REShow: Hour 1

It is another Rich Eisen-less edition of The Rich Eisen Show.

Tom Pellicero, happy to be here and happy to announce, as TJ Jefferson pointed out first thing this morning, I raided Rich's wardrobe for day two. I caught quite a bit of flack yesterday from some of my NFL Network colleagues about wearing a shirt jacket, which I guess around here is called a shacket. Is that a term? So I was getting flack for the shacket. It's a flack shacket. Because you went shirt but no button. You didn't button it up.

You just went white underneath. It's a zipper. It's much more jacket than shirt. I thought it was a shirt. I thought you were just going super cash. This is the problem. Yeah. So now I thought it was a jacket and a t-shirt.

I found this down the hall in the green room. I'm just saying, Tom. One thing I was worried about when I heard you were going to co-host, I was like, I hope Tom doesn't come in stunting on us. And then you came in yesterday, you're a little casual. I was like, all right. I turned the corner today, man. And I was like, wait a minute.

When did I didn't know a GQ shoot was going on in the studio today. Look at you, man. Look at all types of flight tomorrow. Tank top jorts and gold chain flops. Yeah, I think that'll I think that'll handle it here. Oh, fella. I like that part.

The flip flop part. Don't have you guys here. TJ Jefferson over there. We'll talk. We'll talk some Cowboys for you today as we should like McCarthy. It's a big game.

We like greatness around here, right? Your favorite coach, 59 years old coach of the year candidate. He should get that. Is he? Why isn't he coach of the year candidate? Mike McCarthy?

They kept the thing on the track with Cooper Rush. See, the thing about him, Tom, is when things go wrong. You mean me? No, no, no, not you. I'm just saying when things go wrong, everyone wants to power on Mike.

But like, things have been going pretty well. You know, there's no one's given this man any credit. That's exactly it. You know, so well, and that's that's been Mike's whole career is everyone saying it's Brett Favre. It's Aaron Rodgers. It's all these other factors. Maybe Mike's a really good football coach.

Maybe he does know how to build a program. I mean, the Packers weren't very good with Brett Favre before he got there. And Aaron Rodgers wasn't very good before Mike took over and started developing him in the quarterback school. And that's not to take anything away from two of the greatest quarterbacks of my lifetime. Just to say, you know, we've seen good. We've seen really good quarterbacks with bad coaches not have success and be bad teams.

Mike had a pretty good run there in Green Bay where he heads back this week. We'll talk more about that as the show rolls on here. Chris Brockman, thank you for being here. Tom, great to be here, man. What's happening? I don't know why that was just an extremely creepy hello. Well, the mustache is not helping.

Shout out Movember. He's hating it, but I think that's all I got. I don't even know why I'm doing it.

I just started doing it. Mike Del Tufo looks different today. Younger. Jason Feller.

A little thinner. Appreciate you being here. Thank you.

We got a packed show. Ian Rappaport made it very clear that he had to come on the show as long as I was hosting. Really?

You got the second best NFL insider at NFL Network to talk about everything that's going on. No, that's what I tell him all the time. And he's about yay high.

So it's not appropriate. No, he's not. We will get him a box and we need to. Dave Doran, NC State football coach. They're coming off a big win over Wake Forest. He's got the first true freshman starting since Philip Rivers right now because he lost a legitimate NFL prospect at quarterback. He was going back and forth between a couple of different quarterbacks. That true freshman looked pretty good last weekend.

Also Harrison Smith. Guy I've known a long time. Vikings safety. One of the good guys in the league. Now one of the oldest safeties in the league, though I won't mention that to him because he might knock me down next time I see him. Minnesota 7-1.

Crazy. They're about to go to Buffalo at 7-1 and maybe facing their old buddy Case Keenum, depending what takes place with Josh Allen. Did not practice yesterday dealing with that UCL strain. There's so much going on right now across the NFL that really has nothing to do with the games on the field. Let's start with, you know, Jeff Saturday talked again and Colts interim head coach. It was great.

You know what I'm starting to think guys? Every day is Saturday. Every day we're going to have a Jeff Saturday segment on this show, at least as long as I'm here. Can we hear a little bit of what Jeff Saturday said yesterday in defending himself getting this interim coaching opportunity?

Here's the deal. Everybody talks about my, I'm completely comfortable in who I am as a man, bro. I know I can lead men. I know I know the game of football and I'm passionate about it.

I have no fear about are you as qualified as somebody else, bro? I spent 14 years in the locker room. I went to playoffs 12 times.

I had, I got five dudes in the hall of fame that play with it. You don't think I've seen greatness. You don't think I've seen how people prepare, how they coach, how they GM, how they work. I mean, won Super Bowls, been to two. Like, here's the deal, man.

None of us are promised a good job. I may be terrible at this. And after eight games, I'll say, God bless you. I am no good. I may be really good at it.

