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00:00Expensive phone calls. Now, most people in this day and age, Joe Ranieri, will say,
00:04oh, what's an expensive phone call? They all cost the same. Well, there was a time where you had
00:07long-distant phone calls, and on your cell phone in the late 1990s, if I lived in New Jersey and
00:12I tried to call south of Virginia, it was like an extra $5 per minute. But we're getting even
00:16more expensive than that. Why? Adam Schefter tweeted out yesterday, the NFL fined the Falcons
00:22$250,000 and defensive coordinator Jeff Albrecht $100,000 for failing to prevent the disclosure
00:29of confidential information distributed to the club in advance of the NFL draft. An expensive
00:35call was made, and we had to hear from Jeff Albrecht yesterday, who did have an apology.
00:41First of all, I'd like to publicly apologize to Shadur and the Sanders family for what occurred.
00:47Second of all, I want to publicly apologize to Mr. Blank, Terry Fotton, Ray Morris, and the entire
00:54Falcons organization. My actions, my actions of not protecting confidential data were inexcusable.
01:02My son's actions were absolutely inexcusable, and for that, we are both deeply sorry.
01:10The NFL has taken action, and I fully respect the punishment. We take full responsibility,
01:17my son, and myself, and we will not be appealing the fine in any way. Going forward, I promise my son
01:25and I will work hard to demonstrate we are better than this. Again, I'm deeply sorry for our actions.
01:35I mean, let's start here, Joe, because you could have showed a person who wasn't informed on the
01:41situation itself. What would you actually think that press conference was about if you didn't know
01:47it was about a prank phone call? You would have thought it was devastating of all unepic proportions
01:55here, and there is so many questions I have with this. I mean, first of all, you know, kudos to the
02:04kid for actually coming up with the idea of what a buddy is and even being able to execute it. We got to
02:10work on going a little more incognito next time when you're going to do the prank call, Donnie.
02:16That's also half of it, though. But lesson learned, I guess. But again, why are we... Fire the kid,
02:22then, if he was the one who made the call. Oh, that's right. He doesn't work for Atlanta. So what
02:27are we doing here? Why are we wringing the old man front? Did you guys not realize this poor guy
02:34had to take over the Jets head coaching job last year? Like, it has been a rough year for Jeff
02:41Albrecht there, and I don't get why you're sacrificing him to go up to the microphone and
02:47make it seem like, you know, world is ending kind of stuff. It's ludicrous to me.
02:53Yeah, there's a lot of dog and pony show going on right now, which, again, could have just had a
02:57statement from Jeff Albrecht to say, I apologize. Don't know how the information got out. You know,
03:01my son never should have done that, end of story. But the fact that you had the fine,
03:05and then you made this guy get out in front of the public and read, like, his obituary
03:08out to the public, like, man, I hope I'll be able to coach again in the NFL. Like, when we really
03:14look at the optics of this, it is kind of funny to me how it's... The fines... Now, Grant, the NFL is
03:19made of money. $250,000 out of Arthur Blank is, like, $0.25 in your cushion here. That doesn't matter.
03:23That's a tax write-up for the organization. But Jeff Albrecht getting banged for the $100,000,
03:27and also, like, behind the scenes, like, I understand, like, being mad at your son.
03:31Like, I don't know how you... We're going to work and be better at this. What's that mean? Just
03:34don't make prank phone calls again? Like, what do you mean you're going to work this out and sort
03:38of make that happen? But also understand this. It was a prank call. The apology should have been
03:42accepted. And yes, the NFL should send a memo next year. Hey, guys, look, we're giving you these
03:46personal information. Just take better care of it. But from Jeff Albrecht's perspective, like,
03:50what does he do? Like, here's my work laptop. It's in my office. My son went in my office,
03:55turned it on, and probably was going to send an email and saw, hey, look at the list of
03:59athletes here's numbers. Let me steal Shadour Sanders and make a prank phone call here.
04:03So it's kind of interesting to me. Like, the Falcons maybe has an organization, 250,
04:07but fining him $100,000 direct because his son stole a phone number and made a prank call
04:12seems a little harsh to me.
04:14Well, and you know what? Kudos to Shadour, who was asked about it, right, during that
04:19introductory press conference there, and he blew it off. Like, you didn't even pay attention to it,
04:25right? Like, he didn't go into it. So, like, if he's okay with it, like, what are we doing here?
04:30Why are we doing any of this dog and pony show stuff? And by the way, the kid isn't 16. He's a
04:3721-year-old guy. Like, what are we doing here? Unbelievable, Donnie. Absolutely unreal.
