Free agency day one, part one: Jaelan Phillips to the Panthers, Tyler Linderbaum to the Raiders, Alec Pierce stays in Indy, and more

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1:36Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. We're bringing you guys the audio versions of our live stream that we did on day one of a free agency. I felt like we should just drop this in the feed, give it to you guys in its entirety, our live kind of unfiltered reactions to all the signings that were happening. I said at the beginning of the stream, and I truly mean it, this is one of my favorite days of the entire year on the NFL calendar. It's just a blast. Like you wake up in the morning and as soon as the window opens, things start flowing in and it really never stops. And so we did this last year where we had a bunch of guests just kind of pop on throughout the day to help us sort through our thoughts with all this stuff happening in real time.

2:17Robert Mays: And that's exactly what we did today. We think we had 16 total guests that were hopping on for about 15 minutes each with me, Derek, and Dave. Derek ran into some travel issues. He was not able to join us the whole time today, but wasn't around for about half of the stream, which was great. You will hear him on this part of the show, which is part one. Part two of the stream is gonna be on its own separate episode in your podcast feed. So as soon as you're done with this one, I encourage you guys to go over and listen to part two. obviously a crazy day tons of massive contracts the alec pierce news kicking us off right before free agency started we have an insane contract for tyler linderbaum the jalen phillips deal was another great highlight of the day we have the mike evans contract so much stuff to dig through today had a blast doing it with dave derrick and all of our guests let's get to our day one stream from free agency here on the athletic football show

3:19Robert Mays: I sat down at my office desk this morning at about 8.30, cup of coffee, watching some of the news roll in. I think Eric Wilson was like one of the first things I saw. And I was just sitting there thinking to myself, this is one of my favorite days of the year. Like I understand that a lot of the signings that happened today aren't going to be the most important things in teams winning and losing championships. But the sure deluge of information that's just coming at all times and how alive today feels. Truly one of my favorite days on the NFL calendar. And I love the fact that we're going to be sitting here doing it live all day.

3:49Robert Mays: Let me guess, you are a responsible man

3:53Derrik Klassen: and you were like in bed ready to get like a full eight hours pretty early last night? Yeah. Because I saw Eric Wilson last night on my couch. Oh, no, no, no.

4:02Robert Mays: I was in bed.

4:03Derrik Klassen: I was in bed by like 10.30 last night. I stayed up late playing my college football dynasty because I was like, it's going to be, I was like, it's going to be a busy week. This is my only opportunity to play until after free agency. So I like, and I picked up my phone mid game and I was like, oh shit, Eric Wilson.

4:20Robert Mays: And I was in bed pretty early last night as I am one to do. Derek ran into some travel issues yesterday. He was supposed to be here. He is going to be here later in the week. We are sad that he is not here, but we are pumped that he's going to be with us for a good chunk of the show today before he's got to get in an airplane. How are you feeling today, buddy?

4:37Derrik Klassen: We've got enough time that we get to talk about Monteric Brown, one of my favorite. I think this is my favorite thing about free agency is that obviously there's all the big tickets, but then everyone has their five little pets. I loved Monteric Brown last year. So to see him already off the board back to Jacksonville is like a pretty good start to the day for me.

4:54Robert Mays: So let's run through some of the retaining, retainings, retainments. Let's run some of the... You inventing words for the live show? That's actually the word that we should be using here. Let's run through some of these moves where teams have retained their own free agents before the market opens. As Derek just alluded to, Monteric Brown, back to the Jags, three years,$33 million. I mean, he played well for them last year. Obviously, they know what he can be within that defense. They were going to have a pretty big need at corner if he were to move on. They still have a need at corner. I think that's why Travis Hunter's probably going to be moving over there next year.

5:27Robert Mays: So it makes sense for him to be back. One that I totally understand if they want to maintain what they were defensively last year because he played really good football. but I thought this would be somebody that I'd be chasing if I needed help at this spot. Sheldon Rankins back to the Texans two years, 12 million total or 12 million a year? 12 million in guarantees, 12 million in guarantees. So Sheldon Rankins, let's get that contract two years. Um, man, Sheldon Rankins is as a, uh, Sheldon Rankins has signed as a free agent so many times. If you just heard Sheldon Rankins, uh, free agency deals a few years ago come up.

6:03Robert Mays: So two years, 12 million in guaranteed money per Garofalo. So I don't know exactly what the AAV is on that. I'm sure that'll roll in at some point over the next couple of days. The other Texans move worth mentioning, Ed Ingram, back to the Texans, three years, 37 and a half million. I love when this stuff happens because it's just a fun little comparison point, Derek. That's the exact contract Patrick McCary signed for last year in free agency. And so we're trying to figure out like the tier of these guys and where they fall. incredibly different players at Ingram and Patrick McCurry. But when you're looking for starting caliber guards and free agency, that's about the number that you're going to have to be paying for.

6:41Robert Mays: And we said about the interior market all year, all week last week. Like these are going to be some numbers where it's like, oh shit, like that guy's making that. I think the Ed Ingram contract is indicative of that.

6:50Derrik Klassen: And I think it's a little more interesting that like he's, this feels like the Texans are usually when these, some of the, a lot of these teams are overpaying, quote unquote, for some of these interior players, It's a Patrick McCary where we're bringing him in from elsewhere to fix a problem. Ed Ingram was already there, but there with all the other offensive line shuffling moves that Houston is doing, it kind of makes sense for them that they want to pay one guy. I'm more interested in the Sheldon Rankins retainment or retaining whatever it was that we made up for the day. Retainment. Retainment.

7:20Derrik Klassen: Because it, like you alluded to, it nukes the three tech market. Like it's, it was kind of him and Logan Hall. And that was going to really be it for a lot of this, for a lot of this off season. And so for him to already be off the board back to the Texans, obviously it's great for them, but it's bad for any other team that needed a little bit of penetration at the defensive tackle.

7:37Robert Mays: We have our first bit of massive news this morning, by the way. Per Adam Schefter, Alec Pierce, back to the Colts. Ready for this? Four years,$116 million. If you want to do some quick math on that, That's$29 million a year. Not quite the three I was hoping. We'll see what the guarantees on that look like. But from a pure AAV perspective, my God, I mean, we knew that it was going to get really high as he got closer to the market and more teams started getting involved. 27 was the number that we were throwing out at the end of last week. That's what I had heard from a team. So again, guarantees yet to come, but$29 million a year on a four year deal for Alec Pierce to go back to the Colts.

8:21Derrik Klassen: can I be completely irresponsible just off the cuff? Yeah, of course. That's the whole point of this. Considering what they have available to them financially and who they have at quarterback, why do the Patriots let the Colts win that? Why aren't they just the overbearing?

8:39Robert Mays: At a certain point, there's some responsibility that has to creep in.

8:44Derrik Klassen: No, not if it's not in the face yet. You've got a guy, if you've ever done a fantasy auction, There's always just a guy who will just throw another couple dollars on. Yeah, you have to police the number. Yeah. So why not be that guy? And I mean, I don't know. I get it. After a certain point, you do have to back out. But why back out if the number's not three yet? Back out at 31. Don't back out at 29. We already knew this was going to be a silly contract. You need the receiver. You've got the MVP quarterback. What if the number was... yeah what if the number was like 25 and this was the Colts going up and above what everybody else's

9:23Robert Mays: market was I don't think that I don't think that's the case I think the number started at like 27

9:28Derrik Klassen: so it can't be that much higher and I mean we kill teams when they overspend and the Patriots did this last year with Milton Williams we'd love to kill teams that just drop huge amounts of money it's probably not a bad thing to not be willing to go that high but I don't know if you've if If you've got Drake May and you know that he's not going to be expensive for a long time and it's a very clear need of yours and you're drafting at the back of the first round, you can obviously find receivers all over the place.

9:57Robert Mays: But it would have been fun and they had the money to do it. I can understand a team not wanting to pay$30 million a year for Alec Pierce. We talked about this a lot last week and it's a consistent theme every single year. The pool of free agent receivers are just free agents available, veteran free agents available every single year that you don't have to trade for. They don't exist, right? I mean, they're just very rarely do those players come along. And so I think if I'm the Patriots, would I rather pay$30 million a year for Alec Pierce or would I rather try to explore what an A.J. Brown deal might look like?

10:30Robert Mays: I think there are other more responsible avenues. And I say this as somebody who really likes Alec Pierce, but the idea that we got, my favorite part of this is the process that we followed. Like at the quarter point in the season, like week six, there was a moment where I think a lot of people, me included, were like, man, Alec Pierce has really added some layers to his game. You know, he was a deep ball guy for a while. He was a really good deep ball guy. He was a fishing one for a couple of years, but what he's doing in the intermediate area of the field, some of the in breakers, like I really like the layers that Alec Pierce has added to his game.

11:02Robert Mays: He's a free agent heading into next year. Like I wouldn't be surprised if Alec Pierce was like a$20 million a year player. And then somewhere along the way from like week six to yesterday, we got to a point where Alec Pierce was gonna be like the sixth highest paid receiver in the league. And I just don't know that that was necessary. And again, I really like him and think he's a very good player. But I think a lot of the times when we're talking about these sorts of transactions and just the NFL in general, the moves you don't make can be some of the best moves that you do. The idea of like, we're walking away from this, even if we've thought about hey, I've imagined my team with this sort of setup and getting this player.

11:39Robert Mays: Sometimes you have to let go of that and that ends up being beneficial to you. And I think for some teams that might be the case with Alec Pierce. And again, I say that as somebody who really likes Alec Pierce as a player, Derek.

11:50Derrik Klassen: He's a really good player, but also the$29 million figure sounds like it feels like one players, his age and ascending in their final year don't hit the market all that often. Players his size at receiver don't really hit the market that often. It's usually guys who are a little bit smaller, like your true guy who can be an X stretch down the field type of player doesn't really hit the market. And then there's nobody else in his bracket in terms of like age and ascending that really is hitting the market. Like it's maybe Robio Dobbs and that's kind of it. Like it's he kind of hit this perfect storm that probably bumped his number up five, six million on top of whatever it might have been in like a normal market.

12:25Derrik Klassen: I'm a big believer in playing the odds anyway, like independent of how you feel about the player. And the fact that the Patriots leapfrogged the Panthers last year and did exactly what I'm describing for Milton Williams, and that decision has aged really well, maybe you're right. And it's a good reason to step away from the table. Like, what are the odds you're going to be right about two astronomical contracts in back-to-back years?

12:49Robert Mays: So looking at the Al Pierce numbers, we have gotten the details on it. It's$80 million in practical guarantees. Ben Standick, who used to work for the Athletic, I saw him tweet out the numbers, and then it's already hit something like SpotTrack. So if you look at that number, so it's$28.5 million a year for$60 million guaranteed at signing,$80 million guaranteed overall. Those numbers are essentially right in line with what Jalen Waddell got on a three-year deal, but that was in 2024. So it really is just kind of a markup on the Jameson Williams contract when you're looking at deals handed out over the last couple years.

13:22Robert Mays: The DK Metcalf deal was$33 million a year, but it was only$60 million in guarantees. And so, I mean, we're really talking, Derek, essentially like that DK Metcalf range for what he got last year. And that to me, if it were a player that I liked more than DK Metcalf, there would be a moment where I was like, is Alec Pierce worth this? The fact that DK Metcalf is the comparison, I actually feel okay about giving that contract to Alec Pierce, but that says more about how I see DK Metcalf than I think about the contract in a vacuum, if that makes sense.

13:51Derrik Klassen: I think that does kind of make sense. Like, I think I probably enjoy some of what Alec Pierce does a little bit more than DK Metcalf. But realistically, what they give to your team, it probably isn't like the same amount. DK Metcalf is a little bit more of a burner, a little bit more of a guy who actually stretches you down the field instead of just being a contested guy. But I think that kind of makes sense. Comparing it to the Waddle contract, though, I think is a really good point, too, because Waddle, by the time he got paid, had proven that he could be your number one receiver. and you know maybe he wasn't in that like top five six elite receiver but he proved that he could be your number one guy whereas Alec Pierce was very very good but was still really more of like a high-end role player in an offense that just had a ton of guys and really functioned more through the run game than in the passing game than anything and so it it for that reason still feels a little bit a little bit tricky to me again I like him too it just this feels like a lot of money for a guy who hasn't yet proven that he can do that one more bit of news here per Jeremy Fowler

14:46Robert Mays: Eric Stokes back to the Raiders. Three years, 30 million with 20 million guaranteed. This number, that's like 10, 11 million dollars for these corners going back to their teams is an interesting number because it almost feels like the corner market is like shifting a little bit based on where we were last year. So obviously Trent McDuffie gets the, I was awake for the Trent McDuffie thing yesterday. Oh, great. Obviously Trent McDuffie gets a market setting deal at the position, which we knew was going to happen based on the draft capital that was sent back to the Chiefs as part of that deal. It's inevitable.

15:15Robert Mays: he's operating with an extreme amount of leverage. So the top of the corner market starts going up again, but Stokes getting 10 million and Monteric Brown getting 11 million. The contracts that I would kind of compare to that in last year's free agent class, where it was the, we like you enough for you to be our starter, even if we don't think you're like a star level player. I think they're a slight tick above this, Derek, but the guys that signed those sorts of deals last year were like Mike Hughes. And then the contract that ended up looking really good was the one that Mike Jackson got from the Panthers.

15:47Robert Mays: And those were for about like five-ish million dollars a year. You might be able to compare the Monterey Brown and Eric Stokes contracts to like what Christian Fulton got last year from the Chiefs, which was two years, 20 million at 10 million a year. But I do think it's notable that some of these retained contracts have almost doubled in value when you look at what the corners were getting last year and what the corners are getting this year.

16:12Derrik Klassen: and I think Dante Jackson signed for like a very similar deal six and a half million last year for

16:17Robert Mays: Dante Jackson so he was more in the range of that Hughes uh Michael Mike Jackson range than those

16:23Derrik Klassen: other guys right and I do think it's interesting too all almost all of those guys were guys who were bouncing around to different teams and were able to take cheaper deals so it is interesting that a year after that teams are seeing their kind of functional but maybe not like true true starting caliber corner twos and being like, listen, we have to lock that guy down. I think it's particularly interesting in the case of the Raiders, given that they like they could have gone into like a new defense and really like shuffled things around if they really wanted to, but didn't. Whereas I think for a team like Jacksonville, where again, corner was going to be such a huge pressing need for them, was kind of at parts last year.

16:59Derrik Klassen: Obviously, they did some of the shuffling around with Greg Newsome and Tyson Campbell. Now they're bringing in Travis Hunter. I think it made a lot more sense for them to stick around and retain Monteric Brown. Eric Stokes, I think I'm a little more, I have a few more questions about, but it is interesting that the corner market has like, literally everyone is signing between$9 and$11 million for this. You can do it. We'll see how long you can hold the job contract.

17:22Robert Mays: Yeah, and exactly. And that deal was a little bit cheaper last year. That$10-11 million range over the last couple of years, that's actually where like the top of the nickel range had settled.

17:30Derrik Klassen: I was going to bring up Jordan Lewis. So obviously it's a different position, but he got 10 last year.

17:34Robert Mays: And that Teron Johnson, that's what his contract was. And obviously the Raiders trade for Teron Johnson. And so now they have two of those starting cornerback spots solidified in that defense heading into the year. But I think that's a notable deal. The other one that has already happened today, the Patriots signing Draymond Jones, three years,$39 million for Draymond Jones. New England last year, you know, they their defensive tackle room, obviously fantastic. The edge room was, I mean, obviously, Caliban Chase sounds a smaller player. So going out and getting a more physical presence like a Draymond Jones, it's not really a skill set that was prevalent on their defense last year.

18:11Robert Mays: And so I can understand, maybe wanting to diversify in terms of what kind of guys you're seeking out there. $13 million a year for Draymond Jones. I'll let you guys talk about that as I figure out where that lands in the edge market overall.

18:22Derrik Klassen: It's funny because he was at Tennessee last year, but that's well after Mike Vrabel left. and I know you can say this about a lot of guys, but doesn't, doesn't Draymond Jones feel like a Mike Rabel player? Yes. Just, I've said this about Mike Rabel and Mike Rabel coach teams before, but an asshole compliment, just a physical tough play to the whistle type of guy. Like I'm, I'm not surprised at all that, that New England would prioritize him. And really, if I'm surprised at anything, it's that he didn't overlap with Mike Rabel. Cause I was thinking about him in a Titans uniform and I was like, Oh yeah.

18:57Derrik Klassen: Okay. And then I had to stop and think, wait, no, Rabel wasn't there. But stylistically, I think it makes so much sense.

19:04Robert Mays: I wonder if there's another edge move coming for the Patriots. Yeah, just like more of a pass rushing body. Because now, I forgot, Anthony Jennings played a lot for the Patriots last year. He is like more of a run stuffer. And so now you have two of those guys. But obviously, Jason's hitting free agency. You know, Landry was fine last year. But is there a little bit more pass rush juice coming at some point this spring for the Patriots? because I would say even with that move, they probably need a little bit more of it.

19:30Derrik Klassen: I would be more interested to do that in the draft, right? Like I kind of like what they've got with the veterans. Again, Anthony Jennings can give you 12 really good run stopping snaps a game. Draymond Jones is not like an elite pass rusher, but he's a very good pocket pushing type, which is, I think it's the way that they want to build this thing because Harold Landry is more of a speed guy, but has power for his size. And then you've got Draymond Jones, who's obviously a bigger guy. He can crush the pocket. I think given that they have a defensive tackle room that is incredibly explosive, incredibly quick, can really be used on a lot of these games.

20:03Derrik Klassen: It is a little bit, not to compare everything to the team that won the Super Bowl, but like that's kind of how Seattle tried to build their room, where it's a lot quicker on the interior, bigger on the edges. Mike Vrabel had obviously done that in Tennessee as well. And so for now him to like try to get further and further closer to that, I think makes a lot of sense for them.

20:20Robert Mays: A couple of the other smaller moves that have happened, well, not necessarily small, but a couple of moves that happened before we started recording here. Dolphins officially releasing Tua Tagovailoa when the league's year starts on Wednesday. They're gonna make him a post-June 1st cut. That means$67 million in dead money this year, $32 million in dead money next year. It's just insane. I mean, it's just an astronomical amount of money that they're gonna be applying to their cap over the next two years. So with him and Bradley Chubb, I believe, and this is like back in the napkin math based on what the over-the-cap numbers say, plus adding up their dead money hits this year.

20:58Robert Mays: And we'll see if Chubb is opposed to June 1st as well. That would change this a little bit. But I believe with those two contracts and the dead money for them on the books, the Dolphins are going to have like$180 million in dead money on their books this year.

21:11Derrik Klassen: I mean, that's going to be what? Like a quarter of like, I guess I was thinking over the next two years, 180, that's like half of your cap almost. More than half. More than half, yeah.

21:20Robert Mays: It's more than half right now. And again, this is just solely based on the numbers that I'm seeing. I'm sure there might be layers to it that I'm not paying attention to. All disclaimers keeping in mind there. As it currently stands right now, if they make him a post-June 1st cut and they cut Bradley Chubb, with those moves, the Dolphins will have$5 million in cap space per over the cap. There is not a single player on the Dolphins making more than$15.4 million against the cap. and they have$5 million in cap space. That's what we're talking about here. The dead money hits on their books right now.

21:55Robert Mays: $28 million for Tyree Kill, $21 million for Jalen Ramsey, $13 million for Minka Fitzpatrick, $11 million for Teron Armstead. Minka, who they traded this morning. Who they traded this morning to the New York Jets. Yes. Wait, so who's the highest paid player? Austin Jackson is making$15 million a year. Okay. I would have missed that trivia. There's no way I would have gotten that. It was always going to end like this, right? Like when you do the things that the Dolphins were doing, and this is, we can play the is the cap real or is the cap fake thing as much as we want to. The cap is fake as long as the players you're willing to mortgage and move money around for continue to be good, right?

22:36Robert Mays: And continue to be on the roster. The moment that those players are no longer on your roster, there is a cliff coming for like all of these teams eventually. and the Dolphins reached theirs. And it was always going to be catastrophic when you looked at all the moves that they were making. But then when you see it all laid out in front of you, it looks like a horror movie. It's such a great existential dilemma

22:58Derrik Klassen: because the cap can be as fake as you want it to be. But over a long enough timeline, the bill will come due.

23:05Robert Mays: Every dollar you move around cash-wise eventually hits the salary cap. It will get there eventually. You can keep pushing it and pushing it and pushing it, but you have to pay the bill later. The entire benefit of moving the money backwards is that if the cap increases, that dollar is worth more to you now than it's going to be as you keep pushing it into the future. But eventually, you do have to pay the dollars.

23:30Derrik Klassen: And to be clear, it's still worthwhile for teams to be cavalier with the salary. Yes. And it can pay massive dividends. I'm not trying to say that the Dolphins' current situation should dissuade teams from being aggressive.

