Ravens HC Jesse Minter hopes to get Lamar Jackson at OTAs + Broncos HC Sean Payton will give up play-calling duties to OC Davis Webb (2/26 Hour 2)

Welcome back to PFD Live, Wednesday, February 26. We are here in Indianapolis at the Scouting Combine. Eric DaCosta, GM of the Ravens, said he's definitely confident about reaching a contract extension with Lamar Jackson, whose cap hit this year is $74.5 million. Now, if they don't, they've got a mechanism where they can do the automatic extension, kick the can, restructure, not extension, but the restructuring where it knocks the cap number down, probably throws on some voidable years, spreads out the damage, but it doesn't give them a contract that goes beyond 2027. They need the extension because currently Lamar Jackson's leverage is, I got two years left under contract, and then I can walk away. There's a no tag clause in his contract. They cannot stop him from becoming a free agent. And I currently don't believe he's going to ask to be traded. I don't think he will be based upon what I've heard. Yeah. Not that it was ever a huge possibility, but he's committed to sticking around, and he's willing to talk about an extension. I think it's going to have to be 62 to get him to take it in new money. That's not hard to do when you've already got $104 million over the next two years. You can add a three-year extension at a new money average of $62 million. That's $186. You add it to the $104. That's $290 million over five years. You do the math there. And this is where new money and full value at signing have a separation. I'm going to do the math here live and try not to screw it up. $290 divided by 5, it's $58 million. It's still $58 million. But that's what they're going to have to do. Something like that. Make him the highest paid quarterback more than Dak Prescott. And you could objectively argue he's better than Dak Prescott. I mean, Dak Prescott is very good, but Lamar Jackson is a two-time MVP. He's better. So if Dax is 60, why shouldn't Lamar Jackson be north of that? So that's what it's going to take to get it done. And they want to get it done by the start of the league year. And we'll see if they can initiate the communication, get the deal done, and move forward. Yeah, I mean, they've got to get it done, I think, two reasons. One, they're still viewed themselves as a pretty good football team that is not going to fall off a cliff. But they've got to figure some things out with their roster. And they've got some older guys. And, you know, they've got Justin Matubike, who's got the neck injury. and some money there that we don't know if he's ever going to come back. So they got some things coming down the pipe here where they're trying to kind of retool, reorganize their roster on the run here while also having one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. There's no way they're letting Lamar Jackson out of the building unless he is just like, I want out of here. I don't want to be here. But I think Lamar Jackson, even with his tweets the other day about the NFL admitting the mistakes on some of the calls, I think that even shows you he's still all in. He hasn't disengaged. Exactly right. I thought that was a really positive sign for the Ravens Lamar. So you know you got that. And, you know, with Lamar, he's certainly still one of the best players in the sport. We know that as well. And you just don't give a guy like that away. So they're going to sign him up. We heard ownership talk about it as soon as the season was over. He knows how much he's wanted there. And hopefully he realizes that if he gets that done and signs the new deal, it's only going to help the team and help with other contracts on their football team so they can build something towards the end of his career to where hopefully he can get to a Super Bowl and win one. I also think he's a guy who will consider whether the grass is greener but realize it may not be before insisting on the opportunity to go to the greener grass. He knows football, right. And, you know, he'll maybe vent a little bit quietly, muse about the possibility of going somewhere else. There's that mindset in some league circles that he'd like to play for the Dolphins at some point. But he has yet to cross the Rubicon that would cause him to want to leave the Ravens. And I think there was a stress test this year because I think he would have preferred a coach with offensive expertise and head coaching experience. And he gets a guy who's a defensive coach with no head coaching experience. And now the challenge for Jesse Minter, who's gotten that job, is to get Lamar Jackson to choose to show up for the offseason program so he can learn the new offense. And Lamar has given up $1.5 million total over the last two years by not showing up for enough of the offseason workouts. Damn, Lamar. Here's Minter from yesterday. He could have gave me that money. I would have gone and worked with him and hung out with him and done some stuff and whatever. I was going to mention from the Chris Sims Unbutton podcast being interrupted. I mean, it was from the Chris. I was a guest for the first time ever on Chris Sims Unbuttoned to interview a guest on the show. That's like Inception type stuff. It was. We were live on NBC Sports, our YouTube page, and doing all that. So, yeah, you jumped in, and I had to play host for a minute, which was funny. Here's Minter in response to my question, not his, on getting Lamar Jackson to choose to participate in the team's voluntary offseason program. How do you as the head coach come up with a strategy to get your quarterback to volunteer to be there so he can learn the new offense and the team can get off on the right foot? First of all, I do have total respect for the rules that it is voluntary. Totally understand that. And Lamar has had unbelievable success doing it both ways. And so there's certainly a balance there. But I think it's our job to create an environment and a learning opportunity where they feel like it's really important to them to want to be there. The feeling of what we're doing now will pay off in September and October and November versus, okay, we're coming in and we're kind of doing the same routine. It just needs to be an environment that they really feel the importance of it. Well, also us understanding that we're going to take advantage of who's there. We understand that things come up in the offseason. And so we'll make the best of the situation no matter what it is. Eric DaCosta on that same topic a day earlier said that Lamar is a two-time MVP. I think he knows what it takes to get ready for the grind of the NFL season. He's proven he can do it at a very, very high level, and I have no preference. And the BS meter is in response to that. They want him there. They want him there. But they're tiptoeing around him. They're probably a little scared because they don't know if he's definitely going to be there. So they don't want to say he's not, you know, we want him there, we want him there. And then, you know, the first week comes and he's like, hey, you know, I'm not going to be there. and it kind of looks silly. So there's that aspect. But, yeah, they need him there. And I will sit here and plead to Lamar that he needs to be there. And I'm saying that as a guy that, yeah, I don't know Lamar personally, but I root for him and I want the best for him. And I sit here all the time and say, damn, he's one of the greatest quarterbacks we've ever seen in the sport, and he's yet to be a Super Bowl. It's crazy we're sitting here. And to me, yes, with a new regime and a new offensive system, right, you see all that. Declan Doyle, it's going to be different as far as what he's expected to do with the line of scrimmage, the verbiage and the huddle, all of that. And that's where you would like him to be there to be a part of that process instead of, hey, we're on the phone here and there. We zoomed here and there. We've had some meetings a little bit, but we didn't have any real time to really get into the nuance of the offense until