Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 (00:23):
All right, there we.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Go every single week a chance to talk to really,
I think the king of all NFL media, the heavyweight champion.
People of the NFL media core producers are lining up
to be sure and get Mike Florio booked for their
radio show. But we got him every week courtesy of
our pals at simply Seattle dot com. You sure and
use code KJR fifteen to check out for fifteen percent
(00:45):
off anything at simply Seattle. Here he is our friend,
Mike Florio. How are you man?
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Jackson close close?
Speaker 3 (00:55):
We're actually Mitchell is in here to see if we
can get by without him, and if today goes well,
this may be it for him and we can get
you the race you're looking for.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
Okay, good, Yeah, I could tell it was somebody different,
and I was hoping I didn't get Jackson finally, you know,
escorted out of the building like Robert Salley yesterday.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, well, there are other reasons to fire Jackson besides
giving you a raise, by the way, so don't don't
feel totally bad about it. But hey, before we get
into the Robert Solid conversation, Mike Comgren was just in
studio a few minutes ago and wanted to be sure
and say hello, we actually have a little voicemail from him.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Go ahead, Hi, Mike, this is Mike Homgren. Continue all
the great work you're doing. I miss you. There you go, Wow,
that's pretty cool, right, Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I thought you were going to like have him call
me a butthole or something. You don't get a keeper.
I appreciate.
Speaker 6 (01:47):
I appreciate what he said, but I heard the promo earlier. Yeah,
because Mitchell called me like fifteen minutes before my spot,
which is fine. I'm not complaining, And I thought he
was going to call me a butthole.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I was really looking forward to being called a butthole.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
On the problem is, if Mike Holmbrin calls you a butthole,
he will get beaten up by his wife Kathy when
he gets home.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
He is a proper man, he's he doesn't swim in
that pool the way we do.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Pal But hey, let's talk about Robert Salah getting fired
and did Aaron Rodgers have anything to do with it?
Speaker 4 (02:16):
He says he did not. Do you believe him?
Speaker 7 (02:19):
Well, this is also the guy who said, yeah, I've
been immunized, which shoots his credibility. And credibility is like integrity,
you can only lose it once, you know. And so
anything that Aaron Rodgers says that it's self serving to
him is going to be suspect.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
So he insists, is patently falls and he might not
have actually uttered the words. Remember he was hiding behind
technicalities when he.
Speaker 6 (02:41):
Played the yeah I've been immunized game three years ago.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
But when you look at the circumstantial evidence, and people
will diss circumstantial evidence, circumstance elevenance is very valuable.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's just different than direct evidence.
Speaker 5 (02:53):
Circumstantial evidence says I went to bed last night, there
wasn't snow on my car. I woke up this morning
there's three inches of snow. Therefore it snowed, even though
I didn't see the snow falling.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
That's circumstantial elevenance. And the circumstantial elevenance.
Speaker 8 (03:05):
Here is as we reported yesterday, and there have been
others who have had right church wrong pue on this.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
What I am told very reliably is Robert Slick con
being the meeting of his staff, he told them that
Daniel Hackett was going to be demoted, not fired. Demoted.
Speaker 8 (03:21):
Now, if he had chosen to leave, that would have
been his prerogative, because they get the feeling that wouldn't
have been much left for him to do.
Speaker 5 (03:27):
And not long after Sala informed his coaching staff the
Hackett was going to basically be stripped of any meaningful
job duties, Sala got fired.
Speaker 8 (03:37):
So when you consider the broader context and all the
power Aaron Rodgers has if he can say all he wants.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
He's not as powerful as he's not baloney.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
They've been over backwards for him when he got there,
and then he gave them thirty five million dollars when
he redid.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
It contract that that's not something that tanded over for free.
The price to be paid there is he had that
over you. He's done a massive favor.
Speaker 8 (04:02):
For you, and he has that power over you.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
And so in the moment that his good friend Nathaniel
Hackett was about to be fire, it is not unreasonable
to wonder whether a phone call was placed, a conversation
was had.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
No one specifically said you must.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Fire Robert Sala, but the message was sent and received and.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
The decision was implemented.
