REShow: Rod Graves - Hour 1 (11-9-2022)

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It's just keep on coming. This is the Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Palacero. Welcome in to the Rich Eisen Show without Rich Eisen. Yeah, which I guess makes this the Rich Eisen list show. Hey, well, I kind of feel like the Parks Fraser of this room right now. No one's quite sure how I got here, how we arrived at the decision that with Rich over in Munich that I would be the one hosting. But we're going to find out. At least I'm not facing the Raiders. That is pretty great, actually.

Or maybe it would be better at this point when we're facing the Raiders. Tough crowd here, bro. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in on Roku Series XM.

I know Rich always goes through the eight other platforms. I'll just leave you with those. You're probably already watching. You already figured out how to find us. Phone lines will be open today, 844204Rich throughout the show. I'm also very pleased that I've got the guys with me here today because I've done other shows filling in and you're like, oh, OK, I'm going to get to hang out with all the guys in the show. They're like, no, everyone's on vacation this week for the next three hours.

So Chris Brockman. Hey, what's up, Tom? Great to finally meet you having seen your face and your beautiful hair and your white t-shirts on other platforms and a full network game. Good morning, football.

Look at stuff. Great to finally have you here and let's have a good time. I believe this was a specific request. We were on a call with Rich. I think we was on speakerphone and you said something along the lines of make sure you wear your greaser outfit for good morning football. This is not quite greaser, but still like to get all wear leather jackets tomorrow. It's totally fine.

What is it? The Sharks and the Jets like totally down. But this is this is definitely this is closer to that. A lot of times when people see me. All right, so I'm an NFL Network insider. Most people probably see me. Good morning, football NFL now or something when I'm wearing. I've got the the shirt and tie and coat from the waist up. Yeah, and it's usually the sweatpants on the bottom. So I just like to prove we do have pants.

We have actual jeans on today. So I'm really classing it up actually in here. Mike Del Tufo. Thank you very much for being here. Sorry to freak you out before the show and he's not. I thought you won't be here the next two days. Well, you're not going to be here this week. Where are you going on to fill us in? Tom's here. I know I I I do a lot of college basketball tomorrow.

I'm actually doing the U.S. women's soccer. Not here tomorrow. No, I'm not here on the show by thanking you guys for show it up.

Emilia, it's actually we decided we decided to take the rest of this one off. Thank you very much for being here. Good to meet you, bro. And one thing you don't have to worry about is me not being here because these guys to tell you I've never missed a show.

So is the ripped out over and over. I feel like I need binoculars to see you though. Watch the show. I noticed that you seem to be in the corner. You're farther away than I thought you would be right now.

It's only 30 feet here. I mean, yeah, we started off when I first got put on COVID was still you know, so we had to be a part and this was the safest place for me. And now it's like I've cultivated the whole corner.

I don't want to leave Tom. So I'm good. I'm good over here. TJ's corner.

You just have to yell a little bit if you want to talk to you and you in the rock. We're in the Warren sap jersey. That's that's what we've got over there. He's a little off camera. Maybe we'll bring him in one day though. So a lot going on in the NFL. It's what I cover on a day-to-day basis, including the status of Josh Allen. Sean McDermott is right now at the podium shedding as little light as you would expect the head coach would shed on somebody's status. McDermott says he's day-to-day, which is what we've been reporting. The next question is going to be will he play? We'll see. So there you have it. He's making Belichick seem talkative.

Hey, Bill gives us more. He's got a UCL spray. Okay, this is the injury that Josh Allen had back in his rookie year. It's the ligament in your elbow. It's the one that if you're a baseball pitcher your UCL that's Tommy John surgery. That's like 18 months of rehab.

See you in two seasons. It's not like that generally speaking for quarterbacks. It's something though that you know, you could inject it potentially. You could do like a PRP injection, but then you got to shut it down for a couple of weeks.

You could just rest and hope it heals that way, but it's probably not going to be surgical. The question just becomes if you were the Bills now, you're coming off a loss to the Jets. You got the Vikings. There's seven and one coming in.

