August 22, 2025 • 41 mins
Danny Parkins fills in for Colin with the latest on the drama filled contract standoff between Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and their star pass rusher Micah Parsons. He pushes back against the harsh criticisms Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has faced and why he's in prime position for a breakout season. NFL insider Robert Mays joins the show to tell Danny if the Cowboys and Parsons will settle their contract dispute before the regular season begins
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three eastern nine am to
Nune Pacific. Find your local station for the Herd at
Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every
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or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowvert
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome into the Herd.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I'm Danny Parkins in for Colin Cowherd. Always a thrill
to be sitting in the big chair for Colin, who
will be back soon because it's football season. We made it,
though there still is plenty of drama. Tarreon Armstead will
join us in just over twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
In an hour, I'm.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Gonna try to call Colin on the air to remind
him that Caleb Williams is good.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
My guess is he won't pick up.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
We got a lot of things to do and starting Monday,
we'll hear more about it later. Then you expanded first
the first on FS one. I'm thrilled to tell you
about it. I'll be on from five to six Eastern
every single day, and if you've ever watched me or
listened to me, you know that I don't love talking
contracts because generally speaking, they all get done. But the
preseason ends on Saturday, which means it becomes game week
(01:17):
for all these teams, which means it's about to get
real for contract talk. And I got to admit, even
as someone who doesn't like talking money, I don't like
the pocket watch aspect of it. And the vast majority
of these guys ends up signing their deals. I have
to admit that the television producer that doubles as the
general manager of the Dallas Cowboys and the owner and
apparently a star of a documentary. The documentary, by the way,
(01:39):
pretty good, Jerry Jones. He's given us some tremendous color
here on the Micah Parsons stalemate. Negotiations impass and it's
getting wildly unnecessarily ugly in Dallas. But depending on your
point of view, maybe that's exactly what Jerry Jones wants,
because he's just here for the soap opera, the clicks,
(02:02):
and we're feeding into it because here we are on
the biggest show talking about the biggest story and the
biggest team and their best defensive player who remains.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Unsigned, so let's catch you up on it.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Jerry Jones goes on Michael Irvin's YouTube show just yesterday
and he gives us a very colorful update on how
the negotiations are going.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
We wanted to send the details to the agent. The
agent soldiers to stick it up our ass. We had
our agreements on term, amount, guarantees, everything. We were going
to send it over to the agent, and the agent said,
don't bother because we've got all that to negotiate. Well,
lot already negotiate that, already moved off my mark over
(02:46):
several areas. It's the Mama daddy deal. You go into
Mama and she won't do it, and she's the moss
soabos she won't do it, So you run into daddy,
Daddy says do it, and then you go back in
say mom, and Daddy said it was all right.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I don't think that Jerry Jones traffics in the world
of embarrassment very often, but Jerry should be embarrassed. The
agent in question is David Molagetta. David Mullagetta, through multiple
media sources, has put out basically, I'm not going to
do any interviews, but I did not or did anybody
with athletes first as agency tell Jerry Jones of the
(03:29):
Cowboys to stick it with their ass whatever that didn't
come up. So David Mulligetta is disputing the use of
that colorful language. But let's just forget about the language
there that Jerry is addressing.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Here.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Jerry Jones is saying that there is not room in
the negotiation between the Dallas Cowboys and Micah Parsons for
Micah Parsons's agent.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Now, I have an agent. I know most of you don't.
You're lucky.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
That's the only reason we have agents is to do
the negotiation. It's the only reason we pay the commission.
Maybe it's three percent, maybe it's one percent, maybe it's
five percent, maybe it's ten percent, depending on the industry.
For Michael Parsons, it's probably in the neighborhood of one
or two percent. But the point is he pays, arguably
the top agent in football a percentage of what will
(04:22):
be the largest defensive contract in the history of the
NFL to do the negotiation. Jerry did not stop there
because I will get into where I think this actually
ends up here in a minute. But allegations about colorful
language no room in the negotiation for Mikeah Parsons's agent,
Jerry did not stop on his media tour with the
(04:43):
posturing of how he looks at the timeline and to
get a deal done with Michah Parsons.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
We've really got three years to work this thing out.
I did that with Dak and we couldn't agree. So
Dak played his last year of his contract. We franchisee course,
ultimately we got a contract made. Dak has plaid player
in the NFL, so the president is handling it like Dak,
(05:10):
but in this particular case, then Micah comes in and
plays this year under his contract and then done and
it's very costly.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Okay, so no one likes math on TV. But we'll
just let's just go through some facts here for a second.
Michah Parsons is set to make roughly twenty four million
bucks this year, so at the end of that from
the Michael Irvin Show and Jerry Jones, look, if he doesn't,
it's going to be very costly. Jerry Jones is one
hundred percent correct. Every game missed by Micah Parsons is
roughly one point three million dollars. Then Micah Parsons will
(05:45):
not get paid. That's just money you can earn back.
So I think Micah Parsons is going to play Week
one because I think he would rather play for one
point three million dollars than not play and get zero.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It's a revolutionary thought. That's where I'm at.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Then Jerry saying really takes three years, and he's right,
because there's this year, and then they could franchise Tag
Michah Parsons, and then they could franchise Tag Michah Parsons
again for one hundred and twenty percent of what he'd
be doing to make next year.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Now, the player.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Would be unhappy, and he's already demanded the trade and
scrubbed the Cowboys from all the social media, and frankly,
that's not good for the team to have a premium
player locked into the salary cap because there's no flexibility.
One hundred percent of the dollars are guaranteed. You can't
move it around for salary cap purposes.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
That sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
But I absolutely believe Jerry Jones that he talks to
Micah Parsons about money, that he feels like he even
moved off of his place, and I believe Jerry Jones
that he is willing to make Michael Parsons the highest
paid defensive player in football. But here's what I also
believe that that's not good enough. That if I was
(06:57):
representing Michael Parsons, I wouldn't be saying, well, yeah, I
just have to get a dollar more on the average
annual value of than TJ. Watt just over forty one
million a year, or I just got to get a
dollar more than the largest guarantee ever for a defensive
player in Miles Garrett at one hundred and twenty two
million a year, because those guys are three plus years
(07:18):
older than Michah Parsons. Micah Parsons is going to be
the highest paid defensive player ever. The question is going
to be by how much is he going to shatter
the record for a non quarterback? Is he going to
shatter the record for a defensive player? And there's no
(07:39):
reason for you to get too deep in the weeds
on who these agents are. But David Mouligetta is something
of a cult like figure in NFL circles because he's
the guy who got Deshaun Watson the fully guaranteed contract,
the one hundred percent of your money contract as being guaranteed.
He's the new thing. He's the power broker in the NFL.
(07:59):
He represents Jordan love cj Stroud and a bunch of guys.
But here's another way that I know that Jerry is
not being totally truthful in this entire thing. There are
other players on the Cowboys who are represented by David Mulgetta,
who is Michaeh Parsons agent. So he's been able to
get business done. So when he's talking about this agent
(08:19):
wants to make a name for himself, this agent is
trying to be the big third party in this deal.
There's only room for two parties, me and Micah Parsons.
He's done deals with mullagat his agency before. Mollie Cooker
is on his team this year signed and Jerry Jones,
I know he likes to say that he's the general manager,
(08:40):
and I know he carries the title of general manager,
but no one believes that he's scouting the Senior Bowl
and grinding tape.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
On fifth round prospects.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
He likes it for vanity, he likes it for ego.
Do we really think that when Jake Ferguson signed his
fifty two million dollars deal with Dallas Jerry Jones and
Jake Ferguson drinking some Johnny Walker black and.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Just taggling back and forth.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I think it should be twelve million a year. No,
I think it should be fourteen million year. Now, the
Cowboys negotiator dealt with the player's agent, because that's how
it works.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
So this is very old school.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
This is very If you've watched any of the documentary,
you know, good old boy from Arkansas comes into Texas,
strikes it rich with an oil well buys the Dallas Cowboys.
He bought the Dallas Cowboys for one hundred and forty
million dollars. He's probably gonna have to give Micah Parsons
more than one hundred and forty million dollars. So he
got the team for one hundred and forty million, He's
(09:39):
about to give a player more than one hundred and
forty million. Jerry Jones is living in the Stone Ages.
He's living in the back in the eighties. It's just
not how it's done anymore. And so ultimately this is
all posturing, and I believe that Micah Parsons will be unhappy.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I thought the host with the Allen.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Iverson quotes and the waving goodbye and the scrubbing of
the social media. Frankly, I thought he was a little late.