I got no idea, but I dang sure ain't gonna back down. I can tell you that. I mean, listen, if life ain't an adventure, it ain't for nothing.

It ain't for me. I'm ready to go do this. I take a challenge head on and I know, and listen, everybody can say whatever they want. And I appreciate that. But from my perspective, when I was asked, you know, they said, Hey, we're following every rule at the end of the season. You aren't promised anything. Perfect.

Let's go with that. And I'll move forward. I have no fear if I'm no good. And Mr. Ursa looks at me and goes, Hey, we appreciate you. Thanks for stepping in. Man, job well done. I'm grateful for the opportunity. It was good news for Jeff. People are saying whatever they want. I'm getting the interim head coaching opportunity here.

I appreciate the honesty. Yep. Oh, I mean, yeah, he might, he might not be any good at this.

We have no idea since he has no experience and no real qualifications outside of being a really good player. And again, we talked about this yesterday. I get it. We see it in other sports where you can walk in as a former player and somebody who people just respect. And you kind of figure out all the other stuff. Football is more complicated.

There's more to it. Baseball managers, you walk in, what's the worst that can happen. The general manager hands you the card. Here's how we're going to play every hitter. Here's what your lineup is today. And you go, all right, boys, there you go.

Go get them. We got it. And then about the seventh day and you're like, I think the pitchers, they don't too many pitches. Okay. Uh, yeah, that's it. That's the job.

There's only so much you can do. You know, basketball, even there's, there's strategy. I understand that there's strategy in basketball, but it's not as the end of the game. It's like, give LeBron the ball move. Right. There's no ISO play in football.

All right. You 10 guys stand over there. We're just going to give the ball to Jonathan Taylor. Jonathan, just run through everybody and make it happen. It doesn't work that way. I mean, Jeff also talked yesterday about just trying to figure out, he said something along the lines of, you know, I'm, I'm new here and I don't really know what's going on.

We fired our play callers from the last, you know, the offensive coordinator and then the play caller, Frank Reich. So I just got here. I got to figure this out. Yeah.

That's why most people don't try to do this. And, and we'll see, they may well go out there and they may beat the Raiders and everybody may be saying, this is, this is now, this is now genius. It doesn't change the fact of the, the surrealness of watching these press conferences and Jeff Saturday, just kind of filling it out before our very eyes. Speaking of surreal, there was also some new developments with the commanders. There's a press conference scheduled starting in 52 minutes in Washington, DC. It is district of Columbia attorney general, Carl A Racine, who announced yesterday that he is making a major announcement related to the Washington commanders. The commanders responded a couple of times yesterday. Here was the, the initial response in a statement from a team spokesperson, less than three months ago, a 23 year old player on our team was shot multiple times in broad daylight. Despite out of control, violent crime in DC today, the Washington commanders learned for the first time on Twitter that the DC attorney general will be holding a press conference to make a major announcement related to the organization tomorrow.

The commanders have fully cooperated with the AG's investigation for nearly a year. As recently as Monday, a lawyer for the team met with the AG who did not suggest at that time that he intended to take any action and in fact revealed fundamental misunderstandings of the underlying facts. That statement went over as well as you would think, including with Brian Robinson's agent, who had to say that up until this point, the commanders had handled everything very well. Mind you, there have been arrests made now in that case, because the DC police have been investigating. Here was the follow-up statement hours later from team president Jason Wright.

I just spoke with chief Conte conveying how much we support the work of the MPD as well as public safety leaders and elected officials working to reduce gun violence and crime across the region. The earlier statement expressed our external counsel's ongoing frustration. It was those guys with the attorney general's office as they've been nothing but earnest and transparent in their communications with his team. The lawyer's legitimate frustrations with the AG should have been separate and apart from referencing the terrible crime that affected our player. My understanding is Jason Wright took it upon himself to put out the second statement because yeah, why would you not at that point to try to walk certain things back? You count on the police to work your games, among other things, to impugn the legal process.

May not be the greatest idea at this particular stage as the district attorney gets set to announce something today, and we'll talk about it again less than an hour from now. Listen, I am far from the person to judge a media relations strategy of being a team spokesperson, and there's not a harder job I would say in sports, all of sports, than PR for the Washington commanders or whatever their name is at that particular moment. And there have been a lot of people who have cycled through that job. They just hired a new person, Jean Medina, who's got a lot of experience. I met her when I was at the game last weekend with the Vikings.

She's very knowledgeable, has been through a lot. I don't know that anything fully prepares you for the onslaught of what takes place when you're associated with a team that is being investigated or and your owner being investigated by the NFL on multiple counts, by the district attorney, by Congress, and at the same time you have statements coming from different areas of the organization that do not entirely line up. The vibe I get off of it is, remember the movie Thank You for Smoking?

