Up Next
Transcript
All right, so like my first big thought of the , uh, for the summer is there are a lot of teams that are all in, um, it feels like, and I think this is sort of, um, and it's gonna sound weird because one of the teams has been doing this for a while, but I do think that there's a little bit of like an Eagles effect here, um, and the way the Eagles have approached it and the way they've spent cash over cap and the way they haven't been afraid of like what the future consequences are gonna be.
Um, when they're trying to win in the here and the now, and the Eagles have been really effective at it because they're so good with asset management, but, um, you know, these teams are too.
And so, like I, I look at the Rams and they're the most obvious example, right?
Like just because They went and got Miles Garrett, they went and got Trent McDuffie, um, you know , Matthew Stafford is now into his late 30s, so, like, they look like the ultimate like, Super Bowls in our stadium.
We don't care what it takes to get there.
Similar to 5 years ago, we're all in.
So they're the obvious example.
But then I look at like San Francisco and Pittsburgh, and I just look at the age of those rosters, you know.
And so, like San Francisco's roster, I mean, you go down the line and guys that they're relying on.
And I think part of this is, The Trey Lance trade, um, and they didn't have first-round picks for a few years and so it probably forced them to kind of stay the course with the group they have a little bit more than maybe they would have otherwise, but, you know, you've got McCaffrey, Kittle, um, you know, Trent Williams, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa coming back off the ACL.
It is an older roster in That the most important players, the best players on the team, are also the oldest players.
So how does that hold up?
And I think with Pittsburgh, it's even to another extreme, you know, like where you've got TJ Watt, Jalen Ramsey.
Um, you know, uh, DK Metcalf's got mileage for a guy in his late 20s, and then they almost doubled down on it this offseason, obviously bringing Aaron Rodgers back, but also trading for Michael Pittman, who's, you know, well into his 2nd contract, um, going and getting Jamel Dean from the Bucks, going and getting Rico Dowdell.
It's like, and that's a team where I looked at and said, they look like they need to rip the band-aid off.
And so, I think you've got like a few teams there that have kind of taken this go for broke approach, and it's just gonna be interesting to see how that plays out, you know, especially for with these teams relying on some older players and some key spots, and even the Rams have some of that age, right?
Like, so Stafford's older, Devonte Adams is older.
Uh, you know, on the defensive side of the ball, Miles Garrett is 30 now.
So, again, not in, not the, not that I'm saying he's gonna take this huge step back or anything else, but he is 30.
Um, it's just, it's an interesting dynamic when you're reliant on, on some guys who are a little further into their careers that way.
I do wonder if you can take that though, Albert, and bundle it into, because I, I don't know what direction it's going and I don't think coaches know what direction it's going either, but I think that you've seen a pronounced shift from, and you can say it's like the first McVeigh.
And less Snead era.
But there's been other coaches over time too, like Andy Reid was like this, Bill Belichick was like this, where they just like veteran players who know what they're doing and have a sample size and can be responsible to run.
Some version of a scheme to the exact specifications that they want it run.
And I guess that's probably not like a trend, so to speak, but we have so many kids and I think that probably NIL benefits quarterbacks because you get scheme diversity, you get more cracks at the apple, you get more starts, you get more experience.
What I think it probably hoses are, Defensive players, offensive linemen, you know, some of these other core positions where it's not like, like you're going from Tulane to Akron to Texas Tech, three very different defenses.
One guy might see you as a 9 technique, one guy might see, you know, the, the like, it's not like you're getting, you know, I, I don't think you're absorbing as much.
You're kind of pinballing.
And, and, and, and, and I don't know if that's true or if it's not true.
It's just something that I'm kind of thinking about, but, I do wonder if the NIL is helping quarterbacks, but maybe, and, and maybe other positions like running back, I, I could see it helping, but is not helping some of these positions where other teams are like, just it.
I, I need like a, I need like a 30 year old and I'll take the injury risk on the back end.
But at the same time, like, I can't deal with this guy who, you know, really doesn't know where his feet are on the ground yet.
I don't know, right, right.
And I think that that definitely exists and like it is maybe something where you look at it like we're gonna have a distinct advantage if we can do things a certain way that other teams just can't do.
That's like what we were talking about the scheme stuff, you know, like I, so like I, I think it's, It's What the Eagles, and the Eagles are aligning, like, the Eagles are sort of still there, you know, like where they still have the salary cap traffic jam.
Now, they started to, I think the AJ Brown trade is them starting to untangle it, you know, like, um, because they're gonna have some more big contracts coming down the line.
Cooper Dejean, um, you know, Quinon Mitchell is gonna probably get a massive deal, um, in a year.
Um, you know, Jalen Carter, we'll see.
Um, but I do think that there's a little bit more of like, I guess it's like with the cap going up the way that it has, the illusion of being in cap jail is almost disappearing, you know, and you see some of these, some of these teams that are, I mean, I think the Rams a couple of years ago, the Bills a couple of years ago, both like took a year and they were in separate years.
I can't recall exactly which year it was for the Rams.
It was the year I think they traded Ramsey, and the Bills, it was 2 years ago, it was 24.
But those teams took on massive amounts of cap debt in a single year, as like a method to reset, and both were like really good those years, you know.
