 Falcons fans, heck NFL fans everywhere. I am so excited to have today's guest on. He's a former sports agent who helped found, correctly if I'm wrong, premier sports and entertainment, represents coaches and athletes. He's represented a ton of athletes, including Shaquille O'Neal, Akim Balajuan, Ronnie Lott, and probably a ton of other NFL players. I know he has, and I don't know how many former Falcons he's represented. We'll get into that in a minute. But he's appeared on ESPN, CBS. I worked with him at CBS Sports. He writes agents take. And he's been on countless radio shows across the country. Ladies and gentlemen, Falcons Nation. I am so stoked to introduce my friend, former colleague, Joel Corey. Joel, great to see you, man. Hey, thanks for having me. Good, you look good, man. Where are you these days? sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, where it is going to be 70 degrees today. Wow, yeah, rub it in. All right, so coming up on this show. Have you lived in the deep South? It never gets that cold. I remember when I was at Emory, they canceled class once because of a forecast of snow. And I'm like, wait till it actually snows? Growing up in Nashville, we actually had to have snow before high school got canceled. Well, you remember, I was down in Fort Lauderdale with CBS. So coming up here is like, you know, coming up to the North. Yeah, that is true. That is true. So, well, let's get to the topics we're going to cover. We're going to cover the looming salary cap with looks like a reduction. We're going to talk about the Falcon salary cap, Joel, and how that's going to impact roster decisions. I hope you've been studying up on the Falcons roster. I know you've been writing about a lot of different teams. And then if we have time, I want to talk about the New Orleans Saints because, you know, Falcons fans feel pretty bad about, you know, the impending gloom and doom of the salary cap. Well, the Saints actually have kind of a worse situation. Look, let's just jump right into it. Let's just get right into the salary cap. And there's so much to unpack, Joel. But if you could, and I'm not saying cliff notes, but what is the big issue right now with the salary cap as far as this possible reduction and what's it mean for just teams in general? Well, revenues went down drastically because of the coronavirus pandemic. There were no stands in the fans for no fans in stands for the most part had that reversed the first time. So local revenue is approximately 35, 40% of league-wide revenue. So when you don't have that, that's a major piece of the pie. So the NFL and NFL PA in the preseason agreed to limit the losses for this year, at least how they count cap-wise, the salary cap floor of 175 million. The losses may be more than that, but the cap won't be any lower than 175 million. If they have to, they'll borrow from future years and spread those losses out over 2022, 2023, and 2024. If necessary, the cap right now is 198.2 million. Pre-pandemic, the planning the teams had was conservatively the cap would go up roughly six, seven percent to the $210 million range. So you're talking salary cap planning and teams planning three year snapshots of 210 million to now you're dealing with worst case scenario, 175 million. If the NFL can get the new meteorites deals done before the league year starts on March 17th, the 2021 league year, that could be a game changer. And the NFL would feel more comfortable borrowing from future years and keeping the cap as close to remaining flat as possible, knowing the infusion of revenue would be certain. If you don't have new TV deals done, then expect the cap to be 180 million, maybe 185 at best, which is terrible for players because teams, since they were planning for- Joel, we're talking about how much, how much drop per team? Is that 20 some million? Yeah, you're talking about planning for 210 initially and you're going to be at 180. So we're talking 30 million below what your expectation is. That's going to be a buyer's market. Teams are going to have to cut players they wouldn't otherwise cut to be cap compliant, which means that there will be a great amount of supply exceeding demand in free agency. So you don't want to be a free agent unless you're one of the top guys. They'll get paid regardless, but everyone else it's going to be a bleak outlook. If a team asks you to take a pay cut under those circumstances, you may want to consider it because a burden a hand, maybe worth two in the bush this year. Hopefully everything gets back to normal in the 2021 season. You have fans in the stands, the whole year and the Super Bowl is a sellout like it always is. And in 2022, then the cap can start going back up. TV deal should be done by then and it'll be business as usual. So if I'm a free agent, I may take a one year deal if I'm a younger guy, if I can't find the money I want in a long-term deal and try to hit it again in 2022. Just unfortunate that you would happen to have an expiring contract in this year if you didn't have a great year. So yeah, a lot of guys are gonna have to bet on themselves is what you're saying, right? Yes, more so than would in the past. Yeah, you talked to a lot of GMs and a lot of front office people still. What is your sense? If you had to make a prediction right now of what you think will happen, what, you know, with the TV deal and what you think that number