Wild Card Weekend Picks and Dolphins Fire Mike McDaniel with Cynthia Frelund

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22:51Cynthia Frelund:Hey, it's Carissa Thompson. Everything these days is fighting for your attention. Work, family, social media, and it makes it tough to figure out what should really come first. But here's something that absolutely deserves to be at the top of your list, your breast health. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States. And the rates are still rising. More women under 50 are being diagnosed too. But here's a stat that really hits home. One in two women who qualify for annual breast screenings aren't getting them. That's half.

23:24Cynthia Frelund:And yet when breast cancer is caught early, the survival rate is over 99%, nearly 100 % for stage one before it spreads. If you're 40 or older, you should be getting screened every year. And if you're under 40, it is never too early to understand your risk. So come on now, pay the girls some attention. Head to yourattentionplease.com to learn your breast cancer risk and what screenings you might need. Trust me, your future self will thank you. Brought to you by Novartis. Lowe's knows Sundays are for football. So tackle your home improvement projects by Saturday and earn your Sunday with great deals on LG and Bosch appliances, select Bounty and Swiffer cleaning products, and more.

24:07Then once your to-do list is done, get ready to kick back, relax, and enjoy the game.

24:15Cynthia Frelund:Shop in-store or online now and earn your Sunday with help from Lowe's, official partner of the NFL. No, absolutely not. Let's talk about Mike McDaniel. Let's do it. So since we last recorded a NFL Daily Show, Mike McDaniel has been fired by the Miami Dolphins. I think the timing of it happening late in the week is as interesting as the fact that it happened at all. What was your reaction? Kind of what's your takeaway of how this Mike McDaniel firing went down? You think that Mr. Ross called as one of those calls on John Harbaugh? Yes. I mean, because Harbaugh, Michigan, blah, blah, blah, you know, do the, you know, inceptioning of it all.

25:04Cynthia Frelund:I think that what happened was is they had some conversations. I'm sure Tua will probably hear the plans for what to do at quarterback were probably central to those discussions. I'm sure their head start with how they're thinking about their GM strategy. Cause you know, they've had like a two month head start, which there's not the, you don't have the same restrictions from a timing standpoint for a GM as you do for head coach, just so the logistics work out. And looking at all those things together, I, I think it's a, it's, it's not necessarily that like, I do believe that Mr. Rossos love him.

25:42Cynthia Frelund:I thought that was interesting I love Mike like in his like okay like why do you that's just that was an odd phrase but I'm looking at that and I'm thinking he just thought what he could get to make the job attractive having a GM and coach come in together and they haven't had that in quite some time because remember Chris Greer had been there forever before and making a decision about quarterback and figuring out like to make the job more attractive for everyone I just think it was kind of one of those things that he was weighing his options and he thinks he has a better option i think he kept mike dangling it's like it's like when someone's dating you you know yeah like he found another girlfriend before he dumped the last one you know he found a better option and it's known that john harbaugh and stephen ross like have a relationship a close relationship doesn't mean he's going to be able to close this deal you never know maybe you don't necessarily doesn't jim harbaugh want to like take a freaking break bush was president yeah sorry doesn't john John Harbaugh.

26:41Cynthia Frelund:I think he was, Bush was a president the last time he wasn't a head coach. That is a long time. Like, go hang out with your kids. Learn to golf. Hang out with your wife. Go on a break. I mean, he's in his 60s now. His kids are out of the house. I think he has a daughter, like, near Tampa. Okay. And, like, he could go watch her soccer games or lacrosse or whatever sport she's playing. Lacrosse. Anyways, my point is, like, what? Well, it's not happening. My good man, why are you, like, is his heart okay? NFL media insider Jim Harbaugh already said at his press conference, John will be coaching next year.

27:13I'm sure he will. And that seems very clear. So, look, we talked about it at length on our show when John Harbaugh got fired. And Jordan Rodrigue laid out some really interesting breadcrumbs in terms of the GM candidates. And, yeah.

