 Yeah Arthur just you know where are you at you feel you got your new people in place 20 days you know where are we at where's the arrow pointing football wise is we'll be getting into the pre-agency first and then the draft here over the next few weeks. Well yeah I think you know we're as well positioned now hey Jeff we're as well positioned now I think as we as we could be we were very thoughtful throughout the whole process Lord knows how many people we interviewed on the coach side and the GM side and it was a very intense two-week period of time. I thought you know one point I thought it was me and my age but you know one day Rich called me and said I'm exhausted and you know Rich is a whole lot of years younger than I am and in great physical shape he said I'm just you know so it was a very intense period of time but we I think we produced the kind of results we're proud of I think we have a 38 and 40 year old young you know general manager and young head coach that have had both excellent backgrounds both very thoughtful creative I think they'll take a fresh look at you know our roster which is what they will be doing or in the process of doing and and and I think they'll they'll put us in a position where we can be very competitive again and obviously we're thinking about the long term which is what we always should be thinking about so I'm you know I feel good right now and you know it's going to be another you know I'll say a crazy year but a crazy offseason again I'm sure you'll watch the commissioners press conference today or read about it and you know and that's been my impression in our discussions is that you know this is not going to be like a light switch it's going to go from which everybody had hoped for 2020 2020 won't be totally different you know our offseason will be some you know some blending of what we've seen this last year and probably leading into you know into the fall season so so it you know it's going to take more work more patience more creativity and more dedication but I think you know I think it speaks well in my opinion for the league for the medical staff mostly I think for the players the coaches and the staff that we're able to play 256 games and you know get to the playoffs and play them on time and and and having a civil bowl as schedule so I think all of that is is tremendous but you know eventually we've got to get fans back in the building so we all understand that how important will it be to ignite the fan base with that fourth pick and maybe take a Justin Fields at the quarterback position I know Terry said he's going to take the best player available yeah well I would say the Saints have that that history you know it's interesting he told me in the interview process of his experience with Ozzie Newsom who we all know and is you know one of the more highly regarded general managers in the history of the league you know Ozzie has always had the position he's taken the position of philosophically of drafting the best player regardless of need and I would say we always have not always you know always done that sometimes you've looked at need and and move towards need first but in any event that's kind of a lot of his orientation and the Saints have done that over the years I think too and so you know it hurts me a little bit to say he's coming from a great organization but he is the Saints and you know they've obviously built a winning franchise and he's been there for for 18 years he's worked with one of the most respected general managers in the league Mickey Loomis and he's worked very closely with a highly you know highly regarded head coach Sean Payton who's not always the easiest person to work with but his standards for excellence are extraordinarily high so he's got a really good background both on the pro side and since 2015 on the on the college side so I you know I like his thinking I like his thinking not only short term you know because it's important not only to put a winning team on the field next year but to have a plan to have a sustainable winning team you've all heard me say that many times over over the years so all right go to Tori McElhaney with the athletic Arthur I know you were on the call with Arthur Smith and we talked to him for his introductory press conference but when he was talking about not wanting to have yes men on his staff and and not wanting group think I was just curious kind of from your business background how you relate that to running a business two building staffs around you and why that is so important well I actually that was one of the things when we're doing the interview with him that I actually really was excited to hear because you know and I want to take a minute to explain it but sometimes they don't always have time to do but you know the the lack of group think I mean you really want everybody to represent the best of their feelings the best of their thoughts their processes where they are on the other hand you know you've got to make a decision at the end of the day but you want to get the best input from every single person that's involved in making a decision and then you make a collective decision and you all get behind that decision so whether it be taking the name off the board for a draft and making a decision about free agency or you know you know how to use a certain player whatever it may be what I got out of that is that he values the inclusion of everybody and then he'll he'll make the decision and I think Terry functions the same way I do think that it's one of the advantages of his father's had I think it's a fact that his father's had on him a positive factor because his dad obviously he's running you know a great corporation started much like H.D. from nothing and built it so he's learned a lot of good principles and he was telling me that he chats with his dad sometimes once twice a week about you know not about football stuff about you know just you know being a manager what does it take how to deal with this and that and everything and his father obviously has had great experience with that so I think you know I think his dad probably would say you know that's what you should be doing you know encourage everybody to think for themselves represent themselves into the day the coach or general manager whoever it may be has got to make the final decision so that doesn't mean and one thing I would say Terry give you a full stance or is that culturally that means you're always on the same page but your views may not always be the same and culturally