From Thirty for Thirty Podcasts. Brian Patter, senior defensive lineman from Miami. Gun down. The key to this case, it's Brian. An hour before he died, he was on the phone arguing with Tabaki.
This might be a hit. You want the truth. They just want a conviction. Being placed under arrest. We had to kill our monsters.
Murderer. This is The Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody! Can't get enough of The Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck!
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Now, on with the show.
Now comes the fun. Wherever Max Crosby goes, this is the Rich Eisen show. When he takes on the Ravens, it's gonna be lit. Jackson, here comes the The Rich Eisen Show. Today's guests.
NFL Network Insider Tom Pellisero. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi. Royals first baseman Vinny Pasquentino. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Espresso's for everybody.
Yeah. There's somebody like Mike Del Tufo for Italy to help out America. An Italian-American like you, sir. What a day. Oh, it's amazing.
Oh, come on. Pasquatch. Drinks are on. The Pasquentino. That's right.
If any Pasquentino going Reggie Jackson on behalf of Team Italy to help out Team USA, oh, baby. That is uh Uh Reason for me to text him in the middle of the night saying, Are you in this or not? And he is on hour number three of this program. All right. The hero of the World Baseball Classic.
All right. I mean. All right. Thanks for watching. That's our three.
We got ourselves Tom Pellisero first up, and we've got. bracketology. It's a science. It's not feel, it's not a gut. All of us.
We're throwing darts at a board. Not Joe Lenardi. Not Joe Lennardy. I don't know anything. This man has taken wins and losses and.
RPIs and Ken Poms putting it all together and telling you who's on a bubble and who's not. That's our two.
Okay. Is Ken Palm a person? I have no idea. Where the hell is Ken Palm? I don't know.
I think it is. I think it is. I think it is. Okay. So, at any rate, good to see you over there, Chris Brock.
What up, man? What's going on? Great to see you. Mike Del Tufo, Italy. I mean, Oh, now you're Italian.
By the way, very eloquent. I mean, Italy, Italy. By the way, you sound like everybody I knew I'd show up with. Everything all right over there, TJ, everything good? Candles lit in your neighborhood?
We're good? Oh, yeah. I thought I put new batteries in yesterday. And as soon as the show started, it went so that's rich. I thought yours are going to have the same Vinny hits three bombs.
All three guests today, Italian. Oh, Celicero, Lenardi, and Pasquatino. Look at us. Hey. Yeah.
Espresso is for everybody. That's it. Let's order espresso. We need them. We eat espresso.
I don't know what's happening. I want to order. I want to order. What's happening? Let's get some gaba gul over here.
Okay. We start this show with news you may not know. What's that? Max Cromsby's still a writer. Oh, man.
I don't have your ways, baby. You know, in the same way that last year's draft. was a story that started And then took over most of the entirety of the NFL draft. with Shador Sanders. Max Crosby started it.
And is still going. This was last Friday. I mean, for two weeks, we've been talking about, you know, his crop or a month, right?
Okay. Super Bowl Week. We could even go way back to, you know, Ian Rappaport, the last two weeks of the year. And Pellicero were talking about. This story Right at the outset of of um Wild card weekend.
Hey, something's up with the knee, and he's not happy about being deactivated. Yada, yada, yada. Anyway, we all know what's going on.
Well, the man. who made this trade for him. The man And who gave two first rounders to Vegas. Six days ago for Max Crosby. And the man Who started getting some MRIs and x-rays or whatever the hell it is?
I know, I'm not a doctor. Putting it all together, and we got to call independent doctors, we got to figure this thing out. With all that information And according to Diana Rossini, with Max Crosby and his family in the building. That's why. This guy.
This man, this man. Decides to take away the two firsts from the Raiders and say, Oh, my finger's been on the chess piece since last Friday, by the way. We don't have. Anything Binding here. Nothing's official till Wednesday, 4 p.m.
Eastern. This guy on Tuesday, this man wrecked the whole buffet. For Max Crosby and the Raiders, but not the Ravens. Because apparently with Max in the building, he started getting Trey Hendrickson on the phone. This man, Eric DeCosto, who is the grocery shopper.
Of the Baltimore Ravens. Uh to his credit. Face the Meteor Music On Wednesday. Right away. And boy do the media have questions for Eric DeCosta.
