Free Agency Live Reaction Show

16:41Mina Kimes:in a dark room for two weeks and said, you have to figure out how to make Aaron Rogers work in 2026 as a quarterback. After I went insane for the first week, I would land on, you know, who's a pretty good receiver for guy wants to get rid of the ball very quickly. We need to be able to create yards after the catch, but we also just need to have like extremely timely, accurate quarterback, friendly, good against zone, catches everything receiver. Like Pittman does make sense for Rogers because you can trick yourself into thinking because we have to live so close to the line of scrimmage and we have to be this short distribution team.

17:10Mina Kimes:Like we want all yak athletes, but you also still need a guy with like a catch radius in the short areas who catches through contact and safety to come and hit him. And that's Pittman's best strength, right? He's so good, five to 12 yards down the field, timing off the breaking routes, opening up against zone. And so he is a very good fit for Rogers. why we are kowtowing to Aaron Rodgers in the year of our Lord 2026. God only knows, but it is a good fit.

17:31Ben Solak:Let's talk about the Colts now because we have not even addressed, I guess now the Phillips trade, the Phillips deal comes in on top of, I was going to say Alec Pierce is the biggest deal of the day so far. So far it's the J. The Phillips trade. So Pierce did end up resigning with the Colts. It was, I believe, 20 million million-ish, just under 29. Yeah, four years, 114. which is comparable to like Terry McLaurin. It's probably like somewhere in the 10 to 15 range, I would guess without looking in terms of APY. So when we talked about Daniel Jones and the Colts, and there's some news there as well, Dan Pezzuta, who was on the show last week, mentioned that he was like, I feel like they wouldn't do this with Jones unless they were close to a deal with Alec Pierce, though I might be giving them too much credit.

18:20Ben Solak:Turns out he was correct, right? because this was the first this deal was clearly done it was the first thing to come in um it's funny because there was like some i think pierce gave an interview where he was like oh i'm excited to test for agency it's like um your friend who breaks up with their girlfriend they're like i'm excited to be single and then a day later they're just back with their girlfriend yeah you don't

18:44Mina Kimes:want to be out here del curry it's the say it's the wisest twitter thread ever written so i would

18:49Ben Solak:say I'm surprised Pierce didn't actually test free agency because I did think there would be a pretty robust market for his services but that's a that's a rich deal like it's not I'm not saying it's an over we can get to the value but like that's not he didn't take a I don't view this as a hometown discount without seeing the actual structure of it but it means that the choice the Colts made a choice they chose him over Pittman and it seems like they also chose him in conjunction with keeping Daniel Jones. Now, what keeping Daniel Jones looks like is still the open question. They hit him with the transition tag, but it was reported this morning that Jones' camp wants...

19:27Ben Solak:The reports I saw were that the Colts offered Daniel Jones a Sam Darnold-type extension, which was a pretty team-friendly deal that Seattle did. It was essentially like a two-year deal in the 40s, and that Jones' camp thinks he should get 50-plus, plus which was the first thing i saw this morning it was like taking a shot of espresso in my bed i just sat up right when i saw that number and i was just so excited to talk about it ben how bad would it be if the colts folded to daniel jones in 2019 the salary cap was less

20:03Mina Kimes:than 200 million dollars and now it's 300 million and what happened now wait is this is this they put up the bar

20:13Ben Solak:Malik Willis to the Miami Dolphins

20:15Mina Kimes:the Dolphins have enough money for Malik Willis

20:18Ben Solak:that is the great oh yeah

20:22Mina Kimes:rap tweets out three years 67.5 million so that's about 22 million per year on the APY which to me that makes sense for Willis that's what that's like actually sober and correct which so far deals have been nuts and so that to me is a good APY

20:36Ben Solak:oh sorry we keep moving off of stuff i do want to get your just give me your thought on daniel jones and we'll hit malik

20:41Mina Kimes:willis after this yes so daniel jones had one good season by one good season we mean like nine good weeks and we all conveniently forget that he was starting to be bad even before he popped the achilles injury and he did this on what like is pretty much super team-ish in terms of the offensive weapons right you had pierce you had downs you had warren you had michael pittman you had a good offensive line they're losing guys off that offensive line right brayden smith's out of there you have jonathan taylor you also got the drop on teams right year one bang no one's saw this coming well they're going to adjust what you do and so if you want to put all that money into daniel jones who we have seen him you know post big contract extension kind of pumpkin back you know clock strikes midnight on cinderella a little bit you can go for it i think the colts were correct to say we are we are not going to give you an effusion extension before we give pierce a big extension i think the colts are very correct to say we value alec pierce at 25 years old more than michael pitman at 29 years old we think we can get pierce to be good at the pitman stuff, the quick breaking routes, the underneath stuff, because Pierce did none of that.

21:39Mina Kimes:All Pierce did was one down the field. We think we can get him to be good at the Pittman stuff a lot easier than we get Pittman to be good at the Pierce stuff. But Pittman ain't going to suddenly start being, you know, 21.3 yards per reception like Alex Pierce was. So I think the Colts are making all the wise team building choices. Now you get into a little bit of a standoff with what sort of a deal can Jones get in the open market? Will you be willing to sign that? I really hope the Colts do earnestly engage with a quarterback option that is not Daniel Jones, even if it is solely for the sake of negotiation, you do need to see what it looks like in the other pastures a little bit, you know,

22:10Ben Solak:but if you're the Colts, your choice now is either Daniel Jones, apparently on a multi-year 40 plus APY contract or Kyler Murray or Tua on veteran minimum contracts, right? As I don't understand how I'm not saying there are better quarterbacks than Daniel Jones necessarily. Although I, but, But that cost difference is insane. Yeah.

22:37Mina Kimes:And I think if Ballard and Steichen felt empowered in their job security, it would be an obvious choice to go for the minimum contract quarterback and to redo the Revo the veteran thing. I am worried that because Ballard and Steichen maybe don't necessarily feel great about their job security because of, you know, the hot seats and the change in ownership that like they feel compelled to just run Daniel Jones back. Cause it's like the more defensible thing. It's the guy who previously worked. It's the safer move, even though there's like a massive Achilles tendon sized issue in this conversation.

23:10Ben Solak:It's a quarterback whose game is has athleticism is a massive part of it. Coming off of an Achilles injury in December, we've now seen two quarterbacks take forever to get back to normal. Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles in October, returned the following year and didn't look, couldn't even play under center.

23:29Mina Kimes:Couldn't drive the football.

23:30Ben Solak:and you might say to that well daniel jones is younger totally valid but is that enough to justify a multi-year 40 plus con i to me if the colts somehow managed to get him to actually play on the transition tag that is the win here that's what i would do if i was them but it sounds like they're already offering him more than that this feels like a scenario where they're going to get him to do like 45 APY, a two year guarantee and call it a win. That's not a win. Yeah.

24:04Mina Kimes:And I don't see who on the market besides the Colts earnestly engages with Jones is also the tricky thing, which I think that for Jones camp, you're going to struggle to get a tender in an offer sheet in. It's going to actually put heat on the Colts, but if you're the Colts and Jones doesn't sign with anybody, then you don't really budge at all. But if you don't budge at all, and this continues, this continues, than Gino signs and Kirk signs and Kyler signs. And then all of a sudden you are Daniel Jones or bust because you missed out on the legitimate wave of quarterback options, which is why like, all right, you traded Pittman right away.

24:35Mina Kimes:Good. You have to do something to force the issue on the quarterback thing. Cause we, the, the, even if you get leveraged, cause Jones doesn't get a big offer sheet, you lose it over time because the other quarterbacks sign in their location. So the goals have to figure this out in the next, like, you know, five to 10 days, not like today, but they really do have to get this done. uh many fans of other teams in the chat are encouraging the colts to sign daniel jones the logic always helps what do the other team want you to do it fourth down decision making

25:06Ben Solak:yeah um okay uh by the way i should have mentioned this at the beginning we're going to talk about max crosby to the ravens later whenever we get a break in the news because i i haven't talked about that on the show and it is a massive potentially lead trade did you see isaiah likely the Giants 13.3 million per year 13 wow good for him uh I like that deal for them I Isaiah I know he's coming off of a down season but he's just a year removed I think from being like very productive touchdown I think the red zone potential for New York is there he's kind of more of like a big receiver type uh but that was a position they needed to address um all right uh let's go back to malik was we didn't actually talk about it oh miami so this was something that was discussed in the context of like oh they're bringing in green bay jeff halfley yeah they know them okay fine but let's talk about the actual fit and timeline so first of all i think this is a super reasonable contract and very small samples there's so little comps for Malik Willis, like quarterbacks with this small sample size of.

