December 3, 2025 • 12 mins
Mike Florio of PFT joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the Browns’ situation with Deshaun Watson, the NFL contenders including the Patriots right now, what the future holds for the Steelers and Mike Tomlin, plus Mike Vrabel’s big success.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time for a weekly conversation with Pro Football Talks
Mike Florio, brought to you by Simply Seattle. Tired of
buying and repping the same old Seattle sports gear everyone
else has. For the best Storm, Seahawks, Mariners, Kraken, Rainiers, Sounders,
and not to mention, the largest Sonics collection in the world,
check out simply Seattle dot com now with Mike Florio.
(00:21):
Here's Softy and Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
All right, here we go big thanks to our friends
at simply Seattle dot com. They're simply good campaign.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Going on right now.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They got hoodies for twenty five bucks. You buy one
for twenty five bucks in a portrait of the sales
will go to help the Fred Hutchinson Foundation. Man so
a great thing that Jamie and his wife are doing
over there at simply Seattle. Get your Christmas shopping done online.
Crack it all out right now. Use code KJR fifteen
for fifteen percent off anything at simply Seattle dot com.
(00:49):
Here he is the King, the undisputed heavyweight champion, baby
of the NFL media Corps, our friend ProFootball Talk dot com,
the NFL at NBC host Mike Florio.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
How are you man, when is it too early to
say Happy Holidays?
Speaker 5 (01:05):
Is it too early? No, not at all. Okay, I'm
not saying it. I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I mean I start saying it after Halloween, to be
honest with you, because you're in November. Thanksgiving is three
and a half weeks away. It's the holiday season at
my house, So I say it's starting on November first.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, a long time ago, the day after Thanksgiving was
the start of the Christmas season. But over time, you know,
the commercials start, the decorations go off. You got a
generation of kids who have grown up thinking it starts
November one, So.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
What the hell?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
It's the time of the year where everybody in theory
is a little bit nicer for the most part, most
people with exceptions. Yeah, and you know, it just feels different.
It's a good way to ease into the winter months,
having two months of something different than the usual rough
and tumble reality.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, speaking of different, I saw where the Browns designated
Deshaun Watson to come back from the pup list. Is
there a chance that we see him play at all
this season for the Browns?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
This is on my list of things that I need
to delve into All that has happened is they've opened
a twenty.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
One day practice window.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
We've got four and a half weeks left in the
regular season, the Browns have been eliminated from playoff consideration.
This may just be a chance for him to come
back and practice, to come back and get on the
field and.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Spend three weeks and extra.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Body they're paying anyway without him being placed on the
active roster. How it works is after twenty one days,
they either have to put him on the roster or
put him on season ending physically unable to perform less.
I think that's what they're going to do because there's
an insurance angle to his contract, and I think if
he plays this year, I think they jeopardize some of
(02:50):
that insurance money that helps geffray the cap charge, the
massive cap charge that they still have to take for
his contract.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
They've managed to push.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
A lot of these dollars into future years and they
get some cash back, they get some cap space. But
I think one of the keys is him not playing
this year, not being on the active roster. So I
expect he's going to practice for three weeks and then
they're going to shut him down and he'll.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Be back next year.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
They won't cut him because of the cap consequences of
cutting him. He'll be on the roster next year, He'll
finish out his contract, and then he'll leave in free
agency in twenty twenty seven and we'll see if anybody
wants to give him an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Mike, there are ten teams on the top of the
Super Bowl odds board at plus seventeen hundred or better.
That is unbelievable. But are there any teams in your
mind that legitimately look like Super Bowl championship teams that
have the least amount of red flags? Because it just
seems like there's a ton of teams with a lot
of red flags.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yeah, and every time we think this team is the
best team in the league, something happens.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
The Rams.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
After punishing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday Night, Week twelve,
they go to Carolina and they lose to the Panthers,
and that throws everything into flux the Bronco so they
are the official team that plays with their food every
week but still finds a way to win, much like
the Chiefs of last year did.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
And then you got the Patriots. The thing that impressed
me about the Patriots on Monday Night.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
They came out going into their bye week on the
tail end of Thanksgiving Week, and I submit to you
that for many teams, the Thanksgiving holiday becomes a problem
because it's an important day of the work week and
it's not a full work day, and you have to
manage around that, and guys can lose their focus. And
I think might be able to challenge them to go
out there and send a message on Monday Night about
(04:33):
what they're going to be in the final four games
they come back and play the Bills and Ravens back
to back weeks before they have two winnable games to
wrap things up. The degree of violence that we saw
they hitting, the intensity. They have their foot on the
gas pedal and they're not going to slip their foot off.
