April 18, 2024 • 10 mins
Mike Florio of PFT joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the rise of Jayden Daniels in mock drafts compared to other quarterbacks at the top, the reports about what happened between Robert Kraft and Arthur Blank, plus Tom Brady’s future.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(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 Softian, Dick. I'm checkingout simply Seattle dot com. New Mariner
lids have dropped. As the kidssay on the website at simply Seattle dot
com, the City Connect kid logo. Have you seen this? By the
way, Dick, how cool isthat MLB logo? Instead of Brooks Robinson,
It's Keg Griffy Jr. Check itout and use code KJR fifteen for
(00:42):
fifteen percent off anything at simply Seattledot com. Here he is the king,
the undisputed heavyweight champione of all NFLmedia from Pro Football Talk, the
NFL, and NBC. Our friend, Mike Florio, how are you man?
You know when I don't answer thefirst three calls, I think you
should get the hint. Yeah,Well, well you know what you still
that to Jackson. I mean,it's it's his job to keep calling you.
(01:03):
Where were you? What were youdoing calling on your behalf. I
was on a phone call that Ihad to finish, and I texted him
while on the phone to give mea couple of minutes, and he did
so. I appreciate that. Iappreciate the flexibility. You can hold me
over as long as you want.You can take me all the way to
the next hard break. To makeamends to the fact that I'm tardy,
We're going to take you until threeforty, so we're going to go about
(01:23):
thirty five minutes here. If that'sokay with you, Hey, can we
Mike, can we go ahead inyour opinion and lock in Jaden Daniels to
the commanders at number two next Thursday. Yes, with one caveat, And
here's the caveat. I'm not preparedto conclude that the commanders aren't going to
screw this up. And I saythat because they brought in four quarterbacks today
(01:46):
for a collective visit with all ofthem instead of bringing them in one at
a time, which I think wouldbe the normal functional thing to do,
giving you multiple and maximum opportunity totalk to the guy, watch the guy,
get to know the guy. Bringingthem all in at once seems very
(02:06):
strange to me, and my onlyway to make sense of it is the
owner wanted to be there, andthat was the only day he was available,
so he wanted that day, andhe wanted all of them there that
day, And that's the way itgoes. He's the owner, he's the
boss. He makes the rules,even if it would have been better for
the organization for him to be therewhenever he could and for the guys to
come in individually. So I can'trule out the possibilities that the commanders are
(02:31):
going to screw this up that forwhatever reason, Josh Harris, the owner
of the team's going to decide,you know, I kind of like JJ
McCarthy better for whatever reason, justlike last year when David Tepper decided,
you know what, I kind oflike Bryce Young, not CJ. Stroud,
And everybody listen, that's the realityof a guy who's a billionaire,
(02:53):
a multi billionaire who owns the team. He doesn't have to come out and
say it. If he just saysthe wrong thing at the wrong time and
it gets into interpreted by the peoplewho work for him as that being his
preference. All of a sudden,the opinions changed because they all want to
do what the boss wants them todo, what they think the boss wants
them to do. So that's myexplanation as to why I believe it's not
a given yet the Jayden Daniels isgoing to be the pick because the owner
(03:16):
could put his thumb on the scaleand screw it all up. I'm fascinated
to gets your take on how justthe dynamics of this work. You've got
Drake may mocked number two for muchbasically since the beginning of last season.
Right, he does nothing in thefootball season that would drop him off that
number two, and then all ofa sudden, a guy that wasn't even
thought of as maybe even a firstround draft pick comes all the way up
(03:38):
and passes him late after he's alreadyplayed all of his college football games.
How does that work? Well?Now, remember there was an LSU quarterback
four years ago who the year beforehe was the consensus number one overall picks.
Nobody knew who he was. Andhe comes out and has a great
season, wins the Heisman Trophy,right, and everybody knows who Joe Burrow
is. It went from tank forTua to let's go get Joe and let's
(04:00):
do whatever we can to make thathappen. So I think that Jayden daniels
ascension isn't a surprise. What happensis the draft community, the draft industrial
complex, locks in with its tapsand its opinions, and you know,
I think it's human nature to say, we don't like to change our mind,
We don't like to revisit our narratives. It takes too much work.