That's like a millennial playbook one oh one. You scrub
the social media, you make it like, oh yeah, I'm
real serious. I'm real serious about this trade. I'm real
serious about sitting out games. Chris Jones sat out a
game one. Guys don't sit out games anymore. There's too
(10:26):
much money at stake. This isn't even the EMMITTT. Smith
thing from back in the early nineties where he misses
a couple of games, signs the deal and then the
Cowboys go on to win the Super Bowl. There's just
too much money. These deals get done. So I will
stay where I've been four months on this that this
is publicity for a new season, this is publicity for
(10:47):
a documentary.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
And deadlines make deals. And we saw with.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Dak Prescott, as referenced by Jerry Jones, the deadline was
the opener when he signed that deal. I expect Michael
Parsons to be playing against Philadelphia and this is just
a lot of noise, embarrassing noise, but noise all the same,
which brings us to the other unsigned contracts here because
it's a I will admit it, this is a unique
(11:14):
NFL offseason and that we have three A list Tier
one players who are still unsigned. Terry McLaurin in Washington,
Trey Henderson in Cincinnati, and of course has discussed Micah
Parsons in Dallas. Now, I don't think Dallas is a
super Bowl contender, but they do. Washington obviously think it's
(11:35):
a super Bowl contender. They were in the NFC Championship
Game last year. They had Laramie Tunsel, they had Deebo Samuel,
and Cincinnati knows that they've got a super Bowl caliber offense,
and they scored enough points last year to be a
twelve or thirteen win team, but they only scored nine
because their defense was historically bad. I mean, the Bengals
had a losing record. They were three and four in
(11:57):
games where they scored thirty or more points.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So we'll just go through these.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
I think Terry McLaurin signs in the next seventy two hours.
Generally speaking, preseason will end on Saturday. They'll revisit the
big picture stuff. It'll be game week, and it'll really
be like the game two weeks because with now three
preseason games, there's more time between the end of preseason
and the start of the opener. I just don't believe
that a player who has been as consistently productive for
(12:26):
Washington when they had no one at quarterback is going
to let them have a superstar quarterback on a rookie
deal and not get it done with his number one receiver.
Do I think Terry McLaurin is as good as AJ Brown? No,
but it doesn't matter. He is really, really good. The
guy who signs the deal the most recently always gets
a little bumped because the salary cap goes up. So
(12:48):
I will be shocked if Washington takes the field week
one and Terry McLaurin isn't there. That one is in
the as close to one hundred percent as I can
make it. Jaden Daniels just came out and said he
thought it was going to get done. This one's gonna
get done. Next confident would be Trey Hendrickson and Cincinnati.
I know with Cincinnati, I know they're historically cheap, but
(13:12):
they got Joe Burrow, they paid him. They have t Higgins,
they paid him. They have Jamar Chase, they paid him,
They changed defensive coordinators, They used three of their first
four picks on defensive players.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Apparently they've agreed.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
On how much money per year and how long the
deal is going to be. They haven't agreed to the
biggest part of the deal, which is the guaranteed money.
Reports are that Trey Hendrickson won three years guaranteed, Bengals
only want to do one year guaranteed. My guess is
they settle on about two years guaranteed. Trey Hendrickson has led.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
He's been what.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Seventeen sacks NFL and sacks last year, been seventeen sacks
each of the last two years.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yes, he's thirty, but two.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Years of guaranteed money feels like a reasonable place. And
I can't imagine looking Joe Burrow in the eye and
being like, hey, remember last year when you would.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Score thirty regularly and we would lose. Wants you to
do that again.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
My guess is Hendrickson gets done and then that leaves
Micah again.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I think it works out. I think they get it done.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I don't think he's gonna be in the business of
giving back one point three million dollars per year, but
at some point Jerry Jones is gonna have to do
what apparently Jerry Jones doesn't want to do, which is
talk to Micah Parsons's legal representation. This is all noise,
it's all unnecessary, it's all unbecoming. But given that we
(14:31):
are still in the season where the games don't count,
it is fodder and at least we know for Jerry,
not for the thirty one other teams like I don't
think anything about the Terry McLaurin contract is because Washington
wants to be in the news cycle. I don't think
anything about the Trey Henderson contract is because they want
to be in the news cycle. But for Dallas, we
have a ton of data, including Jerry Jones's own mouth
(14:54):
in this in the Netflix documentary It's a soap op
with three hundred and sixty five days a year, Jerry
Jones sees value in the drama of dragging this out.
With Micah Parsons coming on next to for Tron Armstead,
Jackson Dart looks good again. Three successful preseason games for
Jackson Dart. I think the Giants plan for now is
(15:16):
the right one. Can they continue it? It's coming up
with the.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
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Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
He's Mike Karma, I'm Dan Bayern. We have a fantasy
football podcast called I Want Your Flex.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That's right Dan.
Speaker 7 (15:37):
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Speaker 6 (15:48):
Listen to I Want Your Flex with Mike Carmon and
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wherever you bet your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I am a Bears guy from Chicago. Consider it disclosed.
Caleb Williams was good last year. Anyone who watched every
pass of every game, which I did, would tell you
that he was not good enough. He was not as
(16:15):
great as we thought he was going to be. But
Caleb Williams was good. Best rookie quarterback by the way
in Bear's franchise history, which I agree the bar is
on the floor. That's an easy one to clear, but
it is still true. And the situation that hand up
I got wrong. I said it was the best situation
(16:37):
a number one overall pick had ever walked into.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I was dead wrong.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
About that because how much of a disaster the Matt
eberflu Shane Waldron coaching situation was. And we'll get some
more of that in a second. But Caleb Williams was good.
He wasn't great. But people talk about Caleb Williams like
it's still possible that he could be a bus bust
(17:01):
is off the table.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
He's good. Let's start.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
There's the good, the bad, and the narrative, and I'll
be fair. We'll start with the bad, the obvious bad,
the worst of it, and there were a few. Was
sixty eight sacks. Sixty eight sacks is an absurd number.
Sixty eight sacks is way too many. He did not
fully trust what NFL open was. He held onto the ball.
(17:28):
He was afraid to throw interceptions, and so he would
eat a sack as opposed to trusting his arm talent,
trusting the route, trusting the play did not play on
schedule enough. Sixty eight sacks is unacceptable. He will always
be a higher than average sacked quarterback because of how
much of a big game hunter he is, because of
how mobile he is, because he has that wizardry to
(17:52):
do the second option off angle throws, the improvisation stuff,
but sixty eight is obviously not sustained. And then I
think there was a legit concern, based on what I
knew and people that I talked to around the team,
that Caleb was trying to get by a little bit
too much on just his raw natural talent and didn't
(18:15):
have a complete understanding of what it took Monday through
Saturday to be ready for Sunday. And he was young,
He's a rookie, wasn't a bad guy, wasn't unprofessional. Just
there's an adjustment of what you need to do to
get ready for a college game and what there is
what you need to do to get ready for a
pro game, and that learning curve was there for Caleb.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It was also certainly.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Impacted by the coaching turnover, So I think there was professionalism,
But really the.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Sacks, sixty eight sacks, you can't win.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
The good was he survived, Who's tough as hell. He
played all seventeen games despite being sacked sixty eight times.
He had a three and a half to one touchdown
the interception ratio twenty touchdowns against only six picks. He
threw for over thirty five hundred yards, and he dealt
with everyone talks about the bad coaching, and it was bad.
(19:10):
They fired Shane Walder and his play caller nine games
into the season. And the Bears are a founding charter
franchise in the NFL who had never fired a head
coach in season in their history. And let me tell you,
Mark Tressman deserved it. Guy kicked the field goal on
second down. They finally fired a coach in season because
(19:33):
they feared a mutiny from the team because it got
so bad in season last year.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
But that wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
The offensive line situation that Caleb was dealing with. Matt Pryor,
Tevin Jenkins, and Coleman Shelton all started fourteen plus games.
And if you're out there watching or listening, being like,
who are those guys, it's a totally reasonable thing for
you to think Coleman Shelton's going to start at center
this year for the Rams on maybe the worst part
(20:01):
of their team. They're very concerned that they're not going
to be able to keep Matt Stafford healthy, and Tevin
Jenkins and Matt Pryor are now backups in Cleveland, and
Philly respectively, and they all started fourteen or more games
for the Bears last year, so they were starting.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Backups on the offensive line.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
They fired the coach, they fired the play caller, and again,
if you watched, there were moments of undeniable upside, Like
right now in FS one, we're showing highlights from the
Bills game, and I heard reactions to the Bills.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Game being like, whoa Caleb.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Look at the arm talent, look at the mobility, look
at the zip on the ball, look at the Accuracy's like, yeah,
we saw it last year. We didn't see it enough,
We didn't see it consistently enough.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
But he was a rookie.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
And that's where I think the narrative piece is getting
forgotten about last season, because last season went off the
rails for the Bears, more so though for the Bears
than Caleb Williams. They lost ten games in a row,
and how they lost those games started to become so
(21:12):
comical that, understandably, the Bears became a punchline. The Bears
lost the game to Washington on a hail Mary, and
the receiver who caught the ball, his man Tyreek Stevenson,
was literally talking to the crowd when the ball was snapped.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Wasn't even paying attention.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
That's not on Caleb Washington ended up in the NFC
Championship game. The Bears lost the game to Green Bay
by one point on a blocked fields goal, a forty
six yard attempt where they sent to the league office
that the pass rush by the Packers was illegal because
(21:59):
they hit the long snapper over the ball. Wasn't called
whatever it happens missed called, but like that's a thing
that happened. Lost that game by one they hit that
forty six yard field goal as time expires. They would
have swept the season series against Green Bay because they
beat him at Lambeau to end the year. Green Bay
was an eleven win team. Was it on Caleb Williams
(22:21):
when they lost to Minnesota the fourteen win Minnesota Vikings
when Caleb threw for three hundred and forty yards and
two touchdowns and scored twenty seven points against Brian Flores' defense.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
That game on Caleb.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Williams because it feels like, well, it was just another
loss in the midst of a ten.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Game losing streak.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Okay, he took a sack in the possession of overtime.
