Tom Pelissero: Falcons aren't "interviewing" Bill Belichick

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Find out how to bring your ideas to life at dell.com slash welcome to now. This is the Rich Eisen Show. I came to Dallas to win the World Championship, buy into us. Let's talk gut and feel. So what do you feel when you hear McCarthy's coming back? Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. You make a change to the head coach.

Essentially, you're scrapping everything. I don't want to sit there and watch this game win six games. Earlier on the show, ESPN NFL analyst Lewis Riddick, Pro Football Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson. Coming up, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero. And now, it's Rich Eisen.

Yes, indeed. Our number three of the Rich Eisen Show is on the air, taking you to your divisional playoff weekend. I'm going to be on the air in another hour here. And then five minutes after that, I'll be on NFL Network for the following 72 hours.

And then I'll be back here on Monday. What time do you start tomorrow? We start at noon Eastern. Four and a half.

Four and a half. Taking you up to kickoff of the Ravens Texans. And then we're on the air at 11 a.m. Eastern on Sunday. Four hours up to kickoff of Lions Bucks. Okay.

Just checking. I just want to make a mental note of that. And then back here on Monday morning at noon Eastern for the Rich Eisen Show. And then we'll be here Tuesday at noon Eastern for the Rich Eisen Show. Overreaction Monday after our show. And then, Susie, What the Football with Amy.

And Amy is prepared to watch that 49ers Packers game. Where would you rank the eight QBs? Are you really going to do this to me? That was a question that was coming from one of us, for sure.

Where would I rank them right now? You want to do it? How dare you? You're referencing the clip where Amy has Brock Purdy eighth. She says there's seven terrific quarterbacks and then there's Brock Purdy. Because she feels that he's a product of, I shouldn't ever put words in her mouth, but what she said on What the Football. I'm paraphrasing.

A product of the group around him. Sure. She's not alone in thinking that. Correct.

But where Rich Eisen has QBs one through eight. Okay. Right now.

How dare you? Right now. Alright. I'm just going to go right now.

I'm going to go to Eastern. One is Lamar. He's the MVP of the league. Yeah, but. Two is, excuse me.

Uh, playoffs success. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Two is Josh. Oh. Oh. Interesting.

Three is Patrick. Oh, that's hot. Rich.

Why is it hot? Oh, Rich. Well, one guy has two rings among all these people. Yeah. But dude, I'm not putting him in the Hall of Fame right now.

I'm putting them on the field this weekend. Chris. Okay.

So now I've got, I need to now write the other ones down since I'm now ranking them. Lamar Jackson hasn't played in three weeks. Excuse me. You keep saying that and then you're also like, I told you he was going to be the MVP. Like, which one is it, Chris? Both. Is he going to lose or are you going to win? Literally both.

He hasn't played in three weeks and I told you he was going to be an MVP finalist. Okay. Got it. Got it. You know football better than everybody. Maybe in this room. Nice.

Definitely more than me. So Baker, Goff, Love, Stroud, and my other boy. Oh yeah. Brock. All right. So then I'm going to put, after Lamar, Josh, Patrick, I will put Stroud.

Okay. I like that. He's been playing his head off. So is it as they're playing right now or just- That's what it's about, isn't it? It's win or go home time, isn't it? So it's how they're playing right now.

Who are they? Lamar should be eighth. He hasn't played in three weeks. No, no, no.

Obviously it's how they've been playing all season long. Okay. It's a mix of things. I don't need to tell you my process. The process. Trust the process.

You really heckled me yesterday so I'm just kind of giving it back to you. Trust the process. Oh wow. It's tough. Okay.

It's good, right? It's tough. No, I know that. It's tough. I know that. But Amy didn't have to rank them.

No. There's seven terrific ones. I kind of took it to the next level. And then there's Purdy. I kind of took it to the next level. It's hard to rank.

It's hard. I mean, there's three outstanding ones. So I went Lamar, Josh, Patrick, and Stroud. Then I will go, in terms of hot quarterbacks right now, I will go Love. I will then go, I'm going to go Brock Purdy, and then I'll go Goff, and then I'll go my guy Baker if I had to rank him.

If I had to rank him right now. But I even told this to Amy when we had a conversation yesterday about, you know, hey, guess what, Amy? She's the one who told me her Twitter feed is blowing up. I'm just glad it's not me. That's the ire of Niner fans. Well, for a change. For a change.

Well, I mean, you were on the Steeler hot seat after I was on the Steeler hot seat, but that's what happens. I mean, Amy is just giving her opinion, which by the way, is expert. That's her opinion. Yeah. It's the fact that Purdy's as special as everyone else. But you just asked me to rank him. Yeah, rank him.

Yeah, because you love rankings. Lamar won. Josh too. Mahomes three. Stroud and Love. Brock.

Goff. Baker. And they're all terrific.

And they're all, I think, at different levels of heat. And I'm sorry, but Baker just had 300 yards and three touches. Listen, he's awesome. He's played well. But if I had to right now say who's going to be, who's starting my game for me? All right. One drive.

That's where I would go right now. Four minutes to go. Down six. Oh, stop. One drive to win.

Who do you got? Of course it's Mahomes. Get out of here. Come on. Of course. Of course it's Mahomes.