(04:23):
You got to believe in everything youdo or you're going to doubt everything you
do. So Inertshaft, I think, explains the idea that it was Kayler
Williams Drake's May, Kayleb Williams DrakeMay, and that just took on a
life of its own. Then youget through the season, Michigan wins the
National championship. Jim Harbaugh comes outstrong on Colin Coward's show and says that
(04:44):
jj McCarthy will be the first pickin the draft, which is just Jim
Harbaugh nuts. But what does itdo. All of a sudden, everybody's
paying attention to McCarthy, and allof a sudden, possibly with coaches doing
the scouting. Now, once theseason and they get involved, its ground
swell emerges for McCarthy and harbors ina great spot here because he can,
on one hand, help his guyby pumping him up and help himself because
(05:10):
if he can pull this off,the poor quarterbacks go in the first four
picks. As he has said publiclymultiple times, it's like we have the
first pick in the draft because we'renot taking a quarterback. So the McCarthy
stuff, I don't know, theDaniels stuff, I don't know the main
stuff. I think it's just asituation where closer scrutiny of the tape revealed
inconsistency. It's one thing over inhis highlight. You got to look at
(05:32):
everything and there's nothing consistency there thatis freaking people out. And I think
that's why he's gone wabbling. Thatwas genius by Harball. He's just pumping
up his own guy. I mean, who wouldn't say he said J.
J. McCarty is the greatest Michiganquarterback of all time. I mean,
there's not a great history of quarterbacksin Michigan. I know Brady was was
there, but he was a sixround pick. For God's sake. So
it worked. I mean Brady Bradygot benched. I mean Brady. You
(05:55):
know, they'd add a weird relationshipwith Brady, and and they ran about
thirty one straight times against Penn State, right, So, like, I
don't care how how good your runninggame is. If you've got this awesome
quarterback, you're not going to runthe ball thirty one times in a row.
Mike Florio's with us. Mike,do you buy the story that Robert
(06:15):
Kraft told Arthur Blank he can't trustBill Belichick and he should hire somebody else.
I'm leary about it for one veryimportant reason. I always like to
see what the basis is for anexplosive and inflammatory claim like that. And
the reporting in the ESPN article,and I think I recall this correctly.
It's a little convoluted. It wasa source who spoke to two different sources,
(06:40):
and the two different sources we've thistapestry together. That was communicated to
the source who then told the trioof writers whose bylines are on this item
at ESPN dot com. And look, I don't know what passes for acceptable
quality journalism. All I know isif I would pull something like that I
would get killed for it, absolutelykilled for it. And just because it's
(07:04):
published under ESPN dot com doesn't imbueit with some instant immediate credibility. This
is a flimsily sourced claim, andthe Patriots are on the record saying no,
this did not happen. And ifthe other thing that's reported, and
I'm not sure this is accurate,but if the other thing that's reported in
the story about twenty five million beingdoing owing to Craft, if he doesn't
(07:29):
work this year as a coach,and if he had worked for Blank,
they would have gotten an offset forwhatever he made. Why would you crap
on the guy? Why would yousay something like that? Why would you
scare Arthur Blank away from hiring BillBelichick? You would want to save that
money. And also, you know, if you think Bill Belichick is a
(07:49):
guy who's not going to thrive inhis next stop, let him go somewhere
else and sail again. And youjust have more proof that you know it
wasn't him, It was the organization, It was Tom Brady, it wasn't
Belichick that was responsible for the sixthSuper Bowl. So I think the whole
thing is a little odd. AndI also think it was unusual and awkward
that that story lands the same daythat they announced that he's working for ESPN
(08:11):
for the draft. Mike, isthere a scenario where we see Tom Brady
in uniform? And if so,paint that picture for us. Well,
I don't think there are any accidentswhen it comes to Tom Brady. So
after he has made it clear thathe is done, done, done as
of last year, he's done.His second annual retirement was his last retirement,
(08:35):
then he drops this turd in theproverbial punch bowl out of nowhere that
he wouldn't be opposed to coming backand playing for a contender who loses his
starting quarterback late in the year,and he specifically mentions the Patriots and the
Raiders like you, what is this? And my interpretation of it is this
is his way of hinting and aroundaboutfashion. Hey, if you're looking for
(08:56):
a quarterback, now, maybe there'sa reason to give me a call.
