The Ryen Russillo Podcast
A Full NFL Offseason Preview and the Chiefs’ Future With Mike Sando. Plus Tim Legler on the Luka-LeBron Combo, Celtics Worries, and More.
Wed, 12 Feb 2025
Russillo is joined by Mike Sando for a full NFL offseason preview, including what will happen to both Super Bowl teams, and potential landing spots for Myles Garrett, Aaron Rodgers, Sam Darnold, and more (1:00). Then, he’s joined by Tim Legler to learn more about Luka’s fit on the Lakers, which team he thinks is the biggest threat in the West outside of OKC, and break down what Jimmy Butler can do for Golden State (34:42). Finally, Life Advice with Ceruti and Kyle (87:59)! When is it appropriate to ask someone to turn their phone volume off? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mike Sando and Tim Legler Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the key themes of the NFL offseason?
Loaded podcast for you today. What's going to happen to your favorite team? this NFL offseason. We're not going to get to every single team, but we'll go through some of the quarterback stuff with Sando. Also, some love for the Eagles and what they did is an alarming, trending Mahomes number that Kansas City has to worry about here a little bit more.
And then a real deep dive on the Rodgers musical chairs here. Will there be a chair for him if he still wants to play quarterback in the NFL. We're going to talk with Tim Legler, just do a bunch of stuff with the contenders. Also, he was in the building for Luka's debut with the Lakers. He'll be in Dallas tonight as that story continues to be terrible for Mavs fans.
So some more on that stuff, how that dynamic will work in a basketball sense. We're going to talk, like I said, all the contenders and some shooting things that I think are important to think about when you're watching the second half of the season. And we've got life advice. Huge pod today. A lot of NBA with legs. And let's do some NFL offseason stuff with our guy Mike Sando.
The Athletic is pick six column. I probably reference every single week during the pod. I don't know if that bothers him. He's like, hey, man, read other pieces. But there was always something in it every single Monday that I thought was really, really interesting. And you have more stuff in there as we gear up for an awesome offseason.
I can't wait for this one because I think there's going to be a lot of headline type movement. But let's start with Philadelphia. They win the Super Bowl. I've seen, look, what Howie Roseman has done in reinvesting into this defense in particular, hitting on the O-line, all the weapons. This seems like what you would want your architect to do.
This is how you would want to do it and hopefully be that successful. I have, however, seen... that this is an example of spending and why other teams should not use spending and a lack of cash as an excuse because of some of the total value of some of the contracts.
I think that's part of it, Mike, but I also think if you look at snap count and contributors on defense and how many of these rookie contracts are part of that side of the football, I think it's all of these things at once. So take it wherever you want to go.
So if we've got 10 salary cap managers together before the Super Bowl, At least half of them would talk about how leveraged the Eagles are. So when you talk about super highly leveraged teams, what we mean is it's kind of what people wish the Cowboys would do more like, hey, take those base salaries down. push things out and give yourself the ability to get more players.
So like Cleveland is super highly leveraged and they're bad, right? Or Jacksonville has a lot of investments made that didn't work out. So if the Eagles at two and two this last year, when people are wondering about, you know, whether or not Nick Sirianni was going to make it through the year, if they had gone in the tank, this would be a cautionary tale, right?
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Chapter 2: What challenges might the Chiefs face in the upcoming season?
I don't even remember why the Charlotte thing came up. There was just so much that went on with that. We were tracking flights. Schefter was joining us. There could be a plane here. And then ultimately Elway tells Manning, you can do whatever you want. And it worked out. So go ahead.
But there had been a sort of a ballpark number that had been talked about for him to come to Denver. But then when it came time to do the deal, he was in a position to really leverage that and push for more. He could have gotten more than he ended up getting. And my understanding was that he personally put the brakes on that. He personally didn't maximize.
