Fan Grab Bag Vol. 2

off to us on social media. At my underscore m at a kinka wallah, Yeah, I get fired up. It's you know, it's it's like the connection that we have with the audience. So it is one of my favorite things. You know. I have to give a little shout out

since we talk about having conversations. I spoke to a young woman named Gabby just yesterday who grew up in Baltimore, is a big Ravens fan, is studying abroad in Venice right now, and she told me that she loves our podcast and that she keeps going back to that field whole episode with Justin Tucker, a game that she was at the justin Tucker Game that prompted the changing of the height of the uprights, and she said she keeps mentioning it to be talking about things that she learned

in that episode, which really just made me feel so warm and fuzzy. Yeah, it's amazing. And she's probably listening with gelato in one hand or phone and and the wireless headphones and the other. So Gabby's love and life. Right now, you got the end of explained podcast studying abroad in Venice. What could be better than that? Well, what could be better than that is giving our listeners another grab bag episode. So let's just jump right into it.

Mike Fines, What can players get fine for? Where does that money go? What exactly happens during halftime? What doesn't happen? By the way, I did my best to get on the halftime field this past Super Bowl. That wasn't so successful, but I did get very very close to Snoop Dogg. I will say that, and to Dr Dre I'll send you pictures later away. So the importance of turnovers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

We're going to get into all of that. The franchise tag, we'll get into that too all of it in this episode, all right, So there's a lot to unpack here. So let's sort of get into a couple of other things that we can make reference to. And by the way, you just dropped the halftime hanging with Snoop Andre. You didn't say hanging with I didn't say better sell, So

let's just go with that. But because we do have a recently new crown champion in the RAMS, would love to start with the question of where did the idea of Super Bowl rings actually come from? Well, here's the answer. The first ever championship ring in pro sports and this is not super surprising, and it comes in baseball, uh, the New York Baseball Giants in ninety two after beating the Yankees in the World Series. The first Super Bowl ring was given to the Packers after defeating the Chiefs

in Super Bowl One. It actually featured just one single carrot diamond, which you know, I mean, now I get like the blame and it's like kind of crazy in the whole I know, you got some bling on your hand, what you're you're flashing right now? So well, what's really interesting about this is our colleague Mike Robinson. I met him at a rookie symposium years ago, and he had his super Bowl ring, and this was prior to my

husband actually proposing to me. And I took a picture of that big fat super Bowl ring and I sent it to my husband and said inspiration. And while I do have a very nice engagement ring, it is nowhere near what super Bowl rings are today. No, I mean they are no joke, but at least the one from super Bowl number one. Uh look one carrot diamond, but the ring itself usually there there rose or yellow gold. I couldn't tell you the difference between either one of those.

They can include diamonds, although to be fair, I don't know if I've ever seen a championship ring at a pro level that hasn't included diamonds, um emeralds, ruby, sapphires. Oh my, that's a pretty significant list. It'll include of course the team, the name, the number, and of course

world champions on it. The Collective Bargaining Agreement actually outlines that are practice squad slash inactive player for super Bowl winning team is entitled to a ring, and most teams actually give rings to coaches, administration, surrounding organizational staff as sort of like honorary rings. And I got a really good example for you. Add So, one of my best friends is the play by playvoice for the Rams in JB. Long,

and I had asked him before the Super Bowl. I was like, Yo, man, are you gonna get a Super Bowl ring if they win? He said, I think so. So it's just another cool example of really what it could be. And you know what, Mike, some of those stories are my favorite stories go back to two thousand seventeen,

when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Owner Jeffrey Lurie actually gave John dorm Boss, who had been there long snapper for eleven years, had been one of the most popular guys in that locker room, but had been traded just before the season. He gave him a ring. He also gave a ring to a secretary that had been with the team from nineteen until two thousand fourteen, when then head coach Chip Kelly had fired her. Colts owner

Jim Ersey. He gave Edgar and James a ring after winning the Super Bowl in two thousand six, and that was right after Edgar and James had left in free agency. And then you talk about giving extra rings or honorary rings, or pendants after winning Super Bowl fifty four? Quiz time, how many rings do you think the Chiefs gave out players, coaches, staff, ambassadors, cheerleaders.

