Episode Transcript
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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
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now with Mike Florio.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Here's Softian Dick all right here he is from the
NFL and NBC Pro Football Talk dot Com. Our friend,
the king of all NFL media, heavyweight champione of the
NFL Press Corps. It's our friend, Michael Florio. How are
you man? Hello, good to see you, Good to talk
to you. Let's talk about what's happening in Minnesota with
(00:43):
the Vikings, because they got two choices now with Carson
Wentz being hurt. Either A turn it over to JJ
McCarthy and see what they got and the second year guy,
or B maybe go out and get a guy like
I don't know, bring back Kirk Cousins to Minneapolis and
try to roll and win some games.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
What do you think they do in Anneapolis.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Well, it's going to be JJ McCarthy this week. That
much is clear. They've made that obvious. He's healthy, now,
he's practicing the whole week.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He's good to go.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
The question is what happens on Sunday, and there's a
scenario where he either gets injured again. And I hate
saying that, I hate spectivating about somebody possibly getting injured,
but this is the guy who got injured in his
first preseason game as a rookie, missed the entire year,
and then in the second regular season game as a
second year player, and he hasn't played since, so you know,
(01:31):
we have to take that possibility seriously. If he has
an injury or if he just face plants against the Lions,
they'll have two days to figure out whether or not
they want to hit the Kirk Cousins emergency option. But
they need to see I think what they have with
JJ McCarthy. They need to use the rest of the
year to decide whether or not they need a different
plan next year. They could have kept Sam Darnold. This year,
(01:53):
they could have kept Daniel Jones. Aaron Rodgers supposedly wanted
to go. There there were other options that they said
no to in order to roger JJ McCarthy. But if
he's not the guy, if the evidence based on two
seasons is he's not on track to be the guy,
then you need to consider doing what the Colts did
with Anthony Richardson, and that is we're gonna bring someone
(02:14):
else in. That guy's winning the job, and you're gonna
take a seat in year number three, even though you
would a fourth overall pick in the draft.
Speaker 5 (02:20):
If you gave that front office truth serum right now,
would they say, oh, my god, we screwed up, or
would they honestly say, no, you know, we're glad we
didn't sign Daniel Jones.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
We're glad we didn't sign Sam Darnold.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
Do we believe in this kid?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
I think that they would say, man, we really should
have found a way to keep Daniel Jones as one
and then as two. Maybe we shouldn't have been so
dismissive of Aaron Rodgers, because Rogers is doing exactly what
the best case scenario for him in Pittsburgh would have been.
The problem is the rest of the team isn't holding
up there into the bargain.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Mike, do you have an do you have an NFL
MVP vote? Remind me I have one.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yes, I was going to quit it this year. I
was waiting for them to fire me because I continue
to agitate the AP and I think they didn't want
to give me the satisfaction of firing me, so they
want me to quit, and I don't want to give
them the satisfaction to me quitting.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So here we are, well, okay, So let me ask
you this kind of halfway point, getting close to the
halfway point of the NFL season, who's your MVP right now?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Well, they get very nervous when voters talk about that,
So let me go ahead and talk about it. And
I do need to say because you know, one of
the problems is one of the reasons I constantly think
about quitting is because of the gambling connection, because people
bet on this stuff, and I don't think these things
should be the subject of wagering. But they don't ask
(03:44):
me that either. But you know, acknowledging that it's not over,
that there's a long way to go, that that this
is all very tentative right now. It would be hard
for me not to vote for Patrick Mahomes based on
the way he's played this year, the way he's looked.
He's still heading shoulders the best quarterback in the NFL. So,
if in theory, the season ended today and if it
(04:05):
was time to vote, I think very seriously about Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Do you believe the premise that the MVP has to
be a quarterback because there's a running back out there
averaging a touchdown and a half and one hundred and
five yards per game, and he really hasn't had an
off week, like all these quarterbacks have had a minimum
of two or three off weeks this year.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I'm talking about Jonathan Taylor.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Well, I don't know that it's necessarily an unwritten rule,
but a trend has developed. We're generally speaking the MVP
is the quarterback of one of the two teams that
win the top seed in the two conferences. But that
didn't happen last year. The voters went off the board
and went with Josh Allen, whose team was not the
number one seed. Usually, to be anything other than quarterback
(04:51):
of a one seed, it's got to be somebody who
does something historic, like Adrian Peterson or near historic when
he nearly set the single season rushing record the year
after Tarrney's eighth and in the final week of the
regular season, he did enough to steal the MVP from
Peyton Manning. It usually takes something like that. Maybe last
year changes it, I don't know, but the way that
it typically works, it's going to be the quarterback of
(05:14):
one of the two number one seeds. Because think about
when these votes are cast, it's promptly after the regular
season ends. So what's the most recent thing we're looking at.
