Hour 3: Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio Talks Raiders, Kyler, Tua & More, plus Lakers on a Heater

0:00Rich Eisen:Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin. Way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with Kayak and get your trip right. Kayak. Got that right.

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0:57Rich Eisen:This is The Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody. Can't get enough of The Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere. Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash richeisenshow and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. I'm a true champion. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Let the March Madness begin. A 12 seed is moving on. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. I love college basketball. Earlier on the show, ESPN senior NBA writer Brian Wintorst.

1:45Rich Eisen:Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin. Coming up, host of Pro Football Talk, Mike Florio. And now, it's Rich Eisen. Hour number three of the Rich Eisen show is on the air. The march is being mad right now. It sure is. Four games are going down to start the NCAA men's tournament. The women start on Friday. Not very gentlemanly to go first before, usually ladies first. All right. Ohio State has not only come all the way back, they now lead TCU by three. It's now five. They've outscored TCU 31-11 in the second half. Let me tell you something. It's a good thing I, when I do my brackets, go with my head, not my spite.

2:33Rich Eisen:The game ain't over yet, though. Oh, okay. Six minutes to go. Yeah, it's like forever. And four games going on at once. We'll update you throughout the day while we're on the air here on Disney Plus and the ESPN app here on ESPN Radio and also Sirius XM Channel 80. This is the man who brings you pro football talk all the time on his own sites, as well as the NBC family of networks. And his book, Big Shield, a tale of the intersection between gambling and pro sports is available on Amazon right now. He's holding up the book in his hands. If you want the e-book, it can be yours for the low price of 99 cents.

3:11Rich Eisen:Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Florio, his two cents right here on the program. How are you, Mike? Rich, I'm doing great, buddy. Great to be with you again. Great seeing you in Indy. We shared a space for a few days. That was fun, man. That was fun. It's amazing what that's become, isn't it? Isn't it amazing? It seemed like it was never going to end. Somebody asked me, I had a coach say, because we talked to a lot of the prospects as you did, and the coach said, did any of them stand out to you? And I said, no. It's one after another, after another, after another. And you got to go back and watch them all to just remember who you talked to.

3:42Rich Eisen:I never met Jeremiah Love before. I couldn't have been more impressed. You know, him, Caleb Downs, my God. um you know he Caleb down struck me like he's already a pro you know when I spoke with him at the combine yeah and he's got that podcast with his brother Josh and it actually does really well so he's already got the media training it's just a different world you've got businessmen who are entering the NFL and they aren't as wide-eyed as they used to be because they're making money as they should have always been and they have different ways that they can build a platform and get comfortable so when it's time to talk to folks like us it's old hat is there any let's let's just jump into uh what's happened between the last two times that we've spoken now and as you mentioned the combine um the max crosby saga um if anything come close to it in your decades of covering the sport well i don't know if you feel like i do about the way free agency went this year there was a lot of activity but when you look at the names all due respect to the folks who cashed in, it wasn't exactly a lot of sizzle.

4:48Wasn't a lot of big names that moved teams or stayed put at the deadline before the market opened. The Crosby thing changed everything. And it is rare, if not unprecedented, to have all the different pieces happen the way they did. And when you look back on it, one of the things that I've been saying is the Raiders should have made damn sure that physical was done before the negotiating window opened. So everyone would know, Is this guy going to the Ravens or is he reverting to the Raiders? It would have affected clearly how much money the Raiders spent on free agents. But something was off, Rich, because Max Crosby does a 13-minute video where he says goodbye to Las Vegas and hello to Baltimore.

5:30If he had any reason to think that his physical was potentially going to be a glitch that would undo the whole thing, you'd think somebody would have told him. So the whole thing really was bizarre and strange, and there are lessons to be learned by everyone in the NFL. What are the lessons? Make sure you get these deals done, number one, quietly, and number two, don't allow for the wiggle room that the Ravens were able to take advantage of. They could have backed out of that deal for any reason. These trades aren't done until both teams put the key in and turn it once the league year opens. And the Ravens could have backed away for any reason.