Interesting. Dude, who's done it more than anybody? Who shows that he can do everything like anyone else can't? Why not? Of course it's Patrick Mahomes. Getting ready to play the role of road playoff villain? Yeah, man.

I would do that. So you're picking the Chiefs. I'm not picking the Chiefs. You're like four minutes to go. If it's four minutes to go, yes, if it's four minutes to go and he can win the game for Kansas City, if Kansas City's in that spot and they don't leave any time left for the Bills and they can win the game, I will take the Chiefs. Yes. If that is the situation. Who do you got with 13 seconds to go down? Nice.

Way to troll. But I would take Allen in that situation too. I don't think it's any hot take to say that this game could come down to who has the ball last.

It's been proven to the point where they changed the overtime rules based on who had the ball last the last time these two teams played in the playoffs overreaction. But Lamar has got to be number one. He's going to be the MVP has been terrific.

He lit into the 49ers. Come on now. And Josh has been he's been off the charts. But so is Stroud and that's what I would rank them based on their seasons and the way they're currently playing right now. Way to put me on the spot, Chris.

But I didn't shrink from that moment, did I? I just wanted to shove back at all the systemic naysayers. All right, I've got a top five list.

Let's go. While I'm busy pissing off half the fan base, here we go. Because there's multiple scenarios based on the remaining eight teams as to what the final matchup in Las Vegas could be. I've got my top five Super Bowl 58 LVIII for all you Romans out there.

Matchups that are possible. High five. One, two, three, four, five.

Richest top five. All right. My first one is a rematch of Super Bowl 54. I know folks will be like, oh, we've seen it before.

Why should we see it again? If the Chiefs get back there again and the 49ers are there again. This would be a stupendous matchup filled with stars all over the place and also in the stands. Listen, Chiefs and 49ers in Las Vegas, Nevada, would be a fascinating Super Bowl matchup and a rematch that I would like to see now with Purdy at the controls in a Super Bowl. 13 versus 15, Mr. Face of the NFL and Mr. Perfectly Fine going against Mr.

Irrelevant and the rest of his band of merry men. I'd love to see McCaffrey in the Super Bowl, too. My gosh. Number four on this list is a matchup that we were talking about how cool it would be if it was Super Bowl 50, because if you remember, that was the milestone, right? The golden anniversary. And the one person who remembers that better than most is a guy who's been wearing the hat almost every day for eight years on this program because it was free.

And I'm referring to a guy who's not paying attention, otherwise he'd know I was referring to him. Talk about your Super Bowl 50 hat that you got online. Thank you, Rich. Very good. So he's looking for something. All good.

No worries. You're focused. Everyone thought how cool it would be because it would be a rematch of the first ever Super Bowl. Number four is Chief's Packers. Do you imagine if it's Love versus Mahomes and the Packers go from the seven seed and this seven seed gets all the way to the Super Bowl after taking care of the Cowboys, then the Niners and possibly the Lions to get to the Super Bowl and then become the first ever seven seed to win the Super Bowl, dethroning the defending champs. How would that look to you? Packers fans would be coming out of nowhere, everywhere.

I hope we could get Love's folks some better seats. Probably so. Exactly. Good one right there.

And plus I have the two Chiefs matchups, five and four here. And those are the first out of the box because just imagine how many cutaways there would be to piss off so many people who I don't understand why they get so angry when they see Taylor Swift enjoying a football game for her to be, although she might not be there, right? Cause she's got her, her world tour. I think she's in Japan.

Okay. So then it would really piss them off to cut away to her zoom celebrating moments, right? Would that, would that be the ultimate, just like having a Taylor cam? I still don't understand it, but at any rate, that's number four on my list. Number three on my list. How about two of the hungriest fan bases that have been strolling in the desert for quite some time? How about the bills and the lines facing each other? The lions getting the super bowl and the bills getting back to the super bowl.

This is my number one. And the paint swapping that would happen in this game, right? Dan Campbell and the super bowl vibes like two cold weather towns going to Vegas takes a week off to Vegas to come and just get actually rip roaring for a whole week. It would be insane. It would be insane. I mean, bills, fans, lines, friends, look, and that's not a disrespect to cheese fans or Packers or the 49ers, obviously they travel very well.

Those fans just starved. I mean, it's exactly what you want. Number two on the list would be maybe the most entertaining matchup in terms of offensive weapons. And I know what I just said, but bills and 49ers would be kind of lit, you know, the bills in Vegas and then the 49ers fans in Vegas. And we've got these two guys, perfect, perfect job for our production team to put Josh Allen finger rolling and McCaffrey hurtling on the screen.

You know what I mean? Like that, uh, gosh, I kind of wigging out over, over that, uh, idea of in the super bowl. And then number one is the rematch of Christmas night. Listen, folks, I know a lot of people think the Ravens aren't all that despite being first overall, but boy, did they put the bang thing on the Niners on Christmas night. And the rematch would just be fascinating to see how different it would look with all the chips on the line and did Purdy learn anything and did the Niners learn anything and did the Ravens just show you the blueprint that they picked up from, you know, from a seemingly nobody else. I just think the two, one seeds would be the most intriguing matchup, but I think one and two are kind of interchangeable.