26:21Mina Kimes:So I wrote about it. Do you want some of the big names?

26:24Ben Solak:Brock. Yeah.

26:25Mina Kimes:So Brock, who had seven stars with the Broncos, Kevin Cobb had seven stars with the Eagles. Yes. Kevin Cobb had seven stars with the Eagles. They traded him for the Cardinals. Cardinals gave him a market level deal. That went terribly. The Brock deal obviously went terribly. And then Jimmy Garoppolo is your other one that kind of holds. He had seven starts, five of which were with the 49ers before he signed with. Then at the time was a large quarterback extension. And Garoppolo, like, ended up fine. And so that's kind of your example for a win. But if we're talking early drafts of quarterbacks, first three rounds with fewer than 10 career starts, those are pretty much the only guys in recent history who have gotten major extensions.

26:57Mina Kimes:And you're like 0.5 for three on success in that. And so it is a very small sample and a very thin eye of the needle you're trying to thread. And you have a guy this inexperienced for whom there was actually a decent draft capital investment. Usually it's a sign of like, oh, he was an immediate bust and willis is really trying to buck that trend it's sort of unclear what the

27:16Ben Solak:dolphins offense is going to look like this year i think that's the other interesting thing i mean so bobby slowick was hired as the offensive coordinator which would lead us to believe it's a shanahan style offense uh based on what we saw in houston and of course coming from san francisco under center outside zone run game is that in your mind what works for malik willis Like, do you, would you like to see, how would you like to see them build an offense that caters to his skillset? Now we should note there's some cool stuff still offense, the Dolphins defense. You just put that in the corner for now.

27:51Ben Solak:It's an offensive line that legitimately did improve right. At multiple positions. You have Devon A. Chan, who's one of the most fun, exciting running backs in the NFL. Now you get that backfield. That's pretty cool. You still have Waddle.

28:08Mina Kimes:um darren wadler was weirdly good last year area for target of like 95 which is shooting the ball

28:14Ben Solak:down the field he's a free agent right there they just did like a one-tier deal yeah anyway so you're really looking at a core of waddle a-chan and i don't know uh brewer yeah but say brewer pat paul

28:25Mina Kimes:like i think so running game wise you're in an unbelievable spot in terms of what you can do with a-chan what you can do with willis out of the gun in the boot game you have a lot of speed there in the backfield. I will say that one of my criticisms of Bobby Sloick, even in 23, when shroud was cooking and then into 24, when they really started to fall apart is the running game wise, they were not, you know, doing anything cool or new. They were running the Shanahan stuff. You know, there was not a ton of, uh, of innovation there, particularly in the running game. And so you would like to see, you know, the rest of that staff and, and, and whatever new, I have fresh ideas you can get in there, be willing to be in the gun more and run more college inspired stuff from run more RPO.

29:03Mina Kimes:Cause you're going to have the foundation and Malik Wilson in the backfield. You have to be stressed in the 53 and a third. You have to be using horizontal stretch and getting flow in different direction. You know, when you have a guy like Brewer, you have guys like Paul who are really good on the run. This is critical. And so running game wise, you have a lot of really good pieces passing game. You bring up the Shanahan stuff. I don't know. I think Will's his best balls is vertical ball. And, and typically when we think about Shanahan and especially as slow, like when he was successful, they were Stroud, it was a lot of crossing.

29:29Mina Kimes:It was a lot of horizontal stretch, intermediate breaking route. I don't think Willis is incapable of throwing those. I also have not seen him do it a lot. When he would step in, when he stepped in for the Packers this year, they had already completely shucked their, you know, intermediate middle offense for the sake of intermediate outbreaking stuff. And he would throw, you know, the Luke Musgrave corner and what have you. I'm like, that's accessible to him. But as we know, intermediate middle throwing is a different cat, a different challenge requires a lot of touch, which I would say has not been Willis's strength really at any time.

29:55Mina Kimes:Liberty to Tennessee to Green Bay. And so to me, if Sloak walks out with copy paste, CJ Stroud, 2023, I think they're going to struggle to throw the football the way that they'd like to. My hope is that they would be a little bit more college inspired, a little bit more zone read RPO oriented. And then you bring guys into the box, you force single high and you take your opportunities on the outside vertically.

30:14Ben Solak:Yeah. I've often, I don't even know who gets the most mad about this, but I've mentioned Jalen hurts as a comp, a decent amount in terms of a quarterback where beautiful.

30:23Mina Kimes:Kevin Petulo is there in Miami. So excellent. There's a synergy. It's good. Everybody knows what to do.

30:28Ben Solak:I totally forgot that.

30:29Mina Kimes:Cam Matula, senior offensive assistant, baby.

30:31Ben Solak:Oh, my God. Some of the Miami hires have really, like, kind of, like, flown under the radar, I feel like. Because there was this assumption that this was going to be, like, a rebuilding team. I mean, we haven't even talked about the Tua release, but let's see. It's$99 million in dead money, but they'll be designated post-June, so it'll be$67 million against the cap. Casual. Don't worry about it. Followed by$32 million next year. Oh, my God. Okay, so, but what I was going to say about Miami is, you know, so to go with Willis, like you were saying, like, if you can build a, I would say, top 10 rushing attack around him, then you get some of those coverages that he has proven, like Jalen, to be capable of exploiting.

31:16Ben Solak:the Dolphins had an 11th uh in DVOA rushing attack last year despite having an immobile quarterback now they've had a lot of um they had maybe one of those creative run game designers in the NFL which is you know that's the concern here but the pieces are there for them to continue running the football I think at a high level given not just a champ but what we've seen from the offensive line now you throw in a running back or pretty quarterback who I believe is one of the more dynamic probably like a top three rushing quarterback in football has that yeah

31:49Mina Kimes:like Malik very important to stress very important stress with Willis this is not like oh Kyler oh Jalen Hurts no this is more like Josh Allen Lamar Jackson in terms of when he talks to football

31:58Ben Solak:he is there right so I mean you just have a numbers advantage anytime he's in the backfield so slow it this is there's a huge opportunity for him to show the league that he's grown from that experience and that he can actually cook up a really effective run game because he has the pieces to do it uh financially i mean the dolphins are screwed the dolphins are going to

32:23Mina Kimes:be the the offense of the team that the fantasy bros are addicted to over the next three months because it's like a mobile quarterback it's a running back who catches the football and the defense is going to give up 39 points per game so they're constantly going to be playing fast and behind they it is jaylen waddle now you know siloed up wide receiver one targets because tyreek hill's gone this is going to be the fantasy everybody's giving oh dolphins this oh dolphins

32:45Ben Solak:that is gonna be the team ethan barnes breaking donna kelsey remodeling oh i did hear about this this tmz let me know i was fired up uh the jets are spending money they minka uh the they added

33:03Mina Kimes:minka they gave him a contract make if it's patrick i saw the adenis guy a sigh yeah so the the

33:08Ben Solak:bangles desperately need to figure some pass rush out um still a lot of a ton of big names out there uh including trey hendrickson i haven't seen any smoke around trey hendrickson to any particular

33:21Mina Kimes:team i mean i think trey finally is in free agency and just wants to enjoy it for a little bit just just basking it like oh that's right i can go play for who i want to and people will offer me money and this is not awful this is actually very nice so he's enjoying his time all right he's my tying

33:35Ben Solak:it he's having a nice relaxing day in free agency i wouldn't hate like a mercenary deal with the chiefs now that they've got a little bit of money a little bit of clearance um speaking of donna kelsey um are there any other teams that you would like to see go after trey hendrickson before we

33:53Mina Kimes:move on so the cowboys like they they talked about it and obviously they went and they signed rashaun yeah we should talk about their song i would not mind if they still added hendrickson to that donovan azaraku who is their good rookie edge rusher had offseason hip surgery nobody really knows how healthy he's going to be to start year two jadevian clown he was their leading sack editor last year he's a free agent like they're nowhere in the edge room right now and to get the best out of gary you need to be able to play him inside the tackle at times and so you need to have guys who play outside of the tackle hendrickson also can just be like a straight dpr for the cowboys because they're so loaded at interior defensive line you can just take hendrickson off the field on running downs which at this stage in his career you absolutely have to do so Dallas to me still makes sense as the team though they probably should be done investing at the defensive line at this point but I still wouldn't mind Trey Anderson I let me see if this

34:40Ben Solak:is actually right because I saw in the chat Kobe Bryant to the Bears see if that's right let's put a pin in that let's talk about Rashawn Gary really quickly because we haven't um we should

