Hour 3: ‘What’s More Likely,’ NFL Insider Tom Pelissero, plus Luka Drops 60

21:58Rich Eisen:Plus, Amazon Hub Delivery makes it easy to get started. There's no upfront costs, delivery experience, or long-term contracts required. Sign up to learn more at Amazon.com slash Hub Delivery. That's Amazon.com slash H-U-B Delivery. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast. Tom Pellicero here on The Rich Eisen Show. our radio audience is rejoined what are the Miami Dolphins up to like what is their plan I understand you know clear the decks of a bunch of salaries take your salary cap medicine now then they still go ahead and get Malik Willis anyway which I I thought was a terrific idea very bold and aggressive as well um the Jalen Waddle deal led me to scratch my head a little bit here.

22:49Rich Eisen:So walk me through, first of all, why was Waddle dealt, Tom?

22:54Tom Pelissero:Well, let's go all the way back to before the trade deadline last year, and they had significant interest in Jalen Waddle. The Bills, among others, the Bills offered him a first-round pick in the 2027 draft, as well as a day two pick in 2026. That was, at that time, the interim regime. Chris Greer had already been fired. There were other people, including Mike McDaniel, involved in the decision-making in Miami. They ultimately, especially within the division, just decided that wasn't enough. They wanted to get a 20-26 first if they were going to move Waddle, so they didn't trade him. But once you start to have that type of interest, it's going to generate teams calling again in the offseason.

23:31Tom Pelissero:So this was not something that came up spur of the moment. I knew that they had been talking a couple of weeks ago, and they had gone back and forth, and it was just the Dolphins' standpoint was they didn't want to, you know, they weren't going to give away Jalen Waddle. It would have to be something that really moved the needle for them in order to trade their top wide receiver. Now, albeit a guy who didn't even have a thousand yards last year, has not over the past two years. He's been a bounce. He did bounce back last year. He's still 27 years old. He's in the prime of his career. But I would think about it this way, Rich.

24:01Tom Pelissero:Number one, the Dolphins get not just number 30 overall pick, but they get, you know, a third and a fourth. There's a fourth that goes back, but they get an additional pick, you know, in the 2026 draft. They now have seven picks, and I think it's the top 94 selections. So you're talking about this is your young, cheap workforce that you're bringing in as you undergo a complete roster reset. Number two is they are eating loads and loads of dead cap, including at the moment over$99 million for Tua Tunga-Vailoa. That'll end up being split over two years. But they are, from a salary cap perspective, have almost as much money going out the door in terms of cap as they do actually cap on the team.

24:40Tom Pelissero:And so you knew you were going to have to bite the bullet now. This is merely following that pattern. So you shuffle more money off the books. It gives you additional flexibility. And then number three is this. For a player who, again, has not had 1 ,000 yards in either of the past two seasons, he's 27 years old. If they didn't get the offer they wanted for Jalen Waddell, absolutely he was going to be on the team. But for the Dolphins, if you're thinking 2026 is a reset year, 2027 might be a reset year. Realistically, you're trading Jalen Waddell at some point. and his value is not going to be higher at age 29 than it is at age 27.

25:16Tom Pelissero:In other words, you would have to be three years down the road when you've got a 30-year-old wide receiver before you really feel like, all right, we're ready to compete with the Patriots and the Bills at a really high level just based upon the cadence of this rebuild. That's a long time. So you have a substantial offer now. Flip side of it, for the Broncos, you didn't feel like you were going to – they've got a really strong roster that George Payton has built there. They don't have a lot of holes. They hadn't signed a single unrestricted free agent. They were looking for an offensive play, whether that was a running back, a tight end, a wide receiver, somebody to really kind of take that offense to the next level on a team that if Bo Nix doesn't get hurt last year, they may well be in the Super Bowl.

25:55Tom Pelissero:They feel like there was not going to be anybody there at number 30. They didn't feel like the prices were right. I mean, when Alec Pierce is going out and getting$34 million a year, they didn't feel like anybody was going to come into their laps in free agency. So for Jalen Waddell, this is basically, it's not just their first round pick, but it's their significant free agent acquisition where if that ends up working out from Denver's perspective, it is well worth that type of investment on a team that's ready to win right now that maybe you would not have had that really, really impact player there at the end of round one in a draft that isn't regarded as all that deep, especially at the top.

