REShow: Ian Rapoport - Hour 2

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Cannot get enough of that Jeff Saraday quote. Say it with me, boys. Every day is Saturday. What if they win? What if they win on Sunday? If the Colts win? Yeah, what if the Colts beat the Raiders? Like, that's not a crazy thought, is it? Not at this point.

No, I mean the Raiders aren't playing particularly well either, so certainly it's within the realm of possibility. You got Parks Frazier calling the plays. We have literally no idea what that's going to look like. Young, talented coach.

People there have told me he's a stud. But it's a projection, put it that way. The entire situation is a projection at this point for the Indianapolis Colts.

We don't know. And here's the deal. As always, I look to Vegas, Tom. Not the team, but the city and what goes on there. Yesterday and throughout earlier this week, the Raiders were six and a half point favorites. They're down to minus six. Can you bet on them just first half?

Sure. Why are people betting on the Colts? Because the Raiders look like a team in disarray recently.

They haven't played well. I mean, it's as simple as that. Now, there is something to be said, that placebo effect.

When you have a new coach and you're just hearing different things and maybe it feels different and you get a little juice and he can get you jacked up in a way that Frank Reich couldn't in terms of what he might say before the game. It's possible. A lot of things are possible. Is this going to happen? We shall find out.

Sorry, I keep cutting you off. One minute ago at the real Adam Schefter, I know there's some fake blue checks going around. Actually, Adam Schefter just tweeted, the Raiders are placing Darren Waller on IR. There are many tweets about Darren Waller being on IR.

That is correct. So aggravated his hamstring. Team believes that they'll give him four weeks to come back healthy and finish the season. Hamstrings are a difficult deal. Keenan Allen has dealt with his for like six weeks now.

Played once in that span. It's just difficult to know when you suffer that type of an injury. You know what's going to happen?

Every guy thinks they can come back sooner than they actually can. But that's another loss for the for the Raiders. It's not a loss for my fantasy team, Tom. And mine. All of us. And I just dropped Evan Ingram.

I got to figure it out. Foster Moreau season. The D.C. Attorney General has just begun. His press counter is about to. It's promised a major announcement on the Washington commanders. Meanwhile, earlier today, we mentioned that Ron Rivera had to address his players about the dueling statements that have been put out, including one talking about Brian Robinson getting shot and talking about out of control violent crime in Washington, D.C., basically saying, look over here.

Why are you worried about what's going on with us when you have this going on within your city? And by the way, they did make multiple arrests in the Brian Robinson case here recently. Here was a tweet a few hours ago by JP Finley, who's one of the B reporters covering the commanders throughout Dan Snyder drama. Commanders players have done a good job of trying to block it out, but I've heard it's different now. Players are mad lawyers tried to use Brian Robinson, a rookie, in the rebuttal about business issues.

Might not say it publicly, but guys are pissed. Doesn't happen anywhere but Washington. You think any player on any other team knows anything their team attorneys or even their external counsel, as Jason Wright said, has ever said about anything? No.

It is only in Washington. How do you prepare for a game against the Eagles on Monday when this is going on? You might be on, I don't know if they're on the practice field right now, but how do you possibly turn your attention forward here with this level of stuff going around?

It gets through, all right? Social media, every player is on it now, which is why coaches, or just about every player, coaches are hyper conscientious of the messaging aspect. Even coaches who years ago, Mike McCarthy was one of them, would have just said, we just block out the noise, we don't address it. Now you have to address everything because it's such a part of people's lives and because even players who are in meetings, they get phone breaks now. They get an opportunity to take a break and look at their phone in a lot of these buildings. So you're going to see it and then the media is going to ask you questions about it.

Like if you're a player, maybe you were a poli sci major, criminal justice. Odds are you're being asked a question about congressional investigations and potential charges from a district attorney and NFL investigations. You have no idea what to say. You got nothing on it, but it's time that you're not focused on the Eagles. And that's one more way here that everything going on off the field with the commanders just has a trickle-down effect on what's actually happening on the field, which makes it a borderline miracle with a backup quarterback that they're, what are they, four and five? I think right now. They had a three-game win streak before they lost to the Vikings and had that game.

They were up 10 late in that game. So we will, we will keep an eye on the commander's pressure. TJ, you were, you were quiet during the last segment, too, on asking me things. I feel like you had a couple that you needed to get to there. Did you have questions for me?

