REShow: Andrew Brandt - Hour 2 (7-8-2022)

The Labor Day event from Dell Technologies is here and it's time to take productivity to another level. End the summer strong by upgrading your growing business to the latest tech. This new season begins with up to 48% off top performance laptops like Bostro, taking performance to the next level with 12th Gen Intel Core processors. You'll also save big on monitors, docks, mice and more must-have accessories. Plus, get free shipping on everything. It's the perfect time to get ahead with powerful tech designed to stay motivated throughout the year, and encourage collaboration and innovation among your team. Now, at special prices for a limited time only.

Summer might be gone, but it's just the beginning. What's next for you? Upgrade today by calling 877-ASK-DELL. That's 877-ASK-DELL to save up to 48% on our latest technology.

We absolutely don't want to hear complaints. The Rich Eisen Show with guest host, Dan Schwartzman. And now, sitting in for Rich. Hit the drop. It's Dan Schwartzman.

Hour number two, that's right on a Friday. Lots of get into NFL talk. I think we're talking Andrew Brant coming up later this hour.

Go around the league with him a little bit, see the latest. I still can't believe Seattle is trying to convince us to go into the season with Geno Smith or Drew Locke as a starting quarterback. Give me a break. It's not happening. NFL, by the way, announcing the 54 Pro Football Hall of Fame semifinalists on that list. Mike Shanahan, Mike Holmer, and those guys should be shoe-ins. Robert Kraft should be a shoe-in as well.

Some players on there, Ken Anderson, Roger Craig, Billy Whiteshoes Johnson. Clay Matthews Jr. I can't believe Clay Matthews Jr. is already up for the Hall of Fame.

Sterling Sharps on there again. I have no idea how he's not in. Amazing Joe Jacoby.

Joe Kleko, come on. How is he on this list every year and doesn't get in? Guys, the only player ever to be selected as an All-Pro at every defensive line position. Right there you should be a Hall of Fame, right? You weren't just good at one position.

You literally mastered all three spots on a defensive line to the point where you were an All-Pro. And he played with Mark Gastineau. Of course, and that guy's a legend. The guy retired to take care of Bridget Nielsen. Remember her, the actress?

Oh yeah, she was married to Rocky. That's right. Sylvester Stallone.

Yeah, exactly. They were in that movie. Which one? Cobra. Cobra, yes, yes, yes. Great movie.

He had to protect her, right? Wasn't that it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Cobra.

Great movie. Yeah, Bridget Nielsen. So Gastineau was dating her and he literally retired at like a young age because he was with her. A lot of people kind of weren't happy with that. But I mean, Gastineau was a great player. But come on, Joe Kleko's not a Hall of Famer.

And here's the other one. Roger Craig should be a Hall of Famer. Don't we have more of an appreciation of what Roger Craig did playing in the early to late or early to early 80s to early 90s? Should we not respect what he did a wee bit more considering when he played, this guy was a pass-catching threat out of the backfield before guys were really thought to be pass-catching threats out of the backfield. First guy in NFL history to have a season with over a thousand yards rushing and a thousand yards receiving.

I mean, come on. How many Super Bowls did he win? Two? Was it two? Probably two or three.

Probably two. Three-time Super Bowl champion. Four-time Pro Bowl. First-time All-Pro. One-time All-Pro. He's on the All-80s team. He's the 88 offensive player of the year. Three-time Super Bowl champion. He should be in.

He should! He rushed for almost 8,200 yards. He almost caught 5,000 yards worth of passes in the NFL. I mean, that's, you know, the guy has over 13,000 all-purpose yards.

A thousand-thousand season is not something to scoff at. Over 70 touchdowns? I'm always just amazed that Roger Craig's not a Hall of Famer. And he was innovative, right? Like, that guy was the ultimate weapon on that Niners team. Yeah, they had Jerry Rice in Montana.

They were great, but still. He was there pre-Montana, but still, I mean, the numbers he put up in being the first thousand-thousand guy should stand for something. I never liked the process when it comes to the NFL and the Hall of Fame. Like, guys have to wait in line, right? Especially at receiver.

There's that big logjam. Tim Brown couldn't get in for years, which was an absolute joke. No, it took Isaac Bruce a long time. It's taken Tory Holt forever. DeMarcus Ware didn't get in on his first ballot. I mean, come on.

If you've got 10 guys that are worthy, just get them all in. And I hate that argument. Yeah, well, he'll get in next year.

But that doesn't matter. But God forbid the guy, you know, gets hit by a car, right? And is never able to actually get the honors deserving of being in the Hall of Fame. Because God forbid something terrible happens to him and having to wait an extra year because, eh, whatever, he'll get in next year.

