Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast addresses the NFL Hall of Fame Case for Todd Jay Christensen, Fixing NFL Officiating, and Much More.
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00:00 Hi everybody, this is Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation Las Vegas
00:06 Raiders Insider Podcast and absolutely thrilled to have the guest that we have today.
00:13 You have heard me say it, he is the greatest NFL writer of all time.
00:18 Many people concur with that.
00:21 He is the man that NFL owners and general managers would call before drafts because
00:26 he's the perfecter of the draft board.
00:28 Now many mock drafts, most people credit him as the inventor of it.
00:33 He would argue with you and say no that's not true.
00:36 Well he's the one that perfected to the point that NFL owners, general managers would call
00:41 him before the draft, during the draft.
00:45 He votes in the NFL Hall of Fame, one of the most respected football minds ever.
00:51 In fact, he is the reason that I became a sports journalist.
00:56 Add to that, he is now one of my dearest friends and when you can have a guy who's a hero,
01:03 who becomes a friend and you're not disappointed, you've got his character, his integrity, him
01:10 and I have been arm in arm with each other as we've gone through struggles in our life
01:14 and I not only respect him, I love him dearly.
01:17 You know him, the one and only, the greatest NFL writer ever, Rick Gosling.
01:22 Rick thanks for joining us again my friend.
01:24 Always my pleasure, but you already know that.
01:27 I appreciate you so much.
01:28 Okay, first I've got to dig in on several issues with you, but I have been talking for
01:35 years about the quality of NFL officiating.
01:40 Now you and I are friends with some NFL refs.
01:43 I'm very close, Dean Luck, who you know well, Spartan, but I'm friends with some current
01:51 officials, I wouldn't say referees, but officials.
01:56 It's terrible.
01:57 There is a lot of talk about make them full time.
02:00 I don't know that I agree with that because when I talk to the officials who I'm friends
02:04 with now, they're like, "Hondo, we're already working full time.
02:08 It's not going to make a difference.
02:10 We're already watching film, we're doing meetings."
02:15 So I've said, I would like to add another official, but up in a box where they have
02:22 immediate ability to review anything and anything that's called that can be overturned, that
02:28 they have that ability, get them the ability and software to go quickly like other sports
02:33 do, but something has to be done.
02:36 I'm going to tell you why I'm bringing this up now.
02:38 We've been talking about this for years and for months since the beginning of the season,
02:43 but I had an NFL, excuse me, a casino executive recently tell me if the NFL doesn't do something,
02:54 it's going to hurt them because at some point we're going to have to consider taking NFL
02:58 stuff off the board and they can't afford that.
03:01 They need us with the betting component to help them.
03:06 Your thoughts on the whole mess.
03:07 I know you're the guy that used to talk about rating officials.
03:12 I know coaches who've told me in college basketball, college football, and the pros, they scout
03:18 the refs and game plan around them.
03:22 Rick, you're one of the most brilliant minds in the NFL.
03:26 How does this get fixed?
03:30 Well I think the problem is there's a complete lack of consistency.
03:37 You've got 17 crews and all of them seem to see the game differently.
03:42 Some crews call a lot of penalties, some crews call few penalties.
03:47 Some crews home teams like, some crews visiting teams like.
03:52 I think, now this is radical, I do think they need full-time officials.
03:58 If it was me, I would set up a home base in either Dallas or Chicago, probably Dallas
04:03 because of the weather.
04:05 And I'd have my officials live here year round.
04:09 And what you do is they'd fly out to the game on Saturday, do the game, fly in back to Dallas
04:16 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, put all officials of all 17 crews in an auditorium
04:24 and watch film of all the games.
04:28 And look at the penalties and try to see why one crew calls one thing and one crew calls
04:34 another, and try to get a consistency in the call.
04:38 You're going to have 17 crews watching a particular pass interference call.
04:42 You can hash over that, why was that called?
04:45 Should that have been a penalty?
04:46 Shouldn't have been a penalty.
04:47 The problem is, you know, your guy Hondo told you, yeah they look at film, but they look
04:51 at film with their own crew.
04:54 They're not looking at the others.
04:56 And I think you've got to look at all 17 crews and figure out what's a penalty and what's
05:01 not a penalty and get them all on the same page.
05:04 So then they spend three days there, have Friday off, travel to the games Saturday,
05:10 do the game Sunday, fly back Monday, and then go back to work again.
05:13 But I do think you've got to sit all these crews together and have them watch all the
05:17 games at the same time and analyze all the calls.
05:21 Oh, that's a good point.
05:24 You know, I wouldn't have thought of that, but I like that idea, having them come together
05:27 and watch every game.
