Muse

You know you rock when you roll with the Seahawks Marshawn Lynch, Beast Moe with his dreadlocks Rolls and passes the ball to the endzone touchdown you know we're gonna get the crown in super bowl 24 team we get the ring the bling listen to the crowd sing Seahawks Seahawks Seahawks we block that offense to say we'll lose in such an offense and nonsense we got the best defense being the other quarterback comes with the expense of the act of being sacked to hope the Broncos have enough time to react to the level of game the Hawks are bringing that evening a Super Bowl Sunday cuz they're gonna go all the way for the win starting when the game begins all the way to the end of of the game and to go down in fame as the Super Bowl champions of this year this team should be

feared you better saddle up when you roll with Seattle Broncos seem like some old cattle left in the field after cutthroat battle to the Hawks I just can't compete just run away and beat a

retreat even if we lose here ye here ye we officially convene an emergency panel of the no point conversion what did we call this what was this called no point conversion yes no point conversion yes exactly and of course i was i was touching go on that back when we did it on on the weekly basis let alone two years going by and i don't think we need to say this but

obviously huge weekend in kraken hockey and that's why we wanted to kind of like put the old cans on fire up the microphones fire up the little hoagie on the blower and talk about

And talk Kraken hockey. That's right. You know what is truly incredible about this theme song?

Is it as true today as it was ever?

Well, there was a chance. There was a point on Sunday where the Russell Wilson reference in this song could have. It was a non-zero chance, right? A non-zero chance that Russell Wilson could have been a Seahawk. See yuck, see yuck. In other words, I'm just fascinated with the specific mentions in the song and the point at which everyone mentioned in the song will be dead. Maybe that's a little harsh. How about Out of the League? But the idea that there was even—

Dead is harsh. Let's say brain damaged. Somehow worse? Somehow worse? Even though death seems like the ultimate. I feel like we need to, as responsibly woke sports broadcasters, We have to acknowledge the inherent danger of the sport of which we speak.

I'm just saying that, like, of all of the craziness swirling around the possible scenarios and the Seattle Sea yucks, you know, is it going to be Aaron Rodgers? Oh, by the way, DK going to the Steelers, but the Steelers now have maybe two quarterbacks. Did they love Russell, or was he just the best option they had at the time? Is there a chance that the Seahawks could pick Russell Wilson up again?

Were people asking that? Because the thought had gone through my head, but I didn't see any speculation.

I don't think that any—I saw Richard Sherman saying it on his TikTok feed, and I don't think that there was a super serious conversation about it, but it was theoretically possible because, if I understand, I believe Russell Wilson might be a free agent again somehow. like maybe he signed a one-year deal so just again to take it back to the important thing k dude and little hoagie i'll it'll be a truly sad day when everyone mentioned in the song is no longer in the league we've basically got russell at this point of people mentioned in the song oh we've also have old cattle he's still starting um for the kansas city chiefs no we have you know you know peyton manning's out of the league i believe he He was the Broncos quarterback when this song was written. It's pretty much down to Russell. Marshawn is retired. Marshawn's moved on to greener pastures. Hollywood. Yep. Specifically.

Yes.

All right. Let's get into what everybody in America is tuning in for, which is an extremely confused take on dead cap, salary dead cap. One of our favorite topics. It's something that we discuss often, both in private and public.

what i lack in understanding this topic i will make i will make up with with volume

love it up for with volume yes exactly uh so okay uh the uh you know let me just let's let's just set the table this way i'm from my perspective like a week ago i mean first of all last week on the actual podcast, TBTL.

Which, by the way, welcome to the No Point Conversion. This is an offshoot. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Andrew Walsh. I don't know. Maybe we've SEO'd our way into some kind of a thing here, right? Where somebody who doesn't know what TBTL is just, like, feeling about the Seahawks and they just land here somehow. Like, do we need to?

This is going to be in the TBTL feed. I would find it hard to believe of all the coverage going on there.

Well, I'm sorry that I disrespected all of you by identifying who we are and what the show is.

Yes, it will be in everybody's regular feed.

I failed you as a scary monster and a sports podcaster.

I wanted to ask you, this is one thing I almost raised with you over the weekend. Are you and I somewhat responsible for all of this news? Did you have that thought, too? You know, it was Friday, right? It was Friday on TETL.

I was talking about maybe FUBO creating some sort of opening for me with the relationship between me and Seattle Seahawks football. Maybe I was becoming a little bit less engrossed.

And we had talked about that and then our personal relationship. I said I think it's more about lifestyle for maybe both of us than Fubo specifically. But that's between you and your Fubo. Yes. But also it led to a conversation of just like where the team is. And I suggested, well, the team, like, and I even remember specifically saying, like, I like Geno Smith. I think he's an interesting guy. But we are definitely in sort of a transitionary period. We have, you know, a new coach is going to be starting his second season. I said offseason football never really excites me that much. And it just sort of seemed like we're like, yeah, I don't know. It's just like football is fine and the Seahawks are fine, but neither one of us are like rabid about it right now. And then like more Seahawks news happened in the 48 hours after that than has happened in probably, I don't know, the past three or four years, I guess, with the exception of the coaches being swapped out and the QBs earlier. But anyway, I was just I'd like to center ourselves in these things.

