Hour 1: Knicks’ Record-Setting Blowout, plus NFL Insider Tom Pelissero

18:24Tom Pelissero:For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include a lot more people than ourselves. Loved ones, neighbours, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, we help plan your financial picture with the bigger picture in mind. Because even though our business is helping guide your finances, our ambition is to make it mean so much more.

18:48Rich Eisen:Thrivent, where money means more. Connect with us at Thrivent.com. Rich Eisen here. Take a second and look at your city's calendar. Everywhere I go, there's always something coming up. Games, concerts, conventions, tournaments, the kind of events that bring people in from all over. And when that happens, you can feel it. More energy, more fans, and a whole lot more people looking for a place to stay. So here's something to think about, if your city has that kind of buzz, if big events are on the way, listing your space on Airbnb could be a great opportunity. If you're already planning to be out of town or you've got a trip coming up, why not make your place work for you while you're gone?

19:28Rich Eisen:You've got the space and you're not using it. It could be earning you some extra cash. I know when I travel for these big events, I'm not just looking for a place to crash. I want something comfortable and safe, a place that allows me to experience the city like a local. And that's exactly what you can do by offering to list your space. No big lifestyle change, no long-term commitment, just making smart use of the space you already have. So the next time your city draws a crowd, think about listing your space on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com slash host.

20:07Rich Eisen:Proven. We're back on the Rich Eisen Show on the radio. Tom Pelissero has joined us, a very wise sage reporter who's got a picture of him and a dog on a coffee mug. All right, Tom. The news of the day throughout the week is George Pickens. He signed his tender, his franchise tender with the Dallas Cowboys. It is a what's more likely Friday on this program, as you know, as a frequent guest host of this show. I will ask you this question in a what's more likely construct. What is more likely? George Pickens plays on the tender for the Cowboys or has signed it because he's going to be traded by the Cowboys.

20:49Rich Eisen:Tom Pellicero.

20:50Tom Pelissero:Post-draft trades are difficult, but as the Cowboys showed one year ago, not impossible. Let's start with why you sign the tender now at the end of April, or in this case, today's May 1st. for George Pickens. Now you have eliminated the long shot possibility the Cowboys would pull the tender. It's rare, but it has happened in the past. By signing it, you have locked in. Your worst case scenario is you make$27.3 million for one season, and then they're either tagging you again in 2027 for like$33 million, or you hit the free agent market. Or, of course, obviously, you could also work out a contract with them in the meantime.

21:33Tom Pelissero:The downside from some players' perspective would be, well, now, if you don't show up for minicamp or training camp, you're going to have to pay fines. You're going to lose money. But I would point out George Pickens' agent, David Muligeta, who, of course, is well-known to the Cowboys, his history is that he doesn't have guys lose money. His players show up. How much they do sometimes varies from case to case. But for George Pickens, he was probably showing up rather than giving away any sizable chunks of money in training camp anyway. Even if the Cowboys now work out a trade, Pickens still has control over where he goes because you would think if you're trading a player making that much money who's that important of a piece of the team, you'd want to work out a contract in advance.

22:19Tom Pelissero:And if they can't work out a contract, it may well scuttle the trade. All of which is to say, Rich, I would say what's more likely at this point is George Pickens playing on the tender, because we know that the Cowboys have already said we're not going to do a long-term deal. We're not going to talk about it. He's going to play on the tender. He's a valuable piece of the team. And from everything that I have been told for several months, that's largely true. But there is certainly a possibility if someone offers the right package for George Pickens, which, remember, would have to involve some combination now of players and future picks because we're past the 2026 draft.

22:54Tom Pelissero:It's hard to imagine, which is why I'd say where it's more likely he plays on the tender, but that is certainly not the preference for George Pickens. He, like most players, would prefer to get a deal. That deal's not coming in Dallas. The preference would be to get a deal someplace else, but I don't anticipate George Pickens giving back money, sitting out, losing almost$2 million per game. One way or another, he's going to be playing football, I anticipate, in week one, and you'd have to say under the current circumstances, the most likely place that would be is in Dallas.

