REShow: Allen Robinson - Hour 1

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Pits just keep on coming. This is the Rich Eisen Show. With guest host, Tom Pelissero.

A really talented player. Dalvin Cook is not coming in for four or five million dollars. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. There are a bunch of running backs. Josh Jacobs, Pauler, and Barkley.

The clock's not quite ticking yet. Today's guests. Steelers wide receiver, Allen Robinson. Senior writer for NBA.com. Steve Ashburner.

Plus, your phone calls, latest news, and more. And now. Sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero. Welcome in to a Rich Eisen-less show. I am indeed Tom Pelissero. Happy to be out here in Los Angeles hosting the show. Happy to be back with the fellas.

Yay! I know where Rich is. Brockman, Del Tufo, T.J. They're all here. Let's be honest, that really is the lifeblood of the show. It's you guys shining the light on whoever's sitting here. I mean, you get it, Tom. You understand. I think that you guys are, if I'm putting the list of reasons that I love coming out here and doing this show.

Now we're talking. You guys are right up there. I'd also say, especially this time of year, where there's very little travel. And I'm spending a lot of time trying to convince myself to work in my basement with no windows. Knowing that it's like 75 degrees outside, perfectly sunny.

Part of the five months a year where Minnesota's the greatest place in the world to live. But I do like, I miss the weird human interactions that I have just in transit out here. I'll give you one from yesterday. Standing in line waiting for a coffee at the angriest coffee shop I've ever seen in an airport. Are you at the airport?

Okay. People behind the counter yelling at a guy because he didn't pay for a cup. Not with anything in it. The cups are 52 cents.

That is store policy. And they were going at it. Then they were infighting with each other. Where's my latte?

But I'm standing there waiting and a woman comes up to me and goes, excuse me, could you tell me what time you have on your phone? Wait, what? Unpack the layers on this for a second. Hold on, what? First of all, when is the last time? You know, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

It's happened all the time. What time is it? When's the last time anyone asked you for the time?

Never. Unless they're a child who does not yet have a phone. I don't know what adult is out there curious what time it is. Secondly, what type of phone now does not automatically adjust to the time zones?

Again, 15 years ago, I ran into that one time. Had a connection through Atlanta going to like Aruba or something. And then all of a sudden realized, oh, no, the phone hasn't switched. We're on central time. We're going to miss the connecting flight. But now that doesn't exist.

Yeah, it doesn't. What's going on? I almost didn't even know how to react. Wow. What did you tell her? I mean, I just, I looked at one of my two devices, my Apple Watch or my phone.

I said, it's 10, 28. And she very frantically said, okay. Wow. Where is she going? Like, what was back in time? So many questions. Maybe her phone was dead. She was with two other people.

Are all the phones in the group dead? Can I call a 20 real quick? Wow. You're Tom Pelissero. You're on TV quite frequently.

Handsome gentleman. Maybe she just was like trying to spit gay. Maybe she was trying to holler. Were she with girls? Were she with guys? Did she recognize you?

Far be it for me to cast aspersions on anyone I meet at an airport, but I will safely tell you that is not the case, TJ. She very much wanted to know right here, not necessarily where she was standing a foot away, but right here, what time is it? We're very close to a time zone line.

I didn't know where, I didn't know where to go from there, but I made it. We're here. You'll have to talk about too. It's mini camp week in the NFL. It's a lot for second week of June. We'll take it. Uh, checklists just from this morning. Buddha Baker showing up to the Cardinals mini camp. He requested a trade. A lot of times those trade requests this time of year are coming because you're trying to jumpstart some things in terms of negotiations. Do you want to give up the hundred grand?

Obviously, Buddha did not. We'll see what that means in terms of a new contract somewhere. The Neil Hunter, as I tweeted a few minutes before the show, not showing up in Minnesota.

That's an interesting one. This is a 28 year old pass rusher, came back healthy last year, 10 and a half sacks last season, and they've not seen eye to eye on where things should go in terms of a contract. They moved money up last year.

He's do $5.5 million this year. Ian Rapport reported last week. They've gotten trade calls about him. That's definitely true. At least a couple of teams have inquired.

What do you do now? Minnesota is in a really unique spot. They've moved on from a lot of veterans. It's part of their broader plan here to keep resources available for re-signing guys like Justin Jefferson, TJ Hawkinson. You're moving on from a lot of veterans. Hundreds of other one of those locker room leaders.

Can you find a path forward? Maybe it's on a one year deal. Do you trade them at this point in June? What's the team give up knowing that you also have to sign the Neil Hunter to a contract and he's going to want top of the market type of pass rusher money here. So that's going to be one to watch now from here through the start of training camp since he's now officially a holdout. Not officially a holdout, but also not there. Saquon Barkley, who has not signed his franchise tender, had not spoken publicly at all throughout the course of this offseason.

That changed yesterday. He had a charity event. Here's a little bit of what Saquon had to say.

What do I think needs to happen to get the deal done? At the end of the day, I would like to address that. I feel like there's been some things out there that's been misleading.

Obviously the sources or the stories that have been out there. But I've been public. I came out public. I've been open about it. I said I want to be a Giant for life.

This is where I want to be. And at the end of the day, it's all about something that's respectable. It's all about respect.

And that's really what it is. So the Giants and Saquon Barkley have at least been negotiating. And that goes all the way back to last, I think it was October, November, right before their buy, whenever that was. And Giants made a push to get a deal done.

It didn't happen. They've gone back and forth throughout the course this offseason. They're not, as far as I am aware, as of right now, are anywhere close to having a deal done. And part of that is this is a rough market for running backs. I know it's not breaking news. I'm sure you guys talked a ton about it on Friday when Delman Cook got released.

