Tom Pelissero: Going To Get Full Russell Wilson Show

He's bad. He's beautiful. He's crazy. It's Rich Eisen. But we start this program today. This is the Rich Eisen Show with two words.

Question fatigue. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. You got a good Taylor Swift story for me?

She makes a mean homemade pop toy. Today's gasps NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero, Bucks general manager Jason Leitz, Sports Illustrated senior writer Chris Mannix, co-host of ABC's Live with Kelly and Mark, Mark Consuelos. And now it's Rich Eisen.

Oh yeah, yes it is. Welcome to this Friday edition of the Rich Eisen Show live on the Roku channel. Thrilled to be here as always between the hours of 12 to 3 Eastern live on the Roku channel which is available on every Roku device known to man. Samsung Smart TV, select some of those. Amazon Fire TV is how you can get the Roku channel.

The Roku app has the Roku channel within it and the rokuchannel.com on the internet too as we say hello to the Rich Eisen Show radio affiliate that is smart enough to have us. Over 70 coast to coast and strong. And we're also on Sirius XM Odyssey, our podcast listeners. A good Friday to all of you. It's the Friday before free agency in the National Football League world.

Lots going on there. The NBA, we saw the Celtics and the Nuggets go out at last night. The Nuggets sweep the season series from the Celtics.

Keep that in your mind's eye. Karl Anthony Towns is getting surgery on his torn meniscus. He's out a month and Anthony Edwards is like, I got it.

So the Minnesota Timberwolves got it done last night in breathtaking fashion with the Ant Man personally doing it on both ends of the floor and using his head on the back of a rim to block a shot to try and tie the game with no mere seconds to go last night. A lot of fun in the association. Chris Maddox will be in studio to talk about that in person. Tom Pelissero will join us in 18 minutes. Tom, you got a news maker from Tampa, Florida. The general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Jason Light will join us as soon as he's done with his press conference. Introducing Mike Evans once again as a wide receiver in that organization. Mark Consuelos is in town because the Oscars are on Sunday. He and Kelly Ripa are doing a show on Monday after the Oscars. Lots to talk about on this program with you as well.

844-204-RICH. The table is set for me to say hello to you, Chris Brockman. What's going on, brother? Nothing, man.

Basketball is over. What's more likely later on today? That's good?

Yeah, what's more likely? Okay, good to see you, DJ Mikey Diaz and Deez Nuts. What's going on, man?

Good to see you here on a Friday. Yes. Awesome. Boats in the slip. Ready to go?

Boats in the slip. Awesome. Good to see you, TJ Jefferson. Candles lit. Candles lit. It smells great.

What's up, fellas? What is it? What's the smell today? What's the scent?

Well, that's a good question. I don't know the scent. Because you removed the label? No, our makeup artist, Sarah, she brings me these sometimes. And this candle is called Sarah's Last Nerve today. Oh, is that right? Uh-oh.

So it doesn't give you a... I don't think we've ever seen that, but I don't know what the scent is for that. But very good.

I usually have the Woods Creek candles. Well, good. Good to see everybody here in this neighborhood. So we begin this show Thanksgiving weekend, 2023.

Why? Well, because on that weekend, Friday of that weekend in the National Football League, first time we saw an NFL game played for your viewing pleasure on the Friday after Thanksgiving. And the Jets started Tim Boyle on that day. Tim Boyle.

There he is. Against the Miami Dolphins. I don't know if this is the moment where the Jets were trying to take advantage of a late first half interception of Tua Tungo Valoa and turn it into points for the Hail Mary. And instead, Jervon Holland had the first ever pick six return of a Hail Mary, calling it a Fail Mary. We learned that term.

Never seen that before. So we saw Tim Boyle do his thing for the Jets on that Friday. Two days later, the Giants played on that same field in MetLife Stadium. But Tommy Cutlet's out there.

Oh, yeah. Tommy DeVito. He had a 12-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Hodgins on that day against Brockman's New England Patriots. And that was the only touchdown scored in the game. Wasn't pretty, but the Giants won it. Turned out to be Matt Jones's final start for the Patriots in 2023. We'll see if that's the case for evermore. And Brockman whipped.

Evermore. And Brockman whipped. And Tommy DeVito, that was in the middle of a three-game win streak for him and a very Jeremy Lin-like run as the quarterback of the Giants. Kevin Moss, like run. Kevin Moss.

As quarterback of the New York Giants. Nice. Why am I mentioning this? Yeah, why, Rich? Well, because yesterday news flashed on the, let me get this correct, because this is not in my RSS feed.

The Look Into It podcast with Eddie Bravo. Aaron Rodgers said, I'm hopeful I can play two or three or four more years, but you need to have some good fortune in there too. Good fortune. Those are words not usually associated with the New York Jets. After kind of felt like we had the good fortune of Aaron Rodgers having an intention to play for the Jets and then actually making it happen.

And only we know yada, yada, yada. He wants to play two, three or four more years. God bless you, Aaron. I'm just wondering if, because the fourth year would take him to age 44 in the middle of that year. He is one of those guys you can't say it's impossible to be the next Brady. Play till you're 45.

Keep slinging it. Have a renaissance of a career, a hall of fame career post 40, as Tom Brady had. If that was just his own career, he would have had a hall of fame career post 40, right? Listen, I'm wondering if Aaron's throwing that out there just in case the Jets are thinking of kicking a tire on a rookie quarterback, having apparently spoken to all the rookie quarterbacks at the combine that are at the top of the draft, with the exception of JJ McCarthy. I don't know if you saw that look I shot to the camera as JJ was in the booth live and I was going through it. He spoke to the Jets. He goes, nah, no interview.