23:23Rich Eisen:And in terms of likelihood, it's most likely, okay, he'd have to ask for a trade for the Cowboys to give him permission to find another spot for a place to pay him. Well, I mean, you said technically. I know that. So what would the market be for George Pickens? I'm sorry to ask, TJ, but clearly if he wants to get paid and he wants a long-term deal and the Cowboys are like no or they're using some sort of a hardball tactic to get him to, the table between now and June 15th to sign something he's not interested in signing, what would the market be for Pickens that he's probably kicking the tires on?

24:03Tom Pelissero:If you go back one year ago, if we're talking the draft pick compensation, there was only one team that made an offer for George Pickens. The only team that made an offer, it was a one-suitor market, and that's why when people say, well, oh, man, look at the season Pickens is having, how could the Steelers send him for a third-round pick? Because they didn't have another offer. Because they didn't feel like, with Aaron Rodgers coming in, and DK Metcalf coming in that it would be a coexisting type of relationship in that receiver room. And so they took the best, which was the only offer they had, and sent him to Dallas.

24:32Tom Pelissero:That's not to say, based on the season that Pickens just had, and going to the Pro Bowl and putting up the numbers, he's always been a freakish type of player. But the reason you don't have a bigger market is a lot of the same reasons that George Pickens wasn't a first-round pick in the draft. Some of the same things you saw at Georgia were happening in Pittsburgh as well, issues just with discipline and punctuality. He was suspended, as you remember, for the first series, along with C.D. Lamberts for a game, I believe, in Las Vegas last season. So there were little drips that maybe things weren't entirely perfect.

25:02Tom Pelissero:But again, he's a hell of a player. He made a ton of plays for him. There would be a market out there. Is it the type of market, though, that would cause the Cowboys to move? They weren't trading Micah Parsons last year unless they got two first-round picks. They ultimately got it, and they shipped him off to Green Bay. but given the value teams are placing on 2027 draft picks, given the history with George Pickens, given the fact that teams don't have a ton of money right now to spend in general, a lot of things would have to fall into place. Never say never. It's certainly a possibility. Signing the tender is one step in that process, but it would be difficult to get the type of compensation Dallas surely would want to move on from one of their key talents on offense.

25:43Rich Eisen:Well, I've got Tom Pellicero here on the Rich Eisen Show. The next guest is Howie Roseman of Philadelphia. I implore all those watching us on Disney Plus and the ESPN app or listening to us on ESPN Radio and Sirius XM Channel 80 to stay tuned for the way I will sort of backdoor the question to him about trading A.J. Brown, and then he will front door give me a cutesy answer where he doesn't really answer the question. That'll happen in about a half an hour. But you never know. This is going to happen, right? I mean, Mekhi Lemon being acquired through the draft and everybody else being acquired through free agency and trade for the wide receiver room screams A.J.

26:23Rich Eisen:Brown's gone. No? Tom?

26:26Tom Pelissero:If you look at everything that the Eagles have done, you would certainly say all signs are pointing toward A.J. Brown moving on, most likely to the Patriots, come June 2nd. I know there's been a lot of debate about all the different dynamics of this and reporting on the subject. Here's what's real with A.J. Brown. There absolutely have been trade talks, not recently from my understanding, but you go back to February and March, there were a lot of trade talks about A.J. Brown involving multiple teams, including the Patriots. And once teams like the Rams kind of went in a different direction, the Patriots seemed to have all the arrows pointing in their direction.

27:05Tom Pelissero:At the time, my understanding was they were not offering a first-round pick. They did not offer number 31. how he has wanted a first-round pick and more, just like what he gave up for A.J. Brown when he acquired him, I believe it was four years ago. That's the type of offer that he wanted here. So the only question really at this point, it's not about could A.J. Brown come back into a room with Makai Lemon and Hollywood Brown and Dontavian Wicks. Anything's possible, Rich, but it certainly seems unlikely at this point. It's more about what is the fair compensation? We've seen trades worked out before.

27:41Tom Pelissero:where there's only one team in the market. Aaron Rodgers is a good example. When he was being traded from the Packers to the Jets, he had said, the only place I want to go to is the Jets. Work out a deal. And there was a lot of horse trading between Joe Douglas and Brian Goodekunst at the time to figure out what is the proper trade value. Because the Packers also could have gone, we'll just sit and wait until you come up to our number. But there was also a pressure point with the draft. Eventually, okay, if you want to pick, if you want to move up, I think they moved up two spots in that draft.