is, you know, what's the solve? What do you think happens, you know, based on what you're here and what you think? Well, nobody, the TV deal is the unknown variable. Nobody knows if those are gonna get done, but some teams are using 175, the floor for planning now, some are using 180, but teams aren't using anything remotely close to the current level, 198.2 million for their cap planning for the 2021 season. And by now- So they're planning for worst case, you're saying? Yes, well, you always plan conservatively if you're running a team salary cap, you can't go, hey, the cap's gonna go up 10%. And then if it doesn't, you've been planning for 10%, you're kind of screwed. One thing which it is gonna affect is the later that the NFL sets the salary cap because typically projections preliminary are made in December. We have a conservative range where the cap is. And then into February, when the combine takes place, typically, which it isn't like it would normally in Annapolis, is when the cap is finally set early March. So everyone knows what they're doing. The franchise and transition tag numbers are a percentage of the cap. So you won't know the exact numbers until the 2021 salary cap is set. But regardless, since the cap is expected to go down, those numbers are going to drop. Like I'll use an example for one. Derrick Henry's franchise tag was 10.278 million this year as a running back. Now, if the cap is at the floor of 175 million, then that number is going to be 8.4 because of the way the franchise tags worked that it's the average of the top five salaries at a position over a five-year period where it's a complicated formula more so than it was under previous CBAs. Where you take the some of the franchise tag numbers for the past five years or some of the salary caps, divide those two numbers into each other multiplied by what the salary cap is. And that's what the number is for position. So if the cap drops, those numbers are going to drop dramatically. Yeah. Wow. Whoo. So I can't, obviously it behooves everybody to get this TV deal then. And I've read on pro football talk in different places that they, and then you tweeted out something yesterday that CNBC story about how this could be a game changer this new deal. Correct? Yeah. Because if I haven't seen television or media rights deals go down. Right. God forbid the sport for if it's a cap sport for that, because then everybody's salaries go down. The expectation is there's going to be a substantial increase in the media rights deals. If you look at the highest rated TV programs, even though the Super Bowl number of viewership was down, the ratings were down. It's dominated by NFL Telecast. Yeah. Because TV ratings are down across the board because of court cutting, primetime TV isn't what it used to be. But one thing you can count on to generate ratings is the NFL. So why do you think it's going to go up because there's other players in the game and because there's talk of going 17 games less preseason and then ESPN wants to be, from what I read ESPN wants to in ABC, ESPN ABC wants to get in that Super Bowl rotation. Right. Is that kind of the next factor? Yeah, that also helps. Anytime you're going to add more inventory, extra game to add more inventory by increasing the playoffs. And if you have a party which is on the outside looking in wanting to get in, that's a league's dream. We've seen the last round of baseball rights go up. The NBAs went up dramatically. The NFL is still the ratings king. So the anticipation is that they're still, they're going to go up dramatically as well. The deal's going to get done before the new league year. Your guess is as good as mine. People thought they might be doing during the regular season. I have no insight and knowledge about that. So if they get done, that's great for the cap. If not, then it's going to be a year where you don't want to be a player unless you're a marquee free agent. Yeah, how big too was it to get that 10-year CBA deal done before the pandemic hit and everything like that? Well, as it was hitting. Well, the funny thing is that thing barely passed by the players because there was a faction of players and Aaron Rogers, who was Green Bay's player rep and on the player rep board was very vocal in his opposition that he didn't think that the players were getting enough to give up the 17th game. Now, nobody knew the pandemic was coming. I would hate to see what the situation would have looked like if we played the 2020 season in the last year of the CBA under 2011 CBA and then they're going to have to go and negotiate a new CBA in a pandemic environment. I would imagine there'd be a work stoppage and there would be a lockout like in 2011 because the owners would use the pandemic is a reason to extract concessions from players that they've always wanted. In 2011, they clawed back a lot of stuff from the 2006 CBA which they thought was two player friendly. And I think you would see the same dynamic again where maybe the players would have a little more resolve just because they would feel that the owners are unfairly or unjustifiably using the pandemic to try to rectify or remedy a situation that didn't necessarily need to be remedied. So some players weren't all that happy about the new deal but given what it could have been in this environment, yeah, it worked out well for the players. Really well. Under the