Tom Pelissero: The Steelers Want Either Russell Wilson Or Justin Fields Back

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That was sweet! Head up! 42 for Kyrie! Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Intercepted!

Picked up by Cooper DeJean! Just hearing that back, what goes through your mind? It's crazy. It's crazy.

Still doesn't feel real to me. Where is the football? Hopefully one of our football guys has it. Earlier on the show, former NFL General Manager Mike Mayock. Coming up, NFL Network insider Tom Pelissero.

Comedian Chris DiStefano. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Our number two of the Rich Eisen Show on the air right here in rainy Los Angeles, California. 844-204-RICH is the number to dial here on this program. And joining us in studio, let's get right to him because he's sitting right next to me.

And it would be awkward for me not to introduce him. Ladies and gentlemen from the NFL Network, my buddy from NFL Insiders on NFL Plus, none other than Tom Pelissero. Tommy P here from Los Angeles. Good to see you. Good to see my boys live in person.

I'm here in the studio. How about that? They even get it when I'm here. Tom literally hates when people show us love, I think. That's not true.

That's not true. I appreciate the love being shown to you. You guys got nothing to do with it. My mom's watching. She loves Tom. I go, Tommy P is here. She goes, who? I go, hair guy.

She goes, oh, I love it. Hair guy. Where else are you known as hair guy? I think only here, but definitely could be, you know, there are other nicknames that would be not as favorable to me. Ladies and gentlemen, Tommy P is here.

That's a great nickname to have. Your impressions as you left New Orleans after seeing what we saw in Super Bowl 59 or what? I was asked, and I'm sure you were too, a hundred different times by people either on the street or had opening night with, you know, international German TV ask who's going to win the game.

Nice. And every time what I said was, by every objective measure, Eagles should win. If you look at the way they're built, you look at the overall talent level, you look at the offensive and defensive lines, they should be the better team in this game. The chance that the Chiefs had were, it's Patrick Mahomes and it's Andy Reid and it's Travis Kelce, Steve Spagnola pulling up everybody else. The way the game unfolded was exactly what you think. Take all that stuff out, the magic of Mahomes and the big moments, all that, take it all out. That's what it was going to look like.

Can you watch? They just, the defensive line for the Eagles with a four man rush. I remember I looked up at half, around halftime at the pressure rates on the scoreboard and it was blitz rate zero, pressure rate 48%.

That's all you needed to know. Mahomes had no chance. It reminded me a little bit of the COVID Super Bowl, the Bucks and Chiefs, where the protection was so bad. Mahomes was running for his life.

He started on the very first third down in this game where Mahomes goes out to his left, he spins back, he's right to the right. It's like, this is going to be a chaotic game. They had opportunities, you know, Hopkins had a huge drop, but it was, the Eagles were clearly the better team. We'll see how creative the Chiefs get now to perhaps retool a little bit the way that they did after that loss to Tampa. Well, that loss to Tampa, the retooling was, let's hit the line like crazy. And then they sent Tyreek Hill packing, which was a shocker. And that was the last playoff loss they had.

That was the year the Bengals went to the Super Bowl. And the thinking with that was, besides the fact that Tyreek thought that Devante Adams got a real $28 million per year deal and then blew up his own contract, talks over it. But it was, all right, Tyreek wants $30 million a year.

And you're talking about a long-term commitment. Or we can trade him, save all that cash in cap, get an extra first round pick and more from the Dolphins, and revamp the whole thing. And Brett Veitch did a great job investing in the defense. I don't know that you have the clear, here's the one move you can make. I don't know who that player would be unless you're going to trade Chris Jones, which I don't see happening.

Who can you get a landfall amount of money or amount of picks to bring him in? I'm not sure what that trade would be, but I fully anticipate that they're going to take a critical eye to this and maybe do some things that would surprise some people in terms of how do you get this thing where it needs to be to compete with the Eagles moving forward. Give me a roadmap on the surprises.

Drop a breadcrumb, bro. Because, I mean, that's what Chiefs fans are sitting here wondering is what's next because this would be Mahomes 3.0. Mahomes 1.0 was the Tyreek Hill, you know, let's dial up Wasp and come from no matter how much of a deficit we have down to win a game because we're as high charged in offense as you've seen. And then 2.0 is post-Tyreek Hill, still winning back to back, going to a third straight Super Bowl, you know, not going broke, making profits, playing defense. What's 3.0 look like?

Give me a roadmap here. I mean, you have to figure out where your playmaker's coming from. You've got Xavier Worthy, who obviously, when he's been healthy, they know that he can make an impact, right, with speed. But a lot of the other things they were doing with receiver this year, they didn't ever see Rice. They brought back Juju. They brought back Mikol Hardman. They brought in Hopkins midstream. It's not like a fully dimensional wide receiver group.

So that's one thing you're going to have to be able to do. It's great. We can all say, oh, they reinvented themselves. Now they're just a, well, spread horizontally team as opposed to the vertical passing. Well, that was a big part of their game when they had Tyreek. They had speed. I had never, you know, I said this to you in the summer, that the Chiefs looked like the fastest team in the league when I went through camp, faster even than the Dolphins.

Well, when everybody gets hurt and all of a sudden you go, okay, we're going to be a dink and dunk type of a passing offense here, it's not really the way that they were hypothetically reconstructed here. So one of the, you know, one of the splashy things, one of the big decisions they're going to have to make in free agency is Trey Smith, who's going to be one of the highest paid guards, maybe the highest paid guard. Do you pay him? Do you tag him? Do you tag and trade him where you could potentially get some value of that? You know, I'd have to go through and look at every other position. But you've got to be thinking, you know, Nick Bolton is another guy that he was a Super Bowl MVP.

You know, can you bring him back or is that a situation where you're going to have to let him go? All these things are in motion. But I would say one of the jobs is figuring out, OK, especially if Travis Kelce retires, which he by his own admission is thinking about, who is Patrick Mahomes throwing the football to in 2025?

