I feel like talking about less.

I am a sportscaster, in large part because I don't feel like talking about things like the coronavirus riel.

Serious journalists have to talk about the coronavirus.

I get to talk about whether Aaron Rodgers has enough help to try and win a championship.

That's my lot in life, and that's candidly what I want to do.

But in this case, the to have inextricably become linked because the National Football League is trying to walk this high wire with no net.

They're walking over a raging torrent.

Whatever the whatever.

The scariest high wire act you could possibly walk is, and the whole thing could come apart at any minute.

And I told you that I admire like crazy, the fact that they've gotten this far and that they have to treat absolutely everything as secondary to getting to the finish line.

Everyone's best interests are served by that, and so with the Las Vegas Raiders.

I told you this a couple of weeks ago, who just continuously for reasons known only to them continue to just flaunt their disregard for the protocols.

That's something serious had to be done.

I suggested the league needed to take away a draft pick from the Las Vegas Raiders, and yesterday that's exactly what they did.

The Raiders find a half a million dollars stripped of 1/6 round pick in the 21 draft, and coach Jon Gruden find an additional $150,000 for what was described to ESPN as quote, brazen and repeated violations of covert 19 protocols.

Let me make my position on this as clear as I possibly can.

This has nothing to do with how seriously you take the coronavirus.

I take it very seriously.

I believe it should be taken very seriously how this became sort of a topic of debate in America.

I think I will never understand.

But that isn't even the point of the conversation.

I think everyone can agree that if this thing, which is now running rampant, we had 120 something 1000 people test positive in this country yesterday.

If the NFL is going to somehow managed to work its way all the way to a conclusion which all of us want.

If you're listening to the show, it's because you're a football fan.

So you like me want this thing to work?

I want these games played on Thursday, Saturday, Sundays, Mondays.

We want to watch them.

This stuff has to be followed to the letter.

And I'm not sitting here trying to say that I want to punish the Raiders because they're bad people.

I love John.

I've known John forever.

John worked at ESPN for 10 years, 11 years while he was in between coaching jobs.

He was on Mike and Mike every Wednesday.

He's terrific.

I'm not looking to punish John, but I think that the point of a punishment is a deterrent.

You have to send a stern message to every team in the NFL.

If you don't follow these guidelines, we're gonna take draft picks away because the alternative is we're not playing Sunday.

We need these games.

Everyone needs them.

The teams need them.

The league needs them.

The fans need them.

The networks need them.

All of us need them.

So I'm not sitting here telling you.

I think these are bad people.

I'm telling you, I think that they a message needed to be sent by the NFL.

Just how seriously this stuff should be taken for anyone who, for whatever reason, has decided they weren't going to take it seriously enough.

And that's what they did.

And so once again, I commend them for it.

I think that the NFL top to bottom has done an extremely good job in managing its season in this era of the pandemic.

Hopefully, it's something that will never have to worry about again in our lifetimes, starting sometime, reasonably soon.

But until then, they got to do it right.

So again, I think the league got it right.

With regard to the Raiders.

Greening with you.

Presented by Progressive Insurance Progressive celebrating eight years of donating cars to veterans in need.

Learn Mawr at keys to progress dot com.

All right, next order of business here is a pretty simple one.

We played a little game of quarterback musical chairs on television this morning, and I think you will find this interesting.

There's so much speculation about Jimmy Garoppolo feature in San Francisco, they can walk away from him.

It isn't exactly Scot free, but for all intents and purposes, if the 40 Niners decide they want to go a different direction at quarterback next year.

They could do so, and I don't know that that's fully fair.

By and large, all Garoppolo has done is win when he's been healthy and all that team has done is lose when he has not been so.

I think that he has become something of an unfair target of any criticism that exists of a team that was in the Super Bowl year ago.

But I thought, and I will continue to believe Karl Shanahan, the much credited coach of the 40 Niners, one of the great offensive coaches we have in this sport.

I think he told you everything he thinks about Garoppolo with the way he coached the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.

He was more than anything, afraid his quarterback was gonna lose him that game.

So I think that there is a good chance they do move on.

So we looked at it this morning and we were considering what might happen if the 40 Niners decided they want a different quarterback.

My immediate reaction is the obvious candidate is Matt Ryan.

The money is going to be a little bit difficult to figure out, But Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator in Atlanta when Matt Ryan had his best season.

He won M v p of the league.

They went to the Super Bowl that year.

They didn't win it, but they were up 28 3.

A lot of things went wrong from there.

But generally speaking, Ryan was terrific and he's only 35 years old Now.

He'll be 36.

I think the Falcons might be on the verge of entering into a total rebuild, and if they are, it may not make sense to build it around a 36 year old quarterback.

And he may want to take another shot at the championship while he still has that shot.

So I think that might be a move that makes a lot of sense for everybody.

I then, through that, open to the group.

There's two of them I want you to hear, because they were both fascinating.

The first one from Rob Ninkovich, when the topic came up of Jimmy Garoppolo no longer being the quarterback in San Francisco, I said to Ninkovich, What do you think?

What happened to Jimmy G Here's what he said.

I think it will be a New England patriot.

And listen, I was the last time you've seen Bill Belichick walk up to the opposing team's quarterback after they lost 33 to 6 and give him a little tap on the back and give him a handshake.

I mean, I don't think I've seen that from any other quarterback that's ever beat the Patriots.

So when I think about Jimmy G with his with the 40 Niners, there's really nothing that that is gonna hurt them if they just cut him loose.

I mean, he's already made most of his money.

S o.

I could see baby Jimmy G going to the Patriots.

He likes Jimmy G.

Backward.

All began with Bill.

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