circumstances that we're going to be that we're unforeseen at the time. Yeah, thank goodness we're not in that situation. All right, well let's segue right into the Atlanta Falcons, Joel. How bad is it? I get questions all the time and that's why I'm really excited. How long have I been asking you to come on? I think since what, 17 since I got here, right? Oh, not so long. Come on. It feels like it. But how bad is it? Falcons fans, you know how it is with fandom. Some of them just overreact, knee jerk and you know but it's not great, Bob. What's the Falcons situation in a nutshell? If you, you know, going into this right now. It's one of the worst in the league. It's probably bottom five but there are a couple of teams which are way worse. If the cap is going to be 180, the Falcons are roughly 32 million over the cap. There are ways for you can try to create cap room. There's some obvious guys you would release like Ricardo Allen, James Carpenter, Alan Bailey, the ones that come to mind about releasing if you released Ricardo Allen, you're going to pick up 6.25 million a cap room if you release James Carpenter, that's about 4 million. Alan Bailey gets you about 4.5 million. There's some obvious guys to restructure. Jake Matthews has the highest offensive line cap number in the NFL at 20.2 million. Grady Jarrett, highest offensive line cap number in the NFL, Grady Jarrett's number four at defensive tackles at 20.833 million. And then Dion Jones, it's got a 12.63 million cap number. That's another one that screams restructure. By restructure, I mean you're pushing cap obligations into tomorrow, kicking the can down the road where you take base salary or other salary components like a roster bonus, convert it into signing bonus and you can take the amount that you convert into signing bonus and prorate it over the life of the contract. Or if you want to get it really creative like the Saints do, you can start adding voiding years to the contract so you can stretch out the proration for over more years, create more cap room because the voting years count for proration purposes. But there's a cost to that because then you're going to have more dead money when those years void. Now, if you're talking Grady Jarrett, he's under contract through 2022. So you could take like 12.5 million because that's our minimum base salary at least. You have to drop it down to a minimum base salary. You can take a restructure and cut the base salary to whatever you want. And the reason I say you can cut it to wherever you want is in these contracts over the past decade or so, teams have inserted in the addendums automatic salary conversion rights. So it's no longer a negotiation between the agent and the team on the restructure, which it was 20 years ago. And I had one, I'm not going to name them, one of the top guys in terms of managing a cap cursed me out because we had a player on his team where we'd restructured a year before. And to me, I'm like, I'm doing you a favor. I don't want to do you another favor. So why need something in return? Like more money or something, exaggerated payment schedule. Otherwise it wasn't going to do it. And he cursed me out over that. Teams, to avoid that, it started putting automatic conversion rights in the contract where they can convert however much money they want. And then it's considered a breach of contract if the player doesn't execute a new contract, which has the terms of the restructure. Now, in Grady Jarrett's case, you chop them down to his minimum base salary. It's not 90, but let's say a million for a round number. You can take 12, five, convert it in the salary cap in the signing bonus. She creates 6.25 million a cap room. Jake Matthews under contract three years. His minimum base salary is 1.075 million. You can take a little over 11.9, convert that into a signing bonus. You can save almost 8 million. Deion Jones under contract through 2023. 7.2 you could convert. So that's 4.8 you could create. Two guys I wouldn't touch, Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, even though Matt Ryan has a second highest cap number in the league, soon to be the highest because Ben Rottlesberger's number is gonna come down one way or another. Matt Ryan's is just under 41 million. You've restructured that three times. So I wouldn't touch that Julio Jones, top wide receiver cap number to lower 23 million. I would kind of leave that alone as well. If you have to, if you're gonna restructure, you're one of those guys, you don't do the full restructure where you take the base salary down to the absolute minimum, you would do it at a different level. So Joel, I'm gonna break it down even more simpler. What I'm hearing from you is that, the rookies that you draft and the guys that you draft in those guys, they're gonna get their paid, right? And then you're talking about not touching Matt Ryan and Julio Jones because of their high, high cap number. And you just don't wanna spread that out. You're talking about the guys that are kind of in the middle class, so to speak, in the middle and either working with them on the solve here is to do it quickly as possible. Either you're gonna have to make tough decisions and part ways or restructure some of these guys and other guys are gonna have to just either take one year deals, bet on themselves. And it's not like they're gonna find a lot of other takers because everybody's