Well, you know, my biggest question is, you know, Rose, kind of like what you do. You always see you guys that are insiders. You always get the notifications. You always get the scoop. And I'm just wondering, like, how did you get to that point?

Like, what separates you from your peers? How did you get this like insider title? How do insiders become insiders is basically what I'm wondering. It's a good question.

I think a lot of it has to do with just years of relationships and a understanding of how the league works. I mean, it's one thing to just, you know, watch my words carefully here. There are certain people in the industry whose methods for news gathering may be different than my own. Okay.

Understood. But if you build actual trust with people and actual relationships with people, it in some ways becomes harder because it's not merely getting something and throwing it out there. Well, make sure it's right.

Well, you need to make sure it's right. But also there are scenarios where by putting something out there, there may be five other people who you count on who get mad at you. And so making sure that people have an understanding that they're not blindsided by your Twitter account.

That's a factor in this. It's also about sustaining, you know, relationships with people. I mean, I don't I don't have the gene in my body to call and yell at somebody if they don't give me a scoop. I don't do that. I just don't. Some other people might. I don't. And so you're basically counting on people liking you enough and valuing the information that you can give them. The way you can help them. Right. That there's some level of an exchange over the course of of many years.

So it's a complicated answer, but it's just you no matter what you do, you can't really microwave it. You have to go through it over the course of time and then also have the the wherewithal and the self-awareness to be able to go. Well, 15 minutes ago, I was talking about Darren Waller being back at some point this season. Now he's on IR.

That's an L. All right, we'll move on from that one. There's more scoops out there that we'll be able to get to. And by the way, they do still think he's going to be back at some point.

But obviously the hamstring had not had not come around. But you're going to lose. You know, as you know, we have Ian Rappaport on here shortly. He does not like to lose.

He's he's he's definitely a bad loser. But everybody but he's told me that many times before just you have to you're going to take some. You're not you're not going to get everything. And that's the you have to have a certain mental toughness to it. Understand.

Well, and also also in Christian, we talk about this. There's also the race like you want to be first like so many people want to be first. But I think a lot of us would rather you got it, right? I don't care who breaks the story first necessarily. Just get the story.

Correct is in your in your world. Is there like I mean secretly are there people like, yeah, this guy is just all about like we all we all know who the people are. OK, that's kind of what I was getting at. Take their shots. We all know who the people are, who you see it and you're like, I don't know, man, like that.

Let me check on that. That's a projection. You know, and then there's other people who like you have a pretty good level of faith. But again, it goes back to, you know, you talk about getting it right. It's also about, you know, verifying that, you know, I'd rather be late 10 times and be wrong once.

And so I'm an example of this. So Frank Wright gets fired the other morning. I had a pretty good sense that this was a possibility. Sure, Frank did as well, though not as soon as Jeff Saturday. And just Saturday's wife knew before Frank. So I had been on the phone with somebody minutes before. And at that point, there was nothing, nothing had taken place.

Now, Frank may have been in the meeting at that point, but it did not trickle down to other people yet. Two minutes later, I'm in the shower. The same person calls me back. I'm like, is it a butt dial? They just call back to talk.

I'm like, what are the odds? And so they call a second time. I pick it up and it's Frank's been fired. So I'm popping out of the shower here.

Wow. My wife does Zoom calls in our dining room. So I'm like, I can't in my current state, just run downstairs. Like, I don't like doing breaking news tweets on my phone.

I've gotten burned a few ways that on that over time, better, better chance on the computer. So I throw a towel on, run down the stairs, calling somebody else to be like, hey, I'm about to tweet. He's out. And as I'm typing the tweet, Schefter tweets it. And so I'm just like bang. So my tweet is just Frank, Frank fired time to read the rest.

But if I had just gone with the initial call and tweeted it, I would have been first outside of the people who live on Twitter like we do. I don't know how much people really notice it. But what does that get you, though? Like, do you get X? Is there a bonus in the check? Like, it'd be great if there was.

I don't think so. So it's like it's the it's the capital just to be able to say it's the capital to bosses, to fans, to people who rely on that. There's a lot of people who have Twitter alerts set up for a very, very small number of people who break news. As you know, I don't know this Twitter world.