You put the lines and bills one, huh? Over all of this Lamar in the super bowl too. I mean, I like the vibes of Bill and lions, the fans, the teams have never won. Biggest stage Lamar and the biggest, biggest, biggest stage would be kind of awesome. And by the way, a rematch of the super bowl from new Orleans, except they would be one Harbaugh shy hit him. Do you think we need one more?

All right, we'll get one more. I'm going to go with the Cooper bowl. My son, 12 year old Coop and Cooper, Evan Eisen said to me, what was it like two, three weeks ago, maybe dad, what about the Texans and the Packers in the super bowl?

I mean, obviously there's zero history between the two here. I mean, what is this? The JJ watt bowl. Is it the watt bowl?

You know what I mean? Like he's from Wisconsin. He played from Houston.

I don't know. I'm calling it the Cooper bowl because Coop said, what about the Texans and Packers? And then last week I'm getting texts from a 12 year old going, dad, how about the Texans dad?

How about those Packers? He wants this so bad. I want it for him too. Um, and of course these two wonder kin kids in their first years is starters. One of them winning a ring that would be fascinating.

Those are my top five super bowl, 58 match-ups eight four four two Oh four rich number doll end of the show. The DJ's first mock draft is 1.0 Daniel, Jeremiah's point out. He gave us a heads up. It was coming when he was on the show, um, this, uh, past Tuesday.

So we'll hit that. But coming up next, Tom Posero is going to tell us everything that's in his notebook and then some next in his usual Friday spot. Rich Eisen here. If you love football as much as we do here and want to be in the game every day, there's something that guys on my show have been enjoying prize picks daily fantasy sports, the number one daily fantasy sports app Brockman. Tell everybody about prize picks and your strategy this season, rich it's fun and easy pick two players or more based on their stats and place your entry.

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Visit prize picks.com for restrictions and details. Welcome to Talkville, the ultimate smallville rewatch podcast, Karen, what you got? Hi guys, Karen from Australia with a quick question for season three talisman. That knife wound was so powerful. Tom, what was it like to do that scene with John as your director?

It's great that I was with those people because when your eyes are closed and someone is supposed to going to stab you in the chest, you have to really trust that they're not going to hurt you. So I was in good hands with John. Jump in now or catch up on any of the past seasons of Talkville on YouTube or wherever you listen. So Tom Palacios is about to join us.

He's going to Baltimore for NFL network. I'm looking at Sherry Burris right now. She looks cold. And I don't know if you got to, do you have NFL network up there?

We do not. She is a, she looks a little cold. It's a little snowing there today. Is that what the weather is? All tomorrow. Have we done?

No. We didn't even put a weather report together. I just turned to Brockman when we were, let's do it. We got time. We got time.

I need prep. I mean, come on. You're not even paying attention anyway.

It's three locations, one's indoors. That's true. Yeah. But I can mess that up too.

Hey, how's the weather out there? I can do it. Let's do it.

You want me to do it? Well, actually I'm about to talk to Pelosero. I mean, could one of the two other producers on the floor handle the weather for him? How about the guy who's doing the segment?

Yeah, it's the enemy. They shouldn't have to help me. But he's got to work the faders here. No, I'll do it. I'm going. I'll do it.

While you guys are talking to Pelosero. Tom, I'll take care of it. You're doing banking? You're checking pugs? I'm not. I'm not. I had my email.

I'm searching for a drop that I couldn't find. Are you really banking? Are you banking?

No, I'm not banking. I swear to you guys. I was looking for a drop.

I did ask him to play. I'm not kidding. I was wondering where it went because I was. All of a sudden, a new blender just showed up for Mike. That's odd. Do they still give out blenders at banks or is that like a 1970s joke I just made?

I don't know. Do banks still give away stuff for you open a checking account, you get a new toaster? They want you back in the day when I had a bank book. Remember the bank?

Oh, yeah. They used to think they used to like, yeah, they used to stamp it. That's so that's like we think about it.

What we had. TJ, you had a bank book, right? You're my age. At the end of the day, everyone had a bank bank book. See, I'm not quite your age, but yeah, they would stamp it last time you wrote a check. I write them all time yesterday. Yeah, I write checks.

I wrote a check yesterday. Very. Yeah. For what? I'm not telling you.

It's not like Venmo. I put my stuff out there. Wow. We also have one, by the way, back on the Rich Eisen show, sitting at the Rich Eisen show desk furnished by Granger with supplies and solutions for every industry.

Granger has the right product for you. Call click Ranger Dotcom or just stop by Tom Pellicero is back here on the Rich Eisen show from the NFL media group. Good to see you, Tom. Good to see you guys, though.

You know, what's up to my boys in studio who apparently are not watching NFL Network during the day? No, not on it. As much as I love you, you don't care about anything other than these these 15 minutes I give you. It's all right. It's all right. It's all right, Tom. Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't don't feed the animals.

Don't pay any attention. What does a second interview with Bill Belichick look like, Tom? What is happening in Atlanta? I think that anything revolving around Bill Belichick cannot be categorized as an interview.

Let's start there, Rich. This is our meetings. You know, the first meeting was lengthy.

It was one on one between Bill Belichick and Arthur Blank. My understanding is they've continued to talk on a regular basis about potentially being, you know, moving forward together. And so today Bill Belichick is in the Atlanta area. He's meeting with a lot of other people within the organization. And it all comes down to where it's something that we've talked about for weeks, both related to what was going on in New England at the end and what would have to happen for Bill to take another job, which is it's the structure of the organization.