training camp. You don't want that to happen. That's the big thing. So that's where I think they hope Lamar is there for the full offseason and I hope Lamar is there too because I only think it's going to help him and then this got a chance to be a damn good offense with him underneath center there. There's this weird dynamic that plays out from time to time where I get these Ravens fans who say he hates Lamar. Why are you saying this about Lamar? It's like, wait a minute. We're constantly supporting him. My longstanding position he should have an agent isn't about helping the agent that he would hire. It's about helping Lamar get his contracts done on a more timely basis, get him the money he deserves more expediently, make the process go more smoothly so he can have what he wants. So he has an advocate who is trying to bring whatever he desires his career to be to fruition, which a good agent can do. And he does have the right to stay away from the offseason program, but he gave up $750,000 to do it. And I assume he understands that, but man, that's a lot to consciously give up. And I know when you're making a lot of money, you know, $750,000. That's a lot of money to give up. And what Jesse Minner said, I think, makes a lot of sense. And there may be a little bit of a backhanded slap in there at the way things they've done or how they've done things. Well, Now, when Minner says we've got to make them think this is worth their time, and if Lamar hasn't been there, the implication is he doesn't think it's worth his time, which means the past coaching staff wasn't doing enough to make the players like Lamar believe they had to be there, that they're learning something, that they're getting the keys to the kingdom, that they're getting the secrets. And I just think that's a communication thing because after hanging out some yesterday with Todd Munkin, who's been the offensive coordinator for the past several years in Baltimore, I'd be like, yeah, I'd want to soak up everything this guy had to say. I can go there and listen to him for X hours a day, four days a week, for 10 weeks or however long the whole program is. Yeah, I want to do that. I want to be around him more. I want to learn that. So maybe it was just a failure to communicate or just press the right buttons, but they've always had this vibe of their tiptoeing around him because he doesn't have an agent, and they've always got to communicate through him. There's no third party they can go to and have an awkward conversation. So they're always awkward when it's dealing with Lamar. It's so obvious from our perspective that it's all tiptoeing around eggshells, tiptoeing around the delicate genius, as I used to say about Aaron Rodgers. But I just think that they don't want to piss Lamar off. They want to respect him. And so that tough conversation doesn't happen as clearly and directly as it needs to. Or maybe it just doesn't even happen at all. Right. Well, it happens generally anyways when you're as great as Lamar is. So there's going to be some tiptoeing there to a degree. And then Lamar also has been so great that he's been able to also, yeah, have years where I didn't show up for OTAs. I still won the MVP. I was the man. So there's a little bit of that. But I will still sit here and tell you from the fabric of the team, the culture of the team, yeah, it's better to be there. And then where, you know, hopefully it hits him a little bit this year is that the offense is going to have some maybe more moving parts and things to learn. And maybe he realizes early on in the process, like, whoa, I missed the first day or two and I'm way behind. And there's things here that, like, I need to get a grasp of, right? It's a totally different way of things I got to do and orchestrate at the line of scrimmage. and hopefully within that fear of, wait, I don't want to be left behind, that I want to learn this stuff and know this so we can continue to grow the offense that Lamar will be there and be there for that. But we'll see where it goes. Lamar is phenomenal. We know that. Declan Doyle, I'm excited to see what he can be, the offensive coordinator there, coming from Detroit, being under Ben Johnson a little bit. So that's going to be a similar system. We're going to see Lamar underneath center. Lamar is a guy that does not – he's got no limitations. as far as what you can do with him on the offensive side of the ball. And he never seems to say anything or we never hear anything. He doesn't like to do this or do that. He'll get underneath the center. They motioned. Munkin's offense had a lot of different stuff moving parts to it. So he's obviously capable of picking up an offense in a hurry. But at the same time, I don't care who you are. When you're picking up a new offense, it's never easy as a quarterback. And my point is this as it relates to Lamar Jackson. I think we all need, especially in our 20s, someone in our life who can have the difficult conversations with us in an effective way, that we will listen to them, that we trust them, and that they understand the nuances of this broader environment in which we operate. That's where an agent would be helpful to Lamar. To be that liaison to the team, but also to go to Lamar and say, here's what I think you need to do. If you want the best advice for how to advance your career, this is what you need to do. This is the offer you need to accept. This is the offer that we need to make. this is how we need to engineer your career. And he's never had that. It has still worked to his benefit. He's won two MVPs, $52.5 million per year contract that he got at a time when it wasn't clear he was ever going to get a deal done. It was top of the market at the time. But, you know, he's wanted an adjustment for a year now, and he hasn't gotten one. And one of the reasons he hasn't gotten one is he doesn't have that guy who can be the buffer that the team can say things to, that they'd like to say to Lamar, but they can't say it directly. and then Lamar's got somebody who can say to the team the things he may not be comfortable saying directly. It just bridges that gap. And I go back to the 61-page ruling in the collusion grievance that Lamar and Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson all put their names on that Pablo Torre uncovered after they tried to hide it, they being the league and the union for five months. When you look at that, it's clear that there were basic impediments to communication between Lamar Jackson and Eric DaCosta. You have a good agent there, and you eliminate that. You smooth that over. So, oh, I've got to give the agent 3%. But your 97% piece of the pie is bigger than the 100% pie that you baked on your own. That's what the guys who insist on representing themselves don't understand. Yes, I have to give up 3%. But what I have left is more pie than if I bake a full pie and keep it all myself. To totally hear you there, I'm always in favor of the agent. The team has the advantage in negotiations. Football players are football players. They're not agents. And you can still do a good contract. He did that. But, you know, an agent can put tools in certain language and things that can protect a player and maybe would have been able to foresee the future a little bit. Maybe have gotten more money going, hey, the market's going here. And Lamar will be left behind here very shortly if we don't kind of orchestrate the contract like that. And Lamar is looking at it right now going, I've been left behind, right? I need a new deal. I need to do something. One thing that Baltimore needs to figure out in general on this whole subject, I know you've heard this. You know I've heard this from people that have been in Baltimore, in Baltimore, whatever. They got to stop from what we been told right and me specifically They got to stop There a little bit of we always heard this favor the Stars a little bit in Baltimore Favor the Stars The Stars kind of get away with a little bit more than the rest of the football team And that's just not how it's going to go