6:09They just could have said, we got second thoughts here. They are backing away for a plausible reason, but you know what makes the reason more plausible to them? Hey, Trey Hendrickson overshot his market. He's not signed yet. It's Tuesday. Wait, we can get him for 28 and we're going to give up two first round picks and Max is getting 29 and he may want more on the way through the door. And the next thing you know, there was a lot of discretion there. Well, you know, we're not sure we want to take on the risk of this knee, given everything else that's out there, including the fact that we can still get Trey Hendrickson.

6:42So get it all done before you start down this path of free agency and your options that are out there and things that could make a team say, maybe we will back out of this deal.

6:54Rich Eisen:Well, you're more of a legal CBA maven than I am. My good friend Gabe Feldman did give me an honorary degree in sports law, but neglected to sign it. So it's not really official. So why do these trades have to wait to the new league year? Why can't that trade be struck on a Friday like it was? And then the physical happened that night and the teams have till Saturday to figure it out. You know what I mean? and off we go. Why do trades need to wait to become official, Mike? The way the rules work, when the trade deadline arrives in early November, the window shuts and by rule, it does not open until the clock strikes four o 'clock Eastern on that day in mid-March when the new league year begins.

7:43So anything that is agreed to before then and you're allowed to agree to things, it's still not done. It's not enforceable and there's no violation of the rules. This is one of those situations where you're going to piss a lot of people off if you don't go through with it. But there's no consequence from the perspective of 345 Park Avenue if you back away. Because the league's attitude is it's not done until both teams communicate identical terms of the trade to the league. It matches and then it's official. And we've seen this play out in other settings during the draft. there have been teams that have a deal and one of them didn't get the word of the trade to the NFL in time so there's no deal remember the time that the Browns were trying to trade for AJ McCarron with the Bengals and the Browns didn't get it communicated by the day and the moment that the window closed so there's no trade so that's just those are the rules so the team's obligations are to figure out how best to strategize and coexist with the fact that anything you agree to before the start of the league year doesn't matter because there's nothing that's forcing these teams to go through with those deals until they're communicated to the league after the league year opens.

8:55Rich Eisen:Creator editor-in-chief of Pro Football Talk, Mike Florio, hanging with us the first day of March Madness. And right there, just a couple of weeks before the owners meet in the annual meeting. Let's, the free agency stuff that was the most intriguing outside of what we've already hit with Max Crosby was the quarterback decisions that got made. Let's start with Tua and how Ian Cunningham said there's going to be a competition there, which means I think Tua is the week one starter in Atlanta. What do you think, Mike? Well, you got to consider Michael Penix Jr. right now. He's recovering from a torn ACL.

9:31Tua is going to get the opportunities in the offseason program. Tua is going to be extra motivated to prove the Dolphins wrong, to reestablish himself the Dolphins are going to pay him 52.7 million dollars this year to play for the Falcons the Falcons paying him the minimum of 1.3 we've seen that happen now with Russell Wilson with Kyler Murray and Tua Tonga-Vailoa where you've got a huge guarantee that your old team owes take the minimum and do that new team a favor so he's going to have every chance to come in learn the offense and be ready to go and they're already kind of ambivalent about penics this is new management they've got no reason to justify the eighth overall pick from two years ago everybody who did that's gone now so two is their guy two is the guy they brought in and they can turn this to a transaction into something that kickstarts the offense you look at all the talent that they have around the quarterback their defense is good enough i think two is going to be the week one starter as well and then they'll continue to get pennix ready to go and it's it's a great fallback because if for some reason Tua doesn't work out, well, hey, Penix was always the guy, and now Penix is healthy and ready to go.

10:40Rich Eisen:And then Minnesota's new fangled quarterback room has Kyler Murray in it with J.J. McCarthy, and then just today, Carson Wentz is back to bring it all together. Again, we're talking competition, and I know Kevin O 'Connell had a very funny quote, basically, when he was asked about what the competition looks like and who is going to be the starter. He's like, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't need to name one right now. That's true. But somebody who's got almost 90 starts in his career in Kyler Murray and what he brings to the table, I don't know how J.J. McCarthy beats him out. And I'm the biggest J.J.