I hate that. If you got six wide receivers who are truly worthy of being Hall of Famers, why should anybody have to wait to get in? You're not lining up in a bread line, right? You're not lining up at the bank to talk to the teller. You had a lengthy career and they're going to honor you for it. Why do you have to wait to be honored? Never been a fan of that. Thought that's just the dumbest thing imaginable. And every year I just get upset thinking about which guys don't get in. And I hate having that conversation. Well, yeah, Dan, but he's going to get in next year. You know, he's next in line. Uh-uh. Shouldn't work that way.

They need to revamp it. And I also love this whole process of like, you know, somebody has to be your advocate. I get it if it's a guy that you're like, okay, borderline Hall of Fame player, right? I thought he was a great player.

This and that reason. Maybe I don't think he's a Hall of Famer. Hey, Jim, sell me on why X is a Hall of Famer.

Okay, that's great. But don't you think it's funny, Art, when like somebody's got to advocate for Peyton Manning or Lawrence Taylor or Reggie White or Tom Brady in the future? Somebody's actually have to stand up in this room and convince me why Tom Brady's a Hall of Famer? The guy should be like, all right, listen, I have nothing to say. I'm representing Tom Brady and just sit down.

Because if some idiot in that room has to be convinced Tom Brady's a Hall of Famer, we got some serious problems, right? Like maybe the guy shouldn't be voting. I'm just saying, why do you need these advocates for some of these guys? If you're that great, you don't need an advocate. I totally agree.

It's so funny, right? Like Lawrence Taylor. Okay, we know he was a bad guy off the field and there were drugs and prostitution and all these issues. But no one was a better defensive player potentially in the history of football than Lawrence Taylor. To where we still talk about him and he hasn't played in a long time. And we still say, man, he's probably the greatest defensive player in history.

You know, no offense to Reggie White. And yet somebody's got to stand up in that room and be like, hey, I'm going to tell you exactly why LT is a Hall of Famer. And the whole thing is, look, I understand like you want people that represented the league as a professional, right? And you want guys that didn't embarrass your team, the league, whatever it might be. But the fact is, if you're so embarrassed by a guy's off the field antics, you're still letting him play, right?

So apparently you're okay with it. So like the NFL will allow Deshaun Watson to still probably have a lengthy career. He's getting paid by Cleveland to still have a lengthy career, regardless of the fact that there's been 26 accusations against him.

And what is it, 20 have been settled. All I'm saying is if they care so much in the Hall of Fame process, I know it's not the NFL. It's a different organization that runs the Hall of Fame. But still, I just wonder, like, if it's such a big deal, how are they okay with letting the guy play while he's a knucklehead off the field? And then there's the debate of, you know, should that disqualify him from the Hall of Fame?

If it doesn't disqualify him from actually playing, then it shouldn't be an issue. Just my two cents when it comes to this idiotic process that they have in place. It's really an idiotic process. But I do like it, and I like the Hall of Fame speeches, and I think it's a great thing, and it's kind of cool when you see these yellow or gold jackets and you read about the process. And you know, having been to numerous Super Bowl radio rows and meeting with guys who are Hall of Famers, and a lot of them do walk around in their gold jackets.

It's pretty cool, aren't it? Like, you know, if there's like a rip or a tear in the jacket, you just send it back and they'll send you a new one. Like, if the color is faded or anything has happened, they will literally just send you a new one. Or if you gain weight and can't fit into it anymore?

They send you a stern warning and a trainer and a new jacket. There you go. I'm kidding. No, they don't do that. But they should, right?

Although, how many? You know what's funny? You ever notice how, like, the running backs become heavier and the offensive linemen become really slender? You ever notice that? It's so funny, like, when their careers are over, a lot of these running backs who are in, like, the best shape, right? They actually balloon a bit.

They get a little soft and pudgy around the edges. The offensive linemen, who are these hogs, these absolute trucks of a human being, all lose weight and become these, like, slender dudes. Like, Joe Thomas was a massive, scary left tackle for the Cleveland Browns, an all-time great. And you look at him now, and it's like, my goodness, he couldn't even play linebacker. He's too thin. It's just the most bizarre thing ever.

Like, you can't recognize some of these guys, but then you read, like, what it takes to maintain. Like, I don't weigh 300 pounds, are I? Neither do you, okay?

