Mike Garafolo: Eagles First Two Picks Were Outstanding

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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. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Was there any thought at all this could have been your last game with the Lakers?

I'm not going to answer that. If you're the Lakers, do you just say we're good? The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pelissero. Today's guest NFL Network reporter Mike Garofalo, NBA writer for the athletic Mike Vorkanov, NFL Network analyst Chase Daniel, comedian Tom Papa. And now sitting in for Rich, it's Tom Pelissero. Welcome to the Rich Eisen List show.

I am Tom Pelissero. Rich is still in New York for what I learned yesterday was new fronts. Until yesterday, I thought that was what Kirk Cousins got from his dentist.

Wow. You got new fronts. Are you outing Kirk here for fixing his teeth? What are we doing? No, he had the gold, the grill that he got and then signed with the Falcons a couple of weeks later.

I thought he got the veneers like Aflac. You remember what happened? It's been kind of a forgotten part at this point of Kirk Cousins' offseason. A few things have happened over the past week.

I'm sure we'll get into that. Mike Garofalo is going to join us. Chase Daniel, former NFL quarterback, now works with me at NFL Network. Does a phenomenal job breaking down these quarterbacks. I'm going to have him get into kind of the scheme fits for all these guys and why the Falcons might have liked.

Michael Penix Jr., Mike Vorkanov going to join us, talk some NBA. And Tom Papa in studio right here, one of the funniest people I think any of us have ever met. And as I learned this morning, a co-star in a movie with T.J. Jefferson.

Can you give us the quick elevator pitch for fudgy, wudgy, fudge face, T.J.? This was a movie. This is a very low budget movie that my friend Harlan Williams shot many, many, many years ago. And from what I can remember, an alien came to Earth. And so Tom and I play these FBI type agents who have to go find a special agent who was our top hunter. He disappeared off the grid. He lives in the desert.

We've got to go find him to basically reenlist him and say, you've got to come back and find this alien. So that was like Tom and I singing together. And I watched the scene. Your comedic timing, even better than I expected.

I'm not bad, bro. You know, there were a lot of sound effects in the scene. You got paid in Jack in the Box.

That was probably because they had to pay the money for the sound effects. Harlan's a friend and he hit me up and said, hey, buddy, can you do this for me? And they bought me Jack in the Box and we drove to the desert and we shot this. It's a funny guy. So Tom Papa, he's going to join us in a little bit on a show that I can promise you will not be delayed by bees. That was my favorite story. We'll talk about Tyrese Maxey.

We'll talk about that Sixers comeback. But is it not a bizarre series of events in Arizona to have a multiple hour delay for a bee colony that shows up at a Major League Baseball game? This is nuts because I have I have a couple of Dodgers and Diamondbacks on my fantasy baseball team. Yes, I still play fantasy baseball and I'm just like, why?

Why is nothing happening in this game like delay with their big planet dome like delay for what? And then finally, I see the videos of the swarm of bees and the beekeeper and they're using like a vacuum to like suck them up. It was unbelievable.

I've been going so far down the rabbit hole on this story and reading every write up like the drama with which this is presented. This is from the athletic as he settled in for the first inning of his six year old son Levi's final T-ball game of the season. Matt Hilton had no clue he was about to make his big league debut.

30 minutes later he was at Chase Field, the most popular man in the ballpark that boasted stars like Buki Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman. Tuesday night match between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks got some added buzz when a swarm of bees atop the netting right behind home plate delayed the start time from 640 Mountain. The 835 colony formed approximately 15 minutes before the scheduled first pitch, forcing Diamondbacks VP of Ballpark Operations Mike Rock into conversations with officials from Major League Baseball. The game immediately delayed as rocket officials called local pest control companies, including Partners Blue Sky Pest Control. They got a hold of Hilton, a branch officer at the company, and told him a swarm of thousands of bees had taken over.

They're very close to postponing the game. So if you're in the pest control business, are you ever shocked by anything? You're at a little league game and you get the call that the idea that there was a great deal of surprise that, hey, there's nothing that's not an emergency in your business. I got rats in the house. All right, I'm going to have to pack up and go. If you choose to be a firefighter and you get the call, you're like, now you're like, oh, come on, I'm at a tee ball game.

Just wait like an hour. Can Bill do it? It's not that big of a fire. I bet Matt Hilton, though, came to the rescue, broke up. They played Bonnie Tyler's holding out for a hero throughout the ballpark as he broke up the bee colony.

That's amazing. Last tee ball game of the season, though, that six-year-old, not forgetting. No chance. No, because you've got to think about it at six, right? You remember things at six.

Of course. Right, Mike? You remember six? Four, not so much. Five, a little hazy. Six, you're starting to remember stuff. And you're always going to remember Dad left the game to go take care of the bees at the Diamondback Stadium.

You got to throw out the first pitch. That's pretty cool. That's awesome. He got that memory. There he is. Full beekeeper outfit. What? Incredible. He's dressed like the bees are going to follow him into a cult of some kind. You don't know.

Get them all some Nikes and have them drink the Kool-Aid, see what happens. That's a heck of a job, though. Matt Hilden. Wow.

Fantastic work. Hero of the day. I'm out here for two days. I had to miss my nine-year-old. She put on like a short play. They had like three rehearsals. There was one scene. It was about 15 minutes long.

She'd rehearsed a lot. Did not hear the end of it. Very upset. Wouldn't talk with me on FaceTime last night. No way. And I'm not even breaking up the bees here. I'm just with you idiots in the studio.

Great use of idiots. Holding things down. I'm going to be back later tonight. We're going to watch the scene. If you're watching this right now, you're home from school for some reason. So I'll get the clip.