We're looking at how the season ended. Then we're going
to be extra impressed by the teams that secure those
two top seeds, So their quarterbacks or in the case
the Colts if they win it, Jonathan Taylor, they're going
(05:34):
to get extra consideration.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Mike Florio with US, Mike, I haven't looked at pressures
things like that with Miles Garrett. But up until last weekend,
Miles Garrett is nowhere near the lead the NFL in sacks,
and then he has five, and all of a sudden
he's tied with Brian Burns for number one in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Now, the trade deadline is coming up on Tuesday.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
What are the odds the Miles Garrett gets moved off
a terrible Browns football team that right now is going nowhere.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Well, amid speculation that the Browns could do it, or
at least that they should consider if they put the
word out today. To a couple of the usual suspects
as the Browns go locally, Mary kay Cabin of the
Cleveland Playing Dealer nationally Chessie that there's no chance Miles
Garrett is being traded now. Whether they should is a
different issue. And this is a team that is obsessed
with analytics, ignoring the name on the back of the jersey,
(06:23):
and approaching everything as a mathematical formula. And under that
existence which they have been living ever since they hired
Paul de Podesta to be their chief strategy officer, you
should trade Miles Garrett. You should sell now when they
should have done it before they paid him. One of
the reasons is not to trade him is there's a
sixty three million dollars dead cap charge next year because
(06:44):
of the contract he gave him when he said I
want to be traded, and instead of trading him, you
threw money at him to get him to change his
mind about playing for a crappy team. And now he's like,
oh man, I still play for a crappy team. But
they should have traded him. They should have stocked pil
picks because look at it this way, by the time
Miles Garrett is past his prime, that's when the Browns
(07:04):
can maybe turn the corner for the remainder of his prime.
Whatever his prime may be, we may not see the
Browns do anything. So other than the fact that he's
the best player they have and the most recognizable name
on the roster, he really doesn't help the team win
because they have so many other holes. So they should
have traded him before the season. Now it looks like
they're not going to and it makes sense because again
(07:26):
they've got that horrible de Shaun Watson contract and it's
cap ramifications. You put another sixty three million in dead
cap money on next year. You got a problem.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Stand in that division, the Ravens have got to be
the first two and five team. They were one in
five and they were still favorites to win the division.
Are you of the belief that they're just gonna flip
the switch? And when you look at that schedule ahead
of them, they could rattle off eight of in the
last night next nine games.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Well, you know what happened was is we were all
focused on the Shenanigans with the injurer report and the
worst possible timing for the team to misidentify whether or
not he's limited participated in practice. The defense got healthy
and that ended up being a big factor against the
Bears on Sunday. So now the defense is healthy and
Lamar Jackson is coming back for a Thursday night game
(08:12):
against the Dolphins, who got their win for the month,
So that makes them even more vulnerable. Yeah. I think
they can start rattling off wins here and pull their
way back into it. It is amazing. They're two and five
and they're in negative territory and the betting odds for
the NFC North and the Browns are two and six
and they're forty to one. It's just weird to see it.
And the Ravens are technically in third place right now
(08:33):
in the division and his favorites to win it, right.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Mike, do you think Kirk Cousins is going to get
moved as dead cat next year? Drops to thirty five,
which is not nothing, but it's also not ninety like
it was two years ago.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
You think the Falcons move on from him.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
I think the Falcons have been looking for the right
opportunity to trade him for months they kept him. They
didn't cut him in advance of a ten million dollar
salary guarantee next year, fully vesting, because they thought this
is an asset that at the right time, we can
use to get back some of what we gave up
in the form of a draft pick and get somebody
(09:06):
else to pay some of this obligation. They paid him
sixty two and a half million last year. The cash
this year is only twenty seven and a half and
then ten million next year. But if and when they
cut him, and they will cut him after this season,
that ten million gets offset by whatever he makes somewhere else,
and he's not going to play for someone for less
than ten million dollars, so they're gonna move on. They
(09:27):
just haven't gotten the kind of offer, and there's no
team out there that's willing to make the investment of
whatever the Falcons want because I think they've been holding
out for a second round pick and no one's had
that serious quarterback injury that knocks the guy out for
the season that gets the team to pull the Kirk
Cousins emergency option. And based on how he played last
week when he had an opportunity against the Miami Dolphins.
That's not gonna make somebody clamor for Kirk Cousins. So
(09:49):
I think it's the Vikings and only the Vikings. If
JJ McCarthy suffers an injury on Sunday against the Lions,
or if he just flat out sails, and it's obvious
that this guy isn't suited to play in the NFL.
And I don't mean that to sound harsh, but this
is the NFL. It's past fail and once you come in,
you know, the higher your drafted, the greater the expectation is.
And if you just can't get it done, then the
(10:11):
team's got to make decisions because if you you know,
the worst thing that NFL teams do, you make a
mistake and you refuse to admit it, and if you
refuse to admit it, you just make it worse. And
we see teams do that, and that is the dividing
line between the functional and the dysfunctional franchises in the NFL.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Mike, how much legitimacy is there in these stark to
the NFL rumors?
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Well, I never know how these things come to be.
And obviously, if Steve sarkis and was secretly plotting a
jump to the NFL and it got out. Of course,
if it gets out before Halloween, he's going to say
it's not true. You're always recruiting. You're trying to hold
(10:54):
your team together. You don't want your best players to
leave for another program, you know, beyond the old days
of Man. I really don't want anyone to think I'm
leaving because it'll screw up recruiting of incoming freshmen. It
also may cause your team to fall apart. So I
can understand the reaction. I look at it this way,
and look, I want to be shared anyone who publish
the NFL and I have no journalism education, but I
(11:18):
have been doing this for twenty five years. To me,
if you're going to report what was reported about ce
Sarkisian on Saturday, that's one of those where you need
to reach out to his camp and get their response
before you push it because of the damage it can
do if it's not true.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Mike, great stuff. Really enjoy this. We hope you enjoy
it as much as we do.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Every day. Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Oh, I absolutely do. And you can tell by my
voice patterns that I really do mean that.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Fine, See you next week, Bud. Mike Florio with us
on the radio show. There is a huge difference between
college football and the Pacific Northwest and college football in
the Sees. And if you don't know what I'm talking about,
you might want to listen at three forty five to
day on ninety three three kJ R f M