And here are the greatest hits. Starting with what happened with the Max Crosby trade and why did it need to not go through? I would say as part of the normal Sort of trade process. I mean, it's there's a lot of different parts involved with the trade process. We've done a lot of different trades, and one of the key things is to, you know, you bring the player in, you try to get as much information as you can.
We did that, and we were not able to. Complete the process of acquiring the player based on our assessment of the situation. Um very, very, I think, disappointing to me. Nobody more disappointed than me. A player I greatly admire.
I think one of the One of my favorite players in the entire NFL. I know our fans were upset, devastated. I understand that. Tough, tough situation. But I think for the Ravens the right situation.
All right. They won't do anything, okay. Didn't want to do it anymore.
Now, of course, the conversation is like: okay, so did you realize that you had one guy that had. Questions about the knee that you knew about going into trading him, that you began to start feeling it wasn't worth it, or you found something. That Your doctors refuse to greenlight this thing, and at the end of the day, Trey Hendrickson was sitting there and you. You just decided he was a better choice. Safer choice, better choice.
And despite the fact that this was 1000% Not the way business normally gets done in the NFL. You you blew it up. And you went with Trey Hendrickson. And you did it as soon as you possibly could, even with Max Crosby in the building. Again, according to Diana Rossini of the Athletic, as she told us right here on this show yesterday.
And then comes the narrative. Or fact. That they attempted to get Crosby and Trey Hendrickson. Yeah. Convenient spin.
Broke that one up. Right? Would that be? Would Hendrickson have been the stills, the Nash? Nice.
Definitely not the young.
Okay. So Try to pair it. Try to get the band together. Hit it. Yeah, so we had started discussions with with both players.
Um we'd already agreed to potentially the trade with the with the Raiders, but We had uh you know, the We were trying to sign Tyler, obviously. We weren't able to get that done. Looking at the best ways for us to improve our football team at some point, we just said, you know what, this might be a guy that really fits us. And we've played against him twice a year for the last whatever many years, four or five years. And Thought, hey, maybe this is a way for us to get better as a football team.
So that was definitely a possibility for us. Not to say that it would have happened, but definitely something that we had contemplated and discussed with Trey. That stretches credulity to be straight up with you. I mean, that's a lot of money. It's expensive.
I guess you could move anything around. And this is a team that did need pass rush. I mean. 30 sacks last year only, the Jets had fewer in the AFC. I keep saying that stat over and over again, which is why they went for Crosby.
And which is why when I guess they decided Crosby's no longer an option. That You go ahead and Make this move? For Trey Hendrickson? Because you need pass rush. You got to get somebody in the building who can do it.
Certainly now that you got your first round draft choice back, you can supplement it by getting another pass rusher with your new free agent in the same way. Apparently, Crosby and Hendrickson almost got teamed up together. Which would have been something. But that is one way to make it seem like, oh, we were talking to him all along, or they were talking to him all along. Doesn't matter anymore.
The only thing that kind of matters anymore is what the Ravens may have lost. What did they lose? Crosby? And potentially respect or trust around the rest of the league. And that was brought up.
to Eric DaCosta. On Wednesday as well. It's like, hey. All these reports, Tom Pellisero is joining us in 10 minutes' time. He was the one who said that general managers were texting him nonstop, quoted one basically saying this was BS, and used the full word.
In a tweet, party mouth Pellisero is joining us in 10 minutes. Oh, oh, oh.
So, what about the future for the Ravens now that they made this pivot that we've rarely seen before? Because general managers around the league know You don't make these moves to begin with without Full-on talking. about it before you pulled the trigger. And Mm. They had apparently heard what everyone else heard.
I mean, he spoke to Neil Alatros? And his hair? And his hair? Just up the road here. The doctor who did the knee.
They had all that information and pivoted. Will this cost Eric DaCosta's ability to do business on behalf of the Ravens with everyone else? I mean, I understand it. You know, I understand it. We live in that age of skepticism, and people question, especially people that don't really know me or know the Ravens culture and the Ravens organization.