27:31Cynthia Frelund:Can somebody do something different, please? Right. I hate this coaching search. I hate the list of everyone that's interviewing for coaches. I hate the list of everyone who's interviewing for GMs. There's maybe 15 % interesting, 85 % garbage. What's a lot of the same? It's all garbage. They're all interviewing for the same thing. It's like they have a little caravan. You on the Zoom call next, you're in the waiting room. You on the, like, I'll see you in the waiting room in the Texas. Like, it's crazy. Okay, so I don't want to go through, now there's eight vacancies and there's a lot of interviews lined up.

28:03I don't want to go through, like, listing all the things. They're all the same. It's listing all of them. It's like five people. It's a lot of Clint Kubiak. It's a lot of Matt Nagy. It's a lot of Vance Joseph. It's a lot of Raheem Morris. I'm a little surprised about that. I would love it.

28:13Cynthia Frelund:I would actually think Raheem Mostert was more interesting. Raheem Morris. Kevin Stefanski is getting at least a handful of the interviews. Somebody tell me something new. Okay. Who's a new thinker? I want to stay with Miami, though, because I do find that fascinating that they have Chad Alexander from the Chargers interviewing Jeff Darlington, who is very tied in in Miami. And I think often represents in his reporting kind of the team perspective of Miami, good or bad. He said that the GM job could be hired as soon as Thursday. And I just wouldn't be surprised if it's setting up the most advantageous and attractive situation specifically for John Harbaugh, which would be Chad Alexander.

29:06Of course, Ravens. He worked with in Baltimore for a long time. And then Alexander went to Los Angeles. Jordan got ahead of things and had a great interview with him on NFL Daily. And check that out from a few weeks ago.

29:20Cynthia Frelund:By the way, I like Chad Alexander. Let me be clear. I think he's done a great job. I have a lot of these candidates. I like them, and I think they've done a great job. I just don't think anyone's thinking outside. What the heck is the Raiders are going to do the same damn thing over and over? I can't stand this. What if they hired Davis Webb, the 30-year-old quarterbacks coach of the Broncos? He is a little bit of an X factor here who not only interviewed with the Raiders. What are we doing? I like Davis Webb, to be clear. He's a nice man. He's actually interviewing with the Ravens as well, which I find interesting.

29:49Cynthia Frelund:Is this like when companies have fake interviews to try to steal ideas from other teams? No, but I do have a theory here. So Cliff Kingsbury is reportedly interviewing with the Ravens. I wouldn't be surprised if that both Davis Webb, who is the quarterback's coach of the Broncos right now, and Cliff Kingsbury were both getting interviewed with Baltimore for the head coaching job, more to get them in the building, comfortable, learn as much as they can about them, to potentially offer them the coordinator job when they choose someone else. So like you choose Vance Joseph and he brings Davis Webb along as his OC?

30:25Or more specifically, you choose Jesse Minter. Yeah. Okay. And they end up offering him big time money. Either one of them I think would be interesting offensive coordinator choices. No? I think that could be it. The Ravens list, because the Ravens, to me, that's the best job. It's not even close. It's not even close. They're talking to Brian Flores. They're talking to Vance Joseph. They're talking to Clint Kubiak. Nagy is somehow getting an interview. Whatever Matt Nagy's agent is doing, congratulations.

30:56Cynthia Frelund:Can Matt Nagy's agent represent me? Right. Anthony Weaver, who was in the building before, will get a head coaching interview there. And so that's what's going on there. Anthony Weaver has extremely talented children at sports. Just so you know, I didn't know I was watching his kid. And he's got like a kid who's, I don't know, middle school age. And I was like, damn, who is this kid? They're like, Vance Anthony Weaver. So I'm like, well, it makes sense. So they live in Florida. A lot of Nepo babies in athletics. And it's not because of the genes, although that definitely helps. It's because you have the best.