I don't know. I mean, I feel like just knowing in this administration, players practice, squad players, you're probably hovering around to Andrea just in general, maybe try seven hundred seven hundred. You're ordering those like right after the game, the eu fouria is still there as opposed to you know, weeks after where maybe that dies down just a bit and you start thinking about what that's going to go and cost you. Right, maybe you shouldn't be making that

decision right then. Okay, but so we do know who has the most rings in history? Correct? Yeah, it's the goat. Come on, Tom Brady. We've all seen that picture, right, Yeah. I can't believe he retired with three fingers left. You know. And it's interesting because actually about a year and a half ago, actually hosted a seminar with Charles Haley and Ronnie Lott about mental health awareness. And I didn't realize that Charles Haley, like, you know, I sort of he

was getting bios and whatnot. He's actually the second most amount of rings that he has one hand five, which is kind of cool when you think about the success he had with the Niners and the Cowboys. By the way. The other thing to kind of throw out there on the expense of some of those rings, and you mentioned the Chiefs dropping seven hundred of them. Now not all of them are, you know, fully outfitted with like a

crazy amount of diamonds. But the last ring that Brady got with the Bucks fifteen carrots of diamonds a total of three hundred and nineteen to signify the thirty one to final score. The value around six d k. It's the most expensive ring in league history by a very wide margin. The NFL, by the way, does contribute around five to seven thousand dollars on each ring. That softened that blow a little bit of d I can tell

you this. My engagement ring was not sixty dollars. But Mike, if you're going to be dropping that one day, well, you know, lucky lady me and you were gonna be doing a whole lot of podcasts for me to be able to afward six k on an engagement ring. All right, Well, let's keep talking about money, and let's talk about contributions, and hey, we had another great question from one of our listeners at iron Will on Twitter and to Will asks us, where does all the money that is collected

from the various fines that the NFL hands out go? Well, it's a great question. The first place we should start is how players actually get fined. Now, there are indeed maximum allowable fines that are laid out in the c b A. For instance, if you don't promptly report an injury, the most you can be fined is two thousand, eight hundred and twenty seven dollars. If you throw a football into the stands, the most you can be fined is two thousand, eight hundred and twenty seven dollars. Do you

know if you are overweight? Mike, and thank goodness, I am not fine for this, But if you are overweight, how much can you be fined per pound per day? Seven hundred and fifty two dollars. How could it be that much? Well, that's what it is, seven hundred and fifty two dollars for a pound per day TB twelve. Here we go. I mean I'd bay go ahead and multiply five times seven hundred and fifty two, like I'd be out my whole salary right now, or maybe it

would prompt me to get back into shape. Anyway, failure to report to a mandatory offseason minicamp the first day you're out nearly sixteen thousand dollars, the second day you're out thirty one thousand, nine hundred and sixty one dollars, and the third day you can be fined forty seven thousand in nine hundred and thirty six dollars. Now, if you have an unexcused miss on a team transportation fifteen thousand and ninety dollars, which I have a story about that.

Once the Steelers were flying to Oakland and uh, I think the Raiders were in Oakland at the time. Yes, the Steelers were flying and Antonio Brown was late and Mike Tomlin held the plane until Antonio Brown showed up, Which means that maybe Antonio Brown, ohs Mike Tomlin part of that fifteen thousand, ninety dollars that he would have been fined potentially for missing the flight plus the cost of airfare to get across the country. Here's what's crazy.

If you lose personal playbook, if you lose part of a playbook or a scouting report, it's the same fifteen thousand, ninety dollars. I would think that that would be a much bigger fine, don't you think? Agreed? But I'm having flashbacks to elementary school, like you lose your homework one of those moments and then just fast forward just a significance, like you know, the teacher now has a talking point

some of their students. You know, in the NFL, you lose your playbook or your scant report cost k don't lose your homework. Well, it could also cost your team the game, though, depending on whose hands that playbook falls into. All right, what about fighting? First offense for fighting thirty five thousand and ninety six dollars, a second offense seventy thousand,

hundred and ninety four dollars. If you have a foreign substance on your body, like it's cold and you put too much vaseline on your arms to keep them warm, and it bleeds onto your uniform and it makes you slippery, well, that could be five thousand dollars for a first offense. You know, penalties are also subject to find Mike, a fifteen yard fould like a face mask, a blind side block, a roughing the past or a horse collar, all of those can get you a find somewhere in between ten

and twenty thousand dollars. And then, of course, you know there are uniform inspectors, So on game day there's as many a sixty four uniform inspectors who make sure that everybody's looking clean. You know, the socks must be the right color, and they have to be pulled up to the right spot, and gosh, all of that. You have

to be proper in what you're doing. Some of the players really are not huge fans of that, and some that I know that we're just willing to just kind of pay the fine and just say screw it, I'm gonna do what I want anyway. Um, it does total a whole lot of cash. Though. It's actually really good question indeed that iron Will had sent our way, because I'm thinking to myself, like, those are large numbers and penalties. Where does the money go. Well, Mike, let's look at one.