I'm very unfamiliar not being on the platform. So I'm just trying to figure out with Elon to get reinstated. I don't know if I want reinstated, man. Life has been better without having to look at Twitter all the time. So well, especially with the current blue checks not meaning anything world that we seem to be.

I had to double check Darren Waller news. Well, I you know, I got before I got suspended and banned permanently. They turned me down for looking for a blue check, even though I sit here and talk into this mic three hours a day every day. So yeah, I guess Twitter just wasn't for me, man. The writing was on the wall. So, you know, stay humble. Tom, did you when you started your career, did you think you would get to this point of where you're breaking news and kind of at the forefront here of the NFL information? I started my career in 2003 at a radio station in Minneapolis, and I was making eight bucks an hour 20 hours a week with no benefits. So now loved it, right?

I was just trying to figure out how many cans of chili and ramen can I eat before it kills me. But you were loving it, right? Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. I mean, that was the that was the 2003 Vikings that started out six and oh and then collapsed and lost on the final play to Josh McCown and the Cardinals in the final week of the season.

He throws the touchdown in the end of literally the last play of the season and they missed the playoffs and it was a great crash course in everything and watching, you know, some of the true professionals who were on that beat. But no, like I still I'm not I haven't made it. I'm sitting here. This is a lot of fun. But like I have it, you know what I mean?

Like you have to constantly have that hunger to get better to to want to push yourself on this stuff. So I just I'm just happy I get to do a lot of different stuff for NFL Network right now and do shows like this be on from games and hopefully break some news along the way. Let me tell you something 2003 Tommy P sitting there eating top ramen.

He would think that you made it with this morning. Thinking back on that. Yeah, being 22 years old and doing that like being the players age and now I'm the coach's age or older than the coaches. I believe Tom Brady is the only player left who's older than me. I'm 41. He's 45.

I think he's the last one that I've got. And so when he when he walked back in February, that was a that's weird, right? That was a rough moment for me. Now he's back and I'm like, I'm holding on just a little bit a little bit longer. But it's yeah, the relationships are different now too.

I think back to, you know, I was on the Packers beat at the Green Bay Press Gazette and like the conversations you'd have with players at that point and like seeing guys out partying at the same bar as you were at living in the same apartment complex. Like that stuff doesn't exist now. Now.

I'm more on the you know, the age and the level of the coaches in terms of like the conversations and so that stuff definitely evolves over the course of time and it's interesting just to see. Well, hold on. Oh, we've got I'm just checking here. We've got a statement. This is a statement from the attorneys representing the players awaiting the press conference.

We do not have the false alarm. I don't want to I don't want to delay too long here. So we'll get back to it. Hopefully we'll have news on the commanders. We got a lot more to talk about my colleague Ian Rappaport. We certainly can talk more about insider world with him. I think he was probably live on TV when the Darren Waller news broke so we can get a little bit more into that with Ian as well.

A whole bunch of other things that we can do throughout the course this program. Harrison Smith is going to join us later as well. Ian Rappaport, NFL Network Insider. What's the latest on Josh Allen? What's going on with Kyler Murray's hamstring?

What happened with Darren Waller? We will talk about all that with Ian coming up next on the Rich Eisen Show. Influencer, it's a word that gets tossed around a lot these days. There is a woman who went the distance who broke ground as the first true influencer by living a remarkable life. Her name, Elizabeth Taylor. I'm Katy Perry. This is the story of the original influencer. This is Elizabeth the first.

Elizabeth the first, the podcast, wherever you listen. A lot happening right now. Yeah, right. Josh Allen not practicing again today. That is significant in football terms.

That's two consecutive days because of his elbow injury, not on the field as they get set to face the Vikings. And meanwhile from the commanders and specifically from Attorney General of Washington DC, Carl A Racine, who is conducting a press conference at the same time that Ron Rivera is conducting his normal daily press conference. So there's that. Add that to the list. The Attorney General announces my office is suing the commander's owner, Dan Snyder, the commanders, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and the NFL for colluding to deceive district residents, the heart of the commander's fan base about an investigation into toxic workplace culture after public reporting revealed that sexual misconduct, harassment, and misogyny ran rampant for decades at the team.

The defendants promised DC residents that the league was going to fix this toxic culture, including by fully cooperating with an independent investigation. I am not an attorney. Neither is my next guest, though we both at times have to pretend that we are one on TV. He's an NFL Network Insider. Many might call him the second best NFL Network Insider. My friend Ian Rappaport is here. You can see Ian and me. I don't know why I'm not on the card here.