But it's you go back through everything that's happened here. You've got three right now franchise tagged running backs don't have deals yet. We'll talk about Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard in a second. Delvin Cook's currently a free agent. Leonard Fournette's a free agent. Kareem Hunt's a free agent. There are guys like Jonathan Taylor who are going to want new deals before training camp.

I don't know whether or not that's going to happen. Nothing really moving on that front yet. Let's see what Saquon had to say. This was the really interesting part where Saquon was talking about where things stand in terms of the running back market as a whole. Everyone wants to talk about the running back market and this and that and the third. Every team is different.

There's a thing that goes up and I think you mentioned it before about, oh, quarterbacks in the Super Bowl and how many rushing yards, the top rusher. But every team is not. Every team, Pat Mahomes is a two-time Super Bowl MVP, two-time MVP.

Not everybody has Pat Mahomes and this is no knock to Daniel Jones so don't even try to flip like that. And then you look at the Eagles who play. Jalen Hurts, a great quarterback, that team is amazing. But every team is not the Eagles.

Every team doesn't have that much talent. And when you come to my situation, come to me personally, I feel like I helped our team a lot. I feel like not only on the field but off the field.

I feel like as a leader, I feel like obviously there's a conversation of my numbers going down. I think there's a whole lot of other stuff that happened to play as an NFL. We were a one-dimensional team in the beginning of the season. We were running the ball. We have a great coach. We played Detroit Lions.

They came in, bust that ass, stopped me. We had to switch it up. We have a great coach with Dave and with Kev. And we had a whole new game plan.

We came out and found a way to get the job done and make it to the playoffs. But going to the running back market, when you talk about the running back, no, I don't agree with that. I think that it's not fair because I don't think Tennessee Titans. Tennessee Titans is a great team. But Derrick Henry is one of those guys on the team. St. Fran is a great team. But Christian McCaffrey is one of those guys on the team. Josh Jacob, Delisco, on and on. And I think when you talk about the New York Giants, I think even Pierce came on and said it. I have a lot of respect in this league and I think that's how I should be. It's fantastic awareness, first of all, for Saquon Barkley, who starts the time of Patrick Mahomes. And you can see the light bulb go off in his head. All right, I better just say this is not about Daniel Jones.

Would you try to flip it like that? There have been a few of those in recent years where people say like, oh, you know, we don't have a Patrick Mahomes yet. It's like, no, nobody does. Patrick Mahomes is quite possibly the greatest player who's ever played. And he's still like 27 years old. OK, so, yes, comparing Daniel Jones, Patrick Mahomes. Edge Mahomes, and if you believe otherwise, you've completely lost your mind. But he's right in terms of the running back market. And this is where there's a divide here in terms of the perceived value of that position relative to what GMs around the league, particularly those that rely upon analytics and a certain way of looking at the position, believe that it is simply replaceable. Saquon Barkley is a rare athletic talent.

He was healthy last year, came back, had a productive season. But are you willing to do the type of contract that would be an outlier to a large degree when you've got the player this year on a franchise tag that's about $10 million? For some positions, the franchise tag is a weapon for the players, where if you get tagged, it's actually a good thing because of how it drives the market. But the franchise tag is dictated by what other players at your position are making.

Think of it this way, and I was thinking about this this morning. I pulled up some salary sheets and went through it. If we say the cutoff's $13 million or more, which has kind of been a number that's been talked about with Saquon, maybe $13, maybe that's the magical number. There are 20 wide receivers in the NFL making at least $13 million. There are 14 defensive tackles in the NFL making at least $13 million per year. We've seen monster contracts at that position over the past 12 months or so. Thirteen corners making $13 million. There are seven tight ends making at least $13 million in terms of APY on their contracts. How many running backs, Brockman, making $13 million or more? Three. Tejan? Six. Del Tufo? One. The answer is two. Splitting the difference, we'll give it to Del Tufo on prices right here. Dang. Christian McCaffrey makes $16 a year, which you can argue just because of the versatility that he has within that offense.

Worth it. He counts as, Le'Veon Bell would like this logic, he would count as a player who kind of is a receiver slash running back so you're paying him to do multiple things. The other one's Alvin Kamara at 15 a year.

That's unbelievable. Dalvin Cook just got released. You got, you know, Derrick Henry, Nick Chubb, Joe Mixon, they're all in the $12 million per year range. But in terms of that upper echelon, Aaron Jones just took a pay cut. Dalvin Cook got released.

Tony Pollard, who's the only of the three franchise tagged running backs to sign his tender so far, is currently the seventh or eighth, depending on how you look at it, highest paid running back in the NFL. At a $10 million tender, which is what Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs would be looking at as well. Which brings us to something that Barkley said beyond those comments, which was he did not rule out, didn't say he would do this, but did not rule out the possibility. Come July 17th, there's no long term deal holding out and not playing and potentially sitting out the season. It's hard to imagine that five years after Le'Veon Bell held out for an entire season in 2018, that another running back is going to look at that situation, even though Le'Veon did get paid on the back end of that. It's hard to imagine another running back is looking at what happened to Le'Veon Bell's career after that.

I think he played for four teams over three years and his career was over. Now he's a boxer and say, this is going to be not taking the money now. Putting my career on hold is actually going to be worth it, especially because the Giants could well do what the Steelers had the option to do, which was tag him the second time. And they did. You can tag the guy a second time, even if he doesn't show up the first time.