Start there and then work through the rest. Yeah, Hopkins, Justin Watson, Hollywood Brown, Mico Hardman and Juju are all free agents. You mentioned Trey Smith as well and Nick Bolton as well.

Kareem Hunt, Justin Reid, Charles Amenuhu, just to name a few more right there. And that's just going to be the question is how does Brett Veitch take this thing in? Because we saw last time he took it in. Boy, did he hit the right buttons. So that's going to be part of the question there. And then for the Eagles, you see what's next potentially. Does Zach Bond get paid?

What do you think? I mean, Zach Bond, one of the best values in the league last year. There's no doubt. One year, five million is a defensive player of the year finalist.

Can they afford to do that? I think that you saw the brilliance of what Howie Roseman did to build that team in the Super Bowl, too, where they can come in waves. They got Milton Williams out there making huge plays in the Super Bowl and looking like he should be one of the best players. And he's like their seventh defensive lineman. Josh Swett as well.

You pay your own guys, right? Josh Swett had a great game. Another guy who's up in free agency here. You know, the one thing that Howie says, he's given himself optionality on both those lines, where, hey, all right, if somebody leaves in free agency, we got the next guy up. You know, we move on from Hassan Redick.

We signed a guy who didn't make a huge impact in Bryce Huff, and we've still got all these other dudes because we just keep drafting them here. I mean, the job one for the Eagles here is figuring out the offensive coordinator situation. With Kellen Moore leaving for New Orleans. And this is, once again, you're going to go into another year with another new coordinator. Jalen Hurts having new voices in his ear. Do they promote from within and promote Kevin Petullo? Do they go outside once again?

That's a big part of what they got to figure out here. OK. And so, and Sirianni getting a new contract, too, right? He's not going to just go into his walk here like Mike McCarthy did. Well, if they don't pay him what he's worth, he certainly could. Coaching contracts, Rich, have skyrocketed. If you go through what people were getting this year and you look at where, even for the first time, guys, much less the second contract, guys, if you're Nick Sirianni and you're still young, he's, I think, in his early 40s, he just won a Super Bowl. He's been in the playoffs all four years and went to another Super Bowl. In his first four years. I mean, that's one of the most successful coaches we've ever seen in his first opportunity here.

I'm sitting there if I'm Nick Sirianni and going, well, there's other guys making 13, 14 million who haven't even won a playoff game. Who's that? Give me names, man. There's coaches. Why is this such tightly held information?

Why? Because, I mean, a player signs, we know exactly what the outs are. There's a couple reasons. One is because there's no central system for coaching.

It's the Wild West. With coaching, there's no rules. There's no, like, organizing body for the agents.

They don't have to input everything like you do for players. There's no salary cap. So the other part of it is a lot of these coaching contracts now, they include other stuff. In other words, the number, so you can, clubs can ask the league, and they'll give you, like, the high, low, the median and tell you where they are. But a lot of the high numbers are deflated because they don't include the massive incentives that are in deals or annuities or other things that are included that are kind of additive.

I talked about it with you on game day morning. Andy Reid, on his latest deal, not only is he the highest paid coach, but he can earn 3.5 million per year in incentives. So he gets 500, 500, 500 by winning the first three playoff weeks. Two million if he wins the Super Bowl. So, like, is Andy Reid's contract, is he making upwards of $20 million?

If he wins the Super Bowl, he is. And there's right now a half dozen coaches who are in the 16-plus range. So, again, if I'm Sirianni, I want to be in that group.

Of course. I'm thinking 15, 16 is, like, the baseline for what I should be getting. Jimmy Sexton will be doing the deal. He's done a ton of these contracts. He's not going to sit there and go, well, yeah, oh, we'll just take 12 million. No, this is going to be, if Sirianni's deal gets done, I think it's fair to say it'll be $15 million-plus per year. That's the going rate.

And if the Eagles don't want to go there, near Sirianni, you've got a tremendous amount of leverage to just say, I'm going to coach the thing out. What are the new guys making? The new guys are making, it depends. There are some that are, the bottom, the baseline for coaches right now are the Dallas Cowboys. It's like 6 to 7 million.

I would fairly say Brian Schottenheimer is toward the lower end, not at the bottom, from what I've been told, but toward the, he's in the bottom half. But the upper end, everybody, there's probably a dozen coaches, I have to look at my spreadsheet, but there's probably a dozen coaches that are making 12 million-plus now. That's a lot. And they haven't won a playoff game. And there's a bunch that have not won a playoff game. Ben Johnson, highest-paid, first-time head coach ever. It is a very large deal.

What's the number? I think there's some numbers that have been thrown out there. I think it's fair to say he is one of those in that group that I'm saying Nick Sirianni needs to be beating. Mike McDaniel? Mike McDaniel signed that extension last year.

He's still in the bottom half. I'm disturbing you guys. I don't want to get, but I find this interesting, if you don't mind me sort of placing the way you do your job and the way people in your position do their jobs under a microscope here. But obviously, there's an information highway that you need to drive and you need to be on and you need to be in that high-occupancy vehicle lane. But this is information where front offices don't want this stuff out there.

They don't want it out there. Well, in part because... But I don't understand, because a quarterback, a running back, we know exactly how much they make, what their dead cap is, whether they're designated this or that, and we're going to take a break and talk Rodgers and things of that nature coming up. Again, it's partly because different contracts are set up different ways. There's some teams that do a ton in terms of incentives.

Other stuff that has nothing to do with just salary. And those are ways that on paper they can go, well, he's making this, when really it's a higher number. You've got guys like Jerry Jones, who several times has stood in front of his fellow owners and said, these coaching contracts are bloated. We're overpaying these guys. Look at all the dead money, billion dollars in dead money.