I'll text you the clip. She's got those smartwatch now. She can kind of get things and I feel really bad about that. Yeah. Now you had to miss that. Okay. See, the problem is now if I actually like explain myself now, this is the part my wife's going to see.

She probably is watching right now. Here come the excuses. What's up, sir? I don't want to hear it. If it were a whole play. All right. If it were like a 90 minute school production.

That's different. This was this was 15 minutes. It was very important. Got it. I told Sarah, you got to you got to shoot on your phone. I want to see the whole thing. So then she sends me a screen grab last night.

Didn't want to send the whole video because he didn't want me to see it till I'm back home. And there's she's in the front row. She got the camera up, I assume, on a tripod. And the lady who is like two seats over from her does one of these for the whole play. So we've got about two thirds of the kids. And then we've got the lady who decided that her angle was much more important.

So her whole arm is covering up the whole bottom left corner. I'm still hoping I'm hoping I'll be able to see enough. We've got hope. There's always hope. There was hope for the Sixers last night with twenty eight point nine seconds to go. A six point game. That's I hate. I really have a strong distaste for hates a strong word, but I really, really, really don't like the win percentage metric.

Yes. Like, yeah, a team scored a touchdown and now they have a much better chance of winning. Thanks, folks.

And we got the best data scientists in America on this. But last night, six point lead after the Knicks hit a shot with twenty eight point nine to go. That is, in my mind, that's like you're ninety nine point nine percent. That is a if you're feeling good about it in this game, we're in Philadelphia.

You would have left, right? You're being traffic time of twenty nine. Just like let's absolutely let's get out of here. Tyrese Maxey, twenty three years old, NBA's most improved player on his way to a forty six point night and makes two of the more remarkable shots you're going to see in these or any playoffs. I'm still you guys watch more NBA than I do. How do we feel about the foul call on the first of the two, three pointers, the four point play?

I was under the impression we now were trying to disincentivize shooters from, you know, sticking out the leg, leaning into the defender, initiating contact. Is this not Brockman? Is this not Tyrese Maxey initiating the contact on that?

I love the story. I'm not complaining about the finish. I'm just saying. Yeah. And the thing is, NBA officiating has been weird this year. In the second half of the season, they kind of stopped calling that.

I remember TJ, but they didn't really announce it. And so scoring was down. Free throw attempts were down in March and April. And then all of a sudden it's back for the playoffs.

Totally fine. Inexcusable loss by the Knicks. First off, get out of the way. There's twenty eight seconds left. It's a wrap. TNT is showing all the celebrities in the crowd celebrating. Bill Bradley's high five and people and Ben Stiller and Jon Stewart.

And then I mean, TJ, you're the six or fan. I'm dying to hear what your emotions were like during the last 30 seconds of that game in overtime. I think at some point, you know, you asked me that this morning. I don't as much as I love these sports, I've gotten to a point in life where I just I can't let them ruin me anymore. There were times where these things would ruin me. Like Dallas will lose on a Sunday. I would legit be mad until Wednesday.

I had to let that stuff go. So about midway through the third, guys, I just I was resigned to the fact we're going to lose this game. And then it's over.

The season's over at that point, my head, because he's always like a beat doesn't show up in the playoffs. And I was literally sitting there on the couch thinking, all right, how am I going to like respond to this guy tomorrow? Because I know this is coming. That was more important to me than than the game at that point, because I knew it's coming tomorrow.

Right. And then all of a sudden we start creeping back and then we'll get to the end of the game. Maxie just broke. There was sometimes I think Tyrese Maxie is almost too fast for his own good. It's like sometimes he runs faster than the basketball. He takes himself out of layup sometimes because he's so quick. But that kid is so good, man. And he's got what they call testicular fortitude.

Say that again, TJ, testicular fortitude. Just glad we got that in the show twice for him, for him to pull up from what was he, thirty six. You talk about going faster for his own good.

He's on the run. That looks like that shot looked like when they pull the fan out of the stands and have him take the half court shot for a million dollars. It's a full on sprint. The ball's two feet out from his body.

But the thing is, it was an email. So it wasn't like a fan shot. That was his normal shooting. Right. You know, for and also the Knicks should probably foul in that situation. Yeah. You know, so he's like, I got to get this shot up before maybe they foul me with eight seconds to go. Are you following him right there, knowing that he might put up the shot?

I'm not thinking he's going to pull up from that. No, you're really not. I was shocked. I mean, I'm sure everyone's mouth was a gas. Just like, what is he doing on that? It was unbelievable. He misses that shot. The Sixers had literally no one in the basket to even get a rebound rebound because they're on the back court.

So he misses that. The game is over because there's no Sixers under the basket whatsoever. He just pulled up and he hit that shot. And then I went, oh, my gosh, we're going to we're going to win this game. And then still had to go into overtime and keep going.

And there were a lot of points scored in overtime as well. You mentioned celebrity row and it happening in front of all those Knicks fans. Some of the images we can pull those up. Fantastic. From last night postgame. So there you got that's Tracy Morgan.

Tires maxi the finger. I didn't see this one. Just so faced. Ben Stiller looks like he's got a few choice words. And then Jon Stewart and Jon Stewart got memed in that moment.

I sent it out to Chris and Adam in our group chat. I'm like, ah, respect to maxi. But damn, I'm clearly getting too old for this. He went full Danny Glover. He just looked like he saw a ghost at that moment. You know, I mean, you knew this this image went viral when the artist sports Twitter account did did the comparison. You know that whatever that guy is, is incredible. Oh, he draws the picture. Well, no, no.

He finds famous works of art to match all sports photos. And he did it on the Jon Stewart screen grab that we just showed last night. Unbelievable. I can't even imagine. It's like they got Reggie Miller again. Thirty years later.

