Narratives for the 2022 Season with Conor Orr

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Speaker 1: Be Around the NFL Podcast, Can spreck and see dote. Welcome to another episode of the Around the NFL Podcast. I'm Greg Rosenthal, and I just asked, what does Dan say at the beginning of the show? Every time? Alongside one hero here in the Chris Westling podcast studio, it's Mark Sessler. It's me and you, buddy. I don't think that we've done you know what, fourteen we need to fourteen hundred plus um thousand episodes or hundred episodes, whatever the word is the number. But we had the combination of you and I doing a show together. I don't think has occurred now. I don't think so alone. It makes me feel a little more alive. That's good, just like anything that changes up routine, that's good. It also shows like our lack of chops, our lack of professionalism that, like I was like, what just me and Mark doing a podcast? What to uh, two white guys doing a podcast that's typically it's never been done before. We need way more help than that. That. It does speak up poorly of us on that front. How was your mother's day? Though, not that you're a mother, but like I thought i'd ask you because I would imagine it was nice. It was. It was pretty uneventful. I Emma could put my mind at ease when I kind of talked about Mother's Day and she's like, I'm not your mother, like you don't need to get and I was like, that's kind of true, like you know, it's more that the kids did a lot of nice stuff and yeah, we ate some good food. She didn't you know it was nice. Yeah. I had to whip our children into shape on some fronts that they didn't quite get the aspect that it was a day where they aren't served but are serving someone else. That's not always uh, a front burner scenario in our home for them to comprehend. So but we had a nice time and then we um We gave them an Xbox that we had been kept hidden for years because we thought it would turn into something negative. But it was pleasant. We played Madden. At the end of the night, I played um simone and Madden and we played Niners Verse Niners and she kicked my ass and I was talking a big game like I was like talking about how balanced my all. I mean, I just got got totally. She threaded the needle on me like she was she very creative and how she used Deebo Samuel or absolutely Jimbo Samuel had. I had like an eighties six yard catch on the drive number two, and I never really came back. But also, you know, we have two Jimmy G's. My Jimmy G through three picks. Hers was relatively flawless, true to life the week to week experience. Yours was the Jimmy G that showed up in the playoffs. Hers was like, yes, two thousand seventeen Jimmy G. That's how you keep romance alive. Now we have younger people behind the desk. Now that I'm sitting actually in Dan's chair, I'm looking at Justin Graver and Christie and Randy the whole crew, like too much. I think Randy's back there. Uh like in their and their relative youth bothers me. But I had my fifteen wedding anniversary last weekend. Dan is not in the country right now. He's at an undisclosed location we should have mentioned, uh, celebrating his wedding anniversary. Uh. And uh, that's one way to keep romance alive. So that just my advice for the younger people behind the glass is play a lot of Madden together. Well, right, I mean, you know, different situations, different needs. That's why I didn't really have to celebrate Mother's Day. It's like it's a big one to punch every year anniversary right before Mother's They really, what are you gonna do? Yeah, the kids, the kids, they cooked her some stuff in the morning. But in the end, do you really want to eat like what a ten in seven year old can make? Like they can make some toast with button. Yeah, limited amount of that, please, I G it's not that great. There's actually a lot of talk, a lot to talk about today. Surprisingly, Uh, Tom Brady's back in the news. We'll get to that quickly. Decent amount of news. And I'm even more excited about our friend Connor Or who's gonna be joining us later on this show. You once hosted a podcast that wasn't really a podcast because it was on another strange service. What was that? The podcast was called Heat and Light. Yes it was a real podcast, just but the service was called what it was. It was sort of a new fangled um you know. If I tried to was remembering the name of it, and I could not. But it wasn't actually like a podcast feed. It with some other strange service that you had to go onto that and I see what you're trying to do. It was also getting monster numbers, so I'm not sure how we quantify success. But then you know, the app failed in our show went got pulled under with it gravery you you I know you're new to this, but that's one thing, uh, in addition to the oath that you need to do when you become our podcast producer is go back and listen to all the Heat and Light episodes. They're great. It's Connor and Mark talking about conspiracies, talking talking about dark forces that are in the universe, and uh, it's a delightful program. And we're going to bring back the spirit of Heat and Light on this episode by talking about some maybe mysterious dark conspiratory conspiratorial elements maybe of the grave. Talker. Just nod your head, because, um, while it sounds like that would be a lot of work, you can't actually find those episodes. They don't they literally do will not exist out in the world at this point, So just say yes, it sounds like a great idea for a spinoff pod that Mark Sessler would host, right, Well, that's what it was essentially literally, that's literally what it was. I think I had just started the Jessell Nick and Rosenthal Vanity project, and um Dan had started his music podcast Throwback Podcast, and so Mark wanted to step into the fray he was feeling. Again, this is a re narrative of of how it actually went. But um, I think Connor and I at some point lost motivation that might have been a big part of it. And how does Courts of Thunder fit into all of this? That that's just another new one. That's just again trying to stay alive, um, embracing your passions in life as you as you get into your forties. I'm also passionate about news. Let's do some news. So Graver just needs to be told that there's gonna be news. Um, you know, like yeah, Dan Spoon feeds you, right and at this point like we'll have added uh the news in post. Actually maybe we won't, we will add I'm like, let's let the producer produce. We've done fourteen hundred episodes, Graver has been a part of at least more than a hundred of them. At this point, he would probably realize that we do news every episode. He just have an appropriate sound drop read it gives you something to work on for the next episode. This is right when we when we have our like Goodbye to Graver video with lots of tears. In a few years, we can use this clip of like, Oh, look, how's far he's grown? He knows what he's doing a few weeks he doesn't, please, please put it away. Let's talk Tom Brady. Uh, he's joining Fox Sports? What he's making three hundred and seven five million dollars over ten years? What like he's gonna be an ambassador for Fox. This was announced on a shareholder briefing briefing by someone named Lachlan Murdoch. What like? What is happening here? This doesn't seem like a real story. It is a real story. He's gonna be the lead analyst. We don't know who's gonna be the lead analyst for the two season, but whenever Tom Brady retires, he's gonna become the lead analyst. The contracts already done. What is going on here? Mark? I mean to put it into context. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, who have done three hundred plus games together and get better and better, are making a combined thirty three point five million together. It's to be fair. It seems fair a lot of money. Yeah, they just made a move to make more money, and you thought they were topping out the market to some degree. You've got Tony Romo in there. This deal is insane. Here's the thing, like, and everyone's debating, will Tom Brady be good at this? Like my stance, and I think it's a fair one is I'm totally suspicious of literally anyone shoved into the analyst role in until we know they're good because Tom Brady and I'm not saying, oh, he's boring, so he's been born at this. Maybe there's a version of Tom Brady that is uh, minus filter, that is more unleashed, that's gonna change and grow and show us something else. There's not a lot of evidence for that. Number one, but too, it's not that he's Joe Montana. It's not that he's Johnny Unitis, who both floundered in the in the booth. It's just that it's a special skill to be a quarterback. But it's a totally different skill. Even if you have all the knowledge that he does to communicate it to us, and there's no proof that he's gonna be good at it. There's also no proof that he's totally gonna suck other than his personality is a little bit vanilla. My initial reaction was the odds on him being better than Kurt Warner next year. Kurt Warner, I think is great on radio when they give him the TV and the analyst role, or Charles Davis, who we know, or Greg Olsen. I'm just throwing out a lot of names. You could the top shelf of the end of the odds on Tom Brady being better or even close to as good as them off the bat is small, I would say because of what you say that it's a totally different skill set, Like the best quarterbacks will make the best analysts and vice versa, like Tony Roma is amazing. I wouldn't have necessarily guessed or thought that part of the reason he's amazing is his enthusiasm and he just sort of understands TV. Whether Tom Brady has tried out for this role and it went well or not, we don't know. We know that it didn't go that well for Drew Brees. I think when given the opportunity last year, and he was in a natural which is which is fine, but you're locking yourself into ten years of doing it. The one thing that makes me think that he could be good is just that he's doing this at all, because why would he be signing up now other than the money, which is crazy. I mean, he's making double what everyone else is making. He's making more in retirement then he is as a player. He's making more than he ever made for the Patriots or the bucks he's gonna make with Fox Sports, which is outrageous. And maybe that's the answer to the question. Maybe he's not like passion that it about doing that, but the money is just too good to pass up and it helps him do a lot of other things. But I'd like to think, as a Patriots fan of watching Brady forever, that like he knows what we're all saying that maybe he wouldn't be that good at it, and if he's gonna make this big commitment for this big money, that he's going to try his very best to be great, and that's like half the battle. Well, there are whispers that one of the reasons Drew Brees is not succeeding beyond the fact that I think we all saw from a distance that his personality wasn't going to be overly engaging to begin with. Is that Drew Brees maybe hasn't put in the work you have to put in your job changes like these guys to go do two games a week or one game a week, it's like you're in deep dense film study. I mean, that's not different for Tom Brady, but then you got to go communicate it. And I just think, like we know, Greg Olsen looks like he could have been a number one color analyst for Fox, and he very well might be. I would think he's the favorite to do it for two which is also weird because Burkhart and Olsen might set a really high standard. And then Brady comes in, and that's the thing. It's like Tom Brady suddenly is going to have he has competition. We already are seeing people that are setting the bar at a high place, and then Tom Brady is not used to beyond like Brady haters and Patriots haters getting destroyed on Twitter during Monday night football because he's not doing a great job. And I think we're also in a world where like viewership is changing. He signed up for the old horse, the old color analyst job where you're gonna do games the way they've been done. The Manning cast probably is closer to what a lot of people of different ages would want to experience and see, at least for part of a game. I just I'm I want to I can't wait to see it. The part of it feels a little fficient to me. But maybe I'm old fashioned that I just kind of wished Date Manning was in the booth because now I've seen him at home and we know you can do it, and I would like, I love the way he lives and dies with the quarterbacks, and maybe there'll be some of that with Brady, But over the years he hasn't given off in front of a microphone the same sort of enthusiasm, and of course he has that enthusiasm for the sport. If he if he can communicate some of the knowledge that he has, he'll be great. He knows so much about all these different players, good and bad, and even if it's not burying players I saw, you know, we talked about Brady on NFL now and you know Mark gardis asking like, is he got to be critical? That's kind of what you need? Yeah, that would be nice. Uh, But I just can't imagine that happened. You can still be pretty good without being that critical. Tony Romo isn't that critical ever, and he's still quite good at it. If you can really teach me something, especially in the first few years when Brady like absolutely knows more about Chauncey Gardner Johnson, the nickelback of the Saints and all of their secondary tendencies than anyone else on the planet. So if he can communicate that stuff, he doesn't need to bury everyone to be good. But I just haven't seen any proof of that, Like, unless Tom Brady has been trying to be purposefully uninteresting, and I guess he has been, like in front of a microphone. That's part of his strategy. It doesn't help him do his job, But I don't know, Like, even off the field, I read a book by Charles Pierce, one of the best sports writers, great writer of the last twenty years. I I think he's a great writer. He really struggled to make Tom Brady like an interesting human and I think that that's a little part of it too. Yeah, just I think Tom Brady can't have simply been hiding his core true personality from us for the past two plus decades. I think you gotta obviously like robotic version of him with the Patriots. He's changed a little bit with the Bucks. But now we're saying, go be your personality, but bring his social media guys with them into the booth. Like everyone who says like Tom Brady's like, we've seen more of his personalities. Yeah, but it's all his social media guys, either their tweets and TikTok's that they write or the bits that they write for him and that he executes, and his fun doing it. Like I've never seen him in the in the flow of an actual conversation. Be will be the challenge? Well, Ricky Ricky responded on Twitter, like when will you stop doubting this guy for the amount of money. You've never doubted him once said anything. This is amount of money. Like I think it's fair to have a critical eye about the whole thing. Something about the whole thing feels also like big industries. Uh, you know, I don't know, there's just you're into something here. When they announced the uh deal and they didn't put the money with it. When Fox announced it on this sharel, I mean this is very succession, Like they're announcing on the shareholder meeting a man named Lachlin Murdoch who I'm not familiar, but if if you could have guessed what is the Murdoch's son's name, Lachlin would have been in the top five guesses. Uh. The fact that he announced it on a shareholder meeting any he called him that he would be like a brand ambassador as well, and so that makes me think, like, Okay, they're gonna pay him to do that job, but like they know that Greg Olsen could do that job just as well for a fifth as much money. They're paying him for these sponsor things where they could just just try Tom Brady around like a show pony to all the other sponsors, and he like agrees to do five events a year where he like basically they're paying to hang out with Tom Brady, like the Murdocks want to hang out with Tom Brady. Sounds pure. I love Tom that. I found this story really interesting. The rest of the news isn't as much of The last quick thing is like I do kind of feel bad about the Drew Brees factor. We've been meaning um about his performance as a broadcaster on this show, including Today, and yet there's something about like that Breeze was up for this job, and like Tom Brady, who's not even retired, is now swatting the possibility of this way making triple the amount of money that Breeze could have ever hoped to get Fox, just so that they can hold the seat warm for him. This is the same man who ended Drew brees career, and then he threw passes with his with Drew Brees his sons on the field afterwards. It's like, I'm not saying that Tom Brady hates Drew Brees and like wants to make his life miserable. I believe the opposite. But he's acting like a person if that's how you felt about Drew Brees. He's doing all the actions that you would expect out of that, but there are elements of like hyper competition. I see what you're saying, but I think again, I think Drew Brees and and Manning they're all competing, but Drew Brees is Drew Brees as biggest problem. Okay, ain't Tom Brady? Because someone was gonna pay Tom Brady a ton of money to do something at some point. Drew Brees His CUE rating dipped tremendously last season because he's not fun to watch and not interesting to listen to. All Right, we gotta stop killing killing Breese. And and Manning didn't want this job as much. He could have had it. Obviously, he could have had this Fox job, He could have had the ESPN job, He could have had any job he wants. He understandably liked this idea of just like hanging out at his house and talking with Eli. That's too much sense. He's got it better. But they also don't do seventeen weeks of it. It's you know that doesn't mind um telling his wife and family. Oh yeah, by the way, remember that whole idea, I was going to hang out with you more. I'm gonna leave on a plane every third as day and in return every Monday for the whole NFL season, just like before as a broadcaster. I think we knew that that the hangout with family thing was gonna be uh elementally short lived. I also think this this has to mean this is his last year, or very likely as last year. That's I'm with you because it's Tom Brady, so I would never suspect this about him, But if it were another player announcing all this post career stuff, and then still telling us like, it's not gonna be a distraction. I am plugged in as a player Number one. He's just made too many moves to talk about post career. We've never seen Tom Brady do that before the past couple of months, right. I. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I don't think it will be a distraction. But I absolutely believe that this deal increases the chances that his last season in the NFL two I had already heard, isn't that at it's hard a distraction though. I let's say it's gonna have talked about in the locker room NonStop, but he's already basically said, let's say the season goes poorly. Do we think that he's gonna come back and say, let's do this again and get out of our fix that we were in the year before. No, he's gonna go do this all the time. I think there's something to the point that when you start talking about retirement that's troubling. You're already a foot out the door and football is hard. That said, I don't think it's going to compromise like what he puts into the job this year. I just had already heard a little whispers about some other stuff that Brady, you know, off the field, that indicated that this was probably gonna be his last year. I don't think anyone truly knows. Tom Brady does whatever Tom Brady wants. If he won the Super Bowl and he feels like playing again, he's gonna do whatever the hell he wants, all right, also in the news quickly, Uh, we'll talk about it if it actually happens. But Roger, I mean Richard Sherman, who did the broadcast boot camp with UH, is supposedly joining the Amazon crew and that that would be a fun higher and that also might mean, uh, that he could be retiring potential future Hall of Famers, so that he's already got his own podcast, which is an awesome listen, and he was out. There were a lot of stars at that at that boot camp. They weren't coming in being like I've never done media before. In fact, like you could see them just elevating beyond all the rubes that were hanging out with them, like us like trying to just show them how to do a podcast. To the point is so that they can meet the Fox and NFL network executives that are there. It's a smart move they did. They did a great job. But Richard Sherman like is such a natural that I think whatever they like. I have no concerns about Richard Sherman being engaging and interesting. None neither do I. I mean, if I could choose to have one guy or the other in the booth, I would go Sherman over Brady H. Sherman, cornerback who is a free agent. Another free agent James Bradberry recently cut by the Giants. We will talk about him after this break. Uh, James Bradberry, cornerback that is now a free agent after being cut by the Giants. This was a strange move because on paper he was their best cornerback. Maybe a year ago a Dory Jackson outplayed him, but he he literally made the Pro Bowl in and he's only twenty eight years old. He uh is into the top twenty of my top one oh one free agents, which obviously most of them are signed. But you know, kind of post stating he's a good player that's now available and I would think gets signed quickly. It just seems like, thank you, Dave Gentelman. Because Joe Shane, general manager, inherited a lot of money issues. And you can critique some of what the Giants had done this offseason, but I thought they handled the draft really well. This just was like people saying, we know, you've got to cut them because you can't even sign they're using the money the ten million plus they saved. They have eleven million and dead money to sign their draft class. Like that's how up against it they were. So it was just like they're not they were not gonna The trade value would dipped day by day because it was so obvious they had to cut them. Well, it sounded like they had some conversations. Uh, I believe the Texans were the team that was were mentioned Texans. By the way, I also signed Jerry Hughes on Tuesday. Will get to some of the lower level signings. But I like that the Texans are trying to get into this whatever way of a free agency there's is, because there's actually a lot of good players available, way more than usual. And brad Berry, you're right, it was smart for teams to wait it out. The reason it didn't work is because he they wanted to renegotiate a contract, and he's like, why would I do that? Why would I help any new team out. I want to just be a free agent and pick my next location. Uh. The Eagles have been mentioned as a potential landing spot. I love that they could really use another cornerback. Uh. And and they're trying to win right now, why not do that? Uh. The Raiders have been mentioned as a potential landing spot. Patrick Graham, who coached him, and that makes a lot of sense to a Pro Bowl season. UH could go after them. There's a lot of teams that need cornerbacks. Like, you don't need to overthink this. He's twenty eight years old turning twenty nine. He was a Pro bowler in twenty I know he didn't have like a great news flash. That's like every cornerback except for eight or nine of them. They go up, they go down. If you go from your highs being a top ten cornerback to your lows being an average starter. Those guys make ten million dollars a year. Like, he's a pretty great player to be availab. Yeah, and also defense is your environment. But Patrick Graham, I I in in Vegas. I could that would be a juicy fit for James. The secondary stinks too, and they need them. They could absolutely use them uh a couple other free agent signings, and mentioned Jerry Hughes, he was in my top thirty going to the Texans. Like that. The Texans are starting to get a little more active. I feel like if they actually added some decent players in the next month, they could be somewhat competitive. I don't think they're the worst roster and anymore in the entire NFL. Sony Michelle goes to the Dolphins. A couple of signings we missed a week ago just because of when we taped. Was Bryce Callahan the former Baron Bronco and Kyle Van Noy to the Chargers. Any of those moves, Michelle Hughes the Chargers moves do anything. I think the Dolphins are gonna be a fun watch, But I do think you could probably sense the skulls of fantasy heads exploding all over the planet because Sony Michelle has added to a backfield that also had Chase Edmonds, Raheem Monster, and Miles Gaskins. So it's like they had guys probably isn't making the team, I would think. I would think maybe Miles Gaskin because the other they all the other three were all brought in by the new coaching stuff. But that's a good point, Michelle. UM. Maybe not a lock just because he doesn't help much on passing downs and UH or special teams, but he's a solid contributor. He definitely helped the Rams on their way to winning the Super Bowl. Jerry Hughes can still play like it's very rare and UH, I think this is gonna benefit the teams that have some cap space left. Your Browns are certainly one of them. UH to really use that money well in the next month. Here's some players still available. Odell Beckham, Dwayne Brown, Jedevan Clowney, Melvin Ingram, Rob Gronkowski, UH, Kim Hicks, Trey Flowers, j C. Treader, Will Fuller, Eric Fisher, Julio Jones, Anthony Barr, Justin Houston, and Dominican Sue Sheldon Richardson, Kevin King. I just went through, were like most of the guys left on my one on one. All those guys can play football, Like, all those guys can play plus snaps in the NFL, and they're gonna be better for the most part. Then your second or third round pick that you just spent two months talking about on podcasts or breaking down how they're gonna fit in, Like most of those guys are going to be better than your second and third round picks and they're out there now, and that's it hasn't been like that, And I really think it's something I've been focused on in terms of team building that teams need to spend more to the cap. They need to spend as much money as they can, like if not, like there's no downside, like you're not doing what you can to win. So I think this next month is my overall point, like teams can really improve themselves and it's gonna make a difference when it comes to September. It does seem like scenery wise there this time around, there was a big let's do the draft part and see what's what holes still