- 2 months ago
MIke Florio joins the show to explain why he thinks the Commanders failed to build enough around Jayden, what he thinks about Washington selling merch with the Redskins logo, and discuss other headlines around the NFL.
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00:00We are excited to jump on the Rude Guest Hotline, talk to Mr. Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk.
00:06Mike, what's up, dude? How are you?
00:08Doing great. How are you guys today?
00:09Good, man. What's happening with you?
00:11I'm curious, dude. Have you seen all these tweets coming out of the Commanders' joint practice with the Ravens?
00:17I don't know if it's caught your eye yet, but not a great performance in Washington, for Washington.
00:21I have not seen them. Your producer said when I picked up the call that the Commanders are getting their
00:26asses kicked by the Ravens.
00:28I got the quick overview.
00:31Obviously, losing Tunsil is a big problem, but the offensive line woes in Washington, specifically at the center position, continue
00:40to be a big problem.
00:42When you saw they released Biotis and then were in on Linderbaum, didn't get him, was that something you noticed?
00:50Like, okay, they've got this young quarterback, but what else are they doing there?
00:54Well, absolutely. You have to have a plan.
00:56And every team has a plan, in theory, at every position.
00:58The question is, how do you actually implement it?
01:01Do you get the guys you want?
01:03You've got your target list, one, two, three, four, five, as free agency rolls around, as the draft happens.
01:09When they released Biotis, I went back and looked at last year,
01:13and he landed on injured reserve at the very end of the season.
01:16And I just assumed that whatever happened to him in that game that caused the injury that put him on
01:22IR,
01:22they must have decided, we're not going to get our money's worth out of this guy, so we just have
01:26to move on,
01:27and we have to come up with a different plan.
01:28And with Linderbaum, the fact that the Raiders were willing to pay the dysfunctional team tax,
01:34tax, excuse me, and blew up the market from $18 million a year to $27 million a year,
01:39that took everybody out of it.
01:41But you've got to come up with someone else, and you've got to hope that it works.
01:45And that's the reality.
01:46You've got all these different moving parts with 22 starting positions and your special teams,
01:51and you can't carve up the salary cap pie and your draft picks to cover every position
01:57the way that you ideally would like to, and you have to make some compromises
02:02to put together the team that you're able to put together.
02:04Yeah, I agree with that.
02:06Mike, it was an interesting 48 hours in Commander's Land,
02:10and I'm going back a little bit, but you and I haven't spoken.
02:13The excitement that surrounded their addition of Stefan Diggs,
02:19and then about literally 36 hours later, Laramie Tunsell's out for a significant period of the season,
02:25maybe the whole season.
02:28There's so much I want to talk to you about league-wide,
02:29but where do you think Washington is going into the regular season?
02:34You know, every year I have in my mind a group of teams that I believe are going to be
02:40very good,
02:41a group of teams that I believe are going to be very bad,
02:44and then there's a swath in the middle where I have no idea what's going to happen.
02:49And Washington lands in that pool, in my mind.
02:53I have no idea what they're going to do.
02:54No idea whatsoever.
02:56Because we had the NFC Championship appearance two years ago, last season derailed by injuries to Jaden Daniels,
03:04most notably, and we saw the backslide.
03:06Where does it go this year?
03:08I just don't know.
03:09It's obviously not encouraging when you lose one of your cornerstone players.
03:13For most, it's not all of the season.
03:14But for me, I just don't know.
03:19And it all comes down to the early stretch of the schedule.
03:21It doesn't help that they open with the Eagles.
03:23But if you can start winning some games early, you can build some momentum,
03:26and before you know it, you're a contender.
03:28But if it goes the other way early, before you know it,
03:31you're just trying to figure out where you're going to land in the top ten in the draft order next
03:35year.
03:35And I personally think that some seats are going to get very hot if this season goes the way last
03:41season did.
03:42Yeah, I tend to agree with you.
03:44What do you feel needs to improve more drastically for this team to have any level of success this year?