down. I heard Mike Vrabel last week in an interview, they talked about, or right before the Super Bowl, what are non-negotiables in coaching a football team? And he said you got to treat your best player like everybody else on the football team. You can't go down that road. And, of course, he's using that experience. If you saw Bill Belichick treat Tom Brady like he was player number 46 on the roster instead of the GOAT, right? So that's where I do think that has to be fixed a little bit. And hopefully Lamar can fix that himself a little bit and help bridge that a little. But as we know, with great organizations and teams that win the Super Bowl more times than not, the quarterback's there all the time, invested all the time, in the facility all the time, a gym rat, a psycho, involved in the draft process, looking at players, helping the team out in free agency, living it, breathing it, all they do. That's all I ever hear with people connected to Kansas City. I hear it with people connected in Buffalo. I hear it with people in Cincinnati, with Joe Burrow. And so that's where I just go. That's one area I think Lamar can improve on a little bit. Let me give you a tangible example before we break of how the absence of an agent has worked to the detriment of the Ravens. For the Ravens fans out there who think that this is just anti-Lamar pro agent, okay? Lamar Jackson was a first-round pick in 2018. In 2019, he won his first league MVP award. And they also were the number one seed. Let's just start first off. He wouldn't have been drafted where he was drafted if he had an agent. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. Great point, and we've talked about that in the past because he didn't have anyone defending him against the Bill Pullian. He should change to a running back. I had people, that was the year I had him the number one quarterback. Remember we went to the owner's meeting? I got blowback from everybody to where I reorganized my thing because I said, obviously, there's something behind the scenes here. Like, is he crazy? Is there something wrong? I would walk through the hallways when we were in Florida for the owner's meeting that year, and people would go, Lamar Jackson, number one? I'm talking like pretty big-time people involved in the NFL. Number one quarterback? Are you, what? What? Man, that's a crazy take. And I was like, man, is it crazy? I don't know. I'm watching the film. He's the fastest guy in the field. He's got the strongest arm in college football. What's crazy about it? So I thought there was something there. That was my first lesson, and I'm never going to listen to anybody ever again and just die on my own health. I remember the first time I saw the guy's highlights at Louisville. I was like, holy shit, this guy is going to revolutionize the game. Yeah, yeah. Running and throwing, unstoppable. But we get scared of people that do it a little different way, right? That's what happens. Caleb paints his nails. Oh, no. Oh, I don't know if he can drop back and read a coverage. Oh, that's right, he can. So 2018, he's drafted. 2019, he's the league MVP, and they're the number one seed. Lose to the Titans in the division around in the upset. 2020, after that season, the window opened on his second contract. Yes. Okay? He's due to get paid. Well, what happened in 21 and 22 when he had yet to get a deal done because they couldn't work this out because of the communication issues between the team and the Ravens. Worked through 3% right there. He gets hurt late in the year. And we support this. You haven't gotten the contract you deserve yet. The team hasn't given it to you. You're carrying the injury risk. If that minor injury becomes a major injury, you're the one that bears the burden of it, not the team. So don't play. So what happened late in the 21 season? He tapped out and didn't play because he was injured. And they missed the playoffs. And people on the team thought, like, oh, we kind of feel like he might have been able to play. Well, you give him his contract, you give him the financial reward he's already earned, and he'll be out there. Now, if an agent was in play, he would have had it by then. 22. He missed the playoff game that year against the Bengals. Right? Yeah. So, and the same deal. He's got the injury, but he hadn't had the contract. So those are two seasons where the late effort by the Ravens was impaired by the absence of Lamar Jackson due to an injury that he had no business playing with because he had yet to get his contract. That's where the absence of an agent who could have bridged that gap and gotten that done, and Lamar would have been there for 21 and 22. And when he finally got his contract, everyone was like, oh, see, he got a market value contract on his own. Yeah, but it came two years too late. And through those two years, Josh Allen was making a hell of a lot more money than Lamar. Yeah, that's your point. And you're never getting that back. That's your point. There's your point about the 3% you could have made up. All right. We're rooting for Lamar. And we'll see if the Ravens can ultimately convince him to show up for the offseason program. When we return, Sean Payton's making a big change when it comes to the Denver offense. We'll discuss that next on this Thursday. Wednesday. Tuesday. Monday. Tuesday. Thursday. Wednesday. Did you hang out with me last night? Thursday. Did you steal something in my stash? You can't talk today. Thursday. It's getting my days wrong. I've been getting them wrong all week. It's Groundhog Day. PFT Live, it is Thursday. It really is Groundhog Day. Six o'clock. The alarm goes off. Babe, I got you, babe. I love Indianapolis, but every day feels the same here. When we're here, because it's the same time of year, we come back to the same place every day. What's different than a day-to-day schedule where you wake up at home? and look at your chair with a pile of clothes and you grab it and you mosey up to the damn barn garage, whatever that is. I'll tell you what it is. In your normal routine, the days have a feel to them. When you're in your normal habitat, Monday feels like Monday, Tuesday feels like Tuesday, Wednesday feels like Wednesday. The days have a feel to them. When you get in a setting like this where you're not in your normal habitat, but everything is the same every day, you completely lose track of time. That's my explanation. I'll buy it. So it's Thursday, I think. Sean Payton is giving up play-calling duties to offensive coordinator Davis Webb. Webb interviewed for head coaching jobs this year with the Raiders, Ravens, and the Bills. And I think that if they hadn't parted ways with Joe Lombardi, the former offensive coordinator, and bumped up Davis Webb, he would have been hired as an offensive coordinator by the Buffalo Bills, quite possibly. Right. Where he had been a backup quarterback and a close confidant of Josh Allen. Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe. Maybe he would have gone to somebody in the AFC West. They didn't want to deal with that. Could have gone to the Raiders. Could have gone to the Raiders, exactly right. I don't know if he was available. Might have gone to the Chargers. Maybe they wouldn't have got, you know, right? So there's a lot of possibilities. But I will say this is, I was shocked. I was shocked when I saw this news. This is shocking to me. I mean, one, Sean Payton, as we know, has been one of the great offensive minds in football over the last 20, 25 years. He's been phenomenal that way. We've seen Bo Nix rise through the NFL here in the first two years, and everybody thought, oh gosh, Bo Nix, he's not all that. All he does is throw screens at Oregon and all that crap, right? So he's got here with Sean Payton, playoffs two years in a row, number one seed this year, do that. So am I surprised to hear that one of the greatest play callers of our generation and one of the greatest offensive minds there is, and that they have it rolling on offense a little bit without top-tier talent on that side of the ball, that they're going to just hand it off to Davis Wed? Yeah, I'm shocked by that. It's so shocked that it makes me wonder, and I don't know this, okay, I'm just throwing this out there with a guy that thinks about football and I connect dots and do that all the time. It makes me wonder if ownership or somebody said, you got to do something here. You got to make a Davis Webb call the plays or whatever. Or was there something there with Bo Nix and that they had some tension at times during the year and they just went, you know what, Davis Webb communicates a little better. I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there because it is just a shocking thing to me that, like I said, one of the greatest. I can't imagine McVay or Shanahan, you know, that type of guy giving up the play calling duty. I can't. But then there's also the part of me, too, Mike, where he does come from the Bill Parcells School of Coaching, too, where, yeah, Bill was a manager and overseer of all, right? That's what he was. But he also was with John Gruden, who was the play caller, the head coach, and did all that as well. So, yeah, this was one that, like, when I first saw this this week, I was like, wow, Sean Payton not going to call plays? I can't believe it. Well, and it's been so much of what he does. He's been a head coach since 2006. He had the one year off, which wasn't supposed to be a year off. He was supposed to go to Miami with Tom Brady, but that got the kibosh. Right. But he always calls the plays. And it's so much a part of his experience in the NFL. I don't know if he sees a way to, I mean, it does help Davis Webb. If anything, it makes him more prepared to be a head coach. It makes him more qualified to leave. It ensures it's going to be a one-year arrangement because what's he always had? He's had that Pete Carmichael, Joe Lombardi, guy that never gets any credit because it's always Sean Payton. And I don't know if Sean Payton wants to evolve into a CEO role. Maybe Greg Penner, who was the CEO of Walmart, has tried to manage Payton in a way to get him to understand that at some point you have to delegate everything and fully accept the role of CEO of the team, that the team will be better off if you graduate to that next level. I don't know. So maybe if you have less time in the weeds of what our play call is going to be on fourth and short and more time in the, not in the weeds, but in the tower of do we go for it at all, instead of trying to spin both of those plates, do we go for it? And if we do, what play do we call? If you separate those two, maybe you make a better decision. I don't know. Maybe that fourth down play was the impetus for all of it. Maybe. Maybe. You know, I'm still trying to kind of wrap my head around how this would have gone down either way. Now, Davis Webb, he's been around some different offenses. Can he bring some new ideas to the offense and all that? Sure, he certainly can do that. We've seen Peyton do this, Sean Peyton do this once in his career, right? Didn't he do this one year in New Orleans with Pete Carmichael? I believe he gave him play calling duties for one year, and I believe the next year he took it back and went back and did it. Okay. I'm pretty sure there's once. But even then, I remember being surprised and shocked by that. But that wasn't as surprising because Carmichael had been with Peyton for so long. It felt like it was just an extension. He just knows what he wants. They're going to go through the game planning together, and he knows exactly the way he wants to play and how the game wants to call. This one's a little different. Davis Webb's been there for two years. I get it. But that's not necessarily a long time in the NFL to be like, oh, I know this guy like the back of my hand. I know exactly what he wants. But obviously Davis Webb is on a trajectory to being a NFL head coach and one of the brighter minds on the offensive side of the ball in football, and you're seeing that a little bit. Past coordinators such as Pete Carmichael and Joe Lombardi occasionally called plays during preseason games. That is according to The Athletic. Okay. And then there's a Carmichael took over in 2011 when Peyton broke his leg. There it is. That's it. When he broke his leg. So that's what it was. And when he was suspended in 2012. Somebody else had to call the plays. I forgot about 2012. There were two years when Sean Payton wasn't calling plays. Right. That still is bullshit in hindsight. I'm sorry. And it was in foresight that they suspended for a four year. But you're surprised like me with this situation. Yeah, I'm surprised by it. But now that we've talked it through, I see the logic of it. And I can see, because I would assume that Sean Payton has a ton of respect for Greg Penner. And Greg Penner is incredibly accomplished in American business. And I think after being around him, and I could see that Penner would know how to say things to Sean Payton to get him to come to the conclusion on his own that it's in the best interest of the team for me to act as the CEO of the team and to delegate, delegate, delegate. Because the more I delegate things that are able to be delegated, the more time I can spend on the things that fall within the purview of the guy who's in charge of the entire team. I hear you. There's only so many hours in the day. And I know that Peyton is one of those who finds a way to fill every minute of every hour of every day from one game to the next with something productive that helps the team win. Searching for plays. Reviewing every touchdown that was scored the week before in search of anything they can use. So he can still use his superpower in that regard to support Davis Webb. Webb's calling the plays. That doesn't mean Webb's coming up with all the plays. It could be Peyton sitting there grinding film, and he finds something. And he says, hey, Davis, come to my office. Look at this play I found that we're going to use against the Chiefs on Sunday. Right. So it frees him up. It frees him up. It does. But we're also in a year where I sit here and we were in the Final Four and in the Super Bowl where the coaches were calling the plays on both sides of the ball. The head coaches. Vrabel was calling the defense. We know Mike McDonald was calling the defense. In the championship rounds, McVay was calling the offense. Mike McDonald was calling the defense. Sean Payton was calling the offense. I mean, Shanahan in the round before that. I mean, so that's where I'm surprised I am because I think Sean Payton can handle all that. We've seen that. He's won Super Bowls, should have gone to another Super Bowl, got screwed over by the refs and all that. It just feels like a little too, you know, I don't know if it's Penner or just the fact of like, hey, we knew we were getting rid of Joe Lombardi. We're going in a different direction and we're going to lose Davis Webb. And for me to keep him, I didn't want to lose him and Lombardi. I had to make him the offensive coordinator. I had to do that because he definitely was going to go somewhere else. And let him call the plays because he's going to go somewhere else and he is going to call the plays. Exactly right. So I think there was a little bit of all that that goes there. Either way, we'll continue to evaluate and see where it goes. Because he still could have left. That's the thing. Giving him the promotion doesn't – No, doesn't – Before he took the promotion, he could have gone anywhere he wanted to go to be the offensive coordinator. All right, let's take a break. Joshua Perry. Joshua Perry's coming. Here we go. Your Saturday colleague. Yeah, he's the only guy at NBC that has a bigger head than me. So this is going to be fun to watch him here. That's impressive. It's a high bar to have a bigger head than Chris Sims. You'll find out. Maybe we'll get a tape measure out. Okay, we'll see. Because it's combine time. You may as well. Everybody else is getting measured. Make us run the 40 back here too while you at it More PFT Live right after this Essig time There are the