34:48Mina Kimes:so we I went too fast over Jayla oh my gosh Steelers please god the Steelers extended Pittman reporting a new three-year 59 million dollar deal which presumably they're taking the last year the 28 the 24 million dollar year ripping it up and then doing a new three-year 59 million dollar contract which is less than 20 million per year but why are you extending michael bainman

35:12Ben Solak:i'm gonna beat the steelers piss me off uh we didn't yeah okay let's do I haven't seen this um Kobe Bryant deal I only saw in the chat so I'm gonna go be

35:23Mina Kimes:Brian to the the Bears I I did a video on Kobe last week and I almost said like Bears are really good things how they'd be good with Kevin Byard I just didn't didn't send it and that makes me sad

35:33Ben Solak:Kobe's a good player uh let's talk about Rashawn Gary in that trade because I haven't we haven't gotten to that so um Rashawn Gary it was a great saga over the weekend Rashawn Gary posted on Instagram a goodbye to Green Bay along like I'm getting cut goodbye and then retracted it and said he was hacked really love the idea of hackers out there putting together just long goodbye posts for this is the next tier of hacking um he retracted it because it turned out he was straight first of all cowboys if you're if a player puts out a goodbye post and you trade actual draft capital for him you already screwed up i was arguing with somebody about this today where they were like

36:19Mina Kimes:gary fits well for the defense i was like i agree and they're like gary it matches well with quinn and i was like i agree they still trade a fourth for a guy who posted a goodbye packers thing last week like that just to me is is indefensible you cannot get out of that that's a bad deal

36:31Ben Solak:okay so i'm not oh wow demario davis back to the jets that's interesting demario davis and

36:37Mina Kimes:Aaron Glenn, man. I mean, just absolutely thick as thieves as still. Glenn was a Saints defensive backs coordinator for like four years before he took the Lions DC job. He talks about Demario Davis at every possible opportunity he has to talk about good football players. Loves Demario Davis so much.

36:55Ben Solak:Back to Gary. Look, I'm not going to get like too worked up about a fourth rounder for a solid player. I don't think he's like, you know, I think he has not lived up to, I think, what people hope, certainly, with the draft pick. And he is a player. So if you're reading NFL news and like these breaking news and you're trying to parse out what's real, whenever people post career numbers instead of here's what he did last year, that's a good sign that you might be dealing with a declining player or a player maybe who's not as good as they thought he would be. I do think it is discouraging that playing with Micah Parsons, who was getting double teamed like insane, he was not very productive.

37:41Ben Solak:And then, of course, after Micah Parsons left, he didn't do anything for Green Bay. And now he's going to the team that Micah Parsons left permanently. And so the idea that he's going to come in and be an edge one and super productive, I think, is probably not going to happen. But I think he's solid against the run. At times, he's been very good against the run, which has, of course, been an issue in Dallas. And again, it's a fourth rounder. It's approximately$20 million APY, one-year deal, really, we'll see if they do some sort of extension. I can't get super worked up about that, but I'm not like, oh, this is a disastrous mistake.

38:17Ben Solak:It's fine. I do think it's a win for Green Bay, though, to get any draft capital, considering that they were obviously going to cut him.

38:24Mina Kimes:the Cowboys my thing with the pick is the Cowboys don't have a second round pick and a third round pick this year because of the George Pickens deal and I want to say part of the Quinton deal I remember I can't remember the other one left anyway so you're missing two day two picks you're now you're trading an early day three pick in the next year and while that doesn't matter too much you do in three or four years start to have an issue where those rookie contracts that you need to kind of fill out the middle tier of your roster. Oh, we have a decent starter at 1.5 million, at 2 million, at 2.5 million.

38:54Mina Kimes:That's where when you start trading a bunch of day two picks, you lose that middle class of your roster, which is really important for staying under the cap, especially for a team that is paying DAX 60 million per year, CD so much per year. They want to play, you know, George Figgins that much. Tyler Smith's on the massive extension. Like you need rookie starters. So I would be wanting to make fewer picks, or excuse me, I want to make more picks in day two and in those middle rounds, as opposed to being where they are right now, which is siloed with two first round picks and then not picking again for a long time.

39:20Mina Kimes:You start to lose the roster fodder you need to make the math work. Now it is the 2026 draft. So not having a second, a third in this draft class is not as big of a deal because it's a really bad draft class, but they're trading 2027 capital now. And so the Packers are the team that, you know, if you are moving on from Rashawn Gary, you moved on from Kenny Walker or Kenny Clark, excuse me. You just traded Colby Wollin for Zaire Franklin. Packers right now, you go to our lads defensive line and the Green Bay Packers, it is scary, scary business after Michael Parsons. So Green Bay has got to start getting involved in what's the not great defensive tackle free agency class, ASAP, because they need bodies to make this defense work.

40:01Ben Solak:That is, oh, hold on one second. Sorry.

40:05Mina Kimes:News, maybe news, not news, question blue news.

40:07Ben Solak:I thought it was news, but it's not. No, it's not news. Yeah, it is a good point about Green Bay. And I don't think I've seen any defensive tackle deals yet. Have we seen anything?

40:20Mina Kimes:Sheldon Rankins is fine with the Texans for two 12, which if you're like, Ben, why do I care about that?

40:27Ben Solak:He's been doing that deal forever. No,

40:28Mina Kimes:rank is like the second best defense attack on the market right now. Now, like your DJ readers are up in this class. Your BJ Hills are up in this class. Tairis Tonga for the Patriots. There are 40 % of the snaps run defending first two downs, defensive tackles in this group. You green Bay, You got to get at least one. Ideally, you get multiple, right? Devontae, Wyatt's coming off a major injury, and then you have nothing else at the position. The way you lose the value on Parsons is if teams can just run at him and run the football successfully. You only get value on the Parsons deal if you can actually get the pass rush down.

40:59Mina Kimes:So Green Bay, like, I like a lot of the moves in a vacuum that they've made, but because you've now spent so much at that particular position, it's Wyatt, Carl Brooks, and nobody. And that just does not work in the modern NFL. You need more bodies.

41:13Ben Solak:Yeah, I'm not sure what the time timeline for Parsons looks like, but that to me is, you know, it's, it's going to be hard to project green Bay season without knowing that at this point. Um, if you could tell me that Parsons was returning by, I don't know, October or something, I would feel a lot better about it. And that's going to obviously influence a lot of their choices. Oh my goodness. All right. I'm going to name some of the names that are still out there in free agency. The big dog is of course, Tyler Linderbaum. We did get a couple, a few center deals over the weekend. Connor McGovern re-signing with the Bills for about 13 APY.

41:53Ben Solak:Tyler Biotish, that was kind of an interesting one, to the Chargers. I think there was some money on that one too. Let me find it because I thought that was interesting. I think it was about 10. Yeah, 10 million APY. And then Garrett Bradbury to the Bears. they acquired him so Linderbaum it's funny because I you know I took a couple of names out of Linderbaum contention the Chargers were a team I think folks thought about a little bit I think very few money teams have the ability to afford him all it takes is one Vegas or something to blow everybody out of the water but you know the Ravens are still in the mix to bring him back it'll be pretty hard now though with Ravens

42:38Mina Kimes:did sign John Simpson which is very very big because if you were going to lose Linderbaum and you're going to go into next year with Andrew Voorhees, Daniel Falele and at center, like brother, we were going to die. Like you need to have functional play on the interior. So Simpson and the Ravens to me is a good signing, even if they bring Linderbaum back, but also as a sign that, Hey, like we're going to have a veteran who knows what he's doing. He can help us at protections. Even if we don't

43:00Ben Solak:get Linderbaum back in the building, Kenny G to the books shot. White was a free agent. i thought kenneth gave up with bucky irving i for why spider-man me yeah i thought kenny g would sign somewhere where he would have a chance to um be the lead dog i don't know is he big enough

43:21Mina Kimes:to be the lead dog that's my thing it's just bucky's not big and kenneth's not big bucky irving

43:25Ben Solak:is 5 '9 192 kenneth is good for him two years 14 5 8 200 all right the buccaneers running back

43:33Mina Kimes:room can't see over the wall like this is not a big group at all okay uh i'm just gonna go back

43:38Ben Solak:to reading those names though that are still out there trey hendrickson who we discussed devon lloyd i saw a report that seems unlikely that he's gonna return to the jaguars yeah i think he's gonna make big money yeah he is oway dafe away and boy mafe two of the edges none of edges outside of Jalen Phillips, Shahid, um, Bree, oh no, Breece returned. Uh,

44:02Mina Kimes:Romeo Dobbs is a big one to me. Yes. Um, every, yeah, every single team,

44:06Ben Solak:every single fan base in the NFL thinks that they're signing Romeo Dobbs.