We may have manifested this. I will say that, like, well, let me let me take it back a week ago or before before the Tyler Lockett thing was announced. And again, that to me, like Seahawks are not going to, you know, sign Tyler Lockett's contract or whatever. That wasn't a shocker at all. They owed him, I think, 18 million dollars or something. And they can we get Fresca to sponsor this? I know you said there's a couple of Fresca boys.

You die. I said, let's dial it up for this. You're like, let me grab a Fresca. Yeah, yes, sir. Brought to you by Fresca.

Like, the Tyler Lockett thing wasn't shocking to me, but before any of this offseason stuff, my thought about the 2025 slash hopefully 2026, hopefully late into 2026 Seahawks, was the following. Mike McDonald is a defensive-minded coach, comes from the Ravens, known for their defense, and the thing that he did last season that most impressed me was he figured something out. you know, a few games into the season of picking up Ernest Jones. I thought he was D-Ernest Jones when he came in, and then I feel like we just went to Ernest Jones. We're talking about the same guy. Did we have a D-Ernest Jones who then we dropped the D on? Anyway, we picked him up from, like, the Rams, right? Like, we picked up a linebacker from the Rams, and it seemed to really kind of do something defensively for the Seahawks where we got a lot better. and it seemed like when things were really clicking for our team it was more defense related than offense this season and so my thought is like going into this this coming season it was like mike mcdonald's whole thing is like let's just build a total like you know uh like a smothering defense a la 20 what was it uh 2000 i can't remember 10 ravens 2000 ravens maybe when it's like Trent Dilfer was their quarterback, and famously, like, that was the first time I'd ever seen a team go to a Super Bowl, and I think they won the Super Bowl with an obviously poor offense.

I think that would have been, was that the, that was probably Flacco, though, right? Are you talking about the time?

No, I'm talking about Trent Dilfer.

Oh, okay, not the Harbole, because I remember the Ravens also went up against the Niners, and it was like the two Harboles.

Probably the same principle, although Flacco actually could put up some numbers. But no, like I remember specifically this Ravens team when when their quarterback was Trent Dilfer, who was generously described as a game manager. And the whole thing with that team was you just smother the other team with your defense and have an offense that's not making it worse for you. You just have an offense that just, like, doesn't try anything ambitious, but doesn't turn the ball over, moves the ball down the field, takes a lot of field goals, and just kind of, like, allows your defense, your Ray Lewis-led defense, to do what it do. And, like, I guess my thought was, well, that's maybe where the Seahawks are trying to go. You know, McDonald is a defensive-minded guy. The defense seemed to work okay last year. He's got this quarterback in Geno.

Smith who's sort of maddening because you keep they're always telling you that Gino Smith stats were gaudy like you're always because you know he's like his as I was saying in the text chain today he like led the NFL in like getting passes out in under three seconds and stuff like or I think two seasons ago his QBR was number seven in the league which is pretty high actually like you're always hearing that like Gino Smith is actually statistically a great quarterback and then you're always watching him throw an interception from the six-yard line. So I guess my point is, my thought was, maybe the Seahawks can kind of like figure out how to get one more good season into Geno Smith. Put together, I mean, he's 34 years old, but like put together one more unexpectedly decent season from him where and maybe we get somebody steps up in the running back position. Maybe Kenneth Walker can like stay healthy for more than eight seconds. And you have an okay offense and you build a really good defense and that's our identity and maybe we you know the rams fall off a little bit or something and maybe we like i felt i would say i felt out of like zero being totally pessimistic and 10 being like we're going to win the super bowl i probably felt like a six which i would take and then everything changed and they got rid of everybody it would seem was relevant to the offense having any kind of success and now i kind of don't know what to think yeah i mean for me

my response to all of this is is very i mean you already sort of set the bar for this but i just want to lower it even more for me personally like the only things i have to say are sort of emotional right now because i really i haven't been following the seahawks as closely as i was back when we did this as a regular feature and i didn't watch um you know as many of the games last season as i would usually like but for me you know without getting in the details of what this means salary cap wise generally speaking I mean we're talking about this in the text chain and your brothers were saying this your brothers know a lot about this stuff and others on the text chain it does sort of seem like what the Seahawks are getting in return for the long-term future health of the team makes sense we had DK and Gino both asking for probably too much money than where the Seahawks are right now I think I said Seahawks did I say Seahawks without the A-X