They are mashing it to the ground. So I think
the Patriots they'll be out of sight, out of mind
(04:54):
for a weekend because this is the final bye week
when they come back for Bill's Ravens up an eye
on what they bring to the table because I think
they recognize the one seed is within reach and they're
going to do everything they can to go get it.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Mike Aaron Rodgers kind of going after the Steelers wide receivers.
I think it was you that wrote on the website
yesterday that Mike Tomlin has not been asked for his
thoughts on what Aaron Rodgers said about the receiving corps.
How close to a disaster is this turning into in
Pittsburgh in your mind?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well, Rodgers met with reporters today and no one asked
him about it. When he comes out and says, in
response to the last question posed to him in the
postgame press conference after they lost the embarrassing fashion of
the Bills twenty six to seven, he says, when asked
what can we do to get more consistency out of.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
The passing game, etc. He says, when there's a film session,
show up.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
When I tell you to run the right route, run
the right route, and he implied a lot of things,
and think about the storm that it created in Miami.
When to a Tonga Bay loa unsolicited called out teammates
for either being late to or not showing up for
player only film session and it was crying out for
further questioning.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
But this is what happens with a press conference. You
have a.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Collection of reporters, and they all wait for somebody else
to be the jerk that asks the tough question, and
then none of them do it, and that I think
is collectively malpracticed. Individually, it's hard to blame anyone person
because everybody's standing around with it for someone else asked
the question. But it's embarrassing for the people who covered
the Steelers that there was no follow up about what
should have been the story of the week in Pittsburgh
(06:27):
for Tomlin or for.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Rogers if they don't win the division in Pittsburgh? Is
he gone? As Tomlin gone? And if so, where do
you think the best fit for him would be?
Speaker 4 (06:38):
You know, I've lived in and around Pittsburgh my whole life.
I'm currently sitting one hundred miles south exactly of Akershuer Stadium,
And over the past ten years, fifteen years, anytime the
Steelers lose two or three games in a row, there's
a chunk of a fan base that starts agitating for
Tomlin to go, and it never gets any traction because
the Steelers aren't.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Going to fire him.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
That's been the narrative the Steelers of the team that's
had three coaches since nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
It's their thing.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
It's that high school jacket that someone complemented them on
and they've never taken it off, like that is the
thing that makes them different from all the other teams.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
But this year feels different.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And when you've got the fire Tomlin chant breaking out
at a Steelers game, when you've got booing during their
iconic renegade moment that the Seahawks, by the way, co
opted made their own back in Week two, when the
Steelers lost the Seahawks thirty one to fourteen. I believe
the score was at home in their home opener. When
these kinds of things are happening, it feels like it's
just time for a change. And I think what happens
(07:35):
is because it's very rare that somebody stays this long
with one team. You get to a point where I
think you fall into a comfortable rut where you recognize,
you know what, why am I going to get myself
ulcers over this game or that game, or playoff positioning
or this, and that we're going to be good enough,
We're gonna win enough games, we're going to cash our checks,
we're going to make our money, and we'll come back and.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Do it again next year. Yeah, and you know they're winning.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Like every team says our goal is to win the
Super Bowl, the truth is the goal is to be
relevant in December when the stadiums could otherwise be empty,
when the kids are making their Christmas list and they
want jerseys of the local football team. You want to
be competitive every December, and the Steelers are.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
That's a win. Whether you make it.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
To the playoffs, whether you win playoff games, that's just gravy.
But as long as you're relevant past Thanksgiving, your winning,
you're making money and you can stave off the mutiny.
What they need to be concerned about this year is
the mutiny. And think of it this way. If they
lose the Ravens on Sunday in Baltimore, they have a
Monday night.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Game against the Dolphins on the fifteenth of December.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
If I'm a season ticket holder of the Pittsburgh Steels,
I'm not going out there and freezing my ass off
on December fifteenth to watch the Dolphins and the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Ten days before Christmas. I got other things to do.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I'll watch it at home and I'll finish up the
tree or do whatever else it is. I need to
do and I'm not going out there and subjecting myself
to it. And if they have a bunch of no
shows that night, that's a red flag not for my Toma,
but the owner.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
We need to second.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, they haven't won a playoff game with him in
almost ten years. Twenty sixteen, I saw where Ben Roethlisberger
and James Harrison both came out what yesterday or today
and said maybe it's time for a change in Big
Ben actually floating the idea of him taking the Penn
State job, which for Penn State would be a coup.
Are you kid meeting to get Mike Tomlin to coach?
Do you think he would ever step down to go
to Penn State?
Speaker 5 (09:20):
I mean, you know him better than me.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Is he that kind of guy?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Well, four years ago he was asked about rumors that
had bubbled up linking him to USC when that job
was open, and he said never say never, but never.
As it relates to coaching in college, I think that
the more likely outcome is he ends up with another
NFL team.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Andy Reid is the name that gets mentioned the most often.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
You just get to a point where it's time for
a change, and whether it's a trade, it's not really
a trade because the coach ultimately controls what happens. Because
the coach doesn't want to be traded. If he doesn't
want to go to the team that's trying to trade
for him, it can't happen. And I think at this point,
when you consider nineteen years together, the Steelers should just
release him. It should be a true mutual We hear
(10:00):
mutual parting all the time, and we know that it's baloney.
The guy was fired, but they're trying to save some faith.
This should be a true mutual parting. He goes wherever
he wants to go, His next team isn't burdened by
whatever draft picks they'd have to give up to get him,
and everybody moves on and starts over. Now.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
I don't know who the Steelers would hire to be
their coach. That's the other side of it, And that's
the thing I've been saying.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Anytime the fire Tomlin crowd comes out, who are you
going to replace him with? And are you prepared to
go see him do better with another team than his
replacement will do with Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Mike, I'll end where you began, and that was with
the Patriots. They've got the best record. The Titans have
the worst record. Can you give us a little history
lesson and remind us why the Titans fired Mike Vrabel
despite four winning seasons and three playoff trips in his
six years there.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Because dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things, and in Nashville, Amy
Adams Strunk runs that team basically like a real life
game of Thrones, and it's whoever catches her attention, whoever
she thinks at any given moment is the person who
has all the answers, and she gravitates that this person
falls out of favor, this person takes over, that person
falls out of favor, another person takes over. And Mike Grabel,
(11:10):
I don't think cared to play that game.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
I really do think, and I.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Think the seeds for his firing were planted when he
was put in the Patriots Hall of Fame October of
twenty twenty three, and he said some things that my
implication could be interpreted as not looking so great about
his current employer, and that may have been the thing
to push her over the ads.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Look, Mike Grabel's smart.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
And he may have played her into firing him because
he's in a much better spot now. He's got a
young franchise quarterback. He's with one of the most stable
and respected organizations in football with a winning tradition, and
they had just enough bad years that he's not standing
in Bill Belichick's shadow. Drake May's not standing in Tom
Brady's shadow. The shadows dissipated through the back to back.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Four and thirteen seasons and no playoff wins since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
It's a new day for a team that could have
slipped into more couple years of dysfunction. They have. They
have found the lifeline and they're they're pulling themselves back
onto the boat and they're taking over.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Hey, this is a really pleasant conversation. It must be
the holiday season and you being in a good mood
because of the holiday seasons. Great stuff, man, we'll talk
in a week.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Goodbye, see you.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Mike Florio with us on the radio show Factor Fiction
brought to you by the Lucky Eagle, Lane Lambert Cracking
Coach three forty five on ninety three three kJ IRFM.