So, like I think the illusion that if you do this or if you go all in, um, and spend cash over cap and get old, that there's gonna be some sort of five-year penalty on the back end is completely gone away.
And part of that is, I mean, I, I think part of that is how fast the cap is escalating now.
Part of it is you just sort of creatively figure out ways around it, but I don't think teams are as scared of that anymore, like the idea of it happening.
So long as you have an owner who is willing to spend that way and is willing to invest cash over the salary cap in given years, not just a given year, given years.
One of the things that, and this is an interesting kind of like subconversation that, but one of the things that Been thinking a lot about oddly had like a passionate reaction to the Carolina Hurricanes winning the, um, uh, Stanley Cup.
And the reason why is because the Hurricanes are owned by a guy named Tom Dundon.
OK.
Tom Dundon, uh, was the guy who, um, basically came in as an angel investor in the Alliance of American Football and, and yanked, uh, the, Funding out of that at the last minute and you had players like that weren't able to pay their hotel bills and all that kind of stuff, right?
stuck in like Memphis like with like a $5000 hotel bill that wasn't paid for.
They, uh, sent a message to all the players on Team Snap to say please stop stealing the Cholula hot sauce because it's too expensive for us to replace in the cafeteria.
Anyway, Tom Dunnon's like the top golf guy, uh, but a billionaire, right?
And there's a reason that he got, uh, acquired that kind of wealth in the first place.
He also owns the, uh, the Portland Trail Blazers.
The Portland Trail Blazers stopped traveling two-way players during the playoffs and just signed the first NBA coach to a one-year contract.
OK.
Essentially like a one-year contract, which is wild.
And I almost made this my second parting shot, but I want to get to someone else.
Uh, but I'll, but I'll just, by the way, like while we're there, did you hear about what happened with Uruguay?
Yes, yes.
So for those of you who don't know, the Uruguay Soccer Federation refused to charter a plane home for the team after they didn't make the knockout round.
And so they had to fly economy like the rest of us dopes, which is, uh, I mean I'm like, can you imagine being like a on a, on a, on a, on like a, like a, I don't know, uh, a Delta flight from LAX to Uruguay and like there's this, there's the, there's the like striker is like sitting middle seat like, but like the thing is you're wrestling for the armrest with him it's, it's the thing is like, like everyone on that flight knows.
Who you are.
You know what I mean?
Because like, you're not traveling to Uruguay.
Uh, I mean, maybe you're going there on vacation.
I don't know, but you're not traveling to Uruguay without it, you know, you're probably gonna have some cursory knowledge of like soccer, soccer players from Uruguay.
And so whatever.
I think that this is, uh, an improvement over what happened to some soccer players.
In older World Cups when they didn't succeed, you know, way worse stories about what happened in South America after other World Cup losses.
Yes, so maybe just making them fly like the rest of us , uh, you know, which is a, uh, I detailed my plight the, the, on the last show I sat between a spat imagine if they win the World Cup.
Cup in 20 in 2030, like the victory lap that the guy who canceled the charter can he's, yeah, he's gonna be like, um, he's gonna be like Bear Bryant.
Like the reason that the junction boys played so well is because I deprived them of water and made them work out in the heat all day, not because I just got a bunch of really good players, uh, out of, out of nowhere, um, but, uh.
So my, my thought is this, um, that it's two-pronged.
One, if the Saints never really truly suffered for their cap behavior, and they haven't, no team is gonna suffer from their cap.
I would say the Saints, do you, do you think they suffered a little bit?
Yeah, I would say the Saints, it was, you know what I think the the to me like the Saints.
The, the cost of them and their cap management really to me was the 2017 draft class and that that should have been the foundation for them for years and years and years to come.
And so they have Lattimore who they eventually have to trade, right?
They have Ryan Ramshek who was a really good player for them for a long time.
They, they have to let Marcus Williams walk.
They have to let Trey Hendrickson walk.
Um, Alvin Kamara, they signed long term.
So, I mean, the fact that they couldn't get that class locked up the way they should have been able to get that class locked up, I'm missing someone too.
There's someone else in that class that was good that I'm forgetting right now offhand, but Oh, it's, um, wasn't On Amaa in that class?
I think he was, but oh, yes, yes, so like, like it, it was, it was their, their inability to kind of keep some of their own, I think wound up being the cost, but for the most part they were able to manage it.
So, and, and so you have that, right?
And then owners still use the cap as an excuse and then you have Dundon over here in this bucket where my fear is that like some of these owners are just gonna look at that and be like, oh well, that guy's winning Stanley Cups, you know, that guy's doing really well.
Maybe I'll sign my coach to a one-year contract.
Maybe I'll fear though is somebody conducts themselves like that, it works and then it becomes a green light for everybody else, right, right.
And that's the thing.
It's like, because I love to put a bow on it.
I love being all in.
Every team should be all in.
All the time to some degree, right?
And, and whether it's like you're all in on your rebuild, you're all in on trying to win the Super Bowl, like this is an entertainment product.
We are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to watch this on a yearly basis.
Fans don't deserve what I think some fan bases are getting, which is just a perpetual, uh, rebuild to nowhere, you know, but, uh, that's, uh, that's neither here nor there.