I've never dabbled in those numbers. I'm not Mackay Beckton and the Jets, who's got to, like, try to fluctuate between 350 and 400 pounds. But the amount of food that you have to gorge yourself with and the schedule of what you have to eat and when, it doesn't even sound possible. Have you ever read this stuff, Art, where it's like, you know, you got to get up at 6 a.m., have that protein shake, and then have, like, a dozen eggs, and then have a, you know, four-pound steak a night, and then have, like, a huge chicken breast. Yeah, it's incredible what it takes to maintain 320 pounds of weight on you in terms of caloric intake. It's the most unhealthy thing ever. It really is. It's just, it's mind-boggling.

No, thank you. And I think what happens is after these guys retire, where they don't have to be so massive because they're not blocking anybody anymore, you know? They're like, why am I carrying around 320 pounds? It's not good for me. Why am I eating, like, an absolute horse every single day to maintain this weight that I have no use for?

And then you, like, lay off the stuff and get on, like, a normal diet, and boom, you go from, like, 320 to, like, a buck ninety, 200. And then you show up at Radio Rome, people are like, who is that guy? And they're like, no, it's him. You're like, no way. Oh, my goodness, you're right, it's him. Unbelievable.

Those eating habits are just not the healthiest. Years ago, I saw Jerome Bettis at a mall here in Los Angeles, and he was pretty, still pretty hefty. Yeah, but he was hefty when he played, you know? He was a big back. He was a really big back. But, you know, he was a lot, obviously, more muscular back then. Now he's a little bit, as I said, you know, pudgier around the sides. Soft.

Softer, yeah. Marshall Faulk's a perfect, by the way, but Marshall's never, like, if you look at Marshall Faulk when he played, he wasn't jacked. Like, Marshall was not a guy who was ripped to where it's, like, a Greek god, right? Like, you see this guy, like, D.K.

Metcalf, right? Where it's like, my goodness, this guy is literally built like a rock. He's, like, chiseled. Marshall was never liked it. As great a player as Marshall is, he's one of the greatest ever. He always was kind of a little bit softer. He's, like, the only guy that I could remember that was like that, you know? And when you see him today, it's the same kind of thing. Like, Marshall Faulk. And then you talk to any of the retired guys, like, yeah, Marshall's always been like that. Like, wow, how? How does, how is he the best running back in football?

No, doesn't matter. Some guys just carry the weight better. Man, I couldn't do it. And I like eating, man. I love eating.

But I could never eat to maintain that type of, that type of weight. Not a chance in heck. No way. Uh-uh.

Not a chance. All right, the NFL season. You know, it's amazing how football has become so big that there's, like, the countdown clocks now to when, you know, the first game of the season is going to be upon us Thursday night when the, you know, the Rams are going to be facing the Buffalo Bills on September 8th. I'm so conflicted when it comes to that, Art, because, like, to me, I love the summers, right? I'm not a winter guy.

Like, I live in the New York area and it is cold and snowy and it does get somewhat miserable. And by, you know, January, like, please, can we just get the summer? But then when you're in the summer, you're starting a countdown clock to when it's going to be football season. And to me, when you get to the fall and you get to game one of the NFL season, that kind of signals the end of summer, right?

The kids are back at school. Football has started up. And football is obviously a cold weather sport. So every time you think of football, you think frozen tundras of Lambeau Field. You know, guys, you see every breath.

You see the steam coming off their sweaty heads. So it's like, I want to get to the football season because I love football, but I don't want it to happen so quick because that's the end of summer. Big dilemma, man.

Yeah, you're torn. You live in L.A., so it doesn't matter, right? Yeah, it's summer all year long. Yeah, I remember being out there for the Super Bowl, Art, and, you know, we're having dinner and it's like 75 degrees outside and it's February. I go back, I get off the airplane at, you know, LaGuardia and it's 32 degrees.

So for you, it doesn't matter. But for people outside of, you know, the warmer climates in this country, you enjoy summer a bit more and you appreciate summer more because you got three months of it. Three and a half months of it and then it's done. And then you're back in winter and there's no leaves on the trees, depressingly cold.

You don't want to deal with that. So when it comes to things like that, you guys on the West Coast or in the South, you have it good, but you take it for granted compared to people like myself that enjoy summertime, but love football, but understand the countdown clock also is counting down to the end of the summer months, which I absolutely hate. All right, when Callaway engineered ChromeSoft to be the best tour ball, it didn't just make the best players better, it made everyone better. Men, women, first time major winners, repeat major winners, club champions, business golfers. The ChromeSoft family has a best tour performance for every type of performance, starting with the regular ChromeSoft, which is designed for the widest range of golfers who want better field, more distance, and incredible forgiveness. But for better players looking for more workability, ChromeSoft X provides excellent spin consistency and tour level short game control. Finally, ChromeSoft XLS gives you a lower spin golf ball on longer shots, firmer feel, but still with high spin around the greens. And now, every ChromeSoft is enhanced with precision technology, which uses design techniques and manufacturing specifications up to one one-thousandth of an inch. This ensures they're the highest quality, most consistent, fastest golf balls possible. When you add it all up, it's pretty simple. ChromeSoft is better for the best and better for everyone.