26:30Rich Eisen:Tom, I totally get why the Broncos would do it, right? I mean, running it back, that was clearly a part of their plan was not just to run it back, but also to pay their people, right? That's what their free agency period was about, was to tender or re-sign their own, run it back, and then to get someone like Jalen Waddell 30th overall is a great idea. You're flipping your third. You get an improved fourth. Makes total sense. Miami, you're now stripping everything down to the studs, pretty much, on your wide receiver room. You still have Devin Achan. I get that. And to sign Malik Willis as potentially your quarterback for the future, I know it's not some massive financial commitment, but I'm wondering, based on your reporting, did the Dolphins tell Malik Willis that it's possible you're not going to have Jalen Waddell here?

27:29Rich Eisen:Because he could have had, apparently, Marvin Harrison Jr., Michael Wilson, name it, in Arizona. So I'm wondering what you're reporting is there and what the Dolphins' plan is from here forward.

27:45Tom Pelissero:The wheels were in motion again on the Jalen Waddell trade. Nothing was imminent at that time because they had not come to an agreement on that. Certainly when you're walking into a ground-up rebuild like Miami, I guarantee you his agent, David Mulageta, would have had that conversation about exactly what you're walking into. But he's got guys he knows in Jeff Halfley and John Eric Sullivan, trust that they're going to have the right plan for him. I will certainly say this. My concern with trading Jalen Waddle would simply be, are you going to find out what Malik Willis is if you don't have guys around him to help elevate him at a time that every win, every possession is going to be a battle just because of where you are?

28:26Tom Pelissero:But again, if you want to build a draft and develop program, if you're trying to build it the right way, and John Eric Sullivan has been very, very clear about what his vision is, seven picks in the top 94. Those are cost-controlled players for the next four years at a time that you are biting most of the bullet, not all of it, because they use post-June 1 on 2 at Tug of a Love, but you're biting the majority of the bullet in 2026. This just continues to accelerate things. I would not say that they are tanking here. It's more about philosophically what they want to be. And if the value of Jalen Waddell is never going to be higher, and Jalen Waddell is not going to be the difference between you being a playoff team this year and not, I understand where Silly and those guys were coming from.

29:12Tom Pelissero:Again, they drove a hard bargain. They could have taken the Broncos' offer three weeks ago. They didn't do that. They kept talking. The Broncos kept calling. This was their target. They end up with a package that's not just the first-round pick, but it's also a three and a four with a four going back. It's significant type of draft capital. We've seen, if you look at some of the other wide receiver trades, Rich, through the years, A.J. Brown famously was traded for a first, and I believe it was a third at that time, or a first and a fourth, whatever it was that the Titans turned into Trelon Burks.

29:44Tom Pelissero:Hollywood Brown, everyone forgets, that same night was traded straight up for a first-round pick, number 25 overall. all that's basically the value that the Dolphins got um in Jalen Waddle and you can see you know all the picks here for the TV audience here that's a that's a big time haul this is not a you know all pro type of player you're generally going to get two first round picks for but certainly solid value for Miami and time will tell in the big picture whether it was worth it you know a huge piece of that is going to be what does Sully do with all those picks it's great to aggregate all the picks first time though that he's going to be you know he's been in draft rooms for 20 plus years first time he's got to put his name on these players there's never been a more important draft than the one that the Dolphins have coming up at the end of April.

30:29Rich Eisen:My guy Tom Pellicero NFL Network and so much more right here on the Rich Eisen show. As you know we do what's more likely here on a Friday so it's now time for you to be posed this question in the form of such a construct. Tom what's more likely that that the Raiders saying, welcome back, Max, and Max is like, I'm a Raider, this is what it was meant to be, is in fact going to be the case? Or this is a concerted effort in concert to reset the market best they can to get back to the two ones that they got for Max Crosby and send Max somewhere else before the draft? What is more likely, Tom?

