Mike Florio of PFT Joins Softy and Dick.

Mike Florio from PFT joins the show to talk about the passing of Jerry West, the Aaron Rodgers situation, and much more.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's time for a weekly conversation withPro Football Talks Mike Florio, brought to
you by Simply Seattle. Tired ofbuying and repping the same old Seattle sports
gear everyone else has. For thebest Storm, Seahawks, Mariners, Kraken,
Rainiers, Sounders, and not tomention, the largest sonics collection in
the world, check out simply Seattledot Com. Now with Mike Florio,

(00:21):
Here's SOFTI and Dick. He isa genuine butthole. All right, here
we go. What a pleasure man. Went on an honor every single Wednesday
at this time to get to talkto one of the premier sports writers this
country has to offer. We referto him as the king of all NFL
media, the heavyweight champion of theNFL Press Corps from the NFL and NBC
Pro Football Talk dot Com. Ourbuddy, Michael Florio, how are you

(00:44):
pelle buttholes? Not much? Heis a genuine butthole. Hey, before
we talk football, I gotta getyour thoughts as a West Virginian on the
passing of Jerry West who I sawyou tweeting about him today. Maybe the
greatest athlete, greatest sports figure toever come out of your state, but
as a as a West Virginia Inyour thoughts on the passing of Jerry West

(01:07):
Zeke from Cavin Creek, Yeah,I'd say he's number one, with Randy
Moss number two, at least athletically. Plenty of folks from West Virginia have
accomplished great things. We're on thewrong end of a lot of stereotypes,
so we take extra pride when somebodyfrom West Virginia crosses beyond the boundaries of
the state improves on the national levelthat the folks here are no different than
folks anywhere else. West Virginia isone of the best kept secrets in the

(01:30):
entire country, and it's kind ofgood that people look down their noses at
it's because that means they stay thehell out, which from a tourism standpoint,
I probably should not be feeling thatway about. But I don't want
the state to be overall with abunch of people who show up and realize
how great it is and decide tostay. So bottom line, Jerry West
one of the all time greats outof West Virginia. It was a surprise.

(01:53):
It was sad, and I mean, my father in law is about
his age and he became a Lakersfan the year that Jerry West became a
member of the Lakers, and he'sbeen a diehard Bakers fan ever since.
So strong connections there to West Virginiaand a sad day for all of us.
I know we have a lot offootball to talk about, but since
we're talking about West Virginia. Isaw your tweet today, You're going to

(02:13):
buy that building that your dad's oldbar was in. You know, I
think buying the building is going tobe a hell of a lot cheaper than
what owning the building would mean becauseI remember when my dad's boy was in
there, it wasn't a hotel then. They haven't had hotel rooms that were
available to the public for at leastfifty years. So my guess is above
the ground floor, it's pretty rough. Yeah, but I'd love to buy

(02:37):
and bring my dad's bar back andput a restaurant in there. And I'd
love to do it. There isn'tenough time for me to do it,
but you know, I'm curious tosee what it goes for because I think
it's going to go very cheap.That the issue is going to be what
happens when you you know when youcatch that fish and pull it into the
boat. Good Luck's right, Yeah, it's right. Well, I'll tell

(02:58):
you what if you if you buythat bar your grand opening, Dick and
I will come down a show,do a radio show live and bring millions
of people with us, all right, which means millions of dollars, So
you can count on us. Powell, We're there for you. But Michael
Florio with us, you're gonna you'regonna, You're gonna have planeloads of people
come from Seattle to Wheeling, westgeYeah, okay, Yes, it's gonna
be like Field of Dreams. They'llshow up and have no idea why.