It's time for a weekly conversation with Pro Football Talks
Mike Florio, brought to you by Simply Seattle. Tired of
buying and repping the same old Seattle sports gear everyone
else has. For the best Storm, Seahawks, Mariners, Kraken, Rainiers, Sounders,
and not to mention, the largest Sonics collection in the world,
check out simply Seattle dot com now with Mike Florio.
(00:21):
Here's Softy and Dick.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
All right, here we go big thanks to our friends
at simply Seattle dot com. They're simply good campaign.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Going on right now.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They got hoodies for twenty five bucks. You buy one
for twenty five bucks in a portrait of the sales
will go to help the Fred Hutchinson Foundation. Man so
a great thing that Jamie and his wife are doing
over there at simply Seattle. Get your Christmas shopping done online.
Crack it all out right now. Use code KJR fifteen
for fifteen percent off anything at simply Seattle dot com.
(00:49):
Here he is the King, the undisputed heavyweight champion, baby
of the NFL media Corps, our friend ProFootball Talk dot com,
the NFL at NBC host Mike Florio.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
How are you man, when is it too early to
say Happy Holidays?
Speaker 5 (01:05):
Is it too early? No, not at all. Okay, I'm
not saying it. I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I mean I start saying it after Halloween, to be
honest with you, because you're in November. Thanksgiving is three
and a half weeks away. It's the holiday season at
my house, So I say it's starting on November first.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Yeah, a long time ago, the day after Thanksgiving was
the start of the Christmas season. But over time, you know,
the commercials start, the decorations go off. You got a
generation of kids who have grown up thinking it starts
November one, So.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
What the hell?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
It's the time of the year where everybody in theory
is a little bit nicer for the most part, most
people with exceptions. Yeah, and you know, it just feels different.
It's a good way to ease into the winter months,
having two months of something different than the usual rough
and tumble reality.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, speaking of different, I saw where the Browns designated
Deshaun Watson to come back from the pup list. Is
there a chance that we see him play at all
this season for the Browns?
Speaker 4 (02:07):
This is on my list of things that I need
to delve into All that has happened is they've opened
a twenty.
Speaker 5 (02:13):
One day practice window.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
We've got four and a half weeks left in the
regular season, the Browns have been eliminated from playoff consideration.
This may just be a chance for him to come
back and practice, to come back and get on the
field and.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
Spend three weeks and extra.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Body they're paying anyway without him being placed on the
active roster. How it works is after twenty one days,
they either have to put him on the roster or
put him on season ending physically unable to perform less.
I think that's what they're going to do because there's
an insurance angle to his contract, and I think if
he plays this year, I think they jeopardize some of
(02:50):
that insurance money that helps geffray the cap charge, the
massive cap charge that they still have to take for
his contract.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
They've managed to push.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
A lot of these dollars into future years and they
get some cash back, they get some cap space. But
I think one of the keys is him not playing
this year, not being on the active roster. So I
expect he's going to practice for three weeks and then
they're going to shut him down and he'll.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
Be back next year.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
They won't cut him because of the cap consequences of
cutting him. He'll be on the roster next year, He'll
finish out his contract, and then he'll leave in free
agency in twenty twenty seven and we'll see if anybody
wants to give him an opportunity.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Mike, there are ten teams on the top of the
Super Bowl odds board at plus seventeen hundred or better.
That is unbelievable. But are there any teams in your
mind that legitimately look like Super Bowl championship teams that
have the least amount of red flags? Because it just
seems like there's a ton of teams with a lot
of red flags.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Yeah, and every time we think this team is the
best team in the league, something happens.
Speaker 5 (03:50):
The Rams.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
After punishing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last Sunday Night, Week twelve,
they go to Carolina and they lose to the Panthers,
and that throws everything into flux the Bronco so they
are the official team that plays with their food every
week but still finds a way to win, much like
the Chiefs of last year did.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
And then you got the Patriots. The thing that impressed
me about the Patriots on Monday Night.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
They came out going into their bye week on the
tail end of Thanksgiving Week, and I submit to you
that for many teams, the Thanksgiving holiday becomes a problem
because it's an important day of the work week and
it's not a full work day, and you have to
manage around that, and guys can lose their focus. And
I think might be able to challenge them to go
out there and send a message on Monday Night about
(04:33):
what they're going to be in the final four games
they come back and play the Bills and Ravens back
to back weeks before they have two winnable games to
wrap things up. The degree of violence that we saw
they hitting, the intensity. They have their foot on the
gas pedal and they're not going to slip their foot off.