That song has a way of getting in your brain

It really does And that all makes sense to me That's fine I kind of have been hearing rumblings I listen to a lot of background noise A lot of local sports radio And I've been hearing this chatter about DK Even before he requested a trade About what are we going to do about this contract And Gino's always A perennial question the past several years Since he took over the team So anyway The thing about it is It sounds like it all makes sense it looks like sam darnold now is coming into town to be our qb and like i don't know that much about sam darnold other than like i am while i think these moves are probably good for the team like i'm just bored by the thought of him being our quarterback like i liked geno smith being out

with mono is the most interesting thing that's ever happened to sam darnold because it created the greatest sports chiron of all time where it just said out with mono and introing a game and

explaining where sam darnold was and i know he had an unusually successful year last year with the vikings who i mean at one point looked like they could have been almost going undefeated but i don't know how much he you know gets credit for that stuff and that stuff that we can talk about but the point is from a purely emotional standpoint and i'm not saying that it's like you know my mood is worth millions of dollars of the seahawks money but like i just liked gino he was interesting he looked like he he felt like he felt avuncular to me i'm sure he's like half my age i didn't write back yeah freaking iconic he and you know and just his story of being sort of like you know like being much ballyhooed but then not living up to expectations and in uh new york and then coming here and sitting on the bench for so long but then really kind of having some good seasons and just showing some flashes he's a fun guy on and off the field and i just had a connection there and i don't know why i'm so negative about the idea of like having to root

for darnold well i mean darn it's right there in the name yeah it doesn't help exactly dangled like okay so this is uh the the narrative that i'm seeing online just today and in the last few hours with the announcement that the seahawks now have have locked down sam darnold is that But the Seahawks, they got much younger at the quarterback position. Geno Smith is 34. Sam Darnold is 27. They signed Sam Darnold for less money than they were going to have to pay Geno to keep him around. And Sam Darnold had a really good season last year, as long as you don't account for the last two games where he played really badly. So that's the theory.

Do you think getting sacked seven times in a game is bad?

Was it seven? What was the number there? Was it six?

I forget, but boy, you sent a piece of audio that showed me to my court of the criminals.

This used to be here. Can I play the whole? I have a slightly longer version. Yeah, yeah, sure. Is this a slightly longer version? The local broadcasters, this was against the Rams in that wild card game.

So this was that game they were losing.

He just kept getting sacked. He kept getting sacked. And then the local broadcaster, who ironically, or not ironically, confusingly, I think his name is Paul Allen, has this call. Rams blint. darnold gets away from it steps up in the pocket he's holding it too long

i love it i love an announcer just being like i will not stand for this shit any longer like don't soft pedal it um the here's the here okay i'm gonna give you i'm gonna give you the under-informed like best case and worst case scenario with darnold as a seahawk okay so the let's start with the uh the worst case the worst case scenario is that sam darnold has never stopped being sam darnold and that last year was an aberration and part of why it happened was because minnesota had a crazy good defense and sam darnold had like justin jefferson and like two other top level receivers to throw to and a good offensive line and with all of that his quarterback rating was 14 now that's not bad that puts him somewhere in the middle but it wasn't number four one number five like i said gino's highest qbr with the absolute chicken wire and paper mache that is the seahawks line he got to seven on qbr so like sam darnold is yet to achieve the heights that gino achieved with like almost no protection etc so the the worst case scenario is sam darnold succeeded and also had kevin o'connell as his coach who is maybe a quarterback whisperer like the the worst case scenario sam darnold comes to the seahawks and he just regresses to the sam darnold that he's been everywhere else in the league except for last season and the sam darnold he was when teams managed to get pressure on him was the last two games and so the seahawks then are like oh great we got younger with sam darnold well we're not we're not trying to grow old with sam darnold if he's not playing well you know they say like To me, getting a 27-year-old Sam Darnold isn't like getting a 27-year-old Russell Wilson even or Baker Mayfield. By the way, this is where I really don't understand the math of all of it. People keep talking about how this and the Baker Mayfield trade, they're not obviously literally connected, but there's some spiritual connection between them because I guess we're giving Darnold a similar contract to what Tampa gave Baker and it's incentivized in certain similar ways, et cetera.

For his first year, because now I think that Tampa Bay has locked him down for a few years, I think. But you're talking about when they were kind of giving him a flyer at first?

Well, I don't know, because, I mean, Darnold's a three years, so I don't know. Oh, okay. But what I can say is that seemed to work out pretty well for the Bucs, and you're a Baker appreciator. So maybe, I don't know. Also, by the way, there maybe is a similarity, too, in that Baker, who was sort of, it seemed, as a Brown, and again, you know more about this than I do, he's so much better as a Tampa Bay Buck than he ever was as a Brown, right? He had moments as a Brown, but didn't it seem like he was never quite getting to his potential or whatever?

Never ask me questions about football. I don't know that I can compare his time with the Bucks to Cleveland. I was a big fan of him in Cleveland. He did some really great stuff. He was really injured in his last year, but he played through a lot of injury, which as a fan at the time, I did not think was actually the best thing for the team. Him maybe taking a couple of games and sitting out might have helped in the long run if he could have gotten more healthy. But I mean, I know him as the guy who took the Browns to the postseason for the first time since I was rooting for them in forever and won the first game of the postseason, beat the Steelers twice in a row to do those. So, like, that's really good. And he took the Bucs to the postseason at least once as well. So I think maybe his time might be comparable in both teams. Maybe it's comparable. But I don't know for sure.