It's what various people do. What are their roles? What does he control? What does he contractually control? What is he going to be in charge of?

Can he bring these people to do this? All those various things, because, you know, you go all the way back from, you know, when Bill Belichick was previously the Cleveland head coach and obviously was with your Jets and then ends up resigning to go to New England here. He's always had a situation where there's not been a general manager, where he's had vast control over different personnel within the organization in addition to the roster. And so from everything that I understand, Rich, Arthur Blank and Bill Belichick have had really positive discussions, a lot of the stuff from a macro perspective, they're on the same page, but you've still got a lot of other people in the building.

You've still got a lot of other conversations that need to take place here. And they need to nail those things down in addition to, obviously, there's various rules that you have to follow before making a head coaching hire. Right now, I'd say everything is certainly trending in the right direction for Bill Belichick to be the Falcons next head coach, but they're not there yet.

And the meetings that are going on today are a big part of it. Okay, so then what are the Chargers up to? I mean, they spoke to Mike Vrabel after speaking to Jim Harbaugh this week. I was thrilled to see David Shaw on their radar screen.

You know, I'm obviously biased when it comes to him. So what's their thinking right now? Big piece of what the Chargers have been looking for, and Jon Spanos said this, Rich, on the record shortly after they dismissed Brandon Staley and Tom Telesco, was that experience would be a plus in this job. You go through all their recent hires. A lot of times, they've hired one of the hotter candidates.

Brandon Staley was a really hot candidate. And if he had not taken the Chargers' job on, I believe it was a Sunday night, he would have been on a plane the next day to Philadelphia and quite possibly been the head coach there, instead of Nick Sirianni, who ended up getting the job, went to a Super Bowl, and now is subject to discussions about his future as well. At any rate, they've hired that guy in the past. This time around, they want somebody who's done it before. And so their interview list from Jim Harbaugh to Mike Vrabel to Leslie Frazier to David Shaw. They're going to have Dan Quinn for a virtual interview soon as well.

A lot of the interviews that they're doing, they're interviewing different people as well, but a lot of those check the box of somebody who has shown that they can win in the past. Now, Jim Harbaugh is in a little different category relative to a lot of these other coaches because Bill Belichick became available after 4 and 13. Mike Vrabel became available after losing 18 of his last 24 games.

Pete Carroll at this point is available even though they had a winning record again this season, but because they had not achieved to the level they felt that they should with the roster in recent years. The guy who's kept winning wherever he's been is Jim Harbaugh. And so everything there too, from my understanding, has been very positive between the Chargers and Jim Harbaugh.

The Spanos family knows him going back to his playing days. So there's not a lot of surprises. I know other people kind of are sometimes taken aback just by how unique Jim Harbaugh's personality is.

He is a very strong presence in every building. But from everything that I know at this point, nothing's off the table in terms of Jim Harbaugh potentially becoming the coach of the Chargers. There's also still negotiations going on at Michigan. At some point, Jim Harbaugh is going to have to make a final decision. We've been here, Rich.

You certainly have lived through this for several years now, and it'll be interesting to see when it comes right down to it. This is not like a linear, like most of these head coaches search is the NFL, which is okay. This is our guy. We're going to start working on a contract with him. We're going to tell the other people we're out. We've identified we're zero. We didn't with Harbaugh.

You can do that. But he still might go, actually, I'm going to go back to Michigan. That's part of the dynamics here that are at play. The one thing I can tell you for sure, Rich, is they committed from the start to doing interviews with everybody that they had slips out for. I believe there's three more of those head coaches that they still need to do.

They will handle those over the next couple of days here, and then we'll see where we're at. But Jim Harbaugh certainly isn't involved. Well, in terms of Harbaugh, in past years, I've been sitting on pins and needles.

This time around, the cushion is a lot more comfortable, Tom, on this whole situation from my perspective. But when do these decisions get made? So what is the timeline here? The league wanted this process drawn out more, and check that box, mission accomplished there.

Because Seattle hasn't just started interviewing people, essentially, this week, and you keep mentioning that there are slips out for candidates. I know about the Rooney Rule, but everything else is still a bit murky for a lot of fans. What's the timing on all this? Well, start with the Rooney Rule. The Chargers have fulfilled their obligations under the Rooney Rule. They're allowed now to make a hire.

The Raiders have fulfilled their obligations. They can make a hire. The Falcons have not yet conducted an external interview with a minority candidate. You have to do two of those in person prior to making a hire. And you referenced that, pushing it back, January 22 was the date that the league had established as the first time that current NFL assistants can do head coaching interviews. I would tell you, Rich, my personal concern, not speaking for the league, because obviously they put these policies in place for a reason, my personal concern, as soon as they pushed it back by another week, is the reality that if you understand how these things work, and you understand how billionaire owners are geared, nobody was just going to sit there for two weeks, or in the case of, for instance, the Chargers, or the Raiders, or the Panthers who had made changes in the season, they're not going to sit on their hands until January 22 and then go, okay, now let's run a real search. We've already got a pretty good idea in a lot of these places what direction this might head.

There's a lot of back channeling that's involved in these things. Teams can be as ready as they want to be. Take the Washington Commander's GM search, in which they interviewed, they did two rounds of interviews in, I believe, a three or four day span, and then hired the guy, Adam Peters, that everybody in the league thought they were going to hire two months ago.