kind of in this situation. Is that make sense? Yeah, that's fair. It also means in free agency, even though the Saints one year when they had no cap room came out of nowhere and signed Jarrett's bird, maybe Nye's paid safety. They did it in a manner where you had a small first year cap number ballooning second year cap number. So if the Falcons create enough cap room or at least start a new league year, they're compliant. They could sign one of these guys under that approach. Also the Falcons use a contract structure which has now started to come back and vogue which had really gone away which is a signing bonus option bonus structure. We have a signing bonus which gets probably over five years. And in the second year, you have an option bonus to exercise and option year which would be the last year of the contract. You prorate the option bonus like a signing bonus and that's gonna keep the second cap year number low as well. The problem with that is, and this goes back to a guy several years ago, it was used with Sam Baker and Sam Baker didn't pan out. And when you released him, you had a ton of dead money because you have multiple sets of proration. You've got the signing bonus proration and the option bonus proration. That type of structure was used with Matt Ryan's contract and they restructured it three times. So that's why his cap number is so high and why if you cut Matt Ryan which nobody's thinking about doing, it would add to the cap. And even if you traded him before June 2nd, it goes from being almost 41 million to almost 44.5 million in terms of the dead money is more than the cap hit. One guy, to me, that's interesting to take a look at is Dante Fowler. He's got a cap number about 18.5. He's got 6 million of his 2020 base salary already guaranteed. It's 13 million as a total base. The other 7 million is fully guaranteed fifth day of the 21 league year. He's a guy that if he's on the open market doesn't do well. If you cut him conventionally, he doesn't make a lot of sense because he's got the guarantee then you got the bonus proration accelerating from 2022 hitting 2021 that it's not worth your time. You either have to make him what's called a post June 1 designation where you carry him on the cap until June 2nd even though he's released. And then at that point, you can remove the 7 million that's not guaranteed and you delay the proration from 2022 from hitting the cap in 2021. You pick up almost 11 million cap room that way. I might go another route instead. I would approach him about a pay cut because he's got the 6 million no matter what. If he gets cut based on what he did last year, he's not gonna get a ton of money in an environment where the cap is gonna go down. And also knowing that he has a 6 million, he's not looking most likely to chase money. He's looking at opportunity. So I would try to get him to take a pay cut anywhere between 5 and 7 million personally. And then he could have the opportunity to make it back through incentives where if he's sacking the quarterback at a pretty high rate, he can be made whole. All right, so you're just doing with the basic math and who knows what kind of decisions Terry font know the new GM is gonna make. He came from the saints as you know. But if you're a falcon stand and you've got a basic understanding of the cap and you understand, okay, Joel Corey just said can't touch Matt Ryan or Julio Jones. You can, but there's a cost. You could, but there's a cost. And eventually, you know, you could do different deals where you can spread it out but you eventually gotta pay the bills. And so how do they have success in 2021? And is this an opportunity for Terry font know? You know, you come in and you've got the number four pick and you know, you've got to put your imprint on this team Joel and you've got six picks plus some compendent story picks. How do you fix this situation? How do you put your stamp on this team to have success in 2021 and beyond? What do you think in, you know, without going into, you know, the dissertation about, you know all these, you know, different things and pass and options they can have. What do you think makes sense, you know for them as they kind of head into free HD the draft and look at this roster to be able to have depth. Can they have depth to be able to do they trade down? Do they get more draft picks? Is this an opportunity where you maybe try to make some moves and acquire more picks because if you hit on draft picks that's the ultimate contract, right? You get those guys and you know, if you tell me so and if they do or do not have success in 2021 what how long will it take realistically you think? Well, you guys have been kind of stuck in neutral the past couple of years where you are better than the record indicates you have to pretty much assume Tampa Bay is going to win the NFC South the Saints are a wild card because that team is going to be dramatically different Drew Brees is retiring as well. So I don't think you're winning division. The way Matt Ryan and Julio Jones' contracts and cap numbers are structured you're probably keeping them at least for one more year. You're not going to be able to make substantial additions through free agency unless you're able to get guys when it's a complete buyer's market that's going to be higher quality talent than would normally be available to take one year deals and for bargain basement