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00:00from pro football talk mike florio hi mike what's going on guys uh we are well how about you
00:07well you know we're in that law between free agency and the draft but one thing i've learned
00:12is no matter what's going on as slow as it seems there's always something going on in the nfl
00:16isn't that the truth always uh news that we found interesting here in cleveland
00:22former browns offensive lineman jc treader uh dare i say back from the dead and is now
00:29the head honcho of the nfl players association did that move surprise you at all because it
00:34didn't seem like you know he was in anybody's great favor to be in that position again and it's not
00:40exactly at the same level as the famous line read my lips no new taxes from george hw bush
00:47during the 88 campaign before he did impose new taxes but it was treader who said himself in an
00:54interview with cbssports.com after he resigned as chief strategy officer of the nflpa i don't want
01:00to be the executive director that's a hell of a pivot in eight months to go from saying i don't
01:07want this job to he has this job and we still have not gotten an explanation there was no press
01:15conference after treader was elected now three years ago when lloyd howell was elected as executive
01:21director at the time when treader was the nflpa president treader and howell elbow to elbow did a
01:28zoom press conference within hours after the election happened so i'm surprised there was no
01:34press conference there's been no on the record interviews there was a lengthy article written
01:39by nflpa president jalen reeves maven that showed up yesterday that doesn't address that about faith that's
01:46the first question that i think anyone with the slightest amount of curiosity should want to ask
01:50how did you go from wanting nothing to do with this union not wanting that job to having that job
01:56and
01:56then there's all the other stuff that happened last year with the collusion grievance ruling that
02:02was a partial victory for the players it was hidden from all players for five months until pablo torri
02:07and i worked together to find it all the things with lloyd howell whose tenure was a disaster
02:11and treader was the president who came up with the hiring process that resulted in howell getting
02:18the job there's just so much there and at the end of the day the players are going to make
02:24whatever
02:24decision they make but for the fans and for the media and for anyone who cares about the nfl there
02:29needs to be a good balance between the league and the union to ensure that football is always going
02:33to be played and that everyone is in the best possible standing as the game unfolds one season after
02:41another so there's just a weird vibe right now and i don't think we're going to get any answers to
02:46the questions that are the most obvious as it relates to jc treader's resurrection in the nfl pa
02:53all right so let me throw this at you because you have the story does this mean we're almost a
02:57lock to
02:57go to 18 games oh there will be 18 games okay the question is when and here's the latest it'll
03:05happen it'll happen in 2031 because when the current cba expires the nfl will lock the players out
03:12until the players cry uncle and as we learned in 2011 the nfl the league the owners they'll shut the
03:19game down for a full season if they have to to get what they want the players won't that was
03:24learned
03:24in 1987 when the strike collapsed after three weeks of replacement players and guys crossed the
03:31picket lines and the players all came back and we all learned that the players just want to play
03:36football and they want to get paid to play football they are not in a financial position
03:40to go without one year of their prime nfl earning capacity so if we're going to have it by 2031
03:46the question becomes how do they get a deal done before then and one of the things i reported the
03:52day after the super bowl was that the atlanta super bowl in february of 2028 it still doesn't have
03:58a specific date which is unheard of at this point of the calendar you need to have convention center
04:02for the whole week you need to have thousands of hotel rooms reserved they always have the date for
04:07the game at least two years in advance they've specifically delayed scheduling that super bowl
04:14in order to allow for the possibility of an 18th game by the 2027 season so that tells me they're
04:20going to move quickly they're going to make what they believe is a compelling case jc treader
04:25on a new cba based on 18 regular season games 16 international games per year whatever else
04:31they're looking for take it to the executive committee take it to the board of player reps
04:34take it to the rank and file and let's go and i assume that's going to happen very quickly so
04:39we
04:39could have 18 as soon as 27 as late as 2031 18 is coming we had robert craft the owner
04:45of the patriots
04:46on radio in boston within the past month or so talking about 18 regular season games and 16
04:52international games every year is a given they're going to get it they know they're going to get it
04:56the question is when are they going to get it and the earlier they get it the more money everyone
05:00makes so that's why they're going to push to get it done now michael they still play pre-season
05:04games in any way shape or form two none what do you think the argument has always been
05:10and this goes all the way back to the 70s when i first discovered football there were 14 regular
05:15season games and six pre-season games because the guys didn't stay in shape the way that they do
05:20now so you needed that longer runway to get ready for the games that counted so it's always been 20
05:25games so they went from 14 and 6 in 78 to 16 and 4 five years ago 17 and 3
05:33you're just sliding that
05:34needle okay now it'll be 18 and 2 and i think eventually it's going to be 20 and 0 now
05:39that may
05:40not be in my lifetime but that's the ultimate end goal i believe because when you look at the
05:46reasoning the commissioner will provide for not liking pre-season it's not nfl quality football
05:51they want more games that count because the games that count will get 20 25 30 million people to
05:57watch in prime time and they make a lot more money off of those games than they do off of