I think I was underestimating his Brown success and maybe overestimating his Bucs success. But all that is to say, I do feel like we are in an era of quarterbacks that were kind of sort of written off doing, you know, better than expected. I mean, last year, I hope last year wasn't the apex of that, because last year you basically had Geno Smith, which is a great redemption story. You had Baker Mayfield, which you may not agree is a redemption story. And you had Sam Darnold, which was a redemption story. You had this weird thing where it was like quarterbacks who people thought weren't good. If they got in the right system, they turned out to be pretty competent and pretty good. So if that pattern holds, I guess there's a chance. So anyway, worst case scenario is that Sam Darnold is a guy who has a really, really hard. hard time behind a not particularly improved offensive line with no one to hand the ball off to of note again if ken walker the third can stay healthy he seems okay sometimes i don't know what's in the water in seattle oh it's not the water i don't know what's i don't know what the deal is in seattle where like we have not had a running back who can stay healthy since like marshawn lynch like i feel like we've always got a chris carson we've always got a there's always a new guy who's showing some flash and we're like, this is the guy and then he just always has like a vague neck problem that we can't get to the bottom of until he just kind of you know, slides off into obscurity, like, anyway, all that is to say the worst case scenario is that Darnold is Darnold is, goes back to having some trouble, here's the best case scenario Sam Darnold like actually got some much needed confidence last year, much like I did when I shifted from playing Little League Baseball For the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club Where I did not swing for an entire season Because I had some kind of mental block Then I went and played softball For like just a summer softball team At the local community center And it was like a very very Low competition environment I was the only kid who'd ever even played An organized sport Meaning I was the best player Meaning I was the star pitcher The shortstop I could hit Because this was not a competitive thing It was just something for kids to do and I'll be darned if the next year when I came back to, and everyone's talking about this, the comparison is so obvious between me and Darnold. When I came back to a play for Domino's Pizza I was really good because I had something had shifted in my brain about confidence, like I just was realized, oh I could actually do this. Maybe Darnold maybe something shifted in Darnold last year to win 14 games, that's not nothing and now he's like, and of course John Schneider and Mike McDonald like, they're not, I don't think they're dumb they are like Presumably what they're doing right now Is trying to sign Jorge Polanco No, what they're doing right now Is trying to build the environment Around Sam Darnold That Minnesota had managed to build Or that Sam Darnold came into And basically Have him playing next season The way he played last season Which again, if you take out the last two games Pretty good, pretty good

And he's 27, and he's cheaper than Gino And we have a more We have more cap room I think than we've had in a long time Now this is also where my knowledge really hits up against I don't know the wall of my own Being uninformed Because I don't really know enough about the free agent market To know who's out there Like who are the receivers that the Seahawks could go get I think DK Metcalf would be great Is he available? Was he the big free agent?

Let me see I feel like I just read something

About him It's like I don't know I don't know who we go get I mean, we have Jackson Smith and Jigba and Jigbobo are the two big returns. And by the way, Jackson Smith and Jigba has been great.

Yeah.

I wonder if some of his, I mean, part of what's great about Jackson Smith and Jigba or what maybe worked was they had to focus on DK so much that you let Jackson Smith and Jigba get loose, and the kid's really good.

Because he was really good. Didn't DK miss two games, I want to say? Yeah, you know what? That's a good point. And I think Jigba did really well, yeah.

Yeah, as the number one. And I'm sure that they're, you know, factoring that in. But like the best case scenario is our defense continues to get better and it was improving, I think, pretty much throughout the season. We get a real lockdown defense. We use all this cap money we now have to go out and get, you know, these missing pieces that we need and we give Darnold a good line to work behind. And I don't know, maybe we're better next year. Like, Geno was always a question mark to me. Like, I could see a world in which Geno would have been a more successful quarterback for the Seahawks next season. And I can see a world in which we're just seeing highlights from the Las Vegas Raiders where he's just throwing stupid interceptions. Because he really did contain multitudes. He really did have the ability to throw some truly awful passes at the worst possible time.

And as you said before, and I'm just echoing things that other people are saying and writing and texting, but it sounds like you really have to emphasize rebuilding the O-line because, as you mentioned earlier, Gino was really good at getting rid of the ball quickly. I mean, the irony, I saw Mina Kimes post this on Blue Sky over the weekend. Like, the irony is, before we knew even Darnold was coming here, like, okay, you're getting rid of this financial obligation, so now you can work on the O-line. But the irony is, if Gino could have been behind a good O-line, we could have seen so much better stuff from him. And I think people just generally like him. Well, I guess it doesn't really fix the interceptions. Well, except for maybe, like, not feeling comfortable back there and having to get rid of the ball quickly.