that's one of the things that we talk about is one of our slices of our value wheels respect respect means that you know I may not always agree with Jeff Schultz which is very rare I almost always agree with Jeff Schultz but I but I may not agree with him it doesn't mean that you know I you know I can't listen to him understand what he's coming from and and respond you know with you know with degree of kindness but you know it is what it is so anyway I think it's very important to do that and I think you know Terry didn't say that during his during exactly the same way but he feels much the same way and he said in New Orleans that's the way they kind of ran things down there the end of the day said Shawn would make the decisions but Shawn did value the input of everybody yeah I also did kind of want a personal anecdote from you maybe when's what's an example throughout your career of of a time that something came out of intense collaboration that you were really proud of well I tell you the you know Tor it's interesting I mean but just came to my mind when you said that was when we we had to deal with the Michael Vic situation um and that was uh you know very very difficult time for our fans for a difficult time for our franchise for our fans for the other players coaches for everybody including Michael and so I think you know we spent you know time thinking about including the league because Michael was in some ways the face of the NFL at that time just like you know the Holmes may be today or Brady maybe whatever but you know Michael was in many ways um so you know thinking about getting the input of of of all the people we were talking to was really important and making the decision what was the right decision for for our franchise for our fans for Michael for the league um was something we decided on and move forward with but we took it took time to get you know to get the thinking of everybody um so it wasn't kind of a it wasn't necessarily a blended decision but it was a decision where you wanted to get the input of everybody and then whatever path that took you on it took you on and then you made the decision going from there and I think looking back I think most people would say and you know DL was here then and Jeff was here then um you know Zach was just a child then but you know but you know I mean people would say that we generally handle that I think fairly well given the you know the difficulty of the moment all right we'll go to Zach Clive WSB and just a reminder if you have a question type I have a question in the chat and we'll get to you in order submission Zach Arthur I know the health and safety of your fans is always at the forefront of your mind but what's your optimism level of to have a capacity sellout crowd for the regular season um this coming here yeah that's a great question Zach um I'll tell you exactly what Roger said today I'm sure you watched it I would say the same thing with Roger said you know our aspiration is to have a full stadium but we're not going to make that decision decision really be made by the scientist and by the you know medical councils and advisors um so we have to we have to put safety first um we just can't compromise on that for our fans or you know for fans our fans our players coaches anybody in the building um so I hopefully if Dr. Fauci is correct and there's a lot that can slip between the cup and the lip but you know the doctor says potentially we can have between 80-85 of our adults vaccinated by sometime mid-summer we're at you know probably six percent now maybe seven percent this week something in that area we've got a long way to go we have to a long way to go in terms of convincing everybody all populations that the vaccination should be taken and then we have to work out these bugs that we're obviously living with across the nation in terms of not only the production which I think will work out I mean I think the manufacturers will work out fine but the the distribution of the products and and having enough technicians medical folks doctors nurses etc available to you know to do the injections that's been a limitation we uh at the at the stadium at Mercedes Benz Stadium we're vaccinating probably we're getting about 50 percent of the product from Fulton County currently and we're only vaccinating between 1700 700 and 1500 a day you know aspirationally the CDC thinks we set up to do as many as 15,000 a day so we have to get to that point but we need the product and we need people that can deliver the the injection so but I'm hopeful that'll work out so we'll see hopefully that'll lead to a positive answer in the fall certainly much more positive than last year I don't think it's that question about that yeah okay uh Dylan I know you had several so we'll go to your follow-up uh yeah Arthur I was just looking at uh Rich was on the panel with coach uh coach Dungey and he wrote an open letter to the owners about minority hiring how do we move forward in the next cycle um make some progress with the GMs but not so much in the coaching hot well you know DL I you know I serve on the on the diversity committee for the league so I'm you know I'm very much aware of the rules and the trends and what have you and I would say particularly this year um having to hire both a head coach and a GM I think I could speak with some authority uh at least my view on what we saw I think for both positions the quality of the candidate pool on on both sides was was uh was a lot higher than I've ever seen in the past it wasn't just a question of having diversity it was a question of having diversity that was qualified and so I I thought both for head coaches and GM that was definitely the case if you look at the head coaches you know there were seven opportunities to were filled by diverse candidates um you know when you have 70 percent of your players are you know our color you know that's you know that's progress but it's not really it's not really the kind of progress we we hope to see um on the GM side on the other hand we had you know I mean six openings this year and five were half of which were filled by uh by uh by minorities so I think there's great you know there's great progress there the other thing I would say and and Roger brought it up today but in my opinion it's it's worthwhile expanding a little bit in in in some ways or in some way you can argue that diversity at the general manager position is not more important but as important as the head coach and I and I and I kind of would argue that because on average