remain. But this line of players you just mentioned, these are the gray beards right now, and they're probably like spending too Verse seven and two right now, Like they're fine. I mean, what maybe they're they're hanging in there. If they're in a bad they're better than they've ever been. And I think they everyone thought they were going to get these big contracts and free agency this year because the cap was going way up after a couple of years of down there, and these guys at least weren't happy they didn't get them. You know, they didn't get those deals, but doesn't mean they can't get three or four million dollars. One of those guys, by the way, is Jarvis Landry. It's been reported that the Ravens are interested in him, and that feels like a good fit. Yeah, no, it's also you know, Cleveland was on the map and Mary kay Habits said that the door seems closed at this point, so the Ravens would be a good fit. Ravens also added Mike Davis to their backfield, who I think I like more than other people. I just kind of trust the Ravens to do well by running backs as well. Right, they ran out of running backs last year and it actually affected them. If everyone's healthy, Mike Davis probably isn't gonna get a lot of run, but he's he had a bad year in Atlanta. Was higher on that signing than it certainly turned out didn't really work. But you're right, you have J. K. Dobbins, Gus Edwards, and now if there's injuries there, you have a nice backup. If Landry goes to Baltimore. I don't. I don't hate their receiver group. Everyone is panicking about the receiver group if your offensive where do? I love it? Though? But yeah, but like you can't be perfect at every position, and they're obviously a team that can live without great receivers. And I would look at it this way. Andrews is your number one, Bateman's your number two. I think he'll be fine. Landry is your number three, two and three with Bateman and Duvernet who I who I like a lot. And I have a feeling the Ravens like Devin Duverney more than most people do. Is your four. And it's like, that's fine if that's like your worst position or one of your worst positions. You find Justin's very excited about Devin Duvernet hook on baby. Devin Duverney was the Texas long ORNs best receiver when he was there, and then he kind of just disappeared into a gadget player when he got to the league. I just realized one of the reasons they traded Brown. I bet is some faith in Duverney, because to me, they're very similar players, Duvernet and Marks Brown. I bet you could replace sevent of Markis Brown with Devin Dory. Yeah, it's also it is notable to me that they are so called number one wide out wanted out of a team that has Super Bowl aspirations. Like it's there is something about the system for free agents. It's like, no, that's not I like, I like the idea of Lamar Jackson and the Ravens in general, probably from a player at the angle, but like as a wide out, you're gonna go there and you're gonna see your numbers drop. Right, Marky's Brown supposedly asked for a trade after a second year when they you know, when they were like he was mouthing off all the time, like how upset he was. So it's like it's not a great fit for some some of these wilds. Like, but here's the reality. You're right. It probably hurts your your earning potential a little bit. But it's kind of like if you were let's say, Justin Jefferson, like we would know you were Justin Jefferson, you know what I mean? Like if Markus Brown was as good as some of the first round in second round receivers like a J. Brown and stuff, like, we wouldn't know. It's Justin Jefferson is like truly special. But I think for for the kind of guys they have on the roster right now, it's just a little it's it's one team that stands out. It's a bit of an unrewarded landing spot for that position. It's like, you know, it's it's like he said in the Social Network, like if you invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. Marky's Brown in this situation is the vincl voss. I wish I had done that, but I wish I did too. Um time for News and Notes presented by upwork, where you can build the team that will build your business. Learn more at upwork dot com. Another weird item, uh in the news the schedule release has been just like sprinkling out little crumbs all week. Uh, we're big with the release, guys, Mark So's Dan. The three of us are part of the schedule release Bonanza on NFL Network. I believe this is the first ever NFL Network program in which Rich Eisen and Michael Irvine are on the show and we are also on the show. Pinch yourself. I am pinching myself. They were I think they were so enamored that they asked to use about two minutes and fifty four seconds of our commentary. That's absolutely fine. Um, I know you know we've talked with rich he's been on our show. We saw him a couple of weeks ago at the draft. I'm not certain anyone else on that show knows who we are, so will be more they're they're surprised than anyone else. It does make me feel uncomfortable to think that they'll be sitting with their ear pieces in and during one of their breaks, maybe they'll go get food. Actually that would be good. They take a little break, get some coffee or whatever during the break that they'll be listening to us like Hamana hammna about the International Series games, which we taped last week, but we learned more news this week, which is that there's gonna be a week two doubleheader Monday Night football where at seven fifteen you get Bills Titans on ESPN, and then eight thirty this is different on ABC you get Eagles Vikings, So it both games will be playing at the same time at at one point, which is strange to me and yet kind of kind of fun. What do you feel about that? I have I have mixed feelings because I think that the concept of doubleheaders, um, I love it, like it's kind of great, and I'm like, definitely like primetime games the way that we do our job much more than like when you're watching three games at the same time on a Sunday, which sometimes from my brain, it just does not stop doing it. You like to have famously windows. I'll take little notes about things I see, and it does. It's health to it. Like I know less than the average fan leaving on Sundays because I just watched like the four games I'm gonna watch, and I just kind of ignore the rest because it's too hard to know everything we have. We have different processes, I guess on that front. But I think it's interesting from like an A. J. Brown perspective that we get his new team and the team that moved on from him. I have no idea where we'll be with Malik Willis by the time we get to week two. Everyone's like, oh, you probably won't start till week fourteen. It's like this stuff sometimes hate and so quickly right crazy's definitely not starting. I'm not seeing it starting a week two, but that could be where if they got wallet by the Bills. That you get that reaction to the Titans fan base will probably be calling for it way before. But I don't like how they did the Titans Bills game. Here. What do what do you think? I agree, it's like, first of all, it's a bigger game in my opinion, it's two teams that compete for the top of the a f C versus two teams that are going to be trying to make the playoffs. I feel like in Minnesota and Philadelphia you might be overrating your Titans. But okay, coming off the ones like I would, I would actually take the Eagles over under over the Titans. Right now, we don't know what the Titans are entirely without power ranking those four teams, I'm going one by a mile, Bills, two Eagles pretty close behind Titans. And then yes, the Titans consistently doubted That's okay. They like to be the underdogs. But it's kind of a shot because you said it, that was one of the best games of the year last year, Titans Bills. I we had to make a list of our ten asked games of the year, and I threw that one in there, even though everyone had forgotten about it by then, like amazing, comeback. It was Monday and I football. I had a little bit of everything. Uh and yeah, and they're kind of treating them because look, it's on cable, it's on ESPN, they're the network. Game are the bigger markets, which I guess is Philadelphia. But it's like, does that really matter at this point? Don't more people want to watch Josh Allen at this point than anyone in Philadelphia, Minnesota and Derrick Henry for that matter. In today's world, everyone's gonna have access to both games and watch whatever they please, So it's not that big of a concern. No, I like, I don't mind two games at once is fine. You can have both both of them and will probably have like a special around the NFL podcast show that night. So it's I'm sure we will. It's extra work for you, which I again, I like this lineup. I'm excited now and it gets closer to the idea that I had. I think I presented it in about on this show of two games a day every day for the whole NFL season, that's