44:09Mina Kimes:He's a classic, like good wide receiver too. So he fits everywhere. Oh, I can block and go down the field and you're on the catch. So there's no way you can't talk to yourself on a Romeo Dobbs sitting on your team. Very handy player in that way. Good coat player.

44:19Ben Solak:Rick Warren, Jamel Dean amongst the corners. Uh, Mike Evans, obviously. so yeah quite a few um okay the malik willis thing also introduces the question of what the hell are the cardinals going to do at quarterback because there was a lot of smoke around that team connecting them to willis uh so the quarterback carousel narrowed a little bit now that indianapolis and miami are out of the running we are still looking at arizona the jets the steelers increasingly seems like they're just going to bring back rogers the vikings are the yeah um the vikings to me the two quarterbacks we've got eyes on are kyler murray and geno smith all of these quarterbacks are cheap at this point now that malik malik was the guy who you had to pay turns out not that much money but any of these guys now can be signed for pretty small amounts of money uh at this point if you were minnesota pittsburgh arizona the jets oh i there was a report also connecting the falcons to tua yeah it's a funny one uh which would you for those five teams that i just mentioned which quarterbacks would you prefer would not we're not talking about what will happen what would you like to see for those teams kyler to the vikings for sure now

45:49Mina Kimes:there's you hear a lot of people say like oh is he a team fit brother it's kyler murray like i understand yeah i understand that he hasn't put the money there every time we talk about this yes which for those for people who are listening and haven't you know been dialed in on the cap minutia of free agency when you have big contracts mass amounts of base salary and those players get cut, there's offset language in those contracts such that, Hey, you know, we were going to pay you, you know,$38 million guaranteed left on your deal. But if you go sign a$30 million guarantee, a 30 million deal somewhere else, they're paying you 30.

46:21Mina Kimes:We're just paying you eight, right? There's offset language. And so what the other team does is they say, listen, we're just gonna sign you for the vet minimum. You're making the same amount of money, no matter what, we're just gonna force the Cardinals to pay it and not us. And so Kyler, Gino, Kirk, all of whom had their contracts cut, right? This isn't regular for agents, they were cut, all have offset language on their salaries such that they can be signed for veteran in minimums and still make the same amount of money they would have otherwise from the dead cap hit from their the teams are leaving so kyler the vikings just from the money perspective and also oh this the scheme fit throw over the middle it's kyler murray dude like it's kyler murray he's good at things and your kirk cavanel call is a good coach you're going to change what you do to fit for kyler murray it's kyler murray he's not been amazing but he's a first overall pick

46:58Ben Solak:so i like that brie saw just posted damn we sure got a lot of money in florin park all these

47:04Mina Kimes:contracts dudes are exciting yeah the um uh uh cardinals i think like they have jacopi in the building it's a it's a you know rams inspired michael for offense i do think that like kurt cousins can hold you know a job down there for a year and you can be okay gino can hold a job down for a year then you can be okay the jets are very interesting to me because i thought the jets were going to be more aggressively in on malik willis because i thought they would want quarterback mobility right and that's what something we bettering glenn's always prize so i think they're going to try to do the Kyler thing.

47:33Mina Kimes:If not kind of hard to find the guy in free agency that I think works for them. Like if you're going to just do a veteran to hold a job per year to draft someone 2027, just do just fields. You don't have to go sign anybody new. Uh, I wouldn't be surprised if they're the team that's on the trade market to take a stab at the young guy and see if they can solve quarterback a year early, the Spencer Rattler trade, the Tanner McKee trade, the Anthony Richardson trade. Those to me are the things that would make sense for the jets.

47:55Ben Solak:The jets depth chart is so weird right now i'm looking at it um because whatever quarterback they were to add uh it's an offensive so olivera talker is one of those free agents too he is out there but otherwise it's a young improving offensive line you have reese hall you have the receiver group at the moment is 80 mitchell garrett wilson just reading it down otherwise i would start Garrett Wilson, A.D. Mitchell, John Mechie. Okay. Mason Taylor. Mason Taylor at tight end. Like, if you're, let's say, put yourself in the head of a Geno or a Tua or one of these guys that kind of have their pick of where to go, would you rather go to the Cardinals or the Jets or the Falcons?

48:51Mina Kimes:Falcons, I think for sure. I trust.

48:53Ben Solak:That's the competition. You're actually competing there. Should be noted. Yeah.

48:58Mina Kimes:If I don't think I can be what I've seen from Michael Penix now coming off a major knee injury, then that's like, you know, we've got a separate problem here. The weapons in Atlanta are remarkably better. Drake London, Kyle Pitts on the tag. And then B. John Robinson, even if they don't get something done with pets, B. John and Drake alone carry enough weight. That line, I think, is quite good, though. They're getting a little bit old and probably needs to be retooled. And then. I think, you know, okay, Frank Reich back with the Jets. Maybe that's something. Ooh, Michael for second opportunity of the Cardinals.

49:26Mina Kimes:Maybe that's something, man. I know Kevin Stefanski is good at this. He might not be as good at this as I think he is. Maybe he should have figured stuff out in Cleveland that he didn't, but I'm positive over eight years of what he had to deal with in their seven, six years, what he had to deal with in Cleveland, quarterback wise and offensive line wise. I'm positive. He's definitely good at this. And then it's just kind of somewhere in the range of like 10th best OC to 16th best OC or whatever it is. And so to me, Atlanta is the spot I would want to land. And I feel confident in my ability to win that job over a hampered Penix in camp for a new coaching staff.

49:55Mina Kimes:That to me feels like a win.

49:56Ben Solak:Well, this is a good time to talk about the reports that Atlanta is interested into a tongue of Iloa who you and I were joking before we started taping. If you took to his heat map and Michael Penix jr's heat map as passers, in addition, both of them being left-handed, obviously, and you overlaid them off of each other on top of each other, you would have a complete quarterback because Penix can get your outside the numbers and deep. to can throw over the middle of the field. The problem is when you flip it and both quarterbacks are deficient in both of those areas,

50:26Mina Kimes:you could fusion dance those two guys and then put them on a little scooter. You'd have a real quarterback. You're just actually the problem is you also have two of the least mobile quarterbacks in the league. So you still ain't getting out of the pocket, but you are throwing the ball. Well,

50:36Ben Solak:I think with for Atlanta, again, it's no money. So we're not for two. All right. So the two has like 54 million or something crazy guaranteed. So you're not going to pay him. You know, it's just offset similar to Kyler. I think that like if I was choosing between Tua at 1 million and Kirk Cousins probably not a lot is what he's going to ask for at this point

51:03Ben Solak:pretty similar I feel like value maybe Kirk is that crazy

51:09Mina Kimes:so I liked Kirk back to the Falcons from a scheme fit perspective I do think that Kirk is going to give you more 10 plus yards down the field And so if you want to be a team that engages with the passing game in a vertical fashion, then you're going to need somebody who pushes it more aggressively than Tua does. And that would be Kirk. One of the things that I think Stefanski did best over his time with the quarterback doldrums there in Cleveland is their screen game was unbelievable. Their manufactured yards after the catch design touch stuff near the line of scrimmage was just delightful. It was so good.

51:38Mina Kimes:And so if you are saying to yourself, what Tua can do for us on a one-year deal as we prepare to get our quarterback of 2027 in here is he can just kind of pop gun and throw the ball underneath the B. John and we use B. John a lot of creative ways. And we use Kyle Pitts yards after the catch because Pitts is air yards for targets and coming down like that to me is is viable relative to what Cleveland's new coaching staff wants to do relative to the Kirk plan of like, hopefully his arm is strong enough to bang these 15 yard dig routes like that. So that while technically true, like over an 18 game season, you do worry about that.

52:09Ben Solak:Yeah, I I I don't.

52:13Mina Kimes:It's not a thrilling conversation either direction. Don't get me wrong. I don't feel good about either answer, but that's where my head's at. All right.

52:20Ben Solak:Let's, there's a little bit of a lull right now in the signings. We did get Reggie Gilliam, the fullback to the Patriots. Loki huge.

52:27Mina Kimes:Jack Westover film was starting to wear on me. I was ready for the real fullback to play there in New England. That's very nice.