He got a good contract, but he was about, well, look, it's about Peyton Manning. Believe me, it was his offense, all of that, but he's about for the betterment of the team. And that allowed them to probably feel better or get other players around him, you know, money-wise and all of that. So I think that's a meaningful contrast. And Rodgers is going to the Hall of Fame in the first five seconds.
He's eligible. He's amazing. But that orientation is going to work against him in the all-time greats list. I think we could have made a great case for a while there, and still a legitimate case that, hey, he never had the defense and components that Brady or Montana or these other guys had. He was sort of in that Drew Brees bucket. But I felt more bad for Drew Brees.
you know, with having his defense dismantled after Bounty Gate and all of that, then you feel bad for Rodgers just because of the way Rodgers handles all this. Don't you agree?
Yeah, and I also think Rodgers was, at times, there's probably a point in his career where I felt like he was the most talented thrower of the football that I've ever seen in my entire life. And it feels, when you compare him to the other greats, it feels like he's one ring short.
To go back to a Jokic NBA thing, I want Jokic to have another ring just so the simplistic way that we kind of wrap all this stuff up at the end where there's just going to be all of these arguments. If Jokic only has one, it's like, well, you know, if he only has one, how do we put him ahead of some of these other guys?
And I would say like, this is this five, six, I don't know how much longer this window is going to go where Jokic is playing like some of the best basketball that we've ever seen for an extended period of time. And I think when I think back to Rogers peak green Bay years, there's a similarity of,
hey, there might be a year where a guy has better stats for one year, but what he was doing at that position, how in command he was as a quarterback, one ring feels light for him. And... you know, and I, I don't know that I certainly felt worse about Breeze's defenses than I did Rogers.
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Chapter 3: What does the future look like for Myles Garrett and Aaron Rodgers?
I would do Pennix, yeah. To me, Cousins, well, if they trade him now, they actually save a couple million under the cap, I believe. And if you were to trade him late in the process, which is less likely after June, it would save a ton. I think there could be some talk about who picks up how much of the cash to make that type of a move and who else is involved could be part of it.
Okay, last thing. I want to talk Pittsburgh here. I felt bad for you because there was an athletic promo on X where it was basically like, hey, check out my quarterback carousel for all next season. It's really good stuff. Obviously, I read it. But it had been out for about a month, but then it started up as an ad again, and it was titled,
With Russell Wilson's solid play, it was right as the ad started running. It was when Wilson wasn't playing as well. Pittsburgh started falling apart. And I'm looking at the comments, and I'm like, poor Sander. People think he just posted this now after a month. And granted, look, Pickens had been out. The defense fell apart for Pittsburgh. I'm not telling you Wilson was great.
But Wilson clearly is not on board with this scenario again. So let me hear the Pittsburgh and the Wilson part of this as we finish up.
All right. Yeah. Every, every hint or morsel we get out of Pittsburgh is like, they're not that interested in everything we get from him is I'd love to be there. I think it's just, It doesn't sound like he's going to be the answer for them. And so then who would be the answer for him? I think that Pete Carroll could be an answer for him as a short-term veteran guy.
You said Pete and Russell got sideways at the end in Seattle, but I don't think that is still sideways. I think there's probably some regrets on both sides about how that went down. And so, you know, now you got Chip Kelly in the mix, too. So that's a little bit unexpected. We maybe thought Darrell Bevel or somebody that had been with Pete before would be there.
That's a component that I don't know how that affects, you know, whether they'd have any interest or not. But, you know, I think Wilson's stock took a big hit.
down the stretch it looked it was looking pretty good for a while is if you run the ball and give him a big target to throw down the field too that can be a formula uh to win with and play good defense but you know did unravel a little bit and i think that tells us that he's not really uh he may not even be a full season solution for somebody do you think field stays with pittsburgh then
I don't know that either. I think it's too early. We don't know what else they're going to do, what other opportunity there could be for Fields. I think they would be open to that. But again, I don't think he's going to be the starter going in. And he probably isn't going to get a starting job somewhere else. So maybe it's a marriage of convenience that continues.
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