Now they got Maxine. It's a great celebrities are like us moment to ensure the show that Jon Stewart tweet one more time here. Like the look on his face like what? I've seen that face one other time and it was when Florida flipped in 2000 to Bush. Like that's the last time we saw Jon Stewart looking like that. It's just it's just the pure shock of that moment to the Cowboys Packers playoff game last year.

I was just like, oh, my God. But that was they had no chance. That was a it goes bad from the start. That was at the end of the game. My look was at the very beginning. Like, oh, this game. I've been halfway through the first CD Lamb comes off after the first series tosses helmet and upset. You're like, what?

They're Dax talking to him. It's like, what's happened here? We got a lot of a lot of football to be played on that game.

It was a wrap. It's good for that. It's good for basketball when the Knicks are relevant and they are definitely relevant right now. I would argue the Knicks having the drama of are they going to blow this? You posed the question earlier. Who's more likely to blow the series, the Knicks or the Bruins?

Yeah. Both those markets having a relevant team in hockey or basketball. It's good for the attention on the playoffs. Overall, though, you can certainly argue the Boston fans like yourself have had a lot more to cheer for over the last.

Let's call it two and a half decades. Then give or take New York fans. Listen to Chris's his point of view on this about some kids in Boston who haven't been there. I mean, they're honestly there's four year olds who haven't seen a duck boat parade.

You know what I mean? Like, I get those four year olds on a duck boat. What about the I've actually never done the duck boat tour in Boston.

I did it. I went I went to B.C. I never did it then, but I went back with my wife for a wedding years later, went on the duck boat. It's kind of fun. Kind of fun, right? Yeah, it was amazing swim. I'm not a boat guy.

It was awesome. You just drive right in and then you kind of float. Yeah. And they give you like go around the whole bay over there. That's where they make it like these these candies. Now, but there were candies. What are they? The little circle things.

They're not sweet tarts. They're like not the good ones are kind of chalky. And they're like, that's where you make them. And that was like that was the souvenir from the duck boat tour was like a sleeve of these chalky candies. I'm like, that's I know, I know.

It's in my tongue. But yeah, sprees. No, no, no, no. We're talking go three steps below. Google what bad candies made in Boston. It's that one. And that's all I remember really from the duck boat tour.

The boat going in. Smarties. Smarties. No, they're not smarties.

They're below smarties. Let's take a break. We have plenty of time to go to this. Mike Garafullo. He's going to join the show. Probably my NFL Network colleague right after this. More thoughts on the NFL Draft.

Mike's based out in New York, New Jersey. What's going on with the Giants, the Jets? How do we feel about them? We'll talk about it on the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, folks, it's time for the NFL Draft, which means for me, I need a good night's sleep because if I don't have one, just not myself. You know the deal. You know exactly how important it is to have quality sleep.

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Power dot com slash awards only at a sleep number store or sleep number dot com. What's up, everyone? It's reality. Steve, your number one source for all things Bachelor Nation and reality TV. Every day I'm giving you the behind the scenes juice and your info on all your Bachelor Nation stories and also interviewing some of your favorite reality stars. My name has been synonymous with spoilers, but I'm so much more than that. Give me a listen. The Reality Steve podcast, part of the Believe Network.

Just search BLEAV on YouTube or wherever you listen. This is not like anything I've done with you. Were you spying?

Did you crash some of my high school parties and you were going to let me worry? Where did this guy come from? Was that character based on anybody that, you know, it was based on a guy named Jeff Dowd for them. They used him quite a bit. I met him. He came on the script.

I didn't use him too much. I really referenced myself and the script. When did you realize that this film would become, in many ways, you can't even call it a cult. It's a classic. It's just a flat out classic now. Yeah.

Yeah. I was surprised because we had a great time making it and we were all, you know, laughing, you know, thinking, you know, this is a fun movie. We didn't think it was going to be anything like it was today. But I was surprised when it first came out and did nothing. It was like, you know, kind of a bomb. And then it played in Europe and they got it. And then it splashed back over on our shores.

And, you know, he grew to become more. As one of our colleagues on this show has a friend who went to a Lebowski bar in Iceland. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

We got these. We have Lebowski Fests. I've been to I played with my band at a Lebowski Fests. That was my Beatle moment.

Can you imagine playing to a sea of dudes and bowling pins? It's totally surreal. Oh, my God. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I am sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call click Grainger dot com or just stop by. Before we get to Mike Garofalo, we do have an answer to the critical question from the first block of the show. What is the name of the terrible candy that is made in Boston that the duck boat tours like to promote? That it is a Boston original. The answer is, according to our producer, Michael Hoskins, who jogged my memory, the Neko wafer.

Neko wafer. As soon as I said that out loud, Del Tufo said what? It's disgusting. Disgusting. It's it's the worst candy. It could be the worst I've ever had. It's just if you take a smarty and then you go, what if we didn't make it taste like anything?

What if we stretch it out and flatten it even more? Oh, that's that's the Neko wafer. It's been around since 1847.

And that's why and that's why it's part of the duck boat tour. So 1847, I imagine it tastes like they were made in 1847. The options for candy can be very low in 1847. I don't think Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was a documentary.

I'm pretty sure at that time there were just not a lot of different places that you could go. And you're like, oh, this tastes like something vaguely. But also what? There's only so many wafers. Right. How many wafers do you have in your life? You might have a Nilla wafer.

Every now and then. Those are tasty. Vanilla wafer, which is the one that looks like it's Nilla.

Right. The cookie. Vanilla wafer is like the long one that's kind of like a waffle. Well then what is a wafer? Because I thought wafer just had to be. I don't know.

It's a circle because you get the wafers at communion. Right. Right. With your little your little mouthwash cup of wine. Of wine. Yep.

