- 7 minutes ago
Mike Florio joins Joe Rose to break down the biggest storylines across the NFL. Florio shares why Mike Tomlin's TV gig is only boosting his stock for a head coaching return, how the Minnesota Vikings pulled off a steal trading a third-round pick to the Raiders for Kirk Cousins, and why the NFL needs to fix the post-deadline failed physical loophole after the Chargers and Broncos deal fell through. Plus, Florio gives his unfiltered take on Rex Ryan, Jon Gruden, and Dianna Russini's return to sports media.
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00:00Hey, I did want to ask you, Rex Ryan, one thing about it, that guy is not making friends in
00:05the NFL.
00:06I feel like when I listened to him on Sunday morning, he realized he's not getting a head coaching job
00:13again.
00:13And he just said, screw it, I'm going to sit here and blast people.
00:17But that makes for a better analyst.
00:19Yes. Oh, no, he's great.
00:20Yeah, the moment that you are no longer burdened by the political game of not burning bridges.
00:30And that's why John Gruden wasn't nearly as good as he could have been when he was on Monday Night
00:34Football.
00:34I remember when he got that job, I'm thinking, oh, this is going to be great.
00:38Chucky's coming to town. He's going to be throwing fireballs at everyone.
00:43He's going to be, they're going to have to hit the seven second delay.
00:47And it's like, what happened to John Gruden?
00:50Hey, what did you do with John Gruden?
00:52And it was so vanilla and it was so political because anything you say about any owner, any coach, any
01:00quarterback,
01:01that just makes your life harder when you come back.
01:06And he came back.
01:08So that's why I'm fascinated by the Mike Tomlin situation, because he's not pulling any punches,
01:13but he's also, he's keeping a foot in that boat.
01:17He's made some comments this week.
01:19I mean, if he wasn't coming back next year, no way, no how, it would be very easy to say
01:23it.
01:24And I love him from dealing with him, talking to him, getting to know him.
01:27But when he's asked about coaching next year and he says, well, those conversations are going to come up in
01:31the not too distant future.
01:32And I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
01:34That is not, I'm not coaching next year.
01:36I'm not leaving this job that I now have.
01:38And it's only going to increase speculation.
01:40But he has been fearless when it comes to saying what needs to be said.
01:45And I think he's one of the few guys that knows how to say something that expresses disagreement with a
01:54coaching decision,
01:55a player performance, et cetera, without doing it in a way that's going to make someone upset.
02:00I mean, he raises accurate, insightful criticisms that you can't deny.
02:07So if you're going to get your nose out of joint because of something Mike Tomlin said, that's on you.
02:12Because what he's saying is accurate.
02:13And what he's saying is serving the role of helping the fans and the media understand where the flaws are
02:22in these games that go sideways.
02:24Hey, Mike, I'm glad you brought that up.
02:26Because I was going to ask you, you've been working with him on Sunday nights.
02:29Coach Tomlin has been an absolute rock star.
02:33Everybody.
02:33And when you get everybody in the media to go, wow, this guy, he's got it.
02:38Has he surprised you?
02:40Did you think he was going to be like an old coach that might be going back to another job
02:45soon?
02:45Or he's been really good.
02:48He's exactly what I thought I would be.
02:50The only way he'd be better is if he was in the booth during the games.
02:54And we heard this in real time.
02:56As the plays end and you have 15, 20 seconds to make your point.
03:01Because he's very good at speaking in those small chunks.
03:05And he comes up with some great sayings.
03:08He's got a whole dictionary.
03:11He's got a whole collection of sayings that he will throw out at the right time forged by 19 years
03:19of coaching.
03:19Now, some of them need to be edited for a, you know, a primetime audience.
03:27Some are only suited to the locker room.
03:29Right.
03:29But, you know, there's some profanity that trickles through.
03:32But he's the same guy that he was as a coach.
03:36And he communicates in a very clear way.
03:38And the way that he talks about football, it boils it down to what football really is.
03:43It's blocking.
03:44It's tackling.
03:45It's hitting.
03:45It's a test of wills.
03:47There's an element of violence.
03:48He made a comment the other night about, you know, you can have a contact sport.
03:54And for some games, it's collision sport.
03:56And there were collisions all over the field in that Buccaneers-Bears game in the fourth quarter.
04:01And I can listen to him all day.
04:03Yeah, he's good.
04:04And I can understand.
04:04And here's the thing.
04:06When have we ever had a former coach who had that platform every week prior to the Sunday night game?
04:13And he's going into the stadiums.
04:14He's around the owners.
04:17I suspect, and I don't know this, I suspect that he's already gotten back channel feelers.
04:25And he knows who's going to be interested in him.
04:28And, obviously, he's not going to do anything until the season ends and jobs come open.
04:31But I suspect there's going to be multiple owners who are jockeying to try to hire him after the year.