I mean, if somebody is interestedin him, now, why wouldn't they
call Once he opens the door topossibly coming back during the season and anytime
a quarterback gets injured. Now,I mean, let's fast forward, assuming
he shows up for day one withhis job at Fox and enters the booth
and is the number one guy.And I still think there's a chance he
won't do it, and this maybe part of his plan to not do
(09:18):
it, But he's calling the game. The starting quarterback gets injured, Kevin
Burkhart turns to him and says,are you willing to play for this team?
Does this team meet your threshold ifthey call you or are you going
to play? How do you notraise that? Then every time a quarterback
gets injured this year, his nameis going to be the first one that
comes up. So I think hewas throwing the trial balloon out there.
(09:39):
And two weeks before the draft,anybody who's interested, anybody who's looking,
maybe instead of burning a first roundpick on a quarterback, you give me
a call and I'll come play foryou for a year or two. And
we got our annual mock draft nextWednesday. You want to do Monday or
Tuesday or skip it next week?Did the segment end? He's just like,
(10:01):
we're just talking on the phone.Now looks three twenty three. Listen,
if you're gonna bump me for yourfancy, fancy mock draft, you
can do it. On Tuesday.I love it. Make time Mike on
Tuesday. I appreciate it. Mike, great stuff. We're talking a week.
Mike Florio with us on the radioshow next Tuesday. Jackson write that
down. Next Tuesday, we'll gethim on. We'll see if Zerline can
(10:24):
do next Tuesday as well. Lancewill join us at five o'clock tonight.
The mock Draft is a week fromtoday at Action Sports Bar and Grill in
Kent. Next Wednesday, Fun withaudio coming up. Three forty five petrows
at four and the Maveners are aboutto sweep hopefully next on ninety three three
kJ A RFM
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 Softian, Dick. I'm checkingout simply Seattle dot com. New Mariner
lids have dropped. As the kidssay on the website at simply Seattle dot
com, the City Connect kid logo. Have you seen this? By the
way, Dick, how cool isthat MLB logo? Instead of Brooks Robinson,
It's Keg Griffy Jr. Check itout and use code KJR fifteen for
(00:42):
fifteen percent off anything at simply Seattledot com. Here he is the king,
the undisputed heavyweight champione of all NFLmedia from Pro Football Talk, the
NFL, and NBC. Our friend, Mike Florio, how are you man?
You know when I don't answer thefirst three calls, I think you
should get the hint. Yeah,Well, well you know what you still
that to Jackson. I mean,it's it's his job to keep calling you.