I don't know. A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, like often sweet, unless it's a neckle wafer. In which case it's like you're sucking on a crayon. You got communion wafers, spa wafers, Christmas wafers, pink wafers, Von wafers. Von wafer. Never forget Von wafer. Who's Von wafer? Old NBA player. Yeah.

So how would you power rate that? Where does Von wafer come in? I think he's right above neckle wafer. I think he's number two after Nilla wafer.

I think I don't know. I got to put communion wafer number one personally. Yeah. Communion wafer is one for me. I mean, I'm Catholic. You enjoy the communion wafer?

Yes. You put it on your tongue and then you taste it for 10 minutes. It's like gradually it gradually goes into your taste buds. And then you spend the rest of it.

You spend the rest of it going. No, the communion wafers. What kind of wafers you be?

Yes, I'm Lutheran. So maybe we get the we're not quite on the Catholic wafer. The Nilla wafer is really the good thing. We had Nilla wafers at communion.

I'd go to church more often. That would give me that. Our guy Mike Carafullo.

This transition. You grew up on the East Coast. Mike, have you ever had a neko wafer? I've heard of them.

No, I've never I don't think I've ever had one. Let me look at it. Let me look them up.

Let me look them up. Do you like those shoes by the way? Are you buying shoes? You're shopping? Well, you were going on about the wafers.

We had a huge wafer item that we needed to resolve. I've seen them, but I haven't had them. You're telling me they don't taste like anything? They look like they're sugary, just like the Smarties. They kind of have like a it's like the outer texture. It's almost like they've covered up whatever taste they're supposed to have with just kind of an amorphous tasteless powder of some kind. You kind of get into them.

They crunch a little bit. We'll cover the wafers. We'll get back to the wafers momentarily. Mike, you were out here in Los Angeles for NFL Network's coverage of the 2024 NFL Draft. You wore some very loud suits. Enjoyed talking to you from my spot in Detroit. You're based out there. You spend a lot of time. You cover the whole league.

You spend a lot of time in that market. You're around the Giants, the Jets. Start out with the Giants here. Everyone in the world wanted to give them a quarterback, whether they were traded up to three, whether they were taken one at six.

They end up standing pad if they can't get up to number three. They take Malik neighbors. Give me the state of the Giants and why not taking a quarterback in this draft made sense. Well, they did. I mean, we knew. Go back to the combine when we were doing the insiders from Lucas Oil Stadium and which one of you? You asked me, I think, Tom. What's the percentage chance that the Giants take a quarterback? And then we tweeted it.

Very specific. And I was like, OK, 78.6 percent. Like I pulled a number out of thin air. Right.

Just to be funny. And it's like, yeah, the NFL Network tweeted it. All the Giants blogs were like, he says it's 78 points.

What would lead you to believe that that was actually mathematically legitimate? So but at the time we talked about, you know, you tell me, are one of those teams at two and three willing to move? Which back then, if you had asked me, I think I even said it on the show, I'd be shocked if two and three state put if somebody if one of those two teams didn't trade out, which they wound up not trading out.

That was the most surprising thing to me. If you had told me back then those teams aren't moving, I would say, yeah, that it's unlikely the Giants take a quarterback because are you going to take the fourth ranked quarterback at that spot once you finally get to six? So that's kind of where it was for them. And they did make their effort to get up and get Drake May, but two wasn't moving and which would have been an in-division move, which would have been unheard of for a quarterback at that spot for a day. We've seen trades within the division elsewhere, but just to see it happen at that top of the draft would have been would have been unprecedented.

So, yeah, I mean, they tried their best at that point. You take a receiver to help Daniel Jones. I think they I don't think I know they went into this draft process saying, all right, if we can land a guy who we think is going to be a franchise-changing quarterback, we're going to land that guy. If not, we're going to try to surround Daniel Jones, who they have had confidence in, that his rehab will be on track and is on track and will be set for week one of the NFL season, at which point he will be the starter. Drew Locke is there and Drew Locke they have confidence in and they certainly made a strong move to bring him in as a free agent. During the rehab process, Drew Locke's going to push Daniel Jones and who knows, after week one, if Daniel Jones is not playing well, that's up to Daniel Jones, basically. But at this point, they feel like they're confident in him and they've got a game-breaking, potential game-breaking presence in Malik Nabors. They have not had that since Odell. I know the comparisons are there because of the LSU thing, but this is the kind of piece that they need to get to the point where we thought maybe Darren Waller was going to be the element that was going to open up this offense and lead him to be something you've got to worry about.

Instead, week one, they come out and they're more conservative than they were the year before, which I still don't quite understand how we got to that point. The state of the Giants is Malik Nabors needs to be the guy that unlocks Daniel Jones and unlocks this offense right now. We had Jarvis Landry on the show yesterday, a former LSU Tiger like Malik Nabors. I had him give his Mount Rushmore of LSU receivers. He put Malik Nabors on that list and he was going back, calling back to Dwayne Bowe and guys from yesteryear and he said, based on not just what he sees, but the sources that he still has in Baton Rouge, he said this guy is going to be legit. The question really is about Daniel Jones and you're there, Mike. I'm sure just you run into Giants fans.

You've got family members, friends, whatever. What's the environment around Daniel Jones? In other words, are we going to get into training camp and this is going to be nonstop? When is Daniel Jones going to be out of the lineup?

Listen, they're pot committed for $35 million this year. Are people willing to give this a chance with Daniel Jones? I believe that most Giants fans just gauge in the reaction leading up to the draft. Most Giants fans wanted Nabors, which leads to them showing some confidence in Daniel Jones. They haven't seen the full Daniel Jones since he's been here. John Maris said it himself best when they hired Brian Dable or was it Joe Shane?

