Tom Pelissero: Don't Get The Sense Pete Carroll Is A Focus For The Bears

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Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash Amex Business. This is the Rich Eisen Show, and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. This is the Rich Eisen Show.

Who's the team to beat of the remaining eight in these playoffs? Marcus Spears. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I gotta go Baltimore, man. Lamar Jackson does it again!

This is probably the team that we need to isolate and feel more comfortable about them taking care of business. Today's guest, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero, Prime Video TNF analyst Andrew Whitworth, plus latest news and more. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Number two of the Rich Eisen Show is on the air. Tom Pelissero is going to join us in the middle of this hour to tell us what's going on in the coaching carousel.

Zay Flower is going to play on Sunday in Buffalo, so on and so forth. 844-204-Rich is the number to dial here on the Infinity Sports Network, which has moved stations on Sirius XM. We're now on channel 375. That's to listen to us on satellite radio. You can stream us listening on Odyssey video. You can stream us, watch the show every day. We greatly appreciate it on the Roku Sports Channel. We love our relationship with Roku.

844-204-Rich is the number to dial. News broke during our hour one to two break. My son Cooper will not be pleased about this. Joel Embiid, the Sixers just announced, will miss the three-game road trip they're about to go on with a knee injury after missing the last six with a foot injury. Cooper's got Embiid in not one but two fantasy leagues. He's quite pissed. He's quite pissed. Which, with all due respect to Cooper, I mean, that's a fantasy. This is reality for me, man.

This is my guy. He's hurt. He's not playing. I'm far more upset than Cooper is, to be honest with you. Cooper should just cut him.

And then I'll pick him up. And Embiid should just retire. He and Maxie and Paul George have played in, you want to guess how many games they played in together this year? Five. No. Twenty-two. No, wait a minute. Fourteen.

Ten. Hey, but the Sixers are seven and three in those games. Look, I mean, with Embiid, it's just, it's bad luck.

The mountains had Bell's palsy. He's torn ligaments, broken fingers, broken his face multiple times. I mean, I don't really know what to say, man. It is what it is. He is out for the three-game road trip.

So, and you're, look, Cooper's lamenting your Celtics. Nine and eight in the last 17. Who cares? What is what? What do you mean who cares? They're bored. It's January. It's January NBA basketball. Literally no one's paying attention. Half the guys aren't playing. If the Celtics are bored, why should we be interested?

I'm definitely not. You know, it's amazing, though, all year we couldn't go on, maybe the Chiefs are bored and that's why they're just making it through. Who said that recently, by the way? The Chiefs are bored. Somebody did say that the Chiefs could be bored. Well, I mean, all season it was like they stink. They're not really that good.

They're just barely getting by. Maybe they were just bored. Like the Celtics. Basketball and football, very different. It's a champions mentality, maybe.

Bored. Playing once a week and playing three times a week is not the same. But three times a week isn't all that much, is it? When you're playing basketball, you know? Regular season basketball and regular season football, not the same.

But yes, I understand what you're getting at. Yeah, what I'm getting at is just, you know, Zion rested. Well, he's not in shape. He rested. They just rested him. He just didn't play as part of conditioning, is what they rephrased. He's not in shape.

Is that what that is? Amazing a 25-year-old kid, professional athlete, not being in shape. That's crazy.

Man. Stupid. Kawhi had 23, which was great, and then didn't play the next night because they're not going to play them in back-to-back games. Then why does the NBA have back-to-back games? I don't understand.

I don't get it. Like, why does the NBA have back-to-back games when you could... And again, the way that we here certainly pay attention to it is through our fantasy. The number of players that just will not play on back-to-back games, they just won't do it. It's just not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. I've lost track of them. You can't keep track of it.

It's not fun. When our guy Carl Anthony Towns isn't trolling you, he's putting up 50 and 30, and then the Knicks are going to give him a night off every now and then. I mean, keep him healthy for the playoffs. I guess that is all that matters.

8-4, 2-0-4, Rich is the never down. We'll take your phone calls in a minute. I've got a top five list, guys.

It's the top five matchups. Why do you say uh-oh? I don't know. Because I wasn't ready for the drop. Because I wasn't ready for the drop. Like I'm about to threaten?

No, because I wasn't ready for the drop. But it's in the rundown. You know we're going to do it. I know, but I just... You know we're going to do it. If you can reach the rundown... That's a great point, TJ.

Mike Hoskins can... What's more likely? He don't read the rundown. He's not reading the rundown.

I 100% go in the rundown every day. What? On my life.

That's a lie, dog. Let me see. Show it to me right now. He's firing on his life. Show it to me.

What are you... No, you're making a move. I'm not in. I'm not in. You're not on it.

I'm not on it right now. Mike Hoskins can confirm in the back. He can't confirm. He's not sitting next to you. He sees me in the rundown.

I'm in the rundown more than you guys. Every day. Every day. Wait a minute. Hold on a minute.

I'm about to prove. I didn't go in it today. I'm not on it. Not on it. Every day, but today, he's on the... Oh, my God.

Is that so funny? High five. One, two, three, four, five. Richest top five.

Yes, it's my top five matchups of the divisional playoffs brought to you by our friends at Hyundai. Here we go. So I will just say this off the bat. I am not an all 22 guy, right? I'm not the X's and O's guy. So some of these might sound not very X and O-y. You know, the matchup thing.