Sunday on NFL Network's NFL Game Day kickoff, 7 a.m. Eastern Time leading up to Seahawks Buccaneers at 9 30 a.m. Eastern from Munich. Ian, obviously, again, we're not equipped to get into the legalese here, but this does not sound good for Daniel Snyder, and he is currently under fire from a lot of different angles. What do you make just of the developments here in recent days, including those dueling statements that went out from the team yesterday? First of all, I would take issue with your credibility with regards to being, calling me the second best insider. I mean, if you say those kinds of things to your fans, what should they believe? Like, which of the other false statements of yours are they going to be subjected to?

If, like, if you would lie about something as important as this, then what else would you lie about? There's still time to lower you to number three, Ian. So if you want to answer my question about the commanders, feel free. Otherwise, we'll adjust the rankings again. No, that's fine.

Perfect there. First of all, it is interesting, and I'm kind of like you. I'm reading this stuff right now. I'm watching the press conference, trying to figure out what a consumer protection lawsuit is. And, you know, what it seems to be is basically that the commanders pretended everything was fine, while telling their fans that everything was fine, while everything was certainly not fine, as it pertains to workplace misconduct and really like five other things with the command. I mean, so many other things with the commanders. That's what it seems to be, that they sort of defrauded, allegedly defrauded the public by not admitting that they were messed up in many, many ways. That is essentially my summation.

Added to the list though, Tom. You know, like there's five other investigations. This is now another one. And, you know, obviously it's significant because it's the, you know, DCAG and all that, but it's really kind of just throw it on the pile. You know, like how many other things is there going to be?

Is this the one thing that is the tipping point? I don't know because there's so many other investigations going on. The people I've spoken with, high ranking, well-sourced people believe that Dan Snyder is leaning toward eventually selling. And I would imagine this will only sort of kick that in the right direction. Karl Racine, the attorney general for District of Columbia holding his press conference now saying in part, and this is from Mark Maskey's tweet, the office is seeking financial penalties for every incident in which the commanders, Mr. Snyder, the NFL, and Commissioner Goodell, lied to district residents dating back to July 2020, could face millions of dollars in penalties. Roping the league and the commissioner into this, certainly Ian, I think adds another element since the NFL has, whether it was Goodell going before Congress, whether it is having Mary Jo White to run an investigation into some of these allegations, the league has tried to, and previously finding Daniel Snyder and suspending him, for whatever that's worth, based upon an earlier investigation, they've tried to play the role that they are governing the turnaround that they hope and that they talk about a lot for the commanders.

What the attorney general seems to be saying here is you are equally culpable. And I would certainly anticipate that the league is going to respond forcefully once they wrap their arms around this. Yeah, I would imagine there'll be a statement or two coming. And I would also wonder, you know, if the league, if the AG believes that the league looked the other way as it pertains to workplace misconduct, where and when and what proof is there? I mean, that's, you know, that's sort of what this is about. I mean, you know, are they going to find instances where Dan Snyder was very well aware of the workplace environment?

I don't know. Anecdotally, my guess is probably there will be a couple. But at what point did the league know that the workplace, you know, culture was so bad?

And did they just ignore it? Like, I would be curious what sort of actual evidence there is of that. But one thing that I know for sure is this is all going to play out very, very publicly because all of these things seem to play out publicly. So lucky for us, this will not be the last time we'll hear of this unless and until Dan Snyder sells. And then, you know, will that will settlement of whatever this is be part of that sale?

I think that would be a question moving forward, too. And meanwhile, Racine, who is still talking, says that they will seek a court order to release the findings of the previous Beth Wilkinson organization, which has been a rallying cry for the many women who had, through their attorneys, attempted to cooperate with the NFL investigation and move this thing forward. There is other news happening here. Ron Rivera having his own football press conference, by the way, at the same time as the attorney general, is fitting based upon everything that's happened there.

Let's talk about what's going on in Buffalo here. Ian, Josh Allen not practicing for a second consecutive day, dealing with the elbow injury. I know you previously reported this is something they hope that Allen is able to manage. Where is the where is the level of hope, if any, that Allen's going to be out there on Sunday against the Vikings? Yeah, I mean, I think there's two parts of this. There's the the fact that it's not like when this happened, my brain immediately went to like Thinky Bobby just tore his elbow apart.