23:42Robert Mays: but it's a one year thing yeah they have 180 million dollars in 2027 space even with the two a contract and so they have to eat this for one year but there's always going to be at least one year if you do it like this where things just get really ugly really fast dolphins are gonna be

24:00Derrik Klassen: bad this year that's how it's gonna be you should you should sign up and i know the dolphins didn't come anywhere near close but they pushed and they really they tried i admire them for that it failed spectacularly, but I'm signing up every time to have a three or four year window where I can get excited about my and view my team as a piece of the contending landscape. And if you got to go to hell once every five or six years to make that happen, I think that's a fair trade. Hopefully you can find more stability than the dolphins did and push those bad years off longer. You know what I mean? But even still, I'd rather I'd rather be in the mix knowing that I'll pay for it one day than never jump in.

24:44Robert Mays: The news about Tua, what comes next here. Tom Palacero, Ian Rapport, a bunch of people reporting this. Sounds like the Falcons are expected to make a push for Tua in free agency. I'm at free agency in air quotes, right? They're expected to make a push for Tua to be in that quarterback room. First of all, the all lefty quarterback room is something I absolutely can get behind and think is very funny. the other part of this is I want to let's say Tua plays for the first six weeks of the season and then Penix plays for the final 11 weeks of the season I want to take their spray charts and overlay them with each other and then it will be perfect there'll be puzzle pieces that completely fit together where Tua will only throw the ball to the middle of the field and Penix will only throw the ball outside of the numbers Derek I know that you are not enthusiastic about Tua being the quarterback for anybody at this point I will say he's going to be free He's going to be free and he's going to be a stopgap player for them.

25:36Robert Mays: And so I don't, I know it's not the most exciting answer in the world, but I can understand why the Dolphins would want to do this. It's just sort of like an intermediate answer.

25:46Derrik Klassen: So that's the thing. Objectively, a free Tua Tungavailoa, even if he's quarterback 28 or 7 or whatever it's going to be, they needed somebody else to potentially play for Michael Penix early in the season anyway. So I get that. And if you really want to sell yourself on like Kevin Stefanski, the play action offense, Maybe Tua can throw more over the middle and it can kind of work. I can kind of understand that as well. And so I can understand all of it from like an objective, this makes sense for them type of move. And then I can also look at the roster and look at the players on the field and be like, I just don't, I just can't get excited about watching that.

26:20Derrik Klassen: And so I understand what they're trying to do. I just, I think Tua at this stage in his career does not excite me a whole lot. I do think the funniest part about the Tua Tungavailoa into Michael Penick's transition whenever that happens is that it's going to just look like you sped up the film a little bit because they actually kind of throw very similarly and they're obviously both lefties Michael Penix just throws a hundred miles an hour faster than Tua Tungabailoa does at this point this is Kevin Stefanski being like I'm gonna make the Dylan Gabriel thing work oh my god I forgot he was like I was right the the small lefty I can make it work trust me the small lefty from Hawaii right Isn't Dylan Gabriel from away?

26:58Robert Mays: There's something about it. Something about it that just hits his brain in the right way. First big true free agency move of the day. Per Diana, a few other people reporting this, Kenneth Walker headed to the Kansas City Chiefs. We do not have the numbers on it quite yet. I assume they're going to be healthy given how many teams are probably after Kenneth Walker. And I think I had seen yesterday somewhere that the Giants have been priced out of it. And so multiple teams have been interested in him. This is just one of those moves where we talk about this with coaches all the time, where you have a certain version of your team and you run out of road with that version of your team.

27:38Robert Mays: And then what you do is just completely overcorrect the other direction. And that's exactly what the Kenneth Walker thing is for the Chiefs. It's like we had no pop at running back for three years. We're going to go out and get the guy that's all pop. That's what we want at running back right now. And so I'm enthusiastic about this. I have Kenneth Walker as a keeper in my fantasy league. You're the happiest man in America. The price was pretty expensive. I have Alec Pierce too, so I just don't know what I'm going to end up doing. I was like, I just thought he was gone, but now I think I may have to reevaluate that a little bit if he's going to be the running back for the Chiefs.

28:10Derrik Klassen: I like Kenneth Walker. It is, I don't know, with where they are and with everything that the Chiefs would like to retool heading into this next phase with Patrick Mahomes. Like, I think the way they tried to do it initially way back when with Clyde Edwards-Alaire is the right way to do it. They just drafted the wrong running back.

28:32Robert Mays: See, I disagree. I think I'd rather have, like, this, we know what Kenneth Walker is. And so, if we're trying to figure out, like, free agency in the draft, and we talked about this last week, the idea of Jeremiah Love at nine, right? Sure. And so with me, I think I'd rather, I don't know the exact numbers, but if you drafted Jeremiah Love ninth overall, I want to say you'd be paying him like eight or nine million dollars a year almost immediately. Right. Maybe a little bit less than that. Maybe it's like seven or eight million dollars a year, but it would be almost immediate. Yeah.

28:59Derrik Klassen: No, I mean, that's one of the biggest inefficiencies with drafting a running back high linebacker tight end.

29:04Robert Mays: You're making him one of the highest paid players of the position, like top 10 almost immediately if you're going to draft him in the top 10. And even if we think Jeremiah Love is going to be really good, we've never seen Jeremiah Love play professional football. We have seen Kenneth Walker do it at a very high level very recently. And so going out and solving running back this way and giving yourself an avenue to a receiver or a pass rusher or something else in the top 10, just as a theoretical exercise, I don't mind doing it that way.

29:30Derrik Klassen: Actually, okay. Two things come to mind and I'm glad you helped me talk through this. A, Jeremiah Love is going to be awesome, just for the record.

29:36Robert Mays: We do this a lot. I'm just saying we do this a lot. But actually, I wasn't... Ashton Gentry was going to be amazed. Ashton Gentry is going to be a good one.

29:46Derrik Klassen: But I'm glad you said that because I was actually thinking, because remember, the picks have... The picks, Jesus. The Chiefs have pick 29. Yeah. I was thinking about that because it's so easy to think and say, well, Clyde Edwards-Hilaire could have been Jonathan Taylor. And when you think about that, it's awfully enticing. but I don't think there is a running back worthy of pick 29 in this year's draft. So maybe this isn't year to go hunting for a starting running back toward the back end of the first round or toward even toward the back end of the second round. So it feels like a major course correction, but at least you are knowing what you're paying for.

30:23Robert Mays: It's 1128. Our guests, which I probably should have mentioned at the top of the show, by the way, we're going to have guests all day. We're going to have them rolling in every 15 minutes or so starting. I guess right now. Our first guest of the day. Very excited to have him. It is our good friend from ESPN. It's Bill Barnwell. Bill, how you doing, buddy?

30:43Derrik Klassen: Thanks for introducing me. 28 minutes into your show. I certainly am honored to be the first guest. I'm very intrigued. This Kenneth Walker deal is, I feel kind of good about it and kind of bad about it at the same time, which I wasn't explain to me you're kind of good about his thoughts well the Chiefs do not get any explosives from their run game that has been missing for several years Kenneth Walker has limitations I think you have to commit to running more gap stuff more under center run game if you're the Chiefs to get the most out of Kenneth Walker but we know he can create explosives that to me is the real strength of what he's bringing to the Chiefs and there's an opportunity cost here right I mean, if the options were, and I don't know that these were the options, but if the choices were draft Jeremiah Love and incur the opportunity cost, not using that pick on a player at a more difficult position to find or signing Kenneth Walker for what I think will probably be something like 12, 13 million dollars a year and spending more money than you would, but not incurring that opportunity cost in the draft.

31:46Derrik Klassen: That's a better outcome for me than the alternative.

31:51Robert Mays: I didn't use fancy words like opportunity cost, but that's kind of what I was alluding to in the conversation that we were having. Okay. Derek, what are your thoughts about this?

31:58Derrik Klassen: So I think Kenneth Walker moved to Kansas City. Specifically with the draft, I actually think a lot of other teams taking Jeremiah Love top 10 is fine. The issue with the Chiefs specifically, how often are you going to get a top 10 pick? You have to take a tackle, a pass rusher, like somebody in that mold where you just don't get a bite at the apple at premium positions like this. And so Jeremiah Love might be awesome. But kind of like you said, Robert, like Kenneth Walker is a known quantity. He might be imperfect. He might run into the back of his own guard every now and then, but he's going to give this Chiefs offense explosives in a way that they haven't had in years, not even just from the backfield, but they've struggled to generate them in the passing game over the last two years.

32:35Derrik Klassen: And so just getting any guy who can go out and do it, I think you can start to hodgepodge together the rest of the efficiency in a way that they have the last couple of years. You add on a little bit of gasoline with a player like Walker. I'm extremely into this, almost no matter what the number is.

32:50Robert Mays: I was looking up the numbers you guys were talking because I was curious about it, the idea of going to more under center gap scheme runs. Barnwell, per next gen, Kenneth Walker among backs that had at least 10 carries, 15 carries with a quarterback in the gun last year, sixth from the bottom in rushing success rate for Kenneth Walker on those gun runs among players who had at least 15 gun runs last season. And so I wonder if that is a little bit of a signal that we might be seeing, I don't know, a couple of structural changes in how the Chiefs might want to run the ball.

33:21Derrik Klassen: been waiting for it for about half a decade now there was that one year they started the season by running counter and all the all the nerds just like yep this is gonna be it this is the year it wasn't really the year it got a little bit more it feels like andy reed has sort of committed to it but but i think there's like a maybe a chance to take a step backwards here and consider your broader offensive architecture and where it is relative to the nfl like are the chiefs a modern offense by running a ton of RPOs, by running a lot of gun runs, zone runs. No, like you can succeed doing that. You have infrastructure to do that and you have incredibly talented players, but like this team has had great interior alignment for several years now.

33:57Derrik Klassen: It has been hinting towards that. And I wonder if this is the off season where you lean into building from that. You build your under center play action game, you build your under center run game. And I think Kenneth Walker does fit that. Now, when we get to the playoffs, will the Chiefs be running that stuff? I can't say. I don't know. But I do think this at least opens up that possibility. And that to me is exciting if you're a Chiefs fan.

34:19Robert Mays: Speaking of excited Chiefs fans, Patrick Mahomes very excited about it. He tweeted about it. That might be enough on its own. That might be worth a$13 million. I was glad I was hilarious about it. Well, I'm glad you're the first one here, which it wasn't an accident, by the way. But I'm also glad you're here to help us talk through some of this stuff. I want your kind of like unvarnished opinion of Alec Pierce at$28.5 million a year, plus Daniel Jones on the franchise tag, and how you feel about that from the Colts perspective and whether that is a prudent distribution of resources? Because we mostly talked about it in relation to the receiver market in general.

34:52Robert Mays: From the Colts perspective overall, how do you see this set of moves in tandem and what it means for Indianapolis? I would never put Varnish on an opinion. that is something i i listen buddy i i certainly know that about you that's why you're here

35:06Derrik Klassen: varnish free bill barnwell um i i have been thinking a lot about it relative to the market and the case i've made over and over again is just if uh if tutu atwell is worth 10 million dollars a year if deami brown's worth 10 million dollars a year and those guys are not really good at football and alec pearson's pretty good at football he's worth a lot more i don't know if that adds up to 28 and a half million. But I do think they're approaching this the right way more in terms of the length of commitment. And I go back to the giant situation a few years ago where it was, we have Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley hitting the market at the same time.

35:43Derrik Klassen: Which one are we committing a multi-year guarantee to and which one are we going year to year with? And I argued at the time, the right move was Saquon a multi-year and Daniel Jones franchised a transition tag and the Giants went the other way and it did not go well. I do think this is the right way to do it. We don't know what the number is going to be for Alec Pierce yet. It could be 29. It could be 28 and a half. I wouldn't be shocked if it was like 26 when it actually got said and done, when we actually saw the terms of the contract. But it's going to be a multi-year guarantee. It's going to be probably two, maybe two and a half full guaranteed years as part of this contract.

36:15Derrik Klassen: And I think that's the way to go because even if Daniel Jones is not on the roster in 2027, which is, I think, that the Colts would not want to have happened, but is realistic given his injury, given his uterine inconsistency, given that he's now been transition tagged, Alec Pierce is going to be very helpful for that guy. I don't think Daniel Jones is going to be a player where on a multi-year contract, he can elevate underwhelming receivers and get more out of them. He got more than Anthony Richardson did out of these guys, but I think you're talking about going from the least accurate quarterback in football to an okay average quarterback.

36:48Derrik Klassen: And that to me, I think is the way to go if you are employing Daniel Jones. Now, I think given the options they had with Daniel Jones, given what the reported price tag was, if he was asking for more than$50 million a year, they approached it prudently. I think they approached the options correctly given what they had. Obviously, you would have loved to sign Alec Pierce to an extension before this year, but that's the sum cost at this point. I think given the circumstances, it's fine.

37:12Robert Mays: He is, no question. He was a better player. I mean, I can understand if you were a little bit hesitant about that, especially because of what they have in their receiver room and how expensive it already is. The one lever we have not talked about yet, I think this probably says that Michael Pittman is available at the very least. If they move on from him, it's$24 million in savings. He has a$29 million cap hit. It's$22 million in base salary. He's a 29-year-old player. Like, I wouldn't be shocked if a team, again, considering the market, if Al Pierce were $29 million, would you throw, if they threw a pick at the Colts, would they be willing to trade Michael Pittman?

37:46Robert Mays: Is he worth a pick? I think the answer to$22 million a year is probably yes.

37:50Derrik Klassen: somebody absolutely should like honestly to me i'm thinking of the jets have a million like so many resources to spend and they need a stable ish chain and receiving receiver yes an adult in the room next to garrett wilson and i actually think that that would be like a good way to fill out the room because we talked a little bit about them signing maybe like a romeo dobbs who can be like your third down kind of chain moving sort of guy and him and hitman are not one for one

38:14Robert Mays: I'm going to do this to Romeo Dobbs. Do not send Romeo Dobbs to the Jets. Oh, but I can send Michael Pittman. You don't care about him?

38:23Derrik Klassen: He's a little bit older. He's like battle-hardened. He'll be fine.

38:26Robert Mays: We have the numbers as of right now. Jordan Schultz reporting. Kenneth Walker, three years, 43 million, $28.7 million guaranteed. So 43 million is... Barnwell, you're better at math. 14 million a year? 14 million change? 14.3?

38:40Derrik Klassen: Yeah. I mean, it's fine. A little more than I would have hoped. I would have hoped for it to be 12 or 13,

38:44Robert Mays: but like we're splitting hairs here with a 300. Here's what I'll say. That 28.7 in guarantees, that actually is right in line with what James Cook got. His AAV was 11 and a half million. And so we know there's some funny money in the AAVs. And so the guarantees of that contract are right in line with what James Cook got from the bills on the eve of last season. And based on free agency versus retaining a player before he hits the market, I think that's kind of a fair price to pay for Kenneth Walker in this market.

39:13Derrik Klassen: And for that money, I'm not sweating it. Like whatever my concerns were about throwing the bag at a running back and all, could you do this in the draft? That's a perfectly reasonable price to pay and not. That doesn't feel like I mean, you pay a premium when a guy hits free agency, but it's not like free agency funny money where you're just like, oh, my God, what are we doing here? I think that's fair. Whatever concerns I had, if those are the terms, I'm fine with it.

39:37Robert Mays: Barnwell anything else that happened today that is in front of mind for you like any of those other stuff that's come across the timeline either today or last night that you found particularly interesting or notable? Have you guys already talked about the Cole Holcomb contract?

39:50Derrik Klassen: God I love you. No. No okay I'll give you a real one. I do think the sort of the flood of trades we saw right before free agency started, I think tells us, number one, who's out on certain players. But also, number two, tells us that there's not a ton of interest, maybe, in some of these guys on the market. The market may be relatively thin at certain spots. So Rashawn Gary getting traded for a fourth round pick, which I think was way higher.

40:16Robert Mays: That's huge for the Packers. A guy you were going to cut to get a fourth round pick for him is really nice.

40:21Derrik Klassen: Routinho had to say he was hacked because he already sent out the farewell message to get traded for a front. What a specific hack that was. Very weird. I'm going to hack Rashawn Gary. What am I going to do with that hack? I'm going to release a friendly message to the people of Green Bay. Teron Johnson getting traded to the Raiders. We saw Megan Fitzpatrick getting traded to the Jets. Good moves for those players. They're going to get to stay on their contracts relatively close to their existing contracts as opposed to hitting the market, which I don't think it would have been good for any of those guys.

40:52Derrik Klassen: They would have got less to me than they would have got on these new teams. And I think it just speaks to sort of like you're seeing teams say, hey, better to trade that late round pick or in the Cowboys case, a mid round pick and get a guy we feel good about as opposed to paying maybe a little less, but getting a guy we don't feel anywhere near as strongly about on the open market.

41:10Robert Mays: Here's a fun one. Diana reporting Jalen Watson to the Rams. so the Rams in about a week add both of the Chiefs outside corners from last year we do not have the numbers on it yet and so I mean we talked about it a little bit yesterday when we were discussing the Cam Curl resigning Rams are set now I mean that entire secondary is now set you've got Cam Curl and Cam Kitchens at safety you've got Quinn Lake at the nickel and now you've got Jalen Watson and Trent McDuffie on the outside combined with the front I love when this happens when I'm sitting there last offseason, I'm like, man, what are the Rams going to do at corner?

41:47Robert Mays: Like they need to do something at corner. Something needs to happen at corner. They do nothing. We get to the end of the season. It ends up biting them at the end. And then this offseason, they go the exact opposite direction and get about as aggressive as you can be. They give a guy a market setting deal after trading multiple picks for him, including a first. And then one of the first three signings of free agency is them signing another outside corner.

42:12Derrik Klassen: If this goes in place, So the next thing they're going to do is pay Brandon Aubrey$15 million a year on a restricted tag to solve their kicking pouch. That's them picks, man. Let's go. It's really, really funny. I kind of love this because also the rents still have Jalen McCullough, so they can still do all their dimes of that they really want to do. I love this because I can. I gave the Rams a lot of flack last year, like you did. I'm like, man, you have no corners. Like there's no way that you can feel the defense like this. And they got away with it for a lot of last year. but ultimately it was kind of their downfall towards the end of the season where they were losing games to like the Panthers because they just couldn't cover anybody.

42:46Derrik Klassen: Obviously, a lot of stuff went weird on the offense in that game as well, but they couldn't cover anybody in that game. I think for them to go out and, you know, I think some people would maybe look at the Chiefs defense last year and be like, well, they weren't great, but that pass rush was terrible. And so I think if you just assume that the Rams pass rush can help these guys a lot more than the Chiefs pass rush was, I can get there with this being a significantly better secondary And then obviously keeping everything intact in the middle of it. Like I'm, I think I was a little bit wary of what Watson's market was going to be for a lot of other teams, but slotting him into what is a very good defense all the way across the board.

43:21Derrik Klassen: I'm actually pretty into that. I have Wi-Fi. I could look and see what just happened, but judging from your reaction, I'd rather be surprised. I think it'll be better podcasting.

43:30Robert Mays: Per Adam Schefter, Jalen Phillips to the Carolina Panthers, four years,$120 million dollars for jaylen phillips wow 30 million dollars a year for jaylen phillips 8 million guaranteed

43:46Derrik Klassen: whoa when you said 100 i was like man 25 million dollars a year that's a lot but i guess four years and then he kept going 20 million how how much money is in carolina's front four at this

43:57Robert Mays: point listen i we said this about the pan about the ravens last week where it was like you know what just stop beating around the bush man just figure this shit out for real jalen phillips was the name i had mentioned to possibly do that carolina's in a similar boat where it's like you got to figure this shit out and so they cut straight to the point it's really it kind of plays

44:18Derrik Klassen: off of what we're saying with the rams and even the chiefs where it talk about a course correction from not wanting to pay brian burns and then two years later turning around and being like yeah Yeah, f*** it. $30 million. Pardon my French.

44:31Robert Mays: I think that you have to take into account the pick, though. Right? Like, the Burns thing is you get the pick plus the money. And so now it's not that much different than the Burns contract. Plus, you get the pick. Yeah. And so that is a ton of money. Let me play devil's advocate for a second when it comes to the Jalen Phillips thing, Barnwell. You look at the contract for Nick Benito signed last year. That's$26.5 million a year with$70 million guaranteed. And that's not a guy hitting free agency. And so Jalen Phillips' biggest issue always was injuries. And that's something to keep in mind moving forward, right?

45:01Robert Mays: That doesn't just go away. But based on what he was as a player last year, and when you look at the rest of the market, it's not really an insane price to pay for a two-way player like Jalen Phillips can be for you. It's a lot, but I don't think it's crazy.

45:15Derrik Klassen: Well, it does speak to Carolina's desire to add star talent, right? Remember last year, they were the runners-up with the Patriots in the Milton-Williams sweepstakes. and got to a way higher price than anybody was expecting in that process. They signed Tashawn Warden for like half of that, but it was still a ton of money for a defensive tackle. If you could guarantee me we were going to get four healthy years out of Jalen Phillips, I'd have no issue paying him$30 million a year. He was great last year. And I think numbers are okay, but watching him on tape consistently beating guys, consistently winning one-on-one, and playing on a great defensive line in Philadelphia for most of that, which helped, obviously, but he was really good in Miami before.

45:55Derrik Klassen: He got traded to Philadelphia. I just, you're talking about a player who retired at one point in college because of the injuries, you know, serious injuries, multiple years in the NFL. It's just a really risky offer. And there's nothing we're taking on risk. Risky is okay. But it's just, I don't know. I just, are the Panthers really a Jalen Phillips away from being anything that matters? That's just the part I struggle with.