31:23Well, his kid was actually really freaking good. Yeah, I'm saying you have the best coaching that money can buy. He's like, what are we looking at here? The best in-house training. The John Harbaugh thing in Miami, I do want to leave on this because I think it's been really interesting, the whole New York

31:41Cynthia Frelund:and everything's happening in Miami. If you're John Harbaugh, why would you go to New York? Tell me the reasons why. Sell me on it. So everyone in New York thinks that it's a way better job because you have a quarterback in Jackson Dart. You have a quarterback you didn't pick. Okay. Okay. You have Malik Neighbors. You have Andrew Thomas. You have Abdul Carter. You have Brian Burns. You do have like a decent amount of like real guys that you can see like making Pro Bowls. And there's not a lot of them. You have Dexter Lawrence. You have some of that. Okay. and then you're also the Giants and this is where I think they're they're totally off their rocker they think that it still matters that the Giants are like an organization that matters and they're a respectable organization and they're a classy organization it's like you literally have the worst record of any team in the NFL over the last decade and you've cycled through coaches like you're the Raiders so I don't think that is an advantage I have breadcrumbs for you here okay let's hear until you start seeing former players that aren't named like Eli Manning or like they're absolute premier, premier, premier guys.

32:44Cynthia Frelund:Until you see them standing on the sideline, willing to help out, coming to training camp, being involved, wanting to be there, coming back for... Did you see for the Broncos how many of the Super Bowl 50 teammates came back for that whatever Bronco day they had? Until you have... It was actually against the Giants, interestingly. Until you have those kind of guys coming back, something's weird. And it ain't the coach. And it ain't the Malik neighbors. And you gotta think, What is it that it could be? It's just something's up. Well, the losing has been a problem. Well, it's not just the losing.

33:20Cynthia Frelund:It's other stuff, too. A lot of Giants fans think that Joe Shane being there, the general manager, who I thought was going to lose his job, did not lose his job, is the thing that's going to lose them, John Harbaugh, or get in the way. I would say that's not the reason you're not going to get John Harbaugh. That's not the reason you're not going to get John Harbaugh. Because if you get John Harbaugh, John Harbaugh is going to get to run that entire building, and he's going to get to do whatever he wants. And if he wants to just flat out fire Joe Shane, he could do that. Or if he wants to do what Mike Vrabel did with Elliott Wolfe, who's helping to run the front office, he could just keep him and have Elliott Wolfe help to execute the vision that he has.

33:53Like Mike Vrabel is running the Patriots. Elliott Wolfe is not running the Patriots, but he was there before. And so if John Harbaugh wanted, he could have Joe Shane help the cause and he would bring in his own people as well to be part of it.

34:04Cynthia Frelund:But I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's Joe Shane or not, but I'm telling you that when you have a historic team like the Giants that has Super Bowl victories in this century, I mean, in the past, whatever, 20 years, they have multiple, and you don't see those people on a regular basis down there pounding for them. Like, just something's up. Something's up. Something also was up in the first 24 or 48 hours. It really hasn't ended after Harbaugh got fired. A lot of back and forth of source-offs of like, no, John Harbaugh didn't lose the locker room. Like our guy Ian Rappaport reported how he kind of lost the locker room, that the offense wasn't really listening to him anymore.

34:47And then Adam Schefter said, nothing could be further from the truth.

34:50Cynthia Frelund:I saw you tweet that. I was like, oh, God. I love a source-off. I'm not going to lie. A source-off? A little protesting too much. And that's where I'm getting with. And here's my conspiracy. Let's hear it. All we've heard this whole time is like nine teams are after John Harbaugh, which would mean three teams at the time. You know, three teams who didn't even have head coaching. Who's his agent? It's Kevin Harlan's brother. I didn't know this until Ollie Connolly pointed out on our show, who's also, you know, Bob Harlan's son, who used to run the Packers for a long time. So you could be connecting a lot of dots if you really wanted to get conspiratorial.