That was not good, no doubt about it. But again
Brian Flora's defense, fourteen win team, pretty good. Three hundred
and forty passing yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, scored, twenty
seven points, lost in overtime to the Vikings. And then
everyone remembers the Thanksgiving game against the Lions where Matt
(23:07):
Eberflus forgot that he's the head coach and that you're
allowed to call timeouts. They're four yards away from field
goal range, would have sent them to overtime.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
They've got one time out.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
There's a sack that puts them out of field goal range,
so you got to gain the five yards, call the
time out, kick the field goal.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
There was confusion.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
You would like Kleb maybe more situationally.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Aware in that spot.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Again, a rookie, you would like your coach to help
out the player. There were thirty two seconds left when
he got sacked. They only ran one play the rest
of the game. It was like he was playing out
there with no coaches. So I think if they win
two of those four games and all of a sudden
they are seven and ten instead of five and twelve
with wins over the Vikings.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
And the commanders.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
In addition to their win at the end over the Packers,
You're like, okay, seven and ten ups and downs, the
playoffs took too many sacks, coach got fired instead. It's
I don't know. Is Caleb Williams an NFL player? They
upgraded it right guard, center, left guard, coach, play caller.
(24:16):
They use a top ten pick on Colston lovelin the
tight end, and they use the top forty pick on
Luther Burden a receiver. Both of them looked good in
the preseason opener where the starters played against the Bills.
So last year should be the floor for Caleb Williams.
And by the way, everything that I've heard about Caleb
from this year at camp, him and Ben Johnson, intense relationship,
(24:39):
really taking well to hard coaching, true professional, knows one
hundred percent of what it takes, and he's working his
ass off to be great. So if the floor is
thirty five hundred passing yards and a three and a
half to one touchdown the interception ratio, and he upgraded
sixty percent of his own offensive line, his head coach,
(25:01):
his play caller, his tight end position, and his wide
receiver group, why are we surprised that he let a
touchdown drive against the Bills in the preseason. I just
the discourse has just gone completely insane with them. Oh,
they're sitting him out, They're hiding him, They're afraid.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
They prefer Tyson Paijing.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Caleb Williams is good, can still be great, and I
think his ceiling is still MVP of the league and
a Super Bowl champion at some point in his career.
And I think people, frankly have really lost the plot
with Caleb Williams and I look forward to seeing him
build on year one in year two with Ben Johnson
(25:44):
should be a very exciting season and a very exciting
next decade for Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. Coming
up next, Tom Ernucci, one of the top voices in baseball.
The Brewers the best team, but not the best shot
to win a World Series.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
We unpackou, It's all happening coming.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Up The Herd one more Herd. The Herd streams twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week within the
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whenever you like.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Back in on the Herd on Danny parkins in for
Colin Cowherd. Chris Philika, the Bear joins us in about
twenty minutes. But I'm excited about this joining us now
on the herd.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
The host of the Terrific The.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Athletic Football Show is my buddy Robert Mays. And you know, Robert,
I was thinking about texting you, I was thinking about
calling you, and then I was like, now, let's just
do it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
On national TV. I listened to I listened.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
To your podcast of the twenty twenty four draft class,
and you know you you root for the Bears.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
You're in Chicago.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
You like me, watched every pass of Caleb Williams last year.
But when you did that podcast, you were talking about
how you had thought the most question marks were about Caleb,
and I was surprised. There was definitely plenty of bat.
He was not as good as many of us thought
he was going to be, but there were so many
things that contributed to it. I'm wondering if you are
(27:07):
feeling better after the preseason game against Buffalo.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
It'd be hard not to feel better when you look
at how on time and mechanically sound the offense felt.
Just watching him operate with a level of urgency and
confidence and just the pre snap operation and clearly how
in command of that he feels. I've always had faith
that with Ben Johnson this could be corrected. I watched
what Ben Johnson did with Jared Goff, and I remember
(27:31):
what Jared Goff looked like near the end in Los Angeles.
So I think there's a big gap that Caleb has
to close based on how he played last year. But
when you'd go from the worst possible circumstances in terms
of how the offense is being articulated to a quarterback,
the intent of certain plays to what is going to
be one of the best situations in the NFL, when
(27:51):
it comes to all that stuff, you can see a
drastically different result. So I think that I was a
little bit worried about some of that stuff last year.
I absolutely still have faith that it can get cleaned
up with the right coaching, and I think Ben Johnson
is the right coach.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
So what do you believe Caleb believe it is not
necessarily this year, But where do you have him in
terms of a ceiling? What can he still become? It's
a great question.
Speaker 8 (28:14):
I don't know exactly where I land on that because
I don't know how many quarterbacks are like him in
the NFL that are actually analogous to him when it
comes to play style and what he's bringing to the table.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
But if you told me, I think this is it currently.
Speaker 8 (28:27):
Stands in the NFL, the NFL quarterback hierarchy, when you
get outside of the top four guys, I think it's
pretty muddled. I think that group between like five and
fifteen right now is very fluid where there's going to
be a lot of risers and followers over the next
couple of years. If you told me at the end
of the twenty twenty sixth season that Caleb Williams was
the eighth best quarterback in the league, I would believe
(28:49):
that a lot of stuff would have to go right
for it to happen. But I think that tier, especially
right now, is kind of there for the taking, depend
on how depending on how the next couple seasons go.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
So he's a part of this twenty twenty four draft class,
And I said earlier in the show, I think it's
trending that it'll be arguably the most successful draft class
in NFL history, not in terms of Super Bowls or
anything like that, but in terms of teams just getting
it right. The twenty twenty class had five guys who
signed second contracts with the team that drafted them, which
(29:22):
is an NFL record. I know it's early, but I
feel like they're going to go six for six in
the first rounds. Do you look at last year's QB
classes potentially an all time one?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I do. Obviously.
Speaker 8 (29:34):
JJ McCarthy is probably the biggest question mark, just because
we haven't seen him play, but all the other guys,
even with only a glimpse at Michael Pennock's I'm really
excited about what Michael Pennock showed last year. So the guy,
if you look at the numbers that was the least
efficient any events metric you want to take a look
at last year. Among that entire group was Caleb Williams,
and we just talked about the collective optimism that I
(29:56):
think is justified. With Caleb Williams, what you saw from
Jane Daniels undeniable bo Nix was so much better than
anybody could have expected. Drake May if you look at
the scenario in New England and the personnel in New
England that should have been day, they should have had
absolutely no shock or even be a competent offense, and
if you.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Look at those numbers, Drake may was able to actually.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Have a functional NFL offense with that group, which is
a borderline miracle.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
So we'll see what happens this year.
Speaker 8 (30:22):
I think there are still reasonable questions about all of
these guys, but the arrow is pointed way way up
in a way that we just don't typically see with
a group as a whole.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
So I want to talk to you about Trevor Lawrence
because he is the same age as Bo Nix and
Michael Pennox, who are in that quarterback class. But he's
on his third head coach, he's had four first round
picks on the offensive side of the ball that he's
been there. He gets Liam Cohane, who helped Baker Mayfield.
To me, this feels like the last stand for Trevor Lawrence.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
To prove that he can be that guy.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
How do you look at it now with the situation
that he's in Jacksonville.
Speaker 8 (31:01):
I think that's a great way to frame it. And
if he's not going to succeed in these circumstances and
they're not perfect the offensive line, they're shooting for the
middle of the road even and if that turns out well.
But when you think about the construction of the offense
and how hard it felt in Jacksonville over the last
couple of years, and how easy it felt for Baker
Mayfield in Tampa last year, it's just a drastically different
(31:22):
situation in what you're requiring of the quarterback.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And it's funny.
Speaker 8 (31:25):
We're doing the AFC South preview on our show today
and for each team, we're talking about what is success,
and for me and the Jags, part of their successful
twenty twenty five would be that we never see Trevor
Lawrence's name on a bottom third cry on ever again.
And so the fact that we're doing this right now,
I think speaks to what we don't want to be
doing by the end of this season.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
That's an interesting way to frame it. I do think
the most interesting guy maybe in the NFL this year
is his teammate Travis Hunter. I've argued that he's going
to set the snap record as a rookie.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Which is a weird record.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I know that not everybody knows that Malcolm Jenkins has
the most snaps of any player in NFL history, but
he had more snaps last year in thirteen or fourteen
college games than Malcolm Jenkins did in sixteen games, like
he has a chance to shatter the record. What do
you expect from Travis Hunter.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
In year one? Something we've never seen before.