Players were find a total of one hundred and sixty three times for seven million dollars according to spot track. And so, to go back to iron Will's original question, all of that money goes to the NFL Foundation, and it's used to assist former players and various programs that help former players. These are programs that are agreed upon by both the NFL and the nfl p A union, And obviously last year was a big year for fines, but in general, the league has been able to give

about four million dollars a year to these programs. So while that fine for an untucked jersey could be really annoying, at least you know that your money is going to a very good cause. Yeah no, I mean it's definitely it's a really worthy cause in a big way. Alright. A couple more questions to get to here. One regarding turnovers. You know there's that theme. My god, I feel like it's literally every time I watch a game, and it doesn't even have to be an NFL game, every single

sport where turnoversus an issue. You got to win the turnover battle keys to the game. How true is that is the question. Well, it turns out it's actually really true. So there's a reason why everyone seems to say it. Since two thousand teams with a positive turnover margin win games at a rate of seventy nine percent over that same span, Since two thousand teams that have a turnover margin of plus one percent winning percentage a plus two, it knocks up to eight three a plus three turnover margin.

And if you are plus four or better, oh my god, it's like guaranteed victory. Ninety six point six percent is that win percentage. So when you consider that teams have about ten possessions are so a game it makes a

whole lot of sense. Every single play matters in such a big way and indiity as far as success for teams during the season and reaching that Super Bowl, only four Super Bowl winners have ever had a negative turnover margin in the regular season the Oh seven Giants negative nine, three, Raiders negative four, Broncos negative for the Raiders at negative two. And how about this the Rams in one coming off

that Super Bowl against the Bengals. A little doughnut there, the Rams somehow wanted all this past season with a differential of zero. So once again, um, you know, on the flip side, if you're thinking, like, what about teams with the highest turnover margin? The Ravens plus twenty three arguably the best defense of all time. But be I know you've got an up closer personal seat for that squad and the Legion of Boom the Seahawks a plus twenty differential for them. What are you talking about in

two thousand, I was just a kid. I wasn't covering the NFL. End. I'm with you, Mike, that was a little rid moving right along. If your team is struggling, like Mike, yeah, I'm uppears to be struggling right now, whether it's turnovers or you know, schematically, it's important to get into the locker room at halftime, right. So a question that we've had a few times from a few

different people is what exactly happens at halftime? Alright, So in a regular game, NFL halftime is only thirteen minutes for the players, and that's shorter than all other levels of football. It's time by the back jugged, and teams are not required to go back to the locker room.

But it certainly makes sense, and especially considering that poor Evan mc fierce and the Rickey Kier for the Bengals who decided to hang out with long snapper and Clark Harrison watched the Jerry Snoop halftime show this year at the Super Bowl. Um, we get that it's probably safer to just get out of sight. Although I should mention that the Super Bowl halftime is indeed longer than a regular season game halftime. In any case, what happens at

halftime varies based on the team. So now you've certainly had coaches who say that, you know, there's just not enough time to get into any sort of really detailed chalk talk. Sean Payton once talked about this, that halftime is really only about seven and a half minutes. By the time you all run off the field, get in the locker room, get a drink, eat a peanut butter

and jelly sandwich. Which remember when we did our episode on eating, if you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at halftime, you should eat it on white bread, not we bread, because you don't want too much fiber. As you go out in the second half, go back and check out that. So lots of interesting nuggets un eating. But anyway, by the time you get something to drink, by the time you eat something, you go to the bathroom.

The coaches talks amongst themselves there's really just not that much time to get into any sort of deep dive on anything. And so Sean Payton, going back the former Saints coach, said maybe you can talk about a couple of important things, but really probably not. And Matt Burke, who was a center for a long time with the Vikings and also played with the Ravens too, right, and you play with the Ravens too, Yes, okay, well he was a Viking center for a very long time. Harvard Man.