03:50Offense or defense?
03:54Well, probably both, but you've got to get the most out of a young franchise quarterback.
04:00When you have a guy who has shown that he can play at a ridiculously high level,
04:04that guy becomes the centerpiece of your team.
04:06So you've got to have the pieces around him to make it work.
04:10And that's really the question.
04:11It starts with the offensive line.
04:13You know, the entire group of positions, tackle, guard, center, it's so overlooked in the NFL.
04:20When they play well, we never talk about them.
04:22Never.
04:23We talk about the fact that the guys they're blocking for are having such important and significant years.
04:29We only notice the offensive line when the quarterback can't throw and the running backs can't run.
04:34And so that's where it all starts with those five guys, tackle to tackle,
04:38that either manage or don't manage to give the quarterback time to run the offense.
04:42And I think that's going to be the key here.
04:45But, you know, last year was just across the board.
04:48And the hope is it was an aberration.
04:50It was just one of those crap happens type of seasons.
04:53And you hope that on both sides of the ball they will improve.
04:56But with a young franchise quarterback who's in a critical year for him because it's year three
05:00and he unlocked the ability to get a new contract come 2027,
05:04the performance of the offense, I think, is going to go a long way toward the performance of the team,
05:09and especially because we've seen how the league has skewed over the last 50 years.
05:13You're far.
05:14I know they say defense wins championships, but offense positions you to have a chance to let your defense try
05:21to win a championship.
05:23I'm talking with our friend Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk here.
05:26You can follow him at Pro Football Talk.
05:28Mike, I don't know if I've ever thanked you for this, but, you know, Brian and I do a four
05:32-hour show year-round.
05:34So, May, June, July, some of those sleepy months for sports radio, certainly.
05:40You know, we have a segment where it's, let's check out Pro Football Talk.
05:43And we'll just, like, pull up three stories that you've written about.
05:46So, thank you for your tireless efforts, dude.
05:50It's funny, too.
05:51This year when it got slow, and I appreciate it, but when it got slow, I thought, boy, it's really
05:56not slow this year.
05:57There's a lot going on.
05:58But then once all the camps open again, you realize it's not slow.
06:03It's slower.
06:04Yeah.
06:04Because once the camps are open, it is crazy.
06:06And that wave continues through the Super Bowl, combine, free agency, and draft.
06:13I don't know if you'll agree with this.
06:15My wife, her rankings of how busy I am, she's training camp is by far the most.
06:22But she thinks the offseason is actually more hectic because the regular season is so formulaic.
06:28Yeah.
06:29Like, we know what's going to happen in the regular season.
06:31Offseason, who knows?
06:35I think you're right.
06:36And you fall into a rhythm where every Monday is the same, every Tuesday is the same, every Wednesday is
06:41the same.
06:42And it just goes on that cycle.
06:44But then you get into the offseason, and all hell breaks loose, and you never know where the news is
06:48going to come from,
06:49what you're going to have to chase, what you're going to have to report on, what you're going to have
06:51to talk about.
06:52And you just have to kind of be ready.
06:54Like, you're almost like a fireman sitting there just waiting for the alarm to go off, and you never know
07:00when it's going to happen.
07:01Totally, man.
07:02Mike, I did, before we go around the league here, I did want to ask you, I don't know if
07:07you wrote about this,
07:08but that the commanders are now selling some t-shirts for Daryl Green, Art Monk, and Sean Taylor
07:15that have the old logo on there and actually say the word Redskins on the shirts.
07:20I was curious if that caught your eye.
07:22Oh, it absolutely caught my eye.
07:24Because, look, I have believed that over the past few years, I remember when Josh Harris bought the team three
07:31years ago,
07:31he used the old name a few times.
07:34Magic Johnson used the name.
07:35And I just feel like there's, whether it's conscious or not, an effort to just dip the toe in the
07:42water
07:43to see if the time would ever be right to bring back the name.
07:48And it's just kind of lingering there.
07:49The uniforms now are identical to the old uniforms except for the logo.