So I understand it. Nobody is more upset about this than me. gutted by it actually. And so, um a regret, a big regret for me. But we will move on as a football team, and I think there are many, many opportunities for us to grow as a team, to become a better team, to build a roster.
and to be the team that we want to be. I don't know if that's going to work for the rest of the league. I'll just say this: memories go. Fast in this league. Fast.
And like I said. Um yesterday. Ravens sitting there fourteenth overall. On the draft. Night.
Where Another team's not going to call Eric DaCosta and make a trade with him because they don't trust him to what? Um Hand in the paperwork in the next eight minutes? Call the management council and say this thing's cleared? Call the draft and say this thing's cleared? What do they feel like he's going to wait till there's 30 seconds left and pull the rug out from under you in the same way that Like, rescind the trade.
Picks and players a little different. There's a difference between the way you do business. For three hundred and fifty what? Days of the year. And then there's the Days leading up to a new league year.
Maybe next year for the new league year, people will be wary. Of making a trade with Eric DaCosta and the Ravens. Certainly, if it's involving a player that has even one. Nick. Yeah.
One one. One hair fracture, one slight Hanging toenail. Yeah. You know? What are you going to get?
Five independent podiatrists on me at the last second? Leave me in the lurch after I spent $300 million and Contracts? Thinking our deal's done, that may happen. We'll see.
Next year, the rest of it? Whatever.
Somebody needs something from the Ravens.
Somebody needs something, or a Raven, or some client. Needs to get a job, and the Ravens are like, We have one.
Some agents are gonna be like, I don't know, you did that to Spytech and the Raiders. I don't know if I'm gonna send my guy there. It's possible. It's What it must have been like to tell Max Crosby we're off We're out. Not happening.
Head to the FBO, sir. You're going back to Nevada. Planes waiting. This is what Da Costa said that went like. It's tough, it's challenging, it was devastating for me to have that conversation, I'm sure challenging for them to hear as well.
It's also very, very, very, very hard for the player to have that to hear that as well. And it's probably hardest for him more than anybody else. I bet. But Crosby's gotten over it. He went right into the facility yesterday and started rehabbing because he's max five.
Freaking Crosby. And then he had this post today. What do you think, TJ? You want to interpret the photograph for me with the. What's the Undertaker coming out of a flaming coffin?
Okay. So, that is. And based upon his tweet, he's kind of making it seem like I can't say what I want to say, but he's going to mess things up. Yes. I think is the best way to describe it.
Everything happens for a reason, he posts. Believe nothing. you hear and half of what you see. I'm a Raider, I'm back, run that S. And then his usual condor.
I guess that's the closest bird emoji to a condor you can get. That's not the actual eagle. Right? Yeah, we were told after the last time we got apart that's his date, yeah, right.
So he's staying a Raider for the moment, and apparently, and Tom's going to join us shortly. Uh Um raiders are Telling people he's staying here. That's one way to basically get they have to listen: the Raiders have to reset. And if Crosby still does want out. Right?
If he still does want out. Because he still doesn't believe in what's going on there, or he still has an issue with the way. Last year went down, and this whole episode. Doesn't either cauterize that wound Or now Absolutely, because of how traumatic this was compared to however traumatic he felt. The decision last year's Benching at the end of the season to I guess improve the Raiders' possibility of getting Fernando Mendoza.
However traumatic that felt to him, this may supersede it. I don't know. But for the Draft capital coming back in a trade for Crosby to get anywhere near two firsts. to get anywhere near two firsts. They got to make it seem like he's staying played.
He's staying put. We're happy to have him back. were cap compliant with him.
So we can keep him. We can keep him. We don't need to do this anymore. You need Max Crosby. And if you need Max Crosby, you need to match what the Ravens gave us.
even if you're not drafting this year as high as 14th overall. That may be. If they get a first in this year's draft, be what costs the Raiders. is a draft position. Lower than what the Ravens currently have.
But this is all assuming That Crosby still would like an exit visa and the Raiders are cool. with letting him out. Because at some point Everyone's going to be like This kind of feels good. Or the Raiders are back. Better than the Cowboys and their playoff team next year.
Like I said. Oh, you're going back to yesterday's? Yeah. Okay. Or the Raiders are back and they're better than the Patriots who are probably going to have a falloff.
Hey, they got Kevin Bayard yesterday. Great, sure. You mean the team that just went to the Super Bowl? Yeah, because fired up. Who led back to back?