It's Aaron Eckhart, I think the character's name is Nick Naylor, and he's the chief spokesman for the tobacco industry. It's basically how do you take something that at this point we know kills you, and spin it in a positive way. The commanders aren't going to kill you, being a fan is, I mean probably not. I'm sure there's a few fans who would disagree with that statement over the years, but it's you're trying to thread that needle of, hey, we now slap that warning on the back. Hey, this is pretty bad for you.

You should still try it out. But the commanders, everything is framed of, hey, we know things were really bad for a long period of time. Okay, yes, there was a culture of sexual harassment and intimidation, and we've been accused of a lot of stuff, and the owner's been accused of a lot of stuff.

Most of those people are gone. We fixed it. We are now the example of diversity and equity that the whole world should buy into. So just try us out. We're the Washington commanders. Just give it a shot.

Go commander. And we'll see what the charges end up being, if there in fact are some type of charges from the attorney general today. But again, unresolved NFL investigations that are ongoing.

Mary Jo White, actually, former US attorney, is the one running those. If Daniel Snyder considering selling the team, all that's happening at a time, the commanders are going to go try to play a football game against the Eagles. Ron Rivera, from my understanding, I had to address the team this morning to explain, think about this. You're the head coach. All right. This is one of your big rivals. You have to win this game.

You had the Vikings down 10 last week. All right. You're trying to stay in the playoff picture.

You're trying to stay relevant and you got to open up the meeting with. So about that statement that used our guy, B-Rob here as a prop to deflect from charges about something that might be coming from the attorney general today. That was wrong. We probably shouldn't have done that. All right. So back to red zone.

Let's work our way through this here. It's just, these are things that only happen to the commanders. You think back over just in the past several years here from a name change to fights on the sideline, to quarterback changes, to all the various controversies surrounding the owner and the organization, to the failed attempts to build a stadium because people can't stand the owner and don't want to give him public funding or put a stadium in DC, given everything that's going on. People wonder why the on-field product isn't good.

Yeah, they've got a ways to go and they're still trying to figure out who their quarterback is, although they, bless you Brockman, although the city loves, fans love Taylor Heineke, but you're still trying to get to, you're still trying to figure things out here and figure out how you're going to try to win football games. And you got all this other stuff, the defensive coordinator making light of insurrection. There's a lot going on on a daily basis. These things don't happen elsewhere. It was a dust-up. I'm well aware of the stance on that. Any other team had a coach have to delete his Twitter account after talking about democracy?

Anyone? You think of any other team that's had to do that? This totally happens in Washington.

It doesn't happen anywhere else. And now, I mean, again, buckle up 45 minutes away, press conference, wild guess we might have a statement from the team before the end of the show. We'll certainly look forward to that. By the way, there's a game tonight. Kind of an important game.

It may not be the sexiest matchup, but it's two teams who are still kind of in the hunt for a division crown here. The Atlanta Falcons are tied for first place in the NFC South as they visit the Panthers, who for everything going on there, far different level than the Washington situation, but for everything going on, firing the head coach, they fired two more assistant coaches this week. Steve Wilkes, who had the team playing very hard, by the way, in those next couple of games, they won a game. And then last week, it's just an abject failure against the Bengals, the starting quarterback at the 0.0 passer rating.

Not good. But on a short week, if you beat the Falcons and if the Bucks lose to Seahawks London, you are one game out with Steve Wilkes and P.J. Walker and Chubba Hubbard. We can't name any other players. That was Brian Burns.

Brian Burns is still there. Steve Smith. Who else? Jake Delone. Jake Delone.

Might dust him off. Vinny Testaverni. Greg Olsen.

Something happens. They still got Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold. Bhushan Muhammad.

Bhushan Muhammad. Baker Mayfield is going to be active as the backup tonight to P.J. Walker. Why isn't he starting, the best you can tell?

I mean, there's multiple things going on. They thought P.J. Walker played very well in those first couple of starts. Again, last week did not go well, but they want to give P.J. the opportunity because he played well the previous week. But Baker comes in the second half and has scored three touchdowns.

Well, and from my understanding, it's going to be a short lease tonight. It's very much going to be if they can't get this thing moving, Baker's going to get his opportunity. He definitely wants that opportunity. He didn't play the best early on in the season. There's just a level of when you're Baker Mayfield and you've been beat up the way he was and playing through all the injuries last year, you understand it when maybe you're not the most comfortable in the pocket and you're not comfortable playing on time. And those were issues for the Carolina Panthers and for Baker Mayfield, which is why when he suffered the injury that he did, which was a high ankle sprain, pretty significant injury, that may have kind of gotten them off the hook for what might have had to happen anyway in terms of giving somebody else a shot and just letting things cool down.

Baker's got a lot on the line. So does Sam Darnold. And we're going to see Sam Darnold from what I'm told at some point this season.

