- 4 months ago
Seth and Sean discuss Rich Eisen's take that the Texans not giving CJ Stroud a contract extension next offseason could impact the locker room negatively.
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00:00I rarely have fun listening to Rich Eisen. He's just not my cup of tea.
00:03I understand his appeal to a certain segment of Booker School Marms.
00:08But for the most part, he's a little too slow for me.
00:11But I saw yesterday that he was talking about C.J. Stroud's contact situation.
00:15So you pulled this audio. I'll let you set this up.
00:17I pulled this audio, and I'm curious to see how this works for you.
00:19So for people who speak really slowly and with low energy, I generally listen at two to three times speed.
00:26So I don't know if that's doable, if that's just my brain and the way it works because I'm just
00:33ADHD or something.
00:34Tell me what you think about Rich Eisen at three times speed, talking about how not extending Stroud could be
00:43bad for the locker room.
00:44Making him go on the fourth year is doable. The fifth year is a highly provocative act.
00:48Also, if his teammates love him and the locker room loves him, you're sending a very wrong message to the
00:51locker room by not paying him.
00:51Because once you go down that road and you make a player, you make a player to show up and
00:55say, I'm not coming to show up.
00:55You can trade him after next year.
00:56That's too fast. Three times is good.
00:59Yeah, that's too fast. For me, that's too fast.
01:01Yeah, Ben, also. I don't know how you do it.
01:04You and I have these conversations all the time about I listen at 1.25, 1.5 max on podcasts.
01:10I don't know how you do it because you're a 1.75 two times guy.
01:14A lot of podcasts I listen to two times.
01:17Audiobooks I'll listen to, depending on it, sometimes three to four times.
01:20I don't know.
01:21Audiobooks are different, though, because they're edited and they're professional speakers that are speaking at a certain pace, so that's
01:26different.
01:27Did you happen to pull this cut at a different speed than three times so I know exactly what he
01:30was saying there?
01:31Ben, get to work.
01:32So, all right. Boy, I thought that was a comfortable pace for me.
01:39No, no. Dude, Ben, am I?
01:41That's like a disclaimer.
01:42Yeah, that is like a disclaimer at the end of an advertisement.
01:45Ben doesn't have to speed up my disclaimers.
01:48I just read them at my – I read them at a comfortable pace.
01:51Okay.
01:52Weigh in on the base power text line.
01:55Rich Eisen there is saying that it's bad for the locker room if you don't extend him next year.
02:02Like, if after this season you don't extend him, which – all right.
02:07Okay, wait, wait, wait.
02:07Okay, so if they don't extend him next summer?
02:11Like, not this coming summer.
02:12Yeah, going into his fifth season, if they don't extend him, then that's bad because he's respected in the locker
02:17room.
02:18Okay.
02:18I feel like if they don't extend him next summer, you know what else is bad for the locker room?
02:22If you don't feel great about your quarterback and you extend him to a deal that ends up crippling the
02:27team.
02:28How is Rich Eisen not correlating those two things?
02:30If he's not getting an extension next year, you're looking for a different quarterback at that point.
02:34Right, right.
02:35Yeah, that's where at the very end his co-host, who speaks at a more appropriate speed, said, well, you
02:42could trade him.
02:42You know, and Eisen acted like, oh, my stars.
02:45Oh, how could you ever trade?
02:47See, now I'd rather have that.
02:48I would rather have you, Southern Bell voice, paraphrasing what Eisen said.
02:53Oh, okay.
02:53And whatever that slop at three times speed you just put out there was.
02:56Okay, tell me at two times.
02:58Okay.
02:59About Rich Eisen's suggestion that they could, if they have to, do the Kirk Cousins thing and just have stop
03:06play on the franchise tag after two years from now.
03:09Yep.
03:10When you have somebody like CJ Stroud in your building and in your community and you look at him and
03:13you can basically say, I'm not paying you $55 million.
03:15I'll pay you $50 million.
03:15I'll pay you like Rock Purdy or what have you.
03:16It's still going to be a double of what Malik Willis is being paid plus.
03:18And you're not just going to toss him aside.
03:20You might Kirk Cousins him and just keep going.