So there's a lot to unpack there, but I'll say this. Josh Jacobs, there's really been nothing going on. I said Saquon Barkley, there's at least been negotiations. As far as I'm aware, my understanding, there's really nothing happening with Josh Jacobs. It's hard to imagine right now seeing Josh Jacobs, who's a man of principle, the reigning NFL rushing leader, showing up July 25th or whenever the Raiders report without a long term deal. Does he show up by week one?

I'm not 100% certain that he does. Saquon, just because, again, they're at least trading offers, you'd think they have a chance. Tony Pollard, there's been at least some discussion. Pollard's probably the simplest one of these deals to get done because his extension's probably in the neighborhood of what the franchise tag is. But at some point, and I know that Josh Jacobs kind of alluded to this in a tweet the other day, saying something along the lines of sometimes not doing it for us, we're doing it for the ones that come after us.

Whatever you want to read into that, if you take it as being a part of the contract negotiations, at some point somebody has to change the structure and the scope of where a positional value goes. At the linebacker position, it was C.J. Mosley. Inside linebackers, off the ball linebackers were not getting paid. Then the Jets got in a bidding war with, I believe it was the Ravens, which was Mosley's old team, and gave them $17 million a year, which was like $4 million beyond any other linebacker in the league. Mike McKaggen coincidentally or not, was fired about two months later, and Joe Douglas took over. But look what happened after that. You had Roquan Smith top that deal, Shaq Leonard topped it, Bobby Wagner on his Seattle deal.

He got beyond what Mosley got, Fred Warner, Tremaine Edmond, just this past offseason, got $18 million a year from the Bears. So it is possible to reset the market. But to do that, you've got to be willing to go to the wall on this, and that wall exists on July 17th.

Does anybody push past this? Because you also have to know your downside. If you haven't signed the tender, it can be pulled back at any point. Potentially one of those teams could decide to look into trade options. They could simply pull the tender altogether, sign somebody else who's sitting out on the street. There's a lot that goes into this. Saquon's absolutely right in terms of just the running back position and how it's being treated. But on the flip side of that, there's only so much you can do.

You have to push for the best deal possible and then make a decision on that final day. Do you take what's out there now or do you go into the unknown? Because the unknown could be a scary place, particularly when you play a position that so many people within the league view as replaceable. Yeah, the unknown has, when was the last time the unknown has worked out for a running back? That's the issue is, you know, if you go back through the history of running back franchise takes, there have been some in recent years.

But again, the tag number has been so low that it largely works against guys. I guess Zeke got paid, but now he's without a team. Well, Zeke got paid. The Cowboys do front loaded deals.

And so then you get into the later years of the deal and you've already made your money. So for Zeke, it made a lot of sense. Zeke was a strong deal that he got. He just got cut when he got into the non-guaranteed years of it.

It's how NFL contracts are structured. And we'll talk more about this, too. Some other stuff going on around the NFL. Where's Dalvin Cook going to land?

We'll certainly discuss that throughout the show. DeAndre Hopkins on a visit right now with the Tennessee Titans. Does he get out of that visit? Does he ever even make it to Brockman's team in Foxboro? Please, please make it.

We'll get into all that. After this, Alan Robinson, he's a wide receiver. He got a lot of money in free agency last year.

He got over $13 million a year in that contract last year. That was with the Rams. Now he's with the Steelers. How are things going in Pittsburgh?

What's the outlook for that Steelers team in a division with the Bengals and the Browns and the Ravens with Lamar Jackson back in the fold? We'll talk with Alan about all that coming up right after this on the Rich Eisen Show. Is it true your dad's a Jets fan? Yes, I mean, such a Jets fan that he has a Jets tattoo right here.

Oh, my gosh. When did he get that ink? Was it was he inspired by Richard Todd's play in the 70s? Or was it Ray Lucas in the 90s that caused your dad to get that ink?

What was it? So the big thing about my dad and being a Jets fan and I was once a Jets fan. Now definitely a Giants fan. 1969. I'm sorry, I grew up a Jets fan.

Go on. 1969. The first AFC team in the Super Bowl. The year my dad was born.

Born in New York. Growing up, everyone loved the Giants, probably a little bit more. So he kind of just went the other way being a Giants fan and kind of passed it on to me.

So I grew up being a fan of Curtis Martin, Thomas Jones, Chad Pennington, the Mark Sanchez era with Rex Ryan and those guys. So I think he kind of got it probably maybe like when the Mark Sanchez era was going. I don't think he did it because of that. He always had a passion. He always wanted to do it.

And one day he just made up his mind. He said he's going to put a Jets tattoo right here. I don't know what I'm freaking out about more. The fact that you could be a Jet. You were living and dying with the Jets while I was living and dying with the Jets, or that your dad and I were born in the same year and you could be my son.

And I've got a 10, almost eight and a five at home. And this is not about me. It's about you, Saquon. So was your dad disappointed that the Jets didn't take you? No, my dad was happy that, you know, he see his son living in his home. Or didn't get a chance to take you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was happy just like I was saying. His son, he's him and my mother, very fortunate to have both parents in my life. You know, I've always went to them and told them what I want to do and what I'm passionate about.

And they always give me great advice and try to show me the way of what I got to do to get to my dream and live out my dream. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show Desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Tom Pellicero in for Rich. Pleased to be joined right now by our first guest entering his 10th NFL season. And first in Pittsburgh, Steelers wide receiver Alan Robbins is with us. Alan, thanks a lot for coming on the show, man. How's everything going so far in Pittsburgh? Everything's going well, man. Thanks for having me.

So take me back to March and April. You had a really unique situation here. You and your agent Brandon Parker had the ability, permission to talk to different teams to try to work out a trade. You knew that you'd have to rework your contract.