comparisons from 2003 to 2016 Joshua Perry, Ohio State linebacker. Same height as Chris Sims 13 years earlier. I thought you were 6'5". No, I was at that time. I was 6'4 and 5'8". And then I got measured in the NFL. I grew my first year at the NFL. Like a quarter of an inch, right? And from that point out, I got picked 6'5". I think I was 222 officially. Okay. And I think I was 4'8", too. But I'm just getting into it a little bit. That 40 is a little iffy. A little iffy. Well, yeah. Joshua, is yours accurate at 4'6", 8"? Are you objecting? It is. But this was like I was at the tail end of the big linebacker. Yeah. Well, right. And I was pocket-passing quarterback. So that's where I ran. Yeah, exactly. That wasn't that bad then. No. But then the Kyler Murrays and all these fast quarterbacks, they look me silly. But I think it's coming back, though. It is. It is going back. Big boy football. The other thing, too, on that graphic there, right? I mean, so you did the bench 20 times. You got long arms. I kind of wanted to do the bench as a quarterback because I was kind of that mean head jersey guy that lifted weights and did that. And I was like, I actually can do 225, like maybe 8, 10, 12 times. They looked at you like you were insane. But now some of them do it. Yeah, sure. Let them do it now, right? And it was one where I was like, damn, I could have maybe propped myself up. So how many do you think you could have done? And then I primed there. I think, you know, I think I was hitting like 12 and maybe 13 a few times. Because I trained for it because I was training with guys that were doing it anyways. So I would do it with them because I didn't want to be like, oh, I'm a quarterback. Most of these guys couldn't do 185. You know, like they just don't train like that. Yeah, no, I know. It's a different day. I saw a video on social media the other day, and it may have been AI for all I know, but Drew Rosenhaus, the agent, he did 225 13 times. What? And he's 59. What? I don't believe that. I've seen Drew in person. When I see him again today, I'm going to grab him now and go, where are these muscles that just did that? Let me see. Put the meat hooks on him. That is happening, no doubt about it. But this is one of my best buddies right here. I have a lot of fun with him in college football. We have a blast. He's on it. He's the man. Now, do you manhandle him the way you manhandle me? And I'm putting my arm up. I'm getting it ready because he gives me the backhanded slap because I think Joshua could manhandle you. Well, yeah, of course he can, right? And I fully support that. We have respect for each other because it would be too much work for him to manhandle me. I manhandle you because it's nothing. I blocked one of them. There's no fight back, so I know I'm okay. There are a couple back slaps on a Saturday. Wake you up, though. It's good. It's good. I do, and I've told you this, that when the whole thing was going around about the ammonia capsules, the smelling salt, and you, man, he took a major hit and did not blink. He was excited for it. We were a linebacker is what we did. I had a teammate who would pop the capsules and put them in a water bottle, put black tape over it so nobody knew it was in there. And before kickoffs, he would just take a big whiff and then run out there. So we were getting down. I did the same thing. I mean, he was a quarterback back in the old day. Everybody kind of gave it a little bit of a, let me just wake myself up here right before you go out and play. Maybe it's because they said last year that the teams can no longer provide the smelling salts. But I noticed them more than ever before. and I'll see guys out on the field with one. I'd never noticed that before. Like the kickers out there with one, he throws it on the ground. Aaron Rodgers has one, throws it on the ground. I've never seen that before where they're just out there throwing them on the grass. Yeah, yeah. They're out there. They're on the sidelines. They used to be on the sidelines everywhere. But what's up, man? How's it been for you so far? It's been good. Had a great day yesterday. Talked to a lot of really impressive prospects. Obviously excited to see what these guys do when they get out on the field there. But it's been a process, breaking down the tape, seeing where the ideas have evolved from the college football season. I think one of the fun things that you and I do is, like, we'll just watch guys and we'll start building that thought process. And then once you dive into the tape, you can get a realistic look. So, enjoyed it so far. Yeah, yeah. It's your first combine being on this side of things, right? It's different. And dealing with the players. And you're over here right off our set and another set that we have here at NBC interviewing guys all day long, right, yesterday. Yeah. Anybody that jumped out to you in a big way? The body and the guy and all that? Because I know we're both into that, looking at the bodies a little bit. Well, the bodies for some of these defensive linemen were ridiculous. Christian Miller from Georgia, you look at him just a big dude. He's got a big personality as well. It was fun talking to him because he got into some of the stuff that he's interested in off the field, which some guys are a little bit cautious about that. They want to be a super football guy here. But it was good to get to know the personality there. Lee Hunter from Texas Tech is like that big country dude. I mean, he's got huge hands. He's got a thick accent. And it was great talking to him because he was just gracious for the opportunity to be here, the opportunity to play the game. But you can, once you kind of put together the body type, and he's got a really quick first step, but he's just a big, thick dude. And then you see the hands. It's like, okay, this all makes sense. It's like this is how he can control all those offensive linemen. And so the interior dudes for me, I think, are some of the most impressive just when you get a look at them physically because it's just like long arms, thick legs, big hands, and they're controlling dudes up front. No doubt. Yeah, some of the defensive linemen we had up here yesterday were just massive. It's amazing how they can make 330 look like, wow, man, he doesn't even look 330. It's amazing. It's easy big. But to his point of what he was talking about a little bit, I think we're both, and we talk about this on college football, we're seeing a shift in football altogether. As we were in a period of the spread was so popular in college football and some of it filtered to some of the NFL teams. But as we've talked about, between the Lions, the 49ers, some of those football teams running the football, playing downhill, playing now teams are starting to get linebackers that are big like him again and thumpers in the middle there. It's a little bit of a transition time here in the NFL from college to the NFL, how the game's being played. I think it's kind of cool. Well, yeah, I mean, we saw some of the linebackers yesterday. You guys got to see Arvel Reese, which would be a question whether he plays off ball or on the edge. But, like, that body type is kind of coming back. Sonny Stiles, thick neck, big kid, right, 6'4". Long limbs, right. We had Jake Golday over there as a Cincinnati linebacker. Dude, 6'4", probably will play at, like, 245. He's a really good athlete. and we saw him play off ball. We saw him walked up on the edge, and then they had him play an overhang as well. But those are the linebackers that I think you need right now because, to your point, we're seeing running backs that are being really productive and teams that are emphasizing running the football. It's different than it was a decade ago when I was getting into the league. Guys know you've got to run to win right now. Yeah, yeah. When you were getting into the league, it was like prime. We're trying to get away from this guy, linebacker. He's too big. We're looking for strong safeties now to be linebackers. That's really what it was. And guys like Joshua