Albert Breer on Rodgers BACK in Pittsburgh?, New REFEREE Deal, Vikings GM Latest

If you look at the actions of the Steelers, it tells you that they probably saw his conclusion coming.

All right.

Welcome in to the Report for Friday, May 8th.

We get the schedule release looming.

There's another set of owners meetings coming, and we got a bunch to get to here to wrap up the first full week of May.

And that starts with the Aaron Rodgers saga potentially coming to a conclusion.

And I don't think the Steelers have been in the dark on any of this.

Over the last few weeks or really months.

And I, I think the reality of this situation and every situation involving Aaron Rodgers over the last 3 or 4 years is people are respectful enough of him where they don't want to speak for him.

And so, I think you go back to when he was with the Jets, people didn't want to speak for him when he was with the Jets, and now the last couple of years as the Steelers.

Um, have become his team.

Uh, they, other people in that organization are hesitant to ever speak for him, which is why over the last few weeks, you've heard nothing is final, nothing is done, no decision has been made, the same way you heard that through March and April and May of last year.

And I, I think the, the, the relationship between the Steelers, Steelers and Rodgers has remained good.

Which is one of the reasons why you see people in that organization being disciplined and adhering to all of this.

And I think if you look at the actions of the Steelers over the last 3 or 4 months, it tells you that they probably saw his conclusion coming.

Now, looking back to last year, when he was working with Mike Tomlin and Arthur Smith, and of course, at the time, Omar Khan was the general manager, um, who still the general manager there now.

What they did over the course of the spring is they talked on a weekly basis.

He would talk periodically with Arthur Smith, and the Steelers knew what they were building for at the time.

Now, was there a possibility that Aaron Rodgers could pull the rug out from underneath them at some point?

Yeah, sure, that was there.

Um, but, you know, they had a pretty good understanding that he would probably be showing up around the team's veteran mandatory minicamp.

And this time around, I would assume, given the relationships that he has now with Omar Khan and with Mike McCarthy going back 20 years, uh , you know, my, my sense of it is that similar conversations almost have to have happened.

And that line of communication almost has to have been kept open.

And that's why the Steelers are being flexible about when he actually signs, when he actually shows up, um, because they feel like he's earned that.

And so, um, if you look at their actions, it shows a team that was building for a veteran quarterback.

And this goes back to the hire of Mike McCarthy.

Um, I think for a lot of us, we look back at the Steelers' history and saw the history of hiring a younger head coach, a guy that they're taking a chance on.

That's what Um, Chuck Noll was in 1969.

That's what Bill Cower was in 1992, and that's what Mike Tomlin was in 2007.

And so, I think many of us expected them to hire somebody like Chris Shula.

They went the other way.

And when they hired Mike McCarthy, I said it then, I'll say it now.

That to me showed that they do not want to sink to the bottom of the league, that they want to remain competitive, that they want to give it another go with the core of players they have.

The core players they have has some aging pieces.

Guys like TJ Watt, guys like Cam Hayward, guys like Jalen Ramsey.

On the offensive side of the ball, DK Metcalf is an older player, and, um, you know, you now, you look at where they are.

Um, going forward, and the way that they've built this offseason around those guys, it's almost like they're doubling down on the whole thing.

Rico Dadd is going into his 8th year at the running back position.

They signed him.

They trade for Michael Pittman, who's approaching 30 years old.

They trade for, or they signed, uh, they signed Jamel Dean to play corner for uh, for them.

He's almost 30 years old.

So they've continued to double down on the core of players they have.

Does that look to anybody like they're building for Will Howard or like they're building for Mason Rudolph or like they're building for Drew Aller?

It does not.

It looks like a team that's built for a veteran quarterback, and now they'll have that veteran quarterback back in the fold, and whether or not they can actually compete for a championship with this score is another question entirely.

Um, but they did want to give it another go with this group of players.

I thought that last swing was last year.

You would think almost certainly that last swing would now be this year.

Either way, Aaron Rodgers likely going into his 22nd year in the NFL in his 2nd season.

As the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback.

All right, our second topic for today.

The NFL, the NFLRA, they may not be in the end zone yet, but they're right there on the one-yard line.

The NFLRA did have a call last night, a Zoom call, um, to discuss the particulars of, uh, the terms that they've agreed to with the NFL.

Um, the way that works is at 8 p.m. they, they opened up the Zoom, they had a discussion, um, at 9:00 p.m., right around 9:00 p.m. Eastern, they opened, uh, they opened voting.

And voting was done online, was handled by a third party, which is why you're not hearing how the voting is going.

And voting closes today.

So by the time you watch this, um, the deal could be ratified.

My expectation is that you are gonna see compromise in the deal.

And so, What the owners, I believe, will get in this deal is some of the quality control aspects that they were looking for.

The owners are very sensitive to the criticism that, uh, that, that, that, that, that the, that the officiating has come under over the last couple of years.

So when you talk about how you're going to create some more quality control, I would expect it's going to be done um through measures for accountability for the officials, through a bench, you know, that I think also creates some accountability and that you'll have a bench of officials ready to go and you'll be developing younger officials behind the older officials.