rates and you go there you're right about you think that's going to happen? You think there's going to be if the cap around 180 if the cap around 180 or less yeah, you're going to see guys doing that left and right then it's going to become I'm trying to position myself for the best possible way for me to have success to hit the market in 2022. So you did touch on one thing which is very important if you have a low cost quarterback then you can amass talent around them. You have the number four pick Matt Ryan's no spring chicken he's on the back nine of his career. So that's your opportunity to have a successor in waiting that can take over in 2022 because nowadays you play quarterback sooner rather than later or possibly if the season's going terribly you trade them before the trading deadline and that way after June one the probation from future years doesn't hit the cap in 2021 and you go from there. I have a radical idea of how you hit the reset button this year it's never been done and it will require a lot of patience and I'll explain it. There's one ready-made team that's looking for a quarterback to me inapolis Colts that a quarterback older than Matt Ryan this year in Phillip Rivers. Now, knowing that if you traded him before June 2nd that you're pretty good with that old quarterback. Yeah, they did probably would have been better if they went after an older quarterback that they didn't chase at all who won a Super Bowl but that's a different story but if you trade Matt Ryan before June 2nd it's going to increase the cap. So you're going to put about 4 million 4.5 million on the cap that way if you trade them before then if we have an unconventional off season like we had last year then there's no OTAs, there's no mini camp. So what would Matt Ryan be missing on a new team? Not all that much compared to what you'd have in a normal year. So you require a lot of patience but if Indianapolis doesn't get their veteran quarterback and then maybe post June 1, June 2nd that's the trade, he goes to Indy. You don't have all the acceleration from the massive bonus pereration from the multiple restructures hit the cap in 2021. That's a 2022 cap charge. That'll be about 26 million. You only have to 17.9 a per ration this year. You pick up 23 million a cap room because you're not paying a salary and go from there. That's just the radical extreme idea. You never see a team, teams talk about a trade or have something in place and then delay it for cap purposes. So that's just food for thought. I don't see that realistically happening but you never know if Indianapolis is still looking for a quarterback, a veteran quarterback come. Well, what are the teams out there that need a quarterback? You've got New England possibly, right? Possibly. Yeah. You've got Chicago, right? Yeah, well, someone's gonna presumably end up with Carson Wentz. I always thought Indianapolis made the most sense. And if I'm Indianapolis, I'm insisting on a package deal to get that done if you want more compensation. If you're looking for significant compensation, I'm like, hey, let's send his best target over there who they already have a ready-made successor in Philly for Zach Erts and Carson Wentz go to Indy. And I don't know what you're at. I mean, I don't know. I don't know Carson Wentz after what I saw but Frank Wright, that's with them. Yeah, that's true. Bears scream quarterback. The Redskins scream veteran quarterback. Alice Smith, isn't the answers. Great comeback. Never thought we'd see that happen but. Phenomenal story, yeah. Yeah, they're limited with him at quarterback. We'll see what happens with this DeSean Watson thing. I wouldn't trade him if I'm Nick Casario. To me, he's gonna have to sit significant time but for me to consider trading him. So we'll see how that goes. Well, I'll just, I'll say this too. What if you say, you know what? Hey, Matt Ryan, look at the production from Matt Ryan. You know, 10 seasons, 4,000 plus yards. What if you bolster that offensive line like I had on my mock draft today? What if you say, you know, quarterbacks are playing longer? They are. What if you say, you know what? Let's, is it realistic to restructure Matt and say, you know, he's our guy for the next five years? Do you save money that way? Yeah, he's what, 36 now? 35. Then you're gonna, yeah, they are playing longer. I don't know if he wants to be Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers in terms of. I don't know either, but he's still playing at a high level. Yeah, he is. But his cap number next year is like 41.6 million. So that's gonna be an albatross around your cap as well, because of the multiple restructures. You've done three already. You keep doing it. You're kicking a can down the road. Then you're committing to him to be your quarterback, giving him significant leverage to get a new contract because you'll need to do it to lower the cap room. Tom Cotton ain't taking a discount. So whatever the top of the market is, if it's 45, every time you sign them, you make them the first or second highest paid guy. So you're committing to paying a quarterback who at some point starts to have diminishing returns. I know guys are playing later, but Ben Rothelsberger on the elbow was part of the problem. It wasn't the same guy pre-surgery. Rivers can't throw the ball deep anymore. So retired at 37. Brady's an anomaly. So you got the number four