It was one of those press conferences, John Maris spoke to the side and said, we've done everything we possibly can to screw this guy up. Changing head coaches, changing offensive coordinators, haven't had an offensive line, haven't had weapons around him. We're still at that point with Daniel Jones, add the ACL recovery on top of that and you still have a huge question at the quarterback position that needs to be answered by him playing well and by him coming out and showing that he could be the guy that if you need him to throw 40 to 45 times a game, if you need him to throw for 4,000 yards on a year, that he can be that guy. If you need him to come back at the end of the game and lead you to a comeback victory and throw you to a win, like we saw in his first action when he played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers years ago and he led a comeback victory and you're like, oh, okay, cool. This is why they picked him sixth overall. He's sort of Eli Junior.

It doesn't look like he has a pulse and then all of a sudden at the key point in the game he's making the plays that you need him to make to win the game. That's what we need to see. Now you've got Malik Nabors added to it. You've got them pretty much doubling down and because this is not the regime that drafted him. That was the other thing. It was like, okay, well, when it's not the regime that drafts you, you come in, it's a quarterback that hasn't blown you away. They can't wait to get their next guy. This would have been the opening for the Giants and the new regime to do that.

They did not do that. They had the chance to take JJ McCarthy, Michael Pennix, even Bo Nix if they wanted to. They would have interest in those quarterbacks later in the draft. They didn't have them rated that high.

They said, you know what? We're going to ride with Daniel Jones and they are. On the Jets side of things here, and of course last year there was so much high hopes. Giants had won a playoff game. They'd added Darren Wall.

Added all these pieces. Everything there kind of goes sideways early. Saquon gets hurt. Lines banged up. The Jets lose their quarterback on national TV after four snaps. Aaron Rodgers is back.

This feels like 2024 is more or less the redo of 2023. There have been some changes on that team. There was a lot of surprise, I think, at least among fans and certain media members, that the Jets go Olufeshanu, not Brock Bowers, with their first-round pick after doing the swap, moving down to 11 with the Minnesota Vikings here. What in your mind, based on the people you've talked to, was that pick for the Jets all about? Why did they decide, adding another offensive lineman in the same offseason where he added John Simpson and he added Tyron Smith, why was this the right move? I was confident in very little going into this draft. The one thing I was confident in was that the Jets were not going to take Brock Bowers. Part of that was what we had kind of heard behind the scenes. The other part was that Joe Douglas, at his pre-draft press conference, called him a Swiss Army knife and talked about what a value he was to an offense.

That was a dead giveaway that we are not eyeing up that guy, because if they were, they wouldn't have said anything remotely near what Joe Douglas said about him. They brought in a couple of tackles here, but a couple of guys that are on the back end of their career with injury issues that haven't played full seasons. Morgan Moses has played through some stuff. I don't want to make it seem like he's not willing to play through injuries. He has done that in the last couple of years, but he had that peck issue last year. He had a core muscle injury a couple of years ago.

Those are reliable guys if they're healthy, but even if they are healthy, you're not getting them for the long haul. Joe Douglas continues to try to build up that offensive line. Yeah, that made sense to me. I thought the Jets all the way were going offensive line. Maybe if some target slipped down, and by target I mean wide receiver.

I shouldn't say target. If a wide receiver had slipped down there, then maybe that would have been a temptation for them, but not a surprise to me that they go offensive line there. The Malachi Corley pick, which those texts that they showed, the Jets tweeted out of Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh going back and forth, and the Malachi Corley, no matter what the reference to draft day, apparently real text. I saw that, and I was like, okay, that's the Jets social media having fun.

Like, no, those are real screenshots of the two of those guys back to back saying that is the guy they wanted. He had a terrific senior ball. He won the wide receiver of the week, if I'm not mistaken, for whichever team that he was playing for, voted on by the defensive backs, which to me is the utmost sign of respect. So he had a good pre-draft run-up. He's been compared somewhat to Deebo Samuel. He seems like a weapon in that regard.

So, yeah, it should be fun. Let's see this Jets offense for more than, I don't know, four plays. The video the Jets put out of everybody getting on the phone with Malachi Corley and one after another, Joe Douglas, Robert Saleh, and Nathaniel Hackett, they all say, hey, come here and keep playing angry.

We want to see that anger come out on the field. You mentioned Deebo. He doesn't physically look like Deebo, like he's not as big and as jacked of a guy if you watch his play style.

The highlights, I mean, he initiates contact out here. And Robert Saleh, of course, was with Deebo in San Francisco. It makes sense that they think add a tone setter to that room. They kind of hoped Allen Lazard would be that guy. That's why they paid him, besides the fact that his friends were there and Rogers. But in Green Bay, that was the guy who would dig out of safety and he was the big, you know, the physical guy. By midseason, he's a healthy scratch because he's not doing those things, bringing Malachi Corley to maybe push some things forward here.

And I imagine that if you're thinking about where the Jets are going to throw the football this season, Mike, you have more options than you did a year ago, presuming that Mike Williams rehab stayed on track here. Yeah, Robert Saleh, hold on, what is this? Hold on, hold on, hold on.

You about to break news here or did you lose the shoes that were in your shopping cart? No, Will Harris, former Lions defensive back signing with New Orleans in a one-year deal. We can wait on that one, Mike, but go on.

Will Harris, former BC guy. Yeah, there you go. See? You just knocked your own guy. Okay, I'm just saying.

Okay, just go on. Go back to Malachi Corley. Was it Robert Saleh?

That's what I was looking up when that text came through. But I think it was Saleh that said if he has a relative, if there's a relative of his on the goal line and he's trying to get into the end zone, he's going to take out that relative to get there, which is about as much of a compliment that you can get for a guy's physical style and desire to get into the end zone to make that happen. Now he's calling me. This is very important to him that he is calling me. Let me text him right now. You asked the next question.