52:34Ben Solak:The Patriots, by the way, it's interesting. So let me open up the salary cap. One thing I do think outside of the, jets and the panthers let's open this a lot of the teams with a ton of money have not been super

52:47Mina Kimes:active early on titans haven't really done anything yet the raiders the commanders i'm

52:53Ben Solak:just reading the teams who are the seahawks gonna keep mina because they're losing kenneth

52:57Mina Kimes:with uh it sounded like she's gonna hit the open market sounds like kobe bryant is either signing with the bears or is close to a deal with the bears moffay does not seem to me to be like Like, oh, scheme fit. We got to get him back. What? They have a lot of money.

53:10Ben Solak:It'd be really funny if they end up just keeping Tariq Willen after everybody's assumed he's out the door. But they do have a lot of money, and they have not been. They did a small deal with Drake Thomas. Pellicero just reported, by the way, officially,

53:20Mina Kimes:Bears are signing Kobe Bryant. No money yet, but Kobe's a bear. Which, Kobe Bryant, by the way, great player. I'm going to go watch some Kobe Bryant film. He's going to be a good bear.

53:28Ben Solak:Seattle has a decent depth at that position. I'm not surprised that they moved on there.

53:33Mina Kimes:Big time.

53:34Ben Solak:Also, this Jackson Smith and Jigba is going to make more money than God. So I'm not surprised that we're not seeing big deals from Seattle. I am surprised, though, the teams that I mentioned, the Raiders, the Titans, the Commanders. The Chargers did sign. They did a one-year deal with Khalil Mack, but we'll see what happens with OA. The Jets have been spending money. The Cardinals, the Bengals are the top teams. So, you know, I mentioned all of those top free agents. Trey Hendrickson, Linderbaum, Odafe and Maffe. The teams that I just mentioned, probably destinations for some of those teams. There'd just be, oh, uh-oh.

54:15Mina Kimes:Yeah, an uh-oh. Not an uh-oh.

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56:48Ben Solak:So as I was saying, we've got a little bit of a low. So let's talk about the Max Crosby trade because we have not talked about that. And that is by far still the biggest news of the week. Max Crosby, too. And I posted immediate thoughts from my hotel room at MIT Sloan to Instagram. Oh, is that where you were?

57:06Mina Kimes:You were at Sloan.

57:06Ben Solak:We're like, why are you sitting on the ground next to a hotel band? Yeah. There's been a lot of really, in fact, telling of how teams felt about free agency. generally all the all-in teams did massive trades uh the bills we should probably talk about all of them over the course of the next two days the bills going for dj moore the rams we did talk about the trump mcduffie but the biggest one of course was the ravens trading two first round

57:31Mina Kimes:picks for max crosby two first round picks for max crosby here's the thing about two first round picks it's twice as many as one first round pick that's a lot of first round picks uh pick 14 this

57:42Ben Solak:year uh now it goes to the Raiders so there's not really much talking about from the Raiders side I love it I think you know Max Crosby had been agitated like there'd been smoke around him leaving for a while I think this is tremendous return frankly for player his age um I you know I think with the Ravens next year's pick we can assume we'll be we can assume we can bet will likely be less valuable but pick 14 is great such glaring needs on this offense you have this young quarterback coming in opportunity now to make significant improvements, both in the draft and free agency at the offensive line and wide receiver position.

58:19Ben Solak:So good job Raiders. If you're a Raiders fan, I think this is great. The Raven side of this is more like, Oh, we can see different angles, right? Um, you know, with all of these trades, when you have one team that's rebuilding and one team that's all in or, uh, not really the case of Kansas city and Chicago, but teams that are just cap strapped or have different players ascending as the case in Chicago you have different motivations so when we say win loss the reality is for the Ravens then we're not going to know if this was a win until next February yeah if they if the Ravens make it to the Super Bowl nobody's going to be like Max Rosamy only had 11 sucks instead of 13 or whatever you know so you got to put a pin in this as far as the player they're getting I think this is an interesting discussion um Max is one of the more complete edges in the nfl as many people pointed out he is arguably the best run defending edge in football it's very important to jesse minter who wants to play with light boxes uh he wants to get pressure with four max never leaves the field max's production has declined over the last couple of years uh you can i put this up in my video but like you know pressure numbers down two things though one uh this year he was hurt he got injured like halfway through the season this was the source of kind of some of the descent and then he got surgery afterwards year before he actually recorded a pass rush win rate which is espn's metric that was as high as really it's ever been for him it was close to 20 i think it was top 10 in like ninth in the league and he was playing in front of a horrible secondary with an offense that never gave him leads now you're playing in front of a much better secondary with a quarterback who is one of the best in the NFL, assuming he's healthy the entire season.

1:00:08Ben Solak:So I think the Ravens are not stupid to bet on the fact that they can get better production out of the player with the change in circumstances.

1:00:18Mina Kimes:100%. And the run defense into pass rush and pressure rate is extremely important as well. When you take it in the context of how many snaps is Crosby going to play period, right? Crosby, very famously did not leave the lead for a lot, leave the field for the Las Vegas Raiders. He He played at one point in the 24 season, 370 consecutive snaps over the course of six games is the longest stretch NGS has ever tracked consecutive snaps for defensive linemen. When we talk about iron men, I do not come off of the field at defensive line. The NFL is extremely rare in the modern era. Crosby is one of the last few ones remaining.

1:00:50Mina Kimes:Incredible new defense of Baltimore, new culture, new locker room, new reality for Crosby. His trade is 29. If the Ravens can just convince him to take a drink of water on the sideline for 20 % of the snaps, just hey we're gonna give you more third downs and your legs are gonna be fresher max like let's put some sacks on the board so there there is a very easy to talk yourself into window of no Crosby does not have like the elite pressure rate elite get off elite sack rate of a Parsons or Garrett or whatever but if we just tweak a couple things in terms of how many snaps you get with a lead and how many snaps to take overall bang you're a 15 sack player that is an extremely reasonable leap to take is 29 so you get that leap for one year two years like that's that's the thing is you you are not buying you know if you get this right even which is an if right even if you get this right you're only getting it for a small window and then you have a 31 year old 32 year old you have to start being honest about okay snap count even lower what's the efficiency like long term and so for the ravens it's very like okay i see what you guys are thinking but you better like it's a first time head coach here in jesse minter who's gonna be like you know adjusting his defense for a new group of personnel.

1:01:57Mina Kimes:Like there's a lot of dominoes that have to fall between here and getting this right. And you have really one shot because Roquan's turning 30, Marlon Humphrey's turning 30. You don't know if Nnamdi Matibuke is coming out and Nnamdi's already 28. Sienger the league is an old rookie, right? And so you have to hit the ground running with this defense because everybody's backing up against it in terms of health. And so it is impressively aggressive. It is an understandable risk. It's got a lot of great, they're about high tail, right tail outcomes. There's a lot of worlds where this like takes the Ravens defense from the fifth best to the first best like that.

1:02:28Mina Kimes:But baby, you got a one year, two year window. You have to hit this with Lamar healthy. Now you do not get a long-term runway on getting this right. The almost equally interesting to me was it being reported as Max Crosby is

1:02:41Ben Solak:rejoining the Ravens and Nnamdi Medawike is coming back because frankly, I wasn't sure, right? Like the injury news with Medawike, who's the right. I mean, big part of the, why the Ravens were so dismal rushing the passer last year. bad bottom five in every metric was that they lost their best pass rusher at the beginning of the season the guy who they paid the money to in matabuike and he was like a neck and it was really like one of those things where you didn't really know if he's back i mean and then suddenly all the young guys you know like a mike green or uh who they still have on their roster jobbo

1:03:17Mina Kimes:is he yeah it's a job is still there adisa isaac is still there to be so rod tavius robinson is still there yeah um yeah the nambi thing is like listen you could have every surgeon in the world 10 out of 10 dentists in front of me being like the neck is perfect it'll never get hurt again boy it's a neck it's a spine for a defensive lineman i do not know how you in the in march in february are sitting here being like yes i am very confident that matabuki is healthy long term so i like i can't believe the level of confidence we're getting on the matabuki thing right now

1:03:49Ben Solak:cade mays to the lions so another center oh that's a that's a very there's a very

1:03:54Mina Kimes:scheme culture play style thing beforehand yeah uh three years 12 million dollars that's a good

1:04:03Ben Solak:deal for them i think centers are not expensive which is why the litter bomb deal is going to be

1:04:09Mina Kimes:just like either so shocking or you said it was three years 25 that is what aaron wilson nfl said nice uh no that's i agree that is cheap it is like the maze thing is tricky because he doesn't have a ton of starts he was like you know a backup player like you definitely i was worried a team was going to get outed on linderbaum get outed on you know mcgovern and then give him like 10 11 12 and that's just way too much confidence for the profile that we've gotten so to me like that price is a lot better and then yeah i didn't talk about why this is such a good fit the lions are not the sort of team that asks their center hey man get out there to the numbers on a screen like you know Penny Sewell for that.