28:09Tom Pelissero:If you want to get that, you've got to do the trade now. Ultimately, they were able to get it done. There's some kind of similar dynamics here in terms of this seems to be a one-team market for A.J. Brown. The Patriots and Eagles both have their own leverage. Surely the Patriots would like to get A.J. Brown in the building sooner than later. The Eagles would like to get the best possible compensation, but it's going to be in the 2027 draft. They don't have an urgency necessarily to move quickly. So is it possible that a deal's in place? Rich, Howie wouldn't be able to tell you that even if there were, because that would be called cap circumvention.

28:41Tom Pelissero:You're not allowed to hold trades solely for cap purposes. However, certainly you would anticipate everybody knows more or less what this is going to take. And we'll see whether or not they're able to get there a month from now. All right.

28:54Rich Eisen:The Aaron Rodgers, I guess, procedural contract. the procedure that the Steelers underwent earlier this week, a deadline to make sure that they get some form of that, where they, what they backstop something for them. If Rogers decides to go somewhere else at the end of the day, what do we know anything more about Rogers at this point in time, or should we move on? It's still the same. What do you got for me?

29:23Tom Pelissero:We had our Rooney the second on the show on Wednesday night, the Steelers president on the Insiders and NFL Network. And he said basically what I told you on Monday, which was this was strictly procedural. They gave Aaron and his agent a heads up that it was coming. It was just they don't think this is going to happen, but it's to protect themselves in the event that Aaron Rodgers would sign someplace else prior to July 22nd and allow them to have that apply to the compensatory pick formula. If it's the type of contract Rodgers is probably going to get, that's like a fourth or fifth round comp pick.

29:53Tom Pelissero:So it's not insignificant. but nobody believes that's the direction that this is going. You can have injuries happen someplace else that change the dynamics. They're just protecting themselves because why would you not in this particular case? At July 22nd, that's when they would own his exclusive rights through the season. Everybody anticipates his decisions coming sooner than later. Rooney said the next several weeks, I have told you, Rich, on this show, May 18th, the first day of OTAs, that's the date to circle on the calendar. They would like to know sometime before then, just to get Rodgers a little bit more time on task.

30:25Tom Pelissero:with his teammates, you know, there's all kinds of conspiracy theories of why you use the UFA tender. All I would tell you is this is not, it's not abnormal. We saw it twice last year. We've seen UFA tenders almost every year, not a lot of them, but it happens occasionally when you have a guy who's going to make money and hasn't signed a contract at this point, which is a pretty small group of players. For Aaron, he's continuing to mow his options. My understanding is he has talked with the Steelers regularly. He has talked to them since the draft. Everything they did in the draft may not have been designed for Aaron Rodgers, but certainly if you were saying, what might Aaron Rodgers want?

31:01Tom Pelissero:A tackle, a guard as a barroom brawler, and a big slot receiver. Those are three things that Aaron Rodgers likes. So everything seems to have been built in that direction. Aaron's got to make the final call. If I'm leaning at this point, I'm still leaning toward Aaron Rodgers is on board and he's on the field, not just in minicamp, but in OTAs at some point but they still await that call and we'll see when exactly they get it but it does beg the uh question and i think it's legit like why do this unless you're uncertain right like they are uncertain uh they're on right uncertain absolutely and that it just it flies in the face of all the people all the conjecture about like this is all it's all for the media rogers likes messing with the media this is all they already agreed you know they know when he's coming they don't I don't know how many times I could say he hasn't told them that talking to them regularly about what they're going to do for on the field and in the offense would certainly suggest Aaron Rodgers intends to show up but he hasn't actually said hey it's done call my agent do a contract that part of it hasn't happened yet so like I said there's always that possibility you know freak things happen OTAs minicamp somebody breaks a bone somebody tears their acl and all of a sudden it's you know hey aaron we could use you on this contender as opposed to a steelers team that hopes to be a contender but that aaron might not view as being as close as a different team but those are the things the

32:26Rich Eisen:last time though the last time though tom you know we heard from rogers didn't he say to didn't he say to pat basically like there's no contract in front of me to even you know uh think about right like he made it seem like he didn't have anything in front of him or at least he implied there's nothing in front of me anyway so why wouldn't the steelers just draw something up and send it to you know athletes first which i think still reps him why don't they just they did they

32:53Tom Pelissero:did they did the ufa tender is a one-year offer worth 110 percent of what he made last year so 15.6 million which is what the tender's worth i believe that's now essentially the baseline for any contract. So to that extent, Rodgers now knows, hey, you're going to make at least this much to show up. I mean, last year, Rich, there were months of conversations, obviously. They didn't negotiate the contract until after he had committed. They're following the same type of sequencing here that they did last offseason. The communication is very similar. Different people involved. It's Mike McCarthy and not Mike Tomlin, but McCarthy knows Rodgers better than anybody else.

33:29Tom Pelissero:They've had hours upon hours of conversations you know FaceTime phone whatever it's been about you know life but also football and what this thing would look like here Aaron's a 42 year old man he's already played more football than almost every player in NFL history ever has at this point he's got to make a decision they're giving him the time and space as frustrating as it certainly must be to many people in that building and as even as Art Rooney said to us well we were thinking it was going to have a conclusion by now but I think we're going to get that conclusion in the next few weeks. It's not ideal.

34:02Tom Pelissero:It's the Pittsburgh Steelers that you're dealing with here. They don't want the optics of we're just waiting on this guy to show up, but it's Aaron. They want him back. Let's make that abundantly clear. This is not all some big scam to try to get him mad. So he says, I'm not coming back. They want Aaron Rogers to be the quarterback and they're willing to wait and see what his ultimate answer is going to be.

34:23Rich Eisen:All right. Before I let you go open up the reporter's notebook on the draft. What do you got for me, Tom?

34:28Tom Pelissero:I'll give you a couple of things here. One, you know, we talked a lot before the draft about how thin the blue chip line of players was. And the thinking within the league was, all right, that could lead to more trades, bold trades, because there's so few players. People are either going to want to go up and get that guy or they're going to want to fall back and get completely out of the back half of round one. We saw a movement. There were eight trades in round one, Rich, but it involved a grand total of 22 spots. There was not a first rounder in the 2027 draft traded. There was not a second rounder next year traded.

35:01Tom Pelissero:The only third rounder next year traded was in the Jonathan Grenard deal for a veteran player. So the fact that teams regard the 2027 draft as highly as they do for overall talent and for quarterback play made the impact that I anticipated here, which was teams were really guarding from giving up anything. You heard guys like John Schneider talking about it. The only offers they had was to go so far back and you didn't have the compensation to make those deals because people weren't willing to give up future picks of any consequence. So that all impacted this draft. It turns all eyes to what should be a fascinating draft in 2027.

35:42Tom Pelissero:One that should be more flush with quarterbacks than the one that we just had in 2026, which brings me to a second thing. This is about the draft, but it's about the supplemental draft, Rich. Look at you, Tom. Supplemental draft. Go deep. normally held at the end of June. There has not been a player taken in the supplemental draft, I believe, in seven years. There has not been a player taken with a first-round pick since I believe the quarterback's name was Dave Brown to the Giants in like 1992. You just don't see the supplemental draft is held for players whose eligibility has changed since the real draft.

36:19Tom Pelissero:Given all the different things that have changed with eligibility and NIL and everything else, there's just far fewer occasions of that happening. And so there have been several times in recent years, the supplemental draft has just been canceled. They haven't even had it because there was no one in it. Keep an eye on the situation involving Brendan Soresby, the former Cincinnati quarterback, now at Texas Tech. He is, as Pete Thamel revealed earlier this week, under investigation for gambling. He has checked himself voluntarily into a treatment center. My understanding is he'll be there for about five weeks so essentially through um the bulk of this month he placed many many bets a very small number of which were on his own team prior to him even being on the travel roster for indiana four years ago betting them to cover they didn't in any of those cases because that was the old indiana football but that's played into where now brennan soresby's eligibility and his future in football are up for grabs.

37:17Tom Pelissero:So there's two parts of this. Oh, you bet there's two parts.