Go ahead. Mike Quirofolo, NFL Media Insider is our guest. Your guy Howie has two of the top corners both fall into his lap in rounds one and round two. Then it seems like the Eagles did not like, hi, taking a photo there. The Eagles did not seem to have high regard for the rest of the draft, Mike, because it was one trade out, one trade down after another. I believe they got extra third, fourth, and fifth round picks in next year's draft. Take me through what the philosophy was in an offseason where for everything the Eagles did and being what, 10 and 1 at one point last season, they don't finish well. Both coordinators gone, major changes on the roster, signed Saquon, signed Bryce Huff. Now going to the draft, makeover your secondary. What's been the guiding philosophy and what do the Eagles realistically expect they've got for 2024?

You know, it's funny you mention that. Is it meant to double check this because there was so much stuff flying on Saturday? Did the Eagles get the, did they trade the fourth round pick to the Lions for DeAndre Swift and he'd get a fourth round pick back? I think that's because it was a 2024 fourth round pick to the Lions and then I think they got the fourth round pick back next year. So I think that's what happened.

So that's kind of a fun little twist of that whole thing. Yeah, I mean there was a mix of Howie Roseman saying that we can accumulate capital for next year. He does about as, he does the best job I think of any general manager of addressing now and keeping tomorrow alive as I've ever seen. And I go back to a couple of years ago when they had a rebuilding year and they made the playoffs, right, if I'm not mistaken, that year as they're rebuilding, which was pretty incredible, and they kept stockpiling those first round picks and then they kicked it a year out when Jalen Hurts showed that, okay, he's got a little something but we're still going to keep that first round pick in case we need a quarterback. And they wound up being able to use that capital on other positions of the roster because Hurts kept playing above expectations, I would say.

So I think he did a good job of that building up for next year. Their first two picks, it reminded me of, was it the 2002 draft? They took Leto Shepherd, Sheldon Brown and Michael Lewis in the first two rounds where they said we need a secondary reset there.

Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor were their cornerbacks and one or both may have still been around at the time, kind of like it is now where you've got Darrius Lay and James Bradbury but saying, hey, these are the cornerbacks that we're going to take over going forward. I thought their first two picks were outstanding with Cooper Dejean and Quinon Mitchell. The Quinon Mitchell one, I just talked to a personnel guy the other day who said, boy, they've got to be blown away with that pick right there.

That's a home run pick. That kid was nails in the pre-draft process from the senior bowl through everything he did. And he seems like he's just an incredible competitor, the kind of guy that you want in your locker room and on your roster, especially at a position like that. He's mentally tough.

He's a little bit of everything. And I said, why didn't you guys take him? Because it was one of the picks before the Eagles had taken, let's say, and then in the previous ten we'll call and say, well, we're happy with what we did at our spot. But that was one of those where it was like, ah, pretty tempting.

That guy's still on the board and we couldn't believe he lasted as long as he did to the Eagles there at 22. So that, I thought, was a home run. That was just a, who was it? It was one of the people I was working with on the show. Was it Bucky Brooks or maybe it was Steve Weish leading up who said, you know, Howie Roseman just poops out four-leaf clovers from time to time. And I was like, yeah, there it is right there.

I'd love to give credit to whoever gave me that quote. I can't remember which one it was. You were clearly very engaged. There was a lot flying over draft weekend. The last day for you, Mike, we've talked about, you know, the shock of the Falcons picking Michael Pennix at number eight. That was the shock to, I think, virtually everybody within the league. What else, if anything, stands out to you, whether it was a surprise, something you're still trying to figure out, a pick, a trade that didn't happen. What's another takeaway that you've had non-Falcons related?

It was the whole top ten that there was no movement. I mean, we thought, you know, we talked earlier about two and three, but we thought Chargers want to get out, the Cardinals want to get out. By the time we got to the six pickers, so I got a call from a GM as we take a look at the top ten here.

Don't worry, Tom, I'll host. The, I think it was the sixth or seventh pick by the time we got to that, the GM calls me and he's like, are you surprised that nobody's moving? And I was like, well, are you trying to move?

You called the wrong person. He's like, no, no, no. I thought there was going to be all this movement in the top ten. And I actually go back to the Eagles. They had made so many calls leading up to the draft to kind of gauge, all right, what's it going to take to kind of get up if it's got to be into the teens or maybe even around ten or whatever it was going to wind up being. The Eagles got to the point where there were so many offensive players that were being drafted and there was so little movement up top that they were like, we don't have to move.

We can just sit here at 22 and we can take what we want to take. So it was kind of as it was going on, affecting the teams that were behind the top ten that thought there was going to be all this movement that had a game plan going in. So I think those teams are happy with what slid to them, certainly if they were looking for defensive guys. You saw Chris Ballard's reaction on the Colts internal video where they showed his reaction to getting Liatu Latu at number 16, 15, 15 overall.

So I think a lot of those teams, if they were looking for defensive help other than what was being taken, which certainly was quarterbacks up top, I think they were happy with how it felt but surprised that it wasn't as much action. Mike, thank you very much. Get back to the shoe shopping, the Will Harris tweet, and the DJ set that I assume you're doing with those headphones on there. Yeah, no, I'm actually working for NFL Network today.

This is work, man. Oh, you're not on later. No, I'm working both shows today. Yeah, I've got to fly back. All right, thank you very much. Have a great show, Tom.

NFL Media Insider, DJ, Fashionista fills a lot of roles for NFL Network. Coming up after this. Thanks, Mike. We can get them off the screen now. Coming up after this. All right, I know Brockman, TJ Del Tufo still have a lot of questions about the NFL draft. We answered some of those right there with Mike Garofolo.