Speaker 8 (32:16):
I don't think we've ever seen somebody play on both
sides of the ball at the clip that he is
going to do it, even watching the mechanics of what
their practices were like. When I was down in training
camp in Jacksonville, watching him off to the side with
defensive coaches while they were going through special teams, having
him switch jerseys in the middle of a practice. We've
never seen anything like this, And it was probably ninety
eight degrees and just disgustingly humid when I was there,
(32:40):
and he looked like he was having the best time
anyone's ever had in a football field, as all of
the rest of us were miserable. The way the amount
of gas he has in the tank. We should study him.
I've never seen anybody like it. And they know that
even beyond the amount of snaps on both sides of
the ball, how much they're going to put him in.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Motion, how many just pure feet he.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
Is going to run over the course of an NFL game,
I want some numbers on that, because I don't think
we've ever seen anything like it before.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Robert Mays from The Athletic Football Show is our guest.
We'll get into the specifics of the Micah thing in
a minute, but I've argued that like holdouts in terms
of missed games, they're not extinct, but they're like an
endangered species. Because the best players get paid. In a
post Leveon Bell world, it doesn't really happen. Chris Jones
is an outlier. We have three of them right now,
(33:29):
Terry McLaurin, Trey Hendrickson, and Micah Parsons. Do you expect
them all to play Week one?
Speaker 8 (33:37):
I do, just because of precedent, and I know you
were talking about Micah before I came on, and I
think the Okham's razor approach to this is typically how
I do it. Like the simplest answer, and the answer
that we've seen before is the answer that we'll see again.
All of them have subtle differences between them, but these
guys are incentivized to play.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
I don't think they want to be missing game checks.
Speaker 8 (33:56):
And every single one of these teams has aspirations for this,
and all of these players are necessary components to that,
so I'll believe it when I see it.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
If none of these guys are on the field week one.
Speaker 8 (34:08):
I just tend to think the way the league currently works,
like you just said, most of this stuff gets sorted
out before the actual games get started.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And that's where I sit with them.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
The McLaurin and Hendrickson ones, though right Like McLaurin, I
can see the argument, well, we know we need to
pay him, but he probably isn't as good as AJ Brown's.
I could see there being some disagreement there. Hendrickson is like, Okay,
we know we need to pay him even though he's
really productive, but he's older, he's on the wrong side
of thirty. I could see there being some disagreement there.
Michael Parsons is just like universally regarded as a top three,
(34:40):
top five defensive player in football for the team that
drafted him coming off of his rookie contract. It should
be easy, but for some reason, Jerry Jones doesn't want
to talk to an agent, even though David Mulgetta has
players that are on the Cowboys. It's all ridiculous. What
do you make of that one specifically, and why this
one has been so difficult to Dallas.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Jerry is p T. Barnum.
Speaker 8 (35:02):
I mean, that's what he has been for way too long,
and the fact that that's his priority right now is
making a spectacle out of this team. If I were
a Cowboys fan, and we are all collectively agreeing that
some of this is to drum up interest for a
Netflix documentary or just to drum up interest for about
the franchise in general, that doesn't need any more publicity.
(35:25):
It's just so hard for me to square the fact
that this is somebody who has openly talked about how
important it is for him to win another Super Bowl
and how much winning matters, and so many of his
actions are directly contradictory to that. If I was a
fan of this team, it would drive me absolutely bonkers.
Just a pure hypocrisy that consistently goes on with the
(35:45):
messaging and the reality of the people that are in
charge of that franchise.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Let's stay in the NFC East. Jackson Dart has looked
good in the preseason, but he's got two veterans in
front of him. He's got a coach and a GM
on the hot seat, and there's schedule is a mess.
When do you expect to see Jackson Dart. I expect
to see him pretty quickly, I really do.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
I just think the way that he's played in the preseason,
how warm and fuzzy Brian Dable seems to feel about this.
I've interacting with Brian Dabeles several times in my life.
Brian Dable is not a warm and fuzzy person. You
watch Brian Dable on the sideline, He's not happy about much,
and he seems to be pretty happy about what he's
getting from Jackson Dart, and you can honestly see it
(36:27):
in the construction of the offense when Jackson Dart is
in there. Brian Dable is somebody that came from the
college game. Before he was the offensive coordinator of the Bills.
He spent a year, that gap year at Alabama that
so many guys seem to spend.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
He's interested in the college game.
Speaker 8 (36:40):
He consistently studies the college game, and you've already seen
some of that old miss stuff get folded into what
the Giants are. I think that on so many different levels,
the Jackson Dart experience has already been energizing for this
team and this coaching staff. The idea that they would
wait a while before tapping into that when Russell Wilson
at this point in his career, to me, is the
(37:02):
opposite of energizing. I think I want to see Jackson
dart pretty quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if the
Giants want to see Jackson Dart pretty quickly.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
All right, So let's go open ended here. You've been
to a bunch of training camps. You cover the NFL
as in depth and as closely as anyone. What's been
the biggest learn for you? The biggest thing, oh man,
I positive, negative, good, whatever surprise that you learned on
this training camp tour.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I would say two things.
Speaker 8 (37:30):
I think it's the collective optimism I had about the
general direction of both the Titans and the Panthers. Those
are two organizations and two teams that really haven't had
any reason for people to think that they're good things
waiting around the corner. And when I left those two buildings,
I think that the process, the way that they've tried
(37:51):
to build the rosters, some of the things they're trying to.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Do with their young quarterbacks. I don't know if it's
going to work.
Speaker 8 (37:57):
I don't know if the Brice young thing is going
to continue based on the same and half of last season.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
I don't know if cam Ward is going to be good.
Speaker 8 (38:03):
These are all things with young quarterbacks that there's a
little bit of murkiness, but what they've tried to do
and how they've tried to go about things in both
of those buildings, I'm looking forward to watching both of
those offenses in Week one, and if you had asked
me that on August twenty second of last year, there's
absolutely no way. So just the general direction and how
(38:24):
much quiet optimism I have about both of those places,
I did not expect that before I walked into both
of those buildings earlier this summer.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
What do you make of a team that's supposed to
compete for a Super Bowl? Gave the Eagles all that
they could handle, but has an injured quarterback and a
bad offensive line. I feel like there's a lot of
boom or bust potential right now with the Rams.
Speaker 8 (38:48):
There's always boom or bust potential with this team, and
they're so hard to talk about because we discussed this
a lot. The Rams get the benefit of the doubt,
where we're consistently talking ourselves into oh, well, in the
best version of this team, look at what they can do.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
We don't do that with anyone else.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
We don't wish for the best version of every other
team consistently. But we've seen the Rams do it before.
They did it when they won the Super Bowl. They
did it for that stretch in twenty twenty three. When
they can thread the needle, they look special, and so
I just think that there's more volatility with that team
than almost any other in the league. I will say
they have built in contingencies with this version of it
(39:25):
they have not had in years past. If you remember
that twenty twenty two season and even that game Stafford missed,
I believe in twenty twenty three when Brett Rippen had
to play in Green Bay. That's why Jimmy Garoppolo is there.
Now they have a backup left tackle in DJ Humphrees.
So I think the floor is slightly higher for the
Rams than it has been in years past when they've
had some of these injuries. But the ceiling also seems
(39:47):
a little bit harder to reach if your thirty seven
year old quarterback is going to have a back injury
coming into this season.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
So this is not a story that you guys would
really do a ton of on the Athletic Football Show.
But I'm just curious, what has your perception been of
the media handling of the Shador Sanders story as it
relates to the validity of it as a football story.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
We know how this stuff works.
Speaker 8 (40:13):
You know, you have to talk about certain things because
there's interest in certain things that the tail wags the
dog a lot when it comes to sports media.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I'm not surprised by this.
Speaker 8 (40:22):
I just think overall, the breathless coverage of every moment
of training camp, training camp stats, who looks good, who
looks bad, it's so misguided most of the time, like
we just don't have a good handle on what is
happening during these practices. You're watching it from the sideline.
You don't have a vantage point of the entire offense.
(40:44):
You can't watch the entire offense, and you can't go
back and watch practice tape to understand any of the
context of what's happening. So they're inevitably there are going
to be so many silly things written and said over
the course of any given training camp, and I think
there's a very good chance most of those in Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Based on how the past month has gone, all right,
last one, Who's winning the Super Bowl?
Speaker 8 (41:09):
It pains me to say it, but I'm probably going
to pick the Ravens. I just think that their best
year is so good right now. I love some of
the little tweaks they made on defense, with the way
they played on the back half of the season on
defense last year, and I think Lamar has reached a
really special level and they have most of those component
parts coming back on offense. They felt like the best
team in the league for stretches of last year and
(41:30):
just couldn't get over the hump. They're probably top to
bottom of the team I believe in the most right now.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
Robert Mays from The Athletic Football Show. I love listen, man,
this was fun.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Thank you anytime, Bud.