You end up back in Pennsylvania, you know, back where you started in college. Just take me through that process and how it ended up that you're a stealer now. Yeah, you know, it was something that happened pretty quickly, you know, and once the ball kind of got rolling and, you know, I kind of got wind of it. I was definitely all for it. You know, I had I had talked to Coach Tom, you know, way back in my pro day, which is a long time ago.

But seems like yesterday, you know, he wants to trade with you. We kind of spoke about that. But just hearing everything about the Steelers organization, you know, like you said, going back to Pittsburgh, I thought was going back to the state of Pennsylvania.

I thought would be a super cool thing. So once I kind of got wind of that, you know, for me, reworking my contract and things like that, you know, whatever I needed to do on my end to kind of help facilitate that and get that done, you know, I was willing to do. You had a, you know, I'm sure a frustrating year in L.A. for a lot of different reasons, both personally, the team didn't play well. When you signed there, it was a big deal. I mean, they made a huge commitment to you from a financial perspective.

They bring you in. Obviously, the quarterback is a big part of that, too. Matthew gets hurt and then, you know, everything kind of goes downhill from there. But what happened in your mind when you go through not just for you, but for that Rams team? Why did nothing seem to come together the way that it was supposed to?

Yeah, it was tough, man. I think one of the big things where, you know, we never really had a full healthy group, even going back to OTA time and training camp and things like that. You know, I thought personally I had one of my best training camps in my career, you know, but unfortunately through a lot of that, you know, Matthew wasn't 100 percent healthy. You know, he was still coming off an injury that he had from the Super Bowl year, you know, so we kind of had that, you know, and then as the season progressed from week one moving forward, O-line wise, we was kind of banged up once you got to like week six or seven, you know, I was not nursing a foot, so I was banged up.

Cooper was banged up, you know, so for our team, we never actually could really, you know, hit a groove and hit the strike that we wanted to hit, you know, and then from a schematic standpoint, you know, I just thought everything was kind of, you know, thrown off a little bit by so many people in and out of the lineup. Sean McVay went through it, you know, during and after the season, too, Allen. You know, he had to think about his future after the season. Obviously, you know, at that point, you know, your future is uncertain where you're going to end up.

But when you think back in your mind, were there any signs throughout the course of the season that maybe, you know, Sean was, you know, whether it was contemplating walking away or that, you know, just there were other things on his mind? You know, that's tough for me to say, you know, again, I think for myself and I was so focused and so locked in on to how I can continue to get better and how I could continue to try to make my role on the team and then the offense evolve, you know, so that was my main focus. You know, I was really, you know, kind of tunnel vision on myself and some of the changes and different things that I could do, you know, to try to help better myself and better the team and the offense. You know, so from a lot of many outside perspectives, you know, truthfully, I wasn't I wasn't focused on that, you know, all my time, energy and resources was continuously week to week to week being put back into myself. You know, for me, trying to get the year that I was looking forward to happening and in the time that I was looking forward to having to try to get that on track, you know, and again, unfortunately, I had a foot injury come up, you know, but throughout the course of the season.

And I just truly was kind of reflecting on myself more so than anything and figuring out how I could be better, how I could maybe change things as far as how certain things were going in terms of myself. How are you doing health wise now, Alan, the foot and everything else? Doing well, doing well, getting back on the grass, you know, I'm back doing some OTA stuff, you know, and I tell everybody when it comes to injuries, you know, the first part about an injury is getting healthy. But then the next part is getting back to yourself, you know, so I've been able to, you know, do different things like that over the past couple of weeks.

You know, it's a good opportunity for me to be able to go against the defense and stuff like that a little bit before we kind of get into that break before training camp. So now I have a whole seven-week block or so to do things that I need to do to get myself back to being myself as we head into training camp, you know, but everything has been going smooth and everything has been progressing very well. How significant was that foot injury, Alan?

Can you say that one more time? How significant was that foot injury? Man, you know, with all injuries, especially things like feet, you know, with the particular injury that I had, you know, the stress fracture of my navicular bone and, you know, just kind of being often and things like that, you know, for players. It's frustrating, you know, especially for me, like I said before, getting hurt the time of year that I did, you know, I thought I had, I was continuing to try to ascend with my role and different things like that in the offense, you know, so it definitely was frustrating. And even now, you know, I mean, when you come off injury, man, it's something that you got to keep your head down. You got to be cognitive each and every day of things that you need to get better at and want to get better at.

You know, it's not something that you can just, you know, just sit back and hope for the best. You really got to be pushing the ball forward and really be locked in to your training, to your rehab and everything each and every day. But again, for me, man, challenges and obstacles like that and adversity, you know, that's what I'm built to go through. You know, I've been able to bounce back and some different things like that throughout the course of my career. I had an addictive fracture in my rookie year. Then I tore my ACL my fourth year, you know, so I've been able to have some injuries and bounce back, you know, and I'm looking forward to doing the same. Steelers wide receiver Allen Robinson is our guest. You've had some quarterback luck in your career, too, and not the good kind, Allen. You finally get with Matthew Stafford last year. Obviously, he's got the injury.

Tell me about Kenny Pickett. When you're looking at what you've seen just through the offseason here, I'm sure you studied it before you agreed to accept the trade and redo your contract. What do you see in him, if anything, that makes you believe this guy could be a really good NFL quarterback? The number one thing that sticks out to me, you know, aside from his talent is, you know, he's a leader, you know, and when I say a leader, you know, he's the guy who has a great command, you know, and seeing the command that he has of a team as a second year player, man, it's pretty remarkable. You know, you don't see too many guys be able to kind of take the bull by the horns, how he's able to do that, you know, just kind of get the command of everybody. You know, that meeting wise, that's pre practice, post practice, getting throw in after, you know, it typically takes a little bit longer for guys to kind of, you know, go through that maturation process and learn to take what they need and learn how to, you know, get some of the extra reps and steal some reps here or there, you know, but he's already on top of that, man. He's been on top of that since since day one that I got here and it's fun to see, you know, just kind of being out there with him each and every day, man.