46:24Robert Mays: I don't the answer to that is no I think that's fine though that can be unfair

46:29Derrik Klassen: and this also feels a little bit of like we missed out on Milton Williams last year we are going to make sure we get our guy this year it feels a little bit of that I love the player for the record like Bill said if you promise me Jalen Phillips is healthy I have no issue with this whatsoever the track record pause but if I was feeling antsy about that I would just cut on his Eagles tape from last year and feel a hell of a lot better.

46:53Robert Mays: See what the Panthers do to move some money around. A'shaun Robinson, if they move on from him, they make$10.5 million. They've got$111 million in 2027 cap space. Part of that is because as of right now, I think the quarterback is not on the books in 2027. So that helps and they don't have a quarterback for that year. But yeah, I mean, that's obviously an extremely aggressive move from Carolina. Bono, we're going to let you go. As always, buddy, sincerely appreciate the time. Great to see you. Good luck combing through all of this. I'm sure you'll have no work to do over the next couple of days.

47:23Robert Mays: Thanks, guys.

47:27Robert Mays: Joining us now, our second guest of the day. Very, very excited to have him. It's our buddy, JP Acosta. JP, how you doing, man? I'm doing great. It feels like nothing ever happens. FC, when it comes to offseason deals, are in the mud right now. So I'm excited to talk about it. We talked about, we hinted at this a little bit, that something may be coming, and it happened even quicker than we thought it might, Michael Pittman headed to the Pittsburgh Steelers. So it happened immediately. We didn't even have to wait for it to go down. That's like three days later. I like them just getting it out of the way.

48:02Robert Mays: JP, what do you think about Pittman heading to Pittsburgh? On the surface, this is such an interesting deal for Pittsburgh

48:08Derrik Klassen: because Pittman sort of is an in-between player. He's not exactly going to be a monster at a catch point like DK Metcalf is, he also doesn't stretch the field like Metcalf. But what you're getting in Pittman is a guy that sort of wins in zone coverage in between areas. But in Mike McCarthy's offense, you need someone that can create separation in man coverage. That's when, you know, if we're thinking about the peak of the McCarthy era with the Cowboys, it was when they had Michael Gallup and CeeDee Lamb playing off of each other. I'm not sure how Pittman sort of fits into all that, but if this were like the Arthur Smith offense, I'd be a little more, which is crazy to say, off off rip this is i'd be a lot more interested if arthur smith was running this offense with michael pitman in it than mike mccarthy which is a crazy thing to say but like it feels like this

48:53Robert Mays: is an odd fit i think that the the skill set in individually in terms of like demand coverage stuff is worth mentioning derrick i'm just i think that the idea of you have macka can be a kind of downfield threat for you and now pitman is kind of like that intermediate slasher type of player I do think when it comes to how they fit together, I can see the vision for something like this. Like this is just not the type of player the Steelers had last year.

49:19Derrik Klassen: Yeah, I think I'm like okay with it and not super jazzed, mostly because of like, I think Pittman is just not all that explosive, which is probably fine if you think DK Metcalf can continue to be really explosive for you. But I think given that Metcalf is really the only guy who does that on the offense right now, I would have wanted a little more juice. But I am kind of with you in the sense that Pittman can play outside. He can be your Z. He can move into the slot a little bit if he needs to. And I do think while Metcalf can be, I'm going to, for conversation's sake, assume that Aaron Rogers is going to be the quarterback.

49:50Derrik Klassen: While Metcalf can be your just slant and go ball winner, Pittman can be your a little bit more like brain chemistry with the quarterback type of player. And I do think that having that could be valuable for Rogers in this offense. This is also a situation to me too, where like they needed anybody. This receiver room, It was down to like Roman Wilson, who was basically not played for them. And Ben Skoranek, who is like a fourth, fifth, can block for you a little bit type. Like they just needed anybody. And so for them to get a, again, I think Pittman has not been 100 % the same since he had some of the, you know, neck issues or back issues.

50:23Derrik Klassen: I think it was. And since then, he's not been 100 % the same, but this is very obviously an upgrade for them. And so we'll see what the ceiling is, but I kind of enjoy it given. Actually, did they say what the trade was for? Like what they had to get? No, I haven't seen it yet. I'm waiting on the competition. We'll see. Yeah. All right.

50:40Robert Mays: We have the answer on the Malik Willis deal and the Malik Willis market. Per in three years, 67 and a half million with$45 million guaranteed for Malik Willis heading to the Miami Dolphins who have no money but are somehow managing to do this. Okay.

50:59Derrik Klassen: This is hilarious.

51:01Robert Mays: The Dolphins are just basically taking everybody from Green Bay and moving them south.

51:09Robert Mays: I mean, 22.5, less than we thought maybe, at the top of the market.

51:13Derrik Klassen: For that price, like, okay, yeah. My opinion is almost always going to hinge on how much you're leveraging yourself. And if he was supposed to flirt with 30, getting him at 22.5 at least makes me feel better about it.

51:28Robert Mays: This is probably the right number, though, right? 30 was always a little bit crazy.

51:32Derrik Klassen: It's the Justin Fields number with the markup for this year's cap. That's basically it. That's what it should have been, right?

51:38Robert Mays: I mean, so yeah, so I think this makes sense. So looking at Justin Fields last year, like Derek just said, two years, 20, with$30 million guaranteed of that 40. And so we're essentially in a similar boat when it comes to Malik Willis. I just, I don't know what the Dolphins are, right? I think this is one of those moves where you just, you feel like this is an avenue to a long-term answer at quarterback for you when you do something like this. And when I mean long-term, I mean multi-year, right? It's a three-year deal, so you'll have them for the next three years. You're in a spot, there's no quarterbacks available in this year's draft, no matter where you're picking except for number one, JP.

52:15Robert Mays: And so even if we're kind of in a position where we just said that the Dolphins are going to eat all of their vegetables, they're going to be a bad team this year, it's going to be like this hodgepodge push-together thing. The idea that, well, this is an avenue for us to find a guy for 2027 and potentially beyond, we have to take it. I think that is where you can get some of the justification, even if some of this feels a little bit misaligned.

52:38Derrik Klassen: Yeah, and I feel like that's sort of the whole appeal of a guy like Malik Willis is for teams that aren't going to be in the quarterback market when it comes to draft. Because there's only one quarterback that you can say you want to draft in round one. I think for the Dolphins specifically, this is a chance for them to see if Malik Willis can be your guy, not only in this year, but in 2027, when you're ready to start rebuilding and becoming a competitive team under Jeff Halfley. But also, if it doesn't work, it seems like they want to try and give Quinn Ewers a legit shot if this doesn't happen, if the Relief Willis deal just doesn't work out.

53:13Derrik Klassen: So giving him this deal, like you said, I was completely off board with him getting$30 million a year. I thought that was way too much. But this feels similar to the Justin Fields deal with New York. And we saw how it went with Fields, with the Jets, and they're able to get out of it if they want to. So I sort of feel like this is a great opportunity for the Dolphins to see what Malik Willis can do with extended legitimate starter reps. And if it works, cool.

53:40Robert Mays: If it doesn't, you're just going back to the quarterback board again, which is fine. Looking at the infrastructure would be my biggest question, right? When you're dropping a quarterback onto a rebuilding team, which the Dolphins are to an extent, like what's around him. The Dolphins actually are bringing back like a good chunk of their offensive infrastructure from last year. like four-fifths of the offensive line comes back. Patrick Paul had a really promising second season. 7A was a rookie. Aaron Brewer was an all-pro. Austin Jackson is obviously, you know, an open question. They're going to have to find somebody, a guard, Cole Strange is a free agent.

54:10Robert Mays: Jalen Waddell's coming back. We have Devon Achan. Looking at the Dolphins, and again, this is the area where they're doing this the right way, kind of on the heels of them pushing it all in. The Dolphins, as it currently stands, have six picks in the top 111. They have five picks in the top 90. they have the pick I don't even the Houston pick that they got I figure I'm gonna have to try to figure out where that came from they have a 90th pick in the draft from the Texans they have the 87th pick in the draft that came from the Jalen Phillips trade plus their own third and fourth rounders and so they're going to be able hopefully to throw a couple darts Derek at something like an interior offensive lineman some of that connective tissue of the roster like it does the cap stuff does look ugly but you can see what the your plan might look like when you're looking at this sort of draft resources and this sort of cash.

54:56Derrik Klassen: And I also kind of think if you're not going to be good, which the Dolphins probably aren't going to be good, at least try to be something like have an identity. And I do think getting a guy like Malik Willis, where he can be incredibly explosive, both as a runner and as a downfield thrower. I think that matches well with what you have in Jalen Waddle and Devon Achan, where you are the fastest offense in the league. And that was already kind of true in previous iterations, right, where Tua was the quarterback and you had Tyree Kill and all this stuff.

55:23Robert Mays: But that was was attributing to that, though.

55:26Derrik Klassen: Exactly. The quarterback wasn't attributing to it. This is it's a little bit of a different calculus when the quarterback himself can be part of that speed. And so I think that I think the boot game is really going to work because of that. I think they can obviously do a lot more different stuff in the run game than they typically would have or previously would have to a tongue of Iloa. And I also think like Sloic, Bobby Sloic being like the key part of this offense and being the offensive play caller and stuff like that. I do think that style of offense, it's going to be comfortable for Malik Willis.

55:53Derrik Klassen: That is what he showed progress in as a player with Matt LaFleur. And so obviously LaFleur's offense is a little bit different. I think it's more gun than people probably realize given some of the shared family DNA with all the offensive coaching trees. But I think if Sloan can take some of that and keep that general family identity with the offense, I actually think that this is a pretty good fit for them. So we'll see how good the offensive line stays with some of the offensive play calling changes but if they can figure out something at guard like maybe that second round pick hits i actually think that this can be like a fun 18th best offense in the nfl type of thing

56:28Robert Mays: i believe because that it was the woody marks woody marks pick is the 90th pick in the draft that's what the texans got theirs got a little something for you here just see what happened you see what just happened i know you're gonna let you break everything so you're gonna fun that way a guy that you just like you know how about this guy in free agency neville gallimore two Here's 12 million going to the bears. Hell yeah, Neville. Let's go, man.

56:50Derrik Klassen: Admittedly a bigger price tag than I was expecting, but he was a solid piece of Indy's rotation. I mean, you're not expecting this guy to come in and be like the star of, of your front or your defensive tackle rotation, but a useful piece. It seems like he's, you know, he wasn't bad on his rookie contract, but he's one of those guys that's like growing into his own as he goes. So I think that's a, that's a nice payday for him, but it's not so big that I think the bears are crazy for doing it either.

57:20Robert Mays: Sounds like per Jordan Schultz, the giants are going to be going after Isaiah likely three years, $40 million a year for Isaiah likely to head to the New York giants. JP, what do you think about likely with Matt Nagy and that offense in New York? We're going death by 12 personnel, baby.

57:39Derrik Klassen: The idea of Isaiah likely and Theo Johnson in the same offense. I actually think it's kind of fun I think Theo Johnson was sort of underrated In that Giants offense last year And what he can be with the nucleus But it feels like Isaiah Likely was going to be the guy From the Ravens that John Harbaugh pulled It feels like he's going to give Jackson Dart A really nice guy to have underneath Nice guy to have in yards after the catch And he'll take a lot of attention away From elite neighbors when he's healthy I just think the 12 personnel that they can run Because their receiver room is probably going to be ravaged by free agency.

58:14Derrik Klassen: I think Wanda Robinson's probably gone. We'll see what happens with their receiver room, but lean on the tight ends and Malik neighbors and see what happens.

58:23Robert Mays: I'm looking at the numbers right now, just curious. The Neville Gallimore contract is essentially the same number that Chauncey Golsan got last year from the Giants. It's near the bottom when it comes to there are only two or three players making between five and$7 million a year at defensive tackle. Like that's essentially just the first round pick rookie contracts. You talked about that last week.

58:48Derrik Klassen: Yeah, like there's very little in between.

58:51Robert Mays: Derek, what do you think about Isaiah Likely going to the Giants?

58:54Derrik Klassen: I think for a lot of teams, I was a little bit iffy on what Likely was going to be because again, I think he's a very specific player. He does not really block for you. You don't want him in line. I think he's a guy who you want to flex out into receiver roles as much as possible. He's really more of a red zone guy for you in a lot of those scenarios. obviously made a couple of huge plays last year and the year before. I do think he actually does make sense with this offense, though, because they are going to be more of a gun spread team. There's going to be more opportunities for him to just line up as a big slot.

59:22Derrik Klassen: I actually do think he helps solve some of what I think might be like the red zone calculus for a team like the Giants, where I think the offensive line is still not great. You're not entirely sure what you have in the running game right now, but the quarterback is going to be a math changer for you in Jackson Dart. And then you now have a guy in Isaiah Likely, who you can kind of just throw the ball up to. So you add Malik Nabors back into that as well, who can be a little bit more just your win one-on-one guy. I can at least see the vision here. Again, I think for a lot of other teams, I would have been iffy on the Isaiah likely market, but I do think that this makes a lot of sense.

59:54Derrik Klassen: And like JP said too, you already have a tight end who could do the inline blocking stuff for you, the five to 12 yard type of just get gritty yards and Theo Johnson. I think Theo is more than that, but he at least checks that box for you to allow you to have what is a sort of luxury player in somebody like Isaiah Likely.

1:00:12Robert Mays: Two new moves coming across the timeline right now. One guy leaving the Jets, one guy going to the Jets. JP, we have John Simpson going back to the Ravens. Three years. Called that. $30 million. Dave did call that. Let's go. I thought the Ravens would be in the kind of mid-tier guard market, you know, based on some of the money that they're going to potentially have to throw around and based on their needs. So John Simpson for$10 million a year, kind of just the going rate for starting caliber guards in free agency. We talked about this with Ed Ingram getting 12 and a half million. So JP, your thoughts on John Simpson, a$13 million a year or$10 million a year to go back to Baltimore.

1:00:50Derrik Klassen: I like it for Baltimore, especially considering what they were doing on the offensive line at guard last year. That is an untenable situation. You cannot continue to have Lamar Jackson behind those two guards, Andrew Voorhees, Daniel Falele. So getting a guy who knows the Ravens nucleus, who knows that system, I think he will be at least a starting caliber player in that offense. I'm more curious what happens with the Jets now at left guard. Elijah Vera Tucker is a free agent. Simpson's gone already. So are they sort of locking themselves into going and re-signing Elijah Vera Tucker, which I think will be fine because I think he's played good when he's been healthy.

1:01:28Derrik Klassen: But if they don't re-sign Vera Tucker, if he goes for a bigger deal somewhere else, How do they readdress that spot? Because if you can go out and get, if you can keep Vera Tucker in that offense, I mean, you have a very good offensive line that's ready to take the next step. So I'm very curious what the Jets do at that left guard spot.

1:01:46Robert Mays: JP, sincerely appreciate you joining us. Best of luck today and for the rest of the week. We'll talk to you later, buddy. Good to see you, man. See you. All right, before we keep rolling here, let's take our first quick break.

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1:03:31Robert Mays: With the times? You're playing the lute. Yeah, and it sounds pretty good, right?

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1:04:19Robert Mays: Rolling in now, we are very happy to have her as we're sorting through all of this news. It's our good friend here from The Athletic Jordan-Rodrig. Jordan, how you doing?

1:04:28Dave Helman: Hi, guys. Good to see you this morning. Wow. Right as you started your show, the S hit the F, you know? That's crazy. Yes, it did.

1:04:38Robert Mays: I mean, we were saying at the beginning, this is my favorite day of the year. I absolutely love it. There's something happening every single moment. A couple of things that have come down. since we last updated everybody. This one, I love this because I just thought he played so well last year. And I think among all of the teams and all of the coaches, when it's like, if this guy identifies a player, it makes me more interested. James Pierre going to the Vikings, two years, eight and a half million dollars. That's one of those where I'm like, I see you, Brian Flores. I also thought James Pierre played very good football last year.

1:05:11Dave Helman: Yeah, I think we are looking at, again, the significance of the voice that Brian Flores has in that building. I think you couldn't have designed in a lab a player maybe more perfect to slot into that defense. And kind of a, I would say like to the casual fan, a little bit more under the radar. I know you guys were really high on him here on this show. But yeah, this is one of those where you're like, and they just let him do it. You know, Brian Flores and Kevin O 'Connell over there, basically acting as interim front office members with Rob Renzinger over there. this is one of those they let him do it.

1:05:47Dave Helman: They let Brian Flores get another guy.

1:05:50Robert Mays: Other signing that we came in right as JP was kind of coming off but absolutely worth mentioning. Joseph Osai heading from the Bengals to the Jets, Derek. Three years, 36 million with 22.5 million guaranteed per Adam Schefter. Thought Osai would have a market given the way that he played last year. 12.5 million for rotational pass rusher. What do you think about Osai heading to the Jets?

1:06:13Derrik Klassen: this feels like the type of bets the Jets needed to make, right? Like a 26 year old who came off of quietly a pretty good season on a, on a bad defense. So you probably being able to get him for a little bit cheaper than he might have, if he was coming off of a decent season on like a better defense that had a little bit more eyeballs on it. So I think them getting any bodies at edge, obviously they bled talent at that position over the last couple of years. Right now they don't really have a whole lot left other than Will McDonald, who is going to be hopefully for them a pretty superstar pass rusher.

1:06:41Derrik Klassen: But I think bringing in Osai to, he also makes sense as like an Aaron Glenn specific signing in the sense that like Glenn, what you saw in his defenses with what he was familiar with going all the way back to New Orleans and some of Dennis Allen's defense when he was the DB's coach or what he was doing in Detroit. he likes those guys who can be a little bit more stout on the edge. And Osai isn't like, you know, a huge Frankenstein type of guy, but he is a very, very good run defender. And so I think bringing him in, them trying to two years later, now get back into whatever the vision for the Aaron Glenn defense is supposed to be.

1:07:13Derrik Klassen: I like this as a bet for them.

1:07:15Robert Mays: Jordan, two kind of team-wide questions I had for you. One, a team that you did a lot of reporting on last year during the season, just kind of figuring out what their thought process looked like. And two, a team that you covered day-to-day for a very long time. I just want your take on the Colts approach with the transition tag for Daniel Jones, giving that amount of money to Alec Pierce. You did a big story last year, spent some time with a lot of people in that building, just as like a state of the union kind of look. What are your initial thoughts about how the Colts have approached this offseason so far, given what you knew about them heading into the stretch of the calendar?

1:07:46Dave Helman: Yeah, I think people look at the transition tag and the number on the Alec Pierce report contract details so far and think, oh, what are they doing? They're just going, they're making these decisions that are a little bit eyebrow raising. But when you look at the decisions in tandem and also the way that the Colts were very open about the fact that these are the two players of anybody on the roster that they were priorities to keep in-house and extend into the future. And then Daniel Jones's injury threw a wrench in the entire plan. So you have to then figure out what that looks like as an adjusted facet of your plan.

1:08:21Dave Helman: And you're not just going to go full extension immediately, especially if his camp is asking for a significantly larger number than you're comfortable giving, particularly coming off of the Achilles. But what you're doing with the transition tag and Daniel Jones specifically is you're buying time. You're buying time not only for other teams to tell his camp financially, just how cautious they are about that injury. And you're also buying time for understanding the checkpoints that he has to go through in order for you to feel comfortable doing that long-term extension, which I still do believe they want to get done with him, predicated on how he comes back from that injury, the checkpoints of which now they can actually monitor because they will, I hate to phrase it like this, but own that information within their building versus wonder about it externally.

1:09:03Dave Helman: So I like this because the Colts said, we have a plan and they stuck to their plan and their process. Whether or not you agree with what they did, that's up for debate. But a lot of teams do not stick to their plan and their process. they get a little bit wandering eyes or dirty eyes this time of year. The Colts were very transparent about what they wanted to do, and they found a way to make the puzzle pieces fit for what they're in right now roster-wise. And I think that's a win-now situation, depending on how Daniel Jones comes back.

1:09:31Robert Mays: And how do we feel about the Los Angeles Rams finally deciding that they need some outside cornerbacks on their team?

1:09:37Dave Helman: Is it 2018? Who's the receiver that they're going to trade for now? like this really time I posted this on social media time is a flat circle because the second they made that Trent McDuffie trade I'm like okay who's the second corner that they're going to bring in because the Rams after building and drafting developing so well and being ahead of schedule over the last couple of years are firmly back into the pay for players era and to pay for premium players era that they were in more commonly known as the F them picks era but in this case acquiring some free agents as well. This is fascinating to me.

1:10:12Dave Helman: This is a team that, even if it takes them a couple months later to recognize it, Robert, you know as well as I do, this is a very self-aware team. They were as mad about the secondary last year, I think, that fans were. And these are the types of steps where you can almost call their shot in advance. This position had to be fixed, particularly the perimeter corner position had to be fixed. They love pairing guys together who have chemistry. They did it all along their defensive front, all along their edge rushers. And now they're doing it on the outside corner as well. You know, this is so Rams.