Bring it on after this. Any questions you've got, lay it on me. It's Tom Pelissero waiting for Rich on the Rich Eisen Show. And build a better life.

Afford anything, wherever you listen. Is it true that you met Lorne Michaels as a vendor at Yankee Stadium, the SNL founder? Is that true? Yep, Gate 4.

Gate 4. And I was a kid. And he was my friend. So that's Lorne Michaels.

That's Lorne Michaels. He came out of the players gate. And I overcharged him for like three bats and some shirts, some Yankee shirts. And then when I became a cast member, I gave him back like $14 and some cents. And he said, what's this for? I said, because I overcharged you for some items. He started laughing.

He started dying. This is when you said Game 4, like what, the 96 World Series? Is that what that was? Tracy?

What do you think? I don't know. I forgot. It was a Derek Jeter. No, no, no. Manningley.

I think Manningley was playing. Okay. So that was probably like 95 or something like that. Okay. So what were you doing out there? You were selling stuff? I was scalping tickets. I scalped tickets. I sold souvenirs. And I sold cocaine. And that's when it was $21 a gram.

I'm getting $45 regardless of how it go down for me. So this is true. I'm sorry because I live right up to hell. So I had tickets. I had cocaine. I had souvenirs. You had it all. That's what you were saying back in the day.

$21 a gram. And so you sold hats and bats and stuff like that. And that's how you met. Not amazing.

Don't forget the coat. You got something in there, Tracy? Tracy really was hustle man from Martin back in the day. I really was. You really was hustle man.

I was. I worked souvenirs and I was Tony Montana on the spot. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show. Tom Pellicero in for Rich today. Good discussion with Mike Garofolo and a lot of NFL draft issues in the last segment here.

We got Chase Daniel coming up on the show in hour two. Former NFL quarterback does a great job on his quarterback breakdowns on NFL Network. So he's going to give us some insight on the scheme fits, the coaching, why some of these quarterbacks do or do not fit in their new homes. Right now, Brockman, I want to kick it back to you. I know you still got a lot more questions for me out of the NFL draft.

So shoot any NFL questions you've got. Bring it on. Let's see.

Let's see. Were you surprised at some of the landing spots of the wide receivers coming into this draft? It was one of the best wide receiver drafts we've had in quite some time.

We knew who was going to be the top guys. It was going to be Marvin Harrison. It was going to be Malik Nabors.

It was going to be Roma Dunze. But after that, what do you think about the fits for some of these guys who went throughout the first round and then to start the second round? I think Marvin Harrison was the easy one because everybody had a pretty good idea if the Cardinals stood pat, they were going to take him at number four. Malik Nabors, like Garofolo, was just detailing if they weren't going quarterback, that was the sense within the league is he'd go there at number six. And it does make sense because of what he brings from a football character standpoint. Yes, there's other things you had to take into consideration with Malik Nabors. But from when he's in the building, in the locker room, on the field, he's that guy and they needed that presence there. The first one that was even a little bit, I won't say a surprise, but wasn't certain was Roma Dunze to the Bears. All along I thought that's the direction it would go because everything that they've done this offseason has been building around Caleb Williams.

And giving him weapons and giving him support. So, bringing him in as opposed to, for instance, taking an offensive lineman, which is another thing that could potentially help him. Just kind of knowing the psychology of how they proceeded here.

That one didn't take me aback, but it was legit. There were people in the league trying to figure that one out. When would Roma Dunze go? He could have gone as high as, if he didn't go to the Giants, number seven even to the Titans. Were they always keeping the pick at nine or was there a thought maybe they could move down?

There was definitely a thought. They were open to listening throughout the pre-draft process, but there weren't trades up at the top. And so, those opportunities, especially when Michael Pennings comes off the board at eight. Well, now any chance that somebody's going to trade into your spot to leapfrog the Vikings unless it's for J.J. McCarthy, that piece of it goes away as well. Later on, it seemed like it was a lot of the wide receiver needy teams. The obvious ones on paper were the ones that ended up taking receivers. Brian Thomas going to the Jaguars. Brian Thomas, that one's going to be fascinating because he was not that alpha male type of guy in the receiver room at LSU. That was Malik Nabors.

He didn't have to be. His play was a little bit up and down, but he was highly productive for LSU. He has tape. When you talk to coaches and scouts, his highlight reel is some of the best stuff you're going to see.

It's just down in and down out as he always does. But for a Jaguars team that totally thought they were getting Calvin Ridley back and then had the rug pulled out and he ends up going to Tennessee. That one made sense. And then you go further down, Panthers jumping up one spot to take Xavier Legette.

That one made a lot of sense. The Chiefs taking Xavier worthy. I think every mock draft by the end had them taking Xavier worthy. They didn't have the Chiefs doing it by trading up with the Bills to 28. But they had him taking him at 32.

That fit made sense. Keon Coleman to Buffalo. You knew Buffalo needed a wide receiver.

We talked about that one yesterday. Lad McConkie maybe is the most interesting one because I don't know if you're sitting there thinking about the Chargers' needs. Offensive line, they addressed that in round one with Joe Ault.

I don't know that you would have put slot receiver. Even though, you know, Lad McConkie would play inside and outside, but I don't think you would have had that super high up. Obviously, they had a lot of losses at the wide receiver position with trading Keenan Allen, with Mike Williams moving on. They needed help at that position, but Lad McConkie's a little bit different in terms of his play style. To me, that says they felt like this was the perfect type of a fit for what they want to do offensively here.

And it's going to be fascinating to see. I wanted to ask Chase Daniel about this too because he played with Justin Herbert with the Chargers. Herbert's played for a couple of different coordinators. He's played for Joe Lombardi, who is a Sean Payton type of disciple.