But I think I'm going to communicate it well enough that you will agree with me. And I'm going to start this list off in honor of the diehard Bill's fan of the Rich Eisen Show staff, with all due respect to Liz. This man just, I mean, lives and dies at... He is part of Bill's mafia more than anybody that I know. Mike Hoskins. And Bill's fans, it sticks in their craw that Derrick Henry ran for 199 yards against him in that 35 to 10 win. So there were some people who didn't play in that week four loss. And Mike Hoskins gave me this as a suggestion and I put it in verbatim because I think it speaks to the way Bill's fans feel about what happened and what happened and why it happened and why it won't happen again. Number five on my top five matchups of the divisional playoffs, Derrick Henry versus the three guys who didn't play against him in week four.

Pray tell, who are those guys, Mike? Well, Matt Milano, Tarell Bernard, Taron Johnson did not play against him in week five. I mean, week four. And now they're going to play against him in this divisional playoff weekend.

And that will prevent him from going 24 for a buck 99 and a touchdown, including an 87 yarder five minutes in. He also caught a touchdown pass three thrown by Lamar in that first loss of the Bill's season. They followed it up to a loss against the Texans. Remember they were in 3-0? Then they lost those two and it's like, well, we were right about the Buffalo Bills.

And then not so much. So that's the matchup. Derrick Henry versus the three guys who didn't play against him in week four. And let's see if those guys make a difference.

Number four on this list. I was thinking, you know, maybe I go Zadarius Smith against the offensive line of the Washington commanders, whichever tackle he's lining up over and against, because he's the guy that they picked up in the trade deadline when Aidan Hutchinson wasn't coming back and a whole bunch of other defenders were getting hurt and they're still hurt. And how maybe he could be the one to stop Jayden Daniels. But this is a number one offense in the NFL. So I got to choose someone on offense for the Lions against somebody on defense for the commanders.

And I'm going Bobby Wagner versus Sonic and Knuckles because Knuckles is coming back. David Montgomery's coming back. And he and Jamir Gibbs are the second running back duo in NFL history with at least 1,000 scrimmage yards each. And each of them have at least 10 touchdowns in the same season. The only other running back to do that, Jim Brown and Bobby Mitchell Hall of Famers, the Browns from 59 to 60. And here comes Bobby Wagner, who is three tackles shy of joining only Ray Lewis and London Fletcher, who's in the booth and the radio for Washington, to have 2,000 tackles, including playoffs in your career since 1987. He's got 1997 tackles in his career coming into this game. And he's the leading tackler of the commanders.

So if he can somehow stop Sonic and Knuckles from doing their thing, then maybe you make, can you make Jared Goff one-dimensional? Number three on this list. It's all about Travis Kelsey, right? Correct? Yep. It's all about making sure, certainly if you're going to take Stingley and put them on DHOP and maybe remove DeAndre Hopkins from the equation. So it's quite simple.

Number three in terms of the top five match of the divisional playoff weekend, whoever covers Travis Kelsey versus Travis Kelsey. Good luck. You know what I mean? Because I'm assuming it's going to be a group effort, right? We're going to bracket them. We're going to change up different people. It'll be a safety. It'll be a linebacker. Maybe heaven forbid you drop off one of your defensive ends. Just to screw them up, just to screw with them.

I don't know. But whoever covers Travis Kelsey versus Travis Kelsey is that matchup. Because I mean, I could spend the rest of the segment telling you about Kelsey's playoff history and his prowess.

Yeah, he's good in the playoffs. He steps it up. And then while we're on the subject matter of one guy against a bunch of guys, number two on this list of top five matchups of the divisional playoff.

And again, I think I've got the X's and O's to back this up. Saquon Barkley versus every Los Angeles Ram on defense. It shall take all 11, all 11 of them, to make sure he doesn't go off on them the way that he went off on them in week 12, over 300 yards of offense personally in that game. 255 rushing, 47 receiving. We were beating the traffic in that game that day, Cooper and I.

And I'm going against Saquon and not one but two fantasy leagues that night, including against TJ Jefferson. And as we're walking out of the stadium, we're calling Susie to let her know we're on the way home. And we have it on speakerphone. And as soon as we leave the stadium, we hear a loud roar. And I had no idea what that was.

And because Susie was streaming it, she was a couple of seconds behind. And she goes, oh my God. I'm like, what?

She goes, he just did it again. The it being running for a monster touchdown. That's when I knew I was going to lose fantasy that week. And you did. All 11 guys, all 11 Rams hats will be needed. That would have been the 72 yard touchdown run.

That's correct. Wait in the fourth quarter. We heard it.

And then Susie, I cleaned up what she said, actually. Now, number one on this list, I don't care for the notion of like, well, quarterbacks never go against one another. They go against their opponent's defense. It's not Josh Allen versus Lamar Jackson. It's Josh Allen versus the Ravens defense. It's not Lamar Jackson versus Josh Allen. It's Lamar Jackson against the Bills defense. And to that I say, absurd, poppycock. I just scream that word out.

It is Josh Allen versus Lamar Jackson. Get out of here with everything else. GTFOH. All the way off. All of it.

All of it. So Lamar does one spectacular thing. Josh Allen's not going to come out and say, I'll show you. Josh Allen does some spectacular thing.

Lamar Jackson's not going to come out and say, I'll show him, and so on and so forth, all the way to the final possession of the game. Football, God's willing. Come on now.

That's my number one matchup of divisional playoff weekend. Do you think we need one more? OK. All right, we'll get one more. OK. I've been railing against this for a long time. Uh-oh. A long time. OK? Bogdan.