Perry a little bit became out of the popular guy for the middle linebacker. But I think we are seeing it once again. Big boy football, downhill football like we saw from the Seahawks and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. They played that style of football. They had this style of linebacker back there. All right, since we have Joshua here, I have to ask him for a good Chris Sims story from your time together on Saturdays. Because I'm sure that he's done or said something, twisted the English language in some unique way. Give me a good Sims story. So I don't have like a crazy Saturday Sims story. He's been a really good professional to be around. Like just especially the way that I'm telling you, the way they dropped him in and he just like hit the ground running with college football was awesome. I did have him on a radio show that I was doing in Columbus. And we introduced him. We bring him on. And he's like, you know, to my co-host, what's going on? And then he says, Joshua Perry, my favorite mofo. And we were all that. Because people are like, is that how Chris really talks? And I'm like, every day. Every day. So people of Columbus got to enjoy a little Chris Sims flavor. Got a little feel for that. He coming in. I'm surprised they didn't need to hit the five-second delay. I watched it. I didn't want to ruin his career. Be ready on the dump button because you never know. You're funny. Joshua Perry. We'll be back with our interview with Mike Vrabel. Watch Chris be scared of Mike Vrabel. Big linebacker like this guy. Next on PFT Live. Joining us now, the 2025 NFL Coach of the Year in his first year with one of his former teams, New England Patriots, the great Mike Vrabel. How are you guys? We're doing great. Not as well as you, though. I don't know about that. Congrats, though. Thank you. It was an awesome year. It was. It was a lot of fun. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed building it and bringing people together and the players and the staff that were there and the ones that we brought in really enjoyed it. Yeah. We're big fans of you and what you do. I don't know. I don't think you give a shit what we say about you. You can say that. Just no F-bombs. Exactly. Hey, look at that. He saw that on there. He's paying attention. Yeah, they worry about that. But, yeah, we do. We do, you know, I feel like you're a chip off the old Baca. Sometimes I say Bill Parcells in that way. But the first thing I wanted to ask you is just your time away from head coach a little bit. Was there an adjustment you made in your own coach there? I mean, I don't know if there was an adjustment. I just tried to figure out what my role was in Cleveland and how I could help and also spend time, you know, with my family and get away on the weekends and during football season. but try to invest in their staff and their players. You realize that's what's important. It's about the players. It's about making connections and keeping those connections and try to develop players. And sometimes when you get into this thing longer than a few years as a head coach, you start to, you know, a lot of the other things wear on you more than just, you know, the players and the coaches. It's everything outside of that. and try to focus on what's important and where you can make an impact. One of the things that impresses me about you, because I say all the time, every NFL team is a football machine, and every part is going to be removed at some point and replaced with another part. And so it makes it hard to have an emotional connection. But you seem to have that with all your players, the way you greet them after the games, the way you're trying to prop the guys up after the Super Bowl. And how do you strike that balance between the reality that all these guys are going to be gone at some point, but while they're here, they're my guys. Well, I think I lived it, and I can explain to him that I didn't start a game in Pittsburgh for four years, had an opportunity to come to New England on an opportunity contract. It wasn't about the dollars. It was about opportunity, but also then built into a player that was compensated well for his position, that was expected to perform, was a player that asked for a new contract. And if he didn't, maybe the best thing is to trade me. And that's what happened. I got traded. And so I take them through that journey. And I also take them through the personal side of this thing. And I take them through the professional side of it. And the professional side and the personal side, they can coexist, but there's a line there. And we want to care about them, the things that they care about, the things that they think are important, the things that they believe that are important, their families, their careers. We want to help them do all that stuff. But then there's also a professional side that we have to maintain and we have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the Patriots. Who's the coach that's maybe? But honesty normally helps and being genuine and being authentic and being honest. Right, right. Who's the coach that's maybe made the biggest impression on you in your life? I mean, I think I'm lucky. Right. I saw Mike McCarthy and I saw Omar the other night, And I said, you know, just please tell Mr. Rooney I appreciated every minute of the four years that I spent with that organization. Just the veterans that were there about the guy, you know, Dermani Dawson and LeVon Kirkland and Mark Bruner and Will Wolford and, you know, LeVon Kirkland. All these guys. Carnell Lake. I got to watch these guys. I mean, these guys are Jerome. I mean, they're unbelievable players. Greg Lloyd. Developed. But also pushed me and helped me. and the organization and the way that there was the consistency. And I never started a game. I didn't start a game for four years. But I was ready. When I left there, I was ready. And so getting that start really showed me what professional football could be. You know, the time with Bill was great. The time at Ohio State to going through those growing pains as a coach and not really having an idea of what I was doing, but learning and making it about the players and have been able to see some of those guys here recently. Bill O'Brien helped extremely a lot just from the standpoint of preparing me for the role of a head coach and the things that go into it. So, you know, I've just been lucky to be around a lot of great coaches and a lot of great organizations. Something else that impressed me this year, and it's along the lines of that personal-professional relationship, but having a true personal relationship with your players. after Marshawn Nealon died, your comments about the importance of the teammates. And, you know, it comes to the forefront again with Rondell Moore. And your comments were just very impactful, and I wish more coaches would live it and realize it and understand that, you know, you're in charge of the whole room and all the guys are in charge of each other. And I say this all the time. We are in contact with so many people in our own orbit, and sometimes we don't think of it that way. But we all have to be on the lookout. And the way you put it was just perfect. We read it word for word because I think everybody connected to really any business needs to be thinking that way about the people that they're around all the time. And I have to remind myself, too, I get to see these guys every single morning when they walk in. I get to see them. Hey, morning, morning, training room, locker room, I see their faces. So, you know, after a few weeks, you know when things, you know, and so this was later on in the season. And a player walked by and I was like, hey. And he was like, hey. And then I was like, and I literally ran. And I was like that not the same response I like hey what going on He like eh Don just ask somebody how they doing You know there a follow to that You know you can ask somebody how they doing and not stop Right You know what I mean? Like, be intentional. Stop. Like, you're