It seems to not be that. It seems to be a UCL sprain, which as you know, it's a tiny tear, not a big tear, which is good. The fact that it's not out for the season, and that it is something he can manage is excellent, excellent news for Bill's Mafia and Bill's fans, and also Josh Allen himself, because that would be really bad. But it doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to play this week. And it seems to me to be somewhat similar, maybe not quite as bad, but somewhat similar to the UCL sprain he had to this rookie. It was either his rookie or his second year. Where he kind of missed, you know, missed some time, I think missed three or four games.

And then when he was able to get back, he looked like his old self. Like I don't think it'll be that many games, but that's sort of what I'm thinking here is something he can rehab. And most UCL sprains for football players are non-surgical.

That seems to be the case here as well. NFL Network insider Ian Rappaport is our guest. Kyler Murray also popped up on the injury report yesterday. Ian, as did his opponent this week, Matthew Stafford with a concussion. Concussions, of course, that's part of the NFL's protocol. But with Kyler and the hamstring, something that we saw actually on hard knocks, if you watch the hard knocks in season last night, when that popped up in their last game, did not seem like it was particularly comfortable for Kyler. What's your understanding about the odds that we see him coming up on Sunday? Not great, you know, and it's not just, let's say, I don't know, pick your pocket passer. Let's say, you know, one of the older pocket passers had a hamstring injury.

He'd be like, okay. Well, like he could move around the pocket. He'll probably be fine. Kyler Murray is dynamic. He is athletic.

He moves probably as well as anyone. And I would say he needs two healthy hamstrings to be himself. And I think this is part of it because it's not really like, oh, can he, you know, fight through an injury? Is he tough enough? It's like, can he be the quarterback that he actually is with a bad hamstring? And I would have some doubts on that. So yeah, I mean, I think there really is a chance we see Cole McCoy this week.

There's a reason why you pay all these backups so much money to stand there and hold a clipboard. So if you have to turn for them, turn to them, you have some confidence and I think he's a pretty good one for Arizona. It was interesting watching the exchange last night on hard knocks with the mics on, between Kyler and DeAndre Hopkins on the sideline last week, because I know there were some people who thought, well, this is just them talking. It looked to me watching it live like they are arguing and then you watch the clip and DeAndre Hopkins is basically saying, what are you looking at?

I'm open. Why am I not getting the ball? You had the report last weekend that the Cardinals had gotten trade calls on DeAndre Hopkins. How seriously, if at all, Ian, did they consider any offers that they got? And quite frankly, does DeAndre Hopkins want to be in Arizona right now? Well, there's definitely some frustration on the sideline and reality is, he's going to be in Arizona through the season. You know, usually Tom, when there are trade rumors, they don't evaporate into nothing, right?

Like you and I both keep a pretty solid whiteboard on, in our office on things to check on and things that are storylines that are ongoing. I will not be removing DeAndre Hopkins' future from my whiteboard because teams tried to get him this time. I would imagine they will try to get him in the offseason and it's really just is the right price. And I didn't get the sense that Steve Kind considered it seriously at all. And when I talked to some people who called, basically what they said is he's not trading him.

So that makes sense. But they're, you know, kind of running out of time to fix it. And I think, you know, the DeAndre Hopkins suspension, you know, probably short-circuited this a little bit too because it made it much harder for the team at, you know, to start the season, give them a much, you know, sort of higher learning curve.

It's tough. It's been a tough season and they got to fix this pretty quickly. What happened with Darren Waller?

And what is still happening with Darren Waller here? Yeah, so, you know, every year there's like two or three hamstring injuries to star players that just don't get better. And I would say Keenan Allen's probably in the same boat.

I don't get the sense. They're going to do this to Keenan Allen, but it's a hamstring that just hasn't gotten better. And each time you practice a little bit instead of being just kind of a hurdle you overcome. It just goes gets worse. And I think for Waller every time he tried to practice it got worse. They put him on IR. He is now out four games and hopefully by the time he returns his hamstring will be better.

You know, it also leads you to wonder why this wasn't done earlier. But hamstrings are kind of different and so much of it is like a feel injury that maybe that was the feel they got early on, was that we can manage this. They had a frustrating thing that was like, this is supposed to be a great celebration of a season for the Raiders. New coach, new GM, new star players. I know they rebuffed trade-offs for Waller at the deadline.