I mean, we've all as an entire unit have been progressive, you know, and that's exactly what we want. What kind of role are you looking at for yourself in this offense? Because I know last year, you know, with the way the Cooper Cup played, there's some questions in terms of exactly how those pieces were going to fit together. How do you feel about the role that they're kind of carving out for you in the Steelers offense in terms of the fit that you're going to have? Yeah, you know, I think the most unique thing is that for our receiving room, you know, between me, George and Beyonce, you know, we all have different skill sets, you know, and I think that's something that bodes very well. You know, when you have, when you have guys who can have different skill sets, who can play different spots and be moving around and different things like that, you know, so for me, you know, I've been able to come in and just kind of learn the whole landscape of the offense.

You know, that's playing, you know, X, Z, F, whatever that may be, you know, just so that I can be utilized in whatever way that they need me and in many different ways, you know. So for me, that's just kind of where I've been, you know, locked in at is just kind of, you know, gaining a full grasp of the offense so that once we get the training camp and different things like that, you know, I'm able to be utilized in many different facets. You mentioned earlier Mike Tomlin was at your pro day, which would have been right about 9, 10 years ago, I believe. What do you remember about that day and any interactions you had with him? Yeah, so I remember actually the offensive coordinator for the Phillies that day was kind of running our workout, Coach Haley. So him and Coach Tomlin were both kind of, you know, front and center when it came to that, you know, and it was me and just one other receiver at that time going through the pro day. And my cousin who played in the TSL at the time, he proved for me, you know, so it was pretty unique, but I remember, man, it was just us two and then he end up the other receiver end up going down. So it was kind of just me running routes, you know, and I was going back to back to back to back to back. And that was something that that Coach Tomlin, you know, said that he liked and enjoyed, you know, watching me work and actually another receiver coach end up stepping in and who was coach Jerry Sullivan from the Jaguar.

Who end up kind of stopping the workout because I was by myself. So, but it was, you know, it was a fun story, you know, and just kind of, you know, how things have progression or being able to be connected to that and see how things can come full circle in the NFL is pretty cool. Does Mike still have that same energy that he's always had? I mean, you've been around him now through the spring here going through practices. Do you see that same juice that you've always, I'm sure, seen on TV and whatnot from him?

Most definitely. It's, it's such a, it's such a special trait. You know, I think that for me personally, even as a player, you know, you sit in team meetings every single day, you know, it's truly the art of getting guys mind, right? Ready to play football each and every day. And, you know, as a, as a veteran, you know, you can appreciate that, you know, I think that once you play time in this league, you know, you start to, you start to really cherish some of the small things. And especially for me now, you know, again, coming off the injury, you know, being able to hear Coach Tom, how he gets us mentally prepared on a day-to-day basis and then going out there, you know, from whether it's from drill to drill, from meeting or whatever, you know, taking, taking the small things, staying attentive to the details and different things like that, you know, and that's the big reason why he's been able to have success in this league, you know, because not a day goes by, you know, where we aren't locked into the little things and not, and those aren't being brought to our attention on how we can be better as a unit.

Better as a team and better as players. So as you look, and I know you're a guy who follows the news at least a little bit, Alan, in terms of around the league, you've seen in your division, Lamar Jackson's re-signed, Odell's coming in there to join him in Baltimore. You got Cleveland now a full off season with Deshaun Watson.

He's going to be out there from week one this time around. Then you got the Bengals who are, for as long as Joe Burrows there, are going to be talked about as one of the favorites in the AFC. Give me your breakdown of the division and the pitch, if you have one, for why we should believe in the Steelers in the AFC North in 2023. Me, I mean, it's a great division. You know, I think that as a competitor, as a player, you know, that's what you want to do. You want to line up against the best talent across the league each and every Sunday. And for us, we know the competitive division that we have, you know, but again, I think that when you have the group of players that we have, you have the character of guys that we have in this locker room. And when you have the grit of guys that we have in this locker room, you know, we're looking forward to that challenge each and every Sunday.

You know, and we're making sure that even right now, today, as we go through the spring, that we're mentally preparing ourselves, you know, for some of these different things that may happen during the season for any adverse moment. You know, and I think that you can already kind of see the grit of the group starting to form. You know, again, when you have a coach like Coach Thomas, you know, it's the reason, like I said before, why he's had success. You know, he knows how to get guys to rally around each other.

He knows how to get guys to buy into each other and different things like that. And like I said before, man, we have some special forming and you can tell already. I mean, you're getting a test right out of the gate, too. I mean, week one, you're facing the San Francisco 49ers who, again, other teams can be talked about as one of the favorites within the division.

Do you like the early test? Do you like having a hard game out of the gate? Or would you rather ease in college style with a few of those, you know, Division Two type foes within the NFL? Man, you know, at the end of the day, it's the NFL. You know, everybody that you play week one is going to be a tough matchup team. Most times, that's when teams are their most healthy and different things like that. So you're typically going to get God's best shot, you know, early on in the season. But again, I mean, I think across the board, though, it's one of those things where you have new people in different systems and things like that.

It isn't much tape on guys. You know, you don't have as many trends that have set in. And, you know, some of the analytical data of different things like that hasn't quite set in yet. You know, so it's a true matchup of, you know, having to step in week one. You know, two good teams going against each other, not knowing too much information about each other, just having to go out there and play ball.