1:04:47Mina Kimes:Like, oh man, you get on the hoof. Here's our wide zone run. Like, you know, everybody talks about, oh, Jameer Gibbs, you know, the explosiveness. Yeah, but they're not a wide zone team. They're not trying to stretch you out that way. It's not, it's not really been their identity. Their running game is highly multiple. And so they can maze the sort of guy who's really good in a phone booth, but needs to be protected from making a lot of plays on the hoof. And that's something the Lions are extremely well equipped to do, given the fact that they have really good athletes at other positions on the offensive line and just the way they've generally ran the ball stylistically.

1:05:13Mina Kimes:So it's a very good fit.

1:05:14Ben Solak:Lions also were hit with news that taylor decker was not returning their left tackle which was it seemed to come as like a

1:05:20Mina Kimes:little are you okay did you spill coffee on your keyboard oh no headphones out okay yeah uh when i make that face it's because i spilled coffee on my keyboard i have two keyboards on my desk right now because i have spilled coffee on one of them and now i have a second one uh okay we're good

1:05:38Ben Solak:so there's multiple positions now that did you see the um i don't know if i would call this smoke or speculation but the suggestion that they might move penne so penne suwell pardon me to

1:05:50Mina Kimes:left tackle have you seen any of that oh i thought you're gonna say in trade i was like what and play no offensive lineman yeah um sure but no like don't do that just go get a left tackle he's penne suwell like right tackles are important yeah i don't really get that as well i feel like

1:06:10Ben Solak:people always do that like when a tackle is bad they'll say move to guard and then when a left tackle is gone they'll say move the right tackle to left tackle like there's just i know this is the kind of thing that makes offensive linemen very well as they always say right just try wiping

1:06:22Mina Kimes:with the other hand and you'll find out pretty quick how hard it is to switch sides so that's that's the metaphor that's always used and it's a crass one but it's a good one the commanders

1:06:29Ben Solak:just signed amik robertson to a two-year deal we should talk about alex anzalone that came over

1:06:34Mina Kimes:yeah two years 17 million to the bucks which shout out the bucks being like man you guys want to actually take linebacker seriously now that now that levante david is up um but they've needed a linebacker two option for a long time and i think anzalone can be that for them if david returns if david doesn't return then obviously you can step in and be linebacker one yeah i mean i i am

1:06:53Ben Solak:generally a fan of these like middle class linebacker contracts right um i think it's one of those similar to center and tight end where because the players outside the top of the market don't make a ton of money. If you can get like a good competent vet at under$10 million a year, I feel like just get him in the building. It makes sense. And, you know, we've seen a lot of veteran linebackers switch teams in their late 20s and have success at the next. There's like a pattern of that. So I think it's fine. I am apprehensive of drafting a guy and expecting him to contribute immediately as well at that position.

1:07:34Ben Solak:So I have no issues with that.

1:07:36Mina Kimes:I like a Kings and Iqbari. Yeah, I saw that. And Iqbari is a very good Aaron Glenn edge, rugged, good size. He's going to be impactful against the run. He's going to be able to two gap and create some TFLs. And I also really like one year deal for him because he's been quite good in rotational play for the Packers, but he's never really been given like a full menu of snaps. One year deal. Jets don't have a ton of edge depth. Get to play 600 snaps if you play well. And Iqbari is still going to hit the market again. He's going to be about 27 next time he hits it. You actually can go get yourself a big fat deal.

1:08:06Mina Kimes:So Enigbari to the Jets is a, is one I like Joseph Osai. Not so much. Kennedy, the Kings and Enigbari I like.

1:08:12Ben Solak:The Jalen Watson money came in the cornerback from the chiefs to the Rams signed three. You want to guess?

1:08:19Mina Kimes:I don't want to, because I think I under, I don't like Jalen Watson really as much as the market does. I think three year,

1:08:25Ben Solak:$51 million.

1:08:26Mina Kimes:I was going to say 15 and it's 17. Okay. I feel better.

1:08:28Ben Solak:17.

1:08:29Mina Kimes:Okay.

1:08:29Ben Solak:So they aren't, they went from, like I said, this was one of the cheapest defenses in football. now you are paying two corners uh because mcduffie's deal was what 30 ish i believe that is a lot of money at the cornerback position um i guess you can do that when your edge rushers are on rookie contracts uh byron young and jared verse but buddy i have a piece

1:08:55Mina Kimes:of analysis that is not in-depth and nerdy but is vibes based but i like when you go and you sign you get two corners from kansas city and you're paying them at market rate one of the things to me that you're implying is like we can get more out of these guys than the previous team did and i don't love that feeling when the dc for the previous team was old steven spagnolo i don't love being like all right let's like there have been a lot okay okay okay yeah sorry you there have been a lot of defensive players who have left spags's defense over his years that's true not gone on to be as good of players elsewhere because spags runs some very unique stuff and is a very good coach at like maximizing his guys.

1:09:36Mina Kimes:I just, you know, Chris Shula, who, you know, was going to be a head coach and then it didn't come to pass and whatever. Like, all right, make yourself some money, man. Like this is a serious coaching job here.

1:09:44Ben Solak:The Chiefs and the Rams kind of had opposite problems on defense, right? The Chiefs couldn't get any pressure and the Rams could get pressure, but couldn't cover behind that. So it's kind of a bet. I would say less on coaching and more on, okay, cool. What if we had a real pass rush with these corners? um i will say though i'm in agreement with you about the fact that like and this is more about the mcduffie deal but like the chiefs track record when it comes to evaluating the cornerback and their secondary i would say cornerback position in particular it's scary sneed marcus peters do they trade like to an extent there's other reasons for that but this team has been pretty smart about when they move on.

1:10:26Ben Solak:I think for Kansas City, though, the problem is you don't have cornerbacks now. You legitimately Noel Williams, Noel Williams, my

1:10:38Mina Kimes:goat third round pick out of Cal, good and limited play, I believe. They have Jamari Connor to play the slot, which is not good news, despite the fact that he's been there and been very experienced. Nazi Johnson is the, I want to say, whatever, 2024 seventh round pick was played for them. Again, that's a guy I think you have to improve upon. losing Brian Cook, presumably at safety in free agency, the year after losing Justin Reed at safety is a not small deal. I think Cook is a little bit overvalued in the market right now, but still like this was the starting galloper player for the chiefs. And again, a lot of what's bags does requires a lot of communication, a lot of rotations to be very, very good in your zone spacing.

1:11:12Mina Kimes:You have to kind of know how to adjust and overlap the routes. It's very like the zones are very amorphous. They kind of aren't built the same way they're built on other teams. They ask their safeties do things a little bit differently, the corners. And so it's a hard unit to just kind of plug and chuck free agents into, which is why typically you've seen Spags draft and develop and do it so well. But right now the coffers are pretty thin without question. This, I wasn't thinking about how important this is for my guy, Noel Williams. I got to get a Noel Williams tweet off.

1:11:38Ben Solak:Rick Wallen is like Rick Wallen and Jamel Dean being out there is so interesting to me. Well, very different players in terms of like, Wallen's very young. So you're going to get a multi-year deal. Jamel Dean I wouldn't be surprised well he's the same age as Carlton Davis and Carlton Davis signed a pretty chunky deal

1:11:58Mina Kimes:348 or something like that

1:11:59Ben Solak:so again I go back to the teams we talked about there's yeah I mean what if the Chiefs sign Jamel Dean to like a one year

1:12:11Mina Kimes:Dean's a good fit for them Dean's a very very good fit for them can press can buzz off in his own stuff a lot of what todd bowls does is decently analogous to what spags does in terms of your defensive backfield so d makes a lot of sense there best year though and like it was we talked

1:12:27Ben Solak:about this i think on one of my pods but with tampa it was like they bet on mccollum dean was down and then dean in his free of the year rose and when but he health was an issue and i think that would have to be an issue too with kansas city but you know if you're one of those all-in teams smalls here if it feels like everybody's sick right now you aren't imagining it Doctors say this is the worst cold and flu season in 25 years and it's not over. I can't afford to get sick and I doubt that you can't either. That's why I ordered a medical emergency kit. It's like having an urgent care and a pharmacy right in your home.