How long? I've got a 16, 13, and 11 at home. My three children. And I've been railing about that since they were all toddlers.

The matchup we're not talking about, nobody's talking about that I want to talk about right now, is the parental remote control versus the horror movie ad that pops up out of nowhere. Oh, jeez. Yeah, right. Yeah. What's the name of this movie that I'm seeing all the time with the talented actress from Ozark? Wolfman.

Wolfman. Hey, what the hell is happening? I don't know. You're sitting around with your kids.

You're enjoying a football game. You're just hanging out. And all of a sudden, oh my God. Yeah. Nightmare fuel. I can't stop it. What the hell?

That looks so terrifying. It's the malfunction of everybody sitting around saying, sure, let's put that in the two-minute warning. Howling. Out of nowhere. Yeah. New meaning to the witching hour phrase.

Holy crap. Why don't they just leave? They see him turning, get out of there. Blood coming out. Oh my, no. And he's just like, no, no, no. Don't worry.

This is just a movie. Good luck to us. That's another matchup. Well done. How quickly can you switch that channel? Back. What did Cage say the last time you saw that Wolfman ad? What did you tell me he said? Or is it Sarah told me that he said, I don't think I want to see that back.

That's what your two-year-old said? I don't think I want to see that. I'm like, yeah, no. I'm with you, buddy. I don't want to see it either. I'm with him.

Those are my top five match-ups at the divisional playoffs. Now you can buy a new Hyundai from the comfort of your home at Amazon. Visit HyundaiUSA.com for more details. Take a break. Tom Pelissero will join us next.

What is going on in all of these coach and carousel maneuvers? Oh baby, that's coming up. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you should know you should check your draft stats first before you put them on your fantasy team. Or you should definitely check the expiration date on that can of bean dip you picked up at the gas station first before you dive in.

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Just remember to put some real clothes on before you head over, will you? Hyundai, now available on Amazon. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details.

Limited availability only through participating Hyundai dealers in select markets. Let's talk TurboTax people. You might be sitting there going, wait a minute, Rich.

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Get an expert now on TurboTax.com. Do you remember the famous Jeopardy moment with Cliff Clavin? Yeah, of course. Where he didn't know the answer, and he goes, who's never been in my kitchen? Who are three people who've never been in my kitchen? Right, right.

Technically was factually correct. Correct, but that wasn't... What they were looking for. What they were looking for. So the four of us, all four of us, if they say Mike Del Tufo, Chris Brockman, Rich Eisen, TJ Jefferson, and that's the answer.

Okay. Or that's the clue, and then the answer in the form of a question is who are four people who have not interviewed for the Jets head coaching position? I thought it was going to be who are three people who have never been on Mike's boat.

Whoa. That's by the way, but that's true, but it's the four of us. Who are four people? Who are the only four people who have not interviewed for the Jets head coaching position?

I didn't want to tell you guys this, but I'm not going to be here Monday. Apparently they're interviewing Brian Flores, Josh McCown, and Jeff Halfley today. That's three more. Is Woody just sitting around? Is that what it is? Is he interviewing all of them?

He's killing time until Monday. How many have there been? I don't know. It seems like 30. That seems like maybe too many.

I don't know. Maybe Pelissero knows the actual number. Tom, do you know the number? Tom, do you know the actual number of the Jets head coaching interviews? What's the number? Hold on. Let's go to the spreadsheet here. Can we do like Jeopardy? Can we guess?

Are you ready? He's got a spreadsheet. Can we guess? Dave Rabel, Rex, Matt Nagy, Aaron Glenn, Spagnuolo, Loxley, Rizzi, Ulbricht, Vance Joseph, Slowick, Arthur Smith, Flores, Halfley, McCown, and they still got Joe Brady and Joe Witt to go. So that would be 17 if they knock out all of those over roughly one month.

17. That's insane. You're both hands in his second foot. That's Rex's way of looking at it. Tom Pelissero here on the Rich Eisen Show, everybody. Tommy P. Good to see you. Say hello to the guys in the studio. Hey, Tommy.

I'm now hearing from people who say that's the favorite part of the segment. Why wouldn't it be? I mean, come on. So go ahead, Tom.

Go ahead. Say hi. I also have never been on Del Tufo's boat, but I feel like from watching his Instagram that I have. I'm aware anytime he's on the boat. And you've been in his car and you've been in his Fox booth, you know?

And you've fed squirrels by hand. He's taking all of his life. We're all sitting shotgun with him in his Uber of life. I'm missing.

All right. Sailing takes me away. Tom Pelissero's here, everybody. Tommy P. 17 jets. What's up, boys? What's up, buddy? What's up, buddy? 17 jets.

I'm going to go ahead and text you real quick. Interviews for the HC. And then how do you weed it down? How does? What? What?

So here's what I would say. First of all, you couldn't do Zooms with any of the coaches who were in wildcard games until this week. And for the most part, the window the teams give you to interview their coaches, if they are in a wildcard game, is at the back end of the week.

So that's why you're seeing a bunch of these guys between McCown and Halfley and Flores. Calling games last weekend. This is the time to get around to it. So I don't want to say that they've been killing time with some of these other interviews, but certainly there's been an acknowledgment that we can't even do roughly half. It was roughly half of the interviews they had couldn't even take place until this week.

And you can't do in-persons with anybody who is under contract with another NFL team until next week. And so the philosophy seems to be, just my opinion, from watching it from afar and from talking to people, is we've got time. Why not, if somebody thinks that they can pitch us and make a compelling case for why this should be the person, all right, we'll hear you out. We've got the time to do it. So let's bring people in. They've had a lot of people, especially the GM candidates down in West Palm at Woody's Place. They've had other people on Zoom through the course of this thing. They've had some back up at the team facility. They've been utilizing their time.

