Connor and Jenny discuss the outcomes of Super Bowl LV, as well as the potential for a drama-filled offseason.
Tampa Bay won a Super Bowl at home, Tom Brady won his seventh ring and there is some oat milk commercial everyone is talking about. This week on The Weak-Side Podcast, Conor and Jenny discuss the conclusion to an NFL season like none other, including ...
*The scene from the streets of Tampa, Brady's rented waterfront mansion and the first (and hopefully last) pandemic Super Bowl ...
*How things came together for Brady and the Bucs to win sooner than even they thought, and what Brady's millionth Super Bowl means for his legacy ...
*Can the Bucs or the Chiefs return to the Super Bowl next season?
*The unanswered, lingering questions from Brady's on-field feud with Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu ...
*The back-channeling spiciness that's ahead in what's shaping up to be an unprecedented offseason of QB movement and player power.
The following transcript is an excerpt from The Weak-Side Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Conor Orr: There’s a lot on the plate for this offseason. I’m going to pick an underlying subcomponent of a lot of the big things that are going to happen. And I’m going to term this “anonymous character destroying wars” between when Watson leaves Houston, when Wentz leaves Philadelphia and vice versa. For anybody who wants to understand how some of the stories come to light: When players leave certain places, teams will try to legitimize that, maybe by leaking unsavory information about the player when they leave, maybe a player even leaks unsavory information about the team and where they’re going. And sometimes it becomes so hilariously transparent that you can’t help but laugh, even though it is kind of a destructive practice. But I am looking forward to that, because I think there’s going to be a lot of tea. I think Jared Goff still has some tea left in the kettle. I think the Rams still have some tea left in the kettle. I think that there is some Jimmy Garoppolo tea we’ve yet to even start steeping. There’s going to be some unhappy people all over the place with high-powered agents and friends in high places. And I think it is going to lead to an unprecedented amount of a gooey, slimy smear all over the offseason.
Jenny Vrentas: Conor, yes to everything you said. I also agree that there is a lot of Rams tea left. And I think we can discuss this a little bit more on next week’s show, because we have a long offseason to get through and a lot of things to discuss. But there has been zero explanation of what happened between the Rams and Goff, and we need more on that. My answer to the question was going to be a less creative version of what you just said. All of this quarterback movement is really unprecedented. I know you have a piece on this that will be in the upcoming issue of the magazine, but it just feels like anything is possible, like anyone can be on the move except Mahomes and Brady. Everything is on the table this offseason. And that is really just a thrilling possibility, especially because we were saying on the podcast only a couple of years ago all of the quarterback situations seemed to be settled. So going from that snapshot in time to where we are at now, there are just so many new possibilities.
Conor Orr: Right before we started recording this, Ian Rapoport on NFL Network had reported that Russell Wilson wanted a bigger say in personnel in Seattle, and that while the Seahawks are adamant that they are not trading him, teams have started calling and asking about what it might cost. And I think the beautiful thing about what Deshaun Watson has done and what the Eagles might do with Carson Wentz is we’ve got the pry bar and we’re just yanking on the top of Pandora’s box. And I think that it’s going to be great. I think it’s going to be great because it’s the best of what the NBA is doing with a better structure intact to ensure continued parity. And so we’re going to have the excitement of player movement, and the only downsides are for the coaches, the owners and the general managers who are not used to the customer service side of this business and making life good for their players. I know you’ve brought that up before, and I think it’s an excellent point: The only bad part about this is owners are going to have to stop treating their players like s---, and that’s awesome.
Jenny Vrentas: That’s exactly right, Conor. I think this is a really exciting era and an exciting offseason for exactly what you said, because there’s been this sense all along that this is just the way things are in the NFL. You don’t have input on personnel or if the owner does something, you have no recourse. And players are changing that and shaking that up. And it’s always good when the employees have more power, they have more rights. They work to make their workplace better. I’m all for that.
Conor Orr: Spoken like a true unit chair of the Sports Illustrated chapter of the guild. I talked to a former general manager, that we both covered, Mike Tannenbaum, who is now an analyst at ESPN, and he introduced some interesting backstory into this. As we know, Mike Tannenbaum was involved in the conversations for Peyton Manning. He acquired Brett Favre. So this is not outside of his wheelhouse. He said that he wouldn’t be surprised if it popularizes the idea of repaying your signing bonus to your team. You then obviously get that back on the opposite end from your new team to eliminate some of the complications of the dead money. This really could change a lot of the flexibility of these trades. The salary cap doesn’t look as rigid as it once did. But I asked him, ‘’‘You’re a general manager. You’re with one of the three teams that doesn’t have Rodgers, Brady, Mahomes, what are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I’m calling Nick Caserio and I’m not letting him hang up the phone until I have Deshaun Watson, I just refuse to let him hang up the phone,’ and I think that that’s how a lot of people are going to feel this offseason. So that is another really interesting chapter in this as well.
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