going to get some information. And it's, listen, this is a high-pressure business. We love what we signed up for. We love to be able to take our talents that we were blessed with to play this game, to coach this game, whatever it may be. But there's also, I mean, you're judged. I mean, that is, you have to be okay with being judged. And so we all need people to talk to. We need people that, you know, and again, not everybody's going to end up being a star. Not everybody's going to be a starter. And everybody's journey looks a little different. But you just can't, you know, don't be afraid to sit there and stop the next time you ask somebody how they're doing. I want to go like a little specific, right? Again, I know you don't give a damn what I say either way, but I do. I'm amazed by your game management. Okay. Right. And we talk about that a lot. During the AFC championship game, and I think one of the most underrated plays of all the playoffs, is you with the slow substitution. Well, that's not slow. That's not deemed slow. I know it's not. That's in a timely manner. Right. Okay. Okay. That's not slow. Well, okay. But you know what I'm saying with this grin on your face. Well, they're defensive linemen. Like, how fast do you want to run out there? The field's snowy. They could slip. They could injure themselves. So they want to make sure that the footing was accurate. That was the first time I've heard him speak full of crap. That was the first time I've ever heard you speak full of crap. I didn't know that. I did not know that came out of your mouth before. But, okay, so I just thought that was amazing. Well, we want to try to make sure that our players understand what the rules are. Again, good teams know the rules. And great teams can use them to their advantage. And whatever they are, we'll play by them. And if they say to change our behavior, this is what I tell our team. if the ref warns you and you don't change, they should take the flag and they should hit you over the helmet with it because they warned you. They warned you. And if we're doing something that they warn us, then we need to change our behavior or we need to change what we're doing. Right. D-tackles, be careful substituting. Don't fall down. It's funny how you say it, but what's impressed me is, and I've believed this for years now following you in Tennessee, you know the rules intimately. You know how to use them to your advantage, but I never get the sense that you take it too far. We don't want to be gimmicky. We don't want to be some sort of gimmick. And you can get into that. You can go down that rabbit hole at times with the rules, with the timing, with the situations, with any play that you could dial up at the end of the game to do something. You don't want to be gimmicky. And the most important thing is that the players understand it. And as long as they understand it and it's practiced and they're comfortable and they're confident in it, then I think it's okay. But once it becomes a gimmick and are you just doing things just to try to be different, I don't think that's the right way to go. You've got a reason for everything you do. Try to be intentional. And you know it's within the rules. Right. And it's all towards it. And I think you just have to continue to show the players, hey, this is how this is going to help us. And I don't know. Like, it is hard. It's hard to go through a 30- or 45-minute jog-through practice of situations. It's hard. It's hard for me. I can only imagine how hard it would be for a player. and you just try to remind them that one play that we're going to do today, you have to believe somehow that is going to make a difference in the game. Like this is going to come up. I don't know when, but you have to tell yourself that it's going to come up and we're going to be able to nail it. We're going to be able to stay in bounds. And, again, as you go through the course of the season, sometimes you're going to need one of those plays or you didn't get it early in the season. Hey, get another opportunity. Now we're going to get the first down. We're going to stay in bounds, and we're going to force them to burn a timeout, you know, or, hey, we need to execute this situation to win the game and we can do it. You, the whole after the game, outside the locker, I mean, as an ex-player, it's really cool you do that. Well, I've done that since I got to Tennessee. It's just that there wasn't maybe the whatever. That was something that I just felt like that's a heck of a lot easier way for me to greet the guys than it is to walk around the entire locker room. It's a tough game. It's a physical game. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. But it's my way of just looking them in the eye, thanking them, whether it's a great job or, hey, we've got to get back to work or we've got to stick together. Just try to protect the locker room and make sure that they've got something on their mind, win or lose, that they can go in there and try to tell each other. If you don't mind, real quick, I'd like to just go back with one other question because I wanted to ask it before, but just your experience like college and NFL, right? The differences between it, right? Other than compensation, and I don't know how much different that is now, but that's what I said when I got to Houston. Right, right. I was at Ohio State for three years. I went to Houston. Coach Brian Cushing, Coach Jadavion Clowney, Coach Whitney Merciless, you know, Coach Benardrick McKinney, and these guys were young. Yeah. You know what I mean? They were just getting their careers started. Cush had been there a few years. He was the oldest player that we had in the linebacking group. But somebody asked me, like, you coach? I said, I don't coach them any different. They just get paid a little bit more. I coached them hard. I made relationships, connections with them, tried to be creative with the drills, tried to be authentic, tried not to waste their time, tried to give them exactly what they needed. I didn't feel like there was anything that I did any differently from Ohio State to going to Texas. You didn't think the Ohio State's, the college stuff, I just sometimes I think about it and just go, man, it's a lot of other BS you've got to deal with. I mean, not as a position coach. I think the one thing that Urban Meyer told me was you need to approach this job like you're the head coach of the defensive line. And that means you have an assistant, you have a graduate assistant, or you have a student coach. You're responsible for his development. You have players that you recruit. You have players that you're responsible to develop, but you're also responsible for how they act off the football field and what they may need away from football. The message after the Super Bowl, I think 307 days, is that the – That was from the time that we started. Right, right, that's your time, and this is all we're doing. Like, this is it. We're still getting started. Yeah, I just want to try to keep things in perspective. And you talked about protecting the locker room, because I assume you're trying to build that shell ahead of time because who knows what they're going to hear after this game, right? We need to keep everybody together and keep everybody on the same page. It was, hey, it's okay to be upset. It's okay to be pissed and disappointed. But we have to be all those negative feelings together and not, you know, hey, this is – Yeah, point fingers. And, again, I just know how – my job is to protect the team. And I think that those guys were disappointed and mad and upset, whatever their personal feelings were. I just wanted to make sure that they were going to do it together. But I wanted to make sure that they knew that we really had only been doing this for 307 days. And for us to look and try to make a positive out of it and what we were able to do in a short amount of time and know how difficult it will be going forward. All right, something fun. All right, there's a fun one here. Just that came across naturally. He'll