You can approach this in different types of ways here. What you don't want to see is coaches, qualified men of color, having to go in already knowing that this may not be a real interview, and that it's probably going to go a different direction. No matter what dates you set, no matter what policies you put in place, if you have mandates, you're setting yourself up where at times there are people who are going through the interview paces without necessarily having a true shot at the job.

That's not ideal. If the rules were different right now, you'd have, for instance, Raheem Morris, who's out of the playoffs, could be doing in-person interviews right now because of this mandate with January 22nd. He can't do those even though he's out of the playoffs until next week.

They're going to continue to evaluate these policies. We'll see exactly how it plays out. I think it's fair to say from a league perspective, and listen, these owners can do whatever they want in the end, Rich, from a league perspective, the NFL would very much like teams to not finalize their hires until at least early next week, and give some of these coaches an opportunity to interview in person, even though there's a lot of signs in certain places that maybe were already headed a different direction. So what are the Raiders? You mentioned the Raiders could go ahead and hire someone right now. Max Crosby already came out and said, if it's no Antonio Pierce, we're going to have to start talking about maybe trading me.

So what do you have for me about the Super Bowl hosts? I would be extremely surprised, Rich, if Antonio Pierce is not the head coach, and if he is not the head coach prior to us all getting out there in a couple of weeks for Super Bowl week. Having said that, this is a really unique situation with Antonio Pierce, the rare interim coach who gave himself a chance to get the job, but also a guy who didn't have a ton of coaching experience. Yes, he'd been at Arizona State for several years and had a variety of different titles, not all of which were coaching, but he was a linebackers coach for a year and a half who now suddenly has given himself that opportunity to get the job. What you want to make sure, both from the Raiders' perspective and from Antonio Pierce's perspective is that you're now giving him the best opportunity to succeed and enough resources and help to make that a success.

So whether that involves the general manager hire, whether that involves who has personnel control within the organization, these are all part of the broader picture at a time that, remember, the Titans did an interview with Antonio Pierce. If the Raiders don't hire him in the coming days, they could bring him in for an in-person interview. The Falcons also have an interview request out. If the Raiders don't get it done in the coming days, the Falcons could bring him in for an in-person interview. Again, I would be very surprised if Antonio Pierce doesn't ultimately end up being the Raiders' head coach, but it's not as simple as, hey, we did two other interviews with Leslie Frazier and Chris Richard, we're ready to go, you're now the head coach. All signs are pointing in that direction, Rich, but there's some other things around him that need to be settled before they actually make that official and he signs on to be the Raiders' head coach. Tom Pelissero and his usual Friday spot here on the Rich Eisen Show, my colleague from the NFL Media Group here on a very busy, busy day prior to the divisional playoff weekend. What's your reporting on Jerry Jones' thought process to retain Mike McCarthy?

Tom? I know that there was this idea, Rich, floating around that Jerry Jones would judge Mike McCarthy off the last game and how the season finished. Everything that I was told throughout the season, the end of the season, the day after the season, two days after the season, was that Jerry Jones was going to look at this through the big picture lens and that he did not want, he did not have a desire to make a head coaching change. Now those feelings were crafted as they were going 12 and 5 and had the number one offense in the league with Mike McCarthy in terms of scoring, calling the plays, and they had Dak Prescott playing at an all-time high and Jerry's sitting there thinking, this is a Super Bowl team. You heard Jerry say it during his relatively brief for Jerry, it was like 10 minutes media session after that game, saying, I haven't thought for one second about making a change.

But everything I was told, that was true. Jerry's mind was just going to, we're going to move on and we're going to keep this thing going. So when they lose and also lose in that fashion, Rich, it certainly was enough to give pause and to think through exactly what was the best thing to do. But you saw that statement from Jerry Jones talking about, you know, Mike's got the highest regular season winning percentage in NFL history. He's had post-season success going back to his Green Bay days. And that final game was not solely on Mike McCarthy. I mean, the Cowboys defense that had been really good the entire season has the Packers jam the ball down their throats, running the football in the opening drive. Then they had a bunch of coverage busts. Luke Musgrave is running on one half of the field without a Cowboys defender on it. It's not like Mike McCarthy and Dan Quinn are scheming up plays to turn loose a tight end to score by 20 yards. So there's a lot of people who had hands in the way that it ends here. And when you're going back to, okay, what constitutes an upgrade that would make Jerry Jones want to make a change? It's a lot harder than what people think. Mike McCarthy's resume in terms of his win loss record, his playoff appearances, everything else over the years is on par with a lot of the top coaches in the game and is way better than the people who want to simply go, okay, at the playoff moments, whether it was the final seconds last year, or it was a blowout loss this year, you can't reduce it entirely to that.

Okay. You want to go get Bill Belichick. Bill Belichick went four and 13 last year with the Patriots. He may be the greatest coach of all time. He certainly can go anywhere. And I think that he's going to have a good chance of success.