31:13Tom Pelissero:I would definitely say what's more likely is that Max Crosby really plays for the Raiders again in 2026. There are teams that are still interested in a Max Crosby trade. There are still teams that are going to call about a Max Crosby trade, as you would expect, because regardless of how the Ravens felt about his medical situation, Max Crosby is still one of the top edge players in the NFL. he is on track in terms of what his doctor, Dr. Neil Elitrash, has laid out for his recovery. And there is no question, even for the Ravens, about whether or not Max is going to be playing week one of the 2026 season.

31:55Tom Pelissero:However, my understanding is when teams have been checking on this, they have been told the same thing that Max told everyone from Mark Davis to John Spitek to Clint Kubiak to Rob Leonard, which is Max wants to be a Raider. Max is no longer trying to get out of Las Vegas. And whether you want to look at that as a sign from God or the world, the universe, you know, giving you a message, you know, whether it's the reality that, you know, you went all in on this idea and it didn't work out and you saw, you know, something that you hadn't experienced before going and, you know, having all your hellos with the Ravens and then being told you're not actually going to be on this team, it seems to have led, again, from everything that Max has said and everything I've been told that other teams have been told, that Max doesn't want to go anywhere.

32:44Tom Pelissero:Now, does that mean that the Raiders absolutely will not trade him? I would look at a couple of things. One, Max is really close with Mark Davis. Mark Davis never wanted to trade Max Crosby. And even with the reporting on setting up succession plans and things like that, Mark Davis is still the owner of the Raiders. And he has a big voice in this. It is hard to imagine that Mark Davis is going to sign off on trading Max Crosby against his will. The other thing you have to look at here is there was a plan that was in place that did not involve Max Crosby. $30 million cash in cap, which they could absorb.

33:21Tom Pelissero:They had a lot of space. But from a budgetary perspective, that's a pretty significant change from where you were. And then, of course, the third part is you're still getting calls. There's going to be, it's going to heat up again around the draft. It might even heat up again in June, July, when Max is going to be getting closer to 100%. There are teams right now, Rich, that would trade for Max Crosby. It could happen tomorrow, but Max is no longer the mindset that he wants out. Max is of the opposite mindset, which is he is now a Raider again. He's going to do everything he can to be a part of the Raiders.

33:55Tom Pelissero:Does that change? I don't get that sense. Obviously, there's a lot of things that can evolve over the course of time here. But really, the next step is what do the Raiders want to do with this? If they get another reasonable offer for Max Crosby, it's in the neighborhood of what the Ravens were willing to do. They'll have some things to think about here in terms of whether or not they want to go down that path.

34:18Rich Eisen:So what's the time frame? The draft, right? Correct? The draft would be the logical time. Right. It's not going to be like a Micah Parsons end of the summer trade deadline. Because, right? I mean.

34:31Tom Pelissero:Well, the only thing to remember is that he's not going to be cleared until June. Right. From the meniscus surgery. So maybe it could be revisited there. But even the draft is a month and a half past where he was in his recovery when he had the scans that spooked the Ravens. And so it's certainly plausible that as we get into draft week that you could have new scans done. And if teams are serious about it, they may be able to get additional medical information, maybe have a greater comfort factor. But I also don't think, Rich, I know that it was not as if the rest of the league all felt like Max Crosby is a ticking time bomb and it was going to be a problem medically.

35:08Tom Pelissero:The Ravens, they made their own determination. It was within their rights to do that. there are other teams are just not going to have that level of concern because again it's not a question of can max crosby play football again it's about your medium term investment in a guy who's 28 years old every 28 year old has wear and tear and he's still a hell of a football player

35:27Rich Eisen:all right last one for you tom in a few minutes we have left here why do we keep hearing aj brown's

35:32Tom Pelissero:name why because there is still a chance that the eagles trade him prior to the start of the 2026 season. It's a complicated situation. Part of this, a large part of it, honestly, goes back to the way that the Eagles structure their contracts. They use void years, which is essentially a way to push out dead cap beyond the end of the contract. They use options to continue to trigger future void years, which works well in terms of creating short-term cap space. But every dollar you spend hits the cap eventually. And this is one of the things that undercuts the whole the cap of the myth argument.