1:10:48Dave Helman: It's like, I hate to say it because it sounds so cliche and not deep analysis, but it is just so, so Rams for them to do this.

1:10:56Robert Mays: Derek, the Jets continue to sign players that I think you can be excited about. Kingsley and Agbare heading to the Jets, one year, 10 million per Jeremy Fowler. Then the other one that I'll be honest, I'm a little bit sad because I was genuinely hoping that he might be a stopgap option for the Bears, but at this price, it's more than a stopgap option. Demario Davis, two years,$22 ,015 ,000 guaranteed to go back to the Jets. So now we have Kingsley and Ibarre, Demario Davis, Joseph Osai, all going to that Jets defense.

1:11:26Derrik Klassen: That has to be the most a linebacker that age has ever commanded, like even by like percentage of the cap.

1:11:32Robert Mays: He's actually 26, though. That's the reason.

1:11:34Derrik Klassen: Oh, yeah, he's still 26 years old. Yeah. God, Aaron Glenn sure wishes.

1:11:41Robert Mays: Aaron has a very real chance, and we have not discussed this, but I think it's worth at least exploring. When you consider the arc of DeMario Davis's career, we should not eliminate the idea of like a Benjamin Button situation where at 37, he's actually a better player than he was at 24, and so the price should continue to go up. I don't want to be dismissive of that because it seems possible.

1:12:01Derrik Klassen: I'm not going to rule anything out with the arc that this guy's had. I just, I mean, hey, that's a boatload of money. I said I wanted to see DeMario on a really good team, but I think$22 million with most of it guaranteed

1:12:14Robert Mays: is a nice consolation prize. The funniest move of free agency so far is absolutely this one. Maybe I'm the only one who finds this entertaining. Austin Hooper going to the Falcons, one year, three million.

1:12:27Dave Helman: Oh my God.

1:12:28Robert Mays: Kevin Stefanski getting Austin Hooper back like eight years later. There's just something really beautiful about that, Derek.

1:12:34Derrik Klassen: I listen, every time a coach goes like we made fun of Mike Rabel for doing this last year where he got some of his guys on defense where he's like, listen, I just need at least a couple of my my safety blankets here. A couple of guys I'm familiar with. And Kevin Stefanski doing that on offense, I think is it 100 percent makes sense. Hasn't didn't Hooper start his career with the Falcons, too? Like I just this is like a funny circle for everybody.

1:12:57Robert Mays: looking at the Jets front specifically Jordan I mean this group has been really remade over the last two weeks or so obviously the Tavondre Sweat trade happens it feels like six months ago that happened that Tavondre Sweat gets traded to the Jets we have Sweat there now you have Joseph Osai there now Kingsley and Ibarre there now Demario Davis there now I mean got a good majority of that front seven already swapped out and we're about 45 minutes into the start of free agency

1:13:23Dave Helman: here yeah but i don't think it predicates them hitting that hard in the draft too especially with whatever they have yeah it basically they're they're almost looking a little bit last year's patriotsy in a way in terms of stocking up and and honestly too i think this year's this past season's panthers a little bit but like the maybe similar shelf in terms of finances there it buying and basically using free agents as your meat and potatoes, your stopgap, while you have time to actually build through the draft after a completely decimated defense. You've traded away your stars, obviously. Now you really need some A, cornerstone pieces, cornerstone players who can communicate the vision, especially to the young guys who are coming up, who the defensive-minded head coach especially can trust.

1:14:13Dave Helman: And also you know that the likelihood of you not keeping them through the duration of these contracts is probably pretty high because you do need to go and rebuild, especially these positions on the edges. And also, I mean, I would love to see them keep building on the interior, but on the edges and in that inside linebacker position, you have to replace those guys pretty quickly in terms of Demario Davis. I know he's Benjamin Buttoning, right? Or reverse Benjamin Buttoning, which I guess is just aging, right? I don't know. But you basically, you have basically a year, I would say, and you have to make sure that you're overhauling a lot of that in the draft.

1:14:50Dave Helman: So this makes sense to me. Like I said, it is very patriotsy. And now the Patriots are in year two or phase two of what that plan is, because you do need to build, you know, the future here and especially a cheap core. If you think Aaron Glenn's going to be around for a little while longer.

1:15:05Robert Mays: Jordan, before we lose you, just any other thoughts about some of the sightings that have happened? Anything that's piqued your interest? anything that you were surprised by? Like what's been in front of mind for you over the last couple hours as you watch this stuff rolling?

1:15:16Dave Helman: Yeah, I love left-handed quarterback nation in Atlanta. I do think that we're looking again at Kevin Stefanski being like, no, seriously guys, I can do this. Let me show you. So this is going to be really fascinating to watch for me. I did a study on left-handed quarterbacks a couple of years ago that, you know, I wish bore more fruit, but basically everyone thinks it's not that big of a deal until they actually have to play against it. And I really just, I just, I'm fascinated by Malik Willis going to the Dolphins. I think this is the one where a lot of us thought this was going to happen for many, many weeks.

1:15:53Dave Helman: I kind of enjoy when the marquee signing is not really a surprise. And I'm really eager and curious to see what that staff does with him. Obviously, Jeff Halfley being so, so, so familiar with Malik Willis over the last couple of seasons in Green Bay. and I want the best for this young man. We've really enjoyed, I think, watching his career arc and him refinding himself and some of the developmental stuff that he did with Matt LaFleur. Can that carry over now in Miami where he's the leading character now? So this is gonna be really fun to watch, in my opinion.

1:16:26Robert Mays: Yeah, we've kind of slowed down here for a second and in these moments where things aren't moving 100 miles an hour, I think you can sit in these a little bit more. It is awesome that Malik Willis, who's traded for a sandwich, is now making$22 million a year and is gonna have a chance to start. I mean, in those moments where you watched him and stopped in spot duty last year for the Packers, I think that was all of our collective reactions across the entire spectrum of NFL media is like, this guy's a starter. Like he deserves a chance to do this. And, you know, Derek's point about just the sheer gasoline that we're going to be seeing with that offense overall with him now playing quarterback.

1:16:57Robert Mays: I was looking at their staff just because I was curious, like, is there anybody there that has some college experience? Like who's going to add to the quarterback run game kind of creativity part of this? because that's obviously not the world that Bobby Slok necessarily comes from. But I have to imagine that we're going to be seeing a decent amount of it. But yeah, congratulations to Malik Willis, a guy that I think was kind of just left out in the wilderness by the NFL when it comes to that trade from Tennessee and is now making a lot of money to be the Dolphins starting quarterback.

1:17:23Derrik Klassen: I'm really glad we had that conversation about their offense as well because obviously the Dolphins are not in a great spot, but it's easy to look at the finances and assume the worst. but there's some pieces on that offense that are worth being excited about. I'm very intrigued by how that could look.

1:17:40Robert Mays: Yeah, it's just one of those years where you know you're taking a step back just because the math tells you you have to. Doesn't mean you can't be enjoyable to watch. Exactly, and this is, it was always gonna be, and when I say that, I'm not trying to like shit on the Dolphins for like what this looks like. This was an inevitability. Like we were always gonna come to this moment and how you, now it's gonna be a question of how John Eric Sullivan moves through this moment. There is like this is not his mess. This is a mess given to him by the people who used to run the team. And so it's all going to be about what the transition and the navigation here looks like, Jordan, for a team that we all knew was going to be in transition.

1:18:17Dave Helman: Yeah, listen, I think they're going to be better than people think they're going to be this year, because if you do look at this offense and I think Bobby Slick is kind of moldable clay at this point. I say that as a compliment, even though it sounds deeply insulting that I've just said that. But I think he really is somebody who is learning how to put different pages in his playbook, different layers, develop that past a single season. And I think he learned a lot after he was let go from the Houston Texans job. And they have their center, right? And Aaron Brewer, best center in the league, in my opinion, are one of the top three.

1:18:47Dave Helman: They've got a top running back. They've got a top receiver. People really overlooked the cool stuff that they were doing with their tight ends by the end of the year. and their defense is going to be a significant work in progress. But that is why you bring in a Jeff Halfley because you believe you can out scheme some of the talent deficiencies while you still plug in talent via the draft and probably free agency. And then you have Malik Willis, who I think really fits in nicely with those offensive players that I just mentioned. I don't know. I got a weird feeling about the Dolphins. I think they might be frisky this year.

1:19:20Robert Mays: I like the offense and I think the offense absolutely has a chance to be fun. You look at the defense and it's like, we're at a piece of, set the floor and look away. The entire back seven is a free agent. The entire back seven. If you look at it right now, I'm looking at the first line of the depth chart. The only guy who is currently slated to be on the roster is Storm Duck. He's the only one of the entire secondary. So that is going to be something they need to address without a ton of financial resources to do it, even if they do have a bunch of picks. Jordan, I know you got a lot to handle today, a lot on your plate.

1:19:56Robert Mays: I sincerely appreciate you stopping by and spending the time with us. We'll talk to you very soon.

1:20:00Dave Helman: Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me. Nice to see all of you.

1:20:04Robert Mays: Up next, it is our old friend, somebody I am thrilled to have as we are digging into our day. It is Deontay Lee from The Ringer. How are you doing, bud? I'm great, man. Good to see you.

1:20:14Derrik Klassen: You know, taking it all in and turn it to the bus cut. You know, it's a lot for me to grasp at the moment. But I'm enjoying the look of the studio. I think this is maybe my first time being on since you guys have updated your digs. We're rocking the Southern Cal gear too.

1:20:28Robert Mays: The only thing I'm a little bit worried about is that lights are so bright that everyone's going to think that I'm bald. And I'm really, that's my only concern here as we move through this, but that's okay. Deontay, let's talk about some of the things that have happened since we last checked in. This one, actually, I'm going to give you this one. Okay. Because I know you were excited about it. Kenny Gainwell. Two years,$14 million, Tampa Bay Buccaneers for Kenny Gainwell.

1:20:51Derrik Klassen: Oh, I love that. I absolutely love that. And I think... Little Rashad White replacement? He fits what the Bucs already like to do anyway. And that's not a terribly high price to pay for Kenny Gainwell, I would assume. I mean, he's coming in there to compliment Bucky Irving. He's a phenomenal receiver. And I mean, he can do everything Rashad White was doing for you. I'm very excited to see how Zach Robinson uses him. That's a fantastic landing place for him.

1:21:17Robert Mays: Next one here. Let's stick with the Buccaneers. Derek, I'm going to lay this one on you because I think this is a very funny signing. Not because it's bad, but just because I can understand why they wanted someone like this after what they've done in the position over the last few years. Alex Anzalone, two years, $17 million to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's like, we just need a body. We just want somebody that can reliably play the position and not chase the laser.

1:21:41Derrik Klassen: Here's the thing though. I feel like the linebacker market was too good to just settle on like an Alex Anzalone. Like I felt like there were a lot more exciting bets that they could have taken, but I guess they are just going with the guy of like who literally, who out of this linebacker market has played the most football at linebacker. And it's probably, now that Demario Davis is off the board, is Alex Anzalone. And so I get it from that perspective. Again, I still, there were some of the other like smaller deal guys that I think I would have been more excited for. Like, you know, selfishly, I would have loved like a Quincy Williams here or something like that, but them at least getting a body in there does suggest to them that they know how dire this position was for them.

1:22:20Derrik Klassen: the Bucks can't sign to Mario Davis anyway they're like we've done the really really old linebacker thing that would be the oldest linebacker room ever

1:22:28Robert Mays: I'm curious about your thoughts about how the Jets are spending their money right now on defense going out and getting Joseph Osai, getting Kingsley and Ibarre to Mario Davis obviously this is a team that very much in transition where are we at right now with how you feel like this fits into the way the Jets should be remolding that defense

1:22:49Derrik Klassen: I think this is one of those things where I have to remind myself that like the most honest evaluation is to try to do like a blind item test because for whatever reason I hear these names and then I picture them in a Jets jersey and then immediately I'm out. Right. And I think that I think if you're if you're Aaron Glenn and you're calling the defense and you're looking at what the Jets product has been defensively in a way that really predates him. I would say for the last two years, there's been so much of guys missing tackles, blowing coverages, not knowing where they're supposed to be, not adjusting to formations, things that were going wrong for them in ways that wasn't really present when Robert Sala kind of had that thing cranked up before things kind of went sideways.

1:23:25Derrik Klassen: So I can understand trying to bring in some level of dependability. You're bringing a lot of guys who have played in a lot of different defenses around the league, which really makes me curious about what kind of thing that they're going to do stylistically. I'm really kind of interested in how they plan on deploying all these pieces. But ultimately, these are a lot of older guys or guys who have major holes in their games in one way or another. And I'm really curious about how they piece this all together. I wonder if we're just going to see Aaron Glenn because he knows that his job is kind of on the line, just throwing everything out the wall and hoping that a bunch of blitzes and a bunch of zone coverages ends up sticking for them in a way that it didn't last year.

1:24:04Robert Mays: This one's really fun. I mean, this is like a full circle moment for the athletic football show, period. Reggie Gilliam, three years,$12 million guaranteed to go to the New England Patriots. Let's go. Of course it's the New England Patriots. Let's go.

1:24:20Derrik Klassen: This is why I got out of bed this morning. I need a fullback contract. I do actually love this. I do too. If you watch their offense last year, some of the stuff that they were doing with Jack Westover, who was their like tight end, like small tight end to fullback conversion for them last year, it was pretty good. but Jack Westover is more of a like band-aid stopgap caliber of fullback in that way. Reggie Gilliam is like the premier, like that caliber of fullback outside of like, obviously Alec Engle who already moved. So I, if this is the type of offense they're trying to run, that was as good as you were going to get in this market.

1:24:53Derrik Klassen: I love that. Yeah. I think I'm happiest from that perspective, right? Is that they are double clearly Josh McDaniels and Mike Vrabel are doubling down on identity, right? When you bring in a guy like Reggie Gilliam, this is not them saying, Hey, after this playoff run, that was really ugly. we're actually going to go 11 personnel for everything. This is Jack McDaniel saying, I want more 22 personnel on the field. I want more 21 personnel on the field. And I think that that's fitting, especially if they aren't going to try to spend a bunch of money to bring in two or three receivers to try to add to their room.

1:25:19Derrik Klassen: I think that trying to backstop this offense with a more dependable run game on early downs, I think that that will probably help them try to maintain whatever level that we think they're going to have in this 2026 regular season. They don't need Alec Pierce if they're just going to grind everybody into dust. That's$28 million collecting dust out there if he was on the Patriots.

1:25:41Robert Mays: Deontay, how do you feel about Alex Anzalone heading to the Bucs?

1:25:45Derrik Klassen: I think I'm right there with Derek, right? I think that this is Todd Bowles watching film and saying, I love you, Serovsky and Dennis. You're a good athlete, but I cannot watch you chase a laser on a week-by-week basis. And we also need to have something in case Levante David's health starts to go sideways as he continues to advance in age. I don't know if it changes the way that I feel about the Bucs a bunch defensively, right? I still think that they need some more impact play out on the perimeter. They still need a premier pass rusher. But in terms of just the second level and trying to get yourself something dependable, I think that this is one of those moves you can make and say, okay, I don't have to think about it anymore, right?

1:26:18Derrik Klassen: We have Alex Azzeloni. I can hand him an install. He's going to be able to execute the install. I don't have to remind him of what all these terms are and where he needs to be based off the formations that we're going to see. So I think it passes that test, if nothing else.

1:26:31Robert Mays: Amik Robertson heading to the commanders per Tom Palacero two years 16 million nine million dollars guaranteed Derek what do we think about this I'm not sure what is this I mean right if you look at that deal I mean it falls in line with what we're talking about with the nickel market a little bit earlier like it's just kind of one step down from some of those nickel contracts that we've seen I don't know what that means from Mikey Sainer still moving forward obviously he's bounced around a ton I mean, this is a team that literally anything was on the table for them. We talked about this with Nikki Javala at the Combine, the idea that the commanders had, I think, like 80-ish million dollars in cap space heading into the offseason.

1:27:08Robert Mays: She listed, when I asked her, she wrote this, I said, how many players do you think are locked in as starters for this team this year? She said like seven guys. I mean, there's really so much potential turnover with the roster, and so they're operating from more of a blank slate than we probably think for a team that was in the NFC Championship game two years ago, but still an interesting move when you think about Saner still and maybe how they see his future and where he might be playing if they do indeed intend on playing Meek Robertson inside.

1:27:36Derrik Klassen: I mean, they're a team that just they've tried so many different vets at that spot recently. Obviously, signing Jonathan Jones, they traded for Marshall Latimore. Obviously, that did not work out. Robertson is an interesting one because I think he's always been a guy who plays well when he's out there, but because he is small, there are some limitations every now and then. And then you mentioned the Saner still thing. I wonder if they go into camp not knowing which one of them wants to play the nickel or is going to play the nickel because Robertson has played outside at times as well. And he's been fairly good out there in certain matchups.

1:28:06Derrik Klassen: And so I almost wonder if they kind of just go into camp and I like start switching those guys around, see who feels more comfortable out there. Hopefully you get a little bit more development out of Trey Amos, who I think showed some flashes last year and the secondary could be functional. But I think even if that's not exciting, functional would be better than it was last year, especially at the other outside cornerback spots. So we'll see. It's just so funny that, and guys evolve over time, things change, but I associate Dan Quinn so closely with Seattle and that archetype and big, long cornerbacks that meet certain height and length parameters.

1:28:42Derrik Klassen: And Mikey Shamer still is 5 '10", and Amik Robertson's smaller than that. He's like 5 '8". So it's just, it's not what I would expect Washington to be working with, but both can be good, useful players. I'm curious to see which one winds up where.

1:28:57Robert Mays: Deontay, I want you to tell me how I should feel about this. Jonathan Jones was on it first, but Diana now confirming the Bears are signing Kobe Bryant. They had two needs of safety heading into free agency. One of them now filled. We have no numbers on this yet. We will update that as soon as we get them. How should I feel about Kobe Bryant heading to Chicago?

1:29:15Derrik Klassen: I think you should like this a lot. I think you should like this a lot. I think this check, first of all, this checks a major box in terms of body type and play style that Dennis Allen likes at the safety position, right? So you should be happy for that, right? I think about, you think about Chauncey Gardner-Johnson as that kind of corner safety hybrid that you can line up over tight ends or over slots and be able to play a lot of those kind of match quarters looks and cover one stuff. Somebody that you can blitz as well and can get to the ball. I just think about his ball production. You think about the turnovers he was able to force, the windows he was able to close.

1:29:43Derrik Klassen: his feel, I think, has improved so much since he's kicked back off the ball and moved to safety. And I think that that ability to have that safety slot kind of hybrid thing, again, this also backstops you against some of the depth issues that they had when injuries started to stack up. So you do have a guy, I think, that allows you to maybe look at your safety position and say, we can add again here and we can really kind of be flexible with what we do with Kobe Bryant. And if we want to just play him as a typical kind of deep safety quarters or middle of field safety, I think you can do that too and live, right?

1:30:13Derrik Klassen: You can live pretty comfortably that way. But I think if you're trying to really lean into what Dennis Allen wants to do most, I think that Kobe Bryant might be one of the best guys, right, that you can go get out on the market to be able to check those boxes.

1:30:25Robert Mays: Looking at the numbers, I think they just came across here. I think it's three years,$40 million per Jordan Schultz for Kobe Bryant. Kind of in line with the market we're seeing with Cam Curl, Derek. I mean, it's just kind of where the safety market is settling. And so it doesn't seem like an outrageous number for Bryant, considering where we thought the market might go. Kobe Bryant, I believe is 26.

1:30:47Derrik Klassen: I was going to say this, the number seems like a slight markup for he's just a younger player than Cam Curl, but the same caliber of player that I think you're picking for here.

1:30:55Robert Mays: Just a heads up when you search Kobe Bryant, he's not the first one that comes up. He's 26 turning 27 in late March. So this will be his age 27 season to be a little bit older than you think for a second contract player. but again, still a couple of years younger than Cam Crow. Kobe with a C though. Yeah, I spelled it incorrectly. Just I spelled Bryant wrong. And so it just took me to the Kobe Bryant that was most normal. Thank you, Google. What do we think about Kobe Bryant and Kevin Byard playing next to each other if Kevin Byard were to be the one who comes back within that group? What do you think about that, Deontay?

1:31:26Derrik Klassen: I think again, it's fine, right? I think that you still maintain your flexibility. I think you're okay with that. I think you're going to be nervous. I think about Kevin Byard's age, right? And where he's at in his trajectory, in his career and what his health is going to be like. And I think that maybe that's just kind of PTSD from just all the guys who were banged up in the Bears secondary all last year for me. But I think, again, having, if you want to keep Bayard more as your deep-ish safety, right? More of the guy who is going to be protected, more of your protector in the back end, and you're using Kobe Bryant more as your aggressor, I think that that would be just fine.

1:31:57Derrik Klassen: I don't think that it's special having Bayard next to Bryant, but I don't think you should necessarily need special if you truly believe that Jalen Johnson is going to be healthy and maybe you're able to upgrade opposite him at the corner at the cornerback to position.

1:32:11Robert Mays: Sorting through anything else we've missed here over the last little while, I don't think there's anything we have not talked about yet. Derek, what do you think about Kobe Bryant heading to Chicago? Let's just keep pounding the drum here.