35:28Why weren't my parents born in football? Okay, so here's what I'm getting at. I'm like, why is he going so hard in the paint of like, there's so much interest, and the Giants love John Harbaugh, and he's going to be the best guy ever. And I was like, he really is the best coaching candidate in this cycle. Like, you don't have to go so hard. Like, you don't have to be leaking to everyone so hard. If you are the dude, you're going to get the job. And here's where my conspiratorial brain gets it. Where does it go? that all along John Harbaugh's wanted to go to Miami, where his friend is the owner, essentially, that it's Miami, and he just thought it would be a good fit, and that making the Giants salivate and making it just so obvious how much the Giants love John Harbaugh and how popular John Harbaugh is going to be, with just like, hey, let's speed up the process here, Miami.

36:24Let's get rid of Mike McDaniel. You know, like, let's get as much money as we possibly can for our client down in Miami, which is our preferred landing spot in the end. And the Giants end up just being kind of a leverage play where they're using the Giants and the market in general to get their clients the best possible deal as soon as possible.

36:43Cynthia Frelund:I mean, how bad is that that we were talking about? The way I feel about the Giants, like I have a lot of love for the Giants as an organization. One of my best friends played there. Right. So I'm and the fact that you could be the little dangle me. We'll see. The meat, that could be, I mean, that's a good one. But can I say one thing about Mike McStanley? Because they're already starting to spread some breadcrumbs in New York. It's like, well, yeah, in the event that they don't. They still feel good about John Harbaugh, but in the event that they don't, Kevin Stefanski is a great option. And so Kevin Stefanski might be their backup option.

37:14But who knows? Kevin Stefanski could end up in Baltimore. Kevin Stefanski could end up somewhere else. We don't know. I would never want to be someone's backup like that.

37:22Cynthia Frelund:Well, we wanted John Harbaugh. oh, we sold out for him, but now we're going to settle for you? You know what? Pay me more for that. The checks, cash, all the same. No, that's another million a year for me. You know, sometimes it works out even better that way, though. Yeah. Like, look, Lamar Jackson was not the guy that Baltimore necessarily wanted. They drafted Hayden Hurst in the first round over Lamar Jackson, but they ended up with Lamar Jackson. The Denver Broncos didn't want Sean Payton. Remember, they wanted D 'Amico Ryans, and then they wanted Dan Quinn. And they settled for Sean Payton as their third choice.

37:56And they did pay him a lot of money. And that has worked out fantastic. But see, he made them pay.

38:01Cynthia Frelund:See, that's what you got to do. You got to make them pay. I'm sure their agents figured that one out, though. I love this stuff. Wait, let me tell you the Mike McDaniels. Oh, I love this stuff so much, too. Rumor, strong rumor that he's interviewing or been contacted. I don't know if he's interviewed, but been contacted by the Lions to be their OC. That's been reported now. Dear God, please let that happen. And hello. For Christmas, I would like Mike McDaniel to be the Lions OC. Sincerely, every Lions fan ever. Mike McDaniel and possibly Brian Flores could have an interesting decision this offseason, which is either have a real chance.

38:36And I don't know if other teams are going to interview Mike McDaniel or not. We'll see. He literally just got fired. Would you rather take the Cardinals or, let's say, Titans job as a head coach? or, and maybe, I don't know, Flores gets a head coaching offer. It's very possible he doesn't.

38:54Cynthia Frelund:Or would you like to break the salary structure of what a coordinator could make in the league? Because I think there is a very real possibility that Mike McDaniel or Brian Flores could make more as a head coach than, let's say, the Cardinals head coach is going to get, the Titans head coach is going to get, Zach Taylor makes right now. So Brian Flores could make that as the Cowboys defensive coordinator. Or McDaniel could with the Lions, you know, something like that. All of them need to write Chip Kelly a thank you note because Chip Kelly setting the market at six million for an offensive coordinator.

39:25Cynthia Frelund:And by the way, I'm a Northwestern grad. That's the biggest fleece ever because the Raiders are paying him to be the O.C. of my little alma mater, little engine that could there. But ultimately, I'm looking at this six million for a coordinator. Right. So that's the market, baby. If I'm Mike McDaniel and I have a chance to be. If I'm Mike McDaniel, I'm like seven. I have a chance to be either Jared Goff or Lamar Jackson's offensive coordinator next year versus what's behind door number three with the Cardinals. It's like, I think I'd rather rehab my value, enjoy coaching football for a year, maybe two, and then get a head coach.