04:37The question is, does he see one of these, this is my view, does he see one of these opportunities
04:41as the place where he could go and have success?
04:44Because any coach that has won a Super Bowl with one team knows that there is no coach in NFL
04:51history who has won Super Bowls with two different teams.
04:54Sean Payton's trying to do it.
04:56Mike McCarthy's trying to do it.
04:57John Harbaugh's trying to do it.
04:59And I won't be surprised if next year at this time Mike Tomlin's trying to do it.
05:02I'm with you.
05:03I'm with you.
05:04I think he has just, he has done nothing but help his stock on everything he's done to get a
05:10really good job and be back in as a head coach in the NFL.
05:14Hey, Kirk Cousins, what a story, man.
05:17First of all, everybody said he's got to go back to Minnesota.
05:21He's thrown 20 touchdowns.
05:23Mike, what do you expect?
05:25Vikings got everything on that team but an offense.
05:28They got great special teams.
05:30Brian Floor has done a great job with that defense.
05:32They're 6-2.
05:35And that division, by the way, there's no weaknesses.
05:38Bears, Lions, and Green Bay.
05:40Hey, what are your thoughts on Kirk Cousins and what he can do for this team and how quickly will
05:44it happen?
05:45Well, you know, it's funny because if they had made this move two weeks ago, I think the universal reaction
05:51would have been this absolutely transforms them into a Super Bowl team.
05:56Based upon what we've seen the last two weeks, I think that everyone's approach should be, well, let's just wait
06:02and see.
06:03Let's see if it will make a difference.
06:07We just need to see it because that offense has been nonfunctional the past two weeks, more so on Monday
06:13night.
06:13Monday night was as bad as I've seen an offense on a playoff contender perform.
06:19And I was saying on our show Tuesday morning, this is the worst 6-2 team I've ever seen.
06:24This is 6-2 on their way to 6-11 if they don't do something.
06:27And I've boiled it down very simply on Tuesday morning.
06:29They're not a serious franchise if they don't go trade for a quarterback.
06:32And if they're not going to trade for a quarterback, they need to take offers on Justin Jefferson and maximize
06:37the return on him because they're wasting him.
06:40And after the season ends, he's going to have to be traded anyway.
06:43So you may as well get the most you can from the Chiefs or whoever would come to the table
06:48and offer two first-round picks plus for Justin Jefferson.
06:51It's one or the other.
06:52It can't be neither.
06:53So they mobilized, they cast a broad net, and somehow they got Kirk Cousins for only a third-round pick.
06:59If you'd have told me Tuesday morning they're going to get Kirk Cousins for a third-round pick, I would
07:04have said you're crazy.
07:05They're going to have to give up more than a third-round pick to get him.
07:07But from the Raiders' perspective, you look at it this way.
07:10He started nine games.
07:11He won four games.
07:12He provided mentorship and a great example for Fernando Mendoza.
07:16And if you even set all that stuff aside, they bought a third-round pick for $650,000.
07:23If you go to any team in the NFL right now and say, you can buy a third-round pick
07:26for $650,000,
07:28they will immediately wire that money.
07:31They will put on a ski mask first.
07:33It is robbery to buy a third-round pick for $650,000.
07:37And they got nine games out at Cousins.
07:39So it really is a win for both teams.
07:41And it's definitely a win for Cousins, who was destined to be benched.
07:45Yeah, it is incredible, man.
07:47I'm glad you felt that way, too.
07:49Hey, this Diana Rossini coming back.
07:52Everybody's been kind of listening to everything she's saying or not saying.
07:57What's been your take on our new insider coming back in the NFL?
08:04Well, I boiled this down to one very simple thing.
08:07And it all comes down to what she's going to be doing in this new role.
08:10And I get the impression she's just going to try to slip back into what she used to do with
08:14reporting and insider stuff.
08:18You've got to try, I believe, to restore your credibility, your believability.
08:27Because everything she says now gets run through this filter of things that have happened that make us say,
08:33is she really telling the truth here?
08:35And for me, what's as troubling, because I don't care about what her relationship was with Mike Vrabel.
08:41What I care about is flat denials when Vrabel's words and actions contradict those denials.
08:47When photographs that came out after the first batch, because the first batch was like,
08:52well, I don't know what's really going on here.
08:55Now, the interlocking fingers, that was hard to explain.
08:57But it's really not a smoking gun.
09:00The New York Post had that set of photos from the bar in New York from March of 2020.
09:06And that's when you see it.
09:08Like, you see two people huddled like that talking.
09:10Like, you know what's going on between.
09:12Like, we're grownups here.
09:13We know that.
09:14And then the whole video with the boat rental in Tennessee.
09:17Like, you just can't say, this is all nothing.
09:21This is all lies.
09:22You've got to convince people that your version is the truth.