Do you push it here? Now, obviously we again, we don't know full outcomes of his scans and the MRI and everything else is all about the degree of the injury, but it's a question mark in terms of if you're a head coach of a football team, if you're the medical staff, you're the general manager of random being, do you put Josh Allen out there at a time that knowing Josh Allen, he's probably going to say, I can do it. Right. That's what he said after the game felt some pain. Did you see me throw that 78 bomb like two plays later after the elbow got hit? I think I'm okay.

He's not going to practice today. And so we'll see. And this is probably one that we're going to be tracking over the next the next couple of days while I'm here as well.

This has been a unique season in a lot of ways to say the least. So we'll talk a lot about some of the various issues here over the next three hours. We got some great guests, Rod Graves, who is now, he's the former Arizona Cardinals general manager. He is now the executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance. He's going to join us in the second segment here.

The Fritz Pollard Alliance is the group that advocates for diversity in the hiring process for equal opportunity. He may or may not have a few thoughts on Jeff Saturday as the Colts interim head coach. So really looking forward to talking about that with Rod. Dwight Frini is also going to join us. Did Dwight turn it down? Is that how we got to Jeff Saturday here? Did Dwight Frini, Peyton Manning, Reggie Wayne, who's actually on the staff. Did everybody turn it down?

And we got to Jeff Saturday. Jim Mersey says he was the only one for the job. If he weren't willing to do it, we're not even here.

We're not playing on Sunday. I still know that's a comment I still want to hear more about was the, if he said no, if he were unwilling, we're not sitting here today, would you not have fired Frank Reich? Would you have two former head coaches on his staff, John Fox and Gus Bradley, and he's got a rising star and Bubba Ventron, who is probably going to be a head coach in the league sooner than later. The special teams coordinator. A lot of people know him from hard knocks, very engaging guy, understands personnel.

Find out what you have for eight games. Instead, it's Jeff Saturday getting an opportunity and the highest level he's coached at was being a 500 coach in a school with 1100 students at the high school level. That's where we're at. So we'll talk about that with Rod and with Dwight. Also Kenyon Drake, who ran for about 900 yards for the Ravens the other night, he's going to join us. A lot to dig into there with what Lamar's doing.

I think that this is one of the overarching themes in this NFL season so far. And I would tell you probably the thing I hear the most, especially in the past few days here, for people around the league over the past two months has been, what the hell's going on? What the hell's going on? Steph Diggs tweet. What is happening here? What are we doing?

And it's on a lot of different fronts. You've got right now competitive games, lowest margin of victory in decades, which is always a big deal for the NFL, but part of that's scoring is down. Scoring is way down. How many offenses do you look at and say, this team were really scared of? I mean, you would put the Bills, I would assume in that category, I think so. I would put the Ravens in that category because you've got a transcendent type of a talent at quarterback.

They've had a double digit lead in every one of their games this season. You've got, I suppose you look at the Eagles and say that they're a dangerous team, but a lot of the offenses you were looking at going into the season, I mean, go back to March for a second, rewind to all the trades and what we were talking about. Going into the season here, and again, it's the winners of the off season. It's six months for things to happen, but the biggest moves, right? We're on NFL network every day, free agency frenzy. We're on round the clock, 15 hours a day on TV. The big moves were the Broncos went and got Russell Wilson.

That's right. Halfway through the season. A lot of time left. You're not riding. Does it?

At this point, not cooking, not riding. Doesn't look like it's headed the best direction. Cults went out, got Matt Ryan.

All you need to do is stabilize it. Carson Wentz was the issue. Bring in Matt Ryan. He's got Jonathan Taylor, who's missed a bunch of time. He's got Shaquille at that time. Darius.

What was this? Darius? Yeah, Darius Leonard.

I've already forgotten. I'm meshing Shaquille Griffin, Darius Leonard, Shaquille Leonard, Leonard Myers, two superstars. He hasn't really played, but Matt Ryan's the missing piece. He's been benched and hurt and it's Sam Ellinger and everybody's been fired.

Wow. I mean, Carson Wentz traded to the commanders. You didn't play bad in the early portion of the season, but you give up two third round picks for a guy who then got hurt and you're sitting here wondering if Taylor Heineke is going to give back the job. I was in Washington on Sunday and I tweeted out, I'm there at, what time it was, 8 a.m., right? So five hours before kickoff, you had nothing but time to look around at the vast swaths of seats covered by that strip fencing that they use, like around construction sites there. And there's ads on the video board for 2023 season tickets, a lot of benefits to those, by the way, 50% off concessions. It's a big bonus right there. The photo for the 2023 season ticket campaign is Taylor Heineke.

That is amazing. Taylor Heineke, who the league has been trying to get rid of for eight years. So you mean to tell me you have Chase Young and you don't even use him? He hadn't played yet, but still, but Jonathan Allen, Brian Robinson, Terry McClellan. No, Taylor Heineke is the most popular guy. There he is.

Isn't that always the case with the backup QB though? This is at a different level though with the commanders where there are chants in the stadium of Heineke, Heineke. There are signs. There was a 19 year old kid who had driven in from Annapolis with a drawing of Taylor Heineke and Heineke comes over pregame. He's looking at the photo, taking pictures, he's signing autographs.

He's happy to be there. He's played well enough through one really bad interception in that game to Harrison Smith to kind of flip the entire thing. But they should have won. They were unexploited the week up 17-7 in that game.

It was 17-7. And then, yeah, that sequence of events, a penalty, late in the game too, the ever rare, what do they call it, stuffing the snapper penalty where you can't hit the long snapper in the head and they get called for that that gives the Vikings one opportunity to run out the clock at the end of the game. A lot of things had to happen, but again, going back to March, it's all right. They got Carson Wentz, right?

Hopefully a step forward as it worked out. Now some of them obviously, you know, you got Tyree Kill. That's gone fairly well for the Dolphins. Devontae Adams to the Raiders. It's not Devontae Adams' fault what's happening in Las Vegas, but you can make the argument that that trade ended up with two teams not playing particularly well since Aaron Rodgers still doesn't seem to trust his receivers.

He's trying to figure things out. So all these teams, we thought, the Rams, all in again, Matthew Stafford's been dealing with his elbow injury for most of the season, but you think the Rams are going to be competent. You watch those teams. And I get texts and calls. Every single Sunday night, Monday night, right? Because coaches come back from their games, may or may not have a few Chardonnays while watching the prime time game.

And I'll get calls and texts be like, can you believe this? Are you watching this game? How is it this bad? How is the offense this bad again, margin of victory at like a 50 year low or something?

Okay. So you got competitive games, but they're low scoring. It looks like a battle.

Every single day. So people want to know like what, what is happening? Why is it look the way that it does? And I've, I've heard different theories on it. Offensive coordinators will tell you that, and obviously the rules have swung for years to favor offenses in terms of penalties and everything else. But what we're seeing to a certain degree, and I had a long talk with an OC about this the other day was defenses now are countering by becoming more multiple, by trying to dictate to the offenses what they're doing. In other words, offenses were becoming with the, the amount of spread stuff being used with the zone, read and everything else. Defenses were figuring out how do we make the numbers work? How do we defend this? Now you've got the swing back where defenses are going, screw it, we're just going to come after you.

We're going to try to dictate this and mess up what you're doing. Look at a team like the Cardinals that have like 70% of their salary cap on offense. You look up and down the roster. They've got some decent players. Buddha Baker, who's banged up right now is a pretty good player, but they don't have a pass. They don't have a pass rush. They don't have guys on the back end who can really cover. So what does Vance Joseph do?

He's aggressive. We're going to use a whole bunch of different zones, make the quarterbacks look through layers of coverage. And so that that's having an impact and you're seeing offenses commit now to running the football more than they probably have in recent years.

So you've got that going on. You've got the trade market around the deadline, which was absolutely bonkers and the number of calls I had from GMs going, what is GMX thinking? What the hell are they doing? Both in terms of trades that actually happened. Bradley Chubb trade.

I heard both sides of it. I heard why are the Broncos willing to give this guy up? He's a pass rusher.

You can't find them. You trade them for a first round pick and change or running back chase Edmonds. Why would you do that? And then I heard from other people going, I can't believe you got a first round pick and more for guys, but heard his whole career and you got to give him $20 million plus per year. And those are difficult decisions that GMs have to make because ultimately or TJ Hockinson getting traded by the Lions.