Who led all safeties and interceptions? Yeah, right. That team? Yeah. Because going back-to-back.
No, the Cowboys. Aside, um it does feel like w what We're up in the air as to what two things are up in the air. Um Max Crosby's. Status. Or trade value, if there is such a desire to have a trade anymore on either side of the Crosby-Raiders relationship.
And What's it going to be like dealing with the Ravens? Or what will the league? Rest of the league, the other 31 teams. How will they handle business with the Ravens next New League Year? Because everything else outside of it, a draft night trade, you got to.
You got to process that. Immediately. Any other trade that's done within the league year, you process that. You can't keep your finger on the piece like you can before it's all official. And If you make a deal with the Ravens.
The player involved that you're sending the Ravens better have like what? Clean bill of health. Uh look both ways before crossing the street. What else? A great positive outlook on life, right?
Because if not, the Ravens might go up. We got all these independent people here. If that's what you think they did. with Max Crosby. We take a break.
Tom Pellicero is joining us. He's got a hoodie on, which means he's not working for NFL Network today. Hey, sure. No breaking news. You see him like this.
This man's breaking news on TV. For a Rich Eisen show, what does he care? Put on the PJs and start talking. What I'm gonna do. Mm.
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I give you the floor. on your reporting on what happened. from Monday to Tuesday night. in the offices of the Baltimore Ravens with Max Crosby getting there and then arriving there.
Well, let's start with the fact that no NFL trades can become official until the new league year begins. I've had GMs comment to me over the past several days that this is exactly why it should be allowed. And you should be able to execute trades anytime you want. If you acquire a player, let's just say on February 15th, why in the world would you have to wait until March 11th to make the trade official? Having said that, Most trades, if you execute it, the medical is going to be done immediately within the next day or so.
This one, for one reason or another, waited about four days before Crosby flew to Baltimore on Tuesday. He was in the building. He was meeting with coaches. This was supposed to be a coronation. And instead, the results of his physical comeback.
And it's not Totally accurate to say it's a failed physical because there's a lot of shades of gray when it comes to these things. And what one team is going to pass a player on may not match what any other team does. We see it in the draft every year. There'll be, oh, this guy's got medical flags. He's going to slide in the draft.
31 teams might think that. The 32nd team goes, oh, the linebacker doesn't have an ACL. He's been playing without it for three years. All right, I guess he can still play. We'll take him in the second round.
I mean, those are real things that happen all the time. But what the Ravens really saw was a knee that is eight weeks post-op from a meniscus repair surgery. Anyone, and I've talked to numerous teams as well as doctors about this, is not going to expect to see. a normal knee Eight weeks after a meniscus repair, a surgery that has a four to six month timeline, and one that's occurring on a 29-year-old player who already has seven, eight years of NFL wear and tear on the knee as it is. But what the Ravens came to the conclusion of was not that Mash Crosby can't play now, not that he's not going to be on the field, but that.
Over time, they didn't feel comfortable with the investment. In other words, that years down the line, was there going to be additional trouble with the knee? Was it going to become problematic? That's why, and Eric DaCosta alluded to this without giving details, they ultimately decided that they weren't comfortable with what they were giving up in the trade. Where other people, and I am talking about many current and former GMs.
unanimously said to me is This is buyers' remorse. It is dirty pool. It's BS by the Ravens. And that's because, again, you are accepting the risk. This was not an unknown injury for Max Crosby.
He was on the injury report the whole season. He didn't practice much. He got shut down against his will with two weeks to go. Had surgery, took photos before and after the surgery. And his agent, C.J.
LeBoy, and Doug Hendrickson, from other teams I talked to involved, said they were very upfront. They said, Listen, the doctors are saying he's not going to be cleared until June. He's not going to do anything in the spring, but come training camp, come the season. He's going to be ready to roll. Again, I know that the Ravens consulted outside doctors, other teams' doctors, as part of their evaluation process.
The real question here, and it's sort of unanswerable, is: you are correct, Rich, that they are within their rights to rescind the trade. They had what's called a pre-trade agreement that allows them to examine Max Crosby, put him through a fiscal, and at any point, you know, that document doesn't include trade compensation or anything else. It's just, hey, for this trade to go through, we need to have this agreement. They're within their rights to pull back. But the question becomes, Should they have known?