We can't keep doing this. And Jerry, and this is not in any way a shot at Brian Schottenheimer, but Jerry accomplished what he wanted to with hiring, with parting ways with Mike McCarthy and ultimately hiring Brian Schottenheimer, which was he didn't really have to change anything. It's kind of a continuation of the same program.

Shoddy will do some things differently here. But he didn't have to get into a bidding war for one of these top-head coaching candidates or extend a coach who's a Super Bowl winner and deserves to be paid with the upper echelon of coaches. Jerry's been trying to prove for 30 years that coaching doesn't matter that much.

It's the same way that the wedge was driven with Jimmy Johnson, where it was, oh, anybody could have coached this team. How many times has Jerry said 500 different people, 500 different people could coach the Dallas Cowboys, would want to coach? He interviewed four. Tom Pelissero here on The Rich Eisen Show, 844-204-rich. We'll come back. Kellen Moore just finished his press conference in New Orleans as the new HC of the Saints. And let's dive directly into the quarterback market, since Derek Carr could potentially play into all of that. Tom Pelissero is here.

The comedian Chris DiStefano will be making his way to our studio as well. 844-204-rich number to dial right here on this Thursday edition of The Rich Eisen Show. The association of mature American citizens is here to make a difference in your life and in our nation. Anybody at any age can join, and you'll belong to a community that stands for timeless American values. In honor of President Trump's first 100 days in office, AMAC is offering an incredible deal.

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Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash AMEX Business. Back here on the Rich Eisen Show, do you need a towel for all the tea you just spilled over the last two minutes in the commercial? We were rolling the whole time.

The cameras were on. We're going to play that back. By the way, you have no idea. That's a new segment. You have no idea what Tom just told us off camera. That's the new segment here on the Rich Eisen Show.

I do like that idea. It looks like it's night outside. It was pouring pretty good when I walked in. When it's cloudy and rainy here, it is not a fun place. It is tough to wake up.

It's tough to get out of bed. It's tough to drive because nobody knows what they're doing. There's no reflective paint. You can't see where the lanes are.

Oh, and people in Los Angeles don't know how to drive. Don't forget about that. Did you see you're here for PTO, personal time off, and you're just hanging with us? I'm taking a couple of days to refresh. Because it's on and cracking starting next week, right? It's already going. What's happening now, I guess, in the fact that people can call Aaron Rodgers right now. These Steelers are trying to figure out their quarterback situation.

The Vikings are trying to figure out their quarterback situation. Hold on, wait, wait, wait. These are things I'm going to have to ask you about. By the way, this is stuff that we should have done off air.

Well, we probably should have prepped this. Well, you're one of the producers around here. I came up with a segment this morning. He's a producer? He is? Yeah.

That's his original role. I came up with a segment this morning. He's like Costanza. Boom, that's a segment. Boom, that's a segment.

Not yet. You know what I mean? Somebody said something dumb on Twitter. Get a good look, Brockman. Denise Richards, by the way, that's who that was. That's who that was, right? It's like the sun, one glance.

Look away. And Del Tufo is on an every day plan around here now? I feel like I see he's on an every other day plan on my Instagram feed, too. Mike, were you doing that afternoon college hoops on FS1 yesterday? Is that what you were doing? St. John's. I knew it. I knew it. I snuffed that out.

St. John's. And I was accusing you of getting rabies by hand feeding rodents. He thought you were feeding squirrels. And I'm like, you know what?

I bet he's got hoops on FS1. Brockman. I got you. All right. Back on the Rich Eisen Show radio network, 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 clickgranger.com or just stop by. As always, it's never official now unless there's a tweet about it. And in terms of that, let's talk to Tom Pelissera a little bit more. Jets tweeted out, we're parting ways with Aaron Rodgers. Which actually matters because under NFL rules, they changed this a handful of years ago. Now, the moment the team announces they are going to release a player, the tampering rules are off. It used to be until the transaction went through and he appeared on the wire, you couldn't call the agent, you couldn't call a player. It would happen, but it was technically illegal. Now, by the Jets posting that statement, people can work on a deal right now with Aaron Rodgers.

He can't go in, he can't visit, he can't work out or anything like that, but you can have discussions and hypothetically, he could have his place locked in today. So, this was a favor to Aaron, essentially. Well, I mean, they met with him a week ago.

No, I understand that, but if the Jets wanted to make it difficult, they could. Instead, they put this out, which means, even though they made it official to Aaron a couple last week, that's why I'm saying, why tweet something out? What I was told was they wanted to do this the right way. They didn't want it to leak out over the weekend that they had parted ways with him because they wanted to give him time to think about what is it he wants to do next. I mean, maybe Aaron after that meeting goes, I think I'm going to retire.

And then it's a different type of a statement. So, after they met with him last week, they wanted to give him a few days. The word leaks out, but they wanted to, listen, the guy's a four-time NFL MVP. It clearly did not work out for anybody involved over the last couple of years with the Jets, but they still wanted to treat him a certain way.

They tried to do things the correct way for a future Hall of Famer here who now is going into the darkness of being a free agent for the first time in his life. Interesting choice of words. I picked it up.

Hello, that's my old friend. I saw what you did. So, what was the mechanics of the communication?

Like, get on a plane, come on out here, and we'll see if there's any there there? Okay, here's my understanding of what happened, which was they had been talking. There were a lot of different things. Aaron Glenn gets hired.

Darren Muji gets hired. This is all in the last few weeks. Of course.

So, this is all recent. Moving parts. So, they had initiated some conversations and talking with him. The odds were always that Aaron Rodgers was not going to be back, but they wanted to make sure they talked through.

Hey, if you did come back, what would that look like? And the Jets had to have their internal discussions and figure these things out. Then it was, hey, I'm playing in this golf tournament, the waste management, whatever, the celebrity day on the Wednesday, I'm going to be in Jersey after that.

And they're like, great. Come over to the office. They bring them over to the office. They have the discussion, and they inform them we're going to be moving in a different direction.