09:26But beyond that, the thing that makes me inclined to not believe anything she said,
09:31that casual, nonchalant, oh, I got pulled over for texting while driving,
09:36and I FaceTimed an NFL head coach, and he talked to the cop,
09:40and the cop let me go without a ticket.
09:42And then the body cam comes out, and that's just false.
09:45Like, you have to believe that people are telling you the truth.
09:49And I'd like to think that even in post-truth America,
09:52when you are in a reporting role,
09:54and you are communicating information to an audience,
09:57you are always telling the truth.
09:59No matter what, even if you're compromised,
10:01and I'd say every insider is compromised to one degree or another.
10:05Even if you're compromised,
10:06there has to be a stubborn insistence on the truth.
10:10Because once you're not telling the truth,
10:12how can you believe anything the person says?
10:15So that's been my big concern about this.
10:17You have to try to restore credibility.
10:19It can't just be, well, I went away,
10:21I went through some stuff, and now I'm back.
10:24And it's like nothing ever happened, and let's just continue.
10:26It's going to be hard to sell that to people.
10:28And on top of it, Joe,
10:31gambling has become so normalized in today's society
10:34that we actually regard somebody doing a show
10:38for an illegal offshore sports book
10:40as a legitimate return to sports media.
10:43That's mind-blowing.
10:44And it just tells me that gambling in seven years
10:47has gone from stigmatized
10:49and something that you just whisper about in the back corners.
10:52It's so out in the open now
10:54that we're completely unbothered
10:55by somebody having a platform
10:57on an illegal offshore sports book's website,
11:01and we just say, eh, no big deal.
11:03That's a sports media job.
11:05Yeah.
11:05No, that's where we are, man.
11:06You're exactly right.
11:07Hey, Mike, before I let you go,
11:09I thought the Chargers and Broncos trade
11:11that didn't happen, the pass, fail, physical,
11:15and, you know, well, maybe we'll take him.
11:19He's a little banged up,
11:20but maybe we'll take him for less picks.
11:22And Harbaugh's not real excited about this
11:25and says we got a problem with this loophole in the trade.
11:28What was your take on the whole thing,
11:30following through?
11:31Well, I wasn't aware that after the trade deadline,
11:35you can still negotiate trades
11:37because that's what this means.
11:38And the league said this can happen,
11:40and it apparently has happened in the past
11:43where you do a deal at the deadline,
11:45the new team brings the guy in for a physical,
11:47there's a red flag,
11:49and in lieu of what we thought the procedure was,
11:52well, you fail the physical,
11:53the trade's called off.
11:54Well, you know, we'll fail the physical
11:57under the terms that we've done,
12:00but if you sweeten this pot a little bit,
12:03then we'll change the fail to a pass.
12:06Hey, the Vikings could have done that with Kirk Cousins.
12:09They could have called the Raiders.
12:10The day after, they anoint Fernando Mendoza
12:12as the starter.
12:13They have an uptick in ticket sales.
12:15There's excitement.
12:16They're selling Fernando Mendoza jerseys.
12:18If the Vikings had called and said,
12:20hey, you know, Kirk was here three years ago,
12:22and these scans of his knees,
12:24hey, man, you know, there's arthritis in there.
12:27You know, this guy's 38.
12:29We can't do this for a three.
12:30We got to do it for a five.
12:31They could have done that to the Raiders,
12:33and apparently this has happened in the past,
12:35and it's never really been a thing.
12:37They just need to say at the trade deadline,
12:39any deal that's done, it's very simple.
12:41The deal goes forward on those terms,
12:43or it doesn't.
12:44You pass the physical, or you fail it.
12:46And they need to change that rule
12:48because it opens the door for all sorts of shenanigans,
12:51and I don't know what the Broncos did,
12:54why they did it.
12:54They've got their version.
12:55They haven't put it on the record yet,
12:57and they need to, to rebut Harbaugh, I think,
13:00or people are going to think the Broncos were up to something,
13:02but the rule that's on the books
13:04allows an unscrupulous team
13:06to try to pull some stuff
13:08and get better terms,
13:10and I'm surprised the league allows it to happen.
13:13Yeah, because, listen,
13:14you got a guy that's been playing half a season.
13:16He's going to be a little banged up,
13:17although the guy's been playing
13:19like every snap of every game.
13:21It was just kind of nuts.
13:22Mike?
13:22Hey, Joe, I had a guy tell me real quick.
13:24I had a guy tell me
13:25he's been in the league a long time.
13:26Every starting quarterback on,
13:28or every, excuse me,
13:29every starting linebacker on every team
13:31has some degree of arthritis in his knee.
13:33So you can find anything.
13:35If you want to fail a physical,
13:36you can find anything.
13:38Yeah.
13:38Hey, Mike, thank you, man.
13:39Really appreciate it.
13:40Have a great weekend there, buddy.
13:42All right, thanks, guys.
13:43Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk.