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Each time for a weekly conversation with Pro Football Talks Mike Florio, brought to

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you by Simply Seattle. Tired of buying and repping the same old Seattle sports

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the world, check out simply Sattle dot com. Now with Mike Florio,

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here's Softy and Dick. All right, everybody normally on a Wednesday at three

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ten, but today, because of special circumstances, we welcome in our friend

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from Pro Football Talk, the NFL and NBC. Let's face it, the

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undispirited heavyweight champion of NFL media, our friend Michael Florio. Michael, thank

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you so much for being flexible, my friend. How are you I get

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paid extra this week? Right? Uh? If you say so, we'll

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after doc Fan's pay to take care of you. But if you want to

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get paid extra, I guess that's seven bucks an hours, So as long

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as you're whatever. Yeah. Uh, let's talk about these workouts going on

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all over the NFL. We washing in a pro day today. Michael Pennix

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looked amazing. How much do you think these pro days at college campuses really

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matter for gms around the league. They don't matter much unless they're disasters.

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That's when their newsworthy. The key workout is the private workout that happens between

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the player and selected team. I gave you an example ten years ago,

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Teddy Bridgewater took his gloves off for the Louisville Pro Day and had a horrible

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workout. He plunged out around one Vikings did a private workout and they loved

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him, and they kept their mouths shut about it, and they traded back

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in with the Texans to pick number thirty two and got him nothing. He

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ended up being a franchise quarterback. But my point is the pro day workout

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is only relevant if it's disastrous. It's nothing challenging, there's no defense,

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it's not live, and it's all stripped in rehearst. Because these guys are

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working out with their former college teammates. They perfect the routine that happens at

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the pro day workout, So don't put a lot into unless it goes horribly

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wrong. My Jim Harbaugh is hyping up McCarthy like you wouldn't believe, and

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everybody's buying into it. I've seen him now up as high as two in

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the mock drafts. How much of this is just Harbaugh saying, Hey,

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I got the fifth pick in the draft. I would love four quarterbacks to

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go one through four, and I've got my pick of the draft litter at

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five. This is a perfect double whammy for Jim Harball because he can come

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off as being supportive of his former player and he can advance his own self

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interest, which, as you said, it is to have quarterback, quarterback,

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quarterback, quarterback go before the Chargers around the clock at number five.

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That makes it essentially them having the first overall pick in the draft because the

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one area they don't need to address is quarterback. Yeah. Well, Mike

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Florio's were us. How about this new kickoff rule in the NFL. They

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took it from the XFL, and guess what it looks very XFL ish.

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The hip drop tackle getting banned. What do you make of the week that

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was when it came to rules changes in the NFL as far as a hip

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drop and work backwards. As of a week ago, I thought this would

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be a great thing because you know when you see a hip drop tackle just

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like a horse caller. You know it when it happens, it's great.

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The problem is they have created a line that is going to leave some things

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that look like hip drop tackles on the outside and some things that don't on

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the inside. It's going to be very hard to officiate it in real time.

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I don't think we're going to see a lot of flags. It's going

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to be more a situation of fine. The problem is it introduces another element

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where officials can throw a flag vaguely and randomly in a key moment and give

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a team fifteen yards the field position by claiming there was a hip drop.

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So I don't like the way they've done it because it leads a window of

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opportunity for inconsistency and officiating and after the kickoff. This is the most significant

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rule for the NFL to change since I had a minimum to two point conversion

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in nineteen ninety four when they adopted the college draw. I mean, this

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is a big deal, and it's an experiment. It's literally an experiment.

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I mean usually they have new rules on a one year basis only just in

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case they can get out of it if it doesn't work the way they intended.

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This thing is fully experimental. They don't know what it's going to do.

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They believe it's going to restore the kick return to the game. What

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kind of field position are you going to see on average for some of these

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teams. You could have teams at the thirty five to forty yard line.

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That's gonna result in more points. That's going to get teams to realize.

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The teams that figure out how to crack this code and get the most out

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of the kick return are going to be in a position to be much better

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this year than they would have been. And we'll see after this season whether

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it's something the NFL keeps well. You would think that it would increase the

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action. But if I'm the kickoff team, I used to be rewarded by

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pooching it to the one yard line because I knew your average return was about

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twenty or twenty one yards. Aren't I just blasting it in the end zone

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every single time? If I'm the kicker under this new rule, yes,

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well, the touch track is the thirty if you do that, and it

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was going to be the thirty five. They changed that over the weekends.

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I think if it's the thirty five, we are definitely seeing more returns,

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far more returns than touchbacks. Agree at the thirty. If you have a

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team that has great return specialists, like let's say the Dolphins use Tyreek Hill

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and Jalen Waddle as their return specialists and they're getting it to the thirty five

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forty yard line on a regular basis, that's when analytics takes over, and

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that's when you make the decision, strategic decision. We're just going to bang

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it into the end zone and give them the thirty yard line. So I'm

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concerned that by moving it to the thirty, you may have some situations where

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drives are just going to start from the thirty and there won't be a kickoff

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anyway. Yeah, Well, Mike Florio's with us on the radio show.

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So this story about from the NFL network, Woody Johnson and Roberts Saw getting

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into a big heated battle. I know the owner would he had to come

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out and kind of refute it. But what do you make of all that?

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Is there a real tension between owner and head coach in New York?

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Based upon some of the things I've heard over the past year or so,

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it wouldn't be a shock for anyone to come to the conclusion that there's tension.

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They grossly underachieved last year. It was embarrassing. And yes it can

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all trace back to Aaron Rodgers getting injured, but even after he got injured,

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what they put on the field wasn't good enough. And I think it's

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safe to say there is tension. What's dramatic and significant about what happened this

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week with NFL network And a lot of people don't realize this. The NFL

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owns NFL Network, it's not licensed like Serious XMNFL radio. The NFL is

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licensed to Serious. The NFL doesn't own and operate the Serious XM channel.

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The NFL owns and operates NFL Media. And to have someone in kind of

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a gossipy way, very loose, very very casual, acts as if it's

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gospel truth that this very heated conversation happened between Woody Johnson and Robert Sola.

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I can't think of a time that NFL media has basically jumped on that third

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rail because the teams own the NFL and the team's own NFL network, So

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this is wild. And to have Woody Johnson say it's another irresponsible report from

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NFL networking, it's the first irresponsible report, if it is irresponsible, and

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if one network's ever had because they stay between the guardrails, because they work

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for the league. Everybody who works there is getting a paycheck signed by Roger

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Goodell, whose paycheck is signed by the owners. Michael, you're the man,

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and again, I really appreciate the flexibility. It just again continues to

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show your professionalism every week, and we cannot thank you enough. Boy,

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that's the nicest thing you've ever said. I can't yetter that. Don't get

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used to a pale. All Right, we'll talk in a week, man,

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I'll see you about it. Mike Florio with us. All right,

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we're gonna break. Here's what we got. Aaron Goldsmith will be here at

8:00

four o'clock this afternoon from the Maveners. We're going to replay our conversation that

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Dick and I and Tony Casher Coon had with Pat Chun earlier this morning at

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four twenty this afternoon. Brett Boone will join us at five o'clock tonight.

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Courtesyavenue Kings dot Com. That's all coming up right here on ninety three three KJRFM.