I just had an informal with them, which is like basically they sing high in the hallway, walk past the donuts. But at any rate, wondering if Aaron's just throwing that out there. I could play four more years, Jets, as you get ready to potentially Jordan love me. And I mentioned this because is it possible we go from being the Jets to from Tim Boyle and Tommy DeVito on a single weekend in MetLife in 2023 to a single weekend at MetLife Stadium in 2024, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson.

Is that entirely possible? Well, it does appear that Russ returned to the scene of his lone Super Bowl victory. Yes, that did happen in MetLife against the Broncos, who, as we all know, famously traded for Russ and gave him a 245 million dollar five-year contract extension on which he will play the grand total of zero downs. Adam Schefter and many of my NFL media group colleagues reporting today that Russell Wilson met with the Giants in an exploratory meeting. Now then, let's piece this all together.

Let's piece it all together, shall we? Russell Wilson going to the Giants. I told you at the combine, I heard the Giants are done with Daniel Jones.

They're done thinking of him as the long-term answer. As we all know, he blew out his knee after suffering a neck injury last year and before all that, he looked brutal. He didn't look anything like the guy in Minnesota.

Nothing. By that, I mean the wild card victory in the Brian Deball Coach of the Year arrival on the scene for the G-Men. Looked nothing like him, with the exception of a second half comeback against the Arizona Cardinals for the Giants, who were just staring into the abyss of an 0-2 start after getting shut out in the season opener against the Giants.

They were staring an 0-2 start and he came back and won that game 31-28 and then proceeded to lose the next four in a row. And the Giants actually, after that week two win, wound up losing seven of their next eight as Jones went out and Terod Taylor and Tommy DeVito started the rest of the games from week six on. And the Giants have the sixth overall pick because of that result and might not have Saquon Barkley back.

And certainly Jones, when he went out with a knee injury in November, when he did come back and DeVito did finish games, that he would be out eight to ten months. He's not going to start week one folks. Who might start week one? You're going to throw Tommy Cutlets out there week one? You want to re-sign Terod Taylor or give Russell Wilson a flyer and say you're our guy? And if he starts winning football games for the Big Blue, Daniel Jones is coming back. You keep with the hot end as Russ is looking for a spot where if he's taking the league minimum and sticking the Broncos with the rest of the tab, he's not standing there with a backwards ball cap and an earbud in and being a good teammate.

Solely. He wants to play football. He needs to get back on a career path that puts him in Canton, Ohio and another ring on his finger like he had in MetLife on that night against the Broncos. That's what he wants. That's what he wants. And the Giants might give him a shot at week one.

Who else is going to give him a shot at week one in the National Football League right now? It's tough to find that place. Tough to find him. So when I heard he's good with the Giants, OK. Because we heard he was going to be talking to the Steelers. And sure enough, we saw photographs of him flying commercial to Pittsburgh. I think we just saw a picture of it.

Pop it back up there again, if you don't mind. Oh, yeah, there he is with the pilots on the plane. Nice. And seeing that shot of him. People were taking pictures of him taking pictures of someone else. This one right here. Shefter put this one. I'll tell you this. And I believe keep this up for a second. Seeing a photograph of him taking snaps with fans as he's walking through the airport flying commercial. No better way.

To show you mean business in looking for a job. Then by saying I will fly out of Newark, I'm telling you, I agree 100 percent hands down, 100 percent is a way to show you are fully committed. You are fully committed.

I will deal with Newark International Airport is a way to say I got this thing. They've redone it. Excuse me. No, excuse me.

And it's closer than JK. Excuse me. I'm 54 years old.

When I fly out of Newark, I feel like I'm one hundred and five by the time my ass hits the sea. You are not. Excuse me. I'm not welcoming now either. I curse the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey till my dying days. Goodness.

I agree, Rich. That shows commitment. Yes. To the craft.

And trying to find a job. T.J. Russ had those. But in all seriousness, he's flying commercial. Red 11. To me, that's the headline. That's respect. What the hell? Respect. Now, how did Shefter get this photo? I'm sure he's seeing it online and he's just from someone else's. Yeah.

He didn't. Russ is a man of the people. Russ Airport. Good thing Del Tufo wasn't sitting in seat one B. Oh, my. Oh, no, I'm sorry. You're retired from talking to people on the plane.

That's right. But listen, he's going to Pittsburgh now. He's flying to Pittsburgh. And he's apparently going to walk past the Mr. Rogers exhibit and the Franco Harris Immaculate Reception statue of George Washington and the full on Pittsburgh commercial flight experience. Got to take a photo with Franco. Stopping off and getting a Cinnabon.

It's there. Sneaking. I wonder if Russ is like walking through and saying, why do you need a package of bugles that big? And why is it $28? For a water?

Airport prices. But he's going to Pittsburgh where they're not going to tell him you can be the week one starter. And I saw the way my comments into this microphone were covered and aggregated yesterday. I saw it. Rich Eisen says Kenny Pickett will have to, you know, you compete. Russell will compete.

I don't know. And I love talking Steelers football because I love the coach. I love the team. I love the city. I love the history.

I love everything about it. And I appreciate that they're listening to what I'm saying. Trust me, you know, I like I'm one of those few people who like being right rather than being heard. But if I'm heard to and I wind up being right, then that's the win. I believe they love Kenny Pickett there.

What do you think? They're going to just tell him to Pittsburgh. Welcome to Pittsburgh, Russ. You're going to be the week one starter. Of course not. They're going to say you come here. We've got a great facility with where the Pittsburgh friggin Steelers. And that's George Pickens.