He's now activated off IR. They will play him. They have to evaluate what they have, right? I mean, they turned down a lot of picks that they could have taken for Brian Burns, which would have allowed them to go get the quarterback. They still should be in good position to go get a quarterback, but they want to know what do we have in Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold for the rest of for the rest of this year, because both guys are set to be free agents. They don't have a quarterback under contract.

I don't believe so. Think PJ Walker's on a one year deal. They don't have a quarterback who's there right now, who, you know, is going to be around in 2023. Nor do you know the head coach, David Tepper, the owner has made abundantly clear both externally and internally that this is his number one priority is fixing the offense and getting the quarterback. That's why they made all the runs at Deshaun Watson. That's why they made the run at Matthew Stafford when the Lions were trading him. And that's why they eventually, you know, they traded for Sam Darnold at one point and then this year they traded for Baker Mayfield. Mayfield on the very cheap in terms of both money and picks.

But you're trying to figure out, do we have anything to work with here? Is there anything salvageable that we want to bring one of these guys back? And that's what this is going to be about. And by the way, at the same time, if they find a way to win this game tonight, whether it's PJ Walker playing all four quarters or whether it is Baker Mayfield taking over and leading them back, if they find a way to win this game, one game back, one game back in a very bizarre NFC South. A lot more NFL to talk through the course of the show. Again, Ian Rappaport, NFL network insider is going to join us.

So is Viking safety Harrison Smith. We'll talk more about Mike McCarthy, that big Cowboys Packers game, big, at least for the, for the Cowboys and for the Packers, just to try to stay semi-relevant. You're worried about the Cowboys in this game?

Yeah. You know how just sometimes the team will have your number, no matter what your record is, you kind of have to throw it out. I kind of have that feeling with Aaron and Green Bay, man.

I just nothing but bad memories and yeah, I'm a little worried. That's true. There have been, I was at the, the Des Caudat game. There've been, there've been a few Cowboys games there through the years that could give you some PTSD, but from watching the Packers, this is not, this is not the Packers we've seen. Yeah, for sure.

Not the quarterback we've seen. We know any given Sunday is a real thing. Well, and if, and if they're ever going to make a run, this is, this is where it has to start. It needs to start now, or you were going to be so buried. I mean, there are already what, four games back in the division?

Three or four. Yeah. Yeah. It's already, you're in a very difficult spot here, but we'll talk a lot more about that. You can also give us a call 844-204-RICH.

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Elizabeth the First, the podcast, wherever you listen. Tom Pelissero in for Rich Eisen today. Something we wanted to get to because mainly Brockman has just been peppering me with questions. Most of them are inappropriate. Injuries. A variety of things we can't do on TV. Stuff you can't talk about. But we discuss it, all right? You guys have questions. There's a lot going on in the NFL in particular.

But bring it on. All walks of life. What I want to do right now is just ask me anything, all right? Instead of ask Jeeves, ask Tom. Ask me anything. And I'll answer.

Whatever you got. Where do we want to start here? Here we go. What can you tell us, Tom? What's going on? What's going on yourself?

That's great. High level of production. What can you tell us, Tom? That's the name of the segment. Brockman. What can you tell us, Tom? We're Emmy nominated for a reason, Tom. Yeah, exactly.

All right, first up. Number 12 in Green Bay has not looked good. He's not looked good. He's got the weird hair.

He's got the tattoo. He looks disinterested sometimes. He's throwing the young guys under the bus seemingly. And then he'll say some stuff on Pat's show.

And then he meets the media on Wednesday and he has to explain what he said on Pat. Is this going to be his last season? Is he really going to retire?

Is he thinking about it? What do you know about Aaron Rogers playing future? He's got 60 million fully guaranteed reasons to not retire after this season. That's the money he's due in 2023.

And what was, in essence, a two-year deal. Now, to the extent that what you're saying, he doesn't look like Aaron Rogers on the field. A big part of that, from what I've understood, is just the lack of trust with the wide receivers. He's not trusting to throw the ball down the field. When he does throw down the ball down the field, he's not hitting. He's missing those throws.

He's missing some layups. The throw to Bakhtiari in the end zone on that play, Bakhtiari is wide open. It's a tackle eligible play and he throws it five yards short. It's just, it's not anything that we've seen in the past from Aaron Rogers. Now, you know, how much of that is he loses Devante Adams.

That's a big part of it. That was his safety blanket in that offense. Very first snap of this season, and I was there in Minnesota at that game, is a deep shot to Christian Watson, who they traded up to get in the second round out of North Dakota State. He hits him in the hands.

Watson's won, they're out by three yards. Hits him in the hands, bounces off his hands. Two plays after that, third down, same sequence. Throws to Romeo Dobbs, their other drafted wide receiver. Dobbs runs an in, Rogers throws the out, and hands on hips. You could see the frustration, and that set the tone for everything.