I would say this, by the start of next week, Rich, I think that, and I don't know the specific day, but I'd say somewhere in the front half of next week, you're going to have a very clear idea, here's the path we're going down. Not one person, but here's the handful of people we're going to bring in for each of these jobs. They're going to tell the other people those guys are out, and you're going to get a better idea of exactly what they intend to do. I think that it makes sense, honestly, under the current rules. I know that everybody laughs, why are they interviewing this many people? But the rules are set up in a way that you can't get face-to-face time with half your candidates until next week anyway.

So talk to anybody that you've ever heard a good thing about, or someone's like, hey, you really should talk to this guy. I mean, Jeff Halfley was the coach at BC, did a great job at the Packers defense. McCown's an up and coming coach, he's going to have different opportunities in the coming years here.

And Brian Flores has been a coach in your own division before. I think people will calm down once you start to zero in a little bit early next week, but really this search is a function of the way that the rules are set up. There's different people you can interview at different times, and the Jets are interviewing all. All right, so let's drill down. I'm going to go one by one here, and you could tell me who you think the leading candidate is.

What time do we have? No, no, seriously. Well, I thought you meant the Jets. I was going to say that.

No, no, no. Well, I mean, we'll get to them in a second. I'll circle back to them, but I want to go alphabetical order in terms of jobs that are open right now, and who you think is the leading candidate or who is the target that this organization would love to have over anyone else?

And I go with the Chicago Bears first, Tom. Who's that? Certainly believe, and I've said it for months, Rich, here and elsewhere, Ben Johnson. It's a job that intrigues him. I believe that he is at or near the top of their list.

I think that that's a realistic possibility. I also think the way they proceeded with Mike McCarthy tells you that that's viewed as a really real candidate for them as well. You know, they fly him and his wife up to check it out.

They spent basically the whole day with him, went to dinner with him. It seemed like on paper more of a recruiting meeting than it was an interview, which makes sense when that guy's beaten you like 19 times, you've got a pretty good idea of what his resume is. I mean, Mike McCarthy gets kicked around in some circles, but he's made the playoffs 12 times in the past 18 seasons as a head coach.

The Bears in that span have made it four times to really accomplish coach. They've also interviewed a ton of people, Rich. They're still doing interviews here, but I believe both those guys are real candidates. And certainly, you know, if Ben wants to go there, I think that's going to be a real consideration. What about waiting for Marcus Freeman by the end of Monday night?

Is that real? I brought that up on game day morning last week. You know, you got to get past this game. I think that there was at least a possibility if Notre Dame had lost last weekend that Marcus Freeman might have interviewed this week. It's always been something that people who know Marcus Freeman well say there's an interest level with him. I mean, he could win the national title Monday night, Rich, and basically have a contract for life at one of the iconic programs in all of college football. Also, you win a national title.

What else is there to do? I get the pressure every year of trying to go and win another one. The Bears are one of the iconic franchises in the NFL. They drafted Marcus Freeman as a linebacker back in 2009, never played in an NFL game. Maybe he gets the opportunity to coach one. I would not completely rule that out just yet.

All right. This is a move, even though it's not alphabetically in order, I want to save the big one for last. Jacksonville, who is Jacksonville's target of choice that you think stands out? Jacksonville has done a half dozen interviews so far. Ben Johnson is definitely someone who is still in play for that job as well. I know there were people within the league who thought that was going to be the job that Ben Johnson would target.

I'm not there right now. I'm not ruling it out, but I would not say, you know, right now Jacksonville is clearly number one for Ben Johnson. I do know that they loved Robert Salah in that building when he was an assistant. He interviewed in person for the job.

I would not rule him out as a possibility. They talked to a variety of other people. They talked to Liam Cohen. They talked to Patrick Graham.

That one still is a fluid process, I would say, at this point, Rich, which makes sense. The way that Shad Khan has operated coaching searches in the past, he's going to take his time here, but certainly Ben and Salah are two names that I would keep in mind. All right, what about New Orleans? Who's the favored candidate there for the Saints' full-time gig? There are definitely people who believe Aaron Glenn is the one. You know, he was the runner-up to Dennis Allen a couple of years ago, and I think that if Dennis Allen hadn't been the guy who stayed and hadn't been sort of the hand-picked successor for Sean Payton, maybe Aaron Glenn would have gotten the job at that time.

I know this. Aaron Glenn loves that city. He still has relationships with some of the older players on that roster.

He knows that building. He's worked with Mickey Loomis. It would make sense if that's the job that Aaron Glenn wants, but he might have multiple opportunities. I would also not rule out Mike McCarthy for that job. I believe that he will interview for that job sometime maybe the middle of next week. He worked with Mickey Loomis when he was the offensive coordinator 20 years ago, and Mickey was a young administrator who took over as the GM.

There's a mutual respect between those two. Joe Brady's also talking to them here, but I would say Aaron Glenn, Mike McCarthy are two of the names to watch in New Orleans. All right.

Now let's move to the Jets. Again, 17 names of people they interviewed. Does that include Vrabel, or you took him off that list since he's already taken the Jets? No, Vrabel was the second one. We've listed all of them there.