37:21Rich Eisen:There's one very large part. I mean, the number of times I have spoken to people in the NFL saying a gambling scandal is their worst nightmare. Like the other worst nightmares are obvious in terms of safety of games and things like that. But wow, really? I mean, that's a tall order to cross that bar. I understand talent over everything is a phrase we hear all the time in evaluation, certainly with talented quarterbacks like this young man. But I'm sorry to interrupt, but give me the two pieces.

37:59Tom Pelissero:He's not betting against his team. He's not betting on games that he is playing in. There were, again, a ton of bets. He has obviously taken a level of accountability by going off to rehab. But for the NCAA, there's a couple different ways they can go. The first way would be the don't sue us way, which is the way they normally go. What's that work out in the surest way to actually wrap this up would be to negotiate a settlement similar to what the NFL does in a lot of these cases where you just you work it out and they start here and the player starts here and you try to find some way in the middle.

38:34Tom Pelissero:College football is pro football. There's way more money. There's way more agents. There's way more lawyers. There's way more bureaucracy and there's way more uncertainty about everything. And so one way to approach this would be the sides just work it out. And is it three games? Is it six games? Whatever it is, let's work it out. He pays the price. He pays back part of his multimillion dollar contract. And you go from there. The second way, which is what the NCAA usually does, is drop the hammer and go sue us. And then the player goes done. And then they end up in court. And the whole thing becomes an absolute clown show that can go on for days, weeks, months, and overshadow everything else that's going on in college football.

39:15Tom Pelissero:If that happens, the second part, Rich, is then Brendan Sorsby would have a couple of choices to make. If he is ruled ineligible, he could go into court. He could spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in court fees, fight for his college eligibility with no guarantee that he is going to win, continue to take that out. or he could go, I'm going to go into the NFL supplemental draft. I'm going to apply. The NFL would have to decide whether to grant him an exemption into the supplemental draft, but his eligibility changing, you would certainly think would indicate they would be allowed to do that.

39:47Tom Pelissero:And then it would be a very, to your point, unique evaluation for teams. Because I will tell you this, Rich, in all my quarterback research this year and talking to people about Fernando Mendoza, So where would he fit in? He's clearly QB1 in this class. Where would he fit in to a broader group of quarterbacks? And one of the things that came up repeatedly was, if some of the other guys came out this year, he might not even be the number one pick. Dante Moore from Oregon is one. Got a ton of money to go back to Oregon. Brennan Soresby is another who, for some people, had a really high grade, a first-round grade.

40:21Tom Pelissero:It would have been a first-round prospect in this draft. So all of a sudden, you would have a quarterback at the most important position, go into the supplemental draft, you would certainly be seeking clarity from the NFL on whether they would take any NCAA punishment and apply it to NFL punishment, similar to what they did with Terrell Pryor once upon a time. But that was in a different era of college football. That was a guy getting suspended for free tattoos. Now players can be paid above the table multi-millions of dollars. And by the way, Jim Harbaugh, who had like a five-year show cause agreement for integrity of the game issues while at Michigan was allowed to come in and coach the Chargers while serving no suspension.

41:00Tom Pelissero:There's a lot of tentacles of this, Rich. But I would just say if Brennan Sorsby goes into the supplemental draft, which would require, again, the NCAA to rule prior to the end of June, prior to the supplemental draft, and him to decide to not follow through on legal options, if he goes into the supplemental draft, we are probably going to have the highest drafted supplemental draft player in decades and teams are going to be balancing out everything you just said um integrity of the game the concern over gambling issues um and a player who

41:33Rich Eisen:potentially is a franchise quarterback in the nfl well i i i hope the the young man um gets the you know he got the help he says he needs and hopefully he gets it because if he can't get over it and he against the NFL, I think they would have eyes on him, to say the least. And it would be very difficult for him to continue that sort of behavior and professionally live to tell the tale. Tom, thank you.

41:59Tom Pelissero:Don't even need eyes. Your phone pings if you gamble from in a facility, if your name pops up on anything. For any athletes of any level watching, you will get caught. It's 100 % chance you will get caught. And that's the reality where we are.

42:12Rich Eisen:Tom, you're the man. Thanks for the time. We'll be in touch. See you, buddy. All right, we've got to beat it on down the line. Look for your video soon. There you go. That's next. This is The Rich Eisen Show. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.