Should they have... Bin Essentially, accepting of the risk that they were taking. Other GMs unanimously that I talked to said this is just part of the process. You know what you're getting into with a surgery like this. You know what you're getting in the player.
You just don't see trades like that stomped out, especially after you'd outbid a bunch of other teams. And we can dive into the mechanics of meniscus repairs, Rich. I'm not a doctor, but in very simple terms, when you have a meniscus. meniscus trim that's just cutting out the injured piece of meniscus think of it like a hangnail it's bugging you you get some clippers and you clip it off meniscus repair would be like the really deep hangnail where it's starting to bleed and you know the skin's going to fall off and you wrap it up with a band-aid and you try to keep it tight meniscus i talked to one doctor who's very heavy into the injury data who said meniscus repairs have a 50 failure rate after one year 80 failure rate after four years based upon their data and again that doesn't mean the knee falls apart it's not like a failed acl reconstruction but basically it means you're going to have less healthy cartilage in your knee your body cannot generate new healthy cartilage that's all part of when you again you hear that in the draft which is like well this guy's fine now but where's he going to be in five years with max crosby most teams wouldn't look at that with a veteran player and say well we're talking about the long term or even the medium term it's he's play he can play now there's no doubt he's going to play in the 2026 season the ravens decided that was not going to be for them and now everybody else including max crosby has left hold in the bag. Tom Pellisero, the Doogie Hauser of NFL Media, joining us here on the Rich Eisen Show.
All right. So, when did Trey Hendrickson enter the chat? Tom, because that That was the coup de grace, right? Like for everyone to be sitting here wondering, what are the Ravens thinking? How do they put this back in the bottle in Vegas?
How are the Ravens just going to be able to face any music from the rest of the league? And are they going to potentially, you know. Um not Not go full bore here. The answer is like, yeah, they turned the page. They got Trey Hendrickson.
See you later. Wouldn't want to be a like you know what I mean or unless they were trying to make that Crosby-Henrickson thing happen. And um and so they were already down the road with Trey. Tom, where do you enter the chat? Trey Hendrickson hit the market.
He was looking for $30 plus million dollars per year. It became apparent about 24 hours in that that was just not going to be the number. And then, so, all right, maybe it's between 25 and 30. There were a bunch of teams that were engaged on Trey Hendrickson. You know, I did have a number of people who, after the Max Crosby trade fell apart on Tuesday night, texted me and said this to the same people who were not thrilled with what the Ravens had done were saying things like, if they now turn around sign Trey Hendrickson this week, it's going to look even worse for them.
Well, they did it like 10 a.m. the next day. It was instantaneous. And what the Ravens would say, they've not, again, spoken to some of the mechanics on this. What they'd say is, well, what do you want us to do?
We needed to improve our team. We needed a pass rusher. Why wouldn't we go and get Trey Hendrickson? It certainly doesn't do anything to dampen the suspicions of people within the league that they went from trading two first-round picks for Max Crosby to trading Max Crosby for two first-round picks and Trey Hendrickson, which essentially, no matter what you think of the motivation, Is that's the ultimate outcome of all of this?
So, Trey Hendrickson gets his deal. It's a real one, four years, and I believe $112 million. He can earn more with incentives. Max Crosby is a better all-around player than Trey Hendrickson, but in terms of pass-fresh ability, you know exactly what you're getting in Hendrickson, all of which then leaves us with what becomes now of Max Crosby. He posted something last night.
On social media, you know, saying I'm a Raider. My understanding is he was back in the building yesterday. I mean, the day after this all happened. He's right back in the building, working out, rehabbing. He spoke with Clint Kubiak, he spoke with John Spytek, he spoke with Mark Davis.
He told everybody. I'm all in. I'm a Raider. I'm going to be here, and I'm going to keep doing everything that I've been doing to be the best player for this organization. Like anything else, though, with Max Crosby Rich, I would just say.
You can never rule out that there's another twist in the saga. Just like when we were sitting there at the Combine and John Spytech had said we expect Mash Crosby on the team, and I came on the show and said, Don't be surprised if he's traded within the next seven to 10 days. I did not add, and then don't be surprised if that trade falls apart four days after that. But I would just say, there are still teams. I can tell you this, for all the talk about whether the prices plummeted.