All right. So who do you think, again, that the Jets, out of all the people that they are turning these stones over, what do you think? It's hard to get a read on the Jets, not just because of the volume of interviews, Rich, but also there's a lot of people involved in these interviews. Of course, Rick Spielman, Mike Tannenbaum are doing a lot of the football conversation, asking the football questions, but Woody is there for all of it. There's ultimately one guy who's going to make this decision.

Everybody else is going to give input, but it's got to be who is Woody most comfortable with? I do believe that Aaron Glenn is a real candidate for that job. Again, we have to see if he's got multiple opportunities. Does he want to go to New Orleans? Does he want to go to the Jets? Does somebody else, maybe even Jacksonville, make him an offer? That's a possibility there.

But I can't rule out, really, most of the guys that they've interviewed here, Rich. I can't even sit here and rule out 100% Rex Ryan just because his case is pretty straightforward, which is, hey, the glory years, 15 years ago. Remember that? That was fun. Everybody loved this then, Woody. It hasn't gone so great since I was out of here. Bring me back.

Give me a shot. I don't believe that that's going to be the hire, but I can't rule it out because, again, ultimately one person is going to make this choice, and it's Woody Johnson, who is at a stage in his life where he wants to figure this thing out. He tried a lot of things last year. He pushed buttons, whether they were the right ones or the wrong ones. He asks a ton of questions, which is his right as the owner. Rex is used to it. He knows that he can work and has one with Woody here. Again, I'm probably talking too much about Rex Ryan, but I can't rule out a whole lot of people for that job at this point, Rich.

We'll get a better feel for that when they start cutting that thing down next week. Who's the favorite candidate in Las Vegas, Tom? Rappaport talked about it last week. Certainly, there is a high degree of intrigue with Ben Johnson, and Tom Brady has studied everybody this year because he's been working in the booth.

Ben Johnson said they first met before a game against Green Bay very briefly. Ben's clearly been one of the top candidates over the last couple of cycles as well. I get the sense that he's more ready to take a job now. If it comes down to offers or opportunities with three different teams, the Raiders, the Bears, and the Jaguars, which is the three interviews that he was willing to take, they've all got upsides and downsides on them. In Chicago, you have Caleb Williams in place. He's got a great deal of physical ability, but has not put it together just yet. You also have an established administration in terms of Ryan Pols being there as the GM, Kevin Warren as the president.

Are you comfortable with that particular structure? In Jacksonville, Trent Baalke, it appears, is not going anywhere, and Shad Khan believes in the roster that Trent Baalke has put together. You've also got a quarterback who's in place there in Trevor Lawrence, who he's been a rollercoaster ride in terms of performance through his career, but you know what he is. And Johnson's taken over a former number one overall draft pick who's had a little rollercoaster career before, and it's worked out pretty well with Jared Goff in Detroit. And then in Vegas, you've got probably the hardest task ahead of you in terms of there's no quarterback. There's not a lot of talent on that roster, though the short-lived GM, Tom Tolesco, left some good pieces in place led by Brock Bowers. You've got Max Crosby, whether that's somebody you're going to extend or potentially is he a trade pitchhip somewhere down the line.

But you've got a ton of unknowns. You've got a place that has not had stability. I believe Mark Davis wants stability, but he also wants to win. And he feels like, other than John Gruden, which his hand was forced based on circumstances a few years ago, he hasn't gotten the right people in place. You're talking about taking over a team with no quarterback and a general short of talent on the roster in a division where you're going to be going up for the foreseeable future against Andy Reid, Sean Payton, and Jim Harbaugh.

That's a lot. That's the toughest task, but you also don't have a GM in place. You may have more influence in terms of the entire process and the putting together of the operation. You have a guy in Tom Brady who clearly is trying to sell Ben Johnson through intermediaries on coming to Las Vegas here and saying, hey, we can get this thing right, but I need you to be a part of the process.

So you've got three different scenarios here. To give a shorter answer, yes, Ben Johnson is, I believe, the top candidate for the Las Vegas Raiders. They've got Robert Sala in the building today. They had Pete Carroll in recently as well. I don't entirely know if they don't get Ben what the pivot is for Las Vegas, but certainly I anticipate that they're going to have multiple plans here as they move forward and these things heat up in the coming days and weeks. All right, Tom Pelissero, now the motherload. The Dallas Cowboys, they target who?

Who's their favorite, their top of their wish list? I hate to say I have no idea, Rich, because it's kind of my job to have an idea. I don't know what the Cowboys are ultimately going to do. And I don't know that as recently as Monday morning, Jerry Jones believed that he'd be going headfirst into a coaching search without optionality with Mike McCarthy. I mean, we've talked quite a bit about what happened with Mike McCarthy in recent days. The short version of it is that Jerry Jones was not willing to make a commitment. All the conversations, they met for three days straight, I mean, hours upon hours, some of it with other people in the room, sometimes it was just Jerry Jones and Mike McCarthy. And in those conversations, from my understanding, there was never a sense that Mike McCarthy was not going to be back as the Dallas Cowboys head coach. But Mike McCarthy wanted certain things to be committed to here, namely a type of contract that would not just give him some level of security, but it's about his staff and it's about the families involved. And Jerry just wasn't willing to make a commitment, much less a long-term commitment that would have made Mike feel good about putting himself and his assistants and their families and everybody else involved through the same type of stuff they were last year when, by Mike McCarthy's own admission at his end-of-season press conference, there was a lot of stress on the families. When everybody's on a one-year deal and every loss feels like this might be the end of the line, that's really, really hard on people.

