00:00Sometimes, sometimes, it's like I don't even know you, sometimes, but we do have, we've
00:11obviously talked a lot about Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tungvalu and what this means.
00:15We also kind of mentioned going into break there, what an open competition actually means
00:22and do you trust this coaching staff to handle it properly?
00:25I mean, regardless of how you feel about Shador Sanders, which I'll be honest, I am a Shador
00:31Sanders fan.
00:32I thought he played very well.
00:34I thought for the circumstances that he was given in Cleveland, he showed some pretty good
00:39promise, but regardless of how you feel about Shador Sanders, I don't think anyone looks
00:46at what Kevin Stefanski did in Cleveland and says, yeah, that's a recipe for success at
00:53the quarterback position.
00:56Now, that was a situation that was kind of thrust upon him because, let everyone else
01:02tell it, no one in the organization outside of Andrew Barry wanted to draft Shador Sanders.
01:08So, you could have that conversation of, oh, well, he was kind of forced into a, in a weird
01:14quarterback room.
01:15Well, I mean, he's kind of being forced into a weird quarterback room here in Atlanta.
01:19Even if he did have some input on Tua being here, he had input on Dylan Gabriel being there
01:26and it still didn't work out good either.
01:28So, I'm a little hesitant on the plan of this open quarterback competition as far as what
01:36it means for the success of the team in 2026.
01:39However, again, I keep going back to this point.
01:42I think these moves are more about 2027.
01:46I think these moves are gearing up for the Falcons to not be as competitive as some would like
01:54and they are gearing up to really retool this team and make it look a lot different, find
02:00their quarterback of the future in 2027, and then focus on turning this into a competitive
02:06team that's looking to win games and compete week in and week out.
02:09So, with this quarterback room, I don't think that's what you're signaling, and I don't
02:14have a ton of faith in this coaching staff to get the most out of either of these guys,
02:20especially not in this situation where they're both going to be butting heads and going to
02:25be in a competition with each other.
02:27With that being said, though, we do have some callers on the line, so we can go out.
02:31First up on the line, we got Kendall.
02:36What's going on, man?
02:37Hey, what's going on, man?
02:38How you feeling?
02:39You're doing all right, man.
02:41Not a good day, but the whole offseason has been trash as a whole.
02:44I want to congratulate you on the new show, first and foremost, before I jump into that.
02:50I appreciate that.
02:51You're one of the few that I listen to this radio station every day, but you're one of
02:55the few who've actually hit the point.
02:57Hashtag tank for 27.
03:00Listen, I'm a diehard Ohio State fan, so I've watched Pennix for four years in Indiana before
03:06he had that, which if you want to call it a miracle season.
03:09At Washington.
03:11Right.
03:11And, I mean, he was never a threat.
03:13And when I say never a threat, it wasn't even a thought or a concern or anything that
03:19he would make it a game in all four years.
03:23So, I've never thought that he was the guy.
03:25He was going to go down as a bust, considered he was the eighth overall pick.
03:31These are all bad moves that have been made.
03:34Coaching staff.
03:35I won't go out on a limb with the GM because, you know, I've heard good things.
03:42He's come from winning organizations, so I'll wait and see.
03:44He may be doing the tank for 27 so that he can put his staff on his roster.
03:49But what more pissed me off was that we couldn't find $10 million over two years for Algier.
03:59That alone in and of itself says everything that you need to know, whether you spent $1 million
04:05on Tua or whatever the case may be.
04:08We couldn't find $10 million over two years for Algier.
04:12That's nonsense.
04:14Tank for 27.
04:16Thank you for calling in.
04:17And Kendall actually makes a really great point.
04:20And again, thank you for the kind words.
04:21Congratulate me on the show.
04:23Hope you all enjoy it.
04:24Again, I am going to be off for about a month.
04:26You all won't be able to hear the night drive until April 13th is when I'll be back.
04:30But I promise I'll have a good show lined up for you guys there as well.
04:33But I agree with what that statement about Tyler Algier goes.
04:40That signing was extremely shocking to me.
04:43The fact that he goes, like him going to Arizona was not shocking.
04:47The fact that he went there and only got $12 million.
04:50That's what was predicted.
04:51And that's why I figured that he may stay because that was the money that was predicted.
04:56It wasn't a lot of money.
04:57Which is insane.
04:58I thought his market would have, I thought someone would have really wanted to give him
05:02an opportunity to be a number one back again.
05:04I think he's done nothing but look phenomenal, whether he was the starter here or he was splitting
05:09reps with Bijon.
05:10I am, I'm surprised.
05:13And in all honesty, like if that's all it took, why the hell didn't you re-sign Tyler Algier?
05:21What's the plan at corner?
05:23You see D'Alford went to the Bills.
05:27What I, what I, I can, I can give a little bit of a pass on that because you still
05:33have
05:33AJ and I think they really feel good about Billy Bowman Jr.
05:37and Xavier Watts.
05:39I feel like they feel good with that core four of Terrell, Bates, Watts, and Billy Bowman Jr.
05:48as that kind of the core of the secondary.
05:50So, while it does suck to see D'Alford leave, I understand it.
05:55And also, he got a pretty nice bag from Buffalo.
05:58What was it, 15, 3 million?
06:00Something like that.
06:01It was, let me actually look up, see if I can pull up his contract here one second.