There are still teams. that would trade for Max Crosby now. There potentially will be even more teams that will trade for Max Crosby around the draft or in June when he's getting closer to clearance and that knee is closer to being healed. We will know Max Crosby is a Raider again when we see Max Crosby wearing a Raiders uniform in week one. I don't think at this point, I would not categorize it as likely, but for the Raiders, they had formulated this plan in terms of what they did in free agency, how they deployed their resources, how they were building that team under the belief, because they had agreed to it, that Max Crosby was onto the Ravens and they had two first-round picks to fill some of the other holes on the roster.
Do they pivot and just go, all right, Max is back? You know, I know, listen, there's close relationships there, especially between Max Crosby and Mark Davis. You know, Max, his frustration was part of the reason the Raiders were even willing to do this type of a trade. But Max never wanted to leave the Raiders from a core perspective, right? There's philosophy and there's reality.
The philosophy, he wanted to be a Raider. He identifies. He's the face of the franchise. But realistically, he just was sick of all the changes.
Now, you know, is this a sign? I know that he's, you know, he was six years sober yesterday, and congrats to Max on that. You know, I know that he's spiritual, he believes in things. Is this the sign that he feels like I just have to be with the Raiders? You know, that might be it, but the phone's going to keep ringing.
There are going to continue to be offers. There are other teams, again, that would pass Max Crosby on a physical right now because it allows you to get the player.
So we'll see exactly what direction this goes. But right now, Max is back. He's on the Raiders roster. He's in the building. And amazingly, after weeks.
To talking about this and seemingly having a resolution on Friday night, we are back to at least some level of uncertainty about what the future holds for Max Crosby. Tom Pellicero here on The Rich Eisen Show. I'm wondering out of the rest of free agency, if this didn't happen, if Max just showed up in Baltimore, what we'd be talking about today. Um Quarterbacks are one thing, and I'll get to Kyla Murray with you before I say goodbye. But Mike Evans winding up in San Francisco.
How did that happen? Why did that happen? Tom. It was as much about what Mike Evans wanted to do is anything else. If you look at the contract, it's three years up to $61 million, I believe, but like the base value of it is, I think, 14 a year and it's like 16 something this year.
So this wasn't chasing one last bag. This wasn't him going and just taking the money. I believe the Bucs would have offered him more than that to stay in Tampa.
So for one reason or another, Mike Evans just decided I want to go do something different at the end of my probable Hall of Fame career.
So then what's the one reason or the other? That's the thing here, you know, and that's the question a lot of people in Tampa are wondering. Just to do something different, or something going on in Tampa. He just wanted to. uh that k made him want to do something different.
Tom. Does not sound, from my understanding, like there's a smoking gun or that something happened. You know, listen, there's been a lot of turnover, kind of like Max Crosby getting sick of all the changes. Mike Evans has a different offensive coordinator every year. Every year, they're doing something different with that.
He got hurt twice last year. A lot of times, when guys get hurt, they think about a lot of different things. He may well believe. That the 49ers have a better chance to go win a Super Bowl in 2026 than the Buccaneers do. And if that's what matters to Mike Evans, going and trying to chase a second Super Bowl ring, then that may be more important than the money.
He appears to have come to the conclusion. Again, all things equal, you go from the state of Florida with no income, state income tax to California, where you're getting taxed through the nose on a contract that is closer to Jalen Naylor than Alec Pierce. This was not about the money with Mike Evans. He clearly wanted to do something different. We'll see how that ends up working out for him in San Francisco.
I agree. It was a surprise the way that it played out, the where the numbers ended up for Mike Evans, but this was clearly about football more than it was about anything financial. He's going to now try to help a different team go and win a Super Bowl. And the Buccaneers, for the first time, since Jason Lyke got there in 2014 to make Mike Evans his first draft pick, they're going to be working without Mike Evans. All right.
Now let's get to Kyler Murray. Free agency tour this year is looking towards next year. I'm trying to, you know, figure out what he's up to before he finally lands in Minnesota because why wouldn't he? You know, so well, he landed in Minnesota last night physically with his agent, Eric Burkhart. They're here today, not in my house, but in the state of Minnesota.