40:02I have a number of friends who are former coaches and were position coaches and then became head coaches.

40:11Cynthia Frelund:without fail they all would take the coordinator position for a lot of with with no and and some of them multiple time head coaches and that stuff gets really hard because now you're not just responsible for yourself but like the other people you have to bring with you right so interviewing everywhere uh in this cycle robert sala like a guy who has clearly been enjoying life far more this season as a coordinator than he was as a Jets head coach. It's the skill set to be a head coach is not one thing because every team is configured so differently. The skill set to be the Arizona Cardinals head coach and the Baltimore Ravens head coach like Ravens, very well resourced, great front office that is going to again, the resources they throw out is very, very different than the resources that you get in Arizona.

41:01Cynthia Frelund:It's just different. So it's not the same job everywhere. Offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, pretty close. Some varying levels of responsibility, but much closer than what head coach means. Cynthia's cooking. Forget the 3-0 record. It's just boring. A couple other just quick items and we are going to say goodbye. Mike McCarthy is interviewing with the Giants. I thought that one was interesting. And then, man, I... Somebody bring Rex Ryan back. I listened to how he pronounced his name ahead of time to make sure I got it right. And now I forgot it. He's called A.D. Adon Dirty, the Seattle defensive coordinator.

41:37I don't think I got it right. I think there's like Sheilhouse.

41:40Cynthia Frelund:That one's that one's all crazy to me, too. That will be he'll be the that's a different name. Sheilhouse will be the O.C. at Tampa. That's my guess. OK. And that's my guess. I don't know anything. Another item I wanted to mention is that, yes, Josh Grizzard is out as Bucs offensive coordinator. Are we shocked? And Todd Bowles has been confirmed that he is coming back next year. I'm not shocked about Grizzard, but Steve Palazzolo. Yeah, PFF. Check the mic pod now. Yep. 33rd team, baby. He pointed out. We love the 33rd team here. Maybe the defining Baker Mayfield stat of his career, which is now that Grizzard is out, that Baker, his offensive coordinator, has either gotten a head coaching job, been elevated or been fired every year of his career, except for 2021 Alex Van Pelt, which to me is sort of the perfect Baker Mayfield boom or bust career.

42:32He's Barry Bonds. He's either getting people hired or he's getting people fired. It's kind of a crazy. I love it.

42:40Cynthia Frelund:I love it. I don't love it for Josh Guzard. No, I don't. No, no, no. You don't ever love it for the person who's been fired. But I'm just saying I love that that's for I don't want anyone to get fired. It's a great it's a great stat. And that would be fascinating. Yeah, I think the Rams, they're going to lose more talent like they do every offseason. Whichever one of it's like a lot of AFC teams, right? So if any of them do anything interesting, I'll become a fan. I mean, I'm going to say a Lions fan, too. So that's why I said not NFC. But if any of them do anything freaking at least interview interesting people you're not even interview like go get if it's me i'm going to interview some college coaches just to learn something and give them the leverage for going to make more money in college because that's a crap job they need more like having to recruit kids over and over again your same kids and they can just leave you after committing that's just awful but you gotta wait out kurt signetia i think that he's at least interesting he would be interesting at least interview these people the the great part is uh this isn't over no i'm with you uh that we will possibly have more if mike tomlin's gone or if uh lafleur's gone or mcdermott will obviously be tracking all of that we will be back in the feed on saturday night i am really looking forward to it we started this last year the nfl daily in the playoffs going live after every playoff night.

44:01So it'll be me and Bill Barnwell live on YouTube. Come and join us right after Bears and Packers ends on Saturday night. It will be live on YouTube. And then of course, it'll be in the feed, three shows recapping all the fun, best weekend of the year. Thank you, Cynthia, for the picks and the insight. We will see you Saturday night.

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