06:01pre-season
06:01games uh mike you say 16 international how long does it become before we're seeing teams planted in
06:09europe well that's part of the ongoing quest to increase inventory because that's what it all
06:16comes down to more inventory they want more games that can be peeled off and dropped in prime time
06:22slots that's where the big money is the prime time windows taking games away from the cluster on sunday
06:29afternoon at 1 and 4 25 and putting them on monday tuesday wednesday thursday sunday night friday and
06:36saturday the two nights they have to avoid between mid-september and mid-december in order to keep
06:42their broadcast to antitrust exemption but they need more games and if you get more teams you get more
06:47games and you serve those markets and the commissioner has mused in the past about a four-team
06:52european division i assume it would be two teams in london and two teams elsewhere in europe
06:56i think that it's possible potentially and again this is a long-term play a four-team pacific division
07:05and you'd reconfigure the league i've written something about this recently where you you have
07:1220 teams in two conferences and you've got two international divisions so you get 40 teams you get
07:2120 games you get a lot more inventory and a lot more money that can be made and i think
07:28that's the
07:29long-term maximum load that the nfl could bear and who knows when it'll happen but i think one of
07:36these days will will be at that point with 40 teams and 20 games per team it's years from now
07:42but i think
07:43that's where it's eventually going to creep do you think that eventually because i remember when the
07:47big 10 went to the big 10 network the thing they were offering was every game especially basketball
07:52basketball uh basketball games were all on their own individual platform so no game started at the
07:58same time do you think we'll go away from sunday afternoon football where multiple teams are playing
08:03at one and they'll try to find a way to slot windows so that every game can be seen by
08:08everyone
08:08one of the key factors in whether that would ever happen is going to be the eventual outcome of this
08:15sunday ticket antitrust lawsuit that is pending on appeal in federal court in california the nfl
08:22had a massive verdict entered against it a jury found that the current sunday ticket system violates
08:28the antitrust laws because what they do is they deliberately overprice sunday ticket in order to
08:33protect the cbs and fox games they want the number to be so high that most people will settle for
08:38watching whatever games they can get for free in their local area instead of watching all of those
08:44games if that formula if that model is imploded as a result of that litigation then what's the
08:52point of having all those games played at once yep let's come up with if we've got 32 teams
08:59there's 16 windows per week now that's going to be smaller and larger depending upon buys but
09:05let's find a game to fit in every single window and yeah when you look at what standalone games do
09:14from a rating standpoint they do so much more than dumping a bunch of games into that same one to
09:22one o'clock to four o'clock you know eight nine games at once and then you know so there
09:26goes red zone
09:27there goes sunday ticket but hello these massive numbers that you can get now not every game is going
09:33to do that and they'll schedule the games based upon where they think the biggest numbers are going
09:38to go but yeah there'll be one game at one o'clock on sunday one game at four o'clock
09:42one game at eight
09:44o'clock i mean they'll keep tinkering with all those things but that sunday ticket litigation could be a
09:49major factor in forcing the nfl to reimagine how it delivers those games one one potential outcome and
09:56this was one of the arguments made in the sunday ticket litigation look at what college football does
10:01you turn on espn there's a game espn2 there's a game fs1 there's a game here there's a game there
10:07there's a game it could be that sunday ticket as we know it goes away and all those games get
10:13redistributed among seven or eight different networks that everyone already has if you've got a tv
10:19network package so you don't have to pay extra for sunday ticket it's already included and what
10:23you're already paying for with your tv provider mike florio joining us from pro football talk
10:29if you're the browns what do you do with deshaun watson this year last year of his deal well you've
10:36got
10:36to keep him the way they've structured the deal the way they've engineered the cap hit they can't
10:41cut him and we already know they owe him every penny of the five-year 230 million dollars so you
10:47got a new head coach and he's on the team he's available let's see what he can do there's been
10:54no indication that he's disruptive if anything the reviews have been positive and how he helps the
10:59other quarterbacks you let him compete and you see if he can turn the clock back to 2020 he was
11:04an
11:04mvp candidate he would have been an mvp finalist if the texans hadn't been four and 12 that was the
11:11year that bill o'brien was fired four games in and the team wasn't good but deshaun watson had a
11:16really
11:16good strong season his career went sideways after that he wanted out of houston then came the lawsuits
11:23so i would give him a fair chance to compete here's the thing though and i know he was injured
11:29most of last year but he was back practicing i didn't hear anything to suggest that guys are like
11:35wow wait till next year when this guy's ready to go like there was no like you're going to get
11:40buzz
11:41on the practice field if somebody comes out and they're just lighting it up and there was nothing
11:44like that if it was happening guys kept it to themselves so that's an interesting wrinkle
11:49from my perspective there's no reason to think there's no objective evidence from last year to suggest
11:54that he's ready to just explode and get back to being the guy that the browns thought they were
11:59trading for
12:02um here's my next question for you ready for this one is the value of a college quarterback going up
12:08as the days get closer to the draft like i at one point i'm like okay mendoza is going to
12:13be the only