He said the same exact thing that, like, you know, the coaches have a meeting, they come out and they very quickly say to players, Okay, guys, here's what we like. It's not like it's super specific that these are the three plays that are going to win the game, and you're gone, there you go. And another thing, they'll insist that like that whole glorified in the movies and TV, that impassion a halftime speech that changes everything, that that

doesn't really happen. And another one of our former colleagues, Brian Billick, who of course won that two thousand Raven Super Bowl when I was, you know, just a small child in elementary school. Brian Billick said, in all my years in the NFL, I can't think of a single let's go win one for the Gipper halftime speech. Kind

of disappointing. But now I will say this in my experience this past season, as you know, Mike, I spent so much time with the Cincinnati Bengals, and the one thing about the Bengals this year is that they were tremendous,

especially on defense, in making adjustments. And I'm thinking of two games against the Kansas City Chiefs, one in December and then one again in the a f C title game, And after the Chiefs kind of ran all over and ran up the score on the Bengals in the first half, the Bengals both times came out and essentially shut down the Chiefs in the second half. And that was indeed because of some adjustments that were made at halftime and

on the fly. But I will say this, this was possible because it was a very very smart and heady and overly communicative defense. I would not say that that's the norm. Yeah, I'm disappointed that the fired up raw Ra halftime is also not the norm, especially because of all the movies that we've seen, and you know the inspiration where they throw the cool music bed under the under the voice who would be one head coach that You're just like, Okay, this guy could talk and I'd

run through a wall for him. Oh, you know it's that's actually a great question. Let me just rack my brain. There's one coach in particular who I've always thought very highly of, both on the pro side and the college side. But it's been so long since he's coached in the NFL. But when I was still in college at the time, he was the head coach of the Jets, and now he's at Arizona State, and then I got to work

with her Edwards at ESPN Herms. One of those like I think it depends on how you talk to people. I don't. I'm not the person who needs like the raw raw like get in your face and everyone's screaming. That's not how I roll. I'm more of like the the easy like can you inspire me with your words? And that would be enough for me. You've been around a ton of coaches, you must have one in mind that you would run through a wall for. I'd like to play for John Harbaugh. Okay, yeah, that's a good one.

But that's a whole other episode, so we could get into that one another time. Okay, well, look, that'll be my question that I'll tweet you for our next episode. But there's more, Yeah, there's more. Questions that people are firing off to us, including one that we actually just got recently as in like morning of our record about the franchise tech, what exactly is it and how does

it work? Not to mention, we're gonna find out about the shape and the materials that has changed throughout the years with regard to the actual football and also what's officially the biggest upset in league history. All of that still become on the NFL Explained Podcast. Welcome back to the NFL Explained Podcast. Mike Yam and d D Kinka Wallah with you. We are continuing to steam roll our mail bag episode. We loved getting the questions throughout the

course of the season. You can find us on social media at Mike Underscore Yam at a kin kabwala a d. Let's get right back to this one. An incredible year for football for so many different reasons. Probably the most exciting playoffs of all time, and there was a lot of parody, the road teams winning nearly fifty percent in the games, that's the highest percentage since two thousand two, and there were a couple of massive upsets. In fact, the Jack's pulled off two of the top ten upsets

since Jacksonville. They beat Buffalo in Week nine, nine six, real barn Burners. There was the sixteen Yeah, it's that's a career. That's probably the better way of describing it. Uh. The then not to mention the nine six game. They were actually sixteen point underdogs in that one. Then they took down the Colts as four team point underdogs in Week eighteen, ending in these chances to the postseason, becoming the first team ever to win two games as a

two touchdown or more underdog. And then that one, of course set into play Mike. Such a fascinating week a team, right, the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger back into the playoffs. Everybody in the country is staying up late to watch the Raiders and the Chargers and see if that game is going to end in a tie or what I mean really, at the end of the day, Tomlin told you he was sleeping, claimed he was sleeping. Whatever. I'm not trying to bridge I can sell you to add I know

what you're thinking here. The biggest upsets since the records began in nineteen seventy eight, well, three teams have won games as seventeen and a half point underdogs. The winless at the time Jets took down the Rams twenty in Week fifteen season. I remember that game a year earlier in twenty nineteen. Remember the Dolphins they beat the Patriots in Week seventeen by a count that's actually beat Miami