So it came to a point by Monday morning that, you know, it just appeared nothing was going to get done. And so Mike McCarthy at that point, you know, wanted to focus on other opportunities. Jerry Jones obviously wasn't willing to make a commitment and they kind of started from go here, figuring out, okay, you know, what's coming next?

And I don't mean to not, you know, give Jerry credit. I'm sure he's thought through different things in different scenarios. I don't really get the sense that Deion Sanders is going to be the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Certainly those two have a relationship. I think there were a lot of reasons by Monday night that both sides would want that out there, that Deion's a possibility because Deion's been in contract talks for weeks with the University of Colorado and Jerry, I'm sure, was more than happy for people to be talking about Deion Sanders and not keep talking about what in the world happened with Mike McCarthy.

There have been some other, you know, possibilities discussed. They've got Kellen Moore that they're doing a Zoom with today. He's got history in the building as a player and as a coach, somebody that they know really well.

He was ready to move on a couple of years ago and now has experienced different things with the Chargers and the Eagles. You know, I can't rule that out as a possibility. They've also got Robert Sala coming in. I believe that interview is tomorrow. They've got Leslie Frazier coming in on Monday. And even Leslie Frazier, I don't think, is a totally wild idea if the idea is we've got a team that can win now, but we also want to have a plan going into the future. In other words, you know, if there's somebody else that you think is not quite ready but that you want on staff, having somebody who can just solidify the building for a couple of years, whether that's Leslie, whether that's a Bill Belichick, whether that's a Pete Carroll, whatever it might be. You know, Mike Zimmer is the defensive coordinator.

Could Zim be a guy? He's won a ton of games in the league and then also kind of used that as the bridge with a team you think can win right now instead of going through groin pains with a young head coach. All these options are on the table. What I would tell you is I don't get the sense we're going to wake up on Tuesday morning, Monday morning, and Kellen Moore is going to be the head coach of the Cowboys. I think this is going to be a little bit of a slow burn. I think that Jerry is going to look down a variety of paths here. He's got to come out of this with a win for him and for the organization.

That might take a little bit of time. Well, you mentioned a couple of names before I let you go. You mentioned Belichick and Carroll. There's Gruden also. Rank for me one through three. Rank those guys in terms of the possibility of them landing any of these six positions we just mentioned over the last 15 minutes.

Tom? Well, we've got Gruden. Belichick and Carroll.

We've got Pete. You've got to rank them one, two, three. That's hard.

So let me start with this. John Gruden, as much as people have focused on, well, he hasn't interviewed for any jobs, Gruden was never going to interview for jobs out of the gate. Really any coach that accomplished, and that applies to some of the other guys too, the way that this thing is set up, it's going to take a while. You have to go through these different things, not just for Rooney Rule purposes, but based on the hiring practices and the guidelines, not being able to interview people who are in playoff games in person until next week, even guys who didn't miss the playoffs. You can't interview them in person until next week if they're still under contract with teams. If Gruden's going to end up in the mix for any of these jobs, it's probably going to happen over the next couple of weeks.

It was not going to happen to this point. In terms of Pete Carroll, you'd probably put him at number one just because he's actually interviewed for a couple of jobs. I don't get the sense, not ruling him out, but I don't get the sense that he's a primary candidate right now for Chicago. Could he be a pivot in Vegas after his interview there?

I think that's possible. I thought Pete, if he'd wanted to get involved last year, and if the Raiders hadn't been laser focused on Antonio Pierce, I think Pete quite possibly would have been in the mix for the Raiders job last year. That brings us to Bill Belichick, and I am acutely aware of what Mike Lombardi continues to post on every social media operation, saying the NFL is not an option. Bill doesn't want to go to the NFL. We laugh about the NFL.

It's a joke to us. He only wants to be at the University of North Carolina. I also know Bill Belichick, who for years, with players and coaches, had a rule.

You're supposed to speak about yourself only. We've not heard directly from Bill Belichick on any of these things. The facts right now are he's gotten calls from teams. He did get a call from Tom Brady at one point. He has not signed a contract that I know that's not unusual at North Carolina, but when I referenced a couple of weeks ago some of the questions about whether or not there would potentially be, whether Bill Belichick or a new team would even have to pay that $10 million buyout, that's what I was referring to, which was there's not a memorandum of understanding or a contract that's been signed by all parties here.

There's a little bit of gray area in terms of how exactly that would apply. I don't know that any of these three are going to get jobs. If I had to rank it right now, I would probably put Bill Belichick number three out of three just because he has another job right now at North Carolina. I would say if you, Rich, in all your years, and I know that you talked with Bill a number of times through the days at NFL Network, and you've followed his career, and I would just say when you look at all the photos of Bill Belichick wearing a dark suit and having his arm around some 16-year-old in a high school cafeteria while driving around the East Coast in a van, does that seem like what Bill Belichick wants to be doing right now? If he had his option, do you think he wants to be on the recruiting trail and trying to talk kids into coming to North Carolina? Or do you think he wants to be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys?

I'm not saying that that's the focus. I'm not saying what he's doing in North Carolina is not real. And I'm sure Mike Lombardi will respond to this video at the first opportunity that he gets a chance to. What I am saying is if that call comes from Jerry Jones, we need you here for two to three years, I think that Bill Belichick would pick up the phone. We'll see if that call comes.

Tom Pelissero, everybody. In the 60 seconds I have left, Zay Jones playing? What do you think? I mean, pardon me, Zay Flowers? Zay Flowers playing?

What do you think? Zay Flowers playing? It would be big news if Zay Jones was playing.