They are mashing it to the ground. So I think
the Patriots they'll be out of sight, out of mind
(04:54):
for a weekend because this is the final bye week
when they come back for Bill's Ravens up an eye
on what they bring to the table because I think
they recognize the one seed is within reach and they're
going to do everything they can to go get it.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Mike Aaron Rodgers kind of going after the Steelers wide receivers.
I think it was you that wrote on the website
yesterday that Mike Tomlin has not been asked for his
thoughts on what Aaron Rodgers said about the receiving corps.
How close to a disaster is this turning into in
Pittsburgh in your mind?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Well, Rodgers met with reporters today and no one asked
him about it. When he comes out and says, in
response to the last question posed to him in the
postgame press conference after they lost the embarrassing fashion of
the Bills twenty six to seven, he says, when asked
what can we do to get more consistency out of.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
The passing game, etc. He says, when there's a film session,
show up.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
When I tell you to run the right route, run
the right route, and he implied a lot of things,
and think about the storm that it created in Miami.
When to a Tonga Bay loa unsolicited called out teammates
for either being late to or not showing up for
player only film session and it was crying out for
further questioning.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
But this is what happens with a press conference. You
have a.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Collection of reporters, and they all wait for somebody else
to be the jerk that asks the tough question, and
then none of them do it, and that I think
is collectively malpracticed. Individually, it's hard to blame anyone person
because everybody's standing around with it for someone else asked
the question. But it's embarrassing for the people who covered
the Steelers that there was no follow up about what
should have been the story of the week in Pittsburgh
(06:27):
for Tomlin or for.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Rogers if they don't win the division in Pittsburgh? Is
he gone? As Tomlin gone? And if so, where do
you think the best fit for him would be?
Speaker 4 (06:38):
You know, I've lived in and around Pittsburgh my whole life.
I'm currently sitting one hundred miles south exactly of Akershuer Stadium,
And over the past ten years, fifteen years, anytime the
Steelers lose two or three games in a row, there's
a chunk of a fan base that starts agitating for
Tomlin to go, and it never gets any traction because
the Steelers aren't.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Going to fire him.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
That's been the narrative the Steelers of the team that's
had three coaches since nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
It's their thing.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
It's that high school jacket that someone complemented them on
and they've never taken it off, like that is the
thing that makes them different from all the other teams.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
But this year feels different.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
And when you've got the fire Tomlin chant breaking out
at a Steelers game, when you've got booing during their
iconic renegade moment that the Seahawks, by the way, co
opted made their own back in Week two, when the
Steelers lost the Seahawks thirty one to fourteen. I believe
the score was at home in their home opener. When
these kinds of things are happening, it feels like it's
just time for a change. And I think what happens
(07:35):
is because it's very rare that somebody stays this long
with one team. You get to a point where I
think you fall into a comfortable rut where you recognize,
you know what, why am I going to get myself
ulcers over this game or that game, or playoff positioning
or this, and that we're going to be good enough,
We're gonna win enough games, we're going to cash our checks,
we're going to make our money, and we'll come back and.
Speaker 5 (07:57):
Do it again next year. Yeah, and you know they're winning.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Like every team says our goal is to win the
Super Bowl, the truth is the goal is to be
relevant in December when the stadiums could otherwise be empty,
when the kids are making their Christmas list and they
want jerseys of the local football team. You want to
be competitive every December, and the Steelers are.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
That's a win. Whether you make it.
Speaker 4 (08:18):
To the playoffs, whether you win playoff games, that's just gravy.
But as long as you're relevant past Thanksgiving, your winning,
you're making money and you can stave off the mutiny.