04:44Like, hey, stole the keys to my dad's car at night, picked up a couple buddies, drove around
04:49for a while. I was like, don't you dare do that again. And now it's $100,000 for making a phone
04:53call. Yeah, 21 years old. You should have used better judgment. And the judgment was maybe,
04:58not making the phone call, don't film yourself. I'm telling you right now, Joe, if they had a
05:02camera on you growing up in the 80s and 90s, you know what I mean? Tough scene out there in this
05:06marketplace, huh? Thank goodness they did not, Donnie. I'm just saying, let's just be thankful for a few
05:12things in this world. Lack of video growing up, certainly one of them.
05:17Hey, erase the tapes, baby. Deny it. We'll be back. Hour number two next on The Grid.
05:23Oh, the action is only heating up, people. This is why you tune into the Sports Grid Network,
05:27Sirius XM Channel 159, The Early Line. It's Donnie Wright's side. It's Joe and Earing. And we
05:32welcome in Mark Zinno, the mouth in the South of the South, who has hot topics today for his
05:39people. Mark, are you ready to bring the fire today?
05:42Yeah, well, if it's about prank phone calls and stolen data information, I'm here for it all, so.
05:50We got Mark at the right time because, hear me out on this, we will talk about the Atlanta Falcons.
05:55You are our guy. Boots on the ground, Atlanta Falcons, the pulse of the organization. Before we
06:00get into opinions, obviously the story broke wide that a prank call was made where the information
06:05came from the home of Jeff Ulbrich. And it turns out to a $250,000 fine for the organization and a
06:11$100,000 fine for Jeff Ulbrich. When you saw this story came down, your initial thoughts from the
06:17Atlanta Falcons were what?
06:18It should have been expected that they were going to get in some sort of trouble and the fines all feel
06:26fair and justified. Now, again, the fines are not for the prank call. The fines are for disclosing the
06:34personal information of a draft prospect. Well, the phone calls happen every year. We get pranks all
06:41the time. Noah was upset about Cooper DeGene. We don't know that Cooper DeGene's information
06:47came from an NFL coach. That's the issue. An NFL employee, an NFL coach had data compromised and it
06:55doesn't matter that it's in his home house. Like, I understand this isn't the military, but when I have
07:00sensitive information for the military in my home, I'm still responsible to safeguard it from everyone
07:05and everything, including the people in my home. So the bottom line here is that the NFL and its
07:10employees have an inherent right to protect personal data, whether that's phone calls, phone numbers,
07:15or anything else. I mean, what if it went a step further, guys? What if they got his address and
07:20somebody drove to his house, right? Is that where the line is officially crossed, right? Like, I mean,
07:25when do we decide that the line has officially been crossed? So the point is, is that you have
07:31to safeguard the data. They did not do it. Jeff Ulbricht did not do it. And, you know, the Falcons
07:36got fined and he got fined for it. And people are like, wow, 10% of Ulbricht's $1 million salary
07:40isn't a slap on the wrist. It's better than 100% in getting fired because there's an argument to say
07:45that you should be fired for this for not safeguarding personal information. Now, as far as his son is
07:49concerned, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but if I was Jess Ulbricht, I'd beat his ass severely.
07:55Right. Just to, just to be, uh, just to be fair though, uh, quite honestly, even if somebody got
08:03the address to the house, they wouldn't get through the gated community or the moat in front of his
08:07castle that he lives in. So that I'm just saying, I mean, it never had a chance to go, uh, that far
08:13there, but, you know, we were saying it earlier. It's, you know, when you, when you hear, oh, they
08:21got to make an example of this, that's basically what this is, but none of us will be talking about
08:25this in four months, will we be? Well, I mean, no one cares, but the fact of the matter is that the NFL
08:31can't just look the other way on this thing. Right. All the other prank phone calls that sadly still
08:35happen. I don't know why idiots still think this is funny because it's not. It's all fun and games till
08:40it's you, right? It's all fun and games till it's your information when you get hacked and stolen into
08:45then all of a sudden, oh, now we have a problem. But when it's not you, it's just a quote, harmless prank.
08:49Uh, beyond all that, the NFL has a responsibility to take action here and let everybody know the
08:54next time a coach doesn't safeguard information. Like again, let's even talk more academic here.