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1:13:43Ben Solak:speaking of all in teams i haven't talked about the bills trading for dj more on this podcast because that happened after we taped last week so i would love to get your thoughts on that uh the bears brian poles a w let's give him this i feel like i've been hard on him over the year points trade dj more to the bills uh getting a second round pick he traded a fifth round pick So I think depending on which draft value chart you look at, that nets out to about third. But it's a second round pick this year. And you also, more notably, get his contract off your books. The deal I haven't written down.

1:14:25Ben Solak:His base salary in 2026 was$23.5 million. But adding per roster bonuses, this is from ESPN, they were going to be on the hook to pay him$50 million over the next two seasons. Now comes off of the books. They save decent amount of cap space this year. And then in the future, the bills acquire him and added a guarantee.

1:14:51Mina Kimes:Don't, don't, don't even, don't even, don't even, don't even talk to me about that.

1:14:54Ben Solak:That blew my mind.

1:14:56Mina Kimes:It's going to be 30 years old. You don't know if he's good. You don't have to work with Josh Allen at all. And you extended, you, you, you, you guaranteed money that already existed. not for injury you guaranteed his money in 2027 so okay in 2028 2028

1:15:13Ben Solak:from the bears perspective you know like we said draft turn i think is incredible frankly um given that he was really your third second or third receiver i mean with the luther burden starting to produce um and then if you think about loveland in the mix too really certainly I know that's not really wide receiver one money at this point, or it's low end wide receiver one money, but he wasn't even close to a wide receiver one. He had some big moments in Chicago, including, you know, the, um, big catch. It was green Bay, right? The big catch against green Bay, but he was pretty unreliable for them.

1:15:51Ben Solak:Uh, this has been discussed a lot. I don't need to beat a dead horse. Uh, very inconsistent, shall we say in his route running? Um, so I think for Chicago, we wouldn't even talk about this is a big win. Uh, great for them for Buffalo. Let's, you know, I do think they deserve the same caveat that we give to the Ravens, where if this team makes it to the Superbowl and DJ Moore is a contributor, even in the post season, it's hard to get upset about this. How do you feel about the fit though?

1:16:24Mina Kimes:That adjustment from big factor to contributor did a lot of heavy lifting there in that question. Cause you could tell I was about to cut you off.

1:16:31Ben Solak:I know. I know.

1:16:34Mina Kimes:fit wise i think it is very like i went back and i looked at how dj moore was used with the panthers and joe brady back when he was more slick on his rookie contract deal and they wanted to use him down the field and there was intermediate breaking stuff and he had a little bit like a field stretcher aspect to his game he just does not have that downfield ability big playability the the the speed do not think that he is that caliber of a player right now the presence with khalil shakir though means that they want to be able to play him on the outside they want to be able to run them on vertical routes and just dj more does not reliably separate against cornerback ones in the nfl when asked to win in isolation on the outside without schematic assistance right like it just to me like dj more is very much so like a you know a holy line of demarcation he's a mendoza line if you are above this line you can beat you know the i don't know who's a good like you know average like cornerback one in the nfl you're like aj terrells he's pretty good but you you can beat these guys in man coverage and if you're below dj more you can't like to me he's it's just DJ Moore is what, forgive me, a poor team's version of a wide receiver one looks like.

1:17:33Mina Kimes:So when you don't have the thing, this is what you go and you get for as a kind of a facsimile to it. Now, Brady has been extremely good at scheming receivers around and moving guys into the backfield in and out. And I think you'll see Moore occupy a little bit more of that and bump Khalil Shakir out of that a little bit because of how you have to use more. You got to get value on the investment. But to me, the Bills still have a big honking need at guy who beats other guy consistently, reliably in space. And I don't know how they're going to address that.

1:18:01Ben Solak:Someone in a different front office told me when this trade goes, takes me on the trade. He was like, they just don't value separators there. Right.

1:18:09Mina Kimes:That's such a good way of saying it.

1:18:11Ben Solak:Yeah. And why do they run so much mesh?

1:18:14Mina Kimes:Well, they need, they need traffic. They need bumps. They need kicks. Yeah. It's I, I saw somebody say after the more deal that like, they'll still be in on Shahid. And to me, like that starts to clarify things where if you go and you get, if you go and you get a guy who legitimately changes geometry with low targets, Rashid Shahid, then you can get more targets to do more in space because you're yanking safeties, you're displacing guys. But that's if you go sign a second big contract at receiver, I would love if Brandon Bean does, but I will not be holding my.

1:18:44Ben Solak:But if you do that, there's, I mean, their defense has needs. This bill's defense on it. Like safety nickel corner.

1:18:53Mina Kimes:interior defensive line help probably another starter at linebacker edge we have the tyler linder deal here we go just in time let's go three 27 million dollars a year oh

1:19:11Ben Solak:27 the current biggest is 18 19 18. if you guys have been listening to this chat we've been like 10 billion dollars for a center 13 million to three holy macaroni this is what happens when you got a team with money to burn oh adam the the i better say i just tried to quote tweet it and it's gone it's grayed out he's probably editing it maybe it's 71 if it's 71 it makes a lot more sense

1:19:35Mina Kimes:because three into 71 is what 23 24.

1:19:40Ben Solak:okay he just updated it three year 81 million dollars 60 million guaranteed 81 million okay okay so wait money and talk about yeah raiders great i love it for the raiders yeah i love it for the raiders insane about money uh let's set aside the money because i did so on this podcast i've talked about kyla litterbomb to the raiders being a good idea It is very clearly a great idea, right? You've got a rookie quarterback coming in. You've got major holes on your offensive line. He's going to be playing under center. He did not play under center in Indiana. I think he's capable of. He did a little bit.

1:20:23Ben Solak:But in Clint Kubiak's scheme, which is very under center, outside zone, boot off of that, the center has a lot of responsibility. and I loved the idea of bringing in a veteran center for Fernando Mendoza even it's an interesting because they still have money to spend and God knows they could be the Shahid team but it has been like an interesting philosophical like decision to say okay we got the rookie quarterback what is what do we want to invest in they very clearly decided and they've got that 14 pick don't forget that they could also spend on a receiver but they said we are going to invest in the center position.

1:21:05Ben Solak:I love it. The price is a whole other conversation, but the player, the fit, the need, what he's going to do for Mendoza. I love every part of that.

1:21:14Mina Kimes:Yeah. It is huge for Mendoza because you know, he had a very experienced center there at Indiana and Pat Coogan. Mendoza wants to be a player who operates at the line of scrimmage is going to be able to set protections. One of his strengths is being cerebral, but, but that jump from college to the NFL is a very, very, very big jump. And so while I trust Mendoza to make it, he seems like an extremely smart cat. You do want to have a little bit of a you know uh bumpers on the guardrails right a little bit of roller skate roller skates not roller blades on and so that's going to help him out a big way in that regard i also think you can't say enough in terms of the impact linderbaum has like i went back and watched this film what is most impressive to me is how he gets out there on screens his ability to block in space and something like the the uh the design screen game stuff clink kubiak obviously a big screen game player you want to have a an office lineman who you feature in that linderbaum can be that player mendoza also from his time in indiana was accustomed to be able to run that RPO game and that kind of collegiate style where, okay, you have a quarterback running ball, but also like we have offensive linemen getting out into space and we can throw the ball behind the line of scrimmage.

1:22:08Mina Kimes:So from everything Mendoza does well, everything that Mendoza needs help with makes a lot of sense. I think it allows him to clarify JPJ's role as well. If you're still trying to get something out of Jackson Powers Johnson and being able to play him at the guard position, you know that center security, you put all of your JPJ resources and time into making him work at guard. It's great. Makes a lot of sense. This was my favorite. It was here or it was the Titans with Cam Ward, where it's like, get one of these first overall picks a really really really good center it's excellent do we

1:22:34Ben Solak:know for sure that it's 27 i'm keep an eye on the money because that is just wow so right now

1:22:41Mina Kimes:27 million per year if it's correct would be the sixth biggest offensive line contract not center not interior it's laramie just signed an extension for 30 million per rashaun slater is 28.5 tristan works 28 penny sewell 28 trent williams 27.5 then charles cross at 26.1 it would be the sixth highest offensive line he'd be more than all but five tackles in the league man that's bananas

1:23:07Ben Solak:uh don't blame the ravens for getting out of this business uh other tyler news breaking shout out to uh the chat tyler algier aminicom show favorite i'm very interested in this arizona oh so just james connor but shorter did they bring back james connor too they restructured the deal to make him be able to stay yeah um sure that you know i we don't we still know please quarterback in arizona i wanted alger to go somewhere where i like the line and i

1:23:41Mina Kimes:thought he was gonna work there yeah two years 12 million yeah

1:23:46Ben Solak:tales of a weed smoker is is really breaking the news and posting a lot no he's this is my pet peeve i'm gonna single you out uh college quarterbacks are failing in the nfl because they don't know how to play under center or be defenses my guy drake may was just in the super bowl caleb williams was just in the postseason bonick like i i this is my my pet peeves is like oh college quarterbacks can't play literally the 2024 draft class just happened and we have a we

1:24:11Mina Kimes:have a young quarterback problem in the league for the 35th year in a row right yeah it's it's i i I also agree. I do not buy personal.