07:54So anytime there's a development, I remember when Dan Quinn showed up with the bootleg jersey t-shirt
08:00that had the old logo on it, and that was the story for a while.
08:03And the question becomes, are they just strategically long-term monitoring this?
08:09Is there a time where this can come back?
08:12And in the interim, there's a certain element of the fan base that loves it.
08:15Any time the old logo or the old name resurfaced.
08:19So I saw it, and I don't necessarily buy their reason for it.
08:25I think there are ways to protect your trademarks without putting it on the back of a t-shirt
08:29and putting the logo gigantically on the front of a t-shirt.
08:33They have explained that last year they had the old name on the neck of the jersey on an image
08:40of Sean Taylor when they honored him.
08:43And there are plenty of trademarks and logos that companies have had over the years that they just stopped using.
08:49That doesn't make it open season for anyone else.
08:52Like NBC's had like seven different logos in my lifetime.
08:55I don't think it's fair game to dust off one of the old NBC logos and start selling gear if
09:01you're not NBC,
09:02even though NBC hasn't used the old logos in decades.
09:06So I don't really buy that.
09:08It may make it a little stronger, but if they really are never going to use that name again,
09:12who cares if someone else is misappropriating it?
09:17We're done with it if that's their position.
09:18If we're done with it, we don't care what happens with it.
09:22So it tells me they're not really done with it.
09:24And whether it's just they're going to use it on a cameo appearance basis or someday, somehow, some way,
09:32you know, maybe the commanders have five or six bad years in a row and they need to kickstart the
09:37franchise
09:38and excite the fan base and they'll test the wins and they'll give it a try.
09:44But it got my attention because it supports my theory that that one of these days it could be back.
09:50And they just want to kind of kind of get a feel from time to time as to what the
09:54reaction would be.
09:55I can understand that.
09:56But my question would be, how would you sell something with Daryl Green, Art Monk, and Sean Taylor and have
10:02and not have that name somewhere on it?
10:05Well, there are ways to do it.
10:07And there was a time when, you know, they would post.
10:11And I noticed this every year, London Fletcher's birthday.
10:13Every year they'd post happy birthday, London Fletcher.
10:17And some years the old logo was very conspicuous in the photo they chose.
10:21And then once they changed the name for the first couple of years, the angle of the helmet, you couldn't
10:28see the logo.
10:29It's easy to do that.
10:30You just put up an image of Art Monk, Daryl Green, whoever, that was shot where you can't see the
10:36logo.
10:36It's easy.
10:37So there are ways to work around it.
10:40And this is one of the realities that you encounter when you decide to change your name.
10:45And in theory, you're doing it because you've agreed that the old name became a dictionary defined slur.
10:52And, you know, things change, language changes.
10:54That's the whole argument underpinning the decision that was made back in 2020.
10:58So I think there are ways to do it.
11:00It just seems conspicuous this time around.
11:03And to me, it's the most brazen test case yet to see what the reaction will be if the old
11:11logo and the old name make a reappearance.
11:12Yeah, for me, I think, and we've had the team president, Mark Klaus, is a friend of the program.
11:18He comes on with us relatively regularly and has been really approachable on this.
11:23And I think you're right about parts of that.
11:26I think they want to take this to the line where they're embracing the history as much as they can.
11:32But, like, I believe they're never going back to the old name.
11:35I do think the old logo could get incorporated somewhat.
11:38You know what, I think they're going to kind of move forward with the spear as their way to tie
11:42everything together.
11:43But I strongly feel, Josh Harris has said it on the record so many times that going back to the
11:48old name won't happen.
11:50But life is crazy, man.
11:52You never know what's going to happen.
11:54I remember an owner of the team who said, all caps, never.
11:57Yeah.
11:57And that's the reason they got changed, I believe, because he was a guy who was a bad dude that
12:02had many – he got enemies that didn't give a damn about football, just wanted to make him wrong.
12:07Well, I think you're right.