the GM will oversee transitions of between two to three head coaches so if you have minority head coaches the opportunities to probably bring forward more head more head coach candidates over that period of time through maybe several transitions is going to be greater I also felt this year looking at the panel of the coordinators that each of the head coach candidates brought forward I thought there were a lot of really diverse great candidates that I think potentially are going to be be head coaches in the future so I think this progress may not enough and not fast enough and I think we'll go back and the committee will re-examine everything we did this year under a microscope we'll understand what we could have done better and and work on those areas I think the beauty is that you're going to find a league and ownership is going to be fully supportive of anything that we can do to enhance the policies and rules to make it a little better. I'm going to Jeff Schultz from the athletic. Hey Arthur. I know when you were interviewing both Terry and Arthur they they they had to lay out or they were asked to lay out I'm sure their blueprint for your franchise are you at Liberty at all to share what they said about both Matt Ryan and Julio Jones? Yeah I'd be happy to I think they they both said that acknowledged and other players but they acknowledged those are two very special athletes two very very special players they both acknowledged they're certainly not at the end of their road Matt's performed at a high level since 2008 he's one of only two quarterbacks in the history of the league that has thrown for more than four thousand yards over ten year period he and Drew Brees are the only two and Drew obviously is the first ball of Hall of Famer so Matt clearly can continue to play at you know at a high level I think with Julio subject to you know him staying healthy which is not really quote his fault he does whatever he can to keep in shape and stay in shape and if he gets injured usually it's a soft tissue injury to keep himself on the field for the full season having said that you know and I would say this in any context whether it's a business context or or or franchise in a football context one of the things that shareholders let's say we're our fans of shareholders in this case and they his ownership in this case they also expect you know you to prepare for the future it's not just about performing for today is that okay in this business of football you're gonna have athletes are gonna age their skills are probably gonna decline a little bit are you prepared for the future and that's what good head coaches and good general managers do and that's what you know good good owners do they make sure they're hiring people who understand it's not just about winning next Sunday but it's about winning you know on it on a long on a longer continuum than that so my aspiration I've said this publicly since 2001 is that we want to have a sustainable winning team which means not just winning one year and then dropping down for two years and winning again but having a team that's competitive always and playing games in December and January that are important games and you know God willing playing a game in February as well so you know I think they're definitely part of their plans and and on the other hand you know they're every everybody is aware that we all age players age and you have to be thoughtful about when is the right time to make a transition transition doesn't have to be overnight you look at the homes you know Patrick was drafted you know high-performing player in college came came out of a kind of a street football system say that respectfully he probably would disagree and his coach then would but in any event you know he needed to get you know some more training and more transition he worked under a you know certainly a great quarterback and alex Smith for a year that happened with Tom Brady I mean Tom didn't start for the Patriots until that was it was an injury happened with Aaron Rodgers Aaron you know sat on the bench behind Brett Farr for the period of time we're fortunate in this round you know we picked Cal Ridley several years ago he's clearly a number one today so the way we were able to make a successful transition from Roddy to Julio will you know be able to do that at some point but not immediately but at some point with Julio so and that's what fans should really expect of us I mean you know that that's our job it's not just to win today but to prepare for tomorrow so we can win tomorrow as well sounds like you're directing the quarterback you know I I don't know Jeff that's you know that's your view and I'm not you know I'm not in the person gonna gonna take the card off the board that's not my job it's my job to have people think about all those things that is my job is he your expectation that Julio is back next year yeah it's the same comment I made about Matt I think they you know they all love Julio who wouldn't just a matter of him staying healthy and being on the field you know he's when he's not on the field you know obviously it affects his ability to play when he's not in the field he becomes a special player and when you put him in a mix with you know people like Cal Ridley and Gage and others I mean he becomes you know real force so thanks I don't think our biggest challenge is going to be in our receiver room I think we we have to establish a running game again we've had one in the past not of the last couple of years and establish a running game it makes the passing game much easier it makes your ability to control the game control the clock control the tempo the game creates your ability to to quote unquote impose your will on the other team so without it it's very hard to do do those things and we haven't had that obviously in the last few years all right gotta follow up from Zach Klein who's winning Sunday you know what I think I I'm hoping you know that that fans will be winning on Sunday I mean I think it's a you know seriously I think it's gonna be a great matchup it should be a great matchup you've got you know two teams that truly deserve to be there you've got you know two quarterbacks of opposite ends of excellence one is 25 I think at my homes and I think Tom is 43 and says now he's gonna play to 53 or whatever it is so you know you've got you know two you know two extraordinary teams that both can score and put up a lot of points and they have teams that you know well-schooled on defense so it should be a close game and it