we see Patrick Mahomes do, the way that he lifts everybody consistently. The freaky stuff that he could do. Tom is the most ruthlessly efficient player I think we've ever seen.
Certainly that I've ever seen. just in terms of the way that he could dissect things. Just the level of just everyday commitment to, I'm going to beat you with my brain, and I'm going to be the smartest person who's ever played the game, and I know exactly how we're going to do this, and all the little nuances and things that they were able to do that came from effectively being in one offense for 20 plus years. Peter Mahomes Has one of the greatest offensive minds of all time in Andy Reid, who certainly has helped him along. Tom Brady had Bill Belichick there for a long time, too, who taught him everything there was to know about defenses.
But with Mahomes, You just you watch this. Remember. Tom went through a stretch of a decade. Where he did not win a Super Bowl. And they had some good teams.
But there was a long window there from the 04 to 14 seasons, I believe it was. Or he did not win a Super Bowl. We've already seen Bahomes, of course, put several trophies in the case.
Now, the question becomes: here, as you're getting to that new stage. With the Kelseys. As Chris Jones is getting older, still playing at a high level, but getting older, they've done a good job being proactive. Moving on from guys like Tyreek Hill. And winning a couple of Super Bowls after they traded away one of the most dynamic weapons in the NFL.
But their offenses look drastically different without Tyreek Hill.
Well, you're thinking. And this part worked. They needed, they got the draft capital and they got the cap space to completely remodel their defense and to degree their offensive line. What you're also betting on is, hey, we're going to draft. And sign all these receivers, and they, as a collective, We'll be able to elevate them.
That's hard to do when they're all hurt. When every one of them, Rashi suffered a major injury last year. You had Xavier Worthy, who they drafted in the first round last year, a little bit banged up. Hollywood was out. Hollywood was out for almost the entire season.
You know, you've had Juju Smith-Schuster coming and going. You're just trying to find some consistency. One of the things they were most excited about going into this offseason, for what I was told, was: hey, we've at least got kind of the same guys back.
Well, once again.
Some of them have not been on the field. Then you throw on top of it the possibility, if not probability, of a Rashi Rice suspension. You have some of the same concerns. Which is where you're hoping. If you get the best Travis Kelsey, maybe this time don't save it for January.
We could use you in September. I am Michael Rosenbaum. I am Tom Welling. Welcome to Talk Bill. Where it's fun to talk about small books.
We're going to be talking to sometimes guest stars. Are you liking the direction Plois is going in? Yeah, because I'm getting more screen time. That's good. But mostly, it's just me and Tom remembering.
I think we all feel like there was a scene missing here. You got me, Tom. Let's revisit it. Let's look at it. See what we remember.
See what we remember. I had never been around anything like that before. I mean, it was so fun. Talk, Bill. Talk Bill.
I just had a flashback. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Let's get into it.