03:22And we're like, hey, listen, we got a 50-year control of $25 million for you.
03:24It's pretty damn cheap.
03:24And then we'll just franchise tag you for two years.
03:26Okay.
03:27Now, that I could hear.
03:28Yeah.
03:28You know, one and a half speed probably would have been more listener in the car friendly, I would say.
03:34Yeah, listening to it now again after I got out of the mode of listening at hyper warp speed, it's
03:38hard.
03:39The problem is, though, what you have to do is go ahead and try to listen to the entire 10
03:43minutes at normal speed.
03:44I can't do it.
03:45No, I – and Rich Eisen puts out, like, full segments.
03:49And I will say this.
03:50His staff does a good job of finding what the hook is because I do end up watching and listening
03:55to some of his YouTube clips sometimes.
03:57But there's so many times where I'm like, man, can we get to the point?
04:00Can we get out of the point now as well?
04:02Well, you know, he moves at a different speed, and he's very successful, obviously.
04:06The point that he's making there –
04:07I don't know how successful he is, but yeah.
04:08The point –
04:10No, I'm serious.
04:11Like, there's a good chance you make more money than Rich Eisen.
04:15I don't know.
04:15I doubt that.
04:16He's – I mean, the lead guy on the draft on the NFL Network, I don't know.
04:20You don't pay those guys squat anymore.
04:21Yeah, maybe.
04:22I don't know.
04:23Yeah, they are cutting down at the NFL Network.
04:26I tell guys that all the time, like, guys getting – not J.J. Watt, because, like, J.J.'s at
04:30a different level and everything.
04:32But for guys, like, that are kind of my caliber, like, you're – you know, guys that weren't great players
04:37or huge names or anything.
04:38That you can – you might focus in on where your strengths are and where people know you and like
04:45you, and you could end up being, A, having way more job security, and, B, actually making more money than
04:50when they try to, you know, roll you in as the minor league guy on ESPN.
04:53Absolutely.
04:54There's no question about that.
04:55As far as what he – as far as what he said there about rolling with C.J. Stroud, Kirk
05:01Cousins style, look, there's a reason that worked for Kirk Cousins.
05:06Yeah.
05:06He was a fourth-round pick who wasn't even the first quarterback they took in that draft.
05:12That was the draft where they took Robert Griffin III with the second overall pick, and they drafted – the
05:17Redskins did at the time – drafted Kirk Cousins in the fourth round of that draft.
05:21So Kirk Cousins to that point, and this is back in 2012, was making fourth-round money, so he was
05:27totally cool with franchise – and, again, there was no fifth-year option on Kirk Cousins either because he was
05:33a fourth-round pick.
05:34So he went right from that rookie contract into making whatever the franchise tag was back then, which the franchise
05:39tag is like the average of the top five salaries at the position.
05:42So Cousins was ecstatic about it.
05:44I can't imagine C.J. Stroud and even more so David Mulligeta being super cool with a year-to-year
05:52sort of situation with the Houston Texans.
05:54Again, if it goes – if it comes to that, it means it's almost correlated with him not having had
06:00the type of fourth year that we were expecting out of C.J. Stroud.
06:02Yeah, I don't – like, to start playing out like, oh, my gosh, what if they don't extend him after
06:07next year?
06:07You're right.
06:08That's because you just – he's not your guy.
06:11Or, in the case of Kirk Cousins, that was a little bit of a combination of – Kirk Cousins is
06:15a guy that plays it – he plays the free agency business like a baseball player does.
06:19Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:20You know, which is really, really smart.
06:21But also, he was with the commanders.
06:23Like, there – it was a god-awful organization at the time, and they just – I think there was
06:29another avenue where if Kirk Cousins had been on a different team, they would have come to some kind of
06:34an agreement.
06:34But, yeah, it's not – that's not the ideal situation.
06:38I'm like, oh, just give him the franchise tag.
06:39What if – okay, what if C.J. Stroud, Trent Dilfers, the Houston Texans to a Super Bowl?
06:48Right, because he could have done that.
06:49If he doesn't throw four interceptions against New England, if you get the version of C.J. Stroud,
06:53that you got in the second half of the season last year, there is a – there is a –
06:58by odds-making standards,
07:01a pretty good chance you get to a Super Bowl.