should be a good game so I'm hopeful so and I mean your heart of hearts Arthur do you feel you're closer to getting back there or there's still a long way to go oh yeah no I know I certainly think we're close we're close to getting back there but you know as you all know and your students of the game and our fans of students of the game is that you know when you get into the playoffs it is single game elimination so if you're in the the key is to get into the playoffs so you know to get into the tournament and if you're in the tournament you have a chance you know and then you you know depends on how you're playing what's happening with injuries and the ball's not round is it bouncing your favor versus somebody else's there's a awful lot of things that come into meant to play and you know sometimes usually and you get to the playoffs it's only a normally just a very small handful of plays that make a difference in a game and sometimes there you know there's things you can't always predict turnovers things of that nature. Gonna follow up from D-Led? Yeah Arthur has the front office briefed you on the salary cap situation the websites have you all 33 to 36 million over and then they said it's a baseline DeMarce said the baseline of 175 it may get higher. Yeah I think I'll give you my own views on this I think we all understand you know where we are because it's you know it's it's information that's you know that's public. I won't go as far as Rich sometimes will say you know we'll find a way to work around it and you know I mean and Rich has you know he's he's done it been there gotten a t-shirt so I I respect you know I respect what he says but you know I think we'll probably have some difficult decisions to make this year. On the other hand I this is just my personal opinion I have no no evidence of this but my personal opinion is that the cap will not be a 175 this year I think it'll be some number higher than that and I think the league probably with the NFLPA will take the position that let's you know take the damage of last year you know the pain that we all incurred last year and spread it over some period of time I don't think they'll make it a one-year hit I think that would be you know too difficult and I think really it's not the best interest of not only the league and clubs but our fans because you'd have you'd have clubs that would have to be making some very difficult decisions on some very good players that ordinarily wouldn't they wouldn't be doing and I think it's really not what fans want to see I'm in fans want to see there you know some you know some continuity with with their with their most successful players so I think there'll be something worked out not to say it's going to be easy but I think it'll be workable going to Ken Belson hey Ken hey Arthur thanks for fielding the question I guess one way to add on to that is what are your feelings on a 17th game happening and a media contract being signed to allow for the 17th game will that in fact help pick the salary cup cap above 175 yeah I think you're you're you have right to anticipate that I think that the commissioner answered those questions today but and I think it's we have the right within the cba existing cba to go to 17 and three or 17 is some other number I'm not sure what the other number will be but I think it will be a 17 in my opinion I think it'll be a 17 game season next year I think you know the the players are you know our understanding that accept that and understand the value of that to them as well as to you know our fan base so I think that I think that will help and I do think there's a requirement to do that it's going to require some you know some reworking with our media partners and I think we are much like the players the league is always taking position these are our partners and so we don't we can't really impose anything on them but we can work in a collaborative partnership way to figure out what's the best way for each of the media partners so it works for everybody thank you any any more questions any follow-ups everybody good thank you all more is that yeah just following up Arthur just we're done talking football the last I think six months you've given away what a quarter billion dollars what's next and a little bit more about what happened today well yeah thank you Zach bring it up today we've made a 17 million dollar grant to the national civil and human rights museum which we've been part of before they broke ground and they're expanding the museum by close to 50 percent so we're happy to have an opportunity to be part of that it's a rich history of civil and human rights not only in Atlanta but the nation and really throughout the world if our listeners have not visited there they should do themselves a favor and do it it's extraordinarily well well done the expansion space will be used to probably elevate and expand the papers of Dr. King will be used for bringing forward some exhibits and areas of of exhibition that'll be let's see child-friendly appropriate age child-friendly because I do think that I think we all feel as way as parents that the earliest age that we can expose our children to to what is diversity and what is equity and what is equality mean and what is kindness mean all of those things I think are really important so museum be doing a lot of that I think it'll be much more of a national institution as opposed to just an attraction in Atlanta and that's good and they're doing work on a national basis now but they'll be doing even more so in the future so really proud to be part of that and you know you've all heard me say one time or another you know over 95 percent of my states can be recycled back into the foundation and you know fortunately you know these you know these assets that we have in our group of businesses and our investments have done extraordinarily well so I continue to work hard at you know making a difference in terms of philanthropy you know I will say this most people don't they think as well it must be real easy to give away money it's actually you know in some ways it's harder because you know it takes time to go through and evaluate everything and to be thoughtful about it and understand the impact of it and going back and looking at it at work but didn't it work etc so it's an opportunity and a responsibility that we feel strong about and I'm blessed to say my whole family does including all of my children all six of the kids so we'll continue to work in that area and continue to make investments where we can