You know, so some of those early season matchups are definitely fun, you know, because you just have to lock in, you know, trust yourself, trust your teammates, go out there and play ball. You talk about that analytical data. There is quite a bit of data, actually, Allen, to back up the fact that you were the most open receiver on the Rams last season, even more so than Cooper Cup, just in terms of the separation.

People are going to look at the raw numbers and catches and all that and have questions just like any player. You know, in your mind, how much do you have left? You're 29 years old. You turned 30, I think, in August.

How much more is there still for Allen Robinson in the NFL? I think I have a lot more. You know, again, like you said before, man, I'm going into my 10th year, but still to date right now, you know, I'm 29.

You know, so I haven't broke 30 yet, which I will this year. But, again, for me, how I approach my offseason, how I approach my end season and different things like that, you know, I've learned to be able to to improve in the areas that I need to learn it and I've learned how to do that. You know, so forget I'm a guy who, you know, I take my workouts, I take my training, I take my practices.

I think everything like that series, you know, for me, it's always football. You know, it's always how can I continue to improve myself? You know, again, like things like last season, things like that, you know, that's not something that I'm bitter about.

It's not something that I'm upset about. It's, you know, how can I continue to push this ball forward, you know, and continue to improve myself, you know, and be the best version of myself? And that's all I focus on. You know, it's not any not anybody from the outside or any outside knows, you know, just about me versus me.

You know, how can I continue to get better and continue to improve? Last thing for you, Alan. Very important. Check your Twitter. You're not a big Twitter guy, but I think one of your last tweets was about send the best spots to eat in Pittsburgh. Have you found have you found your joints around there yet? I have not yet. I was seeing everything come through, man.

I'm like, damn, this is really, really going to break my diet. You know, so at some point, I'll get around to a man for everybody who's sending me spots on Twitter, man. Continue to do that. I'm definitely going to get around to him now. How often I may get around to those. I do not know, but I love to be able to have different options. So when I have family and things like that coming to town for games, I can always kind of point them in the right direction of food places.

To come and eat because my family comes into town and think that they love to try new places. Alan, you're the best man. Thanks a lot for coming on and good luck this season. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Steelers wide receiver Alan Robinson heading into year 10, fourth team. He's go back and look at the quarterbacks he's played with. He's reunited with Mitch Trubisky, too, in Pittsburgh.

But he's he's had some production with different people. So can that help Kenny picket that wide receiver room? George Pickens, you got Deontay Johnson, you got Alan Robinson. It's a low, you know, low risk bet for the Steelers in terms of how they reworked that contract with them. And it's going to be it's going to be a fascinating division in general to watch in the AFC North. Because the Ravens are running a completely different offense.

Lamar says, whether this is true or not, it's going to be a lot more throwing, a lot less running, which if I'm a defensive coordinator, I go, all right. Fantastic. Sounds good. Sure. Let's see. Let's take away.

Yeah, sure. Run, run Lamar less. The Bengals are, you know, really good team. They've got one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

And then Cleveland, I don't think anybody knows. We're going to have Kevin Stefanski on later this week. I'm really interested to talk to him because unlike a year ago where remember this time of year, they did not know when is Deshaun Watson going to play? They had no idea when he was actually going to get onto the field.

So just by virtue of having him out there and having the certainty of that. And they've put some other pieces in place. They made a, you know, a low-risk trade for Zadarius Smith to play opposite Myles Garrett. They've remodeled that defense a little bit.

I'm fascinated to see everybody. With the Steelers, I don't know. I mean, you know that they're going to be competitive and competent no matter what with Mike Tomlin. They're always going to be at least a nine-win team. They're always going to be in the playoff picture, but can they actually make that next leap? Can they pencil them in for nine and eight because Tomlin doesn't have a losing season.

Right. And I think Kenny Pickett really showed at the end of last year, this kid's got some Moxie. Is he going to make some mistakes? Sure. But do you believe in him to lead a comeback when you're down six in the fourth quarter?

Yeah, you better believe you do. And I think that goes a long way, especially as a rookie coming in, doing it there in Pittsburgh. You know, the vets got to see that and be like, yeah, we can roll with this kid. He also had the concussions last year, which is something that we talked so much about too. But Kenny Pickett had a couple concussions last season as well. So you hope that he's able to stay on the right side of that.

I don't know if he's doing jiu-jitsu like Tua is to learn how to fall. You would anticipate when a guy's got a history with that, you're doing whatever you can to make sure that he's protected. Going and getting another wide receiver for, I want to say it was a seventh round pick flop, and they're paying them close to the minimum. The Rams are picking up the rest. Like it's a pretty good deal if you get something out of Allen Robinson, who is a great dude.

Always enjoy talking with him. Speaking of receivers, DeAndre Hopkins in Tennessee, in Nashville right now. He was at the CMAs last night.

Oh, interesting choice. Straight to the CMAs. Aaron Rodgers was at the Tonys. DeAndre Hopkins was at the CMAs. Did Aaron look a little confused at times last night at the Tonys?

I don't know. A buddy of mine in my fantasy league was there, got a picture with Aaron, said he couldn't have been nicer. I was like, okay.

He's living the dream right now. Well, we're going to talk about that. Taking in everything. We'll get into that. Taking in all of New York. Fresh start.

Everything's great right now. We'll talk about that as the show rolls on as well. Tom Pilicero in for Rich Eisen on The Rich Eisen Show.

844-204-RICH. Now, you told him about how you are the Bill Walsh of audio executives. Exactly. You can't screw these up.