forty three to nothing earlier that season. And then the Colts beat the Patriots as seventeen and a half point dogs in nineteen seventy eight. That final was thirty four seven, so all three winning teams on the road. So we shouldn't feel too bad for the Patriots because they actually hold the record for the most games in a row

as a favorite. How about sixty two times from Week four of sixteen all the way to Week one of twenty, so basically four years the Patriots went into a game as a favorite in that span forty eight and fourteen. I mean, that's remarkable, and it does explain why Tom Brady's got all those rings. Kurt Warner's Rams team, right, the greatest show on turf. They must have been favorites a bunch two right. I'm glad you asked a d D faves fifty straight games for a three year span.

Week four three week four of two thousand and two, they were thirty five and fifteen in those games, and then the next three that are on the list, you got the Niners a thirty five games span from nine five and then another thirty five game span from eight four to eighties six, and not to mention a thirty three game span from ninety six to so. And just in case you're wondering about active streaks and what's happening there, the Bucks have an active streak of twenty one games

as a favorite. But you would imagine with a new quarterback in that goat guy kind of on the sidelines being a spectator, I would imagine that some of those numbers actually change. What about the flip who spent the

most consecutive games is the underdog? This year's Super Bowl champs, Actually, the Ramp top the list the most consecutive games as an underdog forty three games from week fourteen to two thousand and seven to weeks seven of as the underdog, which is kind of I guess maybe I shouldn't be all that surprised, just kind of flashing back to some of those games from back in the day and just also knowing some of the success that the Rams have had generally speaking, and you made reference to sort of

that error with the Greatest Show on Turf with Kurt Warner and company. But if you're wondering, hey, what about the Browns and the Lions. Yeah, those teams they've they've struggled, right, Oh, Mike, those poor Lions and Browns not exactly the most glorious pieces of their history, but you know what, they are two of the oldest NFL franchises, and so you would expect some roller coasters, and you would also expect that they've played with quite a few iterations of the football.

If you look at the old videos of the NFL, the football itself is involved really quite a bit, right, Like the first college football game in eighteen sixty nine, which actually was played in our great state of New Jersey, was around rubber ball. But the first football's were actually made from an inflated pigs the ladder. They were rounder, so they were more difficult to throw. It was almost like trying to throw an inflated balloon. And here's something

really gross. The players inflated them with their mouth. Yeah, And then a leather cover was placed on top and stitched together and here's another little known fact. At the time, soccer balls were also made of pig ladders, so the ball got narrower once the forward pass was officially added to the game in nineteen o six, because as we just said, it's kind of hard to throw that inflated balloon, and as the ball gets a little bit narrower, it's

a little bit aerodynamic. But I will say this, the ball shape wasn't actually standardized Mike until nineteen thirty when the National Football League officially came into existence, So through the years, the specifications have continued to evolve. In nineteen thirty four, there was a rule to taper the ends and reduce the total circumference of the middle of the ball. Maybe if it had been reduced even more, Kenny Pickett's hand size wouldn't be such a hot topic of conversation

right now. And the ball has been made exclusively by Wilson since nineteen forty one. Wilson remains the official supplier of the NFL's footballs today. According to the official rule book, today's ball must be made of eurythane bladder enclosed in a pebble grained leather case of a natural tan color. Without corrugations of any kind, and it also must be filled with between twelve point five and thirteen point five pounds of air. Don't ask Tom Brady or the New

England Patriots about that specification. Each team's equipment crew MIC spends a significant amount of time prepping footballs for game day. A brand new ball out of the box is very, very rigid, so the equipment team goes to work using things like brushes and oils to soften them. I can tell you this that Tom Brady and Brian Horrier after him, and quite a few quarterbacks have liked using Mississippi mud,

which is something that baseball players use on baseballs. Anyway, the end result is working the football, makes it softer, tackier, and a more throwable ball. As for game day, the referee is the sole judge as to whether all balls

are fully compliant with the necessary specifications. All the balls are under the referee supervision until they're delivered to the ball at tendant just before kickoff, and each team is required to have exactly twelve balls available for testing by the referee no less than two and a half hours before kickoff each game. Six football shipped by a manufacturer are sealed in a special box and opened in the officials locker room two hours in fifteen minutes before kickoff.