Find out which ChromeSoft is right for you at CallawayGolf.com slash ChromeSoft. I gotta get back out there on the golf course. Andrew Brant, we're gonna talk some NFL with him coming up next. Lot to get into, really. That Seattle quarterback situation just mind-boggling.

But what does it all mean? Is there that arrogance of Pete Carroll thinking he can take any quarterback and make him Russell Wilson? Or is there some plotting going on as to a move to make before we get to week one of the NFL season?

We're gonna find out. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich on this Friday on the Rich Eisen Show. We are inching closer to the start.

September 8th, Thursday. Bills at the Rams, season opener, heck of a matchup. Sunday, the 11th day is going to be the first Sunday of the NFL season. Baker Mayfield trade to Carolina still reverberating. Seattle Seahawks quarterback situation.

They really gonna go into the season with Geno Smith and Drew Lockett quarterback? Hard to believe, but apparently that's the case. Is it a smokescreen? Is there more? You know, the NFL teams are great at smokescreens.

We see it all the time. Heading into a draft. Who's going number one? This team really likes that guy, this guy. They don't like that guy. They didn't interview him next.

You know, they draft that guy. So it's always hard to tell what exactly it is in terms of the truth and what's being stretched a little bit here and there. Always very interesting when you look at things like that, because honestly speaking, everybody's keeping stuff close to themselves here.

You don't want to give advantages. You don't want to give any sort of indication of certain things and you want to keep things away from the other 31 teams in the NFL. It's become like a science, right? It's become kind of like, it's tough to explain it. It's become kind of a way of life in the NFL to try to hide stuff from the competition.

Because any little thing potentially could be the difference in being able to draft a guy or winning this game or that. So it's being held very close to the vest. All right, let's head out there. Buddy Andrew Brandt, he does so many things out there.

If I tried to intro all of it, it would take up the entire segment. He joins us here on the Rich Eisen Show. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich. By the way, on your Twitter, you talk about Raf Nadal, seeing him shake everybody's hands, take pictures with everybody. You're a tennis fan. How disappointed are you? We're not going to see Nadal versus Djokovic. You, by the way, won today after losing the first set to move on to the Wimbledon final, Andrew.

Are you disappointed? Yeah, Dan, good to be with you. I do a lot of things. I always say I do a lot of jobs so I don't have to have a real one. One of the things, I am a huge tennis fan because I played growing up.

I played competitively. I just really think, like you said, we're in this incredible golden age. It's always great when you sort of step back and appreciate what we're in. I know old timers like the days of McEnroe and Connors and board, but I don't see how any view that this isn't the best time in men's tennis in history with these three guys. I watched the Nadal-Fritz match. It just amazed me. I watched Djokovic sinner and Djokovic today.

They just had this mental edge on people. Speaking personally, I was in Madrid once and there was this combustion around the corner. Yes, it was. It was Rafa Nadal walking on the street. I'll tell you, Dan, I've been around Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady and Michael Jordan, but that never fazed me. I was around Nadal. I was like a schoolgirl with a crush. I was a Twitter. I was tingly. I took a selfie, which I've never done with an athlete. He's an impressive guy. Yes, it's sad he had to drop out.

I love the Twitter video they posted today. I'll tell you, it's funny. I have a friend who works for the USTA and she always told me as big as these guys on a global scale, when you talk about Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic. By the way, they're known all over the world. It's not like a baseball star, Mike Trout.

You go outside of the US, no one knows who he is. But yet these three apparently are the most humble, nice guys. They don't show an ego. As you said, they'll take pictures with people. They understand it's their time, but they will share it with others. I've always appreciated the big three, not just their greatness on the court, but the fact that it hasn't really gone to their head. I think that's probably another reason why when we look at those three guys, we look at that and say what an error we've lived in. Because they're also good guys that don't get in real trouble.

Djokovic, whatever the vaccine thing, but in terms of criminal stuff, you don't hear about them doing bad things. I love it. I love this generation. It's incredible.

Me too. As much as I love these two guys playing now, I have to say Federer is my favorite because he's truly what you just talked about. He is humble as can be. People talk about him in this little cafe in Basel, Switzerland. He just hangs out among the people.