I'd also You know, you think there'd be like a little bit more leeway to use technology to officiate the games.

In return, my guess would be a lot of the concessions will be financial.

Um, there could be some benefits concessions here.

And so I think the way you're gonna probably see this overall is that the owners are gonna be able to win on the public.

Relations front, and they'll be able to win on the accountability front.

And that's good news for fans as I see it because that's gonna create accountability within the officials, within the group of officials that makes it so the best officials are out there on the field at all times.

It's a tough game to officiate, but I think that's a good result for fans.

And then the officials win in the part that you won't see, which is in those paychecks with With Roger Goodell in the, in the lower right corner, um, you know, and, and, and that's something a fan doesn't really care about, right?

Like, so, the officials went over there, the officials went with their benefits, the, the league wins with the accountability measures.

I think the fans wind up winning because I think you're gonna get.

Um, at least a real effort to create a better officiated game.

All right, our final topic for today, the 3rd topic, the Vikings general manager search is underway.

Rob Brzezinski, the current executive vice president of Football operations, is in the mix, as are 6 external candidates, all with the assistant GM title with the teams that they're with right now.

That's Chad Alexander from the Los Angeles Chargers, RJ Gillon from the San Francisco 49ers.

That is Terrence Gray from the from, from the Buffalo Bills.

That is John McKay from the Los Angeles Rams, that's Nolan Teasley from the Seattle Seahawks, that's Dave Ziegler from the Tennessee Titans.

All of these guys have good pedigree.

Um, I'll go through them one by one.

Alexander cut his Teeth with the Ravens came, went, went from the Ravens to the Jets in an elevated role, went through what he went through there, then joined Joe Ortiz in Los Angeles.

Gillen was part of the build of the Forty-Niners over the last decade or so under Kyle Shanahan.

Gray is an interesting name because he has Minnesota background.

He cut his teeth as a college scout in Minnesota.

He's got familiarity with people in the building.

He's the guy I think some people view as the leader in the clubhouse now , and then since 2017 has been part of the reimagination of the Buffalo Bills as an organization.

McKay, of course, tied to that Rams organization.

Um, he is the son of Rich McKay, um, the, the, the, the, the Falcons executive, the former Bucks general manager, and he's the grandson of, of, of John McKay, um, the legendary USC and Buccaneers coach.

So McKay is an interesting candidate.

I think that the success of James Gladstone in Jacksonville probably helps McKay.

Teasley is an interesting one from Seattle has now been in-house for the build of two championship teams.

I, I, I, I love the idea of Nolan Teasley being in this list.

I think he's a very real candidate there.

And then Ziegler, and Ziegler is a really interesting one too, because he was such an important part .

Of the, of the New England organization through the second part of the dynasty, before that had worked in Denver under John Elway.

So he's part of building a champion in Denver under John Elway, and he goes to New England, he's part of championship teams in New England .

And then he is the replacement for, for Nick Caserio.

Bill Belichick had, had, had, had, had handpicked him as the replacement for Nick Casario and Casario goes to Houston.

A year later, Ziegler goes with Josh McDaniels to Vegas.

We know how that went, but I think a lot of what went on there wasn't really on Ziegler.

He didn't really have a chance to build.

He goes, works for a year for Mickey Loomis in New Orleans, and now is in Tennessee with Mike Borganzi and his group, and I think he's a really good candidate.

So, that's a really good candidate list.

And I think what's interesting too is if you look at the 6 candidates on that list, Alexander, Gillen, Gray, McKay, Teasley, Ziegler, they are all from the scouting side.

And so what that tells me is that either you're gonna have Rob Brzezinski as the general manager, or you might have the general manager role split up the way it is with the Rams, where you have Tony Pasteurs working with Les Snead, Tony Pasto is kind of the operations head, Les Snead is the, is the, the, the, the scouting head, Sneads the GM Pistores is the COO, um, and that was a role that Kevin Demoff held before Pistores.

Um, you know, in Detroit, right?

And this is with Brad Holmes who came from the Rams.

Brad Holmes is the, the, the GM oversees scouting, then you have Mike Disner, the EVP of the football operations.

He oversees all of the football operations side.

Carolina's got a similar setup, right?

Like where you have Dan Morgan and Brent Tillis.

Dan Morgan, the GM heads up the scouting side.

Tillis, the EVP of football ops, oversees the operations side.

So , you're either gonna have Brzezinski at the top, or I think you're gonna get Brzezinski in that Disner, Tillis, Pasteur slash Demoff role with a scouting head and a guy who can really focus and dig in on building the roster, which has been a successful model in a number of different places.

Obviously, it's worked at a high level in Los Angeles and Detroit, and it's showing a lot of promise early in Carolina too.

So I think one or the other makes sense.

For the, for the, for, for the Vikings.

I think either way, Brzezinski is part of the equation .

Appreciate you guys coming out.

As always, you can leave your comments down here below on the YouTube page or you get to me on my social media.

That's at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert R Breer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

Happy weekend, everybody.

We got some great stuff coming for you next week with the expected release of the schedule.

We'll see you guys then.