12:08And I think it was a perfect storm of a lot of different factors, social issues at the time.
12:12Yeah.
12:12The lingering animosity toward Daniel Snyder that became flat-out hatred.
12:17It all just lined up perfectly.
12:19Ron Rivera championed the effort to convince him to make the change, and the change got made.
12:25But for that same reason, we can't rule out the possibility at some point in the future, the planets are
12:30going to line up in a way that would make bringing back the old name the right decision.
12:35So I think they're keeping it close and holding out the possibility that maybe someday – and we'll say never
12:42for now, but maybe someday.
12:44And until then, you're right, it embraces the history of the franchise.
12:47It placates portions of the fan base that still want that name and miss that name.
12:53And it sells merchandise.
12:55Yeah, dude.
12:55So I understand what they're doing.
12:57It's a for-profit entity, and those shirts are going to move.
13:00Oh, yeah.
13:00I'm talking about Mike Florio here from Pro Football Talk.
13:03You can give him a follow at Pro Football Talk.
13:06Dude, I wanted to ask you this, because we've had – there's been a lot of Lane Kiffin talk in
13:11Washington lately.
13:13You guys have the news that Lane Kiffin was the one that instigated these pro players trying to come back
13:22to college and enter the transfer portal.
13:24Can you tell us what you guys learned?
13:27Well, and this is amazing to me, because when Lane Kiffin was asked about it this week – and I'll
13:30rewind a week and a half.
13:31I was told before everything hit the fan on this that LSU and at least one other school was reaching
13:37out to agents and telling them,
13:41hey, look, this may be happening and we may be interested in insert name of player if he's cut by
13:47the team that he's currently on.
13:49And then when Kiffin finally talked about it this week, he gave a very pragmatic response.
13:54Hey, if these guys are going to be available and they're going to go somewhere, we may as well look
13:58into acquiring them because they'll go somewhere else.
14:02But then CBS Sports reports that it was Kiffin and LSU that actually reached out to these players that fell
14:08into this very narrow range.
14:10Guys who graduated high school in 2022 had four years of NCAA eligibility, went into the draft,
14:17and now because the NCAA has adopted this rule going forward that you get five years of eligibility, the argument
14:22is, well, we should get it too.
14:25And if, as CBS Sports reported, Kiffin and LSU are out there stirring these guys up to sue and proactively
14:34reaching out to the players and the agents who are under contract with NFL teams,
14:38this is a can of worms, and I don't think the NFL is going to do anything about it.
14:41But when you've got a guy under contract and he's on your team, you're not just protected against tampering by
14:47other teams.
14:48You're protected against tampering by anyone.
14:50And this is essentially another football entity trying to get an idea in the mind of your employee that he
14:58could go make more money somewhere else as long as he gets cut.
15:02And it just doesn't feel right, like the reformed lawyer in me, the recovering lawyer, hears that and says, man,
15:09that's not a good idea for Lane Kiffin to be doing it.
15:12But that puts the whole thing in a different perspective.
15:13He can't act like, oh, well, this opportunity just popped up and I'm just doing what I have to do.
15:18He engineered it, according to that report.
15:21See, I grew up in Louisiana and I'm like this, unless you've got lawyers too.
15:25They better tell their lawyers to tell Lane, stay in your lane.
15:28I mean, he's a coach, but he tries to manipulate stuff, and the lawyers are the ones that are supposed
15:35to be able to tell him, we can't do that.
15:38Well, and if he'll even listen.
15:41That's the key.
15:42And that's why so many coaches love college football.
15:44You become the emperor of the city where the team is, and no one can tell you anything.
15:49You don't have to tell anybody.
15:50You've got the power, and what's he trying to do?
15:54He's trying to do well enough at LSU to unlock his bonuses and set himself up to leave LSU in
16:01the dust like he left Ole Miss in the dust.
16:03That's what they do.
16:04Dude, 100%.
16:05That's like, as the whole Jaden-LSU fiasco was unfolding, I just found it so interesting that, of course, Lane
16:12Kiffin is the coach.