That's not something you can't come back from, but it set the tone for everything that's happened since then. They've become a team that offensively has to go through the running backs, and that is not ideal when you're paying a quarterback as much money as they're paying Aaron Rogers. To win in the NFL, you need your best players to play their best. Aaron Rogers has not played his best, and if he's gonna be paid that much money, you don't want to be in a situation where, well, for us to have a chance to win this game, we better ride Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon, even though they're fantastic players, and Aaron Jones is probably the best offensive player for the Packers this season.

That is an unenviable spot to be in for a coach, for an organization that, I mean, frankly, they drafted Jordan Love a few years ago, and that was kind of, we're setting it up. We know Aaron's gonna be gone. When you pay him like they did, you're saying, okay, we believe he's got this much left, and it makes sense.

He won the MVP the last two years. For him to drop off, even though there are other factors, this is not all Aaron Rogers, for him to drop off that much, it raises a lot of questions, but one thing we do know is $60 million fully guaranteed next year. Is he walking away from that? I don't take anything off the table with Aaron Rogers.

No, but unlikely, right? And as you mentioned yesterday, he's basically untradeable as well. He's untradeable because that's $60 million fully guaranteed next year that a team would have to absorb, unless, you know, obviously you could rework things, but I would doubt that he's taken less money. Can the Colts go seven for seven, a seventh different starter, and trade for Rogers?

I mean, it would fit. I just don't know that anybody's looking at Aaron Rogers and what he's doing right now and saying, we feel confident bringing this guy in and paying him a boatload of money. So that's a huge part of what's been going on in Green Bay.

All right, let's go to the other number 12. He's playing in Germany on Sunday. Tom Brady, what's his playing future?

Is this it for Tom? Is this his last year? Certainly he hasn't looked great either. We know he's got all the personal issues.

They're seemingly in the clear now. What do you expect from Tom Brady? Does he play beyond this season? The thinking going into the season was this was Tom Brady's last year, but we've seen him change his mind. We've seen him pivot in the past. He always talked about playing until 45.

That's what he is now. He was retired for how many days? Like 40. Was it even that much? It was like 23. It was somewhere around there. Wasn't much.

About a month. Wasn't a long retirement, and they're immediately recruiting him to come back. Again, it's going to come down to where's he want to go? He's a free agent after the season. He restructured, but unlike last year when he was tied to the Bucks, he can go wherever he wants this time around. They could franchise tag him, but that's unlikely.

He'd be in the clear. So he's got a lot to think about to the extent that last year he may have been thinking about his marriage and family. That dynamic has certainly shifted as we go beyond here, but let's see what it looks like in the second half of the season.

I know this, that last drive against the Rams, that looked like Tom Brady. And the guy on the podium looked like the weight of the world had come off his shoulders after the game. If that's the guy and they figure out a way to make a run here, I put nothing past him in terms of what he might want to do in 2020. To return to Tampa or could you see him playing elsewhere and who would take him?

I mean, it's a great question. Depends what he looks like the second half of the season. I mean, he's still functioning again, that final drive. That's how Tom Brady is still playing at 45 is he can stand in there and distribute the football and he doesn't have to move that much. He's never been a great athlete for the position, but he can stand in there. He can still diagnose the defense. He can still get the ball where it needs to go and run efficiently. Does he think he can do that for 17 more games?

Put it this way. Let's name some of the quarterbacks who are going to be starting games this weekend. PJ Walker is starting tonight for the Panthers. Case Keenum may be starting a game. Sam Ellinger is a starting quarterback in the NFL right now.

Taylor Heineke is starting. I'm sure I'm missing some others, but there's Kenny. Well, Kenny Pickens was the first round pick.

Get out of my ear, Mike. There's a lot of quarterbacks here. I mean, Davis Mills. Davis Mills.

Okay, there's a lot of bad, but there's a lot of situations that are highly unsettled where you go starting put. Yeah, Andy Dalton. They don't have a who, what's their starting quarterback? Jameis Winston signed through next season.

What's the, what are the Saints doing? And that was a spot where there was some thinking that Brady could have ended up with the Saints back when he was leaving New England. He had some conversations that suggested that at the time. So there, there will be an opportunity out there and he's not playing for that much money right now. We talked about Aaron Rodgers making 60 million. Brady's contract was complicated because they gave him a big lump payout last year, but I think he's on the books for like 20 million this year.

A lot of money does. He's always been the biggest bargain in sports though, really, but he got paid last year. He made, I want to say like $44 million last year. So that's, that's upper echelon money, but this year he's back to making, you know, 20 million.

So where's the spot? Is it Las Vegas? Is it a reunion with Josh McDaniel's to take one more shot? Derek Carr signed an extension, but there's not future guarantees on it.