42:30Rich Eisen:Rich Eisen here. PayPal is now the official peer-to-peer payments sponsor of the NFL, which means all the money moments that fandom creates, whether splitting tailgate costs or chipping in on tickets and game day food between friends, are covered. wherever the game is played or watched PayPal moves with fans you can send money through text, email or directly to your friends with eligible accounts on Venmo just download the PayPal app and share all the moments that matter account with PayPal is required not available in all regions where PayPal operates in a world in need of a hero one man rises to the challenge in style, he is just driving the kids to soccer practice make every day feel epic in an all new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid with up to an EPA-estimated 619 miles of range on select trims, advanced tech, and class-leading interior space.

43:21Rich Eisen:Because when you're hauling kids' gear, snacks, and backpacks, space matters. And so does comfort. Just make sure they keep their cleats off the seats. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for details. Remember to dial. Back here on the Rich Eisen Show is one big happy family here. which sports city had the best night last night or day, just the best Thursday. You've got the city of Minneapolis-St. Paul, for instance, right? Tom Pellicero just referred to the Timberwolves minus Anthony Edwards and Dante DiVincenzo knocking off the Denver Nuggets. and Julius Randle and those T-Wolves, Jaden McDaniels and those T-Wolves.

44:10Rich Eisen:Jaden McDaniels. By the way, Chris Finch can coach, can he not? Yeah, for sure. Taking care of the Nuggets, they're moving on. They're into the next round before either the Lakers or the Rockets, actually. Didn't we kind of predict that was going to go? Yeah. But we thought Anthony Edwards would be healthy throughout, correct? Yeah. Didn't see the... And he could return. Dante DiVincenzo, as you see, He has got his foot up. He's there at the game just celebrating, having a good time. He had surgery already. That was in Minneapolis. Meanwhile, in St. Paul, the Minnesota Wild, losers of nine straight playoff series, win for the first time in the first round, moving on to the second round for the first time since 2015.

44:57Rich Eisen:Jack Hughes, he of the Golden – pardon me, Quinn Hughes, pardon me. he of as we all know the terrific Team USA victorious team he as we all know put one off the skate last night to win the game and beat the Dallas Stars how about that the Minnesota Wild not only move on but they move on against the franchise that stole their team yeah right they're going crazy that's hilarious they were going nuts last night nuts so yeah two goals that's one so you got minneapolisst paul minneapolis you got the nba team moving on to the second round good night beating the nuggets and yokich and inst paul you've got the wild moving on for the first time in over a decade against the franchise that took the team from the town then you got philadelphia tj you're sixers took care of business there was one sequence last night behind the back bounce pass from mb to uber and then jalen brown goes down the floor uber and mb block him and then paul george goes behind the back to edgecomb for a for a dunk i mean and that that was when i turned it off i don't blame it they were going man that's when i screamed there's now a game seven in boston on sunday look man i at the beginning of this series i told you guys one game was all i wanted because i just as a sixers fan you just get so beat down, man, but I don't, guys, I don't know if I should give myself hope, Rich.

46:31Rich Eisen:Well, earlier in the day, across the street, if you will, the Philadelphia Phillies, behind interim manager Donnie Baseball! Woo!

46:42Sweep the Giants in a doubleheader

46:46Rich Eisen:and game one, a walk-off hit by Justin Crawford. And Jason Stark, because he is the king of nuggets, tweets out that in 2014, Carl Crawford walked one off for the Dodgers. Look at him high-fiving hitting coach Mark McGuire. Whoa. And you see him over his right shoulder. That's the manager, Don Mattingly. And then in 2026, his son walked one off for Matt. Come on. In game one of a doubleheader. That is wild. That they wind up sweeping. He's good too, Justin Crawford. Baseball. I mean, in two other aspects of it too, the Flyers eliminated the Penguins the night before. And then they'll put it over the top for the city of Philadelphia.

47:32Rich Eisen:Harry Roseman's about to appear on the Rich Eisen Show. Right. I mean, so what more can you say about that? I think I'm leaning Minnesota since... I know you're a Boston guy. Well, I'm just saying it wasn't a closeout win that the Sixers had. That's great. You're feeling Minnesota. I understand. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.