16:14And that's what's pouring gasoline on the fire.
16:17Not that anybody handled that particularly well.
16:20Mike, I wanted to make a point of asking you about this, because you have something on the website right
16:23now.
16:24I think MDS wrote it.
16:25But there's some talk of the Eagles wanting, needing a new stadium.
16:30And the governor of Pennsylvania came out and said, we're going to be sure the Eagles stay in Philadelphia.
16:36That is just my segue to asking you.
16:39I think the most interesting thing going on in the NFL right now is if the Bears actually leave Illinois
16:47and go to Indiana.
16:48How certain do you think that is?
16:51Because I feel like I heard, and it might have been like Big Cat or somebody, but I feel like
16:56I heard somebody saying that the NFL might get involved to try to change that course.
17:01Well, on the same day that Bears President Kevin Warren and Bears Chairman George McCaskey had a press conference during
17:10which they said the sole focus is Indiana, the commissioner was meeting with select lawmakers in Illinois.
17:16I think the Indiana thing started as a bluff.
17:20I think they saw what Kansas City was doing, what the Chiefs were doing, and jumping the border from Missouri
17:25to Kansas.
17:27And they recognized, hey, the Indiana border isn't far away.
17:30If we aren't going to be able to get the deal we want, we're never going to relocate out of
17:34the Chicagoland area.
17:35That's a non-starter.
17:36We know that.
17:37We need to have leverage against Illinois.
17:39Where's our leverage?
17:40It's Indiana.
17:40If they were serious about Indiana, they'd already be in a position where ground is broken and the stadium is
17:46being built.
17:46Kevin Warren said the projected cost goes up $150 million a year every year that they wait.
17:52Well, why are they waiting?
17:53They're waiting because they're hoping this possibility of Indiana gets Illinois to do something.
17:58And what happens with a hollow threat, sometimes the hollow threat morphs into your only option.
18:03And if this just doesn't work, if Illinois never does anything, then there's a moment where the Bears say, well,
18:10screw it.
18:10Our only option is to go to Indiana.
18:12But I think before that happens, they'll get something done in Illinois.
18:16And I think at the end of the day, there's still a chance they're going to end up in Chicago.
18:18I think that's their first choice.
18:20I think this all started with Arlington Heights as leverage against Chicago.
18:23And then Indiana as leverage against Arlington Heights and Illinois generally.
18:28And it's taking time because I think at the end of the day, they don't want to leave Chicago.
18:32But they also don't want to pay for the stadium themselves.
18:35So they've got to find a way to get somebody else to help pay for it.
18:37The Indiana Bears don't ring.
18:38No.
18:40It's crazy to me.
18:41And I think it's actually indicative of the two franchises that you have these iconic old stadiums.
18:47Soldier Field, Lambeau Field.
18:49The Packers.
18:49Now, granted, it's a different city, different politics, different everything.
18:52The Packers have been able to add on and kind of reinvest and make Lambeau Field this destination.
18:59It's historic.
19:01It's beautiful.
19:01It's also modern.
19:03Whereas Soldier Field is so bastardized.
19:05The land that Soldier Field sits on, on the lakefront in Chicago, that should be the best stadium in football.
19:11And it's not.
19:12I just, I hope they can figure that out, man.
19:15Yep.
19:16Well, and until they do, the Bears will have the advantage that comes from playing in the elements.
19:21Because wherever they build a new stadium, it's going to have a dome.
19:24Yeah.
19:24Because they are determined, as are most of the teams, except for the Bills, that have built new stadiums.
19:30They want to have that dome because they want to have events all year round.
19:34Yeah.
19:34You're absolutely right.
19:36Nobody has done a better job of failing up than Kevin Warren.
19:40Mike, thank you for the time, dude.
19:42I appreciate it, brother.
19:44Thanks, guys.
19:45All right.
19:45Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk.
19:47Check out the website, profootballtalk.com.
19:50Florio's on top of everything.