(01:03):
Where were you? What were youdoing calling on your behalf. I
was on a phone call that Ihad to finish, and I texted him
while on the phone to give mea couple of minutes, and he did
so. I appreciate that. Iappreciate the flexibility. You can hold me
over as long as you want.You can take me all the way to
the next hard break. To makeamends to the fact that I'm tardy,
We're going to take you until threeforty, so we're going to go about
(01:23):
thirty five minutes here. If that'sokay with you, Hey, can we
Mike, can we go ahead inyour opinion and lock in Jaden Daniels to
the commanders at number two next Thursday. Yes, with one caveat, And
here's the caveat. I'm not preparedto conclude that the commanders aren't going to
screw this up. And I saythat because they brought in four quarterbacks today
(01:46):
for a collective visit with all ofthem instead of bringing them in one at
a time, which I think wouldbe the normal functional thing to do,
giving you multiple and maximum opportunity totalk to the guy, watch the guy,
get to know the guy. Bringingthem all in at once seems very
(02:06):
strange to me, and my onlyway to make sense of it is the
owner wanted to be there, andthat was the only day he was available,
so he wanted that day, andhe wanted all of them there that
day, And that's the way itgoes. He's the owner, he's the
boss. He makes the rules,even if it would have been better for
the organization for him to be therewhenever he could and for the guys to
come in individually. So I can'trule out the possibilities that the commanders are
(02:31):
going to screw this up that forwhatever reason, Josh Harris, the owner
of the team's going to decide,you know, I kind of like JJ
McCarthy better for whatever reason, justlike last year when David Tepper decided,
you know what, I kind oflike Bryce Young, not CJ. Stroud,
And everybody listen, that's the realityof a guy who's a billionaire,
(02:53):
a multi billionaire who owns the team. He doesn't have to come out and
say it. If he just saysthe wrong thing at the wrong time and
it gets into interpreted by the peoplewho work for him as that being his
preference. All of a sudden,the opinions changed because they all want to
do what the boss wants them todo, what they think the boss wants
them to do. So that's myexplanation as to why I believe it's not
a given yet the Jayden Daniels isgoing to be the pick because the owner
(03:16):
could put his thumb on the scaleand screw it all up. I'm fascinated
to gets your take on how justthe dynamics of this work. You've got
Drake may mocked number two for muchbasically since the beginning of last season.
Right, he does nothing in thefootball season that would drop him off that
number two, and then all ofa sudden, a guy that wasn't even
thought of as maybe even a firstround draft pick comes all the way up
(03:38):
and passes him late after he's alreadyplayed all of his college football games.
How does that work? Well?Now, remember there was an LSU quarterback
four years ago who the year beforehe was the consensus number one overall picks.
Nobody knew who he was. Andhe comes out and has a great
season, wins the Heisman Trophy,right, and everybody knows who Joe Burrow
is. It went from tank forTua to let's go get Joe and let's
(04:00):
do whatever we can to make thathappen. So I think that Jayden daniels
ascension isn't a surprise. What happensis the draft community, the draft industrial
complex, locks in with its tapsand its opinions, and you know,
I think it's human nature to say, we don't like to change our mind,
We don't like to revisit our narratives. It takes too much work.
(04:23):
You got to believe in everything youdo or you're going to doubt everything you
do. So Inertshaft, I think, explains the idea that it was Kayler
Williams Drake's May, Kayleb Williams DrakeMay, and that just took on a
life of its own. Then youget through the season, Michigan wins the
National championship. Jim Harbaugh comes outstrong on Colin Coward's show and says that
(04:44):
jj McCarthy will be the first pickin the draft, which is just Jim
Harbaugh nuts. But what does itdo. All of a sudden, everybody's
paying attention to McCarthy, and allof a sudden, possibly with coaches doing
the scouting. Now, once theseason and they get involved, its ground
swell emerges for McCarthy and harbors ina great spot here because he can,
on one hand, help his guyby pumping him up and help himself because
(05:10):
if he can pull this off,the poor quarterbacks go in the first four
picks. As he has said publiclymultiple times, it's like we have the
first pick in the draft because we'renot taking a quarterback. So the McCarthy
stuff, I don't know, theDaniels stuff, I don't know the main
stuff. I think it's just asituation where closer scrutiny of the tape revealed
inconsistency. It's one thing over inhis highlight. You got to look at
(05:32):
everything and there's nothing consistency there thatis freaking people out. And I think
that's why he's gone wabbling. Thatwas genius by Harball. He's just pumping
up his own guy. I mean, who wouldn't say he said J.
J. McCarty is the greatest Michiganquarterback of all time. I mean,
there's not a great history of quarterbacksin Michigan. I know Brady was was
there, but he was a sixround pick. For God's sake. So
it worked. I mean Brady Bradygot benched. I mean Brady. You
(05:55):
know, they'd add a weird relationshipwith Brady, and and they ran about
thirty one straight times against Penn State, right, So, like, I
don't care how how good your runninggame is. If you've got this awesome
quarterback, you're not going to runthe ball thirty one times in a row.
Mike Florio's with us. Mike,do you buy the story that Robert
(06:15):
Kraft told Arthur Blank he can't trustBill Belichick and he should hire somebody else.