36:09Tom Pelissero:It's not. You can create the short-term cap space, and if you are playing this out as if the cap is never going to go down, which the Saints were doing until COVID, and then they had a reckoning with that, or you're playing at that, well, no one's ever going to want to leave. These are players we're going to keep, so it doesn't really matter. Well, if all of a sudden you have a situation where you feel like A.J. Brown may need to move on from this team, but doing so prior to June 1st would cause a substantial acceleration into your 2026 cap, that now makes it disadvantageous to try to trade him prior to June 1.

36:45Tom Pelissero:You're not allowed to agree to a trade and hold a trade. That would be cap circumvention. And so even though you're having talks, and could they make the trade? They could, but the consequences would be so significant that it only makes sense if they're really going to trade A.J. Brown, it is sometime after June 1st. And just to clarify that for people who see all the time teams release a guy in March and use a post-June 1 designation, you can do that with releases, where you can designate someone you release, and then come June 1st, it's counted like you released them after June 1st. It keeps your future cap hits out into 2027 in this case, and only this year's dead cap hits in 2026.

37:27Tom Pelissero:With trades, there's no such thing. If you trade in before June 1st, the entire acceleration, any cap you pushed off in the future from money you've already spent, cash you've already spent, it all hits you right now. So I do anticipate that things like a potential trade to the Patriots remains possible. I wouldn't say it's dead, but if it's going to happen, it's probably not going to be prior to the start of the 2026 draft. And as much as we would normally, in normal cases, say, well, the GM's going to do it before the draft because you want to pick this year. I don't get that sense, Rich, from a lot of people in the league.

38:01Tom Pelissero:That's why you've seen, going all the way back to the trade deadline last year, when the Jets deliberately asked for and received the 2027 first from the Cowboys instead of the 2026 first. You have seen other teams that have been putting more into getting picks in 2027 because it's regarded as a better draft. It's regarded as a better quarterback draft. And so if you're the Eagles and you might feel, I haven't asked this to Howie Roseman, but if you feel that draft is going to be better anyway, then there's really not a lot of urgency other than you're trying to figure out how do we replace an A.J.

38:34Tom Pelissero:Brown? The short version answer to that is you probably can't. So one way or another, if you don't feel like A.J. Brown, it makes sense to keep him in 2026. Wait until after June 1st to make that trade. Or could they end up just keeping him and saying we're taking one more run at this? You can't rule anything out. It's a really complicated situation with a player who has shown frustration at various times over the past couple of years, even in the Super Bowl season, reading a book on the sideline at times. Last year was not his most productive season. It was still productive by most wide receiver standards here.

39:08Tom Pelissero:You're talking about a top player who's still only 28 years old. Howie Roseman wants a significant return, a first-round pick, and more. Is he going to get that? Is he going to get it after June 1st when teams have deployed a lot of resources? is these are all part of the moving parts that are going to continue to generate, Rich. We're going to talk about this every week on the show, quite possibly until we get into the spring here.

39:27Rich Eisen:You are the man, Tom. Thanks for the time. Have a great rest of your week, and we'll chat next week. Thanks, everybody. Tom Pell-Ocero, everybody, ladies and gentlemen, right here on the program. All right, we'll wrap this up and recount one of the wildest March Madness sequences we've seen in some time. That's next. This is the Rich Eisen Show to wrap up this week. in a second.

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41:44Rich Eisen:They're experts at taking care of you in your home. At Pella, they find the products that meet your needs, and their experts then install them. They do it every day, and that's why your neighbors trust them. Discover why Pella is a trusted choice for homeowners everywhere. Visit Pella.com slash Eisen today. That's Pella.com slash Eisen. Speaking of taking a time out, so we're conducting what's more likely earlier this hour. Yes. Santa Clara, who I've chosen to beat Kentucky. I think I'm looking like a genius because it's tied at 70, less than 10 seconds to go. I look up and I notice Alan Graves of Santa Clara dropping in a 24-foot tray.