I'm also wondering, though, if Geno was a particularly good quarterback at three-second dropbacks, but not at five-second dropbacks. Yeah, it does. I don't have any, like, I don't have the data in front of me, but, like, it could be the case. that what Gino was really good at was at the line, figuring out what the defense was going to do and how to cover for his generally terrible offensive line. But that, you know, if you get it right, like if you now have the money to get a good offensive line, I don't know, you might get better results. Like, in other words, if you would have given Gino five seconds back there, does he make better choices? Or is he just really good at quickly getting rid of the ball, you know, and trying to minimize the harm of the rush? I mean, I guess we'll... I guess we can't know that.

Isn't it kind of conventional wisdom, though, that he's – if you don't have a really, really solid O-line, you're better with Geno there than Darnold. Yes, exactly. Steps up in the pocket. He's holding it too long. Throw it, man. I said that to make you laugh, but also it is true, though, right? Like that – unless you really take this opportunity, now you have some cap space or whatever it is, and you can work on an area, you better make it the O-line because Sam Darnold's going to be really dead back there otherwise. That was my understanding.

I mean, the other thought, I think I said the worst-case scenario is Sam Darnold is bad. Maybe that's not even the worst-case scenario because maybe it is he is bad, but it's a rebuilding season, which is just, I can't, like, with, I only have two pro teams that I care about, and it's the Mariners and the Seahawks, And I like I can't have the Mariners not like aggressively trolling the fan base by not getting a bat and the Seahawks aggressively trolling the fan base by not trying to win next season because they want to get, I don't know, in the front of the line for like a quarterback pick in 2026 or whatever. Like I can't emotionally. But there's not enough Fubo in the world to fix that for me.

Weirdly, I trust the Seahawks actually have a plan and to go. Oh, yes, I do too. it though than i do i've lost all faith in in seattle ownership to be anything but greedy

and also that's one more thing about john schneider our gm is he was presumably he and p carol were the people who went out and got geno smith at some point and who then promoted him uh to starter when i thought that was a terrible idea so like the john schneider's track record for kind of like like i guess i would say if they were if they were admitting openly like if they were like okay we're just we've been cruising along at like eight wins or whatever for the last four seasons and we need to just like blow this up start over and build something i would it would really hurt my heart but i guess i would respect them but also they wouldn't be going and getting darnold for 110 million dollars like darnold was i'll get i'll give him at least this much darnold is the agreed upon most attractive free agent quarterback that was available yeah it was everyone cool Very small pool, but still, they didn't go, you know, they didn't go, like, just, they didn't promote Sam, what's his name? Who's the, who's our backup? Howell. They didn't promote Sam Howell, at least yet, you know, maybe he'll have to compete. But, like, because that was one of the things I was seeing was, like, do they just bring, do they, because Sam Howell had a kind of an interesting half a season with the commanders. Like, it was kind of a, it was kind of a meme for a minute. like they didn't just like they didn't just go we're gonna go with sam howell and we're gonna really emphasize our defense so in other words i don't think that they're tanking because i don't think they'd go buy you know they'd go buy the most expensive presumably uh and highest i never thought i'd use the word highest profile and sam darnold in the same sentence but they went out and got the who the person who's agreed upon to be the best option out there we went and got him like pittsburgh was apparently going and trying to get him and like so which would that have given

So is Justin – well, now I'm asking you about contracts on other teams. What's up with Justin Fields over there? Is he a free agent?

He must be a free agent because I was seeing his name bandied about as a possible Seahawk thing. So I don't know if the Steelers have both of their quarterbacks in free agency right now, Russell and Justin Fields or what. But, like, I will say that for whatever the conventional wisdom is worth, they went out and got the person that the conventional wisdom says is the best person available.

Again, speaking just as somebody who hopefully will be able to watch a bunch of these games and have some feelings about it, like the other name and maybe even the higher profile name, but for all the wrong reasons, was Aaron Rodgers. And I saw that bandied about a bit this weekend and I was pretty doubtful about it. But I also don't know anything about this topic. But like I was like, I just don't see that. Like, I think most teams, unless you're like super, super, super desperate, most teams see him as a pretty toxic.

Oh, like a like a vaccine.

Yeah, right.

Entertain it into the body, into the organism. And you just don't know what kind of shit's going to happen.

Most teams are not inoculated against his toxicity. At this point, we do have herd immunity. Yeah.

Have we achieved Aaron Rodgers? No, dude.

I think that most people would see him. is like oh god if we bring him in like he's gonna be just a problem in so many ways that I think you'd have to be a really faltering team willing to do like one year with a quarterback with that reputation with his off you know field and locker room bullshit and so I was just like I would literally root against the Seahawks I mean hopefully not in a not in an obnoxious way or like on the text chain to make you guys mad like that's that's not a fun way to be a friend that's not a fun way to be a friend but um I would personally just root against him I just want the worst for him even if that means a bad couple of seasons with the Seahawks in which I root