I'm leary about it for one veryimportant reason. I always like to
see what the basis is for anexplosive and inflammatory claim like that. And
the reporting in the ESPN article,and I think I recall this correctly.
It's a little convoluted. It wasa source who spoke to two different sources,
(06:40):
and the two different sources we've thistapestry together. That was communicated to
the source who then told the trioof writers whose bylines are on this item
at ESPN dot com. And look, I don't know what passes for acceptable
quality journalism. All I know isif I would pull something like that I
would get killed for it, absolutelykilled for it. And just because it's
(07:04):
published under ESPN dot com doesn't imbueit with some instant immediate credibility. This
is a flimsily sourced claim, andthe Patriots are on the record saying no,
this did not happen. And ifthe other thing that's reported, and
I'm not sure this is accurate,but if the other thing that's reported in
the story about twenty five million beingdoing owing to Craft, if he doesn't
(07:29):
work this year as a coach,and if he had worked for Blank,
they would have gotten an offset forwhatever he made. Why would you crap
on the guy? Why would yousay something like that? Why would you
scare Arthur Blank away from hiring BillBelichick? You would want to save that
money. And also, you know, if you think Bill Belichick is a
(07:49):
guy who's not going to thrive inhis next stop, let him go somewhere
else and sail again. And youjust have more proof that you know it
wasn't him, It was the organization, It was Tom Brady, it wasn't
Belichick that was responsible for the sixthSuper Bowl. So I think the whole
thing is a little odd. AndI also think it was unusual and awkward
that that story lands the same daythat they announced that he's working for ESPN
(08:11):
for the draft. Mike, isthere a scenario where we see Tom Brady
in uniform? And if so,paint that picture for us. Well,
I don't think there are any accidentswhen it comes to Tom Brady. So
after he has made it clear thathe is done, done, done as
of last year, he's done.His second annual retirement was his last retirement,
(08:35):
then he drops this turd in theproverbial punch bowl out of nowhere that
he wouldn't be opposed to coming backand playing for a contender who loses his
starting quarterback late in the year,and he specifically mentions the Patriots and the
Raiders like you, what is this? And my interpretation of it is this
is his way of hinting and aroundaboutfashion. Hey, if you're looking for
(08:56):
a quarterback, now, maybe there'sa reason to give me a call.
I mean, if somebody is interestedin him, now, why wouldn't they
call Once he opens the door topossibly coming back during the season and anytime
a quarterback gets injured. Now,I mean, let's fast forward, assuming
he shows up for day one withhis job at Fox and enters the booth
and is the number one guy.And I still think there's a chance he
won't do it, and this maybe part of his plan to not do
(09:18):
it, But he's calling the game. The starting quarterback gets injured, Kevin
Burkhart turns to him and says,are you willing to play for this team?
Does this team meet your threshold ifthey call you or are you going
to play? How do you notraise that? Then every time a quarterback
gets injured this year, his nameis going to be the first one that
comes up. So I think hewas throwing the trial balloon out there.
(09:39):
And two weeks before the draft,anybody who's interested, anybody who's looking,
maybe instead of burning a first roundpick on a quarterback, you give me
a call and I'll come play foryou for a year or two. And
we got our annual mock draft nextWednesday. You want to do Monday or
Tuesday or skip it next week?Did the segment end? He's just like,
(10:01):
we're just talking on the phone.Now looks three twenty three. Listen,
if you're gonna bump me for yourfancy, fancy mock draft, you
can do it. On Tuesday.I love it. Make time Mike on
Tuesday. I appreciate it. Mike, great stuff. We're talking a week.
Mike Florio with us on the radioshow next Tuesday. Jackson write that
down. Next Tuesday, we'll gethim on. We'll see if Zerline can
(10:24):
do next Tuesday as well. Lancewill join us at five o'clock tonight.
The mock Draft is a week fromtoday at Action Sports Bar and Grill in
Kent. Next Wednesday, Fun withaudio coming up. Three forty five petrows
at four and the Maveners are aboutto sweep hopefully next on ninety three three
kJ A RFM
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