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three eastern nine am to
Nune Pacific. Find your local station for the Herd at
Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every
day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio
or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowvert
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome into the Herd.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I'm Danny Parkins in for Colin Cowherd. Always a thrill
to be sitting in the big chair for Colin, who
will be back soon because it's football season. We made it,
though there still is plenty of drama. Tarreon Armstead will
join us in just over twenty minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
In an hour, I'm.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Gonna try to call Colin on the air to remind
him that Caleb Williams is good.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
My guess is he won't pick up.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
We got a lot of things to do and starting Monday,
we'll hear more about it later. Then you expanded first
the first on FS one. I'm thrilled to tell you
about it. I'll be on from five to six Eastern
every single day, and if you've ever watched me or
listened to me, you know that I don't love talking
contracts because generally speaking, they all get done. But the
preseason ends on Saturday, which means it becomes game week
(01:17):
for all these teams, which means it's about to get
real for contract talk. And I got to admit, even
as someone who doesn't like talking money, I don't like
the pocket watch aspect of it. And the vast majority
of these guys ends up signing their deals. I have
to admit that the television producer that doubles as the
general manager of the Dallas Cowboys and the owner and
apparently a star of a documentary. The documentary, by the way,
(01:39):
pretty good, Jerry Jones. He's given us some tremendous color
here on the Micah Parsons stalemate. Negotiations impass and it's
getting wildly unnecessarily ugly in Dallas. But depending on your
point of view, maybe that's exactly what Jerry Jones wants,
because he's just here for the soap opera, the clicks,
(02:02):
and we're feeding into it because here we are on
the biggest show talking about the biggest story and the
biggest team and their best defensive player who remains.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Unsigned, so let's catch you up on it.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Jerry Jones goes on Michael Irvin's YouTube show just yesterday
and he gives us a very colorful update on how
the negotiations are going.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
We wanted to send the details to the agent. The
agent soldiers to stick it up our ass. We had
our agreements on term, amount, guarantees, everything. We were going
to send it over to the agent, and the agent said,
don't bother because we've got all that to negotiate. Well,
lot already negotiate that, already moved off my mark over
(02:46):
several areas. It's the Mama daddy deal. You go into
Mama and she won't do it, and she's the moss
soabos she won't do it, So you run into daddy,
Daddy says do it, and then you go back in
say mom, and Daddy said it was all right.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I don't think that Jerry Jones traffics in the world
of embarrassment very often, but Jerry should be embarrassed. The
agent in question is David Molagetta. David Mullagetta, through multiple
media sources, has put out basically, I'm not going to
do any interviews, but I did not or did anybody
with athletes first as agency tell Jerry Jones of the
(03:29):
Cowboys to stick it with their ass whatever that didn't
come up. So David Mulligetta is disputing the use of
that colorful language. But let's just forget about the language
there that Jerry is addressing.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Here.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Jerry Jones is saying that there is not room in
the negotiation between the Dallas Cowboys and Micah Parsons for
Micah Parsons's agent.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Now, I have an agent. I know most of you don't.
You're lucky.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
That's the only reason we have agents is to do
the negotiation. It's the only reason we pay the commission.
Maybe it's three percent, maybe it's one percent, maybe it's
five percent, maybe it's ten percent, depending on the industry.
For Michael Parsons, it's probably in the neighborhood of one
or two percent. But the point is he pays, arguably
the top agent in football a percentage of what will
(04:22):
be the largest defensive contract in the history of the
NFL to do the negotiation. Jerry did not stop there
because I will get into where I think this actually
ends up here in a minute. But allegations about colorful
language no room in the negotiation for Mikeah Parsons's agent,
Jerry did not stop on his media tour with the
(04:43):
posturing of how he looks at the timeline and to
get a deal done with Michah Parsons.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
We've really got three years to work this thing out.
I did that with Dak and we couldn't agree. So
Dak played his last year of his contract. We franchisee course,
ultimately we got a contract made. Dak has plaid player
in the NFL, so the president is handling it like Dak,
(05:10):
but in this particular case, then Micah comes in and
plays this year under his contract and then done and
it's very costly.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Okay, so no one likes math on TV. But we'll
just let's just go through some facts here for a second.
Michah Parsons is set to make roughly twenty four million
bucks this year, so at the end of that from
the Michael Irvin Show and Jerry Jones, look, if he doesn't,
it's going to be very costly. Jerry Jones is one
hundred percent correct. Every game missed by Micah Parsons is
roughly one point three million dollars. Then Micah Parsons will
(05:45):
not get paid. That's just money you can earn back.
So I think Micah Parsons is going to play Week
one because I think he would rather play for one
point three million dollars than not play and get zero.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
It's a revolutionary thought. That's where I'm at.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Then Jerry saying really takes three years, and he's right,
because there's this year, and then they could franchise Tag
Michah Parsons, and then they could franchise Tag Michah Parsons
again for one hundred and twenty percent of what he'd
be doing to make next year.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Now, the player.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Would be unhappy, and he's already demanded the trade and
scrubbed the Cowboys from all the social media, and frankly,
that's not good for the team to have a premium
player locked into the salary cap because there's no flexibility.
One hundred percent of the dollars are guaranteed. You can't
move it around for salary cap purposes.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
That sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
But I absolutely believe Jerry Jones that he talks to
Micah Parsons about money, that he feels like he even
moved off of his place, and I believe Jerry Jones
that he is willing to make Michael Parsons the highest
paid defensive player in football. But here's what I also
believe that that's not good enough. That if I was
(06:57):
representing Michael Parsons, I wouldn't be saying, well, yeah, I
just have to get a dollar more on the average
annual value of than TJ. Watt just over forty one
million a year, or I just got to get a
dollar more than the largest guarantee ever for a defensive
player in Miles Garrett at one hundred and twenty two
million a year, because those guys are three plus years
(07:18):
older than Michah Parsons. Micah Parsons is going to be
the highest paid defensive player ever. The question is going
to be by how much is he going to shatter
the record for a non quarterback? Is he going to
shatter the record for a defensive player? And there's no
(07:39):
reason for you to get too deep in the weeds
on who these agents are. But David Mouligetta is something
of a cult like figure in NFL circles because he's
the guy who got Deshaun Watson the fully guaranteed contract,
the one hundred percent of your money contract as being guaranteed.
He's the new thing. He's the power broker in the NFL.
(07:59):
He represents Jordan love cj Stroud and a bunch of guys.
But here's another way that I know that Jerry is
not being totally truthful in this entire thing. There are
other players on the Cowboys who are represented by David Mulgetta,
who is Michaeh Parsons agent. So he's been able to
get business done. So when he's talking about this agent
(08:19):
wants to make a name for himself, this agent is
trying to be the big third party in this deal.
There's only room for two parties, me and Micah Parsons.
He's done deals with mullagat his agency before. Mollie Cooker
is on his team this year signed and Jerry Jones,
I know he likes to say that he's the general manager,
(08:40):
and I know he carries the title of general manager,
but no one believes that he's scouting the Senior Bowl
and grinding tape.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
On fifth round prospects.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
He likes it for vanity, he likes it for ego.
Do we really think that when Jake Ferguson signed his
fifty two million dollars deal with Dallas Jerry Jones and
Jake Ferguson drinking some Johnny Walker black and.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Just taggling back and forth.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I think it should be twelve million a year. No,
I think it should be fourteen million year. Now, the
Cowboys negotiator dealt with the player's agent, because that's how
it works.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
So this is very old school.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
This is very If you've watched any of the documentary,
you know, good old boy from Arkansas comes into Texas,
strikes it rich with an oil well buys the Dallas Cowboys.
He bought the Dallas Cowboys for one hundred and forty
million dollars. He's probably gonna have to give Micah Parsons
more than one hundred and forty million dollars. So he
got the team for one hundred and forty million, He's
(09:39):
about to give a player more than one hundred and
forty million. Jerry Jones is living in the Stone Ages.
He's living in the back in the eighties. It's just
not how it's done anymore. And so ultimately this is
all posturing, and I believe that Micah Parsons will be unhappy.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
I thought the host with the Allen.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Iverson quotes and the waving goodbye and the scrubbing of
the social media. Frankly, I thought he was a little late.
That's like a millennial playbook one oh one. You scrub
the social media, you make it like, oh yeah, I'm
real serious. I'm real serious about this trade. I'm real
serious about sitting out games. Chris Jones sat out a
game one. Guys don't sit out games anymore. There's too
(10:26):
much money at stake. This isn't even the EMMITTT. Smith
thing from back in the early nineties where he misses
a couple of games, signs the deal and then the
Cowboys go on to win the Super Bowl. There's just
too much money. These deals get done. So I will
stay where I've been four months on this that this
is publicity for a new season, this is publicity for
(10:47):
a documentary.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
And deadlines make deals. And we saw with.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Dak Prescott, as referenced by Jerry Jones, the deadline was
the opener when he signed that deal. I expect Michael
Parsons to be playing against Philadelphia and this is just
a lot of noise, embarrassing noise, but noise all the same,
which brings us to the other unsigned contracts here because
it's a I will admit it, this is a unique
(11:14):
NFL offseason and that we have three A list Tier
one players who are still unsigned. Terry McLaurin in Washington,
Trey Henderson in Cincinnati, and of course has discussed Micah
Parsons in Dallas. Now, I don't think Dallas is a
super Bowl contender, but they do. Washington obviously think it's
(11:35):
a super Bowl contender. They were in the NFC Championship
Game last year. They had Laramie Tunsel, they had Deebo Samuel,
and Cincinnati knows that they've got a super Bowl caliber offense,
and they scored enough points last year to be a
twelve or thirteen win team, but they only scored nine
because their defense was historically bad. I mean, the Bengals
had a losing record. They were three and four in
(11:57):
games where they scored thirty or more points.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So we'll just go through these.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
I think Terry McLaurin signs in the next seventy two hours.