Those are the six footballs that are used exclusively for the Kicking Game. Okay, deed, hold on one second, because I want to tweet you at a kawala at Mike underscore Y by the way, for our next episode, mail bag episode. Since you're giving me the answer on the good old pink skin so to speak, I would love to know how many times the balls that are getting tested get thrown out and are rules not game ready? Oh that's a good question for our next one. Like

I would imagine, there's so much hype around it. So um, I'll just hit send on this tweet. Okay, So just I'll book mark that be tweet for welcome back to NFL explained Mike, am Ina dB kin kawala with you. We're having a blast going through your questions on our mail bag episode. Got some good ones still left to fire off, some answers and a dd you made reference to it. The Kicking Game actually a huge part of the postseason. I know you were loving up Gabby who

was in Venice, who was listening to the show. She loved the Justin Tucker episode, and it got us also thinking about some other questions that people were focused in on the rules of overtime, and the rules, of course have been sort of a huge talking port I think about, you know, sending that ball through the uprights is certainly the thing that I think about most. So. A little bit of the evolution of overtime since it began nineteen

forty one, sudden death overtimes instituted for playoff games. Fast forward to nineteen eight. The first NFL playoff game decided by overtime was actually the Colts and the Giants in the NFL Championship Game, now known as the greatest game ever played. UH. In nineteen seventy four, the NFL officially adopted sudden death overtime to minimize ties, because who likes a tie? We like things to be nice and tidy and definitive. From nineteen twenty to nineteen seventy three, there

were two hundred and fifty six ties. That sounds excruciating. I covered a tie this year the Lions at the Steelers when Mason Rudolph, the presumptive news starting quarterback for the Steelers, was quarterback A yeah, no one wanted to win that game. From what I remember, Yeah, there was a lot of butt of issues in that one. NFL actually changed the overtime rules for a playoff game, field goal in the first drive of overtime no longer being

enough for a team to win. Playoff overtime rules expanded to regular season and preseason games seven team overtime shortened from fifteen to ten minutes, a lot of that player safety, and then in one the elimination of overtime for preseason games. Bot in the conversation, that is like the biggest thing in talk radio. I feel like whenever we get there, and certainly because of what we saw in the postseason a DIT that makes a whole lot of sense well

for sure. And those current ot scoring rules, the idea that there's not sudden death unless the team gets the ball first scores of touchdown we're implemented in two thousand and ten for the playoffs, two thousand and twelve for the regular season. What will be interesting this year, Mike, after that Chiefs Bills overtime thriller in the divisional round, is if there is a change to the overtime rules for the playoffs so that they match up in some

way with the regular season. Yeah, I think that might be a little bit of a tall task here, But the point is the NFL does have a history of making adjustments, So, you know, just based off of the fact that there's so much media attention around it, there's

no doubt that those conversations will continue to unfold. Well, you're right, Mike, that it may be a bit of an uphill battle, But right now, there's actually two proposals to the Competition Committee to amend the overtime rules, and they come from the Colts and the Bills, both of whom lost overtime games this past season after not possessing

the ball. So the Bills, of course, as we just reference, would like to see an extra period played out with no sudden death in the playoffs, so essentially, just put a certain amount of time on the clock and play until it expires. The Cult proposal is just that both teams have an opportunity to possess the ball. So the way that these rules work, Mike, you're right is that three quarters of the team need to sign off. That's

twenty four out of thirty two. I don't know what do you think, would you vote yes to change or no. I'm a yes to change guy. But I'm also I have the luxury of being able to either be on a set or on my couch watching the games and not actually the physical demands. And what is actually you know, like you start doing this during the regular season and you get these scenarios like this could be kind of a funky situation in the postseason. I do think the

rules need to be potentially adjusted in those circumstances. I could have done another fifteen minutes of the Bills Chiefs game. Couldn't you have do that every night? Kid? I mean, that was that thing was awesome. I couldn't get enough of that drama. It's like real, real life drama in that situation. So I'm with you there. And indeed that leads us to our final question, which actually came in

this morning. We always love getting them on social media at Mike Underscore, yam at a King Kabuala and it's kind of timely franchise tags in full force, and well you got the tweets, so I'll let you kind of handle that. Well, for sure, it was Alex Alex in Winterland says he would love to hear an explanation of what a franchise tag is on our podcast. So, okay, franchise tags are essentially a one year contract, but it comes in two different forms. There's the exclusive franchise tag