He went four and 13. If you're the Cowboys and you ditch Mike McCarthy off three straight 12 win seasons and hire Belichick and he goes 10 and seven while trying to flip a culture that every player has said is really positive and all the resources that Mike McCarthy's given him, the way that he takes care of players and everything, 10 and seven is going to get Bill Belichick run out of town by the fans and the media next year in Dallas, you know, Mike Vrabel, same thing. You're talking about a complete flip of the way that Mike McCarthy has done things the way that Vrabel would want to do things. Jerry's looking at this and saying, we've wanted a really high level. We have not performed our best at the end. But if we start over, if we go to a completely different culture, it's not just, OK, Bill Belichick gives you that little extra.

It comes over the top. Rich, you've covered Bill throughout his entire career. I've covered the Patriots for a long time.

That's not the way that Bill's brain works. I'm just going to know I'm going to bring it. You know, I get it. You're going to go down there. We're going to win the Super Bowl. There's deeper things here. And so Jerry believes going into the last year of the contract, the best thing to do to give him the opportunity to win with this roster, this team, is Mike McCarthy to stay in place. Your last line was my follow up. So if he's so great and the culture is so great and changing it is such a radical decision, so why not extend him?

Right? You know what I'm saying? So you're going to let him go into a season after an offseason that ended, that started like this, causing everybody to say, well, you're going to definitely fire him. And he's like, nope, because he's a great play caller and a great resume for a regular season. And he has won in the past, you know, in the last 15 years. So why not extend him?

He's knocked on it, is he? Right? I mean, Jerry hasn't said that expressly that he's not going to extend him. So we'll see how the coming months go. But he also let Jason Garrett coach the last year of his contract multiple times.

How'd that work? It's not Jerry. That's not Jerry.

Well, the first time, I saw him on NBC this weekend, you know? I hear you. I mean, it's, listen, it's not an ideal environment, but here's the thing in a lot of places, right? If you're coaching at the last year of your contract, for instance, in Pittsburgh, where if they don't do an extension with Mike Tomlin, which my anticipation is the Steelers will try to do an extension with Mike Tomlin, but in a place like that, all of a sudden you'd have this ratcheted up pressure of, oh, why is he coaching in the last year of his deal? In Dallas, everyone's been trying to fire Mike McCarthy for five years. His entire time there, people, every year ago and every loss, it's why isn't he fired? Every playoff loss, it's why isn't he fired? I don't know that the pressure goes up a whole lot on Mike McCarthy.

I don't think that having him in a contract here is any more counterproductive than Jerry Jones doing a press conference three days a week, basically, in terms of radio interviews and the postgame. Can you imagine Bill Belichick in that study? Bill, Jerry just is outside and saying he's not, you know, he wants to evaluate everything after this game in terms of your job, your thoughts.

Can you imagine how Belichick would deal with that? You've got to be a special person to deal with Jerry. Mike McCarthy is a very special person. He's a really good head coach. Compare his record to John Harbaugh or Tomlin or Sean Payton or all these coaches that we put on a pedestal and they're all really, really good.

Mike is right there as well. Number one scoring offense in the league with Dak. If you fire Mike McCarthy, you're also firing your offensive coordinator, your offensive play caller.

Obviously, Brian Schottenheimer helps him, but you are making multiple drastic changes right now. And there's a randomness, Rich, nobody wants to ever hear this, but there is a randomness in the playoffs. This is not the NBA. How many times in an NBA finals series do you see a team and in game two, they get blown out by 30 points, you're like, boy, that was awful.

Then game three, they come back and they play really well again. You don't have that luxury in the NFL. I remember a player years ago, I asked him and the team had just gotten blown out a veteran player. He was really smart about thinking about this. I'm just like, you know, what, what happened in that game?

And I'm going to edit it slightly here for TV and radio purposes. He just goes, man, every now and then you have a game that just goes completely to hell immediately and there's nothing you can do about it. I'm like, that's a pretty good answer. And that's what it felt like with them facing the Packers, that opening drive right down the field, Dak throws an interception, then the pick six and already it's 27, nothing. You're just like, this is over. They were in that game.

It was 27, 10. They needed a stop. They never got it. But sometimes you have those absolutely abysmal performances. Is that cause Mike McCarthy didn't have the players ready to go.

If you had a coach to get the players ready to go in a playoff game, like what are you doing with the players at that point? It's just, it's a difficult thing. Everybody's disappointed. Everybody's frustrated, but I'm not surprised knowing how Jerry thinks about this. Knowing the job that Mike McCarthy's done over the last four years, that they're going to give them one more shot here.

Maybe they make a run or maybe they don't. And then everybody gets what they wanted since the day Mike McCarthy took the job and he's ended up someplace else in 2025. Well, Tom, I appreciate the time. It's so busy and you're, you're awesome.

Not only with your information, your delivery and I, I I've noticed you looking down, I'm sure your phone is going crazy. Anything from how it was actually, we were talking about the weather in Baltimore cause I'm doing that game tomorrow. So I've been texting with the coaches. And my sources say right now, I just got a text from one of the coaches saying, I think it said heavy gusts at times of wind. So they are preparing for heavy gusts on the, the weather reports that the teams are getting right now.

It's going to be in the twenties. It could be worse, but you know, for CJ Stroud, his first road playoff game, if it's windy out there, it's going to make this all the more, all the more interesting and I'll be out there shivering for you on game day morning tomorrow, as soon as my plane gets in tonight. And here, I thought you were getting texts from Philadelphia, you know, there's a lot of texts going on, but if it were Philadelphia, as important as you are rich, I might have to take that call. No, no, no.