Your favorite catchphrase from the original Predator. Go ahead. Here's one. Please.

We can kill it. All right. That's number one. Here's number two. Okay.

Get to the chopper. Okay. You cannot hear them. Yes. You can't hear them.

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to, I'm doing this blindfolded. Wait a minute. Did Bill Walsh cannot have the volume up?

Did the Bill Walsh of sound engineers not have the volume up for the second? Oh my God. We can kill it. This is not Bode well.

I don't want to cause any back pain. Oh. There's a method to his madness. Do you want to try one more time now? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. We can kill it. Okay.

If it bleeds, you can kill it. Okay. Here's the next one. Get to the chopper.

Get to the chopper. And here's the other one. One ugly motherfucker. Okay.

There's that one. Okay. Start bench cut.

All right. Get to the chopper. Gets cut. Because it's only an incidental line. And the only reason we remember it is because he's Austrian. If anybody else said, get to the choppers, it wouldn't have been a line. It wouldn't have been a line.

It's only because he's Austrian. Cut. Cut. It's superfluous.

We're going to bench your one ugly endeavor. So what you're going to do is you're going to start. If it bleeds, we can kill it. Because it's a succinct line.

And it's done in a very naturalistic way. If it bleeds, we can kill it. Very well done. Now, for everybody else who comes in here on The Rich Eyes and Show, we're going to show them. I'm setting the bar here. We're going to show them this start bench cut because you have raised the bar, Keegan Michael King.

Setting the bar right here. We're going to edit out del tuvo. We're going to edit that out. Can you edit that out? No.

No. It's too good. It's perfect. It is the what anniversary of Predator today? It was the 36th anniversary of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic Predator coming out. I watched Terminator on the plane here yesterday. Original?

The original. Wow. I had only seen Terminator 2, which contextually, of course, meant that there were a lot of holes in the entire plot line.

I did not realize the amount of male nudity in the first three minutes or so of that movie. Wow. And I made the mistake. On an airplane, too.

I made the mistake. On an aisle seat. Oh, wow. So you know for about eight aisles back here, people can all see, is that Schwarzenegger's ass right there? What is this guy watching? And I made the mistake of starting the movie before takeoff, which if you're going to watch a movie that's got a lot of nudity early on, you don't want to do that because it's just everybody's peacocking, they're looking around, they're seeing what's going on, they're going up and down the aisle, and everybody, hey, he's naked in there.

The love scene, not to give anything away about a movie that came out 40 years ago, but the love scene later in the movie also unedited on the airplane, where I'm just going, okay, can we just speed this up a little bit here? 15. 15.

Forward. Yeah. Which I find interesting, too, because there's other movies and TV shows I've tried to start on planes, and it's the heavily edited version, it is the one that's cut.

I tried to start, because for some reason they had this on the play, I tried to start The Sopranos years ago, and in the first two minutes, you know how that show starts, it's like a massive, crazy car chase, and every third word is an F-bomb, and edited into the film, which is like, hey, you mother fluffer, hey, fluffer, get the fluff over here, over and over, I'm like, I can't, I'm not going to be able to do this, wow, I can't, I can't handle it. You have a top five Schwarzenegger movies? In honor of Predator's anniversary, guys, top five Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, Mike, do we got any type of music here? If it bleeds, we can kill it. Yes. You heard it that time.

Yes, we heard it that time. Okay. What do you want? I got some music. I don't know, just play some music, Mike, come on now, let's go. All right, number five, number five, we need some comedy on this list.

Arnold is low key super funny. I went kindergarten cop number five, just for the iconic, who is your daddy and what does he do? Good imitation. I'll give that impression of four on a scale of one to ten. I'll give you that one, I'll take the five. It's not a tumor, right?

It's not a tumor. You're in the neighborhood. All right, whatever, number five. Number four, I'm going to go with Tom's sequel, Terminator 2.

Oh, yeah. Number four, just my personal list, I understand how awesome a movie that is, iconic. Robert Patrick, our buddy, comes in here, obviously, as T-1000. Number three, I'm going Predator, love that movie. So many great sound bites, the iconic bleeds, we can kill it.

The greatest gif you see online, the epic dap that Arnold and Carl Weathers, it's just fantastic. Number two, I'm going Running Man, TJ. Number two, Running Man, I'll be back, only in a rerun. Only in a rerun. Epic.

Fantastic. What's that guy's name again? Richard Dawson, when he's not kissing people on Family Feud. Number one, epically rewatchable movie, True Lies. Doesn't get better than True Lies for me and Arnold. One of the things I always want to do in my life before I die is in slow motion walk away and hit a button and have an explosion go off behind me.

That's in the first scene of True Lies. Can't beat it. Tom Arnold, Charlton Heston, come on.

I thought you were going to say jump from a jet on a bridge. I mean, that was cool, too. But Jamie Lee Curtis, I mean, come on now. I'm now adding True Lies to my list that I keep on a note file on my iPhone of movies I've never seen that people are going to make fun of before. I try to knock them out. I have, as a father of two children with my job, I have very little time to watch anything.

It's these very rare occasions where I've gotten the kids to bed and Sarah's out late that I can like turn on a movie and I'd start a Terminator five different times before finally watching it, much to everyone's disgust on the plane in a hotel. You have a date with Arnold and Jamie Lee. That's all I'm saying. I don't know.

He has an extensive list. I'll go. I'll go through. Yeah. All right.

I'll give you I'll give you the top five movies that you're going to think are ridiculous. I've never seen. Oh, God. I got to pick.

I got about 15 of them here. Yes. Major League. Oh, come on.

Major League. Oh, a few good men. Oh, oh, I haven't seen that this week and I can't I can't handle this truth.