Yeah, to bring them out, man. Come on. What do you prepare to live for?
So, my understanding was Kyler was going to go through a physical this morning, then he was going to have some meetings. It would be a surprise at this point if he doesn't land with the Vikings. It's his best opportunity to start. The money truly doesn't matter because the Cardinals owe him $36.8 million, fully guaranteed. Kyler then can go and take the minimum from Minnesota.
He'll be in a competition with JJ McCarthy for the job. It is an experiment of sorts because he's going to be playing in a different offense than he has in his entire career. But Kevin O'Connell has done tremendous work reviving some quarterbacks. Kirk Cousins was playing his best football before Kirk tore his ACL. Sam Darnold, obviously, parlayed his year in Minnesota into a deal in Seattle and goes and wins the Super Bowl.
Can he do the same thing for Kyler Murray? Again, the skill set is very different. Kyler, you know, even at this stage, and he's now going into year eight in the NFL, he still can move unlike a lot of quarterbacks. He still has a really big arm, but he's never played in like that precision, timing-based offense. Drew Petzing does some similar things.
In Arizona, but this is a little bit different. What he's going to be asked to do, so they'll find out if this is a fit and a hit in the Vikings system. Maybe the Vikings find their franchise quarterback for years to come. If it doesn't work out that way, maybe JJ McCarthy beats him out, and Kyler either is a backup or ends up getting cut loose and goes someplace else. What all this tracks toward, though, and you can't overlook it, and I talked about this in advance that I expected this was going to happen.
Nobody has talked to Kyler around the league, not on any extensive basis, since the pre-draft process in 2019, when the whole world knew he was going number one to his old coach Cliff Kingsbury and the Cardinals.
So, this is an opportunity to interface with some teams that may have quarterback needs in 2027 and be able to just show. I mean, he is by all accounts a different guy than he was, like most people are when they grow up from being 21 years old to 28, 29. You know, just have those conversations.
So, when teams are thinking about their quarterback plans a year from now, when Kyler is expected to be a free agent again, they have.
Some different interactions for him. It's not him just expecting and assuming success. It's not him, you know, looking ahead. To me, it's sensible. Just have those conversations.
He's never been a free agent. He's not allowed to talk to these teams.
So last night and this morning, have a few of those conversations. Be able to compare and contrast some things. Kind of get your own mind wrapped around it. But if and when he signs with the Vikings in a deal that there's not a lot to negotiate, so it could come together quickly today. You know, he's in a situation where he's going to be all in and then come after this season, if it goes as well as everybody involved hopes.
Kyler Murray factors is the number one free agent hitting the market next March. All right, Tom, before I let you go in the two minutes I have left here, I give you the floor on the deal we're not talking about. that we should. that leaps out at you from the last few days, How about this one? Back to the Raiders and the Ravens, of all people here.
Tyler Lindenbaum, three years and 81 million. And it was reported as I think a $54 or $60 million guarantee. In effect, the whole thing is guaranteed because the final year, which I believe is $21 million. Becomes fully guaranteed this coming March, a year early. In other words, he is going to see.
the whole three years in 81 milli. The reason I bring this one up. is because think about the context of this rich. In 2018, The number one free agent was Kirk Cousins. And he blew everyone's minds by signing a three-year, $84 million contract with the Vikings that had the same guarantee structure.
It was functionally guaranteed at signing. A mere eight years later, the salary cap has grown to the point that we have a center essentially matching the quarterback contract that absolutely busted the market back in 2018. That is incredible context in my mind of how much this thing has grown. The salary cap going from where it was $150 million or so at that time to $300 million now. We've got offensive linemen, centers no less, making what the top quarterbacks were on deals that nobody could believe were happening back eight years ago.
Dude, I don't know if you saw, and we're going to do this later on in hour number three in the NFL Network research packet. I don't know if you're reading that stuff because you're too busy reading your text and everything else, but they came up with a list, and we're going to hit this later on and play sort of like a game show thing of the top contracts of some of the top name players who have now been in the hall of fame for almost a decade or two. How crazy different contracts, how crazy more expensive contracts are. You're trying to make an entire generation of players sad, is what you're telling me. No, I'm just talking about how the cap keeps going up.
It was like, what? Like four years ago, the cap was at 220.