11:22Rich Eisen:McCarthy fan that there is around for the obvious reasons. It looks like he's the weak one starter too. And I know we're calling shots here in March, but I don't know. And barring injury, I don't see how that's any different. Well, think of it this way, Rich. If they had asked Kevin O 'Connell that same question a week earlier, the answer is J.J. McCarthy's the starter. Right. Now Kyler Murray's there. Well, we don't have to name a starter right now. And everything points to Murray having the opportunity. It's his job to lose. He could show up, and for whatever reason, he's not completing passes.

11:55I think once you get both of these guys on the practice field and they both start moving and throwing, the players are going to know who the starter is. Kyler Murray's got a higher level of skill set than a lot of quarterbacks currently in the league. He was rookie of the year in 2019, pro bowler in 2020, pro bowler in 2021. When he got that new contract, nobody said, wow, the Cardinals are crazy here. Why are they paying him$45.1 million per year in new money? Where it went sideways, that ridiculous homework clause that the Cardinals felt compelled to jam into his contract. the moment you have that kind of a misgiving about your supposed franchise quarterback is the moment you should trade him because once they did that i think it blew up the relationship and it set the stage for what happened when they cut him i'm surprised it took four years but when that dark cloud is hovering over the relationship for four seasons and he had a torn acl he's been banged up but his numbers aren't horrible he's been better at his worst than anything we saw from Vikings quarterbacks in 2025.

12:52So yeah, I think it's his to lose and we'll see how McCarthy responds. Maybe he accesses some new level of talent and having Wentz there as the emergency option, considering how he played when he showed up right after they cut the rosters to 53 and the Vikings realized none of the backups that we have other than Max Brosmer are worthy of roster spots and they brought in Wentz late August. He picked it up pretty quickly. And he won some games. And he looked pretty good. So they've got him to continue to develop in that offense. And I think continuity is the key. That's the one thing that could hold back Kyler Murray.

13:29If the offensive development in one offseason doesn't match where McCarthy is in his second or technically third year with Kevin O 'Connell, that could be the thing that makes a difference. But it all comes down to how McCarthy steps up. He either steps up or he steps off. And you better step off.

13:46Rich Eisen:Nicely done, Mike Florio here on the Rich Eisen Show. You picked up on that, right, Chris? You picked up on that? Oh, I got that. Step off, George. Okay, very good. So then there's the Miami quarterback situation, as we like to use that word here in our business. I thought it was incredibly aggressive, obviously, to cut to him and then say, screw it, we're still getting Malik Willis. And then comes the Jalen Waddell trade, which is a circle that's difficult to square because if you're Willis, you're going to want to throw to Jalen Waddell. and then if you're Miami you're going to want Jalen Waddle there to help him succeed and evaluate certainly since they gave him a a gig there a contract where if they're if they're willing to eat 99 million they're going to be willing to eat whatever he's making so what do you think's going through Malik Willis's head camp what was he told based on your knowledge about what their plans are Mike well the wattle trade was the one thing that broke from the other moves we saw the dolphins make plenty of big name players gone Tyreek Hill to a tongue of a low Bradley Chubb make a Fitzpatrick but wattle was the one that was like wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute I thought he was still like in the trust tree and he's still going to be part of this team but one thing that became clear to me from the dolphins at the combine and I think I walked by your set and saw John Eric Sullivan and Jeff Halfley sitting with you together at one point we had Halfley on Tuesday of Combine Week.

15:15Those two are very aligned. And I think alignment is critical when it comes to the GM and the coach. You want every acquisition to happen through the lens of what does the coach want. And if the coach and the GM are on the same page, you're going to have a team of players that everyone is comfortable with. And the fact that they went after Malik Willis, people were saying, well, this is a projection. It's a roll of the dice. It's a limited sample size. Wait a second. Halfley and John Eric Sullivan were in Green Bay for the last two years. They got to see Malik Willis every day in the meeting rooms, on the practice field, runs the scout team against Halfley's defense.