But it's not like they said, hey, can you get on this plane to fly here so we can fire you? That wasn't really the... Well, this is why I'm asking these questions. Exactly.

What about the construct of what the relationship would look like? It was communicated to him every single practice that there is. We need you here at age 41. And no McAfee. Well... Was that told to him?

Again, I believe this is overstated. There were no ultimatums. It was not, hey, here's what you're going to do.

Take it or leave it. You're not allowed to do that, for one thing, under the collective bargaining agreement. You can't technically restrict, you can't require anybody to show up for voluntary practices, and you can't restrict outside media activities. But you can have a conversation about commitment and things like that, and these are all different things they were talking about, again, both internally and when they were having conversations with Aaron Rodgers. I believe if he were back, that would have been the setup.

But it's not as if, hey, take it or leave it. It did not get to that point, from my understanding. There were a lot of different things that were discussed about what it would take, what it would make sense. Listen, it would be the first time he's ever coming back and learning a different offense. You had a first-time offensive coordinator there in Tanner Ingstrom who was younger than Rodgers.

You would need the guy around. But ultimately, they arrived at the decision this was not going to work. The argument for bringing Aaron Rodgers back would have been, it gives you optionality in terms of what you do at the quarterback position. It removes some of the pressure to either draft a guy and start him immediately, which they've already been down that road with Zach Wilson, or to go out and get a different veteran quarterback. But you would have had to negotiate a pay cut.

You would have had to do a lot of different things. It made the most sense for them to say, we're starting fresh. OK. So then let's take it one at a time in terms of what's next. What's next for the Jets? What is their plan at quarterback? They've got three in the building right now. And the most veteran is Terod Taylor.

So what's their plan? Well, Terod Taylor could certainly be an option. They signed him to a two-year deal.

So hypothetically, that could be something where that's a fallback option to start. They had to be looking in the draft. The issue with the draft is, and again, this all has to play out, but there's really only two quarterbacks right now who are good bets to go in the first round, much less high in the first round, where the value would be there. Do you feel like you can get a guy in the second round or trade back up into the late first? Where does Jackson Dart fall into all of this? Where does Quinn Ewers fall into all this? There's a bunch of different quarterback options, but they're very early in that process.

Right now, again, because of the speed with which this thing moves once you got through all the interviews they did and took their time and went through the process. Aaron Glenn's been meeting with his coaching staff all day. Darren Muji's been working through draft meetings all day. They're just getting their feet on the ground, and they've got to be ready to hit it running next week in Indianapolis. Do they dare reach out to Sam Darnold and kick a tire?

I think that everybody who has a quarterback need at least checks on that. Let me rephrase. I think it'd be very difficult. Let me rephrase. I do not foresee that.

Thank you. Would he say, new phone, who dis? I'm sure he does have a new phone. The one thing we know is in free agency, money talks. Does Sam Darnold want to go back to New York? Would he want to go back into that organization? I still believe the best fit for Sam Darnold is staying in Minnesota and the best option for the Vikings just to protect J.J. McCarthy and the investment they've made in him and what they see for his future is to bring Sam Darnold back. You don't have... What is the last team that had a 27-year-old Pro Bowl quarterback coming off his best season going into free agency while also having a 22-year-old first round pick in the building?

They're in uncharted territory here. With the reigning coach of the year making some buttons pushing fresh off of a new contract that I'm sure Kevin O'Connell got richly deserved. And I hear you, that allows McCarthy to come back in at his own pace or- He hasn't taken a rep. I understand that and this would be the way to... Maybe the Vikings do that but Kevin O'Connell was talking on Radio Row last week that Sam Darnold has earned the right to hit free agency which is code for if he leaves for a certain amount of money that we're unwilling to hit, that's the way it goes. And that's what happened last year with Kirk Cousins. It only takes one team to blow it out of the water. There were scenarios where they were going to bring him back but the Vikings' mentality is how do we set up the whole roster to put a championship roster around whoever's playing quarterback?

And so there's going to be a certain number that you get to and it's not going to be doable. So what I would anticipate the Vikings do and there's not a ton of things in motion yet. What I would anticipate is they figure out, can we get a deal done with Sam Darnold at a number that works for us, probably that number is right around the franchise tag which is around 40 million. If you can't get a deal done, and listen, his agents have done a lot of these deals, they're going to know what the marketplace is for Sam Darnold. If you can't get that done, then the Vikings have a decision to make. Do we tag them, potentially bring them back for one year at around 40 million which then creates some issues in terms of the amount of cap that eats up for your whole off season or do we even tag them and trade them? I mean, again, what's the precedent for letting a 27-year-old Pro Bowl quarterback walk for a third round comp pick in 2026? That hasn't happened. And so there's a lot of different moving parts in the situation.

I do know this. One way or another, there'll be a veteran on the roster. J.J. McCarthy's going to be ready to go at the start of OTAs from what I've been told, making great progress.

He had that extra procedure, but he's doing well. So he'll be ready. But what they don't want to have is the pressure on J.J. McCarthy. You got to be ready to start week one and we're rolling you out there no matter what this thing looks like. Whether that's Sam Darnell, whether that's Daniel Jones, whether that's somebody else, that's going to be how they're set up.

That's right. They also have a former number seven over, six overall pick sitting right there from the Giants cutting Daniel Jones and we'll see what happens on that front, Tom Palaciero here. Let's get to what Aaron Rodgers' future looks like. Now that the tweet is out and you say that the Jets tweeting out that we've moved on officially allows Rodgers to have suitors call him and vice versa. What happens now? Well, so he's got to know, they got to deal with, I think it's around a $50 million cap hit that they'll probably, they'll wait to cut until March 12th.

Then you spread it over two years, you push most of the pain into 2026. But this is not a situation like Russell Wilson where he's getting paid cash last year by the Broncos. In other words, you can't just go, Aaron Rodgers is assigned somewhere for the minimum.