Now it's at 3 and change. It just keeps going up and up. It was 100 from 2011 to 2013, which is around the lockout in the new CBA where they went from a cap credit system to a revenue sharing system. The cap was hovering around $120 million. And even that was a substantial growth from where it had been.
It just got stuck because of the way that they calculated it. I know that there was a lot of criticism of the NFLPA and agreeing to take, you know, the percentage they did. It was around 47%. It's now upwards of 48%. But you look at it, it's hard to say business is not booming for everyone involved, particularly Tyler Linderbaum.
Thanks for the call, bud. We'll do it again. Maybe even tomorrow. Screw it. I just keep a little time at a time.
Tom Phillips are there. There's Tom. All right, Tommy P. There goes Tommy P right there. It's a perfect example here.
And we'll do this later on. But just as an example, in 2021, Trey Hendrickson left the Saints for Cincinnati four years $60 million.
Now it's four years. Almost 120.
So almost doubled. And he got f he got older? And 61 sacks and five seasons later, you just got double his contract. Wow. Let's take a break.
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All right. So that's Tommy Peon the latest right there.
Okay. On all of that.
So uh Kellen Moore. Um spoke to day. The New Orleans Saints head coach giving more uh read into their I think decision to sign Travis Etienne. We're going to play that a little bit later because Is Alvin Kamara thinking of uh Hanging them up? Boom.
Just gonna throw that one out there for you. A lot of people are talking right now. Indro Pressers for a lot of people. Kenneth Walker. Oh, Kenneth Walker's talking right now.
Malik Willis is talking right now. Yeah. Malik Willis. Can't wait to hear what he has to say. What an opportunity from Alik Willis.
My goodness, Greg. What an opportunity for Malik Willis to be S you know to be The new quarterback of the Miami Dolphins.
So we'll turn that sound around, by the way. Did you see who signed across the street? Over the weekend? Downhill? Or I mean yesterday, Chargers?
Yes. No. They signed uh Keaton Mitchell. Oh.
Now let me tell you something, okay? 'Cause that guy has some burst. He's got some speed. Yeah, he does. And who do you think might be able to use him?
Mike McDaniel. I'm telling you. That's one of those. Fantasy flyers, put that one away in your in your memory bank here. Because he didn't get much run.
I mean, whenever he got run in Baltimore, it was to spell. Derrick Henry, right? When he was healthy, he didn't blew he blew his knee out. But this guy can hit it. Put him in the backfield with Omarion Hampton.
Right. I know they still have Kimani Vadel. But um I lo I saw that signing. I'm like, uh-huh, aha. Aha.
Give Mike McDaniel the speed burner, the home run hitters. What are the Chargers going to look like offensively at the end of the day? The Chargers. What does that mean? Yeah.
Uh uh uh uh uh uh what does that mean? They're gonna be the Chargers. What does that mean? Be careful. You don't like the way people talk about the Cowboys in that way.
And at some point, I got to start slapping back. Oh, they're always going to be punching down at me. Oh, okay. Is that what that means? Yeah.
I mean, the Chargers are going to charge you. No disrespect. No disrespect. Chargering, the days of chargering are over. Yeah, I mean, I understand.
Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I understand they've hit their head on a playoff ceiling last two years, first two years of gym. But the weird stuff? of weird chargering stuff. That's gone.
The chargering stuff is gone. It's gone. Come on now. No, I'm just wondering. House isn't clean.
They're fumbling three times on getting three shots at a touchdown in Tennessee, only to have Melvin Gordon fumble it on the third time. That sort of stuff. That was weird. Who are their receivers?
Well, Ladidi, McConkey. Oh, Quentin Johnson. Quentin Johnson, who I Quentin Johnson, who I know you had on fantasy last year. He had a good first half of the season. Yeah.
Trey Harris had a nice register here. Nobody's blowing you away. No one's a true number one. Why is L Ladidi's not a true number one for you, hum? Yeah, you saw him kind of take a step back last year.
Mike McDaniel's in town now, pal. You don't think that's a difference? In the passing game? Yeah? I know.
He's a run game guy.
Okay. Yeah. Tyreek Hill, you know. Wants a chat.
Well, he ain't on this team. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast. Mm-hmm.