total chaos. You'd have to I have to do the Matt like. Also, you need to get a team that played every Tuesday, Like you can't be a team that played Tuesday. Then you're don't care. Well, that's that's the problem. You don't care about that. Some people do care, like it would totally change how how football is experience. That was an idea I had that when I only had one kid, my daughter Ellis, and she was still young. Now that I'm older, I don't now I want those days just like you living alone in an apartment kind of scenario, like the two games a day, like I wouldn't get sick of it. I think I think it would be absolutely fine. The other game that was announced was Rams Broncos on Christmas Day. Uh, this is gonna be a wild Christmas weekend. Will have a full slate of games on Christmas Eve, which will be a Saturday, and then we have three games on Christmas. Uh, so say goodbye to your family, Daddy's not coming home Rams Broncos. Maybe I might have to see if I can go to that game. Well, that's the thing. I could see a son, how you know, at the game because it's right here at our workplace. So that feels like maybe I mean the NFL um you know, I appreciate what they're doing here, which is a total takeover a planet Earth, uh, and certainly wiping out nuking every other sport on the landscape. Because this used to be the gentleman's respect between the NFL, which was dot little Christmas games here and there, the NBA's day. Who cares about that at this point Christmas Day, NBA regular season action. I'm not saying that fans, it's still the NFL is saying they don't care about anything else in the They used to the ratings for the NFL network game that they had on Christmas, which was what or I don't know was that a network game? It was brown it was Brown's Packers. Last year was the it's the most watch but it was the most watched game of the year. That's the thing. Thanksgiving and Christmas Day games are the most watch games of the year. So, uh, is not a huge surprise to me that they're doing this. But three is a lot all so it just happens to be the year that Christmas falls on a Sunday. I don't think they'll go three every year, but ma'am, that's a lot. I think to avoid that overtaking my day yeah, I think I'm gonna maybe I'll surprise him, but I think I'm gonna ask Emica what she thinks about going to the game. That's kind of fun. That's only gonna happen one time. I mean, we're Jewish, we do the Christmas thing, though we don't do hanaka. We just do gifts on you know, we don't. There's just no religious respect to your approach. It's an unusual one. It's I mean, you gotta do something. That's how I grew up. That's it for schedule released talk today. We all have more on Thursday. That was news and Notes presented by upwork, the world's work marketplace. Learn more at upwork dot com. UH. Finally, in the news, UH an unfortunate story UM in Las Vegas this week where the Raiders team president, or as UH as Mark Davis, their owner, will point out, well, it was only the interim team president. It wasn't actually the team president. He was a team president only for eight months. UH. Who cares? He was there for eighteen years. He knows what's going on. Their team president for a little less than a year. UH is accusing Mark Davis in a statement of firing him in retaliation for bringing concerns by multiple Raiders employees about a hostile workplace UH and the hostile conditions specifically towards women UH. And he believes that he was fired in retaliation for that. It's really serious. It comes on the heels of a few other mysterious UH Raiders executives that were cleaned out last year. There's been a lot of them. Um, it's just a lot of stuff that we don't know what's going on in in those There's been some reporting that there was financial um misdeeds being done by those employees. This to me is a lot more serious because the NFL UH is now getting involved. They say they recently became aware of the allegations and they are looking into it at another team and another ownership group to the list that the NFL is investigating right now. I mean, this has been a pretty wild offseason on that front. And this employee, you're right, he was for eighteen years. It's a it's a classic whistleblower move. And he he basically I think he put his own employment, his own life on the line, I mean professional life too, do what he thought was right here. So we'll see what they do, right I really I respect what he did, and I respect him laying out the reasons for it. And look, it sounds like he knew maybe where this was going throughout. I think there's a lot of documentation he felt that Mark Davis specifically, like he he put it out there. We're just repeating what his statements are that Mark Davis the owner specifically, UM created a hostile place for women, did not treat women right. And the NFL like got a problem, Like like society has a problem in the NFL is just part of society. But I mean specifically, the owners that are running the league right now have a problem. Jerry Jones has a problem. Dan Sneider has a problem. Mark Davis has a problem. Like these are some of the most vocal and integral owners in the in the league and have really active UM parts of the league have recently gotten stadiums built in the case of Mark Davis and Jerry Jones, And like, the NFL has got to fix this stuff the end, like Roger Goodell and everyone that's in this office. And it's very tricky to be investigating an owner when the owner is technically the boss of Roger Goodell. But I just want to like see the league we work for actually display a level of seriousness when it comes to these allegations. Obviously, the Shaun Watson story is different, but it's sort of of the same piece. And when your owners are acting like this, like it's your problem, you gott you have to do something about it. It's the structurally the NFL needs to change, and I I you you want it to be taken seriously, like you said, and I look at what happened with the Jerry Jones thing up till now. That's not taken seriously. I think the league would rather things like this go away. And you know, each the all thirty two teams are so different, and the Raiders stand out as a family run operation obviously, but sometimes that's where some of this stuff can happen in fester, where there's less of a committee and more of like a king or an emperor running the show. Right. I mean this comes on the on the heels of John Gruden and his email scandal, and I don't know if that's gonna be involved. Just in the last year alone, the Raiders have seen Department of Chief Financial Officer Ed Villa and Wave a senior vice president of Strategy and Business Brandon Doll Controller, a REXI Grant, and h another Jeremy Acquire, the chief Operations and Analytics officer, all resigned or kicked out fired in the last year alone, which is just like, what is that tell you? Crazy? Uh? Year for the Raiders. As they're getting excited for the on field product, the off field products got a lot to worry about. Let's get to something a little more fun to talk about. That's gonna be Connor Or. But first we'll take a little break. Our next guest. It's a very special fist. He's a former employee of NFL Media, a writer for the Around the NFL blog. He's a man of mystery, a man that's full of surprises in terms of his takes, his interests. You never really know where he's coming from. He now works for si dot com and he's a cover story writer. It's Connor Roor. What's up everybody there? He is. It's great to have you back, buddy. We're good. I mean, even though I like had to stop our pre show conversation because the fact that you think Frozen two is a great movie just sort of stopped me in my tracks, and I thought, like what what are what are we talking about? What are your reasons? I mean, Frozen, it's a good Disney movie, Frozen two. It's like they were trying to be deep about like global warming or anything. But it's like trying to be deep as if it was written by a seven year old. I mean it got it. The movie. I was so deep on Reddit about this recently. The movie is so incredibly like entrenched in in colonialism. Right, but they they did not they didn't finish the job right, and that that would be my only complaint, right, Like Erindale should not exist. Erindale should have been taken out by the wave. Um and the people of North Thunderlad in the forest should have been able to reclaim the land and destroy Erindale, so that that would be my only complaint. Otherwise, like the music is unbelievable. Um Adina's voice has never sounded better. And I just think, uh, like some of the songs are really powerful and uh, I'm I'm enjoying the Frozen stage right now. I have kids who watch it. But I would say, like there are like several Frozen two songs from the soundtrack on my running playlist. I've got to say that there's nothing more Connor or Esque than the fact that you're on like deep dark subreddit