It's kind of that advanced evolution of the West Coast system. And then Kellen Moore last year, who comes from a completely different... He grew up under like Scott Linehan and that style of offense. What the Chargers are going to do now and the way that everything is going to come off the run game, you would think based on the history of Greg Roman and Jim Harbaugh, is a different deal now. It could be really good for Justin Herbert, where for the first time maybe in his career, he's not having to be the guy who throws the ball 50 times a game and has to throw for 500 yards and is in a shootout. So the defense is going to be a big part of that too, trying to actually stay healthy, which has been an ongoing issue for them, making the right bets in free agency. But Lad McConkie, that was the most interesting fit.

I said it yesterday. You gave me three names outside of those top three series. Who potentially could be the Rookie of the Year? I kind of like Lad McConkie's chances just because he figures to have a bucket of balls in that offense. What about the offensive linemen? That was another deep position coming into the draft.

We saw guys go consistently throughout the first round. What about the landing spots for some of these linemen? That was one of the first mild surprises in round one was that the Chargers went with Joe Ault from Notre Dame and didn't go with J.C. Latham because there were a lot of people who believed what the Chargers needed. They got Rashawn Slater at left tackle. What you really need is a pure right tackle.

J.C. Latham, there's a photo of me that's floated around social media of me next to J.C. Latham at the Alabama Pro Day. He is the biggest human of all time and he's a right tackle all day. Historically, you've wanted your left tackle to be the guy who's got good feet. He might be a little bit smaller, but he's got to go up against the premier pass rusher. That's changed in the modern game where now some of the best pass rushers are coming off the left side.

You have to protect both equally. Right tackles are getting paid close to what left tackles are. J.C. Latham is like your classic right tackle.

They've got old school coaches, Jim Harbaugh, Mike Devlin's the offensive line coach. You've got guys who you would think that's the direction it would have gone. There's scouts who think Joe Ault, right tackle might not be a natural fit for him. So that'll be something to track here is could they move Rashawn Slater? I was just going to say they would do that. Could they? Could Ault kick inside? Well, you would think as it stands now it's going to be Slater at left, Ault at right.

Let's keep an eye on that as things move forward. Olufeshanu, that was a logical fit for him going to the Jets. That one made a ton of sense. The Titans adding a tackle. I don't think there were any really big surprises. I would say just at number five, all the information, everybody was, you look at the final mock draft, there were a lot of people saying J.C. Latham to the Chargers. There were a lot of logical reasons behind that. But in the end, they go back to the one who the consensus going into the pre-draft process was Joe Ault's the top offensive tackle.

That's probably the guy. Were they ever seriously considering a wide receiver? You know, from the fan standpoint, it's like we lose Mike Williams. We lose Keenan Allen. Hey, Malik Nabors is going to be right there.

This is a dynamic playmaker for Justin Herbert. Was that ever in their line of thinking? Everything that I had heard going into the draft was they were going offensive line.

Listen, they want to be a run dominant type of team. They didn't spend a ton on the running backs. They went in with a couple of guys Joe Ortiz knows well and John Harbaugh has been with before. It's Gus Edwards who signed a pretty, you know, it wasn't a minimum deal.

It was like a two-year deal, but it wasn't for a ton of money. And then J.K. Dobbins, who's coming off another season-ending injury, been really dynamic. His career average is like 5.6 or 5.8 yards per carry, but just it's been this constant injury bad luck. So why were you going to run the football with those guys? Well, you're going to do it in part with scheme, but you're also going to do it with having the biggest, baddest offensive line that you can possibly put together. They're hoping Joe Ault ends up being a big part of that.

What else you got, Brian? So you, let's see, Chargers, you like them to do what? Back in the playoffs, Chargers? Just like crystal ball it. It's a unique thing. All the way out. Because Jim Harbaugh has been an instant turnaround guy. Yeah. I mean. Everywhere he goes.

Go back to San Francisco. Immediately, they are an NFC championship contender there. They went to a Super Bowl in, I believe, his second year. So the expectations could not possibly be higher. I happen to think Brandon Staley is a really good football coach.

He did a lot of things there from like a culture perspective, from a building out different departments and all those types of things. But Jim Harbaugh, it's just, it's this entirely other deal. Where with Brandon Staley, if they got back into the playoffs and they won 11 games, you'd be like, hey, that's a good season.

They're making progress. If Jim Harbaugh goes 11 and 6 and loses in the first, second round of the playoffs, people are going to look at that and say it's a disappointment. And that's not me putting high expectations on Jim Harbaugh. It's the reality that he's been this turnaround artist. He's coming off a national title. You gave him top dollar for a head coach. And he's running the organization.

I mean, the videos are fun. Him singing the Michigan fight song. And he's living in a van down by the ocean. It's, you know, it's all the fun Jim Harbaugh personality stuff. But in the end, you hired him at this stage of his career. And he came back to the NFL because the one thing he doesn't have is a Super Bowl trophy. The one thing he's not done is hoist the Lombardi. He wants to come back in.

He wants to finish the job that he seemed to be on the way to doing when the lights went out in New Orleans. That's the standard for Jim Harbaugh. Eight and a half win total for the Chargers?

Can't give you over under. John brings his skewed sense of humor. Jeff brings tips to cut strokes off your next round. Together, it's those weekend golf guys.

They'll pay a lot of money to PXG and Tylus and Callaway and on and on and on. How many yards do you think you're going to pick up with that extra driver? I think I'd get an extra five to ten. What if I give you fifteen to twenty?

You'd pay me more. Jeff Smith teaches on a sliding scale. Those weekend golf guys. The podcast. Part of the Believe Network. Just search BLEAV on YouTube or wherever you listen.