Zay Flowers, it's leaning not, it sounded like a long shot all week. I know John Harbaugh did not rule him out for the game when he spoke to reporters. But he hasn't practiced in two weeks.

It seems like it's an uphill battle. You do have extra time. It's the Sunday night game. So if they list him as questionable on the injury report, what that would tell me is they want to try to put him through a workout Saturday or even Sunday morning and just see, can you give us some snaps?

He's one of your best young players. They're not going to do anything unsafe. The Ravens are a team that definitely takes care of players on that. But John Harbaugh said many times, in these situations, he trusts the players. They talk with the players about what do you feel your body can do. Zay Flowers wakes up on Sunday morning and thinks he can go.

If he hasn't been ruled out, I can't sit here and say it's 100% that he's not playing. So stay tuned. Thank you very much, Tom. Greatly appreciate your two cents, as always. We will see you Saturday and Sunday on NFL Network. Take care, brother. Sounds good.

That's Tom Poesera right here on the Rich Addison Show. Out he goes. So much to take in from right there. All right. And when we come back, I'll give my two cents on a lot of what he just said.

But right now, it's time for a sports update on the Infinity Sports Network on the radio with Rich Ackerman. As a business owner, you're always going that extra mile to pursue your passions. So you deserve partners who can help you go further with premium benefits and rewards. The American Express Business Platinum card offers world-class business and travel benefits so you can get more for your business wherever it takes you. With the Amex Business Platinum card, you can earn 1.5 times membership rewards points on select business purchases. And you can get complimentary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges worldwide, including the Centurion Lounge, so you can keep running your business while you're on the go. See how the Amex Business Platinum card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love.

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. A host, another host of this fantastic event from Modern Family, Eric Stonestreet. And I will give you the floor to introduce the guest that you have brought to your left, Eric.

This is Kansas City Chief Right Tackle, Mitchell Schwartz. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Yeah. I deserve it. Good to see you, Mitchell. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

You got it. Now, you've been sending me texts about Mitchell and what he stands for. And I don't want to talk about him as if he's not here. But yeah, well, you know, I said, I'll bring somebody on as a guest. You know, it's always fun to bring somebody on. We're here in Kansas City. And thank you for doing this.

I can't say it enough. This is amazing that you brought your whole show here. Whole show is here in Kansas City in support of Big Slick, and we appreciate it very much of you better.

But when I said I wanted to bring a guest on, I'm like, well, I want to bring on who I wanted to be when I was a kid. And that was an offensive lineman for the Kansas City Chiefs. And I've been fortunate enough to get to know Mitchell and know what a good guy he is and what a great player he is. So I wanted to share this moment with the right tackle for the Chiefs.

My favorite football team. Not that I need to tell anybody that. Yeah, I mean, it's really cool I got to know him, I guess, at the end of last year. And we hit it off right away. We both like food. We both like food.

We have a lot of shared interests. He asked me where I got my meat, and we go to the same meat guy. He goes to the same butcher here in Kansas City. I said a serious question, though, Mitch, where do you where do you buy your meat in Kansas City?

He's like, oh, this place called Bickelmeier's. And I'm like, OK, you're in. You're good. So because I know how seriously you take your Kansas City food. Yeah. Eric, you know, I do know you have actually cooked for me, actually handed me your actual fruits of your cooking labor.

I love you. Well, I mean, hold on a second. Yes. In a way, no question about that. But you guys go to the same butcher here. We do. Yeah. City.

Yeah. I mean, when I got here, I like to cook. I was confined to an apartment in my previous life. When I got here, I got a house, got a whole backyard set up. I mean, this guy's got the greatest backyard set up you could ever imagine for cooking. And he sent me videos all the time, different different stuff to try and text exchange between me and him and some of his other offensive linemen that are into smoking is hilarious. Like one night I put a brisket on and it was like we were kind of coordinating with the time difference of putting a brisket on around the same time. And I woke up to check my brisket and texted Mitch at four in the morning, L.A. time, which was Kansas City six a.m. time. And I told Lindsay, my girlfriend, I'm like, I texted Mitchell Schwartz in the middle of the night about a brisket like what is going on? And I responded. For whatever reason, I was up at that exact time and we were because I was doing a brisket the next night.

So we kind of throw ideas off each other and see what we do. I think he was doing like a twenty four hour. Oh, yeah. Super slow.

It got all jiggly and gooey and the bark was perfect. Our YouTube channel, make sure you check everything out there. YouTube dot com slash Rich Eisen shows our YouTube channel is the old big slick back in the day, which has now gotten so big they're doing it in the local arena.

Yeah, it's massive. They've raised tens of millions of dollars for Children's Mercy Hospital there in Kansas City, Missouri, where we could be back for kickoff again this coming September. You never know. We're going to either be in Kansas City, Houston, Philadelphia, right here in L.A., or we'll be in Detroit, Washington, D.C., Buffalo or Baltimore.

That's what we know. Go Rams. Down to eight. Down to eight. Go Rams.

Go Rams. You just you don't want to get on a plane. You're in the Rich Eisen show, the unexpected can happen anytime. You need to think about things like life insurance in advance, people. Ethos makes it easy as one, two, three. Just choose your coverage, apply in minutes, get covered in real time with no medical exam. Just answer a few simple health questions and you're on your way with up to two million dollars of term life protection with policy starting as low as two dollars a day. Ethos is approving over two thousand families a day for life insurance protection, all online and hassle free. Get your free quote at try Ethos dot com.