I got a lot of calls. Why are they doing that? In division. Why would you trade them in the division and you get depending what chart you're going off of and the Lions and the Vikings both use the analytics chart, which is different. And it doesn't add up the way that other GMs were going off the traditional charts. The Jimmy Johnson chart might look at it, but basically in the lines, the Vikings minds add up to a second round pick, but why would you trade that guy? Well, you weren't going to pay him and get him under contract through next year, but if you're not going to pay him longterm, you take the best that you can get at something.

You don't think he's the best cultural fit and you move on. You got the Panthers turning down to first round picks and more for Brian Burns. That is insane. Make it make sense. I mean, in that case, it's, we want to pay the guys 24 elite traits.

He's a very good player with a chance to be great. Because if we trade them for two ones and more, what are we going to do with those picks? We're going to go try to find Brian Burns. We're going to go try to find the next pass rusher.

But again, you hear from other GMs going, how could they turn that down? Yeah. I guess that was my reaction.

I mean, think about this. You go back, the Cleomack trade from the Raiders to the Bears was not long ago. That was four years ago, I believe. I think it happened in 2018 because that would have been John Gruden's first year. Fairly certain Brockman.

Check me on that. Oh yeah, 2018. And at that time, when the price was two first round picks, people thought that that was crazy. Nobody gets traded for two first round picks.

It never happens. Well, nobody gets traded anymore. Nobody got traded for a long time.

Until this year. Right. And that's been moving since they pushed back the trade deadline a little bit. We've seen more trades, but like the Mac trade still, what I heard the two first round pick price, it sounded like this never happens. You never hear of that. Much less a non-quarterback. Right. You never hear of that type of value now, two first round picks and more for Brian Burns.

The answer is no. Because teams are that much more aggressive because those premium positions are harder than ever to find. It's not a great pass rusher draft from everything I've been told in 2023, but that market has gone so wild in terms of the trades and what GMs are willing to give up, what GMs are willing to turn down in some cases for players that you can understand where people are looking at that and saying, you know, in one regard or another, what the hell are they doing? And we haven't even touched, we will coming up here, we haven't even touched on the other stuff from Dan Snyder to Jeff Saturday, where people definitely don't know what the hell is going on anymore. And I loved that yesterday, those stories came together with one of the great statements I've ever seen. And of course, say what you will about Dan Snyder, the commanders, everything that's gone into it, why he's being investigated by four or five different entities, including the NFL and various authorities. But the statement after, of course, Jim Merced had called out Dan Snyder, said that there is merit to removing him after Jim Merced has that press conference on Monday night, which again, we'll dig into when Rod Graves joins us shortly, Dwight Frini is going to join as well. The statement that the commanders put out after that press conference, quote, we would never judge an owner without having all the facts.

We stand for people of merit and experience and promote policies to provide equal opportunity for all. That is such an amazing, passive, aggressive burn by the commanders. Jim Merced v. Dan Snyder, burn it down. What the hell is going on? We'll try to sort it out over the next three hours here, 2000, 2008, 2022. When it comes to the economy, those are some scary years, dot com crash, housing crash, and the roller coaster.

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Elizabeth the First, the podcast, wherever you listen. Colts interim coach Jeff Satterday addressing the media again right now. We'll dive more into this throughout the show, but one of the latest revelations on how things went down in Indianapolis is Jeff Satterday says the first call from Jim Erce came during the game on Sunday, not after, during the game on Sunday against the Patriots. We've got the perfect person to weigh in on this, and a lot of other very important topics here. Join us right now in the Mercedes-Benz vans phone line. He's a former NFL general manager, now the executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which works to ensure equal opportunity in the football industry, pleased to be joined by Rod Graves. Rod, thank you very much for making some time for us here today. How are you doing as you come up on a very busy time of year for you? Well, I'm doing great, Tom.