and there's the non exclusive. An exclusive tag means that the player can only negotiate with the tagging team and that the tagging team has to hay out an average of the top five salaries at that player's position in the current year. So those numbers, Mike, are kind of outrageous, Like the Bengals just franchise tag twenty five year old safety Jesse Bates. The franchise tag this year for safety is thirteen million, five hundred and forty four thousand dollars,

as I'm sure you can guess. A quarterbacks franchise tag is twenty eight million, five hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars. A kickers franchise tag the average of the top five salaries that his position five million, four hundred and sixty nine thousand dollars. Now, in some cases it really financially

works out like a tight end. The franchise tag for a tight end right now is ten million, eight hundred and thirty four thousand dollars, right, which is why we've seen quite a few tight ends franchise tagged in this past week or so. But now let's go back to

the non exclusive tag. So what happens there is that a team pays out an average of the top five tag amounts of the player's position from the previous five years, and players who receive this tag can negotiate with other teams, but the tagging team has the right to match any offer. So if I give you a non exclusive tag, Mike, you can go ahead and negotiate with Rhett Lewis and

Erica tam Posey and ANDREWA. Kramer to join their podcast, but I will have the right to go ahead and match whatever Rhet Lewis offers you, which, by the nay, was not offering you as much as I could pass. I'm going to let you go by any means. Now, where it gets really interesting is when a team places multiple franchise tags on a player. So you can tag

a player one year and if you're unable. Usually I'll say this, in my experience, most teams tag a player with the intent to try to negotiate a longer term deal, and it just buys more time that they have that exclusive. Let's call it a negotiating windows simply because the player is tied to the team, the team is tied to the player, and everybody's motivated to get something long term done and you have more time to make that happen.

If it doesn't work and you can't negotiate a long term deal, well then a team could franchise tag a player for a second time, but this time the player gets a one hundred and twenty increase off of whatever was his franchise tag salary. So that's a lot of money and there's a lot of incentive there for a team to try to get a deal done. And a few years ago, this entire system was kind of thrown on its head when Levy on Bell the Steelers running

back decided not to play under a second tag. And I spent a lot of time on Levy on Bell watch. It's always interesting as a reporter when you start covering these stories and the amount of hours invested in something like that, that sort of drags on. It's it's kind of crazy, and I think there's people you know in Green Bay probably thinking the same thing. It's like, you know, back to back years and now obviously gets solidified with Aaron Rodgers getting that four year extension for two hundred

billion dollars. But when you're on Roger's Watch or Bell Watch, just it something that you just don't forget. Franchise tags here we go, well and for sure and for me it's I remember explaining that to my son at the time, I think he was three years old, because I had to be at the Steelers facility the week before the season.

I had to be at the Steelers facility all day long, every single day as we were on Levan Bell Watch, and my son just didn't understand, like why every day all day and why are you missing my first day of school in this, that or the other. And the way that I explained to him, remember because he was three years old, was the quarterback and the wide receiver

in the offensive line. They're waiting for their friend to see if their friend will come and play with them, and he never really understood why the friend never came to be with his quarterback. Oh, I love that analogy, very digestible, but that that might be the best way to to explain. Oh, I have plenty wait until I tell you how I taught him the quarterback does, and then all of a sudden he saw Marcus Mariotta hold the ball and he said, what that's a story for

another time in any Mars. This one's been really fun. Everybody. Thank you so much for sending us your questions. We love when you download and you listen and you interact, and your review and you rate, and especially when you send us messages and you tell us what you want to hear about. And Mike is nodding his head because he apparently, after this many podcast episodes, thinks that enough has heard. Oh, I thought you were just taking I thought you were closing it out because I agree with

everything that you're saying. I honestly it is. It's one of the coolest things for me, and I know you probably feel the same way. When we hear from some of the listeners and they're learning about the sport that you and I obviously cover and we both love. It's just it's really cool. It's it's like you're exposing someone to something that you know that they haven't experienced before, so we absolutely love it. And if you're sharing it

with your friends on social it's great. And we learned to right Mike, we we learned things as well as we do this, so everybody, thank you. That's a rap this time that was all sorts of grab that. Questions explain h