15:51They have far more information than what you typically see when the free agency period starts and a lot of guys are signed sight unseen to new contracts. So they really believe in Willis, and I'm going to assume they got a plan, And I'm going to assume that the decision to move on from Jalen Waddle was unanimous among the two of them. And I'm going to assume that whatever they plan to do next, they believe it's going to work. And I don't know that, you know, because I've had some, well, the Dolphins are tanking now. They've got Willis signed for the next two years. They're going to try to win with what they have.

16:23And it's a nice building excuse that you're carrying around$99.2 million in dead money from the Tua contract that's going to hold you back. But you know what? That didn't stop the Broncos from making the playoffs both years they had. Russell Wilson they made it the AFC championship with the Russell Wilson dead money anchor around

16:38Rich Eisen:their necks it's because they got the quarterback and the coach right among other things obviously but those two things you got to get right and they may have that right here again I really enjoyed the two times I've chatted with Jeff Halfley and it would be ironic wouldn't it that they're like we want to get the Green Bay way of thinking in here and the first thing they do is draft a wide receiver in the first round you know but it looks like they're gonna have to now right 11th overall whoever's there you gotta you gotta snag that player for the kid otherwise you know how listen um they could sign free agents uh on the cheap or inexpensive i should say so there there are ways to go about it but i found it interesting that they're like we're we are gonna to go with a quarterback that we think we can win with right now just like Denver did after making a massive cap hit we're going to still be aggressive we're not going to but we're going to tear everything else down to the ground Waddle was was a bridge I thought that could be viewed as too far I don't know we need to see the draft is going to be very crucial for Miami I would be right and Rich they got number 11 and now they have number 30 they could always try to move up the possibilities are endless as to what they could do to try to reshape this team and the one thing that Dolphins fans should feel good about because there is no daylight between Sullivan and Halfley.

17:59Whatever they're doing, they're not making it up as they go. They're not flying by the seat of their pants. There isn't some internal power struggle. They're getting on the same page. They're staying on the same page, and they're going to execute a strategy based upon their shared beliefs as to what they need to do. So we sit back and we see what happens next, but it has been exciting so far. And let's face it, the expectations are low right now for the Dolphins. So anything they do this year that's positive is going to be viewed as a win.

18:28Rich Eisen:Mike Florio here on the Rich Eisen Show. Listen, I know the NFLPA is a new chief, and I'm going to follow my rule here where fans do not care about labor developments unless it means no football. So I'm going to kind of just skirt around that saying, what does this mean for the fan, the relationship between the NFL and the NFLPA that Tretter is in the spot where he said he was apparently uninterested in being there? Mike? Well, Rich, there's one very important nugget that we reported in the days after the Super Bowl. Super Bowl 62 in Atlanta, February of 2028. They don't have a date for that game yet.

19:11And it's unheard of to be less than 23 months away from a super bowl and not know when it's going to be played you got to have a convention center for the whole week you got to have how many thousand hotel rooms they usually know by now the reason they don't have a date i'm told they're holding it open in case they get to 18 games by 2027 and they need to slip it back a week or so you throw in two buys and then it gets even more complicated so that's why there isn't a date and it tells me that now that jc treader has been installed i think they're going to move quickly to try to get a deal that would include 18 regular season games 16 annual international games get it done now we see the nfl moving on the broadcast deals i think this is a time of aggressive business deal making by the nfl and one other wrinkle because it could be hard to sell 18 to the rank and file.

20:05There's an idea floating around, 18 games, every player limited to 17 games. So we're going to have an 18-game season, but hey, I don't have to play more than 17. Maybe you can get enough guys to vote for that CBA that J.C. Tretter may soon negotiate with the league, but that's what we should be keeping an eye on. How quickly do these talks move, and do we get to 18, and will there be this caveat that the players are limited to 17 games and suddenly you have to decide which is the game