And nothing has gone according to plan for the Raiders. There were a lot of depressed people in the studio when news broke on Darren Waller landing on IR. I think we're three for four of having him on a fantasy team.

Four for four. All four people in this studio have Darren Waller on a fantasy team, including myself here. The guys also had a question for me about whether or not Josh McDaniels is on the hot seat.

My answer in short, Ian, was there's no reason to believe that right now. This is obviously been a disappointing start to the season. There was also always an inevitable type of growth process that was going to have to take place when you're changing things culturally and schematically with a veteran team of big personalities that won. And we're in the playoffs last year.

Do you agree with my assessment and where do the Raiders really go from here? I do not believe he is in trouble. I was also told by very, very high-ranking sources in India, Frank Reich was not in trouble two weeks ago. And I'm pretty sure he got fired on Monday. So it's the NFL, it moves way faster than it ever, ever, ever has moved.

So I understand that, but I don't believe he's in trouble either. And it's really, really interesting for the Raiders because they are not good. And I think everyone expects them to be good. They just put one of their best players on IR. They cut a former first-round draft pick in Jonathan Abram. And they face a Colts team this week that is pretty horrific and also has Jeff Saturdays, their head coach. If the Raiders continue to be bad, like really, really bad, that would be terrible. However, they would also put them in position to have a really, really high draft pick and allow this, you know, gentle manager and coach to start to build their own foundation after taking over from the scraps of Mayock and whatever, like wasteland of first-round picks that he left them. It's really like a fascinating spot for the organization.

I don't know that they would embrace, you know, a high draft pick, but it would not hurt in the long run if they're able to take someone in the top five or the top 10 for a team that probably did not expect to be able to do that. We can't get enough of the Jeff Saturday press conferences here, Ian. The new saying every day is Saturday, I think is very popular right now. What are your early impressions of everything you've seen and heard since Jeff Saturday was plucked from his TV analyst job and handed the reins of a Colts team that's trying to figure this thing out?

You know, I have no idea if Saturday is going to be good or not. But if he was bad at press conferences, that would say a lot of bad things about his TV job. Like he literally talks for a living.

Not anymore. Well, I mean, it's basically what he does now anyway, but you know, if his press conferences sucked, you'd be like, what was he doing over there at whatever show he was on? Right? I mean, so he should be good. It makes sense that he's good. And I don't know that it matters at all because like giving speeches in the locker room is about 0.01% of what you do as a head coach. So yeah, I mean, I think he sounds good. It's, you know, still in a position where he should probably not be there given all the other talented people who are actually coaches, but I would say his press conferences sound good. Like you mentioned Mike Mayock in there and the drafting record, which as we both know, it's hard to really pinpoint who is making the picks because John Gruden had such a huge influence over the organization, everything they did personnel wise.

But like Mayock's another good example. Mike is a great guy. We both know him really well from working with him at NFL Network. And a good evaluator of talent, but there's so many other things that go with that job just on the front office side. On the evaluation side, it's about running your meetings. It's about having a plan for where your area scouts are going to be.

It's how you go through the pre-draft process. Plucking him just set him in such a, basically he wanted to be a college scout. He could still evaluate players, but all those other things weren't really what he was about. And coaching, in my opinion, is so much harder because of all the other aspects of that job and the way that you have to manage the players. I mean, is the GM, unless you're cutting the player or signing them, you're probably not super involved.

Now something goes wrong, whatever. But on the coaching side, you're involved every single day. It's just, it's wild to me when you have somebody hired directly off TV. And granted, I would say Ian Jeff Saturday and Mike Mayock both more qualified than me or you to take that job, but it's a lot easier to sit here and talk about things that went wrong and what you would do differently, or getting a call from your boss or your future boss saying, hey, how would you fix this? I don't know.

Tell them to block better. All right, you're hired. That's basically what happened here with Jim Erce hiring Jeff Saturday. I just, I don't know how, how you translate one to the other, especially when the locker room, you know, quite frankly, no offense to Jeff Saturday, but I don't know that 90% of the guys in that locker room know who he is. Yeah, I mean, well, he's been around the organization plenty with, you know, Ring of Honor stuff, so I assume they have some idea.