pick. That might be the time to get a quarterback. If you're not going to take the quarterback at number four, then you trade down and get more picks, auction that pick off to the highest bidder who wants a quarterback and try to recoup draft capital to try to rebuild your roster. Lisa, it's one of those two plays to me. Yeah, or you could just trade down a bit because there's, depending on who you talk to, there's four guys that have first round grades, four quarterbacks. I don't know how soon they're going to go. Yeah, if you think it's Trevor Lawrence and then you can stick the names in a hat and pick one, yeah, you trade down because you accumulate additional picks and still get a guy where you're like, what's the difference between Tray Lantz, Zach Wilson, Justin Fields, and we'll say, Matt Jones. If you don't think there's much of a difference between them, yeah, that's another route you could go as well. All right, well, speaking of cap issues. New Orleans Saints in quarterbacks, the New Orleans Saints have a lot of questions, Joel. Who's their quarterback going to be? Drew Brees has not announced officially he's retired, but it looks like it. Oh, he's retiring. He made a move this contract, which I thought. Yeah, he restructured, right? If he was going to retire, his cap number was going to be 25 million. Yeah. So they renegotiated where they dropped his base salary to his league minimum 1.075 million. You only do that if you're going to retire because what you're trying to do is you don't want to have all the onus proration from the voiding years hit the cap in 2021. So you carry him on the roster till June 2nd, and you can delay the proration until next year. So that was done for that reason. You have Taysum Hill under contract. I wouldn't have given him an extension. He could have played on his first round restricted tender. And seems like Sean Payton has an affinity for James Winston. So it's probably going to be one of those two guys because I've never seen a situation like the Saints in terms of the salary cap issues. This is unprecedented. Even if you did have the cap go up to 210 million, they were still going to have to make multiple moves in terms of restructuring contracts and cutting people. And they kicked the can down the road with the best of them. So it was, I don't expect it. Talk about having to pay the bills here. When you look, I'm just looking at Spotrack, but they are 32, negative 70 million, 70.1 million, let's say, of cap space. Yeah, it's really 94 because there's, I don't know how it got reported this way, but Jared Cook has a real year in 2021. They have to physically cut him. Whereas I know some people have thought it was a voting year. So there's no cap charts for him, but he had a roster bonus which had an escalator. So right now he's got a $22 million cap number. When you cut them, you're going to pick up, you have 2 million of dead money. So you're picking up 20 million of cap space for cutting Jared Cook. But that's not reflected in what you're looking at. What are they going to do? I mean, what if it's the worst cap situation in the league? What do you think they end up doing if you just? Oh, they're going to go through multiple restructures. Like they're going to pick up like 10 million of cap room from Cameron Jordan, add the voteable years. So I can stretch out the peroration over five years. People have talked about restructuring. Yeah, Michael Thomas, where they were going to trade him. That adds to the cap. Plus if you don't have Drew Brees, why are you going to get rid of a weapon? Because when he's healthy, he's great. So you're going to restructure him. You're going to pick up 9 million there. You're going to restructure Camara. No, actually, he didn't really give him that much. You don't restructure him. You restructure Andres Pete. You're going to cut multiple players. Quant Alexander, you get 13 million for cutting him. You know where Jenkins is probably gone. Some of your mid-tier players like Malcolm Brown are probably gone. So you're going to see multiple restructures, multiple releases. And we're going to see how good of a coach Sean Payton is. Yeah, I would not want to be their GM. Mickey Loomis has got a lot of decisions to make here. Joel, what is the worst when you look at some of these bad cap situations? What's the worst one that you've ever seen? Well, until this year, it was the 2002 Jacksonville Jaguars. And teams fall into a trap where if you think you can win a Super Bowl, don't worry about tomorrow and you're worried about today. So your moves are made for the short term. That's back when Jacksonville had a lot of stars on their team, kept restructuring contracts. They were saved by one thing, the expansion draft. The Texans took multiple guys off of them. That they took Gary Walker, Seth Payne, and Tony Bicelli. And if I correct the bonus proration, when you took someone in the expansion draft, went to the Texans. So you didn't have the type of dead money you would have. And then they cut a client of ours who from a performance standpoint didn't deserve to be cut. Kingdom of Cardo, 90 catch, 11 under yard season. They cut him. And back then, there were no post-June 1 designations. You had to wait until June 2 to get cut. And in that secondary market free agency, back then the money already dried up. He went to Tampa and got a Super Bowl ring. But you don't