That's Naji. Hey, you remember Beast Quake? We got we got.

Berg Quake. You know, I mean, we got Jalen Warren for the moment, Deontay Johnson. Friar Muth, offensive lines, T.J. Watt, Cam Hayward.

He's got the same patches you have. I'm Mike Tomlin. Then I approve this message like that's what they're going to say to him. But when it all comes down to it, they're going to tell Kenny Pickett, you're a first round pick from two years ago. We kind of love you. We loved you then.

We still believe in you now. But sorry, this is Russ's job. So to sum up, Giants might be the better fit. I think he wants to go to New York.

He won the Super Bowl there. He and Ciara could wind up in page six if that's what, you know, lights his fire. See the play like just looking at Rogers living his best life before his Achilles blew up. Russ could do that, too.

Wind up on Broadway, do all that stuff. And the Giants, I think, would say to him, you're week one. And then when Daniel Jones comes back, we'll deal with that then.

But if you play, you're the hot hand, you're a guy. In Pittsburgh, I don't think they'll get that. And then the other thing, I'm telling everybody out there, all free agents that want to show that they mean business about finding a job in the National Football League, fly through Newark and have a photograph taken of it, because that shows you have the gumption, the stomach, the want to, because, geez, is that place the worst? But, Rich, I'm going to Seattle.

The worst. You still want to go through Newark? Get out of here. I am so thrilled I could talk about a news subject on this show while slagging on Newark International Airport at the same time. It is a dream for a kid from Staten Island. It's come true. I feel better. Advertise and show vote now, worst New York area airport.

Please, please, please, please, please, please. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. It's a waste of your time. Yeah, I just put it out there. It's your time.

EWR. Get out. Get out of here.

They've done it. It's nice now. It's not. I was just there last year. I was just here. It's Christmas. It's still great. Rich is saying, go hang out. And it's closer. Oh, yeah, you guys are not.

Have a good time. That AirTran thing. Tom Pelissero. That's the way we start this program. Tom Pelissero is going to join us so much to talk about a preview free agency.

Let's take a break and have as much time for him as possible. Tommy P will join us next. This is the Rich Eisen Show.

Named one of the best personal finance podcasts, the Stagging Benjamin Show with Joe and his friends makes financial literacy fun. I got an email today from the Len Penzo dot com H.R. department. I find really interesting. I'm an employee of one at this company.

So but somebody from the H.R. department sent me an email telling me that I had a raise. I just opened the attachment.

I could see how much my raise was. Make sure you click on the links that are in there, too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I can't wait.

I'm excited. Find out more by searching the Stacking Benjamins podcast wherever you listen. Welcome to Talkville, the ultimate small rewatch podcast. Title Transference aired October 27, 2004.

Director James Marshall, writers Todd Slapkin, Darren Swimmer. I really like this episode and I'm surprised that you don't like it as much as you thought you did. I actually respect your opinion more than I respect my own in general.

When you say things are good and I check them out, they are. Jump in now or catch up on any of the past seasons of Talkville on YouTube or wherever you listen. Happy anniversary to you, Chris. Happy one year anniversary to you. Thank you very much. I don't believe Evan in Portland.

We'll have a similar celebration. This happened on the Rich Eisen Show one year ago today. All right, I'm not going to come at you with stats. I'm not going to come at you with like facts or anything like that. All I'm going to say, man, it's right now, Wednesday the 8th, 10 a.m. basically. I'm going to call you back a year from now and you're going to write me an apology letter. I'm talking all this smack about Daniel Jones.

I'm going to want a handwritten apology letter, too. I'm sorry for my bad opinion. And you are right.

Daniel Jones is a good quarterback and worth the money. And I tell you what, if I'm wrong, I will Venmo you for a steak dinner of your choice. Oh, whoa, whoa, do I get to pick the restaurant? Yeah, you don't want him to go to the Astros out here, please. It's OK. OK, it's OK. Evan, be reasonable. OK, OK, of course. OK, all right, Evan.

All right, deal. Where's Evan in Portland? Boom.

Where are we going to eat, boys? But you haven't gotten a Venmo. We haven't gotten a call. I haven't got a call.

He said he would call back one year, one year from today in three hundred and sixty five days. Evan, where you at, brother? If you're out there and you're healthy and you're happy, which we we we we're going to assume the healthy part.

Because Daniel Jones didn't make you happy last year. I'm hungry. Yeah. You want a steak or breakfast steak? Well, Michael's no, no, no green, nothing green. No, no green, no green.

I might get the lobster shrimp add on. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do it that way.

Don't do it that way. Get some cutlets for him. Get some cutlets that I can taste it.

My mouth. So we go to Mateos for some cutlets. Oh, well, so now it's got to be. It's Mateos, not Mateo.

Is it Mateo? Yeah. Back on the Rich Eisen Show radio network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk first by Grainger. Perfect. And with supplies and solutions for every industry, Grainger has the right product for you. Call click.

Grainger dot com or just stop by. It's called, you know, M-A-D-E-O. No, M-E-T-T-E-O is in Westwood.

That's where Sinatra used to go. OK. Thank you.

So, Paul, thank you, Paul. Tom Pellicero, my buddy back from the Combine and everything else here on the Rich Eisen Show from the NFL Media Group. Good to see you, Tommy P. How are you, Tom? Doing great, Rich. What's up to my boys in the studio? Such pandering, such pandering. Always.

You'll try to do best. Kissing babies. I just. Which one is the baby here?

All of them. I can't believe we didn't see him in Vegas. I saw everybody but Tom.