(03:21):
They'll just go. They will gobecause Softie and Dick tell them to.
Hey, what the hell is AaronRodgers doing for a guy that blew his
achilles out in Game one? Youwould think he'd be all in to make
up for lost time from last year. Now he's not. A Jets MIDI
caamp. What do you make ofthat story? Well, I mean this
is something that was poorly handled bythe Jets at every level pr strategically,

(03:44):
scheduling, planning. If we accepttheir version that they leaked I believe to
one of the reporters that covers theteam that Rogers has been planning this trip
for months and the team's known aboutit, and it just so happened,
and conflicted with the many camps,they couldn't then the name story minichamp last
week. Teams do it last week, they do it this week. They
could have done Ota this week,a mandatory mini camp last week, and

(04:08):
it would have been no big deal. They could have said it was an
excused absence. There are players ona lot of teams that are excused from
mandatory mini caamp. The Seahawks punterexcused he's getting married. Packers have three
guys, excuse the Jaguars excused mostof their veterans. You can excuse the
absence if you want to. Thatguy. They had to do and I

(04:28):
think the Jets would say, well, it was going to be a big
deal no matter what. Well,it wasn't going to be any worse.
If Robert Sala had said yesterday thatthe absence is excused, it's a little
bit of a story. It's nobig deal. The team's fine with it.
You come out and say he's beenhere for the entire voluntary off season
program. That's something he hasn't doneforever. We decided to excuse his absence
from a mandatory minicamp. When yousay unexcused and he's going to be fined,

(04:51):
it just creates unnecessary drama. Andit highlights what he said January eighth
of twenty twenty four, his lastmeeting availability before the end of the season,
how this year's got to be allabout winning and winning, winning,
winning, not part of the time, not some of the time, not
most of the time, but allof the time and any bs. And
he said, the whole word thatisn't related to winning has to get out

(05:13):
of the building. So here heis not present for the two days in
the offseason to the centerpiece of theprogram, the two mandatory days fifty thousand
dollars in fines. Not that that'sanything to him, but he just is
a message of hypocrisy from Rogers whowants things to be done a certain way,
but isn't willing to do him himself. I thought it was odd that

(05:34):
Robert Slack came out and said,you know, the players have no problem
with it. Well, how doeshe know how the players really feel?
That probably some of them are probablypissed off that Aaron Rodgers isn't there.
So how big of a football dealis this going forward? Is this just
a pr mess which is not reallya big deal with the team, or
does this trickle into becoming a problemwith the team? Well, teams love

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to say nothing to see here.They love to play that card. And
one thing I've noticed they say thatthe New York media is all Russ and
tumble bear nickols. You know they'renot. They're not. No one asked
Sala yesterday or today? Where ishe? What's the act he did in
an event that's very important to him? That's all Solace said. There was
no follow up, Well, whatis it? Where is he? And

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I think that's a fair question becausewe're entitled to make the objective assessments,
whether or not a the reason forhim to prioritize that or being at work,
and Slas said today, yeah,it's not an issue inside the building.
The players didn't even know until yesterday. Think about that from just an
overall handling your locker room standpoint.They didn't tell the players. Tyrod Taylor,

(06:44):
who ended up being QB one atthe mandatory mini camp both days,
had no heads up that he wasgoing to be QB one until he shows
up and he's not there. Andyou get ninety guys on the team right
now, some of those guys yesterday, when they found out the delicate genius
was not there without notice to them, they're going to feel a little resentful
about it. How would they not? Why would they not? I think
that's a reasonable reaction. So,look, dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things,

(07:09):
and the Jets have dysfunctioned this entirething up with the way they've handled it,
And it shouldn't surprise you when youconsider the team's history. They don't
make good decisions about how to handletheir business. Mike Florio, who always
makes the best decisions possible, iswith us on the air. Courtesy is
simply Seattle. So I saw whereSam Darnold is going to be the starter

(07:30):
going into training camp for Minnesota inJuly, but that doesn't mean he'll start
the opener. How much of ashot do you give JJ McCarthy to win
that job and start week one forMinnesota. Well, you know a lot
of times what happens is when youbring in a rookie quarterback, he's deliberately
put farther down on the depth chart, with the goal of him proving to