What they need to be concerned about this year is
the mutiny. And think of it this way. If they
lose the Ravens on Sunday in Baltimore, they have a
Monday night.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Game against the Dolphins on the fifteenth of December.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
If I'm a season ticket holder of the Pittsburgh Steels,
I'm not going out there and freezing my ass off
on December fifteenth to watch the Dolphins and the Steelers.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Ten days before Christmas. I got other things to do.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I'll watch it at home and I'll finish up the
tree or do whatever else it is. I need to
do and I'm not going out there and subjecting myself
to it. And if they have a bunch of no
shows that night, that's a red flag not for my Toma,
but the owner.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
We need to second.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, they haven't won a playoff game with him in
almost ten years. Twenty sixteen, I saw where Ben Roethlisberger
and James Harrison both came out what yesterday or today
and said maybe it's time for a change in Big
Ben actually floating the idea of him taking the Penn
State job, which for Penn State would be a coup.
Are you kid meeting to get Mike Tomlin to coach?
Do you think he would ever step down to go
to Penn State?
Speaker 5 (09:20):
I mean, you know him better than me.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Is he that kind of guy?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Well, four years ago he was asked about rumors that
had bubbled up linking him to USC when that job
was open, and he said never say never, but never.
As it relates to coaching in college, I think that
the more likely outcome is he ends up with another
NFL team.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Andy Reid is the name that gets mentioned the most often.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
You just get to a point where it's time for
a change, and whether it's a trade, it's not really
a trade because the coach ultimately controls what happens. Because
the coach doesn't want to be traded. If he doesn't
want to go to the team that's trying to trade
for him, it can't happen. And I think at this point,
when you consider nineteen years together, the Steelers should just
release him. It should be a true mutual We hear
(10:00):
mutual parting all the time, and we know that it's baloney.
The guy was fired, but they're trying to save some faith.
This should be a true mutual parting. He goes wherever
he wants to go, His next team isn't burdened by
whatever draft picks they'd have to give up to get him,
and everybody moves on and starts over. Now.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
I don't know who the Steelers would hire to be
their coach. That's the other side of it, And that's
the thing I've been saying.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
Anytime the fire Tomlin crowd comes out, who are you
going to replace him with? And are you prepared to
go see him do better with another team than his
replacement will do with Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Mike, I'll end where you began, and that was with
the Patriots. They've got the best record. The Titans have
the worst record. Can you give us a little history
lesson and remind us why the Titans fired Mike Vrabel
despite four winning seasons and three playoff trips in his
six years there.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Because dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things, and in Nashville, Amy
Adams Strunk runs that team basically like a real life
game of Thrones, and it's whoever catches her attention, whoever
she thinks at any given moment is the person who
has all the answers, and she gravitates that this person
falls out of favor, this person takes over, that person
falls out of favor, another person takes over. And Mike Grabel,
(11:10):
I don't think cared to play that game.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
I really do think, and I.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Think the seeds for his firing were planted when he
was put in the Patriots Hall of Fame October of
twenty twenty three, and he said some things that my
implication could be interpreted as not looking so great about
his current employer, and that may have been the thing
to push her over the ads.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Look, Mike Grabel's smart.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
And he may have played her into firing him because
he's in a much better spot now. He's got a
young franchise quarterback. He's with one of the most stable
and respected organizations in football with a winning tradition, and
they had just enough bad years that he's not standing
in Bill Belichick's shadow. Drake May's not standing in Tom
Brady's shadow. The shadows dissipated through the back to back.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
Four and thirteen seasons and no playoff wins since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
It's a new day for a team that could have
slipped into more couple years of dysfunction. They have. They
have found the lifeline and they're they're pulling themselves back
onto the boat and they're taking over.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Hey, this is a really pleasant conversation. It must be
the holiday season and you being in a good mood
because of the holiday seasons. Great stuff, man, we'll talk
in a week.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Goodbye, see you.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Mike Florio with us on the radio show Factor Fiction
brought to you by the Lucky Eagle, Lane Lambert Cracking
Coach three forty five on ninety three three kJ IRFM.
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