1:32:22Derrik Klassen: Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of into it, but I share some of Deontay's thoughts in that I'm more now I'm more concerned or more interested in what they do at the other safety position, because I think I've voiced this concern before. I think a lot of what Bayard did this year, while the interceptions were huge, it feels a little bit more like a mirage. And I would be a little bit scared of continuing to sign that forward. Again, given his age, given some of the injury history, given some of the issues I think he had as a tackler in the deep parts of the field last year. And so I am now more interested to see what they do next to him.

1:32:52Derrik Klassen: And I do think signing Brian kind of gives you flexibility in who you want to sign next to him. Because I think Brian is probably better as a hash safety. He can come down a little bit when he needs to. but he can be your center fielder a little bit if you need to. And so whatever they want to do at that second safety spot, kind of just whatever best deal that they can find or whoever they like in the second or third round of the draft, whatever it may be.

1:33:15Robert Mays: That's a good point. I mean, they don't necessarily have to address that in free agency. They've got those four picks in the first three rounds. Deontay, any parting thoughts here? Any other things that were in front of mind for you? Anything else you wanted to hit before you get out of here today that has kind of come down the pike over the last couple hours?

1:33:29Derrik Klassen: I mean, I'm obviously bummed that my beloved Philadelphia Eagles were unable to retain Jalen Phillips, right? I think that$30 million per year, hey, man, congratulations. You know, go call mom, call grandma. You know, you made it. You made it, buddy. But, you know, for me, I'm always eternally concerned about what things mean for the Eagles and seeing him leave. And then you think about the Jordan Davis contract. I feel like I am a Charlie and it's always sunny, dude. I've got all these strings and thumbtacks pinned up on the board trying to figure out what the future is going to look like in 2026 and 2027 for this team.

1:34:02Robert Mays: Deontay, always good to chat with you, buddy. Sincerely appreciate the time. Best of luck for the rest of the week. We'll talk to you soon. All right, man. Love you guys always.

1:34:13Robert Mays: Greg Allman from Fox, our former colleague at The Athletic, about 18 minutes ago saying he hears that Mike Evans has been offered north of$27 million a year, which is a huge amount of money. It's a big day for big receivers, which I know delights our next guest here, our buddy, Farahoo, it's Nate Tice. Nate, Alec Pierce getting$26 million a year, $28 million a year, and Mike Evans getting$27 million a year. The big boys are back.

1:34:40Derrik Klassen: You all laughed at me. You all laughed at me. And look at Alec Pierce now. No, it's not the$30 million that was getting rumored, which was like even straining my heart a little bit. But no, cool to see Pierce have a market because that is a skill set that everyone's going to pay. Even the guys like Tutu Atwell get double digits, millions, or was that seven, eight figures last year. Makes sense that Alec Pierce is twice the player, gets twice as much. But going back to the Colts, I thought the Pittman trade right after, I was curious how this kind of hierarchy is going to go in Indianapolis. So the Pittman trade following that signing makes a lot more sense too.

1:35:20Derrik Klassen: And actually it's kind of interesting too for what the Steelers need as well. Why do you think that?

1:35:25Robert Mays: What about that fit is compelling to you? Because, you know, I mean, if you watch last year, it was a travesty.

1:35:31Derrik Klassen: I mean, the last two years, really, even before Rodgers was there, it was a travesty when their number one receiver was out. So when Pickens was hurt, it was like, oh, this offense came into function. Then DK Metcalf is suspended slash hurt, and it becomes a travesty as well. And I've been trying to figure out what kind of receiver to pair with DK because he's such a unique type of guy. but they needed another body in there. And now they get a guy that's actually, you know, a strong yak guy. You know, he's not going to be the twitchy quickness that I thought that they might go after. But now it also opens up their first round pick, you know, as opposed to, oh, got to go receiver here.

1:36:07Derrik Klassen: And also they're in a weird spot because this receiver class is good, but also a lot of flavors they didn't go for. I just think Pittman, even if in a perfect world, he's kind of a high end three in a pass catching attack. I do think he opens up opportunities for other pass catchers. So no matter how they want to go, I like that move for the Steelers, even if it's kind of a minor one. But yeah, that's the Pierce fallout, I guess. But going back to India.

1:36:28Robert Mays: Speaking of somewhat minor moves, I love this one. When it comes to play style, team fit, Cade Mays going to the Detroit Lions. I believe it's three years,$25 million a year. I can't remember exactly where I saw that, but I think those are the numbers that I saw. So Aaron Wilson, three years,$25 million,$14 guaranteed for Cade Mays. It's kind of honestly a little bit less Nate than I thought he might get given Sean Ryan made 11 million. He's an imperfect player. You know, again, we didn't we only saw him for less than a full year as a starter, but you can get intrigued by the power, even if there are some imperfections there.

1:37:04Robert Mays: And I think stylistically, like what the Lions had with Graham Glasgow last year and now putting a guy like Cade Mays in there. It's one of my favorite things in free agency is seeing the team just over correcting with vigor. And I think that's exactly what this feels like for the Lions. And not even doing that, when they traded David Montgomery, they were like, throw in Juice Scruggs.

1:37:22Derrik Klassen: He can snap the football. Just throw him in there. Throw him in there. And so it was like, they truly were like, never again. Never again. Even that's, I mean, shoot, with your Bears going for Bradbury, who I've been trying to tell people, he's like, he's average at best, guys. But it's like, they're trying to go to never again. We've went, what, a decade without having a center? So I think that they have nine months where they actually answer that. and then they go with Bradbury to answer it again. Yeah, yeah.

1:37:49Robert Mays: Keep twisting that knife. It feels great.

1:37:51Derrik Klassen: I'm trying to. I know. I think I got a third twist in there. No, Mays, and this makes sense too, even scheme-wise. This is actually, I feel like a fair deal. I was actually a little worried that he would get that kind of, I mean, McGovern. Actually, I thought McGovern got a little underpaid. He gave the bills a little bit of a hometown discount. I thought we got an open market, which I think has been reported as well. But I was kind of cautious with Mays because, again, you're kind of spending on the half season or whatever we want to call it, but he can start. And he was actually pretty good when he had to go in there and he has size.

1:38:24Derrik Klassen: He is a, he's not gonna be for everybody. Again, like a zone heavy scheme is not gonna be great for, but what the lines want to do at you runs, physical play action. This fits great. So this makes total sense because again, they're trying to make sure they have enough bodies on their interior because that was such a crippling thing. The lines run game was, it was explosive, but their run efficiency dropped off a cliff last year. Like it was bottom 10, if I remember correctly. Like I think it was like 21st, 22nd or so. So that's what they're trying to get to is more they can get those four or five yard gains again, along with the 40, 50 yard Jameer Gibbs big plays.

1:38:58Derrik Klassen: Along that line, I just love the roller coaster of the Lions have been on since Frank Ragnall initially retired, including trying to get him back in the middle of the season. And now sign. I forgot that happened. Yeah. Seven hamstring tear, whatever. I mean, they've been like, as soon as he was gone, and they were like, we don't like this.

1:39:16Robert Mays: We hate this. Please, anything. Nothing makes it makes a team tilt more than a surprise retirement of a very important player. It's just something that like sends you into a tizzy for as long as you, like until you get a real solution to it. And obviously it's hard to find one when it happens midstream and you don't have a plan of succession. So the fact that even like them wanting to put Rattledge there during training camp is just like, we need to figure it out. We need to figure out some way. And then Frank made everything so easy. Bring back Frank. This being the solution here. I like it. Nothing else really rolling in immediately here.

1:39:52Nate, I'm curious, just as you look back at everything else that's happened today,

1:39:57Robert Mays: your just most notable moves so far, the things that you found that like either piqued your interest the most or you found most compelling, what's at front of mind for you right now as you're sorting through the first day so far?

1:40:08Derrik Klassen: Oh, you mean Reggie Gilliam going to the Patriots? No, I would say. We hit it as soon as it happened. I would say Malik Willis going to the Dolphins, it's more like, okay, okay, fine. All right, it was just more of like just like that it happened. Like the initial thought, the initial kind of rumor, the Occam's razor signing kind of happened. And it was almost more of a relief because the Cardinals' interest was kind of like, what are you guys doing down there? At least with Miami, it's like, hey, this is a dart throw. This team is like, it's more or less a full-blown rebuild. and at least Willis is exciting, can create some plays.

1:40:44Derrik Klassen: You know, they have enough there that they can be like functional on offense. Do I think he's an amazing fit? And you're grading to the flash of what, 30 dropbacks that he's had? Yeah, but at least in this market, again, we're looking at a quarterback market and I'm already peaking at next year's draft class. It's not the worst dart throw if you get caught in no man's land. You know, when I think there's, I mean, there's some teams clearly, clearly hopping on that tank. I'm looking at you, New York. And I think that they really are like, so it's gonna be hard to only have two, three, four wins.

1:41:18Derrik Klassen: That's gonna be, I mean, look at the race to the bottom this year. And so I think with the Dolphins, it was more of just like, okay, I'm glad this happened as far as the sense that it makes the most sense with the tie-ins for the Packers guys. Also, it's just one of those, what else could they do? Like maybe trade for Davis Mills. That was something I threw out there because of Bobby Slowick. But again, you're just, it's all kind of variations of the same answer. and you know it's not a crazy contract it's exactly what i kind of thought we would get 20 something mil not 40 not 38 not 36 okay in this day and age it's less than 10 percent of the cap you can get something here and it's a dart throw and see what you got and if not okay reset it we go on and move on to the future so that was one that just kind of was like okay fine all right that happened that's the best way i can put it that happened they signed it for 70 percent of jaylen phillips money you can live without a quarterback in the nfl yeah absolutely and you see when even like backups are getting paid it's like okay like and so you're it's the middle it's the middle class we talk about this for years um you know what darnold got that's why i was always crazy it was like darnold got what he got last year and had a great year has draft you know pedigree which matters in the nfl as much as we hate to admit it but it was one of all those things science pointed at and he only got that much from seattle with a coach that likes him so that's why i was kind of curious i was like i think people are getting out of their skis how much willis is going to get paid so almost like it just made me feel like all was right in the world that that's what he got paid as opposed to like oh god this these teams are going crazy so

1:42:40Robert Mays: i think that's my best way to put it i love the colts going to sam darnall or going to dan jones and being like you know look at what sam darnall got paid that's a reasonable amount and dan jones people come back and go no 50 triple it hey he did it once before why can't he do it again

1:42:54Derrik Klassen: i know he really is he's like hey it's worked it's worked again might as well try it again the guy that i won't say i would say i'm disappointed by this but i thought joseph a sigh going to like a more of a contender team would have been fun yeah but instead he he just goes to the jets and i get it he got a nice bag but it's just one of those where i was really interested in him because i thought he was really coming along as a player he was young uh this is an interesting edge draft class as well but i still thought that his youth was some production and i thought the arrow pointing up for him that i thought he could have a cool market it looks like to me that he took the highest bidder but i thought he could have been a cool one where he got a two three-year deal like this, but goes to a good team and just kind of like, it can be a secondary pass rusher with an arrow pointing up as opposed to just a fine starter.

1:43:38Derrik Klassen: So I would say I'm not mad. I'm disappointed kind of signing. And it's more just like him, but I get it. He's finally getting paid after taking a one-year deal, all that. So I kind of understand his thinking, but that's more of like a disappointment because I think he's actually a good player that's starting to get tapped into a little bit.

1:43:55Robert Mays: We're very much in. So right now it is 1239 p.m. in Chicago. We're about an hour and 40 minutes into this. We're at the exact point where I'm looking at the Jets defensive line and be like, I'm kind of interested in this.

1:44:11Robert Mays: Devondre Sweat, like you think about the skill sets, you think about all of them together. It's like, all right, I'll watch this. Like we're at that exact point in the day where I'm just starting, my brain is starting to become muddy and I'm very excited about every little thing. And you throw Frank Reich at Derek and just spring

1:44:26Derrik Klassen: of those old days now we're now we're twisting the knife into me hey we were all there at one point with frank rake i was there too i had frank rake stock at one point so don't you worry uh no it's they're they're just such a funny team to me because i i just i know a person there that's on the staff and they're just talking to me and i just go just start watching texas film get ready i go have fun with that young offensive line but just start watching some Texas film. No, the other one too, and this is funny because they've done this now two years in a row, is the Vikings last year signed Isaiah Rogers.

1:45:04Derrik Klassen: I really liked in spot moments with the Eagles and he played, I'll play the contract immediately. And now they signed another, kind of my version of this year's Rogers and they signed James Pierre. And that was same kind of signing that I, again, this isn't a crazy market for him, but this guy was good last year when he was out on the field and I, and when he was on the field, it finally gave them an outside corner. And I thought when they had, um, uh, G1 Ramsey on the back end, they actually had a, for about four weeks, it looked right. And then it kind of just fell apart from there. They couldn't figure out their personnel, but I thought James Pierre actually has some really good moments statistically too, but I test and it was just, you know, corners of all, but sometimes it just clicks for them.

1:45:46Derrik Klassen: They get into stuff that it calms down for them. And maybe we don't have that wear and tear where you just fall off a cliff when you hit 30. I know he's a little bit older for that kind of corner free agent, but I mean, two years, eight and a half million. And if he ends up, it's nothing, it's nothing.

1:46:00Robert Mays: That's backup quarterback money. It's so funny. If you had told me that there would have been a point in December where I would have been sitting there watching the Steelers and be like, man, James Pierre and Brandon Echols, huh? Like I just, that is not something I ever thought I'd be saying by the end of last year. It is something that I was saying consistently. And so we were in the same boat like when that deal came across I was like I kind of like that like I'll be curious to see

1:46:24Derrik Klassen: what he'll do in that defense he is a little older than I realized but that's in the league for a long time it's still great value like two years eight and a half million I'm doing that every single time right he says if he gets hurt if it craps out oh well yes it's chump change that's one percent of the cap you know one and a half percent of the cap like that is not killing you and precluding you from doing anything else if you want to keep stockpiling guys in that defensive the backfield.

1:46:50Robert Mays: I'm with you, Nate, in that I don't know what Malik Willis to the Cardinals would have meant necessarily when it comes to like their long-term plans. But now we're at a spot where who do we think is playing quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals this year? Because that is still a looming question.

1:47:03Derrik Klassen: I, they, to me, I know Willis technically is that backup, but he was on the open market. They are to me the ones that take the flyer on a backup, like the Tanner McKees of the world, the Tyson Bagions of the world. Like, I think that's the best answer, but you know, But I think, I mean, honestly, the smartest answer is just keep Jacoby and just roll through it for a year. But I know, you know, Jacoby, hey, Jacoby and Frank Reich, speaking of Frank Reich, there may be a little pairing there for the Jets, but I don't know what they have to decide to do. And like, I know LeFour has some connection with Jimmy G, which I would not endorse for anybody.

1:47:39Derrik Klassen: But, you know, if they want familiarity and we're trying to lose anyways, you know, the Cardinals are just, they actually have some stuff. I'm like, I actually liked, like not liked, but I think this offense can actually fit some of their personnel really well, but they need a lot. They need a line. They need a running back. They need speed at receiver. They need defensive starters. They need a lot. So it's like, they are so far away still in a really tough division. So like, it's kind of like whatever they decide, I would just say, just don't over-invest and just understand that what you're aiming for is next year's draft class.

1:48:10Robert Mays: Cause that's where you're at in this situation. like just are the are the cardinals allowed to trade for tanner mckee in a world where the kevin cobb thing happened the the same exact rate it'd be a second round okay that was so long ago what was that 2012 it was 2011 11 that's 2011 that's another three cbas ago it's funny when you because as soon as you said tanner mckee all i saw in my mind was a guy in an Eagles uniform and then a Cardinals uniform. And I was like, this has happened before. When did this happen before? And it takes me like 30 seconds to figure it out.

1:48:46Derrik Klassen: I was looking at every former backup quarterback trade and it's always, it's the same trade. It's second round. Second round pick. Every single time. So everyone asks me what his market is. I go, well, I'd ask for a third or offer a third, but I bet you it's a second. Like that's how it's going to be. But that to me is their best path forward. Cause considering what's out there, Kirk Cousins, maybe like that's a, that's another option, but that's what they're looking at. It's stopgap. I would not commit to anything pass unless you are training for McKee. But even then, that's like a one-year tryout.

1:49:15Derrik Klassen: You know, you sign them for kind of like a baby extension and just do like a one-year tryout, see what we got. And then that doesn't preclude you from, you know, addressing the quarterback as well. Also, thank God the Chiefs added, like Kenneth Walker isn't for everybody, but thank God the Chiefs has some explosive playability. So that would be my other like kind of final thought, maybe on this kind of opening slate of signings.

1:49:35Robert Mays: All right, We're going to bring in DK, but I don't want you to leave yet, Nate, because we just, things just went crazy. Okay. Okay. Okay. DK, you ready? I'm sure you saw it already. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:49:47Derrik Klassen: Good boy.

1:49:48Robert Mays: Adam Schefter. Did something happen? Ravens are signing Tyler Linderbaum, three years,$81 million. Wow. Tyler Linderbaum with$60 million guaranteed. If you're doing some math, that's$27 million a year. So 10 mil more than Creed? Nine mil. Nine mil? Yeah.

1:50:10Derrik Klassen: I had a conversation within the last couple of days where I was like, of course, Linderbaum's going to top the market and you can feel however you want about that,

1:50:17Robert Mays: but he's not going to jump Creed by that much. So it's not just jumping Creed. At 27 million, he by far becomes the highest paid interior offensive lineman in the NFL. What does that put with tackles?

1:50:31Derrik Klassen: was it Robert you said Ravens it's the Raiders Raiders I said yeah I'm so sorry I was like I'm very sorry about that I knew it was the Raiders I just misspoke so if you look at it

1:50:47Robert Mays: 27 million is more than any interior offensive lineman in the league the guarantees are 60 million dollars that is 10 million dollars more than Landon Dickerson got last year it ranks fourth among all interior offensive linemen. It's right in line with what Quentin Nelson got. That was in 2022. And so it's$10 million and guarantees less than Trey Smith got last year on the extension that he signed with the Chiefs. Just an insane amount of money. Kept going up. The only way they're going to get him

1:51:15Derrik Klassen: is by just like a godfather deal or whatever you want to call it. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. They had to go get him. It makes a ton of sense in the Kubiak scheme, right? And assuming they're going to have Fernando Mendoza under center next year at some point. So it makes a lot of sense that they would overspend to go get a guy like that on the open market. It's a lot of money, but they have as much money as anybody in the league, not just for this year, but for the next handful of years. And so I actually, I kind of think them, again, knowing that he's perfect fit for the Kubiak system, knowing that you're bringing in a rookie quarterback who you want to do every single thing you can to make sure that he's going to be okay, bringing in a guy like Linderbaum, Even if this is, I don't know, 20 % more expensive than any of us thought it was going to be.

1:51:59Derrik Klassen: I actually think they're in a spot where like it will be fine. And this is not really going to kill them. Like this is what you want. Who else are they spending money on? Like that's, I mean, he is solidifying force and it's an amazing scheme fit. Like Linderbaum, I don't think is an elite center. I think it's more good to very good, but this is the perfect offense for him. So it's kind of like, okay, fine. And you had to pay a premium. You're a garbage team. you know and and and I mean also he's be honest what the Raiders are so I I think that I love this too in the sense of and I've I've said this ad nauseum but it's just we have a vet center with a young quarterback I always love that and I love that transition to help out a young guy helps with the state income tax as well going to Nevada I enjoy that as well but I I do think that it's a I mean they have to do this and I I don't know the Raiders this offseason could be just transformed it for them.

1:52:53Derrik Klassen: Not only just Mendoza and Kubiak and all that, but just little moves. Just like, but this is a big move, but little moves as well. You know, if they get one more receiver, I saw that they might be on the jobs market, which I think would be perfect for them. Like, who else are they going to pay? You know, so like, yeah, Shahid might be another speed guy. I still think hat on a hat with Trey Tucker, but that's just me. Yeah. No, but also McGovern deal looks amazing.

1:53:16Robert Mays: Yeah, I was going to say, McGovern made half. it's it's literally half what Linderbaum got paid I mean that I understand how it happens because again it's maybe a little bit of a hometown discount wouldn't but the idea that Linderbaum was getting 27 and McGovern gets 13 you got to feel pretty good about that if you're the Bills

1:53:34Derrik Klassen: my god yes yes yes yes I know that's I know the centers is funny there's we talk about quarterbacks so much but there's so many open center spots and and this draft is okay center wise you know there's a couple day two guys but it's kind of funny like that's why kate mays is getting that you know and and i think again with the mccover deal is just like so great now when you look at this but you know they're they're paying a premium for it but this offensive line needs it it provides a boost effect for everybody now you don't need jpj there's two jpjs now so that's but you don't need him because you know he's all over the place too but i don't know a boost effect that's going to maybe solidify your offensive line.

1:54:16Derrik Klassen: And this offensive system anyways is going to help that out anyways. I'm having competent coaching there. So I don't know. I'm kind of the defense is going to be needs a lot of help, but the offense could be pretty functional, like pretty early on. We're digging Jinty's reputation out of the mud starting today.