(07:55):
himself and everyone else that he belongs, that he's earned the starting job.
Remember when the Dolphins did debt RyanTannehill twelve years ago, made him number
three on the depth chart, andhe worked his way up and there's no
perception he's be handed anything. Andyou know, the reality is Sam Donald
is not a bad quarterback. Hegot started with the Jets, the afore
mentioned dysfunctional Jets. Christian Hackenberg recentlysaid when he entered the league is the

(08:18):
second round pick with the Jets,that that screwed him up. You know,
they screwed up Zach Wilson. Ithink they would have found a way
to screw up Halfrick Mahomes in NewYork. So Donald has never really had
a chance to settle in and playwith a properly functioning team. Last year,
he almost got the chance when BrockPerdy had a concussion after losing the
Vikings on a Monday night. Ferdygot cleared and was good to go the

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following Sunday, so we didn't seeDonald in the San Francisco offense. This
is a team that's got a quarterbackfriendly offense, a head coach who is
a great play designer and play caller, and Sam Donald can sling it.
So you know, when you're outthere on the practice field and yeah,
you've gone all in with JJ McCarthyas your quarterback of the future, you

(09:00):
get this same Donald guy who isfiring lasers all over the place. You're
gonna have to prove that you deserveto be the starter. So I look,
I'm a firm believer in getting ayoung quarterback on the field asap because
you need to give him the repsand the experience and the ability to let
the game slow down. See differentdefenses, be in different situations and learn
that way. But you know,they're also trying to win football games,

(09:24):
and if Donald gives them the betterchance to win, it wouldn't surprise me
If Kevin O'Connell goes that way.Mike Tomlin just got an extension. Meanwhile
Pete Carroll gets fired. Why thedivergent outcomes for two coaches that seem so
similar in resume and in some oftheir like motivational strengths as well. Well,

(09:46):
I think that if if Pete Carrollwas twenty years younger, then maybe
it wouldn't happen. Agism is areal thing in the NFL. It doesn't
get talked about a lot weight.Phillips believes he got pushed out from his
career coordinator jobs because you know,he was on the wrong side of seventy.
So I think that there's a potentialfor that. And in Pittsburgh,

(10:07):
you know, it's kind of likeget You get a new hairstyle in high
school and people compliment it, soyou keep it the rest of your life.
Like their thing is we never changecoaches, so that's their identity,
that's they're never I feel like theydon't want to ever get away from three
coaches since nineteen sixty nine. SoI think they're more patient with Tomlin than

(10:30):
the otherwise would be. They likethat that's their thing, that's their hairstyle
that everybody compliments all these years later. So I think that's a big part
of it. And I also thinkTomlin is a better coach than he gets
credit for. I think he's beenoperating to a certain extent with one hand
tied behind his back. Because ownershipis low key, very involved in the
Steelers organization. I don't think thetalent is where it needs to be.

(10:52):
This is a team that always getsbetter on the fly as Tomlin gets them
to play better than the sum ofthe parts. And I know, very
respected around the league because you'll haveguys leave Pittsburgh. And this isn't just
Antonio Brown. There have been others. They end up with other teams and
the coaches are like, I hadno idea. This guy was a pain
in the ass. I had noidea because Mike Tomlin keeps those guys from

(11:15):
manifesting bad behavior. I think heknows how to get through to every player
and they all want his approval andhe gets the most out of all of
them. And there's a lot ofSteelers fans that aren't happy about it.
But the minute he would be fired, unlike Pete Carroll, and I thought
Pete Carroll should have gotten a shotwith the Chargers of somewhere else, Mike
Tomlin would be hired immediately if theSteelers ever fired him. Yeah, all

(11:37):
right, man, love having youon. I hope you buy the bar.
I got a great name, bythe way, for the bar.
If you do buy it, youready, buttholes, buttholes, but holds.
I just imagine answer the phone,what's up? Buttholes Yeah, Buttholes
not. It's right there for you, Mike, right. Thanks