get rid of a 90 catch, 11 under yard guy if you've managed to cap well. So that's probably the worst one I've seen. The Raiders had a pretty bad one when Reggie McKenzie first got there because I don't think Al Davis was thinking long term. He's thinking, hey, I need to win now. And he had like 55 million in dead money one year trying to clean up the Raiders cap situation to get them in a position where they could go forward and did get them, make them competitive a couple of years later after that. It's just a situation where, you know, I mean, obviously you're not making these deals, but when you're a team, I guess if you feel like your window is right there and you feel like you've got a shot, I guess that's it, right? You just feel like, you know what, we're going all in. And, you know, and then you end up making these deals where you got to rob Peter to pay Paul and then you got to pay them all. Yeah, you can outrun it when the car or maybe mostly outrun it when the cap goes up six, seven, eight percent each year, but when we have this unusual situation where the cap's going to go down, that's your problem. Then the chickens come home the roost where the credit card bill is due and you have to pay them. Philadelphia has been in that when now mode and their second worst situation, even though they've got some logical exit points with some deals, they weren't counting on cars on when it's being a guy that have to trade. That deal was set up for you to restructure it if he'd been what they thought it would be, but now they're going to have the biggest individual dead money charge in league history of 33.8 million for trade versus like a $34.3 million cap number. So they would save $850,000, but still that's unusable cap space, but I never thought he'd be traded this year, but that appears to be what will happen. Matthew Stafford goes to LA, Lyons get a starting quarterback, they get a hall of draft picks, rumor is reports are the Eagles want that kind of deal. You're going to see a lot of quarterbacks, right? Move around, there's the whole Deshaun Watson situation down there. I believe when I see it when he's traded, I don't think Nick Casario wants his first major move to be, I traded a franchise quarterback who's 25, when the idea is you try to find those guys and keep them. And I don't think he wants to set the precedent that if you, you can get what you want as a player, if you're disgruntled, that's a factor that I think people are underrating. Him not wanting to set that precedent for other people to be able to come in the door afterwards and go, hey, if I'm happy, I can force my way out. I know from personal experience, when you got a new regime, that is a difficult obstacle to deal with when you're trying to get a new contract in a holdout situation or trying to force a trade. All right, well, let's wrap this up. I'm just going to put you on the spot here. Thumbs up, yes, no, thumbs up, thumbs down, wherever you want to do it. Do they get a deal done before the new league year? You think? You mean TV money, TV deals? Yep, yep. I'm going to say yes, because I think the owners are motivated to try to get it done. Does Carson Wentz get traded? But yeah, but Philly is going to have to come off that Matthew Stafford Hall, because part of that was the Rams were given away, Jared Goff, that was part of the Brock Osweiler type thing. Here, take them, we'll give you a second round pick. So you're not getting a Matthew Stafford Hall. You have real estate expectations, you can trade them. Who's the quarterback going to be in New Orleans? James Winston. Matt Ryan, does he stay? Stays. Leo Johns? Stays for another year, because you've got Calvin Ridley who proved this year could be a number one. So I think maybe a farewell season for both Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, unless it's a very successful season. Wow. Woof. Number four, you're Terry Fontenau. What do you do? In what respect? Take a pick. Do you draft best player available or you trade down? Based on what you just said. I'm taking mine. If I think the quarterbacks are all equal, then I trade down and snag, if you want to get additional picks, if there's one guy I like more than any others, then I'm taking that guy unless he's gone a pick ahead of me at three or something. Okay. I could determine if another quarterback, if the quarterback you want is gone by a team who picks ahead of you, then that could change what your philosophy is in the draft. Okay. So you're saying you're Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Gray Jared are all going to be here. You trade down to get some picks. New head coach. You saw what Arthur Smith did with Ryan Taney Hill and how he adapts to his players. You got Terry Fontenau wanting to put his imprint on this team. You think the Falcons can be competitive and push for a division title? If that's the case? No, it's the Bucks. Bucks are going to win the division. I think the Bucks take it again. Yeah. I don't think it's going to be as competitive as it was this year because New Orleans, they're going to take a step back. So I think it's really, as long as Tom Brady's upright, they're winning the division. All right, Joel. Awesome to have you. We got to have you back when, well, once the dust settles here and we get through that draft, I'd love to have you back on, man. Oh, anytime. Appreciate you having me on.