1:54:32Robert Mays: That was a joke. I hope that was a joke. Nate, sincerely appreciate the time, buddy. You know, you got a lot going on this week. Always good to talk to you. We'll do it again very soon. Thanks, guys. Great to see everyone. up we dk usually when a lot of the contracts come across we we know who the agent is based on the language that's used the fact that we're not pumping up who the agent is for tyler linderbaum in any of these deals feels like a misstep this is the this is the one time where i think i'd be

1:54:56Derrik Klassen: okay with it who is his agent actually i don't know we don't know we copied and pasted into all of these uh yeah he did a great job as i said you know i think they were going to need to go way way way above market to pull him from Baltimore. What does Baltimore do at center now is the question. Everybody's off the market now, basically. Yeah. I mean, they might have to draft somebody.

1:55:19Robert Mays: Or, you know, there's a chance, like, maybe a veteran trade we're not thinking about right now. But again, like, you just, you can't do this if you're the Ravens. You can't do this if you're almost any other team in the league. Like, I think, apparently, Washington was sniffing around. The Browns were reportedly sniffing around. But, like,$27 million a year for a center.

1:55:37Derrik Klassen: again like nate said good player not the best center in the league even and so legitimately

1:55:43Robert Mays: to make him a 27 million dollar a year player you're only doing this because the cash is burning a hole in your pocket even if he's a scheme fit like the premium that you're paying here is just

1:55:52Derrik Klassen: astronomical it's crazy yeah but i did like like nate said like he like he laid out i it's great for a rookie quarterback it's good to get him in you know helping that helping everybody on the line, kind of acclimate to the scheme. And yeah, it's just going to be a huge benefit to Mendoza whenever he gets on the field. I'm assuming pretty early on. But yeah, I mean the Kubiak offense kind of flows from the run game. And this is obviously a big move for that. I do think of all the teams that could have done this, I mean, plenty of teams have young quarterbacks. I mean, I'm sure Tyler Lindenbaum could have helped the hell out of Jaden Daniels for that matter.

1:56:33Derrik Klassen: But like, if you're going to pay this much of a premium for a center. And it makes me feel better about it to know what he can do for a quarterback who I expect Mendoza to be the day one starter. I mean, I know teams don't like to say that ahead of time, but that would be my expectation. And so to take as much off of his plate as possible or when he does get in there to make his life easier, to help your running game, make that whole thing just more functional, raise the floor of it to help your young quarterback. also, I mean, I said it jokingly a minute ago, but in a very real sense, make your very good running back look like he was worth that type of draft pick.

1:57:13Derrik Klassen: I mean, it is a lot of money to pay, but like what Nate said, what else are you going to spend the money on? And I think you're maximizing several other big spots by spending a lot of money at that position. So I like that more for the Raiders than I might have for a few other teams.

1:57:30Robert Mays: For whatever reason in my mind, I keep doing Raiders and Ravens. I'm trying to type Raiders over the cap into my Google and I'm doing the Raiders. $111 million in cap space this year. That's without the Geno. That's with Geno still on the roster. And so you're looking at$120 million after they cut Geno. In 2027, DK, the Raven, Jesus Christ, I keep doing this. In 2027, the Raiders,$249 million in 2027 cap space. Yeah, I think it's going to be fine.

1:58:01Derrik Klassen: They're like, they need to get above the cap or whatever. Exactly.

1:58:05Robert Mays: They need to hit the floor. So maybe this gets in there a little bit faster. But even when you consider all of those factors, oh man, this is hilarious. So we talked about this with the Dolphins, how the Dolphins only have one player making at least$15 million against their cap this year. The Raiders also only have one player. It's 22 and a half for Colton Miller. Other than that, on the current Raiders 2025 salary cap, There are no other players other than Colton Miller making more than$10 million against the cap. He is the only player on the entire team making more than$10 million against the cap.

1:58:40Robert Mays: They've got some dead money, Christian Wilkins, Max Crosby, Jacoby Myers, all that. But yeah, if there's a team that has some money to throw around Derrick, it is the Las Vegas Raiders. Exactly.

1:58:49Derrik Klassen: And like, again, I think because they have infinite money like this, this is not actually going to preclude them from doing anything. Like, I don't think. Like, even, especially too, because it's like a shorter deal. It's only three years. So it's not like they're pushing money like four and five years out where this could potentially be a problem. Then the fact that it's only a three-year deal, you're maximizing what is this insane amount of money window that you have. I'm actually pretty into it. I want to transition really quickly because we have a great draft guy on here in DK. I want to talk about the Jets defense for a second.

1:59:19Derrik Klassen: Sure. All of the moves that they made. Stars of the first time.

1:59:23Robert Mays: I love it.

1:59:26Derrik Klassen: I love it. And we need another one. They've signed, so Joseph Asai, Kingsley and Agbare, Demario Davis, all these guys up front at specifically edge and linebacker. Does a move like this make them more or less likely to get a player like Arvel Reese at two? Because in my mind, I almost think more likely, because now that you have for sure options at edge, you have a veteran at linebacker, it's like, well, we can kind of just throw this two-way player in wherever we want to and let it work. That's where my mind went to, actually. Yeah, I think you always kind of want to be careful about throwing a highly hyped player in and like expecting him to be transformative right away.

2:00:03Derrik Klassen: Like especially in a place like New York where they've had so many draft issues over the years. I think, yeah, this this gives them the opportunity of whether it's Reese or whoever to kind of like drop him in and just let him learn. The more that you have around you, the easier it is going to be to have Reese, you know, kind of just like find his way in the NFL. The big worry with Reese and Sonny Stiles and some of these other guys that are quote unquote sort of tweeners is that you go to a team that isn't going to know how to use you. And it's like you've seen this over the years where you have, you know, like six foot four, 240 pound, 235 pound guys that kind of just end up not doing anything in the league because NFL teams don't know how to use them or don't have a specific plan for them.

2:00:46Derrik Klassen: but yeah I mean this makes me encouraged if he does end up going number two to the Jets because like you said they have kind of the foundation around him where he's not going to be asked to be the savior of the defense it's very similar to like a quarterback situation where you want to have as many players around him and I think you know like to spin this to some of the top rookies from last year and my Seahawks team like Emin Worry I don't think Emin Worry would have been Emin Worry if he would have been on a different team part of the reason he was able to thrive and do so much was, and kind of like, they were able to carve out a really specific role that he could just thrive in was because he had so many players around him, so many good players around him.

2:01:26Derrik Klassen: So yeah, I think, I don't think anything that Jets have done is going to really affect their draft decision making, I think is kind of the bottom line. You know, when they made the trade for Sweat, people were like, oh, maybe this means something that, I don't think it means anything. I think they just need guys on their defense. They were embarrassed about what happened last year. And, you know, so far they've been the most active on defense. I mean, some of the additions they make, I think, make a lot of sense. Maybe this year they'll have an interception. We'll see. The other part of that too, DK, would you agree?

2:02:00Derrik Klassen: I just, when you're talking about picking two overall, I don't know what your bang for your buck would be in this class if you're not taking a pass rusher. I mean, if you want to, like Sonny Stiles could be whatever. If it was Sonny Stiles, fine. but like, don't you love the idea of Sonny Styles next to Demario Davis? I love the shit. There's something about that where I'm like, yeah, yeah. I love Sonny Styles on a football field, period. But like, but he could have a role for you rushing the passer, even if that's not his full-time job. I just, the other positions in this draft class, I think you got to skew that way to maximize having the number two overall pick.

2:02:33Derrik Klassen: Yeah. I think the only other realistic options are David Bailey, or maybe Ruben Bain, if they don't think that the arms issue is a big problem. So, I mean, who else would they take at that point? I guess they could look to the offensive line. Just piss everyone in the world off and draft Jeremiah Love to pair with your$14 million running back. Yeah, that would be brutal. That would be brutal.

2:02:58Robert Mays: Looking at things right now, nothing else is really rolled out. Excuse me. There is something. Spoke too soon. Travis Etienne heading to the New Orleans Saints.

2:03:08Derrik Klassen: All right. Right. So the first thing this screams to me is they're not going to be taking Jeremiah Love at whatever it was. Number nine or ten. Yes. Number eight.

2:03:17Robert Mays: So now where does Jeremiah Love go? If the Panther Saints both signed running backs, which those were kind of the two most popular landing spots for him, DK. Yeah. Where does Jeremiah Love go now? He's a New York freaking giant is what Jeremiah Love is. That's probably the answer, right? They missed out on all the big guys. That's right. They were in the Kenneth Walker market. And so maybe that's the answer. Those is like the musical chairs among the running backs. Maybe the Giants are the one with the seed at the end of this. Yeah.

2:03:40Derrik Klassen: I mean, the other teams that have been mentioned in the last week or two are the Cardinals and Titans at three and four. I don't think it makes any sense for those teams to take a running back, frankly. But I don't really think it makes a lot of sense for the Giants to do it either. Even though I think, you know, obviously Jeremiah Love is a great player. But I don't know. I feel like teams just continually don't learn the lesson that they're supposed to learn with these running back situations. But yeah, the Giants, they make a lot of sense. or what if they fall? If he falls a little bit out of the top 10, what is the team outside the top 10 that makes the most sense for him?

2:04:14Derrik Klassen: This is kind of the issue I've been having putting together mock drafts is after you get outside the top 10, the Dolphins aren't going to take a running back. I don't think the Cowboys are going to take one. The Rams, probably not. The Ravens, no. Buccaneers, probably not. They just signed a running back. The Jets, no. Lions, no. well I guess maybe Lions could but I was gonna say Lions maybe yes

2:04:42Robert Mays: like 60 million dollars a year oh they can't draft to running back in the first let it rock why not I could be an interesting one DK any parting thoughts for us anything else that happened today that you found particularly interesting we felt like the Linderbaum thing and Nate ate

2:04:57Derrik Klassen: into your time oh that's okay yeah I I thought the Kenneth Walker situation is is fascinating I think obviously for a team like the Chiefs that have a lot of holes on their roster now and kind of doing this mini little rebuild, for them to go out and make a big ticket signing of a running back is pretty fascinating. But I do think it makes sense for them. From a schematic and philosophical point of view, they need more explosives in the run game. This has been one of the least explosive run games. One of the slowest, ironically, one of the slowest looking run teams I've seen in a long time, even though they had Pacheco back there.

2:05:28Derrik Klassen: They just didn't have any juice in the run game. And I think they see this as a sort of holistic, we're going to help fix our offense by creating explosives in the run game. And maybe that will force teams to stop playing, you know, the two highest stuff quite as often or quite as aggressively. So I think he's a really, really fascinating one. I'm bummed to see him leave my Seahawks. And I don't know what the hell the Seahawks are going to do at running back now is their options are not very good. But, but yeah, I thought that was one of the more interesting signings this morning.

2:06:00Robert Mays: quick heads up that daniel kelly works for the ringer and is one of the co-hosts of the ringer fantasy football oh yeah nfl draft show we did not say that at the beginning because we were sorting through the linder bomb yeah yeah if you want to check out the work that dk is doing that's where you can do it dk sincerely appreciate the time buddy great to see you we'll talk to you soon great to see you guys as well up next he's just rolling from one podcast to the other it is our friend ben solak from espn Benjamin how you doing today Wondell Robinson 78 million dollars Buddy We gotta cap this league We gotta take the money away From him Too much I mean that's That's less than I had heard He was getting The fact that it's not 20 I think is probably Step in the right direction 20 would be 80

2:06:41Derrik Klassen: It's 78 man I mean we just Barely missed it This is This is real I haven't seen this Conspiracy theory They were just leaking The big number So that when he signs For a slightly lesser number It's like That's kind of reasonable For Wondell Robinson

2:06:53Robert Mays: for the Tennessee Titans. I, because I now have a bald head, I'm apparently a Titan sympathizer. So I like this. I'm just, you're part of the, yeah. I look like every member of our coaching staff.

2:07:08Derrik Klassen: You got to get down to the zero guard. No, no, no.

2:07:11Robert Mays: That's never happening. So the Wanda Robinson, the Titans thing, everyone kind of anticipated this. Like obviously Brian Dable loved Wanda Robinson. He was a part of drafting Wanda Robinson. He was a part of using Wanda Robinson with the enthusiasm that the New York Giants have over the last couple of years. So not a shock to see him going to the Titans who have a need of receiver. This one, I think we can all get excited about this. Kansas City Chiefs, Derek. Three years,$21 million,$14 million guaranteed for Kyrus Tonga.

2:07:43Derrik Klassen: Oh, that's fantastic. I am extremely into that. They have not had a big-bodied nose like that who played high quality snaps for them in a long time. The closest they had was like three-ish years ago. Derek Nottie was okay. I was about to say, we don't have to redact Derek Nottie for another season. Yeah, it's been a while since they kept doing it where it's like, okay, Derek Nottie is 15 % worse. We'll bring him back. 15 % we'll bring him back. We'll keep bringing him back. And now them going and getting a guy like Tonga, who obviously is a great like run stuffing nose body, but is a little bit more explosive and can actually get into the backfield than I think a guy of his size would probably lead you to believe.

2:08:17Derrik Klassen: So I'm pretty into this. I'm looking at Nottie's Wikipedia right now. On March 20, 2022, Nottie resigned with the Chiefs. On March 19, 2024, Nottie resigned with the Chiefs. On August 25, 2025, Nottie was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs. Like, they just kept on just holding the job in place. This is a big improvement on that and important for that defense. Good for Kairos Tonga. I forgot how to do math. I'll tell you that. I had to put that one in the Google Chrome tab real quick and make sure that I knew how to divide numbers. Tyler Linderbaum,$27 million. It's sick. I mean, heck yeah, absolutely.

2:08:50Derrik Klassen: We have a first-of-world pick for Nenna Mendoza. We need a good sender. Clint Kubiak's going to ask that sender to do a lot of stuff moving left to right. Like, you know what? This is a highly valuable position for us. We'll reset the market by 150%. Why not, man? Power to you. Again, there's$300 million every team gets to play with this year. So I like the fact that they're spending that much money. So the Linderbaum moment was sticker shock. Jalen Phillips was the other sticker shock for me, just in terms of$30 million per year. This is not a high sack player. He's a very useful player. He's a three down player.

2:09:16Derrik Klassen: He makes other players better, but typically we see that sort of money spent on like, you know, sack getters. And that certainly is not Jalen Phillips game. So those to me were the two moments of like big sticker shock. I was happy Alex Pierce stayed with the Colts. I think that his role there was already excellent for his skillset. And then he can do a lot more as like a short underneath player, just so long as the room isn't as crowded around him. And they immediately went and they flipped Pittman. And I think it's gonna allow Pierce to be like a three level receiver. I think this also helps them entice Daniel Jones back.

2:09:43Derrik Klassen: I think overall, the Colts have handled that Indianapolis thing in a very good fashion. And then the Rams, to me, are very interesting because I think everybody's excited about investing in the secondary. And their corners are faster and their corners are more aggressive and they have depth to that position now. But you're banking on Chris Shula getting as much out of a set of DBs as Steve Zagnolo did. And here's the thing. Steve's pretty good at this. And so whenever you go and you go get like two guys from the same team and like at the top of their markets, you pay them the big money and you say, you know, we're going to be able to run, you know, plug and chug this, right.

2:10:19Derrik Klassen: We're going to be able to get the same caliber of play out of the guys. You are really measuring yourself up against that previous DC in terms of, can you put these guys in the right position to succeed? And I like doing that when you're like, you know, buying low from bad franchises, like doing that when you're getting a guy from the Bengals or the jets, when you do it from the chiefs, it's a lot more stressful in terms of, okay, like I'm confident with Duffy and Watson are good players. Is Shula going to be able to get, 95 % of what he, of what Spagnuolo got out of those guys in their rookie deals, that's, that's going to require really good coaching.

2:10:45Derrik Klassen: And I like Shula a lot. And, you know, he was a head coach candidate for a reason. It was a big, put them, you know, put them up or shut it, you know, sort of opportunity. It's a big prove it year there for, for Chris Shula with the Rams.

2:10:55Robert Mays: 40 years, 52 million per Adam Schefter for Travis ETN, by the way, which again, if we're doing more math, which there's just way more math involved today than I thought there was going to be. It's$13 million a year for Travis ETN, which isn't necessarily off from what we thought he might get.

2:11:09Derrik Klassen: So with Kenneth Walker now, the Saints now have the sixth highest running back contract by APY, Travis Etienne, and the seventh, Alvin Kamara. They have both of those deals right now in terms of running back deals. A little silly. Kamara was really adamant during the season that he would like retire rather than be traded. But I want like, did they?

2:11:30Robert Mays: They already moved around his contract though. I think that's one of those things where his deal was kind of one of those last landmines that they were having to worry about. And so I think that they just were moving around his money because they had to, I'm not sure he isn't. No, what happened? Tyler Algier is a Cardinal. I did see that. I'm curious about that just from this standpoint of, I think that they, I had, I was trying to search for this. I didn't see any other news about it like on Twitter, but I thought I had seen earlier today that they had moved around the money for James Conner and that he was going to be back.

2:11:59Robert Mays: And so the idea of Tyrell Algier and James Conner in the same backfield, you've heard of thunder and lightning, right? How do you feel about Thunder and more Thunder?

2:12:08Derrik Klassen: Younger Thunder.

2:12:09Robert Mays: Why I think it's kind of funny is that when the Rams drafted Blake Corum, their stance on why they did that is Blake Corum is the same as Kyron Williams. And so we can just have two players who can do the same thing. And so maybe that's just the overarching philosophy for guys like Michael Fleur, where it's like, well, if we have running back, one running back that does this thing, maybe we can sign another running back that does the exact same thing and just have two of those guys. So it's kind of similar to how the Rams approached their running back room a couple of years ago.

2:12:38Derrik Klassen: And also with both Corham and Kyron, you're kind of saying, listen, 10-yard runs are great. It would be sure it would be nice if you get a 20 here or there, but we ain't necessarily getting the horses out of the gates when we get to the third level. With Connor and Algier, it's the same thing. You're going to get a lot of 10-plus-yard runs. 20-plus-yard runs numbers won't look as good, but the 10-plus, that's where you'll be living, hitting a lot of doubles in the running game. And then presumably, the Rams' formula was, all right, we're going to hit a ton of explosives in the passing game. that's a little easier.

2:13:03Derrik Klassen: Stafford, Nakua, Devonta Adams, Terrence Ferguson, and also Sean McVay versus Michael Floor kind of doing his imitation of that. And so, I agree with you on philosophy-wise. It makes a lot more sense when I think about it that way. I will say that that is a little bit building the cart before the horse or putting the cart before the horse where you need the explosive passing game to make that work. And it remains to be seen if Arizona's going to have that with the current pieces.

2:13:29Robert Mays: Let's leave the explosive passing game to decide who's the quarterback who are the offensive linemen like there's still plenty of things that the Cardinals need to figure out before signing two running backs yeah the line

2:13:41Derrik Klassen: is the thing to me where it's like all right cool you got Tyler Algier what is the plan on the offensive front that does obviously it's a two-year deal for Algier and Connor I think has one year left so it wouldn't stop you from doing it but there's been I think uh either DK or Nate mentioned this earlier like there's been a lot of smoke and rumbling about the Cardinals potentially being interested in Jeremiah Love which feels like a mistake and a team that has more needs than a running back anyway I guess this wouldn't stop you from doing that but maybe to I mean that'd be a hell of an expensive running back room for the next year or two as opposed to trying to look somewhere else whether I mean I would assume on one of the lines which I think that's the way the Cardinals should do it so hopefully this signals that they're not trying to draft a running back top three.

2:14:27Robert Mays: All right. So let's stick on the theme of fixing your offensive line while also addressing running back. Per Ian Rappaport 42 seconds ago, the New Orleans Saints are the David Edwards team. We do not have money on it yet, but New Orleans is the team that ends up shelling it out for David Edwards. Ben, you seem excited about this. Your initial thoughts about David Edwards heading to the Saints.

2:14:47Derrik Klassen: I just don't think that you heard a lot about the Saints making big offensive line investments. And this is a team where I think that what you've seen from Calvin Banks had left tackle. We've seen Tyrese Foaga right tackle, which you've gotten out of Eric McCoy, the center spot. Like there's, you know, you, you have yourself the makings of a really good offensive line here. I would have, like, I, I talked a lot in February and January about like guard for the saints. And I got a lot of like, oh, you know, we'll be fine. Right. Cesar Ruiz, Dylan Radins. Like we've got guys like it's okay. Like they are where they are at the line.

2:15:15Derrik Klassen: So to me, this is like a team that had an above average line deciding, Hey, we're really going to put our chips in the middle. We're going to try to be like a top 10 and top eight line. and then be able to run the football more dominantly. When you think about where Kellen Moore came from, you think about where, you know, TJ Paginetti is their run game coordinator there. They both came from Philly and they came from that 2024 season of, we can get to whatever we want because our running game is just so fear inducing. And so you go and you add ETN, you go and you add David Edwards to rebuild a facsimile of that.