Not saying that's the direction it's going to go, but I think you take nothing off the table. It's Tom Brady. Could it be tied to where maybe Sean Payton lands? Cause you know, that was kind of the Miami rumor. If he goes to Carolina, maybe. Sean Payton, I don't know, wants to go into a situation where he does not have a quarterback. I'll think he wants to start from scratch and kind of figure it out for a couple of years. There's plenty of speculation about where he potentially could end up within the league, but a lot of it's tied to where are the quarterbacks? Where are the best young quarterbacks we're going to grow with?

One more run with Brady while you develop somebody or buy time until you draft somebody? That's assuming Tom plays maybe two more years. That's still 47, which is kind of crazy to think about. I mean, it's all crazy to think about.

Yeah. We, we got so accustomed to what Tom Brady has been doing that you lose sight of the fact that nobody played to this age. Nobody played to Aaron Rodgers age. For years and years, 38 was the magic number. If you look through hall of Famers, almost every hall of Famer walked at age 37 or 38 for years.

And that was just kind of time. Then all of a sudden Tom is winning a super bowl at 43. And you're like, well, well, why can't, why can't Matt Ryan keep playing at a high level? Why can't Russell Wilson keep playing at a high level? Why can't Tom Brady do this forever?

Some point you do run out of time. At some point, even Tom Brady will age himself out of this. I don't know that it's happened again based solely on the end of that game last week, but does he have another eight, nine games or many that have left in him to play at that level?

Like we'll find out. Hey, you mentioned Sean Payton. So what's on the table for him? Do you see him coming back and then what type of compensation? Because the Saints do hold his rights for next year. Well, and that's part of the, the complication here with Sean Payton is the Saints would have to work out a trade. When the Dolphins called him last year, it was a very brief conversation.

It was no, we're not interested in doing that. Now he had just retired. He retired a couple of weeks before or whatever it was.

It was very recent. I think that there's a fair argument to be made that the price for a team like the Panthers is going to be a lot higher than somebody in the AFC, somebody at least not in the division. He will have opportunities. There's no question about it. He's gonna have to decide is the right fit there. You know, the one thing you don't want to do is jump back into the wrong spot. There is definitely a value from talking to coaches through the years in taking a year away and doing something different and taking a breath. And Sean was very upfront about that.

And people who knew him said he just, he needed, he needed that break. You know, how fully rejuvenated is he for 2023? Is that right job open? He's not going to go to, I mean, name, name the worst spot you think of Washington. If they make a change, he's not going to go there.

It's just not going to happen. But we know there's already two openings and we know traditionally there's anywhere from six to eight every offseason. So who are the last year? There was 10. Who are the four to six other seven other spots you might see opening up? There's nothing else that's on the brink right now.

I think that's the thing. I think that you can fairly go down the list of what teams are not playing at the highest level right now. Does Arizona make a change if they don't turn things around? They just extended Cliff Kingsbury and Steve time for the long haul.

But you know, if they stumble here, Washington is certainly one that I don't know who would be making the change. That's the reason that we're not talking about that really right now. And Ron, again, Ron has had to deal with so much, so much. I got a text from somebody while we were in the last break. Cause I asked basically what was said in that meeting this morning, the state and the dueling statements last week, one of which was using Brian Robinson as a human shield for whatever is going to happen to the commanders at this press conference with the attorney general of Washington, DC, which is coming up in 23 minutes.

What I was told was that he had to explain the statements then said they got to focus on working together with the people in the room. Huge game this Monday, they're facing the unbeaten Eagles monster game division game and need to lock in. And then if any players had any issues or want to talk to him to come and speak to him about it, just imagine that. And this is not like an isolated one-time thing. This is every day, every week, and you don't know what you're going to wake up and find. And there's no other place like it. We talked about this yesterday, Dallas, you've got Jerry and Steven. They go on the radio and they say stuff, but most of it's just Jerry using a bunch of strange metaphors you've never heard. And then you Google and go, is this a Arkansas thing? Is this just a Jerry thing?

Come up with this. Like, what, what is he even talking about here? It doesn't, it's not always helpful when they've been, when they struggled right last year. And he was being asked questions about potential coaching changes and things like that.

And you know, a lot of the answers he gave left the door open for potential changes, whether he was talking positively about Sean Payton, talking positively about Dan Quinn, whatever. That's not helpful. Yeah.

But it's not this. It's not complete all over the place, non-football stuff that you're dealing with. And you mentioned Ron Rivera on top of the other stuff he's been dealing with. The guy is a cancer survivor.

His mother just passed away last week. Like this guy's got so much on his plate. And then I have to deal with all this other crap that's out of his control, non-football stuff, so to speak. And there's, there's really something to be said for when you're in the league and you get the reputation that you're incompetent or that you're always going to make the wrong decisions.