That's try Ethos dot com. So Tom Pelissero just joined us and I asked him to go down the wish list. Who's at the top of the list of every single team that's looking for a head coach at present. And you know, obviously, an information man or woman is not going to commit to just one person when anything can happen. But I just want to know, what's he hearing?

What's the general sense of things? He basically said Ben Johnson is first up for Chicago, Jacksonville or Vegas. And it's interesting, you know, the guy who would like to hire Ben Johnson for Vegas is a free shot at him on the field before the game on Saturday night. I know.

Competitive advantage. Hey, man, if I'm if I'm Shad Khan or I'm, you know. You know, somebody in the McCaskey family, can I get credentials before the game? Show up to the game. Just show up. Hey, Ben, what's going on?

That would be hilarious. Let me tell you something. The NFL has eyes everywhere and they are really particular about who stands on the sideline during a game and who gets to go on the field before a game. I'm wondering if if there's somebody from. The NFL security, like going to keep an eye on TV as he's standing out there, Brady stands out there.

If he approaches Ben Johnson. What's up, Ben? How are you?

How's the weather out there? And honestly, there's there's there's no precedence for it. No.

Well, why would there be? Aaron Glenn, according to Tom, is atop the wish list in New Orleans and maybe for the Jets. And then Dallas is a big old shrug emoji. The thing he said was getting somebody there for like two or three years, while somebody that they like is on the staff to get coached up about being a coach, you know who that person is, right? Jason Witten.

Right. And if he thinks Witten's not ready, then who better to have him learn from than somebody who's there for two, three years. And who would who would really take a job who was only there for two or three years?

Nobody. Unless you're in your early 70s and you're and you and you take your shot getting back on an NFL sideline like, say, Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll. And that right there would be wild when Dallas bounced McCarthy or McCarthy bounced himself and McCarthy's on the list for Chicago and New Orleans, according to Tom as well. I think it feels like McCarthy bounced Dallas.

He was like, look, this is toxic. I'm out of here. Certainly if you were going to be meeting with somebody for three days, as he said, Tom said, and you're not getting a commitment of significance, you're like, I need to go.

I need to go and I need to find the next spot. If this is all the commitment you're giving me. And plus, I mean, can you imagine doing a job anywhere, anywhere out there, anybody out there, you're doing a job and normally you would have a contract more than a year, but the job you're doing, your boss is not giving you a single ounce of saying you get to stay here after this year and you go home to your wife and your kids and whatever, and they're in schools and they're living everybody the whole year. You're living like that.

And I understand, you know, they use the the phrase from Godfather Part Two. You know, this is the business you've chosen, but it can't be easy. It can't be simple.

It can't be at all anything that you're looking to do. So McCarthy's like, I'm bouncing myself. But as far as the Dallas Cowboys, like, is that the coaching search?

Let's find someone for a couple of years so Jason Witten can get ready? I can't imagine that that's the way that they're going to go about it. But then again, but then again, no, I know, I know, I know every single time I say something as definitive as like, that sounds crazy. I can't imagine.

But someone would want to do that. And you're like, well, that's just the way it is there. Yeah.

I mean, I did. Nothing should surprise you. You know, Robert Salas on a couple of lists to Jacksonville and Dallas. I wouldn't mind Bob Salas, the Patriots defensive coordinator.

Well, pretty much anybody wouldn't mind that. You know, the 49ers fans would love to have him back. I mean, that's how he got on the radar screen of so many head coaching jobs. Yeah, the names that I wrote down here, Ben Johnson McCarthy for Chicago, Ben Johnson Sala for Jacksonville, Dion question mark, and anyone else in Dallas, the Jets or Aaron Glenn or anyone, it's Aaron Glenn and 15 others that the Jets are interviewing for the gig.

Aaron Glenn and McCarthy in New Orleans and Ben Johnson in Vegas. And again, I don't mean to harp on it because, you know, obviously, you know, I what I think of Tom Brady, same thing as you do, too. But there there is no precedence for this zero precedence to have somebody in the I mean, in the broadcast booth having full on access on the field to the person that as as Pellissero pointed out, trying to he was using intermediaries to talk to Ben Johnson before, I guess, to get him to interview. And I guess he did.

I don't I don't know. But now we could just walk right up to him on the field and go, hey, man, how you doing? It's also unprecedented that a minority owner, we don't know what Tom Brady steak is anywhere from five to 10 percent, right? It's having this much influence on decision making. Head coach, roster, whatever, which makes sense.

Why wouldn't you do that? Why would you use his yes, remarkable, but I'm saying it's the first time we've ever seen right. And then that person is also the lead announcer for a football game, right? You know, and a game where the top seeds offensive coordinator is your top seed of the job that you're looking to go get. So you can get the franchise that you have part ownership in position to beat every other team that you're you're calling.

With the exception of Vegas. I don't think he's called a Vegas game yet. What happens if that happens, because, you know, the Michigan man extraordinaire is agent Don Yee came out and told Sports Business Journal he's finishing his 10 year contract. He's got nine more years to go.

Oh, he loves it has nothing to do with loving it or not. Andrew Whitworth coming up next. Hey, it's Rich Eisen here. Join me and my compadre Chris Brockman every Monday on the Overreaction Monday podcast. You're also saying the record's going to go down. I'm saying the record's going down anyway. I don't think you're off on this at all.

Like you're spot on. I don't think this is an overreaction because we have no idea what we're reacting to. Come react or overreact with us. Overreaction Monday. Go and listen on your favorite platform. It's Game Over. We'll be right back.