1:24:18Ben Solak:Um,

1:24:20Mina Kimes:Kyle G rap rap rap just tweeted while the Ravens made a strong offer early for their center. It was the three year term. They could not match. Oh, it's a three year term. They got them. It was, it was all we can't get into 2029 brother. It's too far.

1:24:37Ben Solak:Oh my God. This is hilarious. Um, wow. Tyler Linderbaum. I mean, look again with the Raiders you got a zillion dollars to spend I'm not going to be angry at you for spending it on a good player at a position that's so fundamental to your young quarterback succeeding is it an insane overpay abso-freaking-lutely the the previous high was Creed

1:25:04Mina Kimes:Humphrey at 18 million so the market just just got reset at 150 percent 150 percent one of the

1:25:10Ben Solak:the biggest market resets at a position we've seen I think is period 150 % what like you would need to be crazy you need to pay Brandon Aubrey like 13 million dollars per year to get that done right now that's a huge amount of money I don't know if my kicker math was right nobody make fun of me I thought my head all right uh we're gonna wrap soon I'm just double checking that there's no new news coming in that one came in okay you don't need to pay aubrey like 10 million per year

1:25:40Mina Kimes:okay so maybe aubrey's gonna do it too but still wild uh you just don't need a receiver of course so raiders dobs i mean i wouldn't hate it i there are the stocking jennings i would kind of like

1:25:56Ben Solak:a lot god you can't pay shaheed you can't overpay shaheed right after you do this deal can you

1:26:01Mina Kimes:no and i also i like i think shaheed is a fit but i also don't think they need shaheed because they have trey tucker and i think that in your ideal world trey tucker is doing enough of that that you just don't need to be in the shaheed market at the price that he's going to get do you need

1:26:14Ben Solak:more offensive linemen because that was that was where my head went yeah you need another tackle

1:26:19Mina Kimes:maybe i mean yeah so dj glaze was the right tackle for them he's been he was a draft pick in 24 he's been playing for the last couple of years he's probably fine and acceptable at right tackle they lose alex kappa dylan parham is a rising free agent if they're able to if they lose parham i think you need a guard addition if they don't lose parham i think you're probably fine but you also have to acknowledge that colton miller's getting up there contract wise and they had trade discussions about him and so to me you can improve at either guard or tackle spot defensively you could also like choose not to and it's still defensible but on the we're drafting a first overall quarterback yeah i'd prefer if you lean towards the let's get really aggressive at improving the offensive line.

1:26:57Ben Solak:All right. There's a lot left to be determined. By the way, Arizona Carlos fans, if you're bummed, because I think they wanted Malik Willis, go watch Arch Manning highlights, guys. It's time. Yeah. Start the. Are they the. Who are the peak cope teams right now?

1:27:14Mina Kimes:I mean, the jets jets are having constant cope. I mean, if the Browns officially like get through this and don't add any quarterback and it's like, all right, Shador versus Deshaun, that would get pretty copey pretty quick.

1:27:25Ben Solak:um yeah carlos are up there all right so uh to recap let's go over i'm just going to pull up the list of the deals that we've already gotten because there's been a lot today over there's still some free agents out there um i'm gonna start from the beginning of the day well we can leave out the crosby trade packers trade sean gary to the cowboys the dolphins trade minka fitzpatrick to the jets we didn't even talk about that really kelsey comes back to the chiefs uh for probably his final season. The Colts keep Alec Pierce, signing him to so far the biggest deal for a receiver and trade Michael Pittman Jr.

1:28:00Ben Solak:to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Raiders re-sign Eric Stokes. The Patriots signed Draymond Jones. I completely missed that.

1:28:07Mina Kimes:Oh, yeah. Three years, 39 million. It was a tight end under Vrabel. It makes a lot of sense.

1:28:13Ben Solak:The Bucs brought back Kate Auten. By the way, so Ben and I are podcasting tomorrow. We'll talk about the deals that we didn't get to and hopefully some more, but I'm going to keep going. The Chiefs sign Kenneth Walker. The Rams, in addition to trading for Trent McDuffie, sign Jalen Watson to a pretty sizable deal. The Dolphins sign Malik Willis. The Panthers give Jalen Phillips a massive contract. Isaiah likely goes to the Giants. The Commanders re-signed Laramie Tunsil. We haven't even gotten to the Trent Williams potential trade target. We'll get to that. Oh, man. The Ravens sign John Simpson's guard.

1:28:45Ben Solak:The Bucs add both Alex Anzalone and Kenneth Gainwell. and then finally the Raiders throw the biggest of bags at Tyler Winterbaum. My question for you, Ben, to wrap today's show, which of these is your favorite contract accounting for, favorite move accounting for everything, player fit, value, all of it?

1:29:06Mina Kimes:I like Kobe Bryant to the Bears a lot. I will say that I think I spent a lot of time pre-free agency saying Malik Willis will get priced out of the Dolphins range, so it won't happen. So the Dolphins getting Malik into the building, obviously 22 per year it's 45 guaranteed so it's almost certainly a two-year commitment but i do think that for as bad as the historical president is that's the right sort of tire kick to be making at this time at this stage because you can still very easily rebuild with a 20 million dollar quarterback contract it's basically the fields deal just with a slightly higher salary caps it's like you know same percentage slightly higher number so it's the exact right sort of deal to be able to invest in a good physical talent see if you can get at least a bridge out of him right even get you know baker sam caliber play out of him while also still being really reoriented on retooling the roster.

1:29:50Mina Kimes:This sort of figure does not prevent you from doing that at all. So Dolphins, I think it's a big win that they're the team that successfully got Malik into the building at that number.

1:29:57Ben Solak:I forgot to mention this, but Cade Mays to the Lions, probably one of my favorite moves to say, especially at the value that they got for him. Honestly, a lot of the center deals, I was like, yeah, it's pretty, like, I, I, we didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I did like the Chargers adding Biotish, who I think is a competent center. It was obviously a glaring area of need for them. So that's one that comes to mind. I'd say Algier to Arizona, but I don't really know.

1:30:26Mina Kimes:I'm going to know more about what Arizona looks like. Algier is a good player. They got him for 6 million per year. That is a win. But like, you know, if we do not, if we're not able to do anything in the quarterback position, our offensive line stays the same. You know, what are we doing?

1:30:37Ben Solak:We didn't spend a lot of time on it, but I do like likely on the Giants. I could see.

1:30:41Mina Kimes:He got just a skosh more per year than Mark Andrews did, which I find extremely funny and very intentional.

1:30:47Ben Solak:that is very funny um okay man this jalen phillips deal i do think we also need to spend more time yeah we kind of had to blitz through that yeah that is a big deal i like the player a lot i think i like him more than most people and i understand why they had to sign and i understand too their timeline is different from a trey hendrickson team for example um but that's a lot that's a lot of money and like i i think before i really say how i feel about that deal i need to see what mafe and no way come in at that makes me think, Holy mackerel. Those guys are going to be a lot more than people think.

1:31:22Mina Kimes:Oh, I better get.

1:31:24Ben Solak:Mafé for like 20 million. I'll be like, Carolina though. Anyways, I mean, Phillips is a better player. He was my favorite edge in the class, but all right. So Ben and I are going to tape another podcast tomorrow. It's not going to be live, but it'll come out on Wednesday. So we're doing two free agency pods. Hopefully we'll know by then what happens with Rupert news.

1:31:44Mina Kimes:Things need to happen between now and then.

1:31:46Ben Solak:Thank you guys for joining today. This was a ton of fun. Shout out to the chat for breaking a lot of the news to me.

1:31:51Mina Kimes:Mostly no lies. Thank you. Thank you.

1:31:52Ben Solak:No, but you guys didn't fake news me. So I appreciate that. If you want us to do more of my live streams, let us know. We're trying. This is a new thing. Had a lot of fun in the Super Bowl. So maybe we'll do it again. And thank you as always to everyone at Omaha Productions. And we're out.

1:32:16Woo!