08:59What if it was a play and he showed his buddies the play that he had and his buddies ran to the
09:05saints or ran to the Panthers and said, look what I found from Jeff Ulbrich's dad, like,
09:10and it caused you to lose a football game. You'd be outraged at the coach for not protecting the
09:14information, but because this didn't have any negative effect to you as a fan or any negative effect to the
09:19team is a fan. You're like, oh, this punishment's unjustified. No, you have a responsibility to
09:24protect the information that the league has provided with you. Again, another example. What
09:28if it was an email about corporate policy in the NFL that said X, Y, and Z, we don't do this. We don't
09:33do that. And that got out. Would that be a black eye for the NFL? Possibly could. So you find the
09:37person who let the information out. It's not a hard concept to understand. People just want to be stupid
09:42about it. Stop the leaks. But by the way, if they did find Shadour's address and a Kevin Stefanski,
09:47like, you know, impressionist showed up and said, we're going to draft you and then left and said,
09:51no lie, that would be next level. But the NFL, the one thing I do agree with is that the NFL is
09:56about optics and the optics where we can't let this happen again, slap on the wrist. It might be the
10:00250 ground to the organization embarrassment for Jeff Ulbrich. And next year, somebody is going to
10:05get that laptop and say, you know what? I'm not going to sit this one out here. I'm going to make
10:08sure I protect it a little bit better. So I do agree with that, but we'll see how far down it goes.
10:12But as also Joe pointed out in a couple of months, we won't be talking about this. What we will be talking
10:16about is the Cleveland Browns quarterback room, Mark Zinno, which now sits with Kenny Pickett,
10:21Joe Flacco, Dylan Gabriel, Shadour Sanders, and Deshaun Watson. Talk to me about that crowded room
10:27and how it plays out. It's the stupidest quarterback room in the history of the NFL.
10:33It really is. It's the dumbest quarterback room in the, in the, what the Cleveland Browns as an
10:39organization, I'm waiting for the giants to go here, hold my beer. Okay. That's what I'm waiting for.
10:43Um, at this point in time, like explain to me what the logic is. So when Joe Flacco flames out
10:51and Kenny Pickett doesn't remember what color jersey his team wears and everyone's yelling,
10:56play the kid, which kid are you talking about? Dylan Gabriel, the one you drafted in the third
11:01round or Shadour Sanders or when you're drafted in the fifth round, like it's one of these guys
11:05just trade bait for somebody. It's Joe Flacco trade bait for somebody. Is Kenny Pickett just
11:09going to go eat mayonnaise somewhere else? I don't know. Like what, what was that? Will Levis.
11:13Sorry. That's Will Levis. Will Levis is into the main. I apologize, but you get the point.
11:18Yeah. They both stink. Um, point simply is, I don't know how this all plays out. Like when you
11:24draft, these aren't first round quarterbacks. So the idea essentially is that they don't have
11:29to play right away. You didn't intend for them to play right away with Dylan Gabriel, but
11:32like why would Shadour Sanders be above Dylan Gabriel on the depth chart other than he flat
11:37out played better than him in camp? And if that's the case, you look like a foolish organization
11:43because you passed on Shadour one, two, three, four, five, six times before you drafted him
11:49in the fifth round to find out the guy who drafted in front of him isn't any better than he is. So
11:55again, this is the dumbest quarterback room in America. And I don't know how this all works out,
12:00but at some point in time, would it surprise you with the exception to Deshaun Watson,
12:05who can't walk right now, if all four of those guys played a game next year? Because I would not,
12:09what are the odds on that? All four of those guys playing, playing a game next year. I would say
12:14that's a yes. Yeah. Well, if that happens, then Stefanski is no longer the head coach of the
12:21Cleveland Browns at some point, because that's, that's not a good situation, but of all the
12:26quarterbacks taken. And we had obviously Cam Ward there. You had Jackson, dark Tyler shower. It's
12:32apparently what 38 years old. I had no idea. Uh, Mill row. I mean, who is the one that you think
12:39has the most success and landed in the right spot?
12:45Jalen Miller was interesting. Um, because Mike McDonald has transformed the Seahawks into
12:52a run first team with what they've done, right? I mean, they get rid of, uh, uh, DJ Metcalf and
13:00they move him on. Um, and now they have this young wide receiver room, Tyler Lockett's gone as well.
13:06Uh, and you bring in Sam Darnold there, who I think is prime for regression and coming back. But
13:12Mill row is a guy that I think could come in. I think they'll, they'll drop certain packages for
13:16him to run with automatically. You know, he'll be their tush push guy. He'll be there,
13:20their, their third and short guy. He'll be there, you know, uh, you know, read option kind of guy,
13:25uh, in certain packages. I think you'll see them draw things up for him right away. Jackson
13:31Dart's going to start at some point this year. He has to, you didn't draft him in the first round
13:37to draft him and stash him in favor of Russell Wilson and what's increasingly becoming the most
13:42annoying part of the New York giants. And that's Jameis Winston. Um, watching him do gobble
13:47Google videos has already irritated the hell out of me, but that's either here nor there.