Thanks for having me on the show. Been looking forward to being on today, and things are going fairly well, just a bit disappointed in the process exhibited over the last several days with the hiring of Coach Satterday. Tell me about this, Rod, and by the way, it is strange to hear you call him Coach Satterday, a title that 48 hours ago definitely did not exist. The Rooney Rule, which of course is just one of many policies that are in place here, does not apply to interim coaches. However, a point that I've made on NFL Network over the past couple of days is the comment by Jim Erce saying Jeff Satterday was the only person for the job is kind of exactly why the Rooney Rule exists in the big picture, which is to prevent people from just saying, I know this one guy, he's the one without considering different viewpoints, different candidates. As you watch this play out, and I don't know if you had any advance notice, Rod, of what the Colts had planned, but what was going through the mind of yourself and your constituents that you represent?

Well, Tom, let me first say that owners have a right to select whoever they choose to lead their clubs, and it remains to be seen, obviously, whether Mr. Erce made the right decision for his organization, only he has the understanding and the right for that decision, and he made it. My issue, and with those that I represent as part of the Executive Director of the Fridge Pollard Alliance, is in the process. We can talk for quite a while about the insensitivity and the disregard for people who have devoted their entire careers to the profession. It's especially hurtful to coaches of color who have found that the road to head coach positions has been long filled with obstacles.

But again, we could talk for a good amount of time with respect to that. My issue is with the league's inconsistency on the question of hiring and fair opportunities. The league has a policy which is known as the Equal Opportunity Employment Policy, which promises fair, open, and competitive hiring practices. I do not believe that the hiring of an interim coach should be excluded from that policy. And I understand that exceptions are made for in-house decisions, but any time an organization goes outside of their full-time employees to hire another individual, especially for what's considered a primary position, then it should be opened up to the Rooney Rule. And let me just further say that the Rooney Rule are just words on paper. We don't have a rule or policy without enforcement or commitment to the spirit of the rule. And that's where we need to step back and examine where we are as a league to really ask ourselves whether or not we're truly committed. We are not. The Rooney Rule exists on paper as just words.

It's hollow if we're not willing to enforce it. And again, as I said before, I do not believe that an interim position is worthy of exception when you're stepping outside of the organization to feel a primary role at that. And now we know, Rod, via Jeff Satterday, that he was called about the job with no experience above the high school level while Frank Reich was still employed, while Frank Reich was literally still wearing the headset on the sideline Sunday against the Patriots. I would ask you this, because you made your position very clear on interim coaches, ideally, because these things move quickly, right? And that's kind of always the cover that's given, which is, well, we have to do something. We have to move quickly. We've got a game next week.

We've got to go. What would the ideal process be from an interim coaching perspective? And this hiring from the outside does not happen very often, but even the interim opportunities from within, what is the process that should take place at a time that, listen, Jeff Satterday is getting a chance for eight games to show he can be an NFL head coach. And there's a lot of other assistant coaches around the league that have not gotten that opportunity regardless of their color. Well, again, I think, you know, as we've normally seen, and when decisions are made, Tom, within the season that, you know, you first look to your staff, you look to your coordinators, you look to position coaches, we saw that with Steve Wilkes in Carolina, you know, there are opportunities certainly within your staff.

And again, that's the owner's prerogative. If he is not satisfied with those that are on the staff, then he can go outside of the staff. There's the process, obviously, is much more engaging once you go outside of the staff and if you have to apply the Rooney rule. But again, he certainly has an opportunity to look to more qualified coaches on his staff. But again, if he doesn't feel comfortable in that regard, then he has to go through an expensive process, in my opinion, which involves the Rooney rule.

Rod Graves, the executive director of the Fritz Pauler Alliance, joining us here on the Rich Eisenshow on the Mercedes-Benz Vans Hotline. My issues, Rod, in general with the hiring process and the inequities we've seen in terms of the numbers, are really threefold. It is, number one, there seems to be, and there's an increasing actual number of mandates in terms of what you have to interview for, the positions, all the way down. That seems at times to be the cover for allowing people to say we're going to check these boxes.