boards about Frozen two. Well, the whole time I'm sitting there and I'm like, well, I wonder what that song is really about, but it is like about what it said, it's a trying to be about. But like the whole thing with the colonials, that's where they got me wrong. Like if you're gonna you can't try to be deep and then I get only halfway there. It was it felt to me like it was trying to be a message movie that really didn't make anything. This is why Greg was not the third limb in the Heat and Light podcast, because your mind is gonna take it somewhere totally different. And I and that's why my my daughter doesn't love me. And it's because I bring up these things. Feel if they're watching the movie, let me I'll put I'll put a bow in the argument with this, right. I finished Ozarks yesterday last night, and um, I'm not gonna spoil the ending for anybody who hasn't seen it yet. Um, but you know Frozen, it's like, Okay, you put a bowl on it, you walk away feeling generally okay, whereas the ozarks is it falls in line with our common theme of all premium television and movies now, where it's just like you walk away with the sense that like everything sucks and only like evil people are powerful and rule rule your life, and it's like, Okay, I get it. You know, you know, I'm a Disney guy. You're a Disney like that likes a little half baked storyline about reparations mixed in. I don't need your half baked reparation storyline. You executed it terribly. I'm stupid. I am stupid. Uh, let's talk about stupid potential plot lines for the two thousand twenty two season. That's the wrong way to freight to introduce us, because I don't think this is stupid at all. I'm really excited about this segment. You guys had a podcast Connor, you and Mark back in the day, and Mark, maybe you can explain it to me and how it relates to this um this episode. But what I took from it was you guys look beneath the surface of certain stories that people accepted a surface answer, whether it was darkness in the world or conspiracies, and you went below that, and I think that's what we're gonna try to do with some NFL stories here, is that I think there's there's territory to do that with NFL stories. Um, I mean Connor and I when he would be in Los Angeles or just over over our direct messaging clients, we just naturally talk about this stuff. And the more you get to know Connor, like he'll then send you like an explosive twenty two page article you found on said topic. But we would go I'll give you an example. I think one of our first episodes ever, Um, I had to convince our at NFL editors, Um, this is not when you were in charge, Greg of of myself. That was someone else, and Connor also was working a shift. We both got out of a ship for like two hours so that I I could go into a office while you were in New Jersey, and we recorded in a long episode about the fact that there may be too Paul McCartney's that the real that the Paul McCartney that you knew early early on, at some point, um, there was a shift and that human being was replaced. And you can go, uh listen to the episode, which does not available any people could find it somewhere. And if you're if you're a big fan of the show, if you're the type of fan that's on the reddit board or leaves us messages, uh, leaves us comments, interviews on iTunes, people should do that. By by the way, we haven't asked for a while. Then maybe you are the type of person that can find us these episodes and somehow send it to us. You can contact Justin Graver at Titans Film Room on Twitter, d m him about it and let us know. But it's it's um. It's amazing because you just wrote a story that fits perfectly into this idea for a segment Connor, you wrote about the NFL's investigation into the Browns and Hugh Jackson's allegations that they weren't trying to win uh five years ago, that they were tanking, and what you uncovered was frankly a lot more interesting than anything I expected to come from this Hugh Jackson story. I have to admit I didn't read it till today, and I'm like, how are not more people talking about this? I guess I explained to the listeners that that haven't heard it, just like what what this story was? And how it off its in what's interesting? Right because I went on like a Cleveland area radio station the other day to talk about the story, and they just said, Hey, Connor Roors here, shoot, Hugh Jackson's a loser. What's your problem? You know? And then it's like, well, yeah, Hugh Jackson won three games, and I think that that obscure wars three games and whatever it was two and a half years, and I think that that obscures uh, the general point here, which is that uh, he had a deal with the Browns and addendum to his contract that wasn't submitted to the league. Um that UH financially incentivized him to have an increased number of early round draft picks and to carry over salary cap space, among other things. And so our argument is, I don't know what happened, Like the Browns could have been bad because Hugh Jackson's a bad coach, the Browns could have been bad because they were trying to lose. I don't know, But it's incredibly weird and unorthodox to financially incentivize a coach to get more early draft picks and to carry over cap space, because there's really only one way to do that. And you have that, you have the plan all And now that's the part where I'm like, how is more people not talking about this. I definitely want to send it out that you have the contract dt else you just mentioned some of them. Another one was uh finishing top ten and win probability added on fourth down, which I just found interesting that they were incentivizing him to be analytic, uh, analytically minded in terms of his coaching. But yeah, they were. They were given him extra money mark to basically high to get high draft picks and have young players. And I don't think that's necessarily wrong, it's just really I just find it very interesting to see the four year plan which Connor did the reporting on, all written out. I think, like Connor, the way the way you describe contracts stuff like that, it turns people off maybe in general, because it's complex, it's in the weeds. You you added a lot of clarity to that, and I think it does raise questions. I also, looking back on that time, like, I don't put the huge Jackson because it's coming from him doesn't totally discredit the whole thing. You're right about that, and that's a probably more local reaction to that. But the Browns were pretty out front about the fact that with Sashi Brown and the rest of that front office, that we are taking a different approach. We're the team that's gonna take on Brock Swidler's massive contract just to do something that other NFL teams aren't doing. It was a little bit of a different period back then, and so I don't know if it was like this hidden tank job. Necessarily, they had a terrible talent, they had no answers at quarterback, and they were looking to a crew and re shift to change the whole franchise through the draft picks. But then the contract, which they were not out front about, and if they didn't send it to the league, adds all sorts of questions. So it's super murky, it is, and you know, it's interesting to me, is I think. And I wrote a follow up to this um that included some additional reporting that, like, you know, Hugh was one of the only coaches I think that we've found and we surveyed a lot of people who have done coaching contracts around the league who were actually paid, you know, or offered to be paid for a certain win total, which I thought was really interesting and doesn't necessarily happen like in a lot of coaches contracts, it will just be like you get extra money if you make the playoffs, not like you get extra money if you win three games, you know what I mean. And so I thought that was kind of interesting. But I think what it does, and I think the convenience, uh and you talk about conspiracy, you know, I don't know whatever it is. But the timing of the fact that you can establish basically what your basement level expectations are of being competitive with the Brian Flores investigation looming, I think is is interesting and just kind of worth considering, right, because with Hugh Jackson, what the NFL is saying is no, no, they were trying to win because in Hugh Jackson's second year, they signed uh, you know, Kevin Zeitler, right, and so even and even though they were in bottom two of cap spending each of those first two years, what they basically did was establish a structure where it can be like, Okay, as long as you're kind to here and you can show us some glimmer of reasonable expectation of competition, then we're not going to come down and you for tanking. And I think that the Browns, it'll kind of be the Browns line going forward, right where it's like, as long as you don't do it any harder than this, I think you're gonna be okay. Doesn't the NFL want to allow other teams