He's not making any money from the Jets. And so the questions are going to be who is actually interested in Aaron Rodgers? Who for, you know, missing the entire 2023 season, 2024 there's the most bad tape he's ever had and just missing throws. He had down the stretch, there were some games, some halves where you're like, oh, there he is. And there were large stretches where it just didn't look like he has it anymore. The medical literature would tell you he's going to be better a year later from the Achilles, but also he's 41 years old and coming back from an Achilles, which there's not a lot of data on that.

So it's probably not a big money deal. Rodgers is going to have to decide what does he ultimately want to do? Like I've heard, you know, the connections to, he's got a house in Nashville and he could go there. The Titans are, now the Titans have talent, it's not a full rebuild, but they're the worst team in the league last year. They have the worst record of anybody in the league. Is Aaron Rodgers going to plug in there for one year?

What team is going to want all the other stuff? You know, I, even if there's not another documentary, but there's going to be, you know, talking about any number of things in government and I'm with you too, but you know, we can talk about it as much as we talk about it in the media, but everyone will tell you in the Jets locker room, they frigging love this guy, right? So it's not like whatever he was saying on Pat was something that roosted in the locker room and created a problem internally. All these things that then you have to deal with organizationally and your head coach has to answer questions and hey, your quarterback went to Egypt instead of mini camp. It opens things up.

All these things. And you termed it unexcused and I mean, we don't need to go keep going back down there, but I know that there's other stuff that comes at Rodgers. I'm just pointing out that sometimes the other stuff has made a bigger deal than it actually is in terms of the 53 man roster. Rodgers also has been effectively running the same offense. There was a transition when they went from Mike McCarthy to Matt Lafleur and that was a process. That first year, if you remember, he didn't throw the ball a ton.

If you look at his number, his numbers were way down. They won a lot of games, but they ran the crap out of the ball. So that was the one time, but then Hackett was an extension of Lafleur's offense, which was completely Aaron controlling things at the line of scrimmage and giving them options and everything, which is part of why Aaron gets frustrated with young players because he wants it.

Hey, you've got to be at my level. We're doing all these things on the fly and our rules and all that stuff. There's nowhere right now, I mean, Nathaniel Hackett's not an OC somewhere. Rodgers isn't going back to Green Bay. Where does he go and have either be adaptable to a new offense or have that team go, we're willing to run the Aaron Rodgers offense? It was the same thing when Brett Favre went to the Jets years ago and all of a sudden it was, hey, are we running that offense? Brett barely knows his own offense. One of the greatest players of all time, but he wasn't like, you know, he wasn't like this all knower of X's and O's.

And so they kind of just, they mesh the languages and they had to figure it out and he didn't play great. I mean, they weren't terrible in 08 with the Jets, but, and he had a biceps injury, but 09 he came back and he ran, Brad Childers basically let him run his offense. So where does Rodgers go and be able to do that? Listen, there's a bunch of teams, there's a dozen or so teams that don't have a starting quarterback right now. You had a four time NFL MVP who isn't going to cost you a ton of money.

I believe there's going to be an opportunity somewhere out there for Aaron Rodgers, but where that is right now, I can't sit here and say, I think he's going to go here because there's just too many moving parts. Pittsburgh? That would be a tough one. Why would it be a tough one?

Why? I mean, Tomlin, I think he and Tomlin would be, you know, would have a mutual respect. And there's commonality to Arthur Smith's offense, which was a derivative of Matt Lafleur's offense in Tennessee. And so there would be things that he would be able to pick up, you know, but the Steelers are still right now, from my understanding, and I know there's been various things reported and rumored. My understanding is they still want to get either Russell Wilson or Justin Fields back. Are there other opportunities out there where somebody else can become available and make them pivot off both of those guys?

Yes. And I would, I would anticipate in the next week or two, you're going to have a good idea of whether or not one of those guys are going to be back and who it is. And they're in different spots right now because Russ, Russ is probably going to be the more expensive of the two options just because of where he is in his career, the fact that he finished the season as a starter. He's telling everybody, I want to be back in Pittsburgh, but that's going to come with a number. With Justin Fields, who got benched last year when they had a winning record, you're going, I only want to come back if I'm clearly QB one on this team. And either of these guys, frankly, for the Steelers would be a bridge type option where if you're bringing those guys back or if you're bringing Aaron Rodgers, you're doing that as all right, we're going to get by.

But also we quite possibly are going to draft a guy this year to be the longterm option for the team. What about the tweet that caused Trevor Lawrence to trend this very morning? Yeah, that was fake. That was fake. Fake.

What do you mean? I've never called on Trevor Lawrence, Trevor Lawrence isn't getting traded for any number of reasons. I don't even know who you would call. They don't have a GM right now.

You think the interim GM is going to be able to trade the franchise quarterback? No, there's no, there's nothing there. They didn't call.

It's fake. So the Steelers are kicking over what other rocks do you think here? Just looking for... Everything is what I would say. I mean, every, the top free agent possibilities. Maybe getting cut in Atlanta, all those different things.

Cousins will be another interesting one because that's another... If they do it, I mean, the Falcons are not putting out any statements early for Kirk Cousins. They were going to take this all the way until I believe it's a fifth day roster bonus, which is March 16th.

So basically end of business, March 15th, they're going to take it all the way up to there. And they're telling everybody we'll keep them, we'll potentially even take on that extra 10 million in 2026 guaranteed money just to hold him. I don't believe Kirk wants to be there. I believe Kirk wants to play.

Makes sense. And the idea of, listen, they can do it. You can, you can make an intellectual argument that, Hey, we're already paying them $30 million. Why are we going to pay them 30 million to go play for somebody else as opposed to be in the back up here? My answer to that would be the same reason that it was at times problematic last year for Kirk Cousins knowing Michael Pennix was there. The moment Pennix struggles, people are going to be going, play Kirk.