decide whether it's fun. Well, I know. I'm always scared of him. You may think it's fun. I'm always scared of him. It's so great, Mike. I told you. He squirms. Anytime you come around, he squirms. I wish I could bring you with me everywhere. The year I lost my spleen. I saw him in pregame that year, and he's scared me ever since. Come on, let's go. What do we got? What did you do to Jake Plummer? Jake Plummer in the Rose Bowl, he's still mad about some hit you gave him. Something I did? I don't know. I probably gator-rolled him or something. I don't know. I know. It came across this week, and he brought it up like the Ohio State Rose Bowl game. I don't know. He's probably had one too many mushrooms. I'm not sure. That's what I thought you might say. Yeah, he might have. I think he definitely looked like he was a competitor. They had a great team. They were a good team. They were a very good team. And Jake was an excellent college player. And he was a really good professional player. Yeah, he definitely was. I got one more. How do you manage being caught between this crossfire, between Belichick and the Crafts? Oh, man. And it's more Belichick towards the Crafts as far as I can tell. And again, I think that that's just part of my job. And I think it is a unique thing that I played for a guy that had a lot of success. But also, you know, sometimes these endings to these coaches and owners, they don't end well. Divorces sometimes don't end well. And I have a responsibility to Robert and Jonathan, who I appreciate their support each and every day, but also can understand that I played and grew and had a lot of success under, you know, Bill. How much longer are you going to be able to be hands-on, physical, like I'm going to mess with the lineman guy-to-guy here? We'll see. I mean, we'll focus on April or whenever we get back out on the field. If I can do it in May, then I'll do it in June and see what happens. Because you're getting up there. There's days where I'm like, this is not going too good. That's what I wanted to hear. Right. I would think so. There's days where I'm like, yeah, this isn't feeling good. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm the next day, the next day. Right. Yeah. We're at that age where that's what happens. Definitely. But I think that's another thing. Even when I talk to players and other coaches around football, man, I mean, they see you do it. And I think everybody thinks it's really cool. I think it's just a way to teach. And it's another way to explain things. And if I can help, but if I have experience, like I'm, you're never going to see me, you know, I mean, go up to Drake and be like, you know, Hey, here's how you want to throw the ball. Like that's not something that I'm going to do. because I don't have any experience, nor do I want to say that. But if it's talking about in-line play or release with a receiver or something tackling, and then I try to show guys O-line or D-line, I think I can provide some input from there. All right, don't get hurt. All right, we've got to let you go. Coach of the Year, AFC champion, Mike Vrabel, everybody. We'll be back this morning. He can't wait. He's like, I want to get out of this chair and get away from it. Thursday edition of PFT Live. It took a few tries, but I finally got the day right. Apparently, I said Wednesday several times. Yeah, you said a whole lot of dumb stuff early. Don't rely on me for what day it is. Listen, if you're relying upon me to know what day it is, you have huge, huge problems. Almost as many as I have. So, the Raiders have a problem with Max Crosby. They're trying to figure out what to do. I was told last night they want two ones and a player. Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I understand that. And then when you say, I mean, Max Crosby, we've talked about the contract for what he is and who he is. It's all sitting there. It's laid out. So it's perfect for a team to want him that way. Then on top of that, two first-round picks. Okay, I don't think that's crazy for one of the best defensive players in football. And then a player on top of that, I don't think that's crazy either. I can understand that asking price. I thought maybe they'd come out with something even higher than that. And that's where I get back into the Chicago Bears. The Chicago Bears are a team that I believe that could handle that right there. The Chicago Bears, we know, need a pass rusher. They need a difference maker in their front seven. It's one of the biggest things. Their offense is set up. It's all about the defense. And I'll say this on top of it, the player added, they have DJ Moore, right? We talk about the allocation of resources is a big thing in the NFL in the salary cap era. They got a dunesay. They got Luther Burden. They got Colston Loveland. They got Cole Komet, right? He's kind of a really good player, and I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but an expendable resource, I think, for them at this point in their franchise right now. Well, and it is odd to me that we speak in terms of two first-round picks and a player. That's what the Cowboys got for Michael Parsons. And Jay Glazer at one point said, hey, Max Prosby could get more because it's happening earlier in the year. There's more teams that may come to the table. And the contract's done. But there's still a huge difference between top of the round and the bottom of the round. Yes, there is. And if you do get someone like the Bears, they're picking low. They're likely going to pick low next year. I think it creates a greater urgency to get a better player. Whereas if it's a different team that's picking higher, maybe it's a lesser player that you want. But that's the general parameter. There's a lot of play in those joints. And it is odd that we think about it in terms of just the general pick because there's 32 different spots, and a low first-round pick is basically a second-round pick. But still, they want two ones. And that's one of the things about the franchise tag. Not that anybody ever signs someone to a franchise tender offer sheet, but you give up two first-round picks. Very different if you're a bad team than if you're a good team. That's where generally I see, I look at it and go, I think it's going to be one of the good teams, right? Because usually with this type of trade. Rich or get rich. Right. Well, and the team goes, wait, we got everything. So we're not building everything. Like Green Bay last year, they were like, we're ready. So we can do this right now. The bad teams are going, wait, we're really bad. We're going to trade away all our assets just to get one guy and then be even worse everywhere else, except we got one guy. So I would expect it to be a team that's, you know, later in the first round. And again, New England's another one of those teams you look at and talk about and has the cap space to be able to do it. So those are two that at least popped in my brain. All right, we got to go. Got to go. We're PFC Live right after this. Welcome back to PFC Live. We're just kicking around. This is Max Frosby. Possibility. teams that may want him. You mentioned the Bears. That's been out there. They already have that pipeline. They did the Khalil Mack trade. The Patriots, wow. Carolina needs a pass rusher. I don't know if they feel good about the rest of their football team to give away two first-round picks. Yeah, the Bills. I don't know how you feel about the Panthers. I'd like to think that they'll have Max Crosby give some say, but who knows? Maybe he wants out so badly he'll go anywhere. The thing that's going to be interesting, too, is he's obviously a big asset. You want him, But I think front seven players in this draft, defensive linemen, pass rushers, there is a lot of them. And that's going to, I think, maybe make some teams go, oh, we'll wait for the draft and not give away picks and all that. We'll see how it plays out. We'll be back Friday. Friday. Ready to go, man. You know what day it is. Look at that. Screw you, Sims. Have a good day.