2:15:42Derrik Klassen: And so I'm impressed by the investment. I'm very curious to see what the Edwards contract is because we haven't seen a lot right now in the guard market. And the guard market is one that I think the league has largely been trying to figure out because you have a lot of really good players who are on their third deals, David Edwards, Isaac Samalo, and then you have some exciting young players with big question marks, Zion Johnson, Elijah Barataka, and where exactly, who's going to make more money, whatever, because by quality of play, Edwards should easily clear the John Simpson deal, should clear everybody else's deal.

2:16:11Derrik Klassen: Edwards has been out of this world the last two years, but he is older relative to some of these other guys. And so this is the first big domino falling at guard. We're going to learn a lot about the Zion deals and the ABT deals from what we see here.

2:16:21Robert Mays: Looking at right now, I mean, I think it's just important to kind of reframe what the Saints are and are going to be. You know, we think of the Saints as this team that is cash strapped. You know, they're up against it. They have this aging roster. We are moving out of that. And I think it's just important to keep reminding ourselves of that when you think about the multi-year outlook for this team. The Saints as it currently stands have$136 million in 2027 salary cap space. Yeah. And so they're in a position where they'll be able to spend a little bit. I mean, they're paying their quarterback as it stands top 40th overall pick money.

2:16:52Robert Mays: And they do not have a lot of contracts, onerous contracts that are going to be on their books heading into 2027. I mean, really, the only guys they've paid that are going to be on the team next year are guys like Chase Young, Juwan Johnson's on a big deal. But there just are not a lot of big contracts left on this team. And so they're in a position where if you look at the multi-year outlook of this thing, they can throw a little bit of money around. $136 million in cap space next year. That is just not a place we were used to being with the New Orleans Saints.

2:17:20Derrik Klassen: That's great. 61 million total over four years. That's what? 12.5. That's pretty good for David Edwards. That's like the Ben Powers deal.

2:17:30Robert Mays: Do we have that already?

2:17:32Derrik Klassen: Yeah. Oh, no, it's 15 per year then. It's four for 61.

2:17:35Robert Mays: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, 15 per year, which sounds right. I mean, Ben Powers gave me Lewis to our story.

2:17:40Derrik Klassen: That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that for the Saints quite a bit.

2:17:44Robert Mays: Ben, we're going to let you go, buddy. Sincerely appreciate the time. Always good to chat with you. I know you're busy. We'll talk to you very soon. Go free agency. My NFL Rob Lowe Capon. I love it. Before we get to our next guest here, Connor Orr, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with you guys.

2:18:02Derrik Klassen: Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right? And the best part? They accept Discover. Accept Discover? In a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer. Oh, yeah, huh?

2:18:14Robert Mays: Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby. Get with the times.

2:18:18Derrik Klassen: Right. So we shouldn't get the parachute pants? These are making a comeback. I think. Discover is accepted at 99 % of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen Report.

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2:19:09Dave Helman: Now at Pura.com.

2:19:17Robert Mays: Perfect time for me to finish chewing when we get back from this thing as I try to eat enough to get through all of this. Joining us coming out of the break, it is our old buddy from the MMQB and Sports Illustrated. It's Connor Orr. How you doing, man? What's up, guys? How's everybody? I'm having a great f***ing time.

2:19:34Derrik Klassen: It's like Christmas, except the gifts are way more expensive than they should be, and you'll need to get them again the next year when they all break. So, yeah. You're not giving your kids$27 million worth

2:19:47Robert Mays: of Tyler Linderbaum every year? That's not the budget in the warehouse?

2:19:51Derrik Klassen: We cannot afford Tyler Linderbaum, no.

2:19:54Robert Mays: We already have a Tyler Linderbaum. It's called Garrett Bradbury. A couple more moves have come across here over the last couple minutes as we went to break. Jalen Naylor, Derek, a guy that we said might make a little bit more money than you might expect in this free agent crop just because of the scarcity of receivers and just what free agents get paid at that position. Three years,$35 million with$23 million guaranteed for Jalen Naylor to the Raiders per Adam Schefter.

2:20:25Derrik Klassen: I like this a lot, especially coming hot off of the Wondell Robinson deal. I straight up one-to-one think that Jalen Naylor is a better player than Wondell Robinson. And so to get him for half of the price is insane. And also, he, I think, is a little bit younger than Wondell Robinson is. I think you get a little bit more juice down the field, whereas Robinson is really good as that short underneath, like yak type of quick twitch yak type of guy. He can stretch the field a little bit, but I really think Naylor, some of his best stuff, especially with Sam Darnold a couple of years ago, was just ripping down the scene.

2:20:58Derrik Klassen: And so I think if you can bring that, obviously you've got a little bit of overlap there with Trey Tucker with the Raiders, but I think when you look at what Fernando Mendoza does well, assuming he's going to be the quarterback, he's a guy who throws down the field very well. He can really rip it into these tight windows over the intermediate level of the field, down the field, to get a guy like Jalen Naylor. I think that makes a lot of sense for this offense.

2:21:19Robert Mays: Jalen Naylor is a little bit older than Wanda Robinson. So Naylor just turned 27. Wanda Robinson is only 25. So just for context.

2:21:29Derrik Klassen: Getting a guy on a multi-year deal for that small of a salary just feels like a win for me. where like even if he isn't the idealized version of what you're imagining when you sign him on this Monday for the money, and again, for what the Raiders have available to them, I just, it doesn't feel like you can regret that deal because even if it doesn't work out, it's easy to get away from.

2:21:55Robert Mays: We talked about the free agent receiver market, like kind of the complimentary free agent receiver market. I mean, the deal that Darnold Mooney got a couple years ago was for$13 million a year. I don't see this as all that different in terms of like what Naylor can be for you within your offense, like the tier of player that you're talking about, Connor. And so to get him for less than, for 12, essentially a little bit less than 12 in a world where guys like Darnell Mooney were getting$13 million a year, I don't think you can hate that if you're the Raiders. Again, Rashad Bateman's at 12 and a half.

2:22:27Robert Mays: I mean, that's kind of the tier of players that we're talking about here and the tier of contracts we're talking about.

2:22:31Derrik Klassen: Right, I mean, and like Derek said, that it demonstrates an ability to tailor something uniquely to what Fernando Mendoza is going to be able to do. I mean, everything. What would we have asked of the Raiders with like$80 million in cap space coming into free agency? Every move that you make has some sort of a tentacle back to the rookie quarterback that you're trying not to terrify and run off within the first three or four weeks of the season. So I think this is a great move for them. And again, it's 11 draft picks last year. It's 11 draft picks this year. You're basically just buying yourself a little bit of time to develop the people that you really want to be in here.

2:23:09Derrik Klassen: And so with that cost, it's a great deal.

2:23:15Robert Mays: Looking at things as they come across now here, David Onyemata, Derek, to the Jets on a one-year deal. So the Jets now have like four new defensive linemen as we're heading into next season.

2:23:27Derrik Klassen: This is truly like Aaron Glenn saw what the defense was last year, And he's like, listen, if I only get one more bite at the apple, we're signing everybody that I know. We're signing all the second contract guys that we can get. And we are going to give this a really good shot at it. I kind of like it. Like this was a team that I think they've needed. They needed extra rotational pieces really at both spots at defensive tackle and at defensive end. And so I think for them to add that into the rotation, even though Ani Ahmad is getting a little bit older, still a pretty quality player for them.

2:23:55Derrik Klassen: So I like them kind of covering their butts here and just making sure, like, even on our two deep, we're going to have guys who can play. That's like six, if you include the sweat trade from a couple weeks ago, that's like six starter caliber players. In the front seven. Yeah, and there are only seven.

2:24:11Robert Mays: It's a whole new thing,

2:24:12Derrik Klassen: except for Sherwood, who they signed to a deal last year.

2:24:14Robert Mays: Yeah. I guess my question, Connor, I'm curious about this. Obviously, you have some perspective about the Jets that the rest of us do not. I would assume, maybe not. I hope so. I was going to say, the only reason you wouldn't is because it's impossible to have proper perspective on the New York Jets. It doesn't speak to your capacity to have it. I want to be clear about that. But as you look at this, we're talking about a one-year deal for Anyamada, a one-year deal for Kingsley and Igbari, a two-year deal for Demario Davis, who you could give me a hundred chances and I would never be able to guess how old Demario Davis actually is.

2:24:48Robert Mays: It's 37. So 37 plus two one-year deals. I guess my question about this is to what end? Like, how is this all, like, what is the point of all of this? And I don't even mean that as a criticism. I mean that as a genuine question. When you're looking at all these short-term signings and signing a guy like DeMario Davis at his point in your career, and Nate literally was on this show half an hour ago talking about how the Jets should just be openly tanking for Arch Manning next year. Like, I just wonder, like, how all of this fits together into a cogent plan for what the 2026 New York Jets are supposed to accomplish.

2:25:24Robert Mays: It allows you to tank without,

2:25:26Derrik Klassen: out by correcting the one mistake that the Browns made when they did it with Hugh Jackson, which is that they were so blatant with Hugh Jackson that it basically put the coach into an insane asylum and he began behaving in a way that like he was trapped in the saw house and he was trying to get out. And so what you're doing for Aaron Glenn is you're basically saying, oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, you can have all this stuff. You can have all this stuff. But in reality, what is it? It is a 37 year old Demario Davis who's now going to have to chase Malik Willis sideline to sideline twice a year and David Onyemata and a bunch of these guys that like in a year or two, you're going to be able to completely clear the books of and still be flexible from a salary cap perspective.

2:26:07Derrik Klassen: So to me, this is like a very delicate general manager coach tango where it's like, I need you to be cool here for the next six months while we line up all the ducks to get Arch Manning. And I need you to not freak out. And I think Glenn only heard his case by claiming that play calling was his superpower at the combine. So it's like, okay, here you go, man. Here's seven new free agents. This is your superpower.

2:26:27Robert Mays: Let's see what happens. That's why he's here, by the way, because that was a genuine question I was asking, and that's a perfect answer. There you go. And I think that this is, I will fully admit this. This is a problem that I have sometimes where you're trying to look at, okay, what is the multi-year timeline for a team? What are they trying to accomplish? And I think too often, and like Connor just said, the Browns are a perfect example of this. The Browns are maybe the best example of this over the last like five to 10 years, where you're trying to accomplish things in a theoretical framework and not taking into consideration the fact that actual human beings are involved with how this is all supposed to go.

2:27:03Robert Mays: And so figuring out if you can't tie those things together or figure out how the plan and the human element of it is supposed to work. I think that's often the explanation is like you're just trying to make things passable, even if you know you're going to be bad in this year and maybe into next year.

2:27:21Derrik Klassen: You can't actually roll out with a non-compete team. Like you can't do that from the perspective of like showing your face in front of the owner, making any sort of season ticket holder or advertiser happy to be associated with you. The morale of your locker room and what it would do to the guys that you do have on the team that you want to be there in the long term. You have to make some degree of a good faith effort to be a competitive football team, even if you know you're not going to be good. And I see the logic that letting Aaron Glenn load up with a bunch of guys that he trusts to make the defense salty could at least make you watchable.

2:27:59Derrik Klassen: And, you know, the hope behind closed doors is probably that quarterback will hold you back enough to where you'll have a shot at, you know, at really reinventing this thing in a year. Cleveland, too, by the way, Robert, and, you know, that that theoretical thing was how they almost wound up with Mitch Trubisky over Miles Garrett. like dangerously close to Mitch Trubisky over Miles Garrett, right? I wish they would have. I mean, it literally took Hugh Jackson, like taking a flamethrower to that draft room to get Miles Garrett onto that team instead of Mitch Trubisky. And so what the Jets are seeing, and we saw it in the way that they're allocating all their trades and they're liquidating for 2027.

2:28:38Derrik Klassen: Everybody wants to be in the 2027 draft. The Jets have all the capital there. The timeline is we better be ready to go or at least clear enough to do what the Raiders are doing in 2027. once we get our guy. And to the point that we're already making too, and I think we laid it out pretty well, but like who have they added? I guess, Osai was a three-year deal, I think. Yeah. But like most of this stuff is not long-term. These are not long-term contracts.

2:29:05Robert Mays: And I think that's right. I mean, you are trying to like clear a certain bar of competency while also not hamstring yourself in the long-term. And I think that is like a worthwhile combination of things to chase. By the way, I'm really enjoying Chris Jones's commentary on free agency. he has two tweets in a row here Chris Jones with the Chiefs by the way his commentary for agency to the Kenneth Walker signing he just quote tweeted and said oh shit and then his next one was Tonga is a dog

2:29:32Robert Mays: he's essentially doing what we're doing so like if you just want to if you want to seek out who Chris Jones's agent is and ask if he wants to come on the stream by the end and he's essentially doing what we're doing anyway and so if he's around we're open to having him We got at least three more days of this. We can just hand him on for day two or day three. That's true. He's clearly active on foot right now. It's actually a good thought by Dave. We have sort of a lull here in signings that have happened. Katie, why don't you pull up the top 150 that we have for the athletic from Daniel Popper's rankings.

2:30:02Robert Mays: And we'll just look at what's going on right here. Trey Hendrickson still available. Daniel Jones obviously signed the transition tag. Mike Evans, we mentioned a little bit earlier,$27 million a year. It sounded like reportedly he had an offer worth one year with 27 million that was on the table. So we'll see what happens there. Rashid Walker, Odafe Owe, Jermaine Illuminor. And then Diana has been tweeting about this now. You know, because we look at a lot of the dust that has settled one of the guys that I'm sure a lot of teams are circling. Because like Derek mentioned, as soon as Sheldon Rankins was signed before today started, you look at this top 50 here.

2:30:36Robert Mays: How many interior defensive linemen are on this entire list other than John Franklin Myers? I think he's the only one on this entire thing.

2:30:44Derrik Klassen: Well, it's Onyemada at 48 who just signed. That market is completely shriveled up. And even some of the other guys that would have been available along the interior were like, you know, Kairos Tonga. But again, he's like a nose guard. So that's really more of a only certain teams are kind of looking for that sort of thing. With Rankins off the board, again, at 89 here on the list is a guy like Logan Hall. Like if you really want a three technique. Other than that, there's not a lot of guys like maybe Deshaun Hand can do that for you. Who's also on this list in the 60s. But even he is more of a he's more of a run defender, kind of plays five technique a little bit, holds up against the run.

2:31:19Derrik Klassen: Like I just if you want that explosive penetration like a Sheldon Rankins or something like that or like a Milton Williams last year, those guys aren't coming. You got to go find those in the draft this year.

2:31:30Robert Mays: Connor, any other big picture thoughts about just how everything has unfolded today? Anything we haven't talked about that you've just kind of been stewing over or something that's been on your mind?

2:31:38Derrik Klassen: I mean, I don't know how much we've, I mean, I'm sure you guys have covered the Walker signing ad nauseum, but this is probably one of those deals where I'm just curious now, the Saints have signed Etienne, the Chiefs have signed Kenneth Walker. What does that mean in terms of their intel on Jeremiah Love? Is Jeremiah Love slipping in the draft? Or is Jeremiah Love going way earlier than we thought? Because Love is a complete package. I mean, I've just been doing a ton of work on him over the last couple of weeks. He's an incredible pass protector. He's a willing pass protector. I think he can be on the field for every down.

2:32:16Derrik Klassen: And so do these teams think they're not getting him? Are they supplementing that in case they don't get him? Are they reallocating some of their priorities to other things? Because he's really kind of the most interesting player in the draft to me. And I'm wondering how some of the, you know, some of the rush for some of these backs is impacting that a little bit.

2:32:34Robert Mays: What do we think about the Giants being that team? Again, a team that you're sitting there watching a lot and a team that you have a lot of perspective insight on. The Giants making that move as a team to do that, do you think that's a realistic possibility? I mean, I think so.

2:32:47Derrik Klassen: You have your tight end, which they signed Isaiah Likely. And while I don't love the Likely signing for them necessarily, I thought maybe even Kohler would be a better signing for the Giants just because they need so much help blocking. And I think that Kohler might be a little bit of an underrated wide receiver possibly. But yeah, I mean, that's another kind of major playmaker, maybe a tone setter. I don't think that they're going to rely on Scadabo in any meaningful way next year. And so love is definitely a possibility, I think, for the backfield there for sure.

2:33:18Robert Mays: Speaking of major playmakers, Mike Evans is a San Francisco 49ers.

2:33:24Derrik Klassen: Oh, baby. That is sensational.

2:33:28Robert Mays: I was hoping the Rams. Damn it. All right. For Mike Garofalo, Mike Evans headed to the Niners. I do not think we have details on what the length or the numbers are. I believe it's a three-year deal. Three years from Mike Evans. Don't, man, now I'm

2:33:44Derrik Klassen: doubting myself, but I thought that's what I just read. Wow. Looks like it.

2:33:47Robert Mays: Man, three years from Mike Evans. Good for Mike Evans. Hell yeah. I mean, Derek, we talked about this a lot last week. Just when it came to the skill set that that team needed, just like a big-bodied perimeter player if they were going to move on from Juwan Jennings. So now, I mean... obviously Kittle's coming back from the Achilles. It sounds like he might try to be ready at some point early in the season. We'll see what the timeline on that is. Let's just say he comes back mid-season and is 70 % of George Kittle. If we could be in a place by week 12 where we have 70 % of George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Ricky Pearsall, and Mike Evans, I'm into that.

2:34:25Robert Mays: I can do it.

2:34:25Derrik Klassen: I am curious about Trent. What's going on with Trent? But yeah. He's the Bears' left tackle. Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll get to that one. This signing is just incredible, though, because what we saw from Ricky Pearsall last year, where he is like a 1B type to me, but a little bit more vertical, a little bit more winsome of your one-on-ones, a little bit more shake than a guy like Evans has right now. Evans is a problem solver in the red zone, almost similar to the way that Devontae Adams was for the Rams last year. And Evans has been more than that for large parts of his career. Maybe he's not now, but if that's all that he is, that is still a player who is as good or better than what Jawan Jennings had been in this offense this year.

2:35:05Derrik Klassen: And so especially to pairing him with a guy like Brock Purdy, who Brock Purdy does a lot of things well. He also sometimes just throws it up to his guys and says, please bail me out. Who better than Mike Evans to just bail you out sometimes? So this is awesome. This made a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. And somebody suggested this might happen to me at the combine and I wasn't sure how for real that was. But when you look at it, it checks every box for him. And I think it checks every box for the Niners too.

2:35:32Robert Mays: It's funny because somebody, when I was talking to somebody about this situation, I had some insight into it and just thought, you know, he'll test free agency. He'll want to be wanted. And then we'll get to a place where he ends up coming back. And when you do that every once in a while, this is the type of outcome that can be at the end of the road. And so now the Bucks are going to be walking into next season without Mike Evans. I think this is what happens to when you have such a prevalence of

2:35:56Derrik Klassen: Shanahan inspired systems in the NFL and a player that fits that system so well, even at that advanced age is going to generate a huge market. Because if you go back to the original, like 2017 to 2020 Shanahan 49ers playbook, the archetype of that number one wide receiver is, you know, I talked to a coach on that original staff. He's like, it's Julio Jones. You want someone who's big, who's physical, who's abusive to defensive backs. And if we can't have that, then we need someone like, you know, who ended up being like Rashid Shahid for the Seahawks last year, right? Where it's just speed and it's taking the top off of defense.

2:36:31Derrik Klassen: So Evans to me represents one of those classic, like, you know, it was like when Billy Beans started signing a bunch of on-base percentage guys. And then all of a sudden you were spending$40 million a year for like, I don't know, Jay Buhner to get on base as many times as, you know, not, it's like one of those ridiculous things where like, how is that guy worth that much? But Evans is so valuable to Shanahan and every team specifically, but Shanahan especially, that I think he kind of generated a very special market for himself.

2:36:57Robert Mays: And I think if you're Mike Evans, you got to be thanking what Devonta Adams did last year, because for the most part, signing 32-year-old receivers in free agency, not often good business, but we're a year removed from the Rams doing that with Devonta Adams and being pretty happy that they did. Connor, sincerely appreciate the time, buddy. I know you got a lot going on. We will talk to you very soon. All right. Enjoy. Love the haircut, Robert. Thanks, buddy. Speaking of people that have a lot going on. Joining us now, it is our good friend from ESPN, Samina Kimes. Samina, how you doing?

2:37:26Dave Helman: Hi, I'm good. I was literally just wrapping up some videos and reports and then the Mike Evans thing came across, what, like two minutes ago? So it is nonstop over here.

2:37:38Robert Mays: What are your thoughts? How do you feel about Mike Evans going to San Francisco?

2:37:42Dave Helman: Tennessee West, good God.

2:37:47Dave Helman: Jesus. this uh I this is such a weird counterintuitive take but if I'm the Arizona Cardinals and I'm a fan of that team it's probably good that y 'all didn't sign Malik Willis I saw some of them were kind of upset about that let's take your medicine right and you can start watching Arch Manning tape or something because these other three teams are not effing around you saw what the Rams did to their secondary um I think you know for the Niners offense obviously Ayuk was supposed to be that number one outside receiver and that hasn't panned out. So there was a glaring need. I do like Pearsall, but he's got to stay on the field for me to like him.

2:38:24Dave Helman: I think that offense, it lends itself very well to production for a big-bodied perimeter receiver. And so to get Mike Evans, who I will not count out until I see it with my own eyes, I think that's a pretty smart deal. I actually didn't see the money, though. Can you guys tell me? I just saw it. We haven't seen it either.