You're paying them all this money. Put him in. I don't know that you want that over your young quarterback shoulder going into next season. I think that that's a potential issue. It's one of many things that they have to think through, but they've also, since they drafted Michael Pennix, they've put themselves in a unique situation in their, in their locker room. What about Rogers in Vegas? Again, I think that these are all, all these things are possibilities. I think the way you have to look at it is all those teams are drafting a quarterback or in position to draft one also have to be thinking about, all right, do we have somebody?

What's the proper way to set up the room with Rogers? You know, it's not a longterm thing. I mean, he's a hired gun, but if he's wanting, if his goal is I'm going to, you know, put one more stamp on my hall of fame resume and I want to go to the playoffs and win.

Where are you doing that? We're talking about a lot of teams that were really bad last year in terms of the teams that have vacancies. Right? Could he go to Cleveland? Could Kirk go to Cleveland? I think that's one spot where they quite possibly will add an economical veteran because they still have the Sean on the roster. In addition to drafting a guy, I think that that would, I think that there'll be in that bucket. Pittsburgh one way or another is probably looking at a shorter term type of deal. The Raiders are looking at that as well.

There's there's only one. I mean, Sam Darnold is the only quarterback pending a tag who's going to be free, who anybody's going to invest any type of money on. The other free agents are Fields, Wilson, and the other 2021 quarterbacks who all got cut. Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Mac Jones.

Nobody's paying those guys on longterm deals. It's really just Sam Darnold, which is great news if you're Sam Darnold because you're going to have that type of money out there. What Darnold's going to have to decide is do I just want the money and take my chances going to someplace that might not be a good situation or do I come back to Minnesota, show it again, do it again, and then get out into free agency. Kellen Moore, Tom Pelissero was introduced as the new H.C. of the New Orleans Saints and was asked the multi-million dollar question about whether Derek Carr is going to be the week one starter.

Here's his answer. Yeah, Derek's a tremendous quarterback in this league. I've had so much respect for him. The journey that he's been on, he's a starter in this league, he's a premier player in this league. He's had a great journey, obviously going from Fresno State to the Raiders and now here, you know, really excited to team up with him and go through this process and so just like any player on this roster, you know, I just got here a few days ago and I'm excited to go through this journey with all of them. Derek, do you view that as you guys have a decision to make at quarterback or do you view it as Derek Carr as a quarterback? I view it as Derek Carr as a tremendous starting quarterback in this league, fortunate to have him, and we're excited to go through this process, you know, as we build this roster together. Again, I'm meeting these guys for the first time in the last few days, really excited to meet more of them and this will be a lot of fun. I mean, that answer, that answer is as non-answer-y by giving an actual answer as I've heard in quite some time because one would think when he's sitting down with Mickey Loomis and Gail Benson, the conversation of what are we doing with Derek is brought up and for him to basically say I'm beginning a process with him, that's my reading of the tea leaves.

You would know more of the tea, so spill it. There are guarantee mechanisms in Derek Carr's contract as part of this, there would be a potential restructure if he stays. I would also tell you this, there are a lot of people, remember, a ton of coaches watch Saints tape this offseason, right? Because they have head coaching vacancy and people are studying the roster. I heard a lot of positive things from those coaches about Spencer Rattler when they went through the tape and they saw a guy who looks like he can be a potential future starter in the league. Last year I was at the Monday night game when they got shut out by the Packers and Spencer Rattler was throwing to, literally one of the coaches walked up to me pregame and I'm like, how's Spence doing? He goes, he's doing good, he's got to meet these guys he's throwing to tonight, but literally they were down to the nubs of practice squad guys, MVS was out that night, their entire team was hurt.

They had no offensive line, no wide receivers, but the tape for Rattler was pretty good. When you're maxed out on the cap and you've got an older expensive roster like the Saints do, you would think that points toward keep the veteran quarterback, weak-ish division, just go try to win. But if saying we're going to roll with Rattler and move on from Derek Carr saves you some money and gives you more flexibility to build up the rest of the roster, I think you got to consider it. And Derek Carr's got to consider where he wants to be next year too, because one way or another, there would have to in all likelihood be a restructure involved in him coming back. I mean, credit to Kellen Moore, he's already got the part of listening to what the Greg Bensels and Doug Millers of the world are telling you, make sure you're right down the middle on this thing, he nailed that part of it.

But the reality is there's some things that they're going to have to talk to and figure out what direction they're going. So Derek Carr could go back to Vegas and Sam Darnold back to the Jets. Boom. There you go. 2025. And Rogers back to the Packers to back up Jordan Love.

No, that one, I don't think. Why wouldn't the Jets go after Derek Carr? They tried to, they told him he was going to be a Hall of Famer if he went there. And then Ken Rogers was on the team, connective tissue though with Derek Carr, there was Todd Downing who had coached him with the Raiders and Todd's now the receiver's coach for the Patriots. So I don't know that the Jets are back in the Derek Carr bucket.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but probably less likely this time around than it was a couple of years ago. Now that you want Derek Carr as a backup, like you forgot Joe Milton won you that final game of the year. Don't forget, man. That was the Joe Milton game. Don't forget the Joe Milton game. Somebody get the first round pick for Joe Milton.

Be honest, Tom. A first round pick? Second. How about a third? I second.

Sold. Look at you, Joe Milton's one of the most physically impressive guys you'll ever stand next to. He can throw it a hundred yards. I know.

Just a gigantic human with a huge arm. Yeah, and he played well pre-season and then that final game. That's what I was about to say, all you need to know about Joe Milton is look where the Patriots are drafting. Third overall. They're not second overall.

They're not first overall. The Joe Milton game is just like the Frank Gore game for the Jets all those years ago. Cost him Trevor Lawrence. The man is coping because he lost Alex Bregman. I'm not coping.

It's all comes down to Alex Bregman. I don't need to cope. How dare you?

Sorry to drag you down to our level, Tom. You want to stay for another segment? I can hang, yeah. Fantastic.