It's just so different than a lot of superstars you hear about. Absolutely. Let's get some football talk here, Andrew. I have a hard time believing that Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks are truly confident in their quarterback room going into a season with Geno Smith and I guess Drew Locke battling it out to be the starter. Do you think they're really confident that's going to be the case or is there something ongoing where they're looking to upgrade because they can tell us they like what they have, but no way can they feel confident with those two guys. I think they do. We can all say they shouldn't, but I think if you've noticed the Seahawks over the years, they've become kind of a college.

Pete Carroll comes from college. They'll rotate a lot. They'll churn.

I worked with John Schneider in Green Bay for years. They do a lot of churn. What that means is they're rollover players pretty quickly and trying to bring in fresh players and go with new regimes. Over the past years, as you know, they've moved out Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman and Cam Chancellor and Earl Thomas and Michael Bennett just go down the line.

So again, we're judging Geno Smith and Drew Locke and they maybe have a different judgment. I think the biggest example of this is what the Carolina Panthers were able to get. We're able to trade to get Baker Mayfield. It was peanuts. It was peanuts in any sense, which tells me. The Seattle Seahawks had zero interest in Baker Mayfield. Zero.

So no one else did. There's only one way Carolina gets that deal and that's if they're the only team bidding for Baker Mayfield. So it just shows you, you know, Seattle likes what they have. We may not like it, but they do. But is that a confidence because they've had such success there over the years with Schneider and of course with Pete Carroll, but maybe to a point there's an arrogance and I don't mean in a bad way, but there's an arrogance of thinking. Okay, we can move out all these great legendary players as you mentioned because we think we can find the next guy, right? We think we could take guys that may have not succeeded elsewhere, but we see something different in them that we think we can get out of them. I call it somewhat of an arrogance because it rarely works out that way. Is that kind of what we're seeing in Seattle where they think that they can take guys and maybe make more out of them than we've seen?

Yeah, I just think so. I think organizations are committed to certain things and, you know, listen in the three years where I was in Green Bay and we had Aaron Rodgers on the bench. Everyone and their brother was saying this about Aaron, you know, everyone was saying, well, come on, you guys aren't going to turn the team over to Rodgers.

It's going to be some stopgap, right? At that time, like a Kerry Collins or Jeff Garcia. And I kept saying, no, no, no, we are turning the team over to Aaron Rodgers. We just don't know when, but we will.

And this is what people don't get. The Packers are going to turn the team over to Jordan Love at some point. And everyone's like, no, I mean, they're going to get someone better than that.

No, the teams have convictions about players and they're not just going to be stopgapping all the way. Andrew Brandt joining us. It's the Rich Eisen Show. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich on this Sunday. You mentioned Baker Mayfield going to the Carolina Panthers. If you are running that organization, right, is Sam Darnold starting week one or is Baker Mayfield who you think makes the most sense for them?

Well, they probably had like we just talked about their own convictions about these players. It's interesting from my expertise because Darnold's making that 19 million option number. That was the number for Mayfield two days ago. Now Mayfield reduced his overall comp by three and a half million and the Panthers are only paying five.

So now you have Mayfield making five and Darnold making 19. My question is, does that factor into the Panthers decision? I think it has to at some level where Darnold probably goes in as the starter, but it's a competition in training camp. And Darnold's got the leg up, of course, with having been there and training and minicamps and offseason and all that. But I wouldn't discount Baker starting week one against you know who, the Browns. Yeah, but you know, Andrew, the thing is if Matt Rule to me was on stronger footing, maybe he can do that and decide, hey, the guy making 19 should start because of the financial reason. But he's got to be on a very hot seat at this point where if he's making that decision based on who's making what money and it may not be the better football decision, it's his job on the line, right? I mean, it's a key year for him, obviously.

I think everyone knows that. And you know, this is not some older guy versus a younger guy. These guys came in two picks apart.

So we'll see. I mean, Ben McAdoo is a guy that I worked with in Green Bay. He's going to be the real driver of who's who's playing well at that position.

So I do think it's going to be one of these where, you know, you go with a hot hand, but Donald probably goes in as the favorite. Andrew, when you know, I'm a jet fan. I know Rich Eisen, of course, a big jet fan as well. They made a lot of moves draft day. They get three first round picks.

They get a high second round pick. They've, you know, absolutely added an influx of talent, but they play in the same division as the Buffalo Bills, who some believe are the best team in the NFL right now. Do you see a team like the Jets making a, I don't know if significance the right word because they do have a very tough schedule. But is that a team that when a team looks at their schedule and sees the Jets, they look at that team a lot differently than maybe a couple of years ago?

I think so. I mean, when you talk about a lot of high picks, it's all potential, right? So, you know, when people have a lot of high picks in the draft, there's usually a reason for that.