07:03I don't know if you're beating Seattle in the – but you get to –
07:05But if he's just careful with the football.
07:07If you're just careful with the football, you get to the Super Bowl.
07:10So, if he does that, if it's the C.J. from last year, but we take – we subtract that
07:15New England game
07:16and just plug in an average C.J. Stroud 20-25 game in the New England game,
07:20and in the AFC title game against Denver, and they get to a Super Bowl,
07:25how would Texan fans feel about giving him $55 to $60 million a year?
07:31That's a top-of-the-market type of deal.
07:32He got you to a Super Bowl.
07:33I think it would be very polarizing.
07:35When you ask how would Texans fans feel, I would say it would be very polarizing.
07:39You're almost getting to the point now where, you know, if C.J. wins a Super Bowl,
07:45he's a different type of quarterback than Jalen Hurts,
07:48and yet I feel like he would be treated the same way where if he did that,
07:53where he didn't have an awesome – he wasn't a driving force behind it all,
07:58but you win a Super Bowl, that people are going to have those kinds of heated debates
08:02the way they do about Jalen Hurts of, you know, just how good is he,
08:05how much is he worth, all of that, but I think the most likely scenario
08:09is that he gets a Jalen Hurts type of contract.
08:12Right, and keep in mind, my hypothetical is they just get to a Super Bowl.
08:16Like last year, they got to a Super Bowl.
08:19I think they would have lost to the Seahawks had they gotten there
08:21because of the way the Seahawks were playing,
08:22but I think the Jalen Hurts thing is a really apropos name to bring up,
08:27and keep in mind, he was the best player in those two Super Bowls
08:31and was the MVP in one of them.
08:33And granted, it's Philly fans, and they're crazy, they're lunatics,
08:36but still, I would say even outside of Philly,
08:39Jalen Hurts is kind of a polarizing quarterback in terms of where do we rank this guy.
08:44And that's what I mean.
08:45It's a really loose comparison because exactly for the reason you said,
08:49that Jalen Hurts was in the way and the style of football they were playing that year.
08:54Yeah, he was a driving force.
08:56He wasn't a conventional quarterback,
08:57but it was hard for people to come to a consensus on him,
09:01and he's had good years and he's had bad years.
09:04I think there's less questioning of C.J.'s leadership ability, I think.
09:10I don't want to speak for the entire fan base or anything.
09:12Than Jalen Hurts, you're saying?
09:14Yeah, there's less questioning of C.J. Stroud than there is of Jalen Hurts.
09:18I agree with you.
09:18But C.J.'s got more of a conventional personality.
09:20Than Jalen, yes.
09:22Than Jalen Hurts.
09:22Where Jalen Hurts is kind of an introvert,
09:23and people question just how good of a leader he is,
09:27how well he gets along with his teammates.
09:28Oh, yeah, Ocho said he was sitting in the corner at that party that one time on his phone.
09:31I'm excusing Ocho from the conversation.
09:34I know.
09:34I'm just a little bit of a conversation.
09:35So, yeah, like C.J.,
09:39you don't have any of those questions about whether C.J. genuinely gets along with his teammates
09:43or anything like that.
09:45But that's a great question.
09:47What are we doing a year from now if the Texans,
09:50if we're stuck in the awful position of having won a Super Bowl,
09:55and C.J. was just aight?
09:57Yeah, okay, so people are weighing in on the base power text line.
10:00Let's react to some of this here.
10:02I would accept a bad bloated quarterback contract in exchange for a Super Bowl win.
10:07Right.
10:08Again, I wasn't giving you a Super Bowl win in this case.
10:10I was giving you a get to the Super Bowl.
10:12Yeah.
10:13So that doesn't match up.
10:15Okay, this is an interesting one.
10:18I doubt the Ravens lament the Joe Flacco contract after winning the Super Bowl.
10:23Someone else says – people are bringing up Flacco.
10:25I think a lot of Ravens fans do, though.
10:27Yeah, maybe, maybe.
10:28I mean, that was the last time they've won a Super Bowl, so maybe.
10:31I think people are – people don't realize how short people's memory is when – or gratitude is.