against well this is something you've got a lot of practice in being a Browns fan with Deshaun Watson but like I I here's the thing I'm so I'm so shell-shocked by the just larger political world that like when I heard oh you know one of the names is Aaron Rodgers I just I honestly I think out of a trauma response i thought well that's probably who it's gonna be you know what i mean like it just seems like oh if you just if you ever give me the worst timeline on something now and i'm not this kind of person man this shit has broken me like i i'm like i just don't go towards the worst case scenario most of the time and i'm kind of i'm there a lot of the time now unfortunately and like when i saw that being bandied about i was like uh that's what they're gonna do isn't it and then i have to like then i can't even root for my foot like i have yeah i have nothing i have nothing uh in the sports world anymore so uh i i am glad that it's not him that would have been and in fact maybe that's a maybe that's a good thing to keep remembering because like for whatever the potential frustration around darnold might be um you know uh and and just whatever the seahawks do they're not hiring an obviously toxic anti-vaxxer anti-science anti-everything smug, selfish, and I'll give you credit, Andrew, you were very early on this train. When I was kind of agnostic towards the topic of Aaron Rodgers, you were very, you were clear and you were resolute. And now I think your suspicions have been

borne out. By the way, I wanted to bring this up earlier, and then the moment passed, and I should have let it pass, but this is something I've been wanting to mention to you on or off air for a while. He's holding it too long! He's holding it too long! He's holding this idea for too long it's gonna leak out of his face um did you see speaking of my beloved tampa bay buccaneers of course do you see that they welcomed john gruden back into their ring of honor because oh the world is just terrible oh yeah the guy who like literally yeah wrote just like not not like and homophobic yeah oh you could look at this as racist or you know like no no just outwardly old school racist homophobic stuff written in letters no question about it becomes disgraced for a little bit and then trump is in office for two or three weeks and then they just released this thing he's welcome back into our ring of honor now and it's just kind of like wow i guess like it's just working for him now like all these it's just all the awful they're like oh we can be We can be awful now I didn't know that

But I'm super duper unsurprised I'm super duper unsurprised Because the sort of like It started with Barstool bringing him back And they've just been kind of like Reintroducing him into the conversation And you know what it's actually very Trumpian In this way that like somebody goes from Being a person who does something that's really awful And like a good section of the population Is kind of horrified by it Or really turned off and then it's you just start kind of normalizing them and treating them kind of like a character suddenly it's like oh that's just trump being trump yeah yeah coach gruden's at it again and you start to backslap a little bit and laugh and and kind of like just and then suddenly it's like it just fades into the background that they had done a bunch of really bad shit that they you know never owned or apologized for and that's exactly what's happened with gruden now yeah Which is really, which is, in fact, it kind of makes me sad because I don't know when this interview was pulled from, but I saw, like, Dan Patrick interviewing him recently. Or at least I saw a clip recently of him being interviewed by Dan Patrick. That's kind of surprising, yeah. Yeah, because I feel like Dan Patrick, you know, I don't know what his politics are, but I don't see him doing a bunch of super, like, bullshit stuff.

No, I don't think of him as being that side of that. Anyway, sorry to derail us with that, but it's just, again, one of those things while you were sort of talking about the world being such a terrible place and, of course, the bad things are going to happen. That one, to me, was weird. Like, oh, we're actually reinstating an awful person. Like, it's just like, okay, I could maybe even understand being like, you know, during this period where a lot of people were, like, very, very cautious not to step in it or whatever the word is, you know, maybe looking back and saying, hey, we acted kind of quickly on this person or that. I don't want to, like, list examples. But, you know, some people might think that way. But, I mean, in this case, it's not even, like, it's not a subtle thing. And also, like, to say, like, no, no, you're welcome back now. It's just so bananas to me.

So here's the question, I think, to kind of, like, wrap this up. Are we – excited might be the wrong word. I guess intrigued, I guess, to quote whatever movie that's from. Are you not entertained?

Are we, like, more – Gladiator, I want to say.

Are we more intrigued? Like, I think we've gone from being a team that, again, I expected the Seahawks to probably get, like, eight wins would be the likelihood. Ten wins would be, like, wow, things broke our way. Four wins would be, meh, things did not go well. Likelihood, eight wins. Now, I don't know. I could see two wins or 12 wins. I feel like the sort of volatility of this team has now shifted because, again, John Schneider is no dummy. he's got a bunch of money to work with and like we said in a certain way that you could say that that that donald is an upgrade at least in terms of age and stuff like and i think we both agree that like dk was not worth i think my brother sam says in the text chain or maybe it was david that like you know dk had has had some great seasons and watch he'll go have an amazing season in pittsburgh but like he had five touchdowns last year i think he had five touchdowns i mean he was injured but still it's like are we gonna pay him as he's i think he's being paid now like one in the top five of receivers by pittsburgh um and like were we should we have been paying him like one of the top five receivers in the nfl when he had five touchdowns last year probably not

so no and it's funny because he's such a physical specimen like oh my god and i can't forget i think about him at night sometimes and you're not the only one buddy on a quiet night you can

god a man a young man's thought turns to dk at the combine i mean but i will say this and again

I just say everything from a, from sort of an emotional standpoint here, but something does sort of switch in me. Like usually, like I'm rooting for Gino to do well in Vegas. Right. And like, cause I just have good feelings about him. You know, I, one thing we didn't state here, although it's been said many times is what a weird world where we could have Pete Carroll coaching Gino Smith. I literally was about to ask who's the coach of the Raiders and Russell Wilson throwing to DK Metcalf in Pittsburgh. You know what I mean? And it's funny to see, like, these little bits of Seattle legacy sort of sprinkled around the league or whatever next season.