Yeah. And they've got a long way to go. So, you know, people have to understand about the draft that these players are not expected to be frontline players or to be your star players. They're expected to be your star players in three or four years. Your star players from last year are still going to be your star players this year. And then the turnover slowly happens.

So any team like the Jets, you have to look at and say they're X years away unless you just have, you know, the established players, not the rookies really stand out. You know, it all comes down, as always, the obvious point about the quarterback, right? What kind of jump does Wilson make? What kind of jump does Trevor Lawrence make? What kind of jump does Mac Jones make?

Does he regress? These are the big questions for those teams. A big quarterback question is in San Francisco. Jimmy Garoppolo is still on that roster.

And I did this on the show yesterday. I just don't see a lot of spots that he can land. I don't think he goes within the division to Seattle. And the only other team I see potentially that could use a starting quarterback is the Atlanta Falcons. And I'm not sure Jimmy G wants to go sit someplace, but he may not have a choice. Is it an unhealthy situation if they go into training camp with Jimmy Garoppolo still there with Trey Lance pretty much taking the baton to become the starter there?

Is that a bad situation to be in? Depends on Jimmy Garoppolo. I mean, if he makes it difficult, it is.

But he seems, just from the outside, a pretty compliant guy. And he understands he's been injured. And he understands what everyone should have known for two years, which is they're going to turn this team over to Lance at the latest a year from his draft.

You know, this is not Aaron Rodgers. That will never happen again where you take a guy first round and they sit longer than a year. Um, so this is the future of the Niners. They he's known that they not only took them in the third pick or fourth pick, whatever it was, but they traded to number ones. So this is a drastic move by the 49ers that happened a year ago. So it's not news to Garoppolo.

It's frankly, Dan, I was surprised. Garoppolo played all last season. I thought they'd make the move and obviously they did very well and almost got to the championship. But, um, I think they, you know, I think they keep him until there's a trade. I don't I don't know if they keep them into the season. I just don't know. I mean, unless he takes a huge pay cut.

I don't know how they deal with that. And the problem, Andrew, is as good a guy as Garoppolo seems to be, and he's not going to rock the boat and he's going to say the right thing. And I think he's a respectful guy in the quarterback room that will help a young quarterback. The fact is, if you go into training camp with him, he's a gamer, right? He's an athlete.

Nobody wants to be second fiddle. He's going to go in there, try to win the starting job. So in terms of him and his attitude, he's going to say and do the right things, but he's going to go out there. And if he plays better, fans are going to say, we want the guy that's going to win us games. And if Lance looks bad and Garoppolo looks great, how do you go and train Lance if you allow this situation to happen? Because there's an organizational commitment to this guy. I mean, again, they've trade traded up. They are convicted about this player.

Yeah. I mean, if there was a trade, this is the same as Mayfield, right? If there was a trade for Jimmy, it would have happened. There's no trade for Jimmy. There's no trade. Now, is it going to be a fire sale in August?

Maybe. Maybe, because they don't want his $20 million on the books, but no one's taking them for $20 million. So there's going to have to be a major pay cut. I mean, Baker only gave up $3.5 million. I would think Jimmy gives up more than that. Here's the thing.

What about this scenario? You know, the NFL at some point, we're going to find out if Deshaun Watson is going to play this year or not. They have Jacoby Bressett on the roster. If you're Jimmy Garoppolo, is it worth taking that pay cut to start one season in Cleveland and potentially resetting your value if you play well? That might be a smart case for him and maybe a better scenario for Cleveland than going with Jacoby Bressett this season.

Well, except for Cleveland. I mean, Cleveland signed Bressett. They could have gone and traded for Garoppolo. They signed Bressett. And then this idea that they were going to go back to Baker with Deshaun suspended.

You know, that ship sailed. And one day we're going to find out what happened with Baker and the Browns because there's bad blood. I mean, they didn't want him back. He didn't want to be back before the Watson chase.

So I really wonder what went on there. I mean, the guy played hurt. The guy, you know, was out there, gotten it out.

He was in the championship game two years ago. So we'll see. We'll eventually find out about that. Yeah, that's a great point.

At some point, the truth will come out. You know, Jarvis Landry said this, Odell Beckham Jr. said that. The question is, what is the truth when it comes to Baker Mayfield? He was on top of the world there in Cleveland after his second year. Third year, he seemingly turned the corner.

As he said, he played hurt last year, which usually wins you points with an organization. And of course, it went south very, very quickly. Andrew Brandt, appreciate you hopping on the show. Enjoy the rest of tennis, frankly, with the women's final and the men's final still coming up this weekend. And have a great weekend, my friend. All right. Thanks, Dan. Awesome stuff from Andrew Brandt. It's a great point.