13:51Um, so Jackson Dart's going to play at some point in time. Cause Russell Wilson can only
13:54play about five or six good games and then everything else goes in the tank. Cam Warden.
13:58Good luck, man. You gotta, you gotta uphill battle.
14:02Yeah. There's some interesting thoughts there on the quarterback position, but also in the
14:05next segment here, I do want to talk a little bit about that Cleveland Browns quarterback room
14:09as it is. Cause it is wild to see all of those names there. And the fact that you have
14:13the aging veteran in Joe Flacco, the younger veteran per se and Kenny Pickett to rookie
14:18quarterbacks than the Sean Watson hanging out in the back of the room. Like, Hey guys,
14:21don't bother me. I'm just getting a big paycheck and I'm going to check out a little bit early
14:25here with go out to lunch and see you later at this point, because I do think there's an
14:28interesting dynamic building in that locker room. And what to get Mark Zinno's take on that next,
14:32which we will do includes offensive rookie of the year, defensive rookie of the year,
14:36the Travis Hunter trade much more talk with Mark Zinno NFL baby. Yeah, it's coming around shortly.
14:42We'll be right back. Topics are always hot in the NFL. No doubt about it. And that includes
14:47this Thursday and it's Donnie writes out of showing here and it's Mark Zinno. Just wanted to ask Mark
14:51one more quick question about that Cleveland Browns locker room and how it might affect this season,
14:55because I already, I'm already stated and you are as well, multiple quarterbacks will play this
14:59year. So Shador Sanders will get at least one start because by November, December, this team will
15:04probably be out of it. But let me ask you this question Mark, because I'm not worried about Kenny
15:07Pickett or Joe Flacco, two veterans obsolete to what the future of the Browns are
15:11going to be. But my focus is on Dylan Gabriel and Shador Sanders would have been easier for
15:16the Browns to draft. Let's just say Shador Sanders in the third round and Dylan Gabriel in the fifth
15:21round. And maybe you wouldn't have so many questions. How did the Browns operate in camp
15:25outside of the veterans and say, well, we actually thought Dylan Gabriel was the better quarterback,
15:29or was this, there's a little bit too much headaches with Shador Sanders. Let's get Dylan Gabriel.
15:33And oh no, look at two rounds later, Shador Sanders is still there. How does that room operate
15:37from the get go? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because to your point, like when they drafted
15:43Shador in the fifth round, the GM Andrew Barry and Kevin Stavance kept talking about the value,
15:48we couldn't pass up the value. Well, from a talent perspective, you couldn't pass up the value in the
15:54third round. Look, no one has ever said Shador Sanders wasn't a first round talent. They said a lot
16:01of things about why he didn't get drafted. No one has ever said we misgraded him as a first round
16:06talent, right? So the idea of him falling out of the first round to the second wouldn't drive us
16:12crazy. Going from the first round all the way to the fifth tells you that there was something,
16:15this was about something else and he wasn't, it's not a talent issue. So I don't buy their discussion
16:21that the value was in the fifth round. No, the value was there in the third round on Shador Sanders.
16:26So to your point DRS, like the idea that, and the fifth round is when you finally decided
16:32we're willing to overlook all the bad interview stuff. We're willing to overlook all the cockiness.
16:36We're willing to overlook all these other things because the fifth round was too much value to me
16:41doesn't hold any water whatsoever. I think they know that Shador is going to end up being a better
16:48quarterback than Dylan Gabriel. The numbers tell us that the tape tells us that to this point.
16:53I mean, Dylan Gabriel was a very average college quarterback till he showed up at Oregon,
16:59where he had high level talent around him the whole way, right? Like he just,
17:04he was not very effective anywhere else. So, and that's not to knock him, but it's just from a
17:08talent perspective, Shador is the better quarterback. I think when he says they're going to let them
17:12compete, they'll let them compete. And whoever gets the starting nod or ever plays better than the
17:17other will be the second quarterback on the depth chart. I still have a hard time believing they're going
17:21into the regular season with four quarterbacks. You're not stashing one of these two guys on a
17:25practice squad. And you'd be more likely to get Dylan Gabriel on a practice squad than you would
17:29Shador Sanders. Nobody is letting Shador Sanders sit on a practice squad. I can guarantee you that.