20:36Rich Eisen:that you're playing your backup quarterback you know if you're so fortunate i think i think the starting quarterbacks would be exempt they're already protected by the rules you could make that argument and you know what it's not like the starting quarterbacks are heavily involved in union matters anyway so go ahead and tie their hands to 18 games right that's one of the problems and rich all kidding aside yeah people want to know why the union isn't stronger one of the reasons the union isn't stronger is because the franchise quarterbacks the highest paid players in the league are not all in with the union effort they're company men for the most part that's the problem we rarely see the quarterbacks get involved that happened in 2011 brady breeze and manning payton were on the lawsuit that was filed but for the most part you don't see quarterbacks on the executive committee you don't see quarterbacks for the most part as members of the board of player reps so yeah go ahead the starters will play 18 the kickers the punters the long snappers they'll play 18 everybody else plays 17 and here's the other side of it too rich and i've been paying more attention to this as i do research on players as we write our posts a lot of guys don't play every game anyway because of injury right so it's not like you're going to have to bench all your starters when you get down to week 18 of the regular c or week 19 game 18 week 20 because i think two buys will be part of this as well yeah i guess if somebody has to miss a game in week three that checks a box of the one game that they're not playing and And that'll be interesting when that happens.

21:59Rich Eisen:Before I let you go, the rule that Cleveland is proposing, that you're allowed to trade first-round draft choices five years into the future, what's the purpose of that? Well, it gives you more flexibility when you're trying to put a package together. If you want to make a trade for Joe Burrow, you can offer five first-round picks instead of three. I guess, but then the first-round pick is five years from now, you're telling a team, hey, it's valuable that you never know what kid in seventh grade you might be able to draft. Really? You know what I mean? Like possibly what kid who's, you know, in 10th grade, you might get them.

22:38Rich Eisen:You know what I mean? Like, it's crazy. You can't you can't figure that out. You know what I mean? Right. But the question is, should the teams be allowed to have those terms as part of their trade? I'm a big believer. And let's face it, the NFL, for the most part, is 32 independent businesses that are supposed to be in financial competition with each other. And they're clearly an on-field competition. Why do we have restrictions on when they can do these trades? Back to the point we were talking about earlier. Why is there a limit on when the trades can be done during the season? Why is there a delay on when trades can be done in the offseason?

23:11They should be able to do arm's length transactions whenever, wherever, and however they want. They're going 10 years into the future. if they if if you get two teams they want to do it let them do it so i'm i'm fully in support of extending this because if if the two teams want to do it they should have every right to do it mike uh you want to hold up your book one more time here you got big shield everybody that's an improvement there you go there you go no stop yeah big shield that's even better look at that yeah look at that cover my nephew anthony zeech did the cover i love it actually the 20 bills bills are his vision of what a$20 bill will look like at some point in the future because the book is set in an undefined future so he came up with$20 bills that will so it's kind of counterfeit but it's not really because they don't exist yet uh the ebook is for a low price of 99 cents

24:02Rich Eisen:available right now on amazon thanks for the time i appreciate it great talking to you rich you go that's mike florio everybody right here on the program all right uh let's talk about right there that that rule change by cleveland i want to hit that that's next this is the rich eisen show on a busy March Madness Thursday.

24:19Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show Podcast.

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26:16Rich Eisen:Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Exclusion Supply, see homedepot.com slash price match for details. Back here on the Rich Eisen Show, 844-204-RICH is the number to dial. I do believe, you know, we're on and throughout the state of Ohio, Columbus, Ohio. So I send my regrets to my friends at the Ohio State University for being one and done in the NCAA tournament. I picked them to win and it's the first part of my bracket. I guess I'm not winning Warren Buffett's one million dollars.

26:55Rich Eisen:One billion dollars. Is it one billion? Is it a billion now? Yeah. No, it's always been a billion for the perfect bracket for the perfect. I thought it was a million. I told Taylor today it was a million. It was a million. I would have done it. Oh, it's a billion. A billion. One billion. Yeah, I'm out. I'm like Kramer. As soon as it started, I'm out. Me too. Yeah, I'm out. I'm the perfect bracket. Serves me right. Let's see who serves me right. He's leading our group after one. Hold on a minute. Now I'm going to text Breer and money manager of the stores, Don Weir. See, this isn't rich. Look at you.