12:13guy that gets drafted in the first round now all of a sudden i'm not saying ty simpson's going to
12:18go
12:18first round but he could go late first round so i'm just saying that the the value of these
12:23quarterbacks is going to start to go up right now every year there will be
12:30draft picks every year there's an incoming class of players every year you're going to have the
12:35assessment of the board shaped by the needs of each team and also as you get farther removed from
12:42the season ending you've got the opinions of coaches that get factored into the assessments of
12:46the players that's one of the ways that you'll hear that guys are moving up the board that's when the
12:52coaches get involved and different grades are put on different players once the coach is able to say
12:56i like this guy i don't like that guy when it comes to quarterbacks and we saw kenny pickett be
13:02the
13:03only first rounder a few years ago and there have been other years where you know there's not a rush
13:08on
13:08guys but the consensus is mendoza clear number one what's the gap between him and simpson the steelers i
13:15think would like to have him drop to them at 20 or 21 wherever they're sitting will the jets take
13:21ty simpson at 16 now you've got people putting ty simpson higher than fernando mendoza and you know
13:27this is the time of year where number one a lot of people aren't telling the truth they're passing
13:32along lies that are told to them you've got a lot of broadcasters who have incestuous relationships
13:37where they're represented by the same agency that represents the players and there's all sorts of stuff
13:42going on as the people who work in the media are manipulated to say things to help guys get
13:49drafted higher so i look at all that with a very you know dim view that are we really getting
13:55the
13:55truth here the only time we get the truth is when it's time to start the draft and the guys
14:00start
14:00coming off the board one after another mike florio joining us pro football talk where you can read
14:06all of mike's work the only quarterback sitting out there right now who you would think i wonder if
14:13that guy could be a starter would be i would think kirk cousins who hasn't found a team yet
14:18where do you think he lands mike is it pittsburgh is it arizona or is he a backup somewhere what
14:23about
14:23aaron rogers he could be a starter the steelers are waiting for me yes the damned thing and should
14:28they yeah i don't i don't know that they should rod woodson came out and said recently that they
14:33shouldn't wait and you know steelers fans went through this last year where they they waited
14:38for aaron rogers even though interest elsewhere was minimal the rams had him as their fallback plan
14:45if matthew stafford had been traded he wanted to play for the vikings i think the vikings considered
14:51it and ultimately decided to go all in with jj mccarthy and journeyman backups this time around
14:57for cousins i think it's arizona or pittsburgh those are the only two teams currently looking for
15:03starters who wouldn't just be stop gaps until a rookie is ready to go pittsburgh i think would
15:10make a ton of sense for cousins if rogers doesn't go there so we'll just we'll see and yeah i
15:17know
15:17there are some opinions that cousins has nothing left i thought he looked pretty good down the stretch
15:21last year but uh we'll see i mean you know great quarterbacks are hard to find and when there are
15:29quarterbacks who are out there at this point and they're still available that that gives you a
15:35pretty good idea of what the league at large thinks of them and and we'll see but the steelers you
15:40know
15:40the thinking is that rogers is going to go back to pittsburgh and uh i'll believe it when i see
15:46it i
15:46have no reason to not believe it but it hasn't happened yet maybe they're just going to wait and
15:50trot him out you know during the draft and create some big buzz but i don't even know how the
15:55fans are going
15:55to react to it i think the fans would like to turn the page the fans saw it last year
15:59it's not like
16:00he took them beyond the wild card round of the playoffs they haven't gotten past the wild card
16:04round of the playoffs since 2016 and they got blown out at home last year his last pass of the
16:10season
16:11was a pick six i think that's one of the reasons why he wants to potentially come back and play
16:15again
16:15he doesn't want that to be his last moment in an nfl uniform but uh it's it's just bizarre that
16:21the steelers who are supposedly one of the proudest franchises in the nfl is doing this for the second
16:28straight year there's a dog with its nose pressed against the front window waiting for aaron rogers
16:32to come home and aaron rogers otherwise has no interest his name has not come up this year
16:38for any other team no other team maybe the steelers kick off the draft by going six hours beforehand and
16:44announcing that they've either signed rogers or kirk cousins he likes to make news draft day it was like
16:50four years ago when it all hit that he had asked to be traded to the 49ers and they i
16:58remember spending
16:58that day wondering if he was going to get traded to the broncos that was the year before they traded
17:03for russell wilson but i remember spending that day really wondering is the trade going to go down
17:08of aaron rogers so look he's a guy who wants to say i don't want attention and i think he
17:15builds
17:15attention by creating a mystery i think he loves it when he's the topic of conversation and he
17:22reserves the right to complain that everyone's talking about him while he secretly loves that
17:26everyone's talking about him mike always a pleasure thank you very much your books are going well
17:3299 said ebooks on amazon for my four novels are out there to stop and think how many are out
17:38there
17:38more are on the way this is the time this is the time of year where i have time to
17:43to carve out a
17:44few hours a night to to work on the next one the next one the next one and the next
17:48one so we'll
17:49we'll figure out which one's the right one to drop but there'll be another one coming at some point
17:52this year awesome cool thank you buddy always appreciate having you thanks guys mike florio joining
17:58us on the make it right call kyle wright hotline
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