But yeah, so I will never forget like a week. I was so excited for Mike Mayock to get the Raiders GM job, right? I mean, I love Mayock, like he's great. He was a great teammate at NFL Network, and I was so excited and I will never forget early on getting a call from one of the scouts there, who's like, hey, Mayock doesn't really know what he's doing. Like what? Like, yeah, like all the stuff that like the meetings and like the planning and like, I think it's going to be fine. He really doesn't know. And I guess eventually he figured it out because he did the job for a couple years, but like it's very different and, you know, Jeff Saturday saying that, well, you know, I've seen successful GMs and coaches like, okay, cool.

You also had Peyton Manning, but whatever. Like watch people be good. That is not the same as actually doing it. We'll see what happens. Maybe he gets to prove everyone, including me, wrong, but yeah, I'll stop talking. Last thing, Ian, for you, before we let you run, you mentioned the whiteboard in there. You and I do take, TJ was asking earlier about, you know, what goes into being an insider.

Like a big part of it is organization and just like not forgetting the things that are going on in the league and being able to kind of have a running log. And one of the things that you like to do is when, whether you break the story or not, if it's a big story, you send us a video of you erasing that off the whiteboard, which is always a big moment. What's your favorite thing, whether you broke it or not, your favorite thing that you were finally able to erase off the whiteboard so far this year? I would say my favorite one, you know, getting to erase to Sean Watson, knowing everything that went into, you know, getting that one and reporting it in the way that we did, like, you know, every step along the way for months and months, like that was fun.

I enjoyed the Baker Mayfield wipe off, like that was a lot of fun. Because that was, I mean, you know the story, like I was on the golf course playing congressional. I got a call when I'm in the sand trap that, hey, this is going down and like you're like, you know, the go call is coming and all and it was, it was stressful and it was fun and we ended up breaking it and, and I was in DC, so I was away and being able to come home, literally the first thing I did when I came back was like, can't wait to erase this thing and it was awesome. Did you hit the shot from the sand trap or tweet first? I was waiting on the call because if I remember correctly, Darnold needed to be called and I wasn't going to like mess that up, right?

Because that's just, you know, there's a way to do business, right? So I was like, all right, I'll wait. And it took like four minutes.

We let a group go through us and at some point I have my friend hold the phone and I'm like, if you get a thumbs up from this person, you just hit send. And I hit the, I hit the bunker shot, I bladed it out of the bunker over the green, ended up double bugging the hole and as I'm walking to the next tee box, I got the go call and then, you know, yelled as loud as I could, hit an absolute bomb of the drive on 17 and then finished the round. It was awesome. I've played golf with you before. You did not hit a bomb. No, I didn't. You hit bombs on Twitter here and there.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm hitting a lot further now. A lot more length off the hockey. Average drives, when we played together last summer, how much longer was my drive than yours? Well, I mean, you could never measure it because it could go literally anywhere. That's true.

Some of them weren't accurate, but I'd say 80 yards, conservatively. Get out of here. No way.

No, no, no. I drive it. I'm very realistic. My best drives are like 270. If I bomb it, it'll be like 290. No chance. You are not hitting 270.

There is no way. I told you I'm hitting a lot further now. All right. Well, we'll have to get back out on the course. Thank you, Ian. Appreciate you taking the time on a busy day. All right.

Bye-bye. Ian plays like a 75-year-old. Like, he is dead straight, but like driver goes maybe 205, you know, wedge 75. But he just hits it straight and he's good around the greens and can putt. And I hit the ball. I almost drove like two or three greens when I was with him if we were playing a shorter course in New York. And then I would like, you know, six chips and putts to get it in.

That's the big difference there. You can see Ian and me. The card does not say me, but by the way, I am also on the NFL Network pregame show before that Seahawks Buccaneers game in Munich on Sunday. The show starts at 7 a.m. Eastern.

Meanwhile, you can listen to the NFL and the NFL app on the Odyssey app on Westwood One Sports dot com via Westwood One Station streams or by asking Alexa to open Westwood One Sports sponsored by AutoZone. We got a lot more to come throughout the course of this show. Dave Dore and NC State and football coach can join us at the top of the hour.

Viking safety. Harrison Smith is also going to join a lot more to dig into to around the NFL, including what's going on with Josh Allen. Do that after this on The Rich Eisen Show, sitting here reading various passages in the filing by the Washington, D.C. attorney general with regard to Dan Snyder and the commanders. I will just fairly say this. I'm not going to get into the details of various allegations.