All right. It's raining. Where's he going to go? He's going to be in traffic on the 405. He's going to be in traffic? What do you want to do? Yeah. You want to hang here or hydroplane on the 405? This is much better.

It's safer. It'll stop. Okay. Tom Pelissero here. Chris DiStefano, The Comedian Hour 3. Don't go anywhere.

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Back here on the Roku Sports Channel, Tom Pellissera hanging with us to the end of the hour and then the comedian Chris DiStefano I just had a nice chat with in Green Room. He's going to come on out here. You've got a great idea, Chris Brockman. I don't say that very often. Oh, come on. Well, but it's true.

I think this is actually a home run. Before you get to it, from what I've been told, a very, very, very warm place would have to freeze over before a team in the NFL agrees to do an offseason hard knocks again. This is what I've been told from all 32 teams. There you go. That's his answer to that.

Yes. It was a great show and I still believe in the theory of how they handled it to explain why you're doing it. The results could not have been less favorable in terms of Saquon not only getting paid, but having a record season and winning the Super Bowl. It's the worst case out. Maybe even worse.

That is outcome based analysis. And if Saquon had gotten dinged up in week two and they had explained it, they were always going to be subject to this. This is beyond anything that they could have feared. The Giants you're referring to.

The Giants. Okay. But I still will say I don't have a problem with them doing this show. I thought it was better to explain the thinking behind an unpopular move and explain the cap and the way that you have to think about roster management. I thought it was fantastic.

I thought it was very educational. It's just the worst case outcome we've ever had by far. Chris is going to save it. So I was thinking that today, this is a great idea. You want to save off season hard knocks and this would be the ultimate flex. The Eagles should volunteer to do it and say, this is how it's done. You want to see how an elite front office operates and built a team.

Watch us. I like it. I don't see them doing it, but I like it. But wouldn't Howie Roseman kind of want to just a little part of him would love people to see just why he's so damn great. I wouldn't want that. I think the results are the two Lombardi trophies with two totally different teams. And I totally get that. I don't know that he needs the, uh, he doesn't need it.

I understand he doesn't need it, but you get it over the Giants again. Part of me would be like, yeah. You saw last year from our counterparts, how not to make the right decisions. Let us show you how we make our decisions here in Philadelphia, but again, was it don't know I'm not, I'm not, I'm not even going to say, I'm not even going to say, I'm not even, I don't want to be a meme. I don't need this on social media. What?

Go, go, please. The reasoning behind it was, and again, this, this speaks to the, the, the flaws they have in terms of the roster that they've built. Right. So this is not saying like they're, they're geniuses on this, but the theory was Saquon was not going to have that type of season with the giants. They had tried to pay him on multiple occasions.

Okay. They, he didn't get, this is one of the misconceptions. He didn't get like a bunch more money from the Eagles. The giants offer to him was one of them. They made three runs at it. The giants offered to him was like not that far off.

The structure was a little bit different from the Eagles, but it was basically the same money. The giants thinking was, we're just not going to be this team with Saquon. He's not going to, it's not going to be worth it to us. So let's get the line right. Cause we haven't done it. Let's draft Tyrone Tracy ran for a thousand yards this year and let's build it in a different way. It, it all goes back.

We've discussed this many times. They didn't get it done and paid Daniel Jones because they franchise tagged Saquon had they been able to get Saquon turned down a very similar deal to what he got from the Eagles. The previous year from the giants, he turned that down.

They thought they were going to get the deal done. Then they had to take Saquon cause they weren't going to let him out, which meant they couldn't tag Daniel Jones who had just led them to the playoffs and they weren't going to let go. So they paid Daniel Jones and basically gave him two years of money instead of one year of money. So if Saquon had said, by the way, we're back on the radio network, Tom Pelissero here, Saquon had said back two years ago, yes to what the giants were offering.

What happens? Saquon. Saquon takes the deal, he never becomes an Eagle. Daniel Jones, let's just say for argument's sake, Daniel Jones has the same season that he did in 2023 where he gets hurt and he's probably gone.

It all went to crap. He's somewhere else in 2024, probably has a backup quarterback. The giants then, I mean, depending what pick they have, are they drafting a quarterback? I mean, they were number six pick last year. Well, they didn't like JJ McCarthy enough or Pennax enough to the point where they're like, let's go Malik Nabors. But are you in a position then when you feel like, because you're not committed to Daniel Jones, well, we need a guy.

So you don't do that. Let's do whatever we can to trade up. Let's give up even more.

Let's make sure we move up. I don't think, and you know that. There's not a, there's not a deal on the planet. I don't think. There's always.

Oh, no, no, no. There's always a deal. There's always a deal. Short of the Ditka give up the whole damn draft that the Bears would have moved off of Caleb, that the commanders would have moved off of Jayden Daniels or the Patriots would have moved off. The Patriots listened. The Patriots listened.

The commanders listened very briefly, but they weren't going to move. The Patriots really listened. It went all the way up till draft day. I think I reported about two hours before the draft, Patriots are staying put, which clearly was for Drake May, but they at least considered it. And if you've got a transformational type of offer, maybe you're feeling like it is the right thing to do and you're setting yourself up for the future. I don't know that, but I'm saying if you're asking me to gain this out in the butterfly effect of this whole thing, which affects Super Bowl 59 results, right?

Yes. March of 2023, Saquon takes the deal. He's signed up for multiple years. Daniel Jones franchise tagged Daniel Jones.

Again, if the season plays out, the same goes elsewhere in 2024. Giants either are in the quarterback market. Maybe they signed Kirk Cousins. Maybe they trade for somebody. Maybe they trade up and get Drake May, but you already have Daniel Jones there and you're paying him. So you're less aggressive going, let's try to max it out. Let's push Daniel Jones. Let's get something out of him. That's how this entire thing played out.