That's true. Where were you? I was invited. Where were you? You never brought me over.

What do you want me to do? Wow. No, we walked around everywhere. We literally saw all your cohorts.

Exactly. You want me to like sidle up to your set and be like, hey, guys, can I come on? No, we were deep. We were deep in. We were deep in Nickelodeon land. We just missed you. All right. Good to see you. So what's the scoop with Russell Wilson?

What's happening? Russell Wilson has begun the very high profile tour of potential places that he could land. It's such a unique situation, Rich, because you got a quarterback who is due $39 million to not play for the Broncos this season.

It's subject to offsets. So there's no difference between Russell signing for the minimum and signing for $39 million because he gets the same amount of money. The expectation is wherever he goes, he's going to sign a minimum type deal at least for 2024.

We'll see then if they try to do something multi-year, something out into 2025. I also can't help but look at the way even the reporting so far, Rich, has gone on this because our intrepid teammate, Ian Rappaport, put out the initial tweet earlier today that Russell Wilson was spotted flying from Newark, and I'm paraphrasing, I don't have it in front of me, but spotted flying from the Newark airport to Pittsburgh to meet with the Steelers, hanging out with fans and taking photos, which by all appearances, that's exactly what was going on. I am just struck by this fact, which is Russell Wilson at this stage in his career, he spent a couple of years in a lot of ways being a punchline for a lot of people in the media and for fans. He did play at a higher level at a higher level last season, but it ended with Sean Payton chewing him out on the sideline and getting benched for the last couple games and publicly accusing the Broncos of benching him over money and doing illegal things, even though the intention of what the Broncos were doing with the adjusted contract was to give a pathway where he'd still be the quarterback in 2024 while gaining some flexibility for the organization. You are going to get the full Russell Wilson show. I don't know what you're going to get in terms of on the field. Again, he did play better last season.

Statistically, he was more efficient here, but in terms of everything being about social media, everything being a big deal, the idea that he's going to go to, let's say, the Giants and just going to be the backup and if Daniel Jones falls, no. Russell Wilson is coming in and it's going to be a massive storyline wherever he goes. Everything is going to be, you know, he released, I don't know if you saw Rich, a new clothing line last week, so if you need some Russell Wilson socks, those are available to you.

Tom, I'm not interested in his footwear. What I'm interested in is who's going to give him the starting gig, right? And the Giants don't... That's it. Well, no, no, I know that, but the Giants have to prep for Daniel Jones not being ready in week one. They might draft one because, you know, it sure sounds like everything that I was told at the combine, they have soured on him, that they do not view Daniel Jones as the future anymore and they've got to reset. They got to reset fast as possible and Pittsburgh, I don't think, is going to just hand rust the job either, right? So wherever he goes, he's going to want to play, right?

Places like Pittsburgh, to me, it makes sense. Listen, Russell Wilson's won a lot of football games, he's a veteran who's available on the cheap, you bring him in, you spend some time with him. I don't see a place like Pittsburgh as a fit because my understanding has been they want to give every opportunity for Kenny Pickett with a new offensive coordinator to go out and show he was worthy of the number one pick and Russell Wilson dropping into that situation and coming in as QB two and having to win the job doesn't seem like, again, a guy who is taking photos and releasing clothing lines and everything else is really apt to do. I mean, it reminds me a little of Cam Newton. When you got further into Cam Newton's career, he was never just going to come in and just be the backup. I remember Cam mentioned something at one point that Bill Belichick said to him about how it just didn't make sense for him to be a backup within the league and at one point when Russell Wilson was in Seattle and the Seahawks were the only team with the fortitude at the time to bring in Colin Kaepernick for a visit and Pete Carroll told Kaepernick in that meeting, you know, you're a starter, like we don't have a starting job, you're a backup.

Different circumstances with all these, but there's some of the same types of things here with Russ. Again, he's going to be highly paid, not by the team that he's actually playing for this season. The Giants are unique just in regard to, as you said, Rich, obviously Daniel Jones did not play well enough.

Then he got hurt last season. They still owe him like $35 million fully guaranteed this year. Could we see another team eat that much guaranteed money to move on from somebody? It seems unlikely at this point. The Giants drafting somebody to come in while having Daniel Jones would on paper make more sense, but this is the NFL in 2024, where all these things that you would have said even 10 years ago, well, that doesn't make any sense. They're not going to eat all this money.

They're not going to eat all this dead cap. Teams do it every year. We see surprising things happen here. You just got to know if you're bringing in Russell Wilson, you're bringing in the whole Russell Wilson package. And if you dig into the background to how things ended in Seattle and in Denver, even at a cheap price, you might have some additional questions.

Tom Pelissero here on the Rich Eisen Show. Walk me through the timeline of how Kirk Cousins is going to play out over this weekend and then when the negotiating window opens Monday. I believe that Kirk Cousins is going to take this into Monday and he's going to want to see what exactly the marketplace is out there, which is kind of what the Vikings had preferred to let him do as well.

In other words, when they were trying, since Kevin O'Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah got there, and by the way, Kirk, over the last two years, prior to the Achilles injuries, played the best that he ever has. Part of the problem with negotiating extensions for Cousins, whether it's the one-year extension he did a year ago or it's trying to do, or excuse me, two years ago, or it's trying to do a multi-year deal, you don't ultimately know what someone else is going to pay. And so you're kind of negotiating off what Kirk has made in Minnesota.