It is hard to get past that. Nathaniel Hackett has felt that this year in Denver, where one decision, granted an unorthodox one and one that Hackett probably wishes he had back, but running the clock down and trying to kick that field goal. If that happens in a 1 p.m. Eastern time game, if it's not a national TV, we're not talking about it. If it's not in the opener, it's still just kind of this strange thing that happened. It was the very first game for Nathaniel Hackett and broad swaths of people in the media and fans and on social media all decided this guy's a failure.

This guy doesn't know what he's doing. One game. It's one game. It also didn't help that it was Russ going back to Seattle. There was so much more going on. There was so much that went into that game. And then what happens?

Three of their next five games also on national TV. So now you're fighting uphill on the perception that you're incompetent, even though every first year head coach has bumps in the road. And he's trying to figure out an offense. He's trying to be the play caller while learning all the duties of the job.

The Broncos go out and they hire a game management guy and make a big show of that. Hackett. I've known Hackett for for quite a while. He's a really intelligent guy. He he has a natural feel for people.

He wants to do good. Aaron Rodgers and him had a tight bond. Don't overlook that. We're talking about Aaron Rodgers struggling. Matt Leflore is a really, really good head coach. Hackett was a guy who connected with Aaron. And that's a hard thing to do because Aaron doesn't trust many people.

When when Hackett was up for the Falcons job two years ago, Rodgers called the Falcons said, hire this guy. He's that good. I don't want to lose him, but that's how good this guy is. One game can't do it. And you've got radio hosts who may or may not be getting calls from a player's agent going on there and got to fire him. Now get rid of one game. The Broncos spent three weeks flying around the country with a contingent of like 10 people interviewed.

Everybody came to the conclusion this is the guy. One game gone. Failure.

Get rid of him. Like that's a hard spot. Yeah. So what's that?

Is that it? It's if if my show yesterday here were that bad, I might have been replaced. Let's be honest here.

First time doing the show, it'd be slightly unfair. We gave you the benefit of the doubt. I appreciate it.

You know, the grades were fine overall. Last one. Give you now. We did. Last one.

And we can carry this over into the next segment. Speaking of hot seats, AFC West, how hot is the seat on Josh McDaniel's? I don't believe that it's a hot seat for Josh McDaniel's right now. I don't think that it's up to anybody's expectations how things have gone this season. But when he got hired, this was always my concern for the program, which was this is not Josh taking over a bad team. This is not him rebuilding. He took over a playoff team, and it's a playoff team with a bunch of veteran dudes and big personalities. And knowing Josh's history, and he learned a lot from what happened in Denver. But naturally, when you come from New England and you come into a place that was under the John Gruden regime, which runs things completely completely differently, and there are just just unique elements of a Gruden type of a staff.

There were a lot of people from still the Al Davis days who were still in the building who were used to doing things one way for a long time. When you come in and just say we're going to do things differently, our schedule is going to be different. We're going to practice differently. Our scheme's going to change.

You need to show instant results. And that's without even saying we traded for Devante Adams. We signed Chandler Jones. We're going for it. Everybody gets extensions. Max Crosby and Derek Carr and Hunter Renfro.

Everybody gets paid. When it doesn't go well, now you have to try to figure out how do we keep this thing together? How do we keep the locker room in the right place here and build it? Just knowing that he was going to make substantive changes. It was going to be hard for him, and that's why they needed to start fast this season.

They did not. I'm sucking. Is that going to lead...

I love that one. Is that going to lead to... Not anymore. Is that going to lead to Mark Davis, who this was his big score. This was the biggest move. I mean obviously Gruden was a massive one too, but this was his big move. We're luring the guy who wouldn't take. He turned out all these other jobs.

He backed out on Indy. We're getting Josh McDaniels in here. Is that going to cause Mark to pivot after one year when you really had a two-year plan? If you look at how they did all those contracts. We're going to try to win these two years with this core. They didn't blow it up at the deadline.

That should tell you a lot. If these guys thought we are going to have to blow this up and we might get fired, you would tear it down in order to say, all right, we're now going to build toward the future. We're going to pivot. They didn't do that. They didn't trade Darren Waller.

They didn't trade Max Crosby. So we'll see over the next eight weeks. It's going to be one of the interesting situations to watch, but no, I have no reason to believe at this time that Josh McDaniels is on the hot seat. All right, this is for me and TJ.

Then we can go to break. Is Darren Waller ever going to play again? Oh, I just got him this season. I also have him in fantasy football.

You can imagine. So on Sunday mornings, I have, you know, various alerts set up in my Google calendar and I have one at like 11 a.m. Central noon Eastern for change your fantasy line. It's after the inactive. I'm standing on the side of literally like delivering the report reports. There are times I report something and I forget to pick the guy up. I forget to bench somebody.