Generally speaking, preseason will end on Saturday. They'll revisit the
big picture stuff. It'll be game week, and it'll really
be like the game two weeks because with now three
preseason games, there's more time between the end of preseason
and the start of the opener. I just don't believe
that a player who has been as consistently productive for
(12:26):
Washington when they had no one at quarterback is going
to let them have a superstar quarterback on a rookie
deal and not get it done with his number one receiver.
Do I think Terry McLaurin is as good as AJ Brown? No,
but it doesn't matter. He is really, really good. The
guy who signs the deal the most recently always gets
a little bumped because the salary cap goes up. So
(12:48):
I will be shocked if Washington takes the field week
one and Terry McLaurin isn't there. That one is in
the as close to one hundred percent as I can
make it. Jaden Daniels just came out and said he
thought it was going to get done. This one's gonna
get done. Next confident would be Trey Hendrickson and Cincinnati.
I know with Cincinnati, I know they're historically cheap, but
(13:12):
they got Joe Burrow, they paid him. They have t Higgins,
they paid him. They have Jamar Chase, they paid him,
They changed defensive coordinators, They used three of their first
four picks on defensive players.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Apparently they've agreed.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
On how much money per year and how long the
deal is going to be. They haven't agreed to the
biggest part of the deal, which is the guaranteed money.
Reports are that Trey Hendrickson won three years guaranteed, Bengals
only want to do one year guaranteed. My guess is
they settle on about two years guaranteed. Trey Hendrickson has led.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
He's been what.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Seventeen sacks NFL and sacks last year, been seventeen sacks
each of the last two years.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yes, he's thirty, but two.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Years of guaranteed money feels like a reasonable place. And
I can't imagine looking Joe Burrow in the eye and
being like, hey, remember last year when you would.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Score thirty regularly and we would lose. Wants you to
do that again.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
My guess is Hendrickson gets done and then that leaves
Micah again.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I think it works out. I think they get it done.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
I don't think he's gonna be in the business of
giving back one point three million dollars per year, but
at some point Jerry Jones is gonna have to do
what apparently Jerry Jones doesn't want to do, which is
talk to Micah Parsons's legal representation. This is all noise,
it's all unnecessary, it's all unbecoming. But given that we
(14:31):
are still in the season where the games don't count,
it is fodder and at least we know for Jerry,
not for the thirty one other teams like I don't
think anything about the Terry McLaurin contract is because Washington
wants to be in the news cycle. I don't think
anything about the Trey Henderson contract is because they want
to be in the news cycle. But for Dallas, we
have a ton of data, including Jerry Jones's own mouth
(14:54):
in this in the Netflix documentary It's a soap op
with three hundred and sixty five days a year, Jerry
Jones sees value in the drama of dragging this out.
With Micah Parsons coming on next to for Tron Armstead,
Jackson Dart looks good again. Three successful preseason games for
Jackson Dart. I think the Giants plan for now is
(15:16):
the right one. Can they continue it? It's coming up
with the.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Herd be sure to catch live editions of The Herd
weekdays and Noone Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports
Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 6 (15:30):
He's Mike Karma, I'm Dan Bayern. We have a fantasy
football podcast called I Want Your Flex.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
That's right Dan.
Speaker 7 (15:37):
Every week we're going to scour the waiver wire to
find the pickups to turbo boost your fantasy lineup, sit starts,
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the competition.
Speaker 6 (15:48):
Listen to I Want Your Flex with Mike Carmon and
meet Dan Byer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast and
wherever you bet your podcasts.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I am a Bears guy from Chicago. Consider it disclosed.
Caleb Williams was good last year. Anyone who watched every
pass of every game, which I did, would tell you
that he was not good enough. He was not as
(16:15):
great as we thought he was going to be. But
Caleb Williams was good. Best rookie quarterback by the way
in Bear's franchise history, which I agree the bar is
on the floor. That's an easy one to clear, but
it is still true. And the situation that hand up
I got wrong. I said it was the best situation
(16:37):
a number one overall pick had ever walked into.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I was dead wrong.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
About that because how much of a disaster the Matt
eberflu Shane Waldron coaching situation was. And we'll get some
more of that in a second. But Caleb Williams was good.
He wasn't great. But people talk about Caleb Williams like
it's still possible that he could be a bus bust
(17:01):
is off the table.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
He's good. Let's start.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
There's the good, the bad, and the narrative, and I'll
be fair. We'll start with the bad, the obvious bad,
the worst of it, and there were a few. Was
sixty eight sacks. Sixty eight sacks is an absurd number.
Sixty eight sacks is way too many. He did not
fully trust what NFL open was. He held onto the ball.
(17:28):
He was afraid to throw interceptions, and so he would
eat a sack as opposed to trusting his arm talent,
trusting the route, trusting the play did not play on
schedule enough. Sixty eight sacks is unacceptable. He will always
be a higher than average sacked quarterback because of how
much of a big game hunter he is, because of
how mobile he is, because he has that wizardry to
(17:52):
do the second option off angle throws, the improvisation stuff,
but sixty eight is obviously not sustained. And then I
think there was a legit concern, based on what I
knew and people that I talked to around the team,
that Caleb was trying to get by a little bit
too much on just his raw natural talent and didn't
(18:15):
have a complete understanding of what it took Monday through
Saturday to be ready for Sunday. And he was young,
He's a rookie, wasn't a bad guy, wasn't unprofessional. Just
there's an adjustment of what you need to do to
get ready for a college game and what there is
what you need to do to get ready for a
pro game, and that learning curve was there for Caleb.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It was also certainly.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Impacted by the coaching turnover, So I think there was professionalism,
But really the.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Sacks, sixty eight sacks, you can't win.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
The good was he survived, Who's tough as hell. He
played all seventeen games despite being sacked sixty eight times.
He had a three and a half to one touchdown
the interception ratio twenty touchdowns against only six picks. He
threw for over thirty five hundred yards, and he dealt
with everyone talks about the bad coaching, and it was bad.
(19:10):
They fired Shane Walder and his play caller nine games
into the season. And the Bears are a founding charter
franchise in the NFL who had never fired a head
coach in season in their history. And let me tell you,
Mark Tressman deserved it. Guy kicked the field goal on
second down. They finally fired a coach in season because
(19:33):
they feared a mutiny from the team because it got
so bad in season last year.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
But that wasn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
The offensive line situation that Caleb was dealing with. Matt Pryor,
Tevin Jenkins, and Coleman Shelton all started fourteen plus games.
And if you're out there watching or listening, being like,
who are those guys, it's a totally reasonable thing for
you to think Coleman Shelton's going to start at center
this year for the Rams on maybe the worst part
(20:01):
of their team. They're very concerned that they're not going
to be able to keep Matt Stafford healthy, and Tevin
Jenkins and Matt Pryor are now backups in Cleveland, and
Philly respectively, and they all started fourteen or more games
for the Bears last year, so they were starting.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Backups on the offensive line.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
They fired the coach, they fired the play caller, and again,
if you watched, there were moments of undeniable upside, Like
right now in FS one, we're showing highlights from the
Bills game, and I heard reactions to the Bills.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Game being like, whoa Caleb.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Look at the arm talent, look at the mobility, look
at the zip on the ball, look at the Accuracy's like, yeah,
we saw it last year. We didn't see it enough,
We didn't see it consistently enough.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
But he was a rookie.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
And that's where I think the narrative piece is getting
forgotten about last season, because last season went off the
rails for the Bears, more so though for the Bears
than Caleb Williams. They lost ten games in a row,
and how they lost those games started to become so
(21:12):
comical that, understandably, the Bears became a punchline. The Bears
lost the game to Washington on a hail Mary, and
the receiver who caught the ball, his man Tyreek Stevenson,
was literally talking to the crowd when the ball was snapped.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Wasn't even paying attention.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
That's not on Caleb Washington ended up in the NFC
Championship game. The Bears lost the game to Green Bay
by one point on a blocked fields goal, a forty
six yard attempt where they sent to the league office
that the pass rush by the Packers was illegal because
(21:59):
they hit the long snapper over the ball. Wasn't called
whatever it happens missed called, but like that's a thing
that happened. Lost that game by one they hit that
forty six yard field goal as time expires. They would
have swept the season series against Green Bay because they
beat him at Lambeau to end the year. Green Bay
was an eleven win team. Was it on Caleb Williams
(22:21):
when they lost to Minnesota the fourteen win Minnesota Vikings
when Caleb threw for three hundred and forty yards and
two touchdowns and scored twenty seven points against Brian Flores' defense.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
That game on Caleb.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Williams because it feels like, well, it was just another
loss in the midst of a ten.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Game losing streak.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Okay, he took a sack in the possession of overtime.