It's, you know, the organizations have their belief, their thinking on certain issues, right? What is Carolina thinking in terms of the skill set of Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield? We may all sit here and say, well, Baker deserves to be the starter.

He's better. But they may say, yeah, but Darnold has more potential and knows this offense better and is more comfortable with the guys that we think we can win more games with him. Seattle may actually think that they can get something out of Geno Smith or Drew Locke that no one else got, right? The Jets couldn't get it. Seattle couldn't get it earlier from Geno, as well as other organizations like the Giants that he played for. He's had opportunities to be a starter, and he's never run with it because he's just not good enough. Drew Locke, Denver thought highly of him, but he never turned that corner from potential to actual results.

Bottom line is, maybe they know something we don't, or there's an arrogance thinking they know more than we. The Baker Mayfield situation, though, in Cleveland, I did want to kind of delve into that just a little bit. That's a great point by Andrew Brandt. Dan Schwartzman on a Friday in for Rich right here on the Rich Eisen Show. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich, Eisen, the Rich Eisen Show on a Friday.

Andrew Brandt always good to chat with him. He brought up a good point at the end of the interview there. What the truth is with the Baker Mayfield-Cleveland relationship, that ended really badly.

Bad blood. Baker didn't really hold back in terms of criticizing. When Odell Beckham Jr. left there, there was seemingly bad blood between him and Baker. Did he just kind of burn a lot of bridges over his few years in Cleveland?

You kind of wonder, right, when's the truth going to come out, if ever, as to how things went so south so quickly with a guy that they loved. I mean, Baker Mayfield's like a fan favorite, the hardworking walk-on who molded himself into a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback, believed in himself to walk on a Texas Tech, and then believed in himself to then walk on at Oklahoma after transferring. I mean, this is a guy that, look, people like that, right? He's the lunch pail type of quarterback. He's not tall, he's not like the blonde, good-looking dude who's 6'5", right? Women gravitate to him. No, he's not like that. Baker's like the six-foot-tall guy who had to really struggle to get to where he was, wasn't a top recruit, was a three-star guy. People like that story because that's honestly how most people are in this country, right? We fight for everything we can get, and he's done that. In a place like Cleveland, which is considered more of a blue-collar type of city, in a football-crazed town and state, he kind of was the perfect guy, and the first few years, he was on top of the world in Cleveland.

He was the guy that was going to change the fortunes of an organization that couldn't get out of its own way when it came to quarterbacks, 30-some-odd starting quarterbacks in like a 25-year period. That's insanely pathetic. That's terrible.

Frankly, criminal. Everybody who's been a part of that organization should be ashamed of themselves. And even now, by the way, they've been on the cusp with all the talent they've had the last couple of years, right? You'd think they'd be able to put it together and truly compete for a Super Bowl. They've had so many big-name guys there.

Talent. Nick Chubb, Kareem Hunt. Odell Beckham Jr., Jarvis Landry. David Njoku. Good offensive lineman, right? Defensively, Myles Garrett.

The cornerback, Ward. You know? They've had so many big-time players, but they haven't put it together to consistently win.

There's obviously a bigger issue there. And the whole Baker Mayfield, how it all exploded and blew up in their faces to where they're literally paying for him to leave, right? Here's $10.5 million and our number one overall pick from just four years ago. Please take him and get him out of our hair, and we'll take a fifth-round pick that at best becomes a fourth-round pick. I'm not out of my way to say that Sam Darnold has not been as good as Baker Mayfield since the day they got drafted, yet the Jets got a second and a fourth. And they didn't have to pay parts of Sam Darnold's salary to get him out of New York. Carolina willingly took him. But yet Baker Mayfield, who's been a better quarterback and is not even debatable since coming into the league two picks apart in 2018, Cleveland's practically begging Carolina to take him and writing a check for $10.5 million. Think about that. That's called desperation.

Again, you also have to clear his salary out because you're paying Deshaun Watson five years, $230 million, and fully guaranteed, by the way, for a guy that may not even play this year. And who knows beyond that? So it's going to be so juicy to find out if we ever do what exactly happened. That's a book, right? That's like a Michael Lewis book. That's like a Moneyball type of book. He also wrote that book about the housing crisis or whatever it was.

I want a tell-all type of book to come out. The behind-the-scenes of what happened in Cleveland. Remember when Odell Beckham Jr.'s father put out that video of the times he's open and Baker doesn't throw him the football? Remember that when he left Cleveland?