17:35And the hardest thing for me, Mark, and the biggest wild card here is,
17:40well, Shador Sanders is going to be a backup. Is he legit going to go in there and care one way or the
17:47other, or is he going to treat this like he treated the interview problem and be like,
17:52yeah, I don't care. I'll find somebody else. I'll go someplace else. I mean, this is the first time I
17:57can remember that Shador Sanders was kind of smacked in the face. What chip is going to be on his
18:03shoulder? And do you buy it that he's actually going to get enough reps here and prove himself
18:08in that locker room to other grown men that he's the guy that should be leading them?
18:13Look, I mean, here's the thing. And you bring up the point that's very interesting.
18:17You notice we didn't really find out how bad Shador Sanders was in these interviews or some
18:22of his actions until after he was drafted. Why? Because NFL GMs and NFL scouting people
18:28generally understand if I leak this stuff now, I'm going to kill the young man's draft position
18:34and take money out of his pocket. And nobody wants to harm anybody that way. Once it's over,
18:39we're all willing to say, yeah, he walked into a room with headphones on. And when he took
18:43him off, he left the music on during the interview. Or he turned around when I was asked a question
18:47about a playbook or a bad play, he turned around and said, this might not be the spot. I might not
18:51be a good fit for you guys. Yeah, we find out all these things after the fact, because he's already
18:54drafted. And the money that he's going to make now is pretty much set because of the rookie pay
18:59scale across the board. So no one's afraid to tell you what he is. I bring all that up because
19:05now he has a chance to go be a football player in training camp in OTAs and everything else.
19:09And Kevin Stefanski will find out, is he really this much of a consummate a-hole?
19:14Or is he actually a guy who wants to be a football player and be around other football players and
19:18just shut up and go play ball? And if he does that, I think his talent will turn around and
19:22tell everybody, OK, this guy is going to be our number two waiting in the wings to take this thing
19:27over. And, you know, once the first opportunity comes, we're going to let him play.
19:31But you'll find out too, as well, if he's cocky and pissed off that he starts the depth
19:36part fourth and he doesn't believe he should be there and he doesn't put his best effort in,
19:41or he's blaming other players for not being in the right spot or running the wrong routes or
19:45whatever, that stuff will manifest itself at practice. And Kevin Stefanski will turn around
19:48and go, OK, sit at fourth in a depth chart. Now you know why you got drafted in the fifth round.
19:52And that'll be the end of the conversation.
19:55And we'll know sooner than later, OTAs and rookie camp certainly coming up here.
19:58We'll see if he can command that locker room like you need to as a young quarterback in the NFL.
20:02Let's take a look at some awards markets here. Comparative rookie of the year markets.
20:07That's Ashton Jinty plus 270 price. New running back there for the Vegas Raiders.
20:11Cam Ward plus 380. Hunter plus 750. McMillan 950. And Amari and Hampton 14 to 1.
20:18If we're looking at offensive rookie of the year at the FanDuel Sportsbook, who has your eye, Mark?
20:23I mean, I would tell you if it's not Jinty, it's somebody that's not on that list right now
20:27on the offensive side. There's going to be somebody else coming off the board.
20:30It's hard to trust Ted McMillan in that offense. But again, if Bryce Young took the step that we
20:38thought he took at the end of last year, he's not a bad play. I've said repeatedly,
20:44I don't think that Travis Hunter solves Trevor Lawrence's mediocrity issues. And there's still
20:51Brian Thomas there, who's the better receiver at this point in time. Unless Travis Hunter
20:55plays more on defense than on offense, I don't see him getting rookie of the year.
21:01Cam Ward's just going to have way too much of an uphill battle. It's just hard for me to look
21:05at it. So if it's not Jinty, I look off the board to somebody else.
21:08How about Travis Hunter this year? There are a couple of specials, Mark,
21:11here at the FanDuel Sportsbook that do line up 1,000 yards, 75 catches. The impact that you
21:15believe Hunter will have right away offensively for the Jaguars is what, Mark?
21:19I kind of like that five offensive TDs and one defensive TD. That kind of feels like the one
21:28where I would go. I don't know if he's going to get to 10 total touchdowns. You know, most of
21:35those obviously going to come offensively, but you figure he might be good for one defensive
21:40touchdown this year and the rest come on the offensive side. So yeah.
21:42I think he's going to have a pretty productive career and see where he actually lines up because
21:48I know Joe's chomping at the bit to get there, but you know, I need Joe Raniere for next and
21:52also Mark's in. I just don't know if he's an offensive player or a defensive player. I don't know.
21:57Agree.
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