The Seahawks diaspora.

Exactly. Having said that, this is something that is really – this is something that I'm ashamed to admit. But I like – You were on that text chain with John Gruden? I was. And I said, John, hold my beer. And you didn't speak up. No. No, but I like having a good feeling about a player and then rooting for them later. You know, when Russell left, I really wanted him to do poorly. And guess what? He did. Yes. And because I thought he was left because he was high on his own supply. He felt like he was underappreciated. And I wanted him to feel like, no, you were appreciated about properly. And if you're going to leave with this big head of steam of thinking like you're the best in the world, I kind of wanted to see him knock down a peg, which he was. And then after that, I was kind of like, I want to see him do well in Pittsburgh. Like, I kind of turned around on it. I'm like, he's not a bad man. You know, I want to see him do well. Right now, where I am with DK is, and this is what the shameful thing is, is, like, I'm kind of rooting against him now. And it's not because, like, not that way about Lockett. I'll root for Lockett no matter what, right? But DK was sort of like, you know, I'm requesting a trade. He was agitating for a trade. He was agitating for it. And then you think back about his general tood, you know, like, all the way. And I know that in the Pete Carroll era, I liked Pete's attitude about like kind of often defensive penalties being like, well, that's part of the that's the price you pay for the kind of game we play, which is very aggressive. And it worked well during that Legion of Boom era. And if you had to have some penalties go against you. But DK with his immature penalties, he picked up a lot of dumb penalties.

And he just riled up DBs so that they, I think, actually played their best. Probably. And they were extra mad.

And I don't know if you how much of this you would have caught. This is like me just listening to kind of like bullshit radio in the background all the time. But then like him taking like either in press conferences or at the podium or whatever, maybe in the locker room, people saying, well, what about this thing about all your penalties? Apparently, his name was on the whiteboard in the locker room, I think maybe two seasons ago. And they were like trying to like specifically call out his penalties and get him to like kind of change his his approach to the game or whatever. And he basically said, no, screw that. This is still the Pete Carroll era, so this must have been the 2023 season. He's like, no, I'm not changing. I play the kind of game I play. And it's kind of like, I don't know, what is it, thumb in the face? It's not thumb in the face. Thumb in the eye. Thumb in the eye of your coach, of your organization, saying you won't. He did not seem like a team player. requests a trade and he's really high in his own supply i gotta say i he's not one that i want to go see um really dominate next year i would love to see him knock down a peg yeah i i don't have

i probably don't have quite the same negative feelings that you do about that kind of part of his time as a seahawk but just purely as a like the brinksmanship of this or you might even call it the gambling of all of this i um i honestly and again i don't hate on this guy at all but i kind of want dk and gino to have bad seasons because then i feel like the seahawks made the right call yeah of course yeah you also can't know because there's bad if they have a bad season it might just be the new environment they're in maybe they would have an amazing season of seahawks but like purely from a like did the seahawks do the right thing you kind of do i do tend to want to see people do poorly when they leave the team, at least long enough to feel like that was the right call. Yes, most definitely. So, you know, I don't really wish, I certainly don't wish Gino any ill. I don't even really wish DKL, but what I don't want to see is both of them go have career years as non-Seahawks and have Darnold out lack of offensive line. You can't see this when I'm acting out Sam Darnold in the intro package of the game. Darnold, out no offensive line yes no one to throw to but again i legitimately don't know enough about like the nfl receiver position is so weird too because it's like you've got a handful of like really really high level dependable guys that season after season are just making catches and there's like a bunch of other people in the middle who i don't even know their names i don't know who's out there like again i don't i think probably dk metcalf was the was the best receiver who wanted to go to another team or who wasn't you know who was effectively a free agent right like I don't I don't know that's the last thing I'll say and I said this in our text chain I do not understand the NFL draft or at least I don't understand like how I think for I think it was for DK I could be wrong this could have been for Gino because we traded Gino and we also traded dk but i think it was dk we got a stealer's third round pick which is the 54th pick in the draft and like that's five entire football teams of people before you get to that guy five full-on 11-man teams give or take right like that's a lot of people not teams but yeah okay yeah offenses or defenses you're right good point not you're not playing both sides of the ball at the same time but it's a lot of players and like yes i believe by the way metcalf was probably in the 50s or later when we drafted him like uh i i i think like i know he wasn't in the first round if i remember right although we did trade up with the patriots to get him all that is to say it's weird to me when you have like this valuable player this really i mean he is a good player and you're getting the 54th pick in the draft and that was like that was the best that john schneider could do and people think that's like hey you got a third rounder for dk it's or