That was unbelievable. So whoever's running that place from the Haslam family on down has just done a terrible job. I would guarantee you something, Art. If you stuck Bill Belichick in Cleveland, not that he would want to go back there, but if you stuck Bill Belichick in Cleveland with Baker, Mayfield, and Odell and Landry and all the talent they've had, they're winning.

They're winning something. Oh, yeah. He would totally make it work. Not only would he make it work, but he would button down that locker room. You don't have Odell Beckham Jr.'s dad putting out videos on Twitter of his son being open numerous times and Baker Mayfield not seeing him, right? You wouldn't have that type of a thing happen in New England. I've known players who played for Belichick, and you know what you can do. You know what you can't do, what you can say, what you can't say, and you respect that. You kind of conform to the Patriot way. There's no Cleveland way. It's a free-for-all, right? It's an absolute, it's like a prison yard in terms of people just not caring about what's going on with their teammates and things to where it's a free-for-all.

You can't have that. Like, who's the captain of that ship? And you kind of wonder where Baker comes in with all these attributes from the college ranks where you think to yourself, okay, he's considered a leader at Oklahoma, right? People followed him at Oklahoma. You walk into a situation of undisciplined players like you had in Cleveland.

Maybe they looked at him trying to actually be a leader and say, oh, you're a phony. You've never won anything. You're a rookie.

You're a second-year player. What do you mean you're going to sit there and tell me what to do or this or that or how to act? I'm not listening to you. I don't even listen to the coach. We do what we want here in Cleveland. I just kind of get that thought as to what the issue was and it's, to me, kind of interesting to find out if I'm right with that or not. But you bring in a disciplinarian type of coach who flashes the rings and say, hey, you may not like me, but trust the process, this is how many rings I have. What do you think of having a 37-year-old? We're on to Cincinnati.

There's nothing about the past, nothing about the future. Right now, we're preparing for Cincinnati. And that's the thing. That's quirky and that's crazy, but it worked for Belichick.

How do I know? Because he's got a ton of rings. Forget the rings he's won as a head coach with the New England Patriots. Forget the what, six rings as a Patriots head coach?

Is it six? Yeah, Brady's got seven, right? Brady's got seven, so he's won six with Belichick. Belichick, I believe, won three rings with the Giants. Or was it two rings with the Giants as defensive coordinator? I think he won two rings with the Giants.

Yeah, two. 86 and, was it 1990 they won again? 91? It was 91. 91, right. I guess, yeah.

The Bills kicker missed the field goal. That's right, that's right. So, he was the defensive coordinator, I believe, on both those teams. So, he's got, like, eight rings. So, when Belichick walks in and he's there with a bunch of 20-year-old players who think they're the greatest, and he tells them you're going to run a bunch of suicides or this or that, they may look and say, this guy's crazy, but then he just flashes the bling on his fingers and say, yeah, it might be crazy, but it works, right? It's when the Matt Patricians of the world go someplace and say, hey, I won a bunch of rings with the Patriots. And they say, yeah, no, you didn't at Belichick, and you try to be Belichick Jr. and be a disciplinarian.

No one listens because they're like, yeah, dude, you didn't win that. Your staff didn't win those games. It was Belichick's style that did. So, don't try to mimic it because you weren't the responsible party.

You know what I'm saying? Also, I think Detroit was a worse situation than Cleveland. Oh, no question about it, absolutely. But my whole point is how the professional athlete views the coach. Especially a coach who's going to come in there and try to be a disciplinarian and try to be all up in their business, you know, like one of those types of coaches.

Not the Herman Edwards of the world, the Herman Edwards who, of course, is more of a player's coach, right? Or even a Pete Carroll, where you give a little bit more leeway to the guys. The Belichick's of the world do not give you that leeway. It's the Patriot way or the highway.

If you're not going to conform to what their standards are, you're gone. And Patricia, I guess, would try to institute that in Detroit, but he didn't have the cred. Belichick can walk in there with the rings and say, it works, look, right?

That's the difference. And I think a place like Cleveland, you need that. You needed a guy that was strong-armed, strong-willed, a disciplinarian.

My way or their highway and I got rings to prove it. They would have won with those rosters in Cleveland where they couldn't win enough games and go far in the playoffs like they should over that talent. That's my point when I think about how they really screwed up opportunities when it came to it. Yesterday was the NHL draft. I tried to follow along, but there is a fundamental problem with the NHL draft that baseball has, by the way, when you compare it to the NBA and the NFL.

Why I lost interest so quickly, I will explain that next. Our three Dan Schwartzmen in for Rich on a Friday. It's the Rich Eisen Show. Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.