to do something similar? Doesn't the NFL want to do it? I was thinking that if you're gonna allow, if you're gonna open up that, if you're not gonna look at the brown situation other than through a certain lens as the league, you're allowing other teams to go to the tank method, which we've seen looked at all of this and said there is absolutely nothing against the rules going on here, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. I just find it interesting to see all of this stuff written down on paper. So yeah, I think they're basically saying, like the Giants, I think are a good example this year. That's that's a team strategy that you're essentially spending less money in the short term. The Giants are, like we talked about James Bradbury earlier. They could have kept him if they wanted to, They could have moved money around, but they don't want to. They don't want to spend money this year because they have a long term build. It's just kind of crazy to look at it all and down on paper that the coach is literally making extra money if the team spends less money, which is what is exactly written down here, that if they rank in the bottom quarter of cash spend, the coach for some reason gets extra money. Yeah. I think in in the end, and what I wrote in the follow up column, and I think what I hope everyone takes away from it, right is you have to have now that the NFL has blessed this and said it's okay, um, I think as a player agent or a player, you have to know that this exists. And if you're signing anywhere as a free agent, you have to be able to find out if your coach has picked a cruel bonus in his contract or any sort of um, any sort of incentivization for cash spend or cap spend, because that affects your future career, right like you know, so you have to know that going forward. And so whether that means we're more transparent about coaching contracts which are basically unseeable because you know, you can google players contract in two minutes, but you can't find any coaching contract or. Forbes always lists like the top ten highest paid coaches, it's always Belichick one or two, and then they just put a number on there and they're just like, oh, we're just guessing, right, We're we're a publication, but we're just guessing. We're gonna put him number one, but we have no earthly idea. I'm with you. I would love that, and I think that that the point you make is absolutely right and players should push for that. But I have a hard time imagic in it all because you're you're also asking the player not to share that information if things go sour down the road. I love this story. Everyone should check it out Connor or on Sports Illustrated dot com. You can find it from his Twitter account. Everything. Do you have, uh something that that would have been a good heat and light episode mark if it was a little more football oriented. Yeah, yes, it's far less trenchant than what we've just been discussing. I'll start right there. It's sort of stupid, but uh, if this occurred, I think you'd have people that said, this isn't a big deal, this just happened the way it happened. Then you'd have other people saying something about this doesn't fly you people, well, I think in the spirit of heat and light, like Connor and I think I would both probably be in that and you might too. We'll see. But here's all goes. I'll read it to you. Um, this is what I'm saying. I'm projecting to happen between now and the Super Bowl. There will be a moment between now and said super Bowl where NFL Commissioner Roger Goodill is advertised to the public as a heroic figure after saving a civilian from a life threatening event. All right, full disclosure. Suspicion will bubble up that the entire thing is a false flag. People like Conrad Mark will have their doubts. Mark will come, you know, compliantly say nothing due to his employment status. But also Goodell earns points for refusing to discuss the event, kind of treating it like something any sort of salt of the Earth cowboy would do any day of the week. So it doesn't you could you could argue he's not bubbling it up, but just to just what will it look like. Look for the event to take the form of rog saving said civilian from for example, I'm gonna give you a couple of items that how this may shape. Because we've seen these things in the past. From a pr angle with actors, directors, people that are in trouble, suddenly something heroic happens. But maybe a communist it's a bit of an image makeover. I mean, I just I'm just saying he's sort of the first person that came to mind. Um, maybe he says or saves the civilian from a car fire by the side of the highway, or a potential drowning in shark flush waters, or from an animal attack in the forest, or from a tornado which nobody researches enough to realize no weather event actually occurred in the said place. They said it did. From an armed robber from land pirates, from a gang of rowdy youths with wooden clubs, from a trashy woman on bath salts, from potential poisoning. Roger drinks the poison instead and lives. From a poultry gist of some variety. Again impossible to prove. He didn't stop a pulture geist demon possession from an envelope filled with a nefarious white powder. Rock just opens up the envelope and Bibe said white powder and lives, etcetera, etcetera. It's gonna take the form of one of those things. There'll people that say, Oh, that's so wonderful, what a nice story, and others that say, wait a minute, there's a deeper story here. We got to cut that for social you know, definitely, we need to definitely want that out there, just like ant NFL commission on Twitter and put that out there. Absolutely noted Randy is on it. We will have that clip on it. Graver last one week as producer the Round podcast. That would be a great episode. I would love I would love to listen to Connor talk about that. You and Connor the It was funny because I was thinking in my mind, I was like, oh God, if people unearthed heat and light, what are they going to find? Because you know, I don't remember what I said, you know, eight years ago, before I had kids and cared about anything really or do I Yeah, But I think there was an episode that there's no way it was wilder than that, So you're kind Now. We did an episode on pyramids is an energy source and I think we accused JP Morgan of centralizing electricity. Yes, it was j JP Morgan took some took some friendly fire or fire. Just I could see your your vision happening. There's no sandwich on the line here, even though it kind of feels like a sandwich proper um. I could see Roger Goodell from what I know about him, uh doing that. You know, I don't know if he needs like a huge image makeover right now. I feel like he was getting beat up more publicly in the past. Um, but certainly he has some owners going wild right now that we talked about earlier, and that's bad for the NFL. And maybe maybe this will give him sort of the the juice, the pr juice almost to do that part of his unpleasant part of his job a little more easily. Every You know, I'm not just saying this because we we are. We keep it real here on the Around the NFL podcast, Like everyone says who nice things about Roger Goodell, who actually know I'm like behind the scenes, and I was like, oh, yeah, he's such a nice guy. He's always did this or that for me. Like you never hear anyone actually say anything bad behind the scenes, which usually a pretty good sign because we hear a lot of people say a lot of bad things behind the scenes about a lot of powerful people. Um So I think I think it makes sense that this would happen. Yeah, I'm with you. I don't think that he's appears to be a villain on any level when we hung out with him, but like from a national perspective, he could use a little bit of pru And if you remember in the pages of Sports Illustrated written by my old boss Peter King, there was the seminal um Roger Goodell profile that had a um an anecdote from back in his college days where I believe he broke up a violent bar fight. Okay, see there we're setting the gunner all right. My my story which I think could be something that the two of you would would dive into. It's it's not as mystical. It's a little more like Ozark, where it's just like an open ended question, maybe a little more like Twin Peaks. And that is about the dark energy around the Minnesota Vikings. And different teams have different UH energy around them, and I think what the Vikings energy that's around them right now is that they will never change. They are just always the Vikings. They're the the exact same team as they were year before. Like literally, if you look at their offense, it's it's Kirk Cousins, Dalvin Cook, Kjazwere, Adam thieland Justin Jefferson. Mostly the same offensive line, uh, a lot of the same defensive Yes, they changed out the coach and the GM, but like that's not enough because ultimately what is pulling both sides of