I, I, I hear you because that's the same thing. It's just like, you know, I'm sure you saw Fletcher Cox was called a reporter, you know, you're a clown for bringing up the fact that he's on a hot seat is, is that, is, is Jeffrey Laurie thinking that before I let you go, I mean, what is, what's your best guess as to what's happening in Philadelphia? I would just say this, Rich, when you have a historic type of a collapse, and this was, I believe that the Eagles are the second team in the Superbowl era to start 10 and one and not win their division. They lost six of their last seven games. They looked non-competitive at times. They looked old and slow on defense. They changed play callers on defense. They obviously had a play caller change on offense before the quarterback didn't look right. Whether that was, you know, a series of nagging injuries versus just, you know, a regression versus the scheme, whatever, a lot of things did not go well down the stretch. And so Jeffrey Lurie, we've seen these things happen in the past where, whether it is coaching staff changes or whether it's making a change at the top, Lurie is going to be involved and wants to know what the plan is moving forward.

I think that one way or another, Rich, it's safe to say there are going to be massive changes in Philadelphia, whether or not that involves Nick Sirianni, Jeffrey Lurie is going to have a big voice in that. And they're talking about that today. All right, Tom, thanks for the two cents, sir.

I'll see you on game day morning tomorrow. And as always, appreciate it here. Thanks, Rich. You know, that's Tom Pozzaro here on the Rich Eisen Show.

It's funny. You know, as I conduct these interviews, I kind of know what the rest of the guys in the room are thinking. You know, I could see Chris Brockman shaking his head at the whole Mike McCarthy stuff. That was that. Then I saw Del Tufo get upset that Pelosero gave us the weather report from Baltimore. Steal my thunder? Come on.

When you spent all that time preparing, but he kind of helped. And then I looked to my right, TJ Jefferson, when Pelosero goes, you know, in the NBA, you have a terrible game in the playoffs, you can come back the next two days later and perform better and you win the next game. TJ wants the double elimination, coming back. Let's make it fair. He wants best of five, best of seven. Home and home. Let's run it back.

Let's run it back. He wants the best of five. Best seven. How about the best of three? I was going to say, what if every NFL playoff was the best of three series? That would suck. Oh, my God. That would be amazing. Crazy.

That would suck. The beauty of football is you get one day, one shot. That's it.

That's it. If it's a bad day for you, it's going to be a bad six, seven months for you, too. That's the pressure. That's why I think we love about it. That's why we need to change this. This is completely BS. This is shame. We got to step into the next century, guys. All right. So when we come back, Daniel Jeremiah has come out with his first mock draft. You have looked it over.

I need to know some answers. Mock draft season. I have a sense of what I think he believes number one is going to be.

And then Mike Del Tufo. The forecast of the Rich Eisen Show calls for flop sweat. No, I don't sweat anymore.

Flop sweat. And what's next, this is the Rich Eisen Show to wrap up our Friday. It's kind of difficult to describe to people who were unfamiliar with it, as you might have been. Have you met Patrick Mahomes? I have. Yes, I have met Patrick Mahomes. He's one of my heroes. Oh, is that right? That's true.

I root for that team, even though I've never lived there. Yes. I think he is just phenomenal to watch apropos of nothing, but I was going to talk about the season finale of Barry and you were talking about the season finale and I was hoping Patrick was in it. Next time you come on, we'll make sure Mahomes is on the phone.

We'll do that. Truly. You like him that much. I think that his ability is such a cut above. He is so passionate in the way he plays.

Yes. He is so improvisorial in the way he plays. He is so sure.

I just think it is instinctually great, actually. Okay. Well, he now knows that and we will make sure that we'll make this happen. Yeah. It would be my honor. Does he listen? Yes. Patrick, hi. He does.

How are you? So can I just say, no, if Patrick is listening, I'd like to, you know, we make a great chicken stuffed with ricotta and spinach with an unbelievable reduction. It can be yours if you're here in LA. Well, the Chiefs come play the Chargers, right? The Chiefs play the Chargers. They do, actually.

We'll make this happen. Those guys are good, too. Yeah, they are. I mean, they're good quarterbacks. Yeah, they are. They are not Mahomes. That is correct. Yeah. His smile is just the best. Making Henry Winkler's smile is truly one of the greatest achievements of this show.

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AutoZone. Got that one in there. Yeah.

Good job. All right. Christopher. Richard. You're first.

Let's go. Daniel Jeremiah has Caleb Williams first in his first mock draft. Correct. Drake May 2nd.

Correct. And the New England Patriots, third overall, are selecting. Are you getting Jayden Daniels, according to him? Jayden Daniels. Got to do quarterback. He said, while Marvin Harrison would be tempting here, the Patriots need to address quarterback position.

First and foremost, Daniels coming off monster year as dual threat weapon. Did you see Gerard Mayo in his, I think it was an interview locally in New England. Did you see him say that we're going to choose the best player at the most important position?

Yes, I saw that. Which is already the first thing that's different between him and Bill Belichick already. And then I saw a lot of local idiots being like, why did he tip off his draft? Oh, stop it. It's like, come on.

What do you think we're doing? Did you watch the two guys play this year? It's terrible. You know who did this year? Coach Mayo. Yeah. So let's fix that. Mayo thinks they're spread a little thin.