I would just say you got into him during the break. Everyone who thinks that the original Beth Wilkinson report should be released and can only imagine what's in there. A lot of it appears to be in here.

Wow. And so as much as Daniel Snyder has again, we have not yet seen a statement from him. And he has tried to defer many things in terms of waiting for the legal process to play out, waiting for investigations to play out, beginning to explore his options on a potential sale, though not actually committing to selling the team. This this may advance the ball and the dynamic where the league in Roger Goodell are also parties to being sued as part of this changes the other dynamic, which is to the extent that the league had been investigating the commanders and in previous years discipline the commanders, but also on some level protect the commanders by having everything stay within the internal investigative system.

The internal disciplinary process that now has gone outside. And this is the next level to the entire thing. I I struggle to even think what the NFL would look like without the Dan Snyder factor in terms of if you're every other team. Don't you just hope this goes on forever? Like other than, you know, a few few comments, a little clip from the press coverage, have we talked about the Colts today?

That'd be the sole focus, barely. But you got one team that perpetually creates these storylines and these headlines and it does give cover to people. There's a great theory within the league that I've heard from many people over the years, which is that, you know, name your great coach, Bill Belichick. The Bill Belichick is a good coach, but he's not that great. Everyone else is just that bad.

There's a lot of people who just aren't very good and get opportunities and just can stay for long periods of time. And we don't really hear about other owners at this stage, in part because Dan Snyder is the one that everybody is pointing the arrows at. And Jim Hersey, of course, spoke at length about that during the league's fall meeting. You would certainly believe that this gives added credence. And again, I fully expect we're going to get a statement from the commanders. I don't have I truly do not have any idea what it's going to say.

I'm sure it's going to fire back at the attorney general. I doubt it involves any of their current players as part of it. And at the same time, the commanders trying to get ready for a game against the Eagles on Monday night, an Eagles team that we don't. I don't think that we've talked about as much if they were a different.

They were someplace else. If this were the Cowboys that were undefeated at this point, I feel like we'd probably pay a little bit more attention. I think that part of that has to do with lingering doubts about Jalen Hurts, who spent his entire three year career with everyone in the league, trying to get rid of them and trying to figure out who the Eagles really going to get, who's their real quarterback going to be. We can put that to bed now, right? I don't think it goes to bed until the first round of the draft passes in April and the Eagles haven't tried to trade up. You just don't know. And you have to see how Jalen Hurts continues to proceed here.

I mean, and this is not in any way a criticism of the organization, but I don't recall one firm. This is our guy. We want to pay him after this season. If he is your guy, he's in line for a very lucrative contract extension after this season because he was a second round pick. He's not signed. He doesn't have a fifth year option. So next year will be his contract year.

You probably don't want to go down the tag route. If they're not extending Jalen Hurts after this season, that raises the natural question of are you keeping the door open to do something else? And I think that that's the plight of a lot of quarterbacks who are not top draft picks. You know, Kirk Cousins is the ultimate example of playing the entire thing out, getting your opportunity and just going year to year on the tag. But there's a lot of other quarterbacks who have shells of success at various points in their career and never get to that point of actually having the commitment.

And the lack of commitment can challenge you in terms of how you lead. That's part of why this is such a credit to Jalen Hurts, what they're doing this season. You've seen him loosen up a little. I interviewed him along with Sean O'Hara in training camp.

He actually dive bombed. We were interviewing AJ Brown, supposed to do him next. He just popped in, invited himself in, which when the quarterback decides I'm going to I'm going to jump in your interview, you know, you go with it. He's got little glimpses of the personality there because he's so serious. He works so hard. He's not the natural, you know, type A outward leadership guy or vocal leader. But he does have that quiet confidence to him that that trickles down. And that's something you heard going back to Alabama and Oklahoma and everywhere he played back in college as well.

So he is a guy the players in that locker room gravitate towards. He is playing at a high level. He hasn't thrown. He's not on pace to throw for six thousand yards, but he's way more efficient, way higher completion percentage. Seems to be developing under Nick Sirianni and Shane Steichen. I'm Brian Johnson and the rest of the coaches there. I'm just interested to see over the second half of the season, what does he do? And does he leave the Eagles any type of choice or do they have to make him the guy for the long haul? Save, but nobody teaches you how to spend it. Something you should know wherever you listen.