They'll be like, oh man, I can't believe I forgot that. But yeah, it's been three weeks in a row of moving Derek Waller. Oh no. And then like trying to pick someone last week. It was, yeah, last week or two weeks ago where it was, I was like, all right, by other times, Evan Ingram. No, he played the London game. I can't get him in the lineup.

And then somebody else and pick up. I don't even remember for a month now. Yeah. I mean, he's getting closer. He's closer than he's been. There was, there was definitely, I mean, they had offers for Darren Waller.

Yes. And Green Bay had been trying to get him. They wanted Waller in the Devante Adams deal back in the spring. Instead of, they ended up getting a first and the second for Devante Adams, they wanted it to be a pick plus Devante Adams or plus Darren Waller for Devante Adams. You're not even allowed to do that because Adams was a franchise player and you're not allowed to have a player in a trade for a franchise player, but you could have done two separate trades. They didn't get them. Then they kept trying throughout the past couple of months here.

Didn't end up working out. So Darren Waller stays in Las Vegas. He's a big piece.

You would hope. And they gave him an extension. They gave him an extension.

They had to give him about a $4 million raise this year, something like that. They envisioned him being a playmaker for them. And they need playmakers right now.

Speaking of needing playmakers, Aaron Rogers could use some playmakers as well. Let's talk about him. That Packers Cowboys game, Mike McCarthy's return a lot more from around the NFL after this. Aaron Rogers welcomes his old coach, Mike McCarthy back to Lambeau Field this week. It has been interesting to see some of the comments by both McCarthy and Aaron Rogers leading up to this game on Sunday. Let's play right now a little bit of what Mike McCarthy had to say about going back to Green Bay. Green Bay wasn't just a place you coached. It's very much where you lived and Jessica, a special place for your kids.

What about the area? Do you and as a family, as a unit? You guys trying to make me cry.

She asked me a question about 12 personnel or something. I'm good. What as an individual, as a family, as a unit, what about Green Bay? Do you guys miss most? What I miss most?

Shoot. I think it's like anything, the people. And that's why I think it's been such a great transition for our family because our kids, you know, obviously born, they're raised there. But to come here in this experience, because I mean, I mean, a lifestyle in Dallas, Texas is incredible. I mean, this has been an incredible, incredible opportunity for us as a family. But, you know, Jessica was born there. Kids were born there.

So people miss the people. That's, that's the Mike McCarthy that I've come to know right there. He doesn't, doesn't lower the shield a whole lot, although he's certainly a lot looser this year. In Dallas with how they're winning. But, you know, the same thing when I interviewed him during his year away and he was still living in Green Bay, like his, his feelings and how attached his family is to Green Bay is a big deal to him. And there was a lot said about the McCarthy, Aaron Rodgers relationship, particularly in the final couple of years he was there.

Let's hear what, what Aaron Rodgers had to say yesterday as well. We've always kind of been in touch a little bit more, I'd say the last year or so. Yeah, I think as time goes by, the gratitude for that time, as you look back on the journey, your career is, you know, goes up a little bit. You appreciate the little things a little bit more because really this game and life is about the journey. And I'll always be, be tied with him because of the connection that we had and the years we spent together.

Obviously my longest tenured coach, longest tenured play caller. Thankful for those years and thankful maybe a little bit more as the years go by. There's a lot of relationships that after, I think it was 13 years, can just reach a certain point and maybe it's good to get a fresh start and move forward here. But that's, that is genuine affection from Aaron Rodgers who, if you remember, went on a radio show a couple of weeks after Mike got fired and basically implored Packers fans when they see him around town because he was still living there to treat him well and say thank you.

All right. There were, there was definitely dynamic and Aaron's always been somebody who, you know, he wants things to be a certain way and he is very strong willed, but they, they had such a close bond when Aaron was a young man and learning about life here. This is not what it was portrayed to be.

It just, it simply wasn't. And so if Mike McCarthy is trying to beat anyone and I'm sure on some level you don't want to lose to Aaron, but if he's trying to beat anyone, it's the Packers organization. It's the way that Mike was let go.

It's being called into an office by Mark Murphy minutes after a loss and doing your press conference and being told we're moving on. He won a Super Bowl there. He took him to the playoffs practically every year. He was on the doorstep of multiple other Super Bowls and if Aaron didn't have a hurt calf in Seattle, maybe a 16-0 lead doesn't get away from him and they go back and they win another one. It's just not the Mike versus Aaron show.

I guarantee you this though. If Mike gets a win, if the Cowboys get a win on Sunday, he's going to feel pretty good about sticking to certain people in the highest offices in Green Bay. No doubt. A lot more to come on the show around the NFL, the Commander's press conference coming up.

Ian Rappaport joins as well on this Rich Eisen Show edition. It could be information to get a chance to win the show edition. It could be information to change your life forever.

Or the Something You Should Know podcast could just be something interesting. Ramit Sade 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. Something you should know wherever you listen.