42:27Rich Eisen:Comes down and bangs it. And just like splash. Splash City does that with two seconds to go. And then Otega Owe, by the way, whose brother is in fact the National Football League's Odafe Owe. oh nice um he just runs right down the court and heaves one from 32 feet yep to bank it in to tie the game and sure enough go figure a coach named pope has a prayer answered and and uh we go to overtime and i'm looking at the espn um stats and in stats uh group It went from Santa Clara having a 97.6 % chance to win to a 50-50 coin flip in overtime, and Kentucky wins it in overtime. As always, by the way, becomes the first Kentucky Wildcat ever with 35-5 as a stat line in an NCAA tournament game.

43:27Rich Eisen:It's never happened. So congrats to the kid from Newark, New Jersey, right across the Gothels Bridge from where I grew up. Yes. and I'm sitting here thinking to myself, why didn't maybe Santa Clara call a timeout? Because the same way that Ohio State lost, not to bring that up, but it's a perfect example. If you're trying to score the length of the court from an inbounds pass, not as easy of when people are celebrating, going nuts, and you can immediately inbounds it and get it up the floor and have an easy run at it like Owe had. And sure enough, I was looking up during the commercial break and the CBS or Turner crew caught Herb Sendak, the head coach, former NC State guy.

44:19Rich Eisen:He was calling for timeout, but the official closest to him was already running up the floor to officiate Owe's shot. Never saw it. So what do you do, just run on the floor and tackle somebody and call timeout? What are you supposed to do? Get a tee. Or I guess do it faster? Like as soon as the shot goes through, bang, call timeout? Wait until you guys see the replay. It all happens so fast.

44:43Tom Pelissero:Like Kentucky ties it. Santa Clara comes right down, hits a three.

44:48Rich Eisen:Kentucky immediately inbounds and sprints down the court, and the guy just kind of chucks it up. It all happens very quickly. And so Kentucky advances. Meanwhile, as we go off the air ride here, Wright State is five up on Virginia at halftime. And Arizona is dominating the battle of Ice-T, Arizona versus Long Island.

45:09Tom Pelissero:Arizona's good.

45:10Rich Eisen:57-29 right now. And speaking of fast, I mean, it was a two-possession game between Akron and Texas Tech, and that thing wound up being, I think, a 20-point victory. So 91-71 is the final. Five beats a 12 right there. Their 12 was not going to, as the carriage turned back into a pumpkin. Yeah, a couple women's scores, Rich. That's underway. Three games. Oregon leads Virginia Tech by 20. That's an 8-9 matchup. Washington, South Dakota, that's a 6-11. They're tied at 15. Almost in the first quarter there. And Baylor, the sixth seed, up four on Nebraska. Thank you there. Thank you there. John in New York City, a minute to go.

45:51Rich Eisen:Just one's for you, Chris. What's up, John? Find one, Mikey.

45:54Tom Pelissero:Hey, Rich. How are you doing? Thanks for taking the call. Happy Friday. Chris, this call is for you. Fellow Syracuse alum here, shout out to Newhouse School. Shout out. Another March Madness, another missed year for our alma mater. We're going on five years now. No one seems to be talking about us anymore. We're the quintessential ESPN school, but we're lucky if our games are broadcast on the CW. So I'm just curious with the reports of Hodgson turning down the job and the GMAC rumors swirling and the state of NIL, do you think our days as a blue blood are in the past? Are we supposed to accept this new normal?

46:32Tom Pelissero:You know, where do we go from here?

46:34Rich Eisen:Yeah, John, thank you. You got 12 seconds to sum it all up. First time in 60 years. We're back-to-back losing seasons. It's really rough. Jerry McNamara is right there. He is the prodigal son. Let's bring him home. There you go. You can never say never. It's over. Ever. Except for this show. Thanks for listening to the Rich Eisen Show podcast. You can watch and listen to The Rich Eisen Show live weekdays from noon to 3 Eastern on ESPN Radio, Disney Plus, and on the ESPN app. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.

47:23Tom Pelissero:and Tuesday, March 24th, 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN and on the ESPN app.