the Vikings fans experience is this unforgiving sameness. Uh that you finished with eight or nine wins and it's ultimately disappointed. And there's a point in the season where it seems like they have your hopes up, but all their fans kind of know that it won't happen, and they're almost potentially stuck in this cosmic energy loop where whatever happens around that team. You can shake up the coach and the GM, it doesn't really matter. They're just stuck energy wise in the middle. I dig it because it kind of feels like, um, a house that has haunted, where the spirit that uh, the spirit doesn't change. They're they're trapped in something dark and negative themselves. That's why they are where they are, and like even their dark energy is boring, Like it's a boring dark energy. The Vikings seem no matter what they do, they do seem the similar to me year after year when we do the show Connor, it's um, you know what it is. It's like it's it could be this like private obsession of owners. Ziggy will for like he he goes into the stadium on game day in disguise and he's looking around and he just and he just loves the idea of like like a person never reaching a certain level of happiness. You know, he just you know, he just watches watches people watch Dalvin Cook slam into the line for like a two yard gain on an ice so han off and then and then know that that person was like really hoping this would be a moment where he could connect with his son and see an incredible play, but instead, like it's just play after play of Dalvin Cook ramming into the line for two yards, And like Ziggy Wilton just loves this idea of of complete and utter like unfeelingnus media pretty like yeah, that makes him very ungenerous of spirit, a certain sort of um and not even an ambivalence antipathy towards the human race that he wants maybe he wants them to feel, not to psychoanalyze here in this scenario, but like to feel how he feels um and just feel very middle of the road. I feel like his brother Wealth got off with the better scenario here like this is uh, this is uh there, this is why I need you like guys to help me out with this exercise because mine still sort of went back to like what is the vikings standing is gonna finish? But you guys helped helped me. I think it'd be a good episode. What's one for you? Connor? So I have uh I have here and with the Tom Brady News today, uh interesting sort of uh interesting sort of connection here on the broadcast or front. But at some point in the next few months, there would be a credible discovery of a John Madden look alike in the Panamanian village of lacho Era outside of a Bunco general that touches off a massive league wide conspiracy about the legitimacy of his death. So is John Madden really dead? But I mean it's this is fantastic, So he know he's so it's not like a clone. It's like he's just getting older and older. But he's been hitting out in this um other area of the earth outside of a Bunco general uh in Latreia, which is in Panama. And you know, he just had to escape the hustle and bustle of the NFL. But something inside of me believes that he longs to return, um to call big NFL games, especially now I believe he would top the thirty five million a year that Tom Brady just got to Mark's. Mark's face just lit up, especially with your pronunciation of the place in Panama. Uh. He just is so happy. I love to see you two together because Connor and Mark do you guys just make each other happy. Nothing wrong with that we do, especially when we were at the cozy taking each other happy. I love that too. Um. I think um Matt and always would talk about the bus talking to each other at the Hall of Fame and uh he believed in mysticism. I believe like that they are never I don't really believe Al Davis is dead, Like I don't think Mark Davis got that stadium built. So I feel like maybe they're together. They always they always remained us. I took a virtual tour through in in Uh during research for the show, and it seems it seems lovely all right, we'll do a quick speed round. We're gonna have to go uh shortly, but my just speed round one is just gonna be kind of an investigation into UM, like what it's like to play with Aaron Rodgers. I just feel like that would be a good episode. And why why Davonte Adams left UM. Aaron Rodgers said he was the man who was the reason why people came to play in Green Bay, and now you look at their team and the only you know, person that came back to play there is Randall cop like Odell Beckham. That would be a nice place to go play. Aaron Rodgers. You talked about your ability to bring people in and and attract them. Go get Aldell Beckham. You could absolutely use him right now, and they have the cap space to do it. And so I think that would be a good episode, just sort of looking into that everything that's beyond uh totally Like, I think there's a lot there that UM is yet to be uncovered. My mind is this is a more sort of football e uh. I think that we are months away from a sizzling report in which it's revealed. I mean, I think we already feel this way to some degree, but with real facts and and dangerous items and bullet points that the Niners are quietly in turmoil because Kyle Shanahan simply doesn't believe that Trey Lands can do it. And all this business that's been going on for the Jimmy g last season, everything is a fractured scenario inside a team that has Super Bowl dreams. Love that in the sense that it's history repeating. Mike Shanahan and his general manager in front office says that was his downfall. They always started clashing. It was like palace intrigue. I could see that happening. What's your last speed? Round one? Connor Okay Uh Chargers receiver Josh Palmer stuns the NFL in a few weeks with an early retirement, opting to focus on his true prapped passion of creating a rechargeable battery for home guardening equipment. That lessons are reliance on foreign raw materials and this this creates thousands of jobs in the process and pulls away dozens of his teammates with the promises of term employment pensions. Uh. You know, all this great stuff in the NFL basically becomes a massive networking ground for American mind essential materials business. So it's players want to get into the NFL so that they can jump into American mind materials, and not to stay in the NFL. That is gonna because of Josh Palmer. That's gonna kill the Chargers in the a f C West. There, Slater and Zion Johnson are like, oh, yeah, we're going with Josh and suddenly products Yeah, no offensive line help whatsoever. Well, based on the reaction of the the group that I'm watching behind the glass that was that idea was a winner. You delighted them. They were laughing, they were smiling. They were like children again. After Mark and I totally bore them talking about football for news. For a lot of people behind the glass, our children still well, yeah, you guys are in your twenties to to us, to us your children, um, but we're we're the type we have children. Mark Connor does he's wearing a less Sneed f Them Picks sweatshirt right now. I love it, Connor. Um, as Dan would say, You've said it all, what a what a delight to see you again, bye, guys. I feel like it's like Dan's away and we got away with this episode, or I think he would know, I think he would have totally enjoyed it, and I'm sure he'll be listening he who knows, maybe he's in Panama wherever. That was. See you later, Connor, guys, thanks for having me. Yeah, um what a show. Um big week, big show. That was great, and uh, we're gonna have a great show on Thursday, Mark schedule release Spectacular. It was always um West's least favorite tent pole event by the NFL, but I think we're going to up the most of it. That's that's absolutely true. He hated it, he hated making a big deal of it, he hated writing about it, and um Dan, you know, I don't know if it was intentional that he set up his anniversary on a day where they would eventually do the schedule release show, like fifteen years later. Probably not. I don't think it's moved around actually over the years, it's now much later than it used to be. But he happens to be gone. But we do have some special guests. Rachel Bonetta is going to be joining us on on the show. We hope to get Patrick clay Bown in here as well for part of it, and so that'll be fun. We will release it as a podcast, hopefully right when the schedule is released at eight pm Eastern time five pm Pacific. We're not allowed to release any earlier than that. I think that's probably the sixth, seventh, eighth time we've done this. Well, we'll have to find out, Graver, go find out what annual episode this is between now and Thursday. Okay, that's it. You don't have anything more, a lot of legwork for for Graver though, Uh, he's doing a great job. Yeah, for um, for the late John Madden, or maybe not the late John Justin Graver Connor or Mark Sessler. We'll see you on Thursday. Heave a call. M