Speaker 8 (04:22):
So I think that based upon all the facts and
circumstances as we understand him to be, Yes, Aaron Rodgers's
fingerprint are all over this, even if we didn't see
him touching the pen that fuilled out the pink slip.
Speaker 9 (04:35):
Well, Mike, what I would ask what he Johnson? If
in fact he is telling the truth. If and in
fact Aaron Rodgers is killing the truth, I would just
ask him this, Well, if you guys were going to
fire your coach after five weeks when they're a Monday
night win out of first place, why didn't you just
fire him in February?
Speaker 4 (04:51):
How would he answer that?
Speaker 5 (04:52):
Well, a former head coach who understands how the dynamics
of these organizations works texted me out of the the
blue after we did some videos and some posts yesterday
about this, and his estimation is and I think this
makes sense. The fact that Sla was fired so quickly
suggests that wood Johnson seriously thought about doing it after
(05:15):
the twenty twenty three season ended. But again that bucks
up against the circumstances of Saala's getting ready to fire.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Hacket and Rogers catches.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
Wind of it and never orders the code red, but
sends the message about the directives that he would want.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
To see happen. It wasn't it weird that.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Woody Johnson didn't do a press conference. He did a
conference call, and we listened to part of it on our.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Show this morning.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
It felt like it sounded like talking points with very
loose ad libbing between them, and that's easy to do
when you're not doing a visual where there's no tell,
there's no body language, there's no way to see if
a guy's reading off of his notes or speaking semporaneously.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So I think that that wasn't a miss. They didn't
want to put Woody Johnson out.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
There to sweat in front of the cameras and maybe
show facial expressions that would have made the content of
the commentary not believable.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, well, owners not visiting with media is nothing new
in our town, by the way, So We totally get
what you're talking about. Mike Florio's with us on the air.
I got a bet with a buddy of mine on
over understarts for Russell Wilson at seven and a half,
and I took the over.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Am I screwed.
Speaker 5 (06:27):
No, I think you're in good position because I think
he's going to start this weekend. Now, that's just my
own prediction based upon understanding the Steelers organization, living in
and around Pittsburgh pretty much my entire life, how they operate,
how they think, how Mike Commin makes decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He deferred and denied.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Removing the QB one label from Russell Wilson and putting
it on Justin Field.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
He kept kicking the can.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
And sometimes it's smart to kick the can because I
make a decision before you have to. When the time
comes to make the decisions, the answer sometimes reveals itself.
And that's what's happened here.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
So I think Wilson will be back.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
The fact that he fully participated in practice today is
the clearest sign that he'll be back.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
They struggled on offense on Sunday night.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
You know that's the kind of game the Steelers that
the pass would win. Get out game two to one.
Get dominated.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
The other team's moving the ball up and down the field,
but the Steelers keep making plays to keep.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
It from getting out of hand, and then they end
up winning in the most important stat of all points
score versus points allowed. The fact that they didn't win
that game makes Justin Fields vulnerable because you can't play
like that and not win. If you're gonna play like that,
you got to win for the quarterback to stay on
the field. I think we're gonna see Wilson against the
Raiders on Sunday, and then they got two prime time
games against the New York teams Sunday Night and Monday night,
(07:48):
Jets and Giants. Then they have their buy. They could
win the next three and Wilson would then have a
couple of weeks after that to get ready for a
stretch run. It looked a lot worse before the season
started because they had the Browns twice in the angles twice.
But still it's six divisional games and it's the Chiefs
and the Eagles for the final eight.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
That's not going to be easy for the Steelers.
Speaker 9 (08:07):
Well, and now Steelers gamed an't until twelve forty five
in the morning, your time, So what's it like take
us into the NBC studios when you all of a
sudden have to fill for an hour and a half
before your Sunday night game kicks off.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
They locked the doors from the outside.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
We were all starving, we were all irritable, the people
on camera, the people behind the scenes, and we just
kept going.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
For an hour and forty five minutes after eight o'clock.
And then you ever get to.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Part where he's so hungry that you're not hungry anymore
and the food doesn't taste as good as you thought
it would.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And it's not as satisfying you just thought it would be.
That's kind of what it was when we finally had
a chance to go Ea. But Maria Taylor.
Speaker 8 (08:45):
Mentioned a few times that we're hungry.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Here and we're stilting our dinners. While this still, this
hour and forty five minutes still happened. But yeah, the
whole night was weird.