maybe again maybe it's a third i know we got a third rounder for gino i might be totally flipping these but regardless it's like it's weird to me that in the nfl it's like getting a third rounder is considered a get even if it's for gino it's like the 54th player that's pretty far down they might be good but you're not like getting them one of the top 10 picks you're not getting one of the marquee dudes out of alabama or whatever yeah i don't know enough about the

draft to weigh in on that i think a third round pick is considered good as is a second but you're right when you do the numbers like how could that be but i guess there's a lot of a lot of young men in the draft but you did bring us to a point where maybe it's a good place to wrap up but i wanted to mention too is like you said hey how do we feel right now you know we were 10 and 7 last season are we gonna go 10 and 7 again are we gonna go 12 and 5 or 2 and whatever like i'm not gonna do the math on all this i'm not here to take quizzes no um no but point is like i think what this has done has made the rest of the off season a lot more interesting i can i told you off off the air the other day like i just it's really hard for me to get interested in off season football because at this point my heart is more looking at baseball and i don't know there's something about football like i'm just as as we've demonstrated today i'm not super smart about it like for me the enjoyment of football is all right like let's let you know what luke it's like hearthstone uh-huh that's what i've always said football is like hearthstone um speaking of wasn't that a john gruden quote who was that who said that uh no but like that was i don't know you were on the text chain um that was like this digital like kind of card fantasy kind of world of work craft card game i used to be obsessed with way back in the day and i wasn't particularly good at it and the reason i wasn't good at it is because the real way to play that game is by really strategizing and collecting as many of these various cards as possible and understanding what they do and how they work in conjunction with each other and like all this stuff and then you can only play against other real human beings you know just randomized in the world and i'd be like i don't know i'm grabbing all these cards and then i just want to play like i don't want to keep on thinking about collecting the cards which is the whole point of the game but for me i'm just like i want to just bash my toys together now yes right and that's how i am with football like i'm not i don't have the brains or patience for this offseason stuff I just want to like have a Bloody Mary and watch my team go, you know, and so that's that's, you know, inhibiting my ability to understand the stuff. But what I was starting to say was this will make the offseason more interesting because we aren't we have a lot of questions now that will be answered with things like the draft, you know, like we don't know, like what will our receiving core be and what will that line look like?

it is more intriguing to be certain and the draft itself yeah because i think we do have a lot of draft picks now yeah and i think john schneider you know mostly has done pretty well with the draft he's had some you know some hits and some misses but like it's definitely more intriguing and here's the one thing i will say the seahawks are not the mariners i don't know if people are aware of that i don't know if they're talking about on seattle sports news the seahawks are not the mariners in that like if this were the mariners they'd just be like cool more money to stuff in our pockets yeah like more money to lie in our pockets now we don't have to pay these pesky players like the seahawks aren't my general sense is the seahawks don't operate that way like if the seahawks have room to try to do something i think they're gonna try to do it if it may work out it may not but like i guess i'm gonna say overall i'm about i'd i'd give giving away all your best player's about to be like because it you know it i am i am intrigued and it'll be if if if there are now a series of like updates where it's like seahawks sign and again i don't even know who the like good receivers it first of all seahawks sign fill in the blank of competent linemen is never gonna get you know yeah never gonna blow my skirt back i'll have no idea yeah i will have zero idea Unless it's Orlando Pace Or Giacomo Brennamini I won't know who they're talking about But like As far as like the idea that this might be Kind of a fun off season because you might just hear about Like oh we went and got that guy Okay like I can just see the fun loving criminals Just burbling crackling with energy Because we've gone and got Someone that Durs and my brothers The real sports knowers are like oh Oh no this is a get Like you know I'm that'll be kind of fun We were going into a season that I just thought, like, maybe we'll make incremental progress. Maybe the defense will just be a lot better. The offense will be passable and we'll just kind of like we'll do last year plus one game, which, by the way, would have been enough to get us in the playoffs. Yeah. Now I feel like it's it's to take it back to Kenneth. The Seahawks will either be running this place one day or all die by their hands. There's no middle ground with this team, I don't think.

Now, the important thing is I know where you are right now, and you're starting to think, wait, how do we end this? And we did have a little saying to end it, and in case you forgot it, I texted it to you.

I did forget it. I didn't forget the song that goes out.

I have the song ready to go, but our little, see? God, I love this. Yeah.

The next time that we convene this, it'll be because the Mariners are running away with the AL West, okay?

That's right, or running away from the AL West because they're literally kicked out of town.

Can we please, can we prophesy that? We name and claim it that we'll meet right back here in four months to talk about the incredible historic success of your Seattle Mariners. That's right. All right. Well, listen, thanks for up to the people, mostly my brothers who are listening to this. Thank you. Actually, one of my brother. Let's not get crazy. It's David. It, David, to anybody who actually listened to this. Thank you. We appreciate it. It was good for me to get it out of my system anyway. And when we get together to talk sports, you know, you know, a couple of things are going to be true. No tangent too long.

And no detail too wrong. It feels good.

No matter what you are, I will always be with you.

Rams blitz. Darnold gets away from it. Steps up in the pocket. He's holding it too long. Just run. Throw it, man.