So it makes sense for both sides for Kirk to go out and figure out exactly what his market is. I'm sure that his agent, Mike McCartney, who has done deals that have fully guaranteed money to Kirk Cousins for nine years running here, going back to the franchise tags in Washington, probably has a pretty good grasp of who's interested here. But in terms of what actually happens and how far our team's willing to go contract-wise, that's something that I think is going to mirror what happened back in 2018 when Cousins hit free agency the last time. There's been a lot of talk about Atlanta. I fully anticipate that Atlanta is going to be involved here. There are some other teams like even Denver that could potentially be involved on Kirk Cousins and the Vikings do want Kirk Cousins back. It's just a matter of it's got to be at a price that they can stomach here. I don't think this is a scenario where going back again a couple of years ago, I believe it was on the Sunday night and Cousins and the Vikings did a one-year extension and they moved forward at that point.

I don't get that sense this time, Rich. I think that everybody wants Kirk to go out and see the market and once we get to Monday and I think it's noon eastern time that that negotiating window opens, I would anticipate, not a guarantee, but I would anticipate things move pretty quickly. Well your colleague, our colleague Kevin Seifert of ESPN reported that there if the Vikings sign them after Cousins hits the market based on his contract, there's a dead money figure of 28 and a half million dollars that creates a prohibitive cap figure for Cousins for this year. That would be after Wednesday.

After Wednesday, right. So you've got the negotiating window. The new league year, the way Cousins contract is set up is like a lot of contracts now coming out of COVID, there are a lot of deals done this way where they add these phony years at the end, voidable years to spread out the cap hit. So just to give everybody a real quick cap lesson here, so when a contract voids, on the day that it voids, everything that's into future years accelerates into the current cap year. If you release somebody after the start of the league year, then you can spread it out over two years, you designated what they call a post-June 1 cut, which is why some of these guys, you know, Xavier Howard's one, Russell Wilson is one, you have the opportunity to spread it out over two years, but when a contract is voiding early, you don't have that option.

That would void and in fact all that dead cap would accelerate into the current year. But you've still got about a 52-hour window, if I'm doing the math right there, Rich, where Cousins can go out, see what's there, and then figure out if the path forward is in Minnesota or someplace else. I don't think this is going to go into Wednesday. I don't think it's going to be Cousins needs to go take visits. I think that pretty clear who the teams involved are going to be, whether it's Monday or Tuesday, I don't know, but I do think that it's going to come together quickly and that's going to bear on everything else that happens in a really fascinating quarterback market.

That's what I wanted to basically point out here is that for Vikings fans that are hoping that Cousins stays, you got to hear Monday or Tuesday, essentially, it's done, right? Because he can't kind of hit that market on Wednesday. There's a prohibitive somewhat monetary figure that's in there. And everything's, yeah, it's largely prohibitive, but again, teams take crazy cap hits.

There's a lot of stuff. I don't think that's going to come into play here. Then you've got obviously Baker Mayfield, who's another big name in the market. There's a lot of different places he could end up. Tampa's always made the most sense for Baker, but they've got another, what, three days here to try to work something out or else Baker is going to be an unrestricted free agent. And if you miss out on those two guys, then your options are, besides obviously the draft where you've got several top prospects, you can have as many as six quarterbacks go in the first round. But if you are a team that wants a veteran, your options are Russell Wilson at a cheap rate, but somebody who you're going to have to be comfortable with the whole package and have a clear vision of how you're going to play football with them. It's making a trade for Justin Fields, which at this point, it does not feel like anything is imminent on the Fields front. Or you go into that next category of the free-aging quarterbacks, where you're going to find Ryan Tannehill, who we'll see what Tannehill's plans are, if any, for 2024 here.

Gardner Minshew, who played at a high level. Gardner's going to want to go and have an opportunity to start somewhere. So I don't think that there's a clear path for him just to go back and be Anthony Richardson's backup in Indianapolis. And then there's some others like Sam Darnold and Jacoby Brissett. You got other guys with starting experience like Tyrod Taylor and Josh Dobbs. There's a bunch of names, but it very much is a domino effect in the quarterback market because you've got clear two walk in the door starters in Kirk and Baker. You certainly can make the case that a guy like Fields or Wilson, if you're acquiring them, they're going to be your starter as well. And then you got all these other kind of borderline type guys at a time where you easily can look around the league and say there's eight to 10 teams where, you know, maybe they draft a quarterback, but you're not going to know that till the end of April.

You're going to want to have some type of a contingency plan in place right now. Tom Palacios here on the Rich Eisen Show. You just said that you don't think anything's imminent on the Justin Fields front. If Cousins goes to Atlanta, where in the world does Justin Fields wind up, Tom?

And that's the great question. And it's who is willing to give up a significant draft pick for Justin Fields? Cause let's just, let's play hypotheticals here for a second. If you're best off, let's say the Bears best offer again, I'm just spitballing here. They're best offers a fourth round pick right now for Justin Fields. Prior to the start of free agency, if I'm Ryan polls, as much as he said, well, we want to do right by Justin and, and that I have a hard time stomaching that I'm going to give up a guy who we all know what the one loss record is with Justin Fields.

We know, you know, the up and down play, but he still played a lot of games in the NFL. I don't know that I'm rushing to give away Justin Fields for a day three draft pick. So then could they hold him till closer to the draft?

Just kind of see a lot of different things shake. There's gonna be teams trying to trade up for quarterbacks. They might miss out. Maybe your best value on Justin Fields doesn't come until the Friday or even Saturday of the draft. This is all part of like the game here. I know last year, the bears moved really swiftly. I think it was around March 9th, which that'd be tomorrow where they traded the number one pick and they started maneuvering here.

This one is a little bit different. I've said this, rich, every time I've come on the show for months here, everything that the bears have done to this point, every indication that I've gotten is that they'll want to draft Caleb Williams. That'll be the number one pick. And then Justin Fields is probably playing football someplace else, but there's nothing saying they have to do this. There's no trigger and Fields contract. Nothing saying you have to make the trade. Now we've seen big trades happen during draft week in the past. There've been plenty of quarterbacks who have gone and started someplace and those deals get done like Monday or Tuesday. You may not have every team, all 32 teams with a clear starting plan in lieu of a rookie in place by the end of April here.

So they can afford to be patient. They can afford to play this out. They still got to get Caleb Williams in and do the medical and all that. Not that anybody's anticipating any red flags on that front, but as much as early on, it seemed like maybe the first two dominoes were going to be Russell Wilson and Justin Fields ahead of the market. Russell's obviously out there.

He's at minimum visiting teams right now with Fields. Again, this can all change overnight. There could be one phone call today and he could be gone, but don't get the sense that it's imminent right now. All right, let's talk about a couple of other issues before sending you on your Friday into your free agent week. Tom Pelissero here on the Rich Eisen Show. Everything could be a clue, a nugget.

We never know. And that's where Twitter posts come in handy sometimes. Chris Jones tweeting out Casey and then a whole bunch of ellipses. Two of them, it looks like. A lot of yada, yada, yada on this photograph of Andy Reid jumping on top of Chris Jones after they officially were back-to-back champions. Interpret this for me, sir.

What do you have? First of all, I'd say that's not a real friendly angle right there for Andy Reid. It looks like Chris Jones has just been attacked by a gorilla at the zoo. I don't know if Andy wants that to be the lasting image of him as the head coach of the Chiefs. But no, I mean, we all checked, obviously. It does not sound like anything at that point, which was, I think that was two days ago, that anything was happening at that point. It was yesterday and we had Andy Reid on. It was yesterday we had Andy Reid on and he's like, if I knew anything, I'd tell you, he has no idea. But normally these things are like, Casey coming back or, you know, there were six dots.

So you checked in on it. What's the status, Tom? There's certain guys who like the social media, Rich, and like to make people chase things. Stefan Diggs is another one who, you know, you get a hundred different cryptic things. And then eventually one of them is, hey, he got traded to the Bills.

I mean, every single time and you keep asking with Chris Jones. Listen, there's a very short list of players in this free agent class who are going to get $30 million or more per year on a new contract. It is Kirk Cousins. It is maybe Baker Mayfield that could come in on either side of that. It's Chris Jones.

That's it. Chris Jones is the guy. The question I would tell you that other teams have about Chris Jones is, if the Chiefs don't pay him that top, top of the market Aaron Donald type money, who is, who is in the market for that guy?

Listen, Chris Jones is not an old player, but he's not a really young player either at this point. There's a lot of value that he brings to Kansas city that goes beyond just the statistics here. I anticipate wherever he goes, he's getting a massive, massive type of deal.

It seems like the most logical places in Kansas city. They've still got, you know, 72 hours or so here to get something done before the market opens up. But remember this too, rich, this is the same guy who last year, you know, missed a paycheck at the start of the season and was, you know, in the luxury box with his agents, uh, watching that opener game. Anybody who was thinking, well, why don't the chiefs just tag him?

It wouldn't have shown up on the tag and the tag would have been an astronomical figure. He's, he's very convicted. This could be a situation where if he doesn't feel like this is the contract, you might be willing to wait.

It might not be something that happens this weekend or on Monday here. I think it's a fascinating one just because it's such a unique player who's won at the absolute top level. There's not another guy like him available in free agency. There's not a guy, another guy available like him in the draft.

He is going to get paid. The only question is now how high. And I'd say right now, if you were looking on either side of that Aaron Donald figure, which I think was 31 million points, something, uh, on a short-term extension that got him to come back from retirement, you're probably saying Chris Jones beats that last year. There was a whole host of running backs that had franchise tags on them. When the new league year week hit this year, none, not so much handicap the running back market for me.

Uh, and what people should watch out for. I would say the three that are going to be, you know, the ones that, and they all could have some of the similar types of suitors that are going to get the top of the market type of value, at least in terms of this running back class are going to be Saquon. It's Josh Jacobs and it's Derek Henry. Now, Chris McCaffrey is still the highest paid running back at 16 million a year. Saquon would have loved to get there. He turned down a lot of money from the giants on multiple occasions, both last March and last July. I find it hard to believe that even by hitting the free agent market, he's going to get into that territory, but him or Josh Jacobs are probably the two that if somebody's getting 11, 12, $13 million per year, it's probably one of those two guys, Derek Henry, a little bit different category because he's older. He's led the league in carries for the last five years. So there's a lot of mileage on him, but in terms of a short deal, maybe it's two for 20 to a team like Baltimore that has an obvious need at the running back position.

That wouldn't surprise me at all. And then, you know, in terms of everybody else, there's a bunch of really good running backs. I mean, Austin Eckler has been as productive as any running back during the course of his career. The numbers were down last year.

There's a lot of different factors that were involved with that. He might be looking at, you know, maybe it's a one-year deal with a lot of upside for an Austin Eckler Deandre Swift, another guy who I don't see Deandre Swift being somebody who's getting close to $10 million per year, but certainly I anticipate he's going to have a market here. The ones that will move quickly, Josh Jacobs, Saquon and Derek Henry with Jacobs and Saquon, there's certainly a possibility. They go back to their existing teams.