Never seen Jaws. We figured that out this morning. I mean, I am sickened more by that than any other thing you've done there. You got a list, too.

We're going to get to that. And so I've seen your list is ridiculous, Mike. Never seen The Balance of the Lambs. Oh, what? I personally take offense. I don't feel like that one's that odd. I didn't think I'd get the biggest reaction to that.

That's the greatest. I mean, personally, I know that, by the way, these are all time, bro. These are all pretty bad. And then I got to figure out which fifth one I want to pick here.

Let's go. Titanic. OK, well, you know, how I knew I knew you and I would soften the blow. I can go on with that one, but it's not a reference. I know enough about most of these movies that I get the references. That's all you need.

If I send a gif to someone, is it contextually accurate? That's all I need. Spoiler alert.

The boat sinks. Yeah. It's fine. You don't need to see Titanic. That's what I said. You kind of know what happened.

Four hours later, it's not going to be worth my time. You don't need to see Titanic. Have you seen The Sixth Sense? Yes, I've seen Sixth Sense. OK. What one you were debating?

What was the debate there where Titanic won? Hunt for Red October. Oh. Good flick. Hunt for Red October is amazing.

Give me a couple more. Beverly Hills Cop 2. I've only seen the original. Oh. Cop 2 is arguably better than 1. It's harder to stream. Yeah. 1 is streaming everywhere.

2 is harder to stream. I haven't gotten there. You're right.

Brock went on the table. Little Giants. Never seen Little Giants. Never seen Predator. Never seen Predator? He's never seen Commando either.

There is... No. Never seen Commando. Oh. Never seen Rambo. What? Never seen Rambo?

What is happening? Add that to the list. Oh. Hang on. The other part of this, like, I do enjoy... Green Beret.

That's green. Rambo. Rambo. Rambo.

Commando. When you watch these movies, especially the ones from, like, the late 70s, early 80s, and they're all sort of science fiction based. They all have the same kind of, like, dystopian future. And then when you go and watch them and you realize, this is the dystopian future.

Yes. This is the year they're talking about. The start of Terminator comes on. You know when you're a Terminator, like, when the Battle of the Robots and everything, you know what that's supposed to be?

Mm. 2029! It's getting closer to what's going on.

At least when he's being interrogated by the police, it's saying they started to build them in, like, 2025. I'm like, that's in a couple of years. And then I sit back and go, you know, the AI stuff is pretty scary right now. Yeah, it's gonna happen. If all of a sudden they become sentient and decide to make a series of uncontrollable killing bots. Yeah. Would that really... Is that not where we're going?

Now, I don't know if in six years it's going to be a race to save the human race. I saw a robot patrolling LAX the other day. Scared the hell out of me. Have you seen those things?

We were going to do one more. Like around LAX? No. Oh, these things, like, are guarding the parking garages. And they... Oh, really?

They rove on them. Can one of them give me a lift for the 20 minute walk from the terminal to the Uber station? If you hop on it... That would be great.

I love closing my exercise ring while just trying to get a ride. I wanted to hit it and see what would happen. I'm like, I don't want to get it. I mean, like, what's the thing going to do? Like, it's a robot. I mean, it... So it's recording you. Probably.

I know. I'm recording. It would have been my one more. I think Total Recall would have been my one more, just throwing it out there for Arnold movies. Total Recall?

I'm not sure if I've seen Total Recall. That's less... That's less egregious than some of the ones... I mean, you need to knock out at least two of these movies tonight. I wasn't allowed to see R-rated movies until I was like 17. That really carved into a lot of it.

Like, yeah, you know, Friends houses, things that happen, but like, in our house, we topped out at PG-13 always. That's understandable. I understand.

I would have fast forwarded through that scene. You're from the Midwest. I get it.

Yeah. Just a bunch of good people trying to protect their kids. I value everything that's wrong with the world.

Hang out with just some good Midwest people. 2029, the human race is dead, the robots have taken over. Tom, you have no idea how many times I'll read something in the news.

I go, have these people never saw Terminator? That's not how this ends. Isn't that how we're gonna end? That's me. Skynet, baby.

Skynet, yeah. I'm sure we're not done talking about that. We should talk about some other things, though, NFL-wise. DeAndre Hopkins situation.

We'll get to that at the top of the hour. Talk about Dalvin Cook as well. With Cook, this is gonna be fascinating to see how this entire thing plays out because he's got $2 million guaranteed. He is going to be in demand.

I think this is one of the misnomers. We played the Saquon bid earlier. Dalvin Cook is not coming in on a cheap deal.

I mentioned that on the show on Friday. He's going to get a significant contract. He's still a really good player who is going to have a market. There's gonna be several teams that are all in on him, but it's a matter of what's the number to get him to sign now. If I'm a running back, I'm looking at training camp and going, why would I put myself through six weeks of this and maybe have to play in the preseason?

I'll come in August 18th. I mean, there's not... I don't want to oversimplify the running back position, but if you're gonna, for instance, wait for a running back in season versus any other position, that's the one. Like run outside right, run inside right, run left.

It's not that complicated. You don't have to worry about the rhythm and timing like you do with a wide receiver or a quarterback. So is the best opportunity now to get in with a team? Is it closer to training camp?

Is it in training camp when inevitably there's injuries and you might end up in the right spot? It would have to be a team though that's got a bunch of money that they're willing to pay though. And I do not foresee Delvin Cook just coming in and taking any deal. We'll get to the NBA playoffs later on in the show too. Steve Ashburner from nba.com going to join us. Where does D hop land? We'll tackle that after this on the Rich Eisen list show with Tom Pellicero.