I mean, it's, it's just, I get it. I get what it looks like and I'm not sitting here as like, you know, defending the giants. All I'm saying is the theory of it and how it played out. It went back to Saquon deciding not to take a deal that was very close to what he took a year later from the Eagles. And if you set aside injury risk and time value of money and everything else, you'd say, obviously this all worked out for Saquon because he went, got the same deal, won a Super Bowl and is playing better than ever. Does he ever have a season like that with the giants based on how they're currently constructed?

I don't know. And that's the part that, yeah, that is on the giants. And the off season hard knocks would have been about the decision to make about Daniel Jones. It would have been about Saquon Barkley. They would have been talking about getting a quarterback, but they actually would have done it. I mean, how much of that show is dedicated toward them evaluating all the other quarterbacks through the course of the off season? Hey man, that's when he, Brockman, you came in to work after seeing Drake May on the whiteboard with Brian Deball. You're like, I want that kid.

Yeah, done. And a whole bunch of people were saying that too. That's why it was such an incredible off season. It was amazing. So you think again, somebody should go to Howie Roseman, somebody from NFL films and Mount Laurel should take a visit after the parade. It's all dying down now, hey Howie, we want you to show everybody what it's like to do your job.

And I think you should say yes. The ultimate flex. On top of what the Giants did this past year. I mean, the problem with hard knocks for so long has been teams, the good hard knocks are the ones where things happen. And so many teams have gone out of their way to make sure nothing happens, that there's no subject on the show. There's no cuts on camera.

There's no controversy. It's like, let's go on a fishing trip with these two players for a day. I mean, that's kind of what they're left with and they do a great job, but it looks good and it sounds good.

You might as well call it soft knocks. Rich, call Ken Rogers, make the pitch, tell him our idea and make it happen. You have the power to help facilitate this.

What am I to do? Call Ken Rogers or whoever else at films and make it happen. They'll do it. I mean, they want to do it. Just put the bug in their ear.

Especially since yesterday, this is a sore subject, which is why you didn't say a word when you were sipping your coffee before. Because NFL films wants to be in the position of being known as an irritant or too much of a fly on the wall or creating problems for any of the 32 member clubs. They want to be in that position 0.0% of the time. That is not what they're there for. They are there to serve fans and they are there to get the NFL in front of people in a way that makes you want to get more of the NFL. That's their mantra. What the disabled created this for is the access and all of that stuff. So they don't want to be in a position of like, boy, you really messed with a team and let alone a team of the Maras.

That's like the last thing they want to do. And the NFL film still does a phenomenal job. It's visually, it's the AFC North Hard Knocks was stupendous.

It's the teams that have curtailed some of the access and some of the insight to the point that, yeah, there are times where you can tell they're just not going to allow anything on camera. I mean, what would have been the best ones in the last decade? The Browns one, where Hugh Jackson and Todd Haley are arguing in staff meetings. That was phenomenal TV. Let's get a GD snack. See, that's the stuff that you go, all right, that should not have been on TV. The Giants, I have no problem with it.

They weren't killing each other. Our radio audience taking off. Thanks Tom Pellicero, Chris DiStefano coming up. We have another couple minutes.

Go for it. Keep going. The Giants didn't, I thought the Giants came across very well, in the moment, okay? If Saquon goes and gets hurt.

I know. If Saquon goes and has. Or doesn't even have the season that he had. What did Saquon run for the year before?

900 yards with the Giants? Well, after he was given the difficult to reach incentives for him to say, I'll stay put. Well, they weren't even difficult to reach. They were. Impossible to reach. They required them to make the playoffs. That was the problem with those incentives. 962 yards.

962 yards. So you tried to pay him three different times. He's given you every indication he doesn't want to be there. They've got a deal done with the Eagles.

And you go, we're going to, we're going to, you know, invest our resources elsewhere. The Vikings did it. How many people laughed at the Vikings last year? Cause like you let Kirk Hundley go, you're paying Sam Darnold?

Go back and read. Me and Ian broke the Sam Darnold sign at like one in the morning on like the first or second day of free agency. If you go back to that, that post from the NFL, every comment is just laughing. What a joke the Vikings are.

How in the world could they do this? Not only did it work out, which again, that's outcome based analysis, but it also was we could pay Kirk 45 million a year to match what the Falcons are doing or 40 million a year, or we can pay 10 to Darnold, but then also go get Jonathan Guinard and Blake Cashman and Andrew Van Ginkle and Aaron Jones and draft a guy. That's how teams think of it. You don't always get the outcome that you want, but if the thought process is right, which again, we can argue that under the giants, but at least there was a thinking and they tried to explain it. They tried to, this is such an unpopular decision with our fans, with our owner, with talk radio. We're going to explain how we got here.

We're going to explain how this thing actually works. I thought that part of it was great. This was just absolutely whatever the worst case scenario was. This was like, well below it was you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Was it a good idea though?

I want to get except Arnold, how did the season end? Stop. Stop. 14 and three apps. Don't, don't even answer.

I've got, I've got, I've got, I've got 45 seconds left. What's more likely quick. What's more likely what's more likely miles Garrett stays put Micah Parsons gets traded. Micah Parsons gets traded.

That's more likely wait. I think miles Garrett stays put. That's more likely than Micah Parsons getting you phrase that weirdly. What's more likely miles Garrett stays put Micah Parsons gets traded. What is more likely miles Garrett stays put, but I would definitely not rule out Micah Parsons being traded ladies and gentlemen. That's how you spend the last 45 seconds on really good that they went 14 and three after all absolutely poop the bed. The last three weeks guy weeks. Tom Palacios everybody got the best wealth building expert candy Valentino paves the path to success.

I'm sorry. You're a human with a heart and lungs. There's no price tag that you can put on a service that you offer and everyone that I know, every entrepreneur, they all have one common goal. You want to strive to be like the Ritz Carlton of your industry. Do the work, take the time to really understand and master these things. It's really essential to your path for success. The candy Valentino show time to invest in your future follow and listen on your favorite platform.