We're making more boxes, but we're not actually getting at the root of the issue. Number two, it is raising the awareness of the right coaches, which is something that you do on a daily basis. And the third one, and something that I asked about during the NFL's fall meeting was representation in the room. There are some teams, last year the Broncos were a good example. They had, I believe, 10 people who were a part of their every single head coaching interview. They had women, they had people of color. There was the Vikings had a very diverse group and interviewing with different departments, different people, different perspectives. There were other teams that had the same three white guys in the room that they've hired every other head coach and general manager, and surprise, surprise, they hired yet another white guy to fill the job. And that's not to say that hiring a white coach is the wrong thing to do, but it's about the representation in the room can provide different perspectives on candidates. And I'm just curious, from your perspective, what is the pushback, if any, if that has been discussed about making sure that there's a diverse group, if not in the decision making process, at least in the interview process, and making that something that's mandatory or minimum best practices?

Well, Tom, I think that's well said. And we know that when you have a diverse committee, if you will, in terms of the interview process, that the likelihood of a diverse candidate obviously being selected is increased. You know, I believe that Roger Goodell has done an admirable job of stressing how important diversity is to the league and to the future of football. I believe that opportunities out there should be availed to all people, regardless of color.

If you are qualified and competent to lead and have the skills to be involved in the game, you should have an opportunity. It's good business in the long run. Diversity is good business. And our fans are well aware that corporations across the country are growing in awareness with respect to that. I do believe that teams are better off when opinions and diverse attitudes and positions of, you know, foresight are all taken into consideration. And I believe that there's an opportunity to certainly engage our fans and our sponsors and all of that on those levels. But teams, for whatever reason, are slow to embrace diversity. Some teams, others have done a great job. This is not a total league problem.

This is a problem in pockets. And I just strongly believe that, you know, there has to be more demand from fans, from sponsors, and from others for a more fair and equitable process when it comes to hiring. The NFL has a great game, and I was very much a part of that great game. And I believe that we should be one of the leaders in the industry, not only in sports, but just in business in general. There's no reason why we can't come up with a better and more equitable way of hiring and promoting, regardless of color.

And so, you know, to see these type of insensitive moves. And again, Mr. Hersey knows what, he better knows what's right for his team. But this is a failure of our ability to enforce the policy of fairness.

And we had an opportunity to do it, and we did not do it. And that's the problem that I have going forward, and I hope that we can address it in the days and weeks to come so that we are more consistent in its application. So looking forward then to this cycle, Rod, you know, there's been a lot of discussion of course about Eric B. enemy, Riley, so in recent years and when he's going to get an opportunity. There's other coaches who are people of color that I think people are getting to know. Tamiko Ryan's is certainly a frontline guy, the 49ers defensive coordinator. He was really impressive in his area with the Vikings. Last year they wanted him to come in for a second interview, but Tamiko, to his credit, did something many coaches do, which is said, I don't think I'm ready.

I think I need a little bit more time, more seasoning here. Went back to San Francisco, but I anticipate he's going to be in the process. Thomas Brown, who's the assistant head coach of the LA Rams, had an interview last year with the Dolphins. I would expect to hear that name again, potentially Patrick Graham, the Raiders defensive coordinator. Who are some of those other coaches that are on your radar that you think really deserve a lot of attention and opportunities to at least interview for these jobs coming up in January? Tom, there are quite a few outstanding coaches out there. Some of them whose teams may not be performing quite as well, but I've stood on the sideline with many of these guys back during the time when I was GM.

I know what they're made of. I know what they bring to the table. I know how well they coach and how hard they coach and how dedicated they are to their profession. When I look at guys like Vance Joseph and even Leslie Frazier and Joe Woods at Cleveland or Jerry Gray at Green Bay or there's other names, Pep Hamilton or Rahim Morris. You mentioned Patrick Graham, but you've got D'Amico Ryan. Again, there's a number of coaches out there.

You mentioned Thomas Brown, Curtis Motkins at Minnesota. Again, we could go down the list of guys that I think are certainly deserving of an interview. And again, I know what these guys bring to the table and I know that they're very capable of the leadership that's required to have a successful organization or run a successful team. Last thing for you, Rod, and you've been very generous with your time.

We appreciate it. The text I got from various people, black coaches and front office people around the league after Jeff Saturday got the interim job, we use words like insulting, embarrassing. There is frustration, even though I certainly think there's an argument that if you hired a black player who had never coached in the NFL or college, you'd have some of the same level of scrutiny, but it happens to be that Jeff Saturday is not.