That was not good, no doubt about it. But again
Brian Flora's defense, fourteen win team, pretty good. Three hundred
and forty passing yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, scored, twenty
seven points, lost in overtime to the Vikings. And then
everyone remembers the Thanksgiving game against the Lions where Matt
(23:07):
Eberflus forgot that he's the head coach and that you're
allowed to call timeouts. They're four yards away from field
goal range, would have sent them to overtime.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
They've got one time out.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
There's a sack that puts them out of field goal range,
so you got to gain the five yards, call the
time out, kick the field goal.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
There was confusion.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
You would like Kleb maybe more situationally.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Aware in that spot.
Speaker 4 (23:31):
Again, a rookie, you would like your coach to help
out the player. There were thirty two seconds left when
he got sacked. They only ran one play the rest
of the game. It was like he was playing out
there with no coaches. So I think if they win
two of those four games and all of a sudden
they are seven and ten instead of five and twelve
with wins over the Vikings.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
And the commanders.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
In addition to their win at the end over the Packers,
You're like, okay, seven and ten ups and downs, the
playoffs took too many sacks, coach got fired instead. It's
I don't know. Is Caleb Williams an NFL player? They
upgraded it right guard, center, left guard, coach, play caller.
(24:16):
They use a top ten pick on Colston lovelin the
tight end, and they use the top forty pick on
Luther Burden a receiver. Both of them looked good in
the preseason opener where the starters played against the Bills.
So last year should be the floor for Caleb Williams.
And by the way, everything that I've heard about Caleb
from this year at camp, him and Ben Johnson, intense relationship,
(24:39):
really taking well to hard coaching, true professional, knows one
hundred percent of what it takes, and he's working his
ass off to be great. So if the floor is
thirty five hundred passing yards and a three and a
half to one touchdown the interception ratio, and he upgraded
sixty percent of his own offensive line, his head coach,
(25:01):
his play caller, his tight end position, and his wide
receiver group, why are we surprised that he let a
touchdown drive against the Bills in the preseason. I just
the discourse has just gone completely insane with them. Oh,
they're sitting him out, They're hiding him, They're afraid.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
They prefer Tyson Paijing.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
Caleb Williams is good, can still be great, and I
think his ceiling is still MVP of the league and
a Super Bowl champion at some point in his career.
And I think people, frankly have really lost the plot
with Caleb Williams and I look forward to seeing him
build on year one in year two with Ben Johnson
(25:44):
should be a very exciting season and a very exciting
next decade for Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears. Coming
up next, Tom Ernucci, one of the top voices in baseball.
The Brewers the best team, but not the best shot
to win a World Series.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
We unpackou, It's all happening coming.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Up The Herd one more Herd. The Herd streams twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week within the
iHeartRadio app. Search Herd to listen live or on demand
whenever you like.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Back in on the Herd on Danny parkins in for
Colin Cowherd. Chris Philika, the Bear joins us in about
twenty minutes. But I'm excited about this joining us now
on the herd.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
The host of the Terrific The.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Athletic Football Show is my buddy Robert Mays. And you know, Robert,
I was thinking about texting you, I was thinking about
calling you, and then I was like, now, let's just
do it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
On national TV. I listened to I listened.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
To your podcast of the twenty twenty four draft class,
and you know you you root for the Bears.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
You're in Chicago.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
You like me, watched every pass of Caleb Williams last year.
But when you did that podcast, you were talking about
how you had thought the most question marks were about Caleb,
and I was surprised. There was definitely plenty of bat.
He was not as good as many of us thought
he was going to be, but there were so many
things that contributed to it. I'm wondering if you are
(27:07):
feeling better after the preseason game against Buffalo.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
It'd be hard not to feel better when you look
at how on time and mechanically sound the offense felt.
Just watching him operate with a level of urgency and
confidence and just the pre snap operation and clearly how
in command of that he feels. I've always had faith
that with Ben Johnson this could be corrected. I watched
what Ben Johnson did with Jared Goff, and I remember
(27:31):
what Jared Goff looked like near the end in Los Angeles.
So I think there's a big gap that Caleb has
to close based on how he played last year. But
when you'd go from the worst possible circumstances in terms
of how the offense is being articulated to a quarterback,
the intent of certain plays to what is going to
be one of the best situations in the NFL, when
(27:51):
it comes to all that stuff, you can see a
drastically different result. So I think that I was a
little bit worried about some of that stuff last year.
I absolutely still have faith that it can get cleaned
up with the right coaching, and I think Ben Johnson
is the right coach.
Speaker 4 (28:05):
So what do you believe Caleb believe it is not
necessarily this year, But where do you have him in
terms of a ceiling? What can he still become? It's
a great question.
Speaker 8 (28:14):
I don't know exactly where I land on that because
I don't know how many quarterbacks are like him in
the NFL that are actually analogous to him when it
comes to play style and what he's bringing to the table.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
But if you told me, I think this is it currently.
Speaker 8 (28:27):
Stands in the NFL, the NFL quarterback hierarchy, when you
get outside of the top four guys, I think it's
pretty muddled. I think that group between like five and
fifteen right now is very fluid where there's going to
be a lot of risers and followers over the next
couple of years. If you told me at the end
of the twenty twenty sixth season that Caleb Williams was
the eighth best quarterback in the league, I would believe
(28:49):
that a lot of stuff would have to go right
for it to happen. But I think that tier, especially
right now, is kind of there for the taking, depend
on how depending on how the next couple seasons go.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
So he's a part of this twenty twenty four draft class,
And I said earlier in the show, I think it's
trending that it'll be arguably the most successful draft class
in NFL history, not in terms of Super Bowls or
anything like that, but in terms of teams just getting
it right. The twenty twenty class had five guys who
signed second contracts with the team that drafted them, which
(29:22):
is an NFL record. I know it's early, but I
feel like they're going to go six for six in
the first rounds. Do you look at last year's QB
classes potentially an all time one?
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I do. Obviously.
Speaker 8 (29:34):
JJ McCarthy is probably the biggest question mark, just because
we haven't seen him play, but all the other guys,
even with only a glimpse at Michael Pennock's I'm really
excited about what Michael Pennock showed last year. So the guy,
if you look at the numbers that was the least
efficient any events metric you want to take a look
at last year. Among that entire group was Caleb Williams,
and we just talked about the collective optimism that I
(29:56):
think is justified. With Caleb Williams, what you saw from
Jane Daniels undeniable bo Nix was so much better than
anybody could have expected. Drake May if you look at
the scenario in New England and the personnel in New
England that should have been day, they should have had
absolutely no shock or even be a competent offense, and
if you.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Look at those numbers, Drake may was able to actually.
Speaker 8 (30:16):
Have a functional NFL offense with that group, which is
a borderline miracle.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
So we'll see what happens this year.
Speaker 8 (30:22):
I think there are still reasonable questions about all of
these guys, but the arrow is pointed way way up
in a way that we just don't typically see with
a group as a whole.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
So I want to talk to you about Trevor Lawrence
because he is the same age as Bo Nix and
Michael Pennox, who are in that quarterback class. But he's
on his third head coach, he's had four first round
picks on the offensive side of the ball that he's
been there. He gets Liam Cohane, who helped Baker Mayfield.
To me, this feels like the last stand for Trevor Lawrence.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
To prove that he can be that guy.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
How do you look at it now with the situation
that he's in Jacksonville.
Speaker 8 (31:01):
I think that's a great way to frame it. And
if he's not going to succeed in these circumstances and
they're not perfect the offensive line, they're shooting for the
middle of the road even and if that turns out well.
But when you think about the construction of the offense
and how hard it felt in Jacksonville over the last
couple of years, and how easy it felt for Baker
Mayfield in Tampa last year, it's just a drastically different
(31:22):
situation in what you're requiring of the quarterback.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And it's funny.
Speaker 8 (31:25):
We're doing the AFC South preview on our show today
and for each team, we're talking about what is success,
and for me and the Jags, part of their successful
twenty twenty five would be that we never see Trevor
Lawrence's name on a bottom third cry on ever again.
And so the fact that we're doing this right now,
I think speaks to what we don't want to be
doing by the end of this season.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
That's an interesting way to frame it. I do think
the most interesting guy maybe in the NFL this year
is his teammate Travis Hunter. I've argued that he's going
to set the snap record as a rookie.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Which is a weird record.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I know that not everybody knows that Malcolm Jenkins has
the most snaps of any player in NFL history, but
he had more snaps last year in thirteen or fourteen
college games than Malcolm Jenkins did in sixteen games, like
he has a chance to shatter the record. What do
you expect from Travis Hunter.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
In year one? Something we've never seen before.