06:06But, I mean, again, it's...
06:07I mean, yeah, we got good DBs with DB heavy, but who's, who's opposite AJ Terrell right now?
06:13I mean, is that a draft plan?
06:15Is that a free agent plan?
06:16Are we looking at Mike Hughes?
06:17Three, D'Alford, three-year deal worth up to 21 million.
06:20So, about 7 million per.
06:22Pretty good.
06:23Yeah.
06:23Not bad for D.
06:23But...
06:24He went out there and earned his money last year.
06:25Yeah, I would say it's good for him.
06:27I'm, again, I just, I was surprised to see Tyler Algiers' market be that non-existent, in all honesty.
06:37Like, it seemed like Arizona probably was the only ones really making a solid offer.
06:41Yeah, I heard about two weeks ago that that's what the number was looking like.
06:45It was around that 12, 10 million dollar total mark.
06:48And I was like, well, if that's it, I don't see why he would be in another uniform.
06:51I don't see the point.
06:52Yeah, but, hey, again, this goes back...
06:55Back to my point of, new regime kind of wants to go ahead and overhaul it all.
07:00Again, I'm...
07:00And this happens every time, so this isn't shocking.
07:03Yeah, it's not shocking.
07:04Kendall said the T-word.
07:06I'm not going to say the T-word, but I will say I do feel like this team is preparing
07:10to not be very competitive next year.
07:13That's...
07:15That's me.
07:15It's just such a pendulum swing.
07:17Like, we went from, we have to make the playoffs, to now, well, we can just hang out for two
07:21or three years and, you know, see what happens.
07:24I don't know, it's going to be an interesting sale.
07:26We'll see.
07:27We do have another caller on the line.
07:28We can go back to the phone lines here.
07:29And if you all still want to call in, I got another segment after this.
07:32So, 404-726-0929.
07:34If you want to get your thoughts in on this, by all means, please call in.
07:38We've got Military Mike on the line.
07:40How are you feeling about the two assigning?
07:43Hey, guys.
07:44First of all, thank you for having me on the call today.
07:46I really appreciate it.
07:49I'm going to tell you, I'm 50-50 here, and it might be because I'm an optimist.
07:53Every year, I'm screaming, the Falcons are going to the playoffs.
07:57The Falcons are going to the playoffs.
08:00And they just find a way to falcon it up and just lose games in the most unusual way.
08:07Now, how do I feel about Kevin Stefanski handling this quarterback situation?
08:15Well, we've seen what he did in Cleveland.
08:17However, it's Cleveland.
08:19But this is the Falcons.
08:21I'm not sure what the difference is.
08:23But we have at least some sense of winning.
08:27Then again, we have some sense of losing games in the worst way you could possibly think of losing games.
08:32I think I'm looking more of where the culture is shifting for this team.
08:38Can we grind out games and just be competitive and stop finding ways to lose games in the worst way?
08:47It's not going to be on one head coach or one quarterback.
08:51It's going to be a team effort to really grind out and figure out ways to win games,
08:57not losing games by a field goal or not putting ourselves in situations to leave it up to our kicker
09:03or leave it up to these small things.
09:05We've got to do the small things right.
09:06And I'm hoping that Coach Stefanski can bring that mindset and change the culture for once for this Falcons team.
09:14And it just seems like we're always dealing with some drama.
09:16Now we're dealing with the James Pierce Jr. drama.
09:19Can we just get past this and win out games?
09:23This is not a tough division to beat out.
09:27It's not tough.
09:27And to me, it's just not hard.
09:29And honestly, speaking on Tua again, if he's as bad as people think he is,
09:36then Michael Penny Jr. shouldn't have a problem winning this quarterback thing here.
09:43So I'm optimistic.
09:45And I want to be positive about the season.
09:48I'm rooting my boys to the end of the day.
09:53And I think we're going to be okay.
09:55I'm hoping that we are.
09:57Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys.
09:58Absolutely.
09:59Thank you, Mike.
10:00Listen, I like the optimism.
10:04I don't, I don't, again, I don't think it's misguided.
10:07I just think that you can still be optimistic about the plan.
10:12You can be optimistic about 2027.
10:14I'm going to go ahead and I'm not going to tell you to be optimistic about 2026.
10:17I'm not.
10:18I'm not.
10:19I'm not going to pull the wool over your eyes.
10:21I'm not doing it.
10:232026, regardless, if it's Tua or Michael Pennix Jr., I believe it's going to be rough.
10:29It's going to be a rough ride next season.
10:33If one of these guys emerges, fantastic.
10:36If one of them proves that they deserve to be the starter moving forward, that's a great upside play.
10:46And like, it's a great find.
10:47But I feel like this team is just kind of biding their time.
10:52We're biding our time to find who we really want in the draft in 2027.
10:58And Tua, you're cheap.
10:59And Michael Pennix Jr., you're already on the team.
11:05So we'll go from there and figure it out.
11:07But tell me what you all think.
11:09Again, we will keep the conversation going here.
11:11We've got one more segment, one more, you know, for all of the talk about me having a little bit
11:16of extra in a couple minutes here.
11:18The show, again, flies by.
11:19But this is a good day to have a show.
11:22Great day to have a show.
11:23So once again, this is The Night Drive.
11:26I am Dom Sharosky.
11:27Stick around.
11:28We'll be back in five.
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