10:36I mean, it wasn't – how long did it take for people wanting to get, you know,
10:41John Elway run up out of Denver after getting them to a couple Super Bowls?
10:45For a long time, yeah.
10:46If you watch that –
10:47It didn't take long for people to be done with Elway.
10:50Go watch the Elway documentary.
10:51Elway is the GM.
10:53Sorry, I should have clarified that.
10:54Elway, the GM.
10:55People wanted him the hell out of there.
10:57Yep.
10:58Don't tell me about the Super Bowl victory or appearances.
11:00Well, even when he was getting to Super Bowls as a player,
11:03taking mediocre Bronco teams to getting blown out in the Super Bowl,
11:08people were mad at Elway in Denver.
11:09So, yeah, like I think Elway, the player, too,
11:12prior to actually going and winning a couple Super Bowls,
11:14he lost three Super Bowls in blowout fashion,
11:18and Denver people were upset with him over that.
11:22What if C.J. does a Flacco to a Super Bowl?
11:25I think Flacco and Dilfer are two very different things here.
11:28The Ravens have won two Super Bowls in their history
11:31with very different levels of quarterback play.
11:33Trent Dilfer was just there.
11:35Joe Flacco was the catalyst to that Super Bowl.
11:39Yeah, the Ravens defense –
11:41It was one of the best Super Bowl runs by a quarterback in the history of the game.
11:44It was a freakish stretch of play by Flacco that he had never done before
11:48and never did again.
11:49No turnovers.
11:50But the defense wasn't as – that wasn't the peak version of the Ravens defense.
11:54No, no, no.
11:56Yeah, Dilfer is the relevant one where, okay, he was along for the ride.
11:59Yes.
12:00And that's why I said that's where –
12:01C.J. this year in the playoffs looked like a quarterback
12:05who specifically almost feared being Trent Dilfer.
12:09Yeah.
12:09That – oh, man.
12:11Nobody – no kid dreams of being Trent Dilfer and winning a Super Bowl that way.
12:15Okay.
12:15And it felt like he was pressing.
12:17Yep.
12:18Okay, if what this – if what the Flacco texter is asking us,
12:21what if C.J. does a Flacco to a Super Bowl and the other texter –
12:24these are separate texters bringing up Flacco instead of Dilfer,
12:27which I think is also an interesting conversation.
12:29If you're telling me that I'm going to go look at the Baltimore Ravens
12:33pro football reference page and see what their history was with Flacco
12:39starting with that run to and through winning a Super Bowl,
12:43would we inherit that?
12:45You know, would we say, okay, you win a Super Bowl with C.J. Stroud
12:48and C.J. goes on a run where you actually feel pretty good about the contract.
12:52And then, you know, for Flacco, I think the Ravens fans felt great
12:56about the contract because he had such a good postseason
12:58and they won the Super Bowl.
13:00They thought – and he was in year five at that point, I think.
13:03He was drafted in 2008.
13:04So, C.J. is heading into year four right here.
13:07So, it's a similar chronology.
13:08I would bet that people in Baltimore felt like, you know what,
13:11Flacco is finally getting it and now he's, you know, he's going to be one of the –
13:16but we talked about – is Joe Flacco elite was a punchline for the next two years?
13:20That was the question after that Super Bowl for the next offseason.
13:24So, by that very nature, I think Raven fans were probably cool with the contract.
13:28The thing was, they then went on a run where they just were an afterthought
13:32for the next few years.
13:33If you're telling me that I could sign up right now and get the exact same storyline,
13:40including the contract for C.J. Stroud that Joe Flacco had in Baltimore,
13:44that you win a Super Bowl and he's the Super Bowl MVP and you give him a big contract
13:48that you don't feel good about for the next four or five years, sign me up now.
13:51I'll take the – if the cost of winning a Super Bowl with C.J. Stroud
13:56is giving him a big contract and then being an average team,
14:00because that's what the – Ravens have never been a bad team the last decade.
14:04They've been average at worst.
14:06Sign me up right now for that.
14:08I'd take it – would you?
14:09Would you take that?
14:11Would you take that?
14:12Winning a Super Bowl and then you're average for the next five years
14:15and we talk about C.J.'s contract.