Let's fix that. Mayo. Did you see it?

Did you get it? Nice. Are you a Miracle Whip or a Hellman's guy? I got to tell you, you don't like Mayo?

It took me 20 years to try mayonnaise. Wow. Rich. Wow.

Fries with Mayo. So fourth, so Marvin Harrison Jr. drops to the Arizona Cardinals, right? Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

Wow. So who's fifth? Who do the Chargers take?

After four, it doesn't get Chuck anymore. He has the Chargers going Roma Dunze. By the way, he knows exactly what the Chargers need.

He's in the booth and he's also probably knowledgeable of whatever. Well, I mean, they don't have a general manager right now or coach. So yeah. So he has like two sentences for every team he has.

The Chargers have salary cap decisions to make about Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. Right. So, okay. Sixth Malik neighbors to the Giants. All right. They, you know, are wide receiver strapped here usually.

Yep. Tennessee goes, sorry, seven. Joe Alt to Tennessee. Belichick at eighth overall.

Dallas Turner, the edge from Alabama. I mean, okay. He's already thinking Belichick's going to be the coach there. Yeah. Belichick history.

There's nine. Jared Verst from Florida State. And the Jets take the kid from Notre Dame.

Good luck with this. No. Yeah.

I don't know how to pronounce his name. Talise Fuega from Oregon State, the tackle. Jets need it.

Jets need offensive lineman in the worst way. Yeah. They got to, they got to make sure the, the other Achilles is, is good. Okay. Yep.

Any other, any other ones jump out at you? So where do the other quarterbacks land? Olaf Eshanou goes down to 13, the other tackle from Penn State. Bo Nix 14 to the Saints. Okay. And then Brock Bowers, he has a 15 here to the Colts.

Wow. What a gift that would be for the Colts. Said that he's going to be tricky to place in mock drafts. Talent says he should be a top five pick, but debate about positional value could push him down as far as 15.

Seems like he thinks 15 is the absolute. Okay. Florida. Right. Where are the, any other quarterbacks in the first round? No other quarterbacks in the first round. Oh, okay. So then maybe the Jets in the second round, if they had a pick, they'd go get JJ McCarthy. That would be the, oh my God.

Just let me just tell you, if I'm on the set in Detroit and the Jets get JJ McCarthy. Are you going to act professional? No. No. Did I stutter? No. No? The fan? No. The fan's going to come up? The Jets don't have a second round selection, fortunately.

Those trades move up and get one. Yeah. Oh boy. Okay. Good stuff. Mike Del Tufo, we have to give the people what they want, which is information that that's important.

Yes. I just already heard something from Tom Poser about how the weather could be inclement in Baltimore. It's not stealing your thunder to use a weather term. Hit it, hit it, hit it. How's the weather out there?

It's raining sideways. Del Tufo with the weekend weather update. This is big. Okay. This is easy, man.

One game's in a dome. Come on, you got this. Let's go. You can do this, man.

First game on Saturday, Texans at Ravens, it's going to be partly cloudy, 24 degrees. wins at 17 miles an hour. Thank you, Tom Pels. 17. Wow. So that's heavy. That's gusts. Second game, gusts.

Up at 20. That's gusty. Gusty wins. The second game, Green Bay at San Francisco, it will be 57 degrees. Whoa.

Whoa. Is it going to rain? Rain likely.

Oh. Rain likely. Who wins at nine miles an hour? What's the percentage of rain, Mike? It's 68%. Baby, we got it all done. Actually, the graphics is 80%, but I'll take Hoskins graphic with Don Bowie in there.

It says 68%. Bowie and Hoskins, I'll chip it. Okay. Good enough. All right. Obviously, the first game on Sunday is in a dome.

Detroit. So we're just going to skip that? But we're not going to skip it. As you walk into this stadium, it's going to be really cold. 24 degrees. Okay. Bring a jacket.

Thank you. Bring a jacket. Second game.

Yeah. Jackets are mandatory. Bring a jacket. Second game on Sunday, Kansas City at Buffalo.

By the way, bring a jacket to Detroit in mid to late January. Yeah. I mean, that's... I think that just... News flash. Breaking news. Okay. All right. Quick.

Chiefs at Bills. What do you like, Mike? It's going to feel a little cough. Feels like five. I'm looking at the graphic there.

Yeah. Feels like five. Five degrees. And it is mostly cloudy and winds at 12 miles an hour. Another windy type. That's like... And a little gust. So that's like...

Okay. But it feels like five. Feels like five. Feels like five. That's even colder.

Well, for the Chiefs from last week, that's like a day at the beach. Yeah. That's Bommie. That's Bommie. That's Steve Bommie.

That's Steve Bommie. All right. Be a short guy. See, I am way better. I used to stink at this. What?

You're looking there? Come on. I react. You didn't even have all the info. Read and react.

Well done. He even told people, go into the game. Bring a jacket. Bring a jacket. What about a hat? A hat, too?

A hat and a jacket? I've actually been at all four of these stadiums. And so have you, Rich, I think.

Yes, you have. We've been at all four of these stadiums. That's an important fact for the weather, is that we've been to all the stadiums. That's important. That means a lot. That's the most important thing you need to know going into the divisional playoff weekend, is that we've been there.

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