Speaker 5 (08:55):
And you get to bed at one o'clock Eastern time
and you wake up at five point thirty. Yeah, ever
had those moments where your alarm goes off and you
have no idea where you are totally or or like
what day it is or why your alarm is going off?
That was me five point thirty am Local time on Monday.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
All right, are we buying the Vikings? They're five and zero,
Paul Allen's losing his friggin' mind. Minnesota's about to burn
down with excitement. Are we ready to proclaim that this
Vikings team that was seven and ten last year is
a legitimate championship contender?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Two concerns.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
One the offense was what the Jets did to them
on Sunday in London. And outlier that was Aaron Rodgers'
word of the day calendar word last week because he used.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
It like five or six times.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Somebody must have bought him a copy of Malcolm Gladwell's
book and he pretended to read it.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
So outlier game. Is that an outlier? Or did the
Jets provide the rest of the league with.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
A blueprint for how to defend the Kevin O'Connell offense
with Sam Darnold playing quarterback?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
They need Aaron Jones back. The offense is different with
Jones not available he got a hip injury.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
And I'm also concerned about the special teams at every
position except kicker.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Their kicker or rookie day drafted is great, but hunt coverage,
punt return.
Speaker 8 (10:09):
Stupid mistakes on both ends.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I don't like that. That can kill you, that can
keep you.
Speaker 5 (10:15):
From scoring points, that can give the other team a
short field. That's the one weakness to go along with
my asterisk. On the offense, They've got the Lions when
they come out of his buy, They're off this week.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
They host the Lions Week seven.
Speaker 8 (10:28):
That game, if the Lions beat the Cowboys on Sunday.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Will be for first place in the division through seven weeks.
Speaker 9 (10:34):
What's going on with the Raiders? I mean they have
an open competition in Week six, Aidan O'Connell wins it.
And is DeVante Adams really hurt or are they putting
him in bubble wrap for a trade.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
Well, I don't know that they're putting him in bubble wrap,
or he put himself in bubble wrap. I was suspicious
when he was reported two Sundays ago that he was
weak to week with a hamstring injury that he suffered
at the tail end of a Thursday.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Practice when he poled up and grabbed his leg.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
I think that before the season, Antonio Pears, the new
head coach, convinced Devontae Adams to give the new regime
a chance, because if you watch the Receiver series on Netflix,
Adams was beside himself.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
He was ready to go.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
So some deal was done, some wink nod, unenforceable, but
still if you trust people, it gets honored.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Arrangements that they would trade him if he wanted to.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Go, and he wants to go, and now they just
have to find a partner.
Speaker 8 (11:27):
The problem is they don't want to pay him ne
hundred and eighty three thousand.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
A week, but they also want a second round pick,
and something's got to give. They're gonna have to pay
the bulk of his salary and hope that somebody's desperate
enough to still enough to still give up a second
round pick, or they're gonna have to like package it
as Devontae Adams plus a fourth round er to get
a second rounder back. Otherwise this is going to continue,
and they're to keep paying him almost a million dollars
every week to not play.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
All right, real quick, I know we're late. Before you go,
Mike Florio with us tomorrow night, Niner Seahawks.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Who is this a bigger game? Four?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
If the Hawks lose they're zering three in the NFC.
The nine er lose their owe three in the NFC West.
Who needs Tomorrow night more?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Forty nine ers need it more.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
They're owing three in the in the Conference ZH and
two in the Division. They've blown a couple of games
that they had won, the Rams and the Cardinals. This
forty nine Ers team runs me a lot of the
one the year after they last lost to the Chiefs
in the Super Bowl. Remember how it fell apart early
for them. If they don't get this one tomorrow night,
this potentially is going to fall apart early. And this
is going to be one of those years where you
(12:26):
just kind of say, oh well, we'll regroup in the
offseason and see what we can do in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
All right, butthole great stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
We'll talking a week Sean by Mike Florio with us
on the air. We're going to break factor fiction. Jackson's
not here today. What do we do well, We're going
to make the pick for him, and if we're right,
we take credit for him. If we're wrong, it goes
on his record. Next on ninety three to three KJRFM,