Speaker 8 (32:16):
I don't think we've ever seen somebody play on both
sides of the ball at the clip that he is
going to do it, even watching the mechanics of what
their practices were like. When I was down in training
camp in Jacksonville, watching him off to the side with
defensive coaches while they were going through special teams, having
him switch jerseys in the middle of a practice. We've
never seen anything like this, And it was probably ninety
eight degrees and just disgustingly humid when I was there,
(32:40):
and he looked like he was having the best time
anyone's ever had in a football field, as all of
the rest of us were miserable. The way the amount
of gas he has in the tank. We should study him.
I've never seen anybody like it. And they know that
even beyond the amount of snaps on both sides of
the ball, how much they're going to put him in.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Motion, how many just pure feet he.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
Is going to run over the course of an NFL game,
I want some numbers on that, because I don't think
we've ever seen anything like it before.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Robert Mays from The Athletic Football Show is our guest.
We'll get into the specifics of the Micah thing in
a minute, but I've argued that like holdouts in terms
of missed games, they're not extinct, but they're like an
endangered species. Because the best players get paid. In a
post Leveon Bell world, it doesn't really happen. Chris Jones
is an outlier. We have three of them right now,
(33:29):
Terry McLaurin, Trey Hendrickson, and Micah Parsons. Do you expect
them all to play Week one?
Speaker 8 (33:37):
I do, just because of precedent, and I know you
were talking about Micah before I came on, and I
think the Okham's razor approach to this is typically how
I do it. Like the simplest answer, and the answer
that we've seen before is the answer that we'll see again.
All of them have subtle differences between them, but these
guys are incentivized to play.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
I don't think they want to be missing game checks.
Speaker 8 (33:56):
And every single one of these teams has aspirations for this,
and all of these players are necessary components to that,
so I'll believe it when I see it.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
If none of these guys are on the field week one.
Speaker 8 (34:08):
I just tend to think the way the league currently works,
like you just said, most of this stuff gets sorted
out before the actual games get started.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And that's where I sit with them.
Speaker 4 (34:18):
The McLaurin and Hendrickson ones, though right Like McLaurin, I
can see the argument, well, we know we need to
pay him, but he probably isn't as good as AJ Brown's.
I could see there being some disagreement there. Hendrickson is like, Okay,
we know we need to pay him even though he's
really productive, but he's older, he's on the wrong side
of thirty. I could see there being some disagreement there.
Michael Parsons is just like universally regarded as a top three,
(34:40):
top five defensive player in football for the team that
drafted him coming off of his rookie contract. It should
be easy, but for some reason, Jerry Jones doesn't want
to talk to an agent, even though David Mulgetta has
players that are on the Cowboys. It's all ridiculous. What
do you make of that one specifically, and why this
one has been so difficult to Dallas.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
Jerry is p T. Barnum.
Speaker 8 (35:02):
I mean, that's what he has been for way too long,
and the fact that that's his priority right now is
making a spectacle out of this team. If I were
a Cowboys fan, and we are all collectively agreeing that
some of this is to drum up interest for a
Netflix documentary or just to drum up interest for about
the franchise in general, that doesn't need any more publicity.
(35:25):
It's just so hard for me to square the fact
that this is somebody who has openly talked about how
important it is for him to win another Super Bowl
and how much winning matters, and so many of his
actions are directly contradictory to that. If I was a
fan of this team, it would drive me absolutely bonkers.
Just a pure hypocrisy that consistently goes on with the
(35:45):
messaging and the reality of the people that are in
charge of that franchise.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
Let's stay in the NFC East. Jackson Dart has looked
good in the preseason, but he's got two veterans in
front of him. He's got a coach and a GM
on the hot seat, and there's schedule is a mess.
When do you expect to see Jackson Dart. I expect
to see him pretty quickly, I really do.
Speaker 8 (36:07):
I just think the way that he's played in the preseason,
how warm and fuzzy Brian Dable seems to feel about this.
I've interacting with Brian Dabeles several times in my life.
Brian Dable is not a warm and fuzzy person. You
watch Brian Dable on the sideline, He's not happy about much,
and he seems to be pretty happy about what he's
getting from Jackson Dart, and you can honestly see it
(36:27):
in the construction of the offense when Jackson Dart is
in there. Brian Dable is somebody that came from the
college game. Before he was the offensive coordinator of the Bills.
He spent a year, that gap year at Alabama that
so many guys seem to spend.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
He's interested in the college game.
Speaker 8 (36:40):
He consistently studies the college game, and you've already seen
some of that old miss stuff get folded into what
the Giants are. I think that on so many different levels,
the Jackson Dart experience has already been energizing for this
team and this coaching staff. The idea that they would
wait a while before tapping into that when Russell Wilson
at this point in his career, to me, is the
(37:02):
opposite of energizing. I think I want to see Jackson
dart pretty quickly, and I wouldn't be surprised if the
Giants want to see Jackson Dart pretty quickly.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
All right, So let's go open ended here. You've been
to a bunch of training camps. You cover the NFL
as in depth and as closely as anyone. What's been
the biggest learn for you? The biggest thing, oh man,
I positive, negative, good, whatever surprise that you learned on
this training camp tour.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I would say two things.
Speaker 8 (37:30):
I think it's the collective optimism I had about the
general direction of both the Titans and the Panthers. Those
are two organizations and two teams that really haven't had
any reason for people to think that they're good things
waiting around the corner. And when I left those two buildings,
I think that the process, the way that they've tried
(37:51):
to build the rosters, some of the things they're trying to.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Do with their young quarterbacks. I don't know if it's
going to work.
Speaker 8 (37:57):
I don't know if the Brice young thing is going
to continue based on the same and half of last season.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
I don't know if cam Ward is going to be good.
Speaker 8 (38:03):
These are all things with young quarterbacks that there's a
little bit of murkiness, but what they've tried to do
and how they've tried to go about things in both
of those buildings, I'm looking forward to watching both of
those offenses in Week one, and if you had asked
me that on August twenty second of last year, there's
absolutely no way. So just the general direction and how
(38:24):
much quiet optimism I have about both of those places,
I did not expect that before I walked into both
of those buildings earlier this summer.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
What do you make of a team that's supposed to
compete for a Super Bowl? Gave the Eagles all that
they could handle, but has an injured quarterback and a
bad offensive line. I feel like there's a lot of
boom or bust potential right now with the Rams.
Speaker 8 (38:48):
There's always boom or bust potential with this team, and
they're so hard to talk about because we discussed this
a lot. The Rams get the benefit of the doubt,
where we're consistently talking ourselves into oh, well, in the
best version of this team, look at what they can do.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
We don't do that with anyone else.
Speaker 8 (39:03):
We don't wish for the best version of every other
team consistently. But we've seen the Rams do it before.
They did it when they won the Super Bowl. They
did it for that stretch in twenty twenty three. When
they can thread the needle, they look special, and so
I just think that there's more volatility with that team
than almost any other in the league. I will say
they have built in contingencies with this version of it
(39:25):
they have not had in years past. If you remember
that twenty twenty two season and even that game Stafford missed,
I believe in twenty twenty three when Brett Rippen had
to play in Green Bay. That's why Jimmy Garoppolo is there.
Now they have a backup left tackle in DJ Humphrees.
So I think the floor is slightly higher for the
Rams than it has been in years past when they've
had some of these injuries. But the ceiling also seems
(39:47):
a little bit harder to reach if your thirty seven
year old quarterback is going to have a back injury
coming into this season.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
So this is not a story that you guys would
really do a ton of on the Athletic Football Show.
But I'm just curious, what has your perception been of
the media handling of the Shador Sanders story as it
relates to the validity of it as a football story.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
We know how this stuff works.
Speaker 8 (40:13):
You know, you have to talk about certain things because
there's interest in certain things that the tail wags the
dog a lot when it comes to sports media.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I'm not surprised by this.
Speaker 8 (40:22):
I just think overall, the breathless coverage of every moment
of training camp, training camp stats, who looks good, who
looks bad, it's so misguided most of the time, like
we just don't have a good handle on what is
happening during these practices. You're watching it from the sideline.
You don't have a vantage point of the entire offense.
(40:44):
You can't watch the entire offense, and you can't go
back and watch practice tape to understand any of the
context of what's happening. So they're inevitably there are going
to be so many silly things written and said over
the course of any given training camp, and I think
there's a very good chance most of those in Cleveland.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Based on how the past month has gone, all right,
last one, Who's winning the Super Bowl?
Speaker 8 (41:09):
It pains me to say it, but I'm probably going
to pick the Ravens. I just think that their best
year is so good right now. I love some of
the little tweaks they made on defense, with the way
they played on the back half of the season on
defense last year, and I think Lamar has reached a
really special level and they have most of those component
parts coming back on offense. They felt like the best
team in the league for stretches of last year and
(41:30):
just couldn't get over the hump. They're probably top to
bottom of the team I believe in the most right now.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
Robert Mays from The Athletic Football Show. I love listen, man,
this was fun.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Thank you anytime, Bud.
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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