I know how much Mark Davis thinks of Josh Jacobs, what a tone center is, what a good locker room guy he is. I would fully anticipate in these coming days here, the Raiders will make some type of a push to try to keep him. With the Giants, you know, it's kind of like what we talked about with Kirk Cousins, where after, you know, they've made several runs of getting the Saquon deal done, they didn't tag him at $12 million in part because it's probably a good thing if he goes out and sees is somebody like the Chargers with a new coaching staff and Jim Harbaugh, do they roll it out and give him $15, $16 million a year? Anything's possible.

The Chargers obviously would need to clear a lot of space to start making moves like that, but let Saquon go out, find out what the real market is, then the Giants can can see whether or not that's a place that they're willing to go with. All right, Tom, I know there's no crystal ball, but before you go, and I know this is not your usual bag here, but give me the surprise. There's always one where it's like, whoa, that team did that with that player? Give me one you think that's going to happen Monday or Tuesday. I think that the surprise things that are going to happen over the next several days here, I'll speak somewhat broadly here, Rich.

I'll be as good of a roadmap as I can. I think that they are going to continue to be offensive linemen who get numbers who you've never heard of and you're going, someone just gave Jonah Jackson $17 million a year. There are some offensive linemen, just Robert Hunt is going to get a ton of money. Mike Anwenu, who's doing his own deal from the Patriots, he might get a big deal. There's even a bunch of those guys who are not household names at all and you see the numbers and you're like, who is this guy? And the fact is they're good players.

And that's a market that while we've seen others shrink, the guard market is absolutely exploding. And then I think that if you get some surprises in terms of the big names, it might be some of these receivers being on the move because once Mike Evans resigned with the Buccaneers, once Pittman and T Higgins got taken off the market, those are really your top three potential free agents who are now not available to teams. Calvin Ridley is probably the next one.

There's a lot of teams have to dig in to in terms of how things played out in Atlanta. He had the year-long suspension, goes to Jacksonville, just kind of up and down, was finding his legs through the course of the season here. Beyond that, there's not like a clear, every year we got a receiver to get crazy money and those are the ones everybody's talking about. I don't know that we have that guy this season. Somebody will give Gabe Davis some money. Somebody will give Tyler Boyd some money, but you know, is anybody getting $12, $15 million besides maybe Calvin Ridley? I don't know that I necessarily see that, but you've got some of those receiver names that we've talked about in the past. Guys like Jerry Judy, Mike Williams from the Chargers would be a guy with a big number, would be a logical trade candidate. Does somebody make a run at a Staphon Diggs?

I think the environment, Rich, is right for teams that need a veteran receiver to go out and at least explore the trademark and make some calls on guys that you might not normally think are available just because if you don't get one of those guys, there's really not, again, besides maybe Ridley, there's really not a number one type of guy available. Tom, appreciate the time, man. I know your phone's probably buzzing like crazy. Look for, there it is right there. How many texts do you have that are unread right now? What's the number? Let's just say here, since this interview is 17, since this interview began.

We're averaging one a minute. It'll pick up next week. We'll chat again, Tom. Thanks again. Enjoy. You bet. The great Tom Post there.

Lots to chew on there. We'll talk about that and the association when we come back here. Chris Maddox in studio, but before that, Jason Light, the GM of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as we roll to break on a busy Friday.

Hi there. Sorry for the interruption, but are you enjoying the show on Google Podcasts? You should know that the Google Podcasts app is going away this spring.

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Be sure to follow so you never miss the next episode and thanks for listening. Wherever you listen. Rockman just out of the blue. Where were you when you sent this tweet, Chris? Oh, I mean, was that on a Sunday? Was it a Sunday night?

Don't remember. I was probably just at home and you just said, you know, if the Eagles make the playoffs, I'll take a bite out of Mike Del Tufo's hat. You said, I will take a bite out of Mike Del Tufo's hat. Yeah. Eagles have made the playoffs and you have avoided the inevitable for a week.

That ends now. I just sliced up a one inch by one inch cutout of Mike Del Tufo's Callaway hat. And I placed it like little Easter eggs into the half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Take a bite. Here we go.

Here you go. Rockman is taking a bite. Did you get a piece of the hat there? I think you did. You're the one who chose the peanut butter too. You stand nearby? Nope.

We don't. It's part of the hat sticking out. I didn't get it all. Oh, that is a, that is an awful piece right there in that sandwich. No, you may not. As long as you eat it.

As long as you eat it. Keep going. Keep going. I didn't go through, man.

This piece is like right in my tooth. Why did you even do this? Chris? You didn't have to. You took the McLovin.

Because the Eagles stink. You took the McLovin baby. Oh my God.

That was Sunday radio audience. I can't even tell if that's a piece of glistening jelly or a piece of a glistening gel, a jelly glistened Del Tufo hat piece. Oh, down it. Just I feel like I'm talking to Taylor eating her broccoli. Just eat it and we'll get off your case. Oh, he just went one bite. He finished it. This is not going to be good because that is peanut butter and it is jelly and it is Del Tufo hat.

And you just jammed literally three inches by three inch piece of sandwich. It was a proud day for my future son. Oh my God. Are we showing that to cage yet? We should back on the Rich Eisen show radio network. You're getting ready for it. I'm getting ready for Jason Light, the general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers holding a press conference reintroducing, I guess, Mike Evans to the Tampa Bay community. What up with Baker Mayfield?

Should that be the way I start? What up with Baker Mayfield? My boy. Pretty much.

Treat my son with respect. I see him taking batting practice the other day. Who Baker did? Yeah, I think with the Yankees. Is he? Oh, really? He's a lefty.

He hits left handed. Oh, is that right? Yeah.

Okay. Short porch. Take it downtown. I like it. You need a lefty bat.