2:38:44Robert Mays: We just saw it was a three-year deal. so I don't know what the money is. The Four Dragons meme, by the way, has never been truer than it currently is for the NFC West. It has never been more applicable. Listen, the Cardinals are where the Cardinals are. You know, the Kyler Murray thing was always kind of strange. I remember talking about this with people there in the moment where you have a team that was deeply rebuilding as soon as Monte Austin Fort got there. And this goes beyond just the roster. Like they reset everything about the franchise when Austin Ford got there because you had four GMs in a row that were internal hires going back like 30 years.

2:39:22Robert Mays: And so like the scouting processes for the Cardinals just had to be completely overhauled. They tore the thing down to the studs. They tried to get as many rookie contract players in there as they could, all of these draft picks. But then you have a$46 million quarterback. And so you're trying to like pair those things together and it never really made sense. And so the fact that we got to this messy ending is not surprising. So I'm not even admonishing them. But the fact that the Cardinals are where they are and these other three teams in the NFC West are just having this arms race for who could be the scariest team in the league is just a very funny place to have landed.

2:39:56Yeah, I feel like, Derek, am I wrong about Malik Willis?

2:40:01Dave Helman: Like, I think that would have been a mistake for them.

2:40:04Derrik Klassen: Yeah, I would not have done that. I don't think I would have been super jazzed about that because I think my thing with Malik Willis it makes sense for a team like the Dolphins I the best that we've seen of Malik Willis is worse than any of the lows that we've seen from Kyler Murray I think and obviously the money is going to be a little bit different there but I just with where they're at I don't think it made a whole lot of sense I do I am a little bit disappointed that this is where the Cardinals landed though because coming into this past season and I know the injuries on defense like absolutely killed them but we came actually I'll say it this way we came out of the 2024 season being like hey They've got a little bit of something here.

2:40:39Derrik Klassen: Kyler Murray's okay at the end. Like the offensive line had a little bit of something. You could sell yourself on the scheme. The defense was still pieces away, but it was like, man, if they hit on guys in the draft, it could really be something. And then all the guys they drafted got hurt and they didn't really make any signings. I don't think they made a single signing on the offense. And so it's like they had room to improve and to potentially be something. And now they've fallen flat and now they have to fully reset. And so I do think it is a little bit disappointing from that front. There's nothing, we already did one Charlie Day reference on this show, but to do another one, like go hide and work on a cure during Pacific Rim.

2:41:15Derrik Klassen: Like, just like Charlie Day did. Like, let the monsters and robots fight it out. And you can be in the mix in a year or two.

2:41:22Robert Mays: One of my favorite things about free agency discussions are when, if you have a team, which I do, right? When you're talking about these players, you're like, oh, I kind of like this guy. And then your team signs him and you're like, God, I hope this works out. That's exactly what just happened with Devin Bush. Chicago Bears signed Devin Bush three years,$30 million with$21 million guaranteed per Adam Schefter.

2:41:44Dave Helman: Really?

2:41:46Derrik Klassen: That's a lot of money. It's not that much money. He hasn't played a lot of good football. It feels like this is a little bit spooky to me. This is one, Devin Bush, I think, last year in a very specific way.

2:42:01Dave Helman: Yeah.

2:42:02Derrik Klassen: Yeah, in a very specific way was kind of good. But if the Bears can utilize him that way and Dennis Allen can really unlock that, that makes sense. But I would be a little bit dubious.

2:42:10Dave Helman: Fascinating career, right? Because he kind of built his reputation in Cleveland. And that's something we see a lot at the linebacker position, it feels like. The curve, sometimes it just takes guys a while to really reach their peak. But I do share Derek's concerns about the Cleveland defense, which is very, very different in a million different ways, being the place where he did peak. That would make me a little bit apprehensive. It's not that much. I mean, all these linebacker contracts, the Bucks did Alex Anzalone for like a similar price. You know, I'm like, they all make like 10 million. I don't know.

2:42:46Dave Helman: It's hard for me to get too worked up about it. I don't know if it's where I would have spent money if I'm Chicago. It's not really, especially after splitting ways with Edmonds, but I can't get too worked up about that deal.

2:42:57Derrik Klassen: If it's 21 million guaranteed, it's a two-year deal probably. Yes. And so two, I mean, two years at like$10 million a year, it's not nothing, but it's not enough to where I'm going to have anxiety about it.

2:43:10Robert Mays: So I'm looking at just like the market in general and like what that kind of allots to. There really aren't a lot of deals. I mean, it honestly is kind of like what the Bears did with TJ Edwards last year. It's like very similar to the TJ Edwards contract. It's a three-year deal instead of a two-year deal, but it slots in pretty similarly. Edwards had$16.7 million in guarantees. But it's funny to me that the Bears had maybe the tallest off-ball linebacker in the league with Terrell Edmonds, and now they're going with the 5 '11 guy. In terms of body type, Derek, it's about as far away as you could be with two guys that were drafted very high.

2:43:42Derrik Klassen: Listen, if you need a linebacker three, go bring in Denzel Perryman or something. There's a couple of other short guys on the market if you want to keep going that direction. That is surprising, though, from Dennis Allen. He usually does tend to like him a little bit bigger.

2:43:56Robert Mays: yeah it's and I think the the to me the biggest thing to point out is just like the one the quality of the front that you're playing with in Cleveland is just so much different than the quality of the front that you're playing with in Chicago and so what you look like behind that group compared to what you look like behind the Browns defensive line that's probably what you have to be worried about when you're signing a player like this and I think for me too like

2:44:16Derrik Klassen: the attitude in the way that they play like Cleveland is a lot of like single high you've got one gap, go fly and go kill somebody. That's not quite really how the Dennis Allen defense played. And there were games last year where they did that because they had to. But I think in his heart of hearts, that is not necessarily the type of defense that Dennis Allen wants to play.

2:44:33Robert Mays: Another bigger signing that we have not talked about quite yet. That happened a few minutes ago. Per Tom Palacero, the Steelers are the team, Derek, that is rolling the dice on Jamel Dean. Three years,$37 million for Jamel Dean going to the Pittsburgh.

2:44:48Dave Helman: Wow. Oh, really?

2:44:50Derrik Klassen: If he's healthy, I'm extremely into this. This is a kick you in the ass type of cornerback duo. Him and Joey Porter are like, I think both guys who are really good at putting hands on you, Joey Porter specifically. And so I think the Steelers last year got a lot out of guys at cornerback, both at the nickel and the outside cornerback spot. That was like, we can get by. Jamel Dean, if healthy, is a very, very good number two for them outside of Joey Porter. So this could be good for them. I'm also that on top of them bringing in Patrick Graham to call the defense now, like feels like a much different unit than it was even even a few months ago.

2:45:25Robert Mays: We talked about the Dean contract and just the market that Dean might have after, you know, what the last year's market looked like, Derek. And in a world where DJ Reed was getting 16 million dollars a year last year to get Jamel Dean for 12. I understand his injury history is more checkered than that, but he played really good football last year. And so it's a decent price when you consider what the cornerback market looked like last year and what it's looking like this year for somebody like Jamal Dean.

2:45:50Derrik Klassen: I think that's all it is, right? And like, Mina, you probably agree, like he probably should make what DJ Reed made last year, if not for the injuries. He's also 29. Like, I just I think you add in some if it was purely on what he can do as a ballplayer, it probably is the 16, 17 million range. But he unfortunately does have a little bit extra baggage.

2:46:08Dave Helman: Yeah, it's funny because I was looking at he was amazing. last year like statistically and whenever you think about nearest defender stats he was like the best corner in football by a lot of metrics um in terms like epa per target and success rate and things like that but it's been up and down which is why the bucks didn't bet on him they bet on mccullum and um he hit his up just in time to get paid but he also is 29 the thing though that caught my eye was like it's the same age as carlton davis and i remember last year when davis did that deal maybe davis is like a tiny bit younger but when he did the deal with the patriots I thought that's a great deal.

2:46:43And I feel like, I don't know why,

2:46:46Dave Helman: maybe it's just the injury history with Dean. There's a little bit more apprehension around him, but at his high, and we saw that last season, he is an extremely good scheme versatile corner who I think is really good fit for what Graham wants to do. I do find the Steelers' general approach this offseason really interesting, trading for Pittman, giving him a contract, paying Dean. The suggestion here is that the Steelers expect to be a playoff team. Yes. Very good, right? Exactly. Would you think anything different? And by all accounts, to bring back Aaron Rodgers. So I think, I guess, it's hard for me not to look at all of these moves through that lens.

2:47:27Dave Helman: Like you're running it back at quarterback. It's not likely he's going to be better than what we saw last year. I guess having a second receiver will help. And I do think Pittman pairs nicely with Rodgers. But is that a good bet? Like, you know, as we watch the Ravens do this big deal for Crosby and all of that, like, do we think the Steelers are self-aware, let me put it that way, in some of these moves in conjunction with each other?

2:47:53Robert Mays: I don't think so. I mean, and this has been my frustration with them for a while now is that this felt like, and let's leave the McCarthy thing aside. Even if you wanted to go that direction with the coaching staff, I think that this was a chance for them to kind of soft reset a little bit when it came to the age of the roster and how the expectations for the roster in the short term. Because this is a team that I think there is like a underlying current of young talent. This is a young roster if you wanted to get it young. They have a ton of draft capital this year. And so the fact that we're chasing guys who are going to be receivers and corners in their age 29 season as the big investments that you're making with a 48-year-old quarterback or whatever he is, it's just I don't really understand how that's all supposed to come together cohesively.

2:48:39Derrik Klassen: Understanding that we don't know where any of it's going to go and who's going to feel better about it. It's wild to think about Tyler Lute missing a field goal and all the wild stuff the Baltimore Ravens have been doing as a result of it. and the Steelers also changed head coaches, but they're just the Steelers still. Like it's all, it all feels like the same playbook

2:48:59Robert Mays: with a different coach in that seat. The Steelers multi-year outlook at quarterback is like, I would love to talk to someone in the building and just be like, what are you going to do in 2027? Like even if Rodgers is back this year, what are you going to do in 2027? Like what is the ideal dismount from all of this and just have them try to explain it to me?

2:49:16Dave Helman: I knew it was never going to happen in my heart of hearts, but I really wanted them to be the Malik Willis team. And I knew there was no chance. I knew it. But like, how exciting, like, or just, you know, and maybe this will age poorly, the small sample size thing, we'll play it, whatever. But thinking about Willis with those receivers, that offensive line, it was exciting. Like if you're a Steelers fan, it would have been interesting at least. And then there's the obvious upside, but it was very easy for me to imagine a world in which they ran the football well, gave Malik the sort of coverages that, I would say he, I wouldn't say needs, but are best for him to succeed.

2:49:52Dave Helman: And then you have this great, you know, perimeter receiver and DK Metcalf, who is honestly a perfect fit for him. It was just, I allowed myself to dream of that possibility. And now it just feels like, all right. What if it's not though? Let me throw that out there. Cause we're all assuming Rogers comes back, even though he's been, you know, saying whatever.

2:50:14Derrik Klassen: But if it's not Rogers, what is it? I mean, is it, can I, can I set me, can I tell you on Kyler Murray's Steelers quarterback? I'd be more interested. It's more interesting than running it back.

2:50:25Robert Mays: Yes. Much more interesting than running it back.

2:50:27Dave Helman: That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

2:50:29Robert Mays: Yeah. I mean, that's, it's always been kind of my frustration here. So looking at everything else that's happening here and nothing else kind of coming across the timeline right now, but yeah, the Steelers and just, yeah, I just, I'd be very curious about that. And the Steelers right now, again, looking at the draft capital for Pittsburgh, they have, my God, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 picks this year with five picks in the top 100. And so just an interesting inflection point for where this team is overall and how Jamel Dean and Michael Pittman fit into that. I don't know. I truly don't know what the actual kind of collective mindset is over there.

2:51:13Robert Mays: I mean, anything we didn't hit that is in front of mind for you? Anything that you feel like has been with the more interesting signings of the day, a team that you're trying to get your arms around? Like, where are you at right now?

2:51:23Dave Helman: Yeah, we were talking, I mean, the Linderbaum thing is just, it's hilarious and insane. And I think where I came down on it, and I didn't hear you guys say I did a show with Ben, which people go check out, by the way, it's out now on my YouTube. It's like, I love the player. I love the fit. I think he feels a great need. I think it's worth spending more at that position with that quarterback.

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2:53:21Dave Helman: To that young offensive coordinator, you know, the young, the coordinator and all that, the pay is insane. So I guess, you know, it's kind of one of those things where you like, the deal is bad, but the deal is good at the same time. Is that about where you guys came down on it? because the deal is insane. Also, it's a three-year deal. I don't think I processed that. Like, you're not only paying him top dollar, you're only doing it for three years, which is absolutely wild. You're paying an extreme premium

2:53:47Robert Mays: to have an answer at that position for a rookie quarterback. Like, I think that's what it is, right? Like, you're paying an extreme premium to try to give yourself some stability for your offensive line as you drop the number one overall pick into that. And there are worse mindsets to have when you have an endless pool of free agent money. I guess that's what I would say. Like, there are worse ways to spend your money if this is the spot that you're in as a franchise, even if we can all acknowledge that, yes, obviously the deal is insane. Like, to reset the entire interior offensive line market by multiple millions of dollars is an insane thing to do, but you understand how they got there and what the benefits of it potentially look like.

2:54:30Dave Helman: I would love some nerd out there, if anyone's watching this, to go, that has to be the biggest jump at a position in recent NFL history, right? Like somebody go get us the crazy, crazy stuff. I don't even know what else it would be, right? Yeah, I'm trying to think of something where I was like, holy mackerel.

2:54:49Derrik Klassen: Was there some linebacker deal a few years ago? Maybe that like upset the market, but I just don't know what that would be.

2:54:54Dave Helman: I think it was a pretty decent jump, right? Wasn't he at corner? Yeah.

2:54:59Robert Mays: Yeah, that would be a good one. So that was, I think at that point, Sertan was at like 25, right? And so Stingley went to 30, but even that's$5 million. It's not$9 million. There are other ones that I was thinking about, like I don't, we'd have to go back and look at it just from like a pure percentage of the cap situation, but like Adrian Peterson's extension, what did Adrian Peterson's first extension look like? That would be one that I would throw out there and be like, is that crazy? But running backs are getting paid a lot of money at that point.

2:55:28Derrik Klassen: Jesus.

2:55:28Robert Mays: Adrian Peterson's extension in 2015, Adrian Peterson got paid$14 million a year in 2015. So Adrian Peterson got as much on his extension that year as Kenneth Walker just got in free agency. Crazy.

2:55:42Derrik Klassen: Overall cap was probably what, like close to half of what it is now? That's insane. A little, yeah, almost.

2:55:48Robert Mays: Less than half. Yeah. Less than half. Less than half. Wow. So yeah, it was$143 million a year. The salary cap was in 2015 and Adrian Peterson got$14 million a year. so it was almost 10 % of the cap

2:55:59Derrik Klassen: that's wild different world I also love Linderbaum getting the three year deal he turns 25 in a month or sorry he turns 26 in a month but so he'll be ready again in 2020 at the age of 28 and it's not going to be this deal every time but like Tyler Linderbaum could do this

2:56:17Dave Helman: and it's all because the Ravens didn't want to do the option the tag because of the position he played right like they didn't want to pay him like it well, he just got paid like one, like a, and it really shows you, I know we always love to talk about drafting these non-premium positions in the first round and all the best players in this year's draft are non-premium positions, but they do, I'm not saying that the Ravens were right to approach it the way they were, but this kind of thing happens in part because of his position and them not wanting to do that deal.

2:56:48Robert Mays: Mina, how should I feel about Kobe Bryant? Good player. What was the, what was the price? I was thinking 13 million a year. It was like three years, 40.

2:56:55Dave Helman: That's good for him. Um, you know, the risk is always, he goes from playing with like the Harlem Globetrotters on defense, but, uh, but I would say this about Kobe. He's not a one-year wonder, you know, I think he's been a good ascendant player now for multiple years. He's very smart. I think he's a good fit for that defense. Um, kind of one of those middle-class contracts that I do think will age well. None of this matters if y 'all can't rush the passer though.

2:57:20Robert Mays: Didn't you say that's on Neville Gallimore? It's all fixed.

2:57:22Dave Helman: Oh, okay. Neville Gallimore. Great.

2:57:25Robert Mays: Neville Gallimore is going to make it all over.

2:57:26Dave Helman: I want to ask you guys a question before I leave because we talked about the Steelers and what they should do. If you're the Colts and you're choosing between Kyler Murray and Tua on veteran deals, let's say Daniel Jones, 40 APY, not even the 50 plus that he reportedly wants. Would any of you take the Jones multi-year deal? I'm surveying the room over one of those veteran minimum deals for those quarterbacks.

2:57:58Derrik Klassen: Absolutely not. I would take Kyler Murray at the same dollar amount as Daniel Jones, let alone at him getting like basically getting him on the cheap. Yeah, I would rather take Kyler Murray's, well, imperfect track record over the eight games that Daniel Jones played. If Daniel Jones was healthy, I think you could talk me into it because I was that enamored with what they looked like that last year when everybody was healthy and everything looked the way it was supposed to. The injury is what scares me, and I would go with Kyler because of that.

2:58:29Robert Mays: If the deal ended up, if the deal landed, and it was three years,$120 million for Dan, and it was one year for the minimum for Kyler Murray, I would take the Daniel Jones path. For this reason, okay, two reasons. One, you've seen what he can be within the offense, right? We have proof of concept for what it can look like, and I'm not even talking about 2026. That's why the multi-year element of this is important to me. The idea that if he's healthy by 2027, and you can get back to a place that you were in this fall, that is slightly attractive. And the only other reason, if it were almost any other team, I'd be like, yeah, give me Kyler Murray for one year on the minimum.

2:59:08Robert Mays: The fact that it's the Colts, and I just want to get off this ride so desperately where I don't have to do this every single year. This is how you sign a bad quarterback. Don't do that. I'm not saying that it's an optimized set of decisions. I'm just saying that for this team specifically, if I'm Chris Bauer and if I'm that organization, I'm taking the three years, $120 million for Daniel Jones. I think I'd rather do that. I think I would just sleep easier. So terrifying stability over more carousel.

2:59:36Dave Helman: Sleep easier with the quarterback coming off of one of the most brutal injuries possible that he incurred in December after a half season of success. By the way, at the end, tail of one of which he did start to decline a bit, but you're sleeping easier committing 120.

2:59:51Robert Mays: At least we don't have to print new quarterback jerseys for the team store. I'm unemployed, but I'd be sleeping easier. I would be sleeping easier. I wouldn't have to be running an NFL team anymore, but I understand where.

3:00:02Dave Helman: No, no, I hear you. I hear you. I hear you about the team and Kyler comes with his own set of, I actually think that'd be a good scheme set though, but I don't think it's going to happen, obviously.

3:00:10Robert Mays: From a football perspective, I, of course, of course, like in terms of like value per dollar and how he fits into, the offense, all that stuff. I think I'd rather have Kyler, but I think when they like Daniel Jones there, I think they liked just the, again, the Alec Pierce, Daniel Jones thing. I think that's part of why Alec Pierce is probably back there because he and Daniel Jones have a good relationship. Like there's just a lot of quiet stuff that I think is they liked about Daniel Jones. Whether that should be the reason you make that decision. It's a different conversation.

3:00:37Dave Helman: Dude's got to be the best hang in the world, man.

3:00:41Robert Mays: That's true. I think he's just kind of there. I just don't think he's rubbing anybody the wrong way in a negative way. And I think that's what they're after.

3:00:48Dave Helman: Truly a case study and how far you can go in your career by just not rubbing anybody the wrong way. That's correct.

3:00:55Robert Mays: I think that's exactly right. Mina, always great to see you. Always great to chat with you. I know you're very busy. So thank you for the time. We'll talk to you very soon.

3:01:02Dave Helman: Thanks. Bye guys.

3:01:04Robert Mays: Derek, where are you at? What time you got to get on an airplane?

3:01:06Derrik Klassen: It's about time for me to go eat some lunch and hop out of here. I think that's the plan.

3:01:10Robert Mays: We will see you tomorrow. Very much looking forward to seeing you. We will have live shows each of the next three days. We're not going to be going for five hours, but we are going to have live shows every single day. And we're excited to have Derek right here. Come on the rest of those over here. Fly safe. Hopefully you have better luck than you did yesterday. Appreciate you hanging with us. We'll talk to you later.

3:01:29Derrik Klassen: Yeah. Hopefully I can get on the plane. All right. See you guys.

3:01:31Robert Mays: All right, guys, that's all we have for part one of our free agency stream. Part two is going to be available in your feeds right now. It's also available on the YouTube channel. If you want to go watch it, that is an option. Plenty of graphics and great little bells and whistles that we threw into the YouTube version. You can also see my weird haircut if you want to. So plenty of things to check out on the visual side of this that you cannot get on the audio version, but encourage you to listen to part two when you're done with this, whether it's on YouTube or at your podcast platform of choice.

3:02:05Robert Mays: Appreciate you guys listening. Part two right now. Go check it out.

3:02:15We'll see you next time. Thank you.