14:17Yeah, I'm going to say that right now, but check in with me three years after that.
14:21I'd be miserable.
14:22I'd like – no, people vastly overestimate their willingness to be cool
14:28with having gotten something.
14:30That's not the way human nature works, though.
14:32After you win the Super Bowl three years later, you're just pissed at it.
14:35Like, wait, wait, what the hell?
14:36Why are they stuck here when they could be?
14:38Where are we with the Astros right now?
14:40You know, John, if I had told you in 2016, listen, you're going to go to the world –
14:47you're going to go to the – you're going to go to the –
14:50The ALCS seven straight years.
14:53Seven straight years.
14:54Yeah.
14:54You're going to win a couple of World Series.
14:57You're going to appear in four.
14:58Or will you be totally cool and happy with the Astros being a mess in 2025?
15:04I would have probably said yes.
15:06I would have said – and your point's a valid one.
15:09I'm not crapping on your point.
15:10But you don't feel great and awesome right now, though.
15:13Of course not.
15:14No.
15:14Did you – yeah.
15:15But you would trade – yeah, but going – but, no, in fairness to you,
15:18and I think this is where you're correct, but, yeah, if you had made that deal –
15:22Yeah.
15:22Yeah, hell yeah.
15:23Yeah.
15:23Like, if the Astros – in the moment, we're not going to be happy with the Astros when they're not
15:27performing well.
15:28But, yeah, I would still – I wouldn't go back in time and somehow sacrifice all of those World Series
15:34appearances.
15:35Right.
15:35Just so we could be, you know, leading to AL West in week two of 2026.
15:41Your point about human nature is entirely –
15:44But your point about – all right, so that's where – but the Astros are kind of a freakish –
15:49Yeah.
15:50You know, we're talking about one Super Bowl appearance compared to an incredible run of dominance in the AL.
15:57Well, we're talking about – with Flacco, we're talking about a Super Bowl win.
16:00Yeah.
16:00You know, and that's the big thing.
16:01If I – if, man, especially, you know, I ain't getting any younger.
16:05Yeah.
16:06You know, if I – if we can get a parade in this town with a Super Bowl and that's
16:10the deal you make with the football gods is,
16:12okay, CJ's going to go on this incredible run.
16:14He's going to be the toast of football.
16:16We're going to be having conversations, Seth.
16:18The following summer is CJ Stroud elite as he gets his equivalent of whatever Flacco's contract was back then.
16:24And then the price – this is the price you're paying here.
16:27The next five years, because they end up drafting Lamar Jackson in 2018.
16:32So, for the next five years, 2013 through 2017, 8-8, 10-6, 5-11, 8-8, 9-7.
16:43They miss the playoffs for the next five years, man.
16:46And so, I – okay.
16:48I mean, the bargaining just got a little steeper.
16:52I didn't realize it was – I didn't realize it was that mediocre for the next five years.
16:57I would still sign up for that.
16:58You know what?
16:59I would still sign up for that.
17:00And 100% by about 2015 or 16, I would be acting the way Seth is saying I would be
17:05acting.
17:05I would be a miserable cuss on the radio over it.
17:09Then I signed that deal back in 2012.
17:13Yeah.
17:13But you got that Rich Eisen money to wipe your tears away from –
17:18I want to say, didn't our listeners will know this better than us.
17:22I feel like the – is Joe Flacco a elite quarterback?
17:25Because that was a joke.
17:26And I think PFF Commenter was the one that first started it.
17:29Yeah.
17:30You got to be grammatically incorrect with it.
17:32But I think that predated his Super Bowl victory, didn't it?
17:36I think that was –
17:37That's a good question.
17:37I think it was a debate before that.
17:38Was there –
17:39It seemed like that was a big ESPN annoying thing even before he won the Super Bowl.
17:43It just – it got that much more heated after.
17:45Yeah.
17:45I might be wrong.
17:46It may – yeah, it may have been.
17:47I don't remember.
17:47I just remember it was after that Super Bowl.
17:50Boy, it was a – that was a good innings eater if you hosted a national show on Sunday
17:54afternoons.
17:55I will tell you that.
17:56Back in the day.
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