He's another white man who's getting an opportunity with a relatively thin resume as a coach. You mentioned the process needs to change. We need to be committed to a better process.

What's your message to owners? If you get the opportunity to be in front of people before they go through the search process coming up in, really it's getting going now in terms of vetting candidates, but into January and February as they're going through the process, what is your message to them about what you want the process to be and what you want their mentality to be moving forward? We just want a commitment to fairness, a commitment to a fair process.

There are only so many jobs that are out there and everyone is not going to be in a position to get a head coaching job or a general manager's job or president of a club. We understand that, but what we want is a level playing field with respect to evaluating our capabilities, our success, all of those things that we don't get credit for, that I certainly believe need to be a part of the evaluation process. We just want to be able to engage into a fair process that at least will take into consideration some of those that are capable and that they have an opportunity to be evaluated. When you don't have an opportunity to be evaluated, that's where the rub comes in. I do believe the insensitivity shown by the coach, it is a punch in the gut, particularly for black coaches and for all the professionals out there, regardless black or white, who devoted their careers to professionalism, but again, he has the right to make that decision. I'm just more concerned about process and we let a lot of people down when we are not willing to enforce a fair and equal process. Rod, thank you very much for your time and your perspective.

I'm sure that we will be talking plenty over the next couple of months here. Tom, thanks for the opportunity. Thanks, Rod. That is Rod Graves, the executive director of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which works toward equity in the hiring process and throughout the football industry. You could hear the frustration and it's understandable when you have a hire like this. Again, I would make the argument that if you had hired a black former player, you would fairly have a fair level of criticism of that as well, but it just fits the pattern and it makes people within the league feel like this is not going to change, that this is going to continue to be the direction things go. There's been progress on the diversity in the general manager pool. There have been a lot of hires that have changed the makeup of that group, but with head coaches, it remains largely the same. Those names that we talked about, we'll talk more about those I'm sure over the next several days here.

There's a lot of good coaches, a lot of young coaches in particular who happen to be people of color around the NFL that probably deserve to have a higher level of awareness about them than we have right now. Meanwhile, Jeff Satterday. He's still talking. Let's talk about Jeff's latest revelations, again, including Jim, or say calling him during the game, not after during the game, during the game, the body still won, Chris Dwight Frini is also going to head set on. He's coaching.

He's like, well, tied to Dwight Frini about it as well. Dig into it. Also later on in the show, I want to get to the names.

You cannot tell the story of the 2022 season without mentioning them. I think this is a fascinating exercise. The 10 names that are working in your head.

I've got my list. I'm curious. Brockman already looks like he's deep in thought over there, maybe he just wants to be rubbing his mustache. I can't tell.

Is that itchy there? You just got to... It's terrible.

I hate it through it. Jeff Satterday, trying to clarify it appears some of his remarks in that press conference. Well, two folks can't even handle this over there because that would be like them, like Rich calling me right now and get him out.

No, Rich calling Jason right now and being like, yeah, so what's up with the sound today? And then yeah. And then all of a sudden I'm gone next year. Tomorrow you're not here because you're not going to be here tomorrow or getting rid of me. And you take this chair. Yeah.

That's definitely never happening. The additional quotes, so initially Jeff Satterday said Jim Merced called him during the Colts game on Sunday against the Patriots. Frank Reich wearing the headset on the sideline has, he probably had some idea, but has no idea.

This is probably it. This is not going well. Frank wasn't informed until Monday morning.

I know that for a fact. It was shortly before we broke the news that he's out, but the conversation started between Jim Merced and Jeff Satterday on Sunday. And by the way, every time I say Saturday on Sunday, it's going to drive me bananas. Saturday on Thursday.

Saturday said on Wednesday. Yep. I can't do it.

I can't deal with this. Did we just say Jeff and everyone will know who we're talking about? I mean, at this point, there's really, what other relevant Jeff is there? Jeff's kind of a dying name. I don't feel like we got a lot of Jeff said Bezos.

He's relevant right now. Yeah. Probably going to be the Washington owner soon, I'm guessing.