There he is with Judge. How about that? Oh my God. Can I like make a Baker Mayfield anymore?

The answer is yes, I can. Now I do. Oh, that's right.

They're in Tampa. Nice stance. Let me ask you this out of Baker. Would you rather have him or Rogers this year quarterback? Oh my God. I don't know. It's just, it's, it's, it's a waste of my time to have this conversation because Rogers is kind of like what I rather have.

I'll take the younger guy whose Achilles didn't explode. Okay. That's what I was looking for. Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Give me what I wanted. Okay.

Now I'm going to get what I want from you here, coach. So the Nuggets took care of the Celtics last night. Yeah.

And that's two in a row now for Boston, right? Yeah. I mean, who cares? Okay. I understand. Not concerned. Barkley basically said if they don't win, he'd be, it would be a total disappointment. They don't win at all.

Well, he called it, what was his exact quote was much harsher, which is kind of ridiculous for a team that hasn't won anything to suddenly say, if you don't win, this is the biggest failure of your career. Okay. Now that said, I did see this breakdown. It does, I would have gone deeper into what happened between the Celtics and the, and the Nuggets, but this perfectly encapsulates.

Put it up. Can't miss nine free throws. Shoot 30% from three and have Tatum go five at 13 and expect to win. But all those things happen instead of a wide open look to take the lead under a minute to go going to be a seven game series in the finals. So you're putting your team in the finals.

I think they're the clear favorite. Right. So if they're going to the finals and don't win it, wouldn't that be a total failure for a team that looks fair. Yeah. Yeah. You're putting them in the finals on March 8th.

Well, they've already been to the finals and had a two, one lead and lost it. Okay. So good enough.

Are you ready? You're, you're still not ready to throw it out there though. Right.

Had they won last night, I would have, I would have been, I would have been rammed. Everybody needs to understand that there is a hot take. Yeah. Just that's over there. Do you know how, you know how sometimes here in Southern California or any other spot that, you know, might be a desert town where it gets cold at night, but it's hot during the day.

I mean, there's many places in our great country just like that. Sure. How you're sitting underneath the heat lamp, but you know, the heat lamps on from 10 feet away.

Right. It's really hot. You feel the heat.

That's how I feel across from Brockman every day when the Celtic subject comes up. Cause there's a take so hot. I feel the heat.

Do you even feel it? Cause you're further away from him and you know the take. I think I may have been the first one to get the take from him. I know that.

You heard it first. I just want to be prepared. I want to have popcorn ready for when this happens. Cause I just want to sit back and enjoy this show. That take is coming.

So just let me know in advance so I can make sure I got the over-wedding. Two losses in a row have kept the lid on it. Yeah. Everyone can calm down with the Tatum MVP stuff. He's not going to win MVP. He's not the MVP of the league.

Who is? MVP of the league. We watched it.

We watched him last night. Like Jokic, right? Again, right? Correct.

That's unbelievable. I think. But are you, is that, is that going to happen or people just have Jokic fatigue? No, it's going to happen.

I think he's a big, big favor right now. I think is it worldwide wild last night at a tweet or something like Jokic getting the ball at the top of the key is like a blackjack you're playing blackjack and the dealer has an ACE and it's just like, Oh, okay. Okay. How am I going to lose this hand? How do you get insurance from Jokic at the top of the key? There's no, you know, I want to surrender and get half your bet back. I can't do it. That doesn't happen.

It's so good. And then there's other times where he's anywhere on the court and the dealer has a four and you know, the dealer is going to make 21 off of six more cards. When you, when you've got a face card, it's like that's coming 10 second analysis. Jalen Brown had a huge game. Portzingis had a great night. Can't miss seven free throws. Jalen Brown.

Like, come on, Derek white. Where were you? Can't shoot 30% from three, but you're still making the finals and it's going seven for sure. Okay. Very good.

Chris Mannix in studio to discuss at hour two. So there you have it. I mean, Tatum five for three, like just another no-show and a massive, I mean, like regular season in March. Fine. How about it? But like, come on, man. How about Anthony Edwards?

How about Anthony Edwards? Tie game hits a three comes back down the floor after a stop makes it to then when it gets really close again, he just goes floater in the lane. He just, he was just on fire. And then at the end of the game comes out of nowhere and blocks the shot, uh, of, uh, was, what was it?

Nemheart was, who was it at the end of the game? Um, and, and he hit, he gets up so high. He hits his head on the back of the rim.

It was insane. Right. And he said after the game, he'd never felt pain like that in his life. Cause it hit him in the, but it's like, cool.

I'm 22 and I hit his head and then he fell and he like landed on his wrist. Most importantly. Yeah. That's what he said.

The pain was, but most importantly that this is knowing cats out for a month and that he's going to come back early. Apparently we'll talk about it more with Maddox early playoffs, but you know, like, okay, for us to get this one seed, I got it. Yeah. 40 point night, big block at the end.

I'll take it over with a minute and a half to go in Indianapolis. And we're just caught. That was great. We're about to see him just go nuts. He might have like 10, 40, like a Kobe strike. That's because he might have to say, okay, Carla, Carla's out.

I got it. We're going to stay with that spot. He's going to have to Jason lights, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, general manager.

When we come back to start hour two on a what's more likely Friday. Hey everybody, this is Dan Bespress host of fantasy NBA today, a daily fantasy basketball podcast. We cover every box score from every game every day, plus bonus shows on Bilo opportunities, players to stash schedule analysis, and really anything you could need to smash your league into deliciously tiny pieces. Catch the fantasy NBA today podcast part of the belief network on YouTube or wherever you listen.