Or minimum. He's the bid that everyone can beat. Right. Yeah. We have Bezos.

Jeff's here. Yeah. You mean Saturday? No. Bezos. Well, hold on.

Saturdays also. He's, he's taking a rocket ship to Mars with, uh, with Jim Merced. Rocket ship to Indy Saturday clarifying that when he got that call from her say, according to my NFL network colleague, Andrew Siciliano, who always watches and live tweets these press conferences. He was just upset. He was asking me what was going on.

This was not about Frank. This was not a conversation about Frank says her say, wanted to talk about the poor play of the offensive line Saturday says her say called and said, what the H is going on with the protection. What the H really what the H did you often know are you often in a, you know, if I were in a fight with my wife and then just walked out there, hold on, give me two minutes. Walked out and called another woman and just said, can you believe this? Change your name. What's going on?

It's a rat. How would you fix this? I can see that being problematic. I don't think that would go over well and then call her the next morning, honey, being replaced. You're out.

By who? This woman who has no experience being my wife, but can it get worse? You're gone. She's in.

Thank you very much for your service. I'm going to talk to the media tonight and try to figure out everything else. Is she, does she have a driver's license? Can she get around? No, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to interview the, the kids and see who can handle some of the other duties here.

Does it really know what she's doing? Is anyone in this house cooked before? No. Well, hold on a second.

Let me interview them. I'm going to cook. Tegan, you're eight. Can you, can you figure this out? Chris Rock has a joke about that, that I can't repeat here on road call, but it is really on the head of what you're talking about right now. Insert Parks Fraser and give me the sanitized version.

He got it in you. Uh, does, does your new cook cook, does your new coach cook? Does your new coach clean and I know I really can't, there's no way for me to massage this stuff, you can stay in the corner, you're going to get canceled, you're staying over there. Nice try. I'm staying 30 feet away.

There's no way for me to do this. It's, there's a lot here and again, Dwight Frini is going to join us later in the show. We'll talk more. What was your reaction when you found out from your sources that this was happening? The Frank Reich piece was not a surprise. That was something that we were monitoring that morning that there was a decent chance because Jim Merced was plainly upset and because he had his fingerprints on everything that had been taking place for weeks. Here's what you got to know about Jim Merced. He doesn't get involved most of the time. He's a great owner in that way. He stays out of the football decisions. He's not micromanaging everything. He's not in every meeting.

He's not Jerry Jones being the GM, but when he gets involved, he is very involved. He takes over. And so you go back to the quarterback change from Matt Ryan to Sam Ellinger. You go to Marcus Brady being fired. You go obviously to Frank Reich being fired and Jeff Saturday being named the interim head coach. This all has Jim Merced's fingerprints all over it, which raises the question now when we get to January and Erce already made the comment that, well, this is for eight games with Jeff Saturday, hopefully more. I took that to mean hopefully this guy shows in the next two months that he can do a job that he's never done before and then nothing in his resume says he can do at the NFL level other than obviously being a Pro Bowl player and a great leader and all those different things. Other people took it to mean, well, hopefully we'll make the playoffs possible, but when you listen to the entirety of Jim Merced's comments, you don't step back going, well, this is just a, they're gluing this thing together.

I would find it hard to believe that Chris Ballard, the football people in that building would be on board with a scenario where Jeff Saturday is the head coach going into 2023 because sometimes you get a placebo effect with interim coaches. Sometimes it's just, it's different. We're changing things up.

You feel like, all right, we got some new juice. Let's give it a shot. There is something to be said for an outside perspective. Somebody who hasn't been there to kind of take the 30,000 foot view you can't take when you're in it. We'll talk a lot more about this.

One of these names might be on my list that we're going to do right after this break too, of the top 10 names you cannot tell the story of the 2022 season without. We'll do that coming up next on the Rich Eisen Show. It could be information to change your life forever, or the Something You Should Know podcast could just be something interesting. Ramit Sadie talking about being rich. The old definition of rich had a lot to do with how much money you accumulated, but it wasn't about how to spend it. It was more about how to get it, but okay, so once you get it, what do you do with it? In our culture, everybody tells you how to save, but nobody teaches you how to spend it. You know, wherever you listen.