05:30 And then maybe even if there's something controversial, have the ref explain it to the others what
05:34 he was seeing.
05:35 Do you like that?
05:36 Exactly.
05:37 Yeah, you're going to hold all the officials accountable for calls that were made, calls
05:42 that weren't made.
05:44 And I think that's the only way you're going to develop some consistency if you have all
05:48 17 crews sitting there watching the same games real time and going over all the calls.
05:54 And the other thing I'd propose to make it better, the league rates the officials on
06:02 calls they make and calls they don't make.
06:04 At the end of the season, there's a grading system.
06:07 It puts together these all-star crews for the playoff, for the biggest games of the
06:12 season.
06:13 You're going to put together a crew that's never worked together.
06:16 And I think that's not doing justice to the game.
06:19 What I would do is I would have, instead of the league rating the officials, say after
06:25 the 16th week, I'd ask the head coaches and general managers which crews advance and have
06:31 the coaches and general managers vote on which crews get playoff games.
06:36 And I think, one, you'd foster a better relationship on the field between crews and coaches, because
06:44 the referees are now going to be beholden to the coaches in the game itself, not New
06:49 York City and the people doing the grading.
06:53 The NFL GMs and coaches know who the best crews are.
06:58 And those are the ones they want to advance as a crew, not an all-star crew, as a crew,
07:02 advance those crews to do the biggest games of the season.
07:07 That's absolutely phenomenal.
07:08 All right.
07:09 Now, I want to throw another one out.
07:10 I know enough officials who I respect as men of character, men that are good men.
07:17 I don't believe in any way that the NFL is rigged.
07:20 I want to make that very clear.
07:23 But there are so many bad calls that they, would you agree something has to happen?
07:29 They've got to fix this and get this addressed immediately.
07:34 Do you agree or no?
07:35 Yeah, I agree.
07:36 And I think you're right.
07:37 You're probably better served with an eye in the sky, an official in press box say,
07:41 look, that was not a bad, that was not a good call.
07:45 Let's revoke that penalty.
07:47 Let's fix this.
07:48 You have the ability to fix it right now, as opposed to having a bad call impact the
07:54 entire game.
07:56 Right.
07:57 I am going on a fishing trip in May with an NFL executive.
08:01 You know who it is.
08:02 I told you who it is.
08:04 And we were talking about the trip a couple of days ago and I mentioned to him, I was
08:11 stunned even though I would not hire Belichick, I was stunned that somebody out there didn't
08:17 give Belichick an opportunity this year because he's the best coach in NFL history.
08:25 He disagreed with me.
08:27 He goes, I certainly think he's on the Mount Rushmore.
08:30 He goes, I'm not saying he's not great.
08:33 He says, but I don't think he's the greatest.
08:36 He mentioned Andy Reid has done it with multiple quarterbacks and he goes, and Joe Gibbs did
08:42 it with three.
08:43 And oh, by the way, none of Gibbs Hall of Famer, obviously Patrick Mahomes, I think
08:48 is going to be a Hall of Famer.
08:49 I think that's a big bet.
08:52 And he talked about what Belichick was only with one quarterback.
08:57 I'm curious.
08:59 You are friends with Andy and Bill.
09:01 You know them.
09:02 They're guys that you know personally, respect them.
09:05 What do you think of that executive's thoughts and where do they sit in your opinion?
09:13 I think they're both great coaches, but if you look at the, at the hit, the coaches in
09:17 the Hall of Fame, Paul Brown, one quarterback, Ido Graham, Vince Lombardi, one quarterback,
09:25 Mark Starr, Chuck Noel, one quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, Bill Walsh, one quarterback, Joe
09:33 Montana, Jimmy Johnson, one quarterback, Troy Aikman, Bill Belichick, one quarterback, Tom
09:42 Brady.
09:43 The bulk of these Hall of Fame coaches were one core, one championship quarterback coaches.
09:48 And I think as you know, the quarterback position is so key and these guys all had Hall of Fame
09:55 quarterbacks.
09:56 I personally think that Joe, what Joe Gibbs did is the most amazing.
10:01 He won three Super Bowls without a single Hall of Fame quarterback.
10:06 Now Bill never won one without Brady and Reed hasn't won one without Mahomes.
10:12 Again they're one championship.
10:16 Because you know, Andy got there with Donovan McNabb, but he didn't win there.
10:20 So again, these guys are all one, you almost have to judge the coach based on the quarterback,
10:26 but not so Gibbs.
10:27 And he did Rippon, Williams and who am I drawing a blank here?
10:32 Fiseman.
10:33 He did it with three guys not in the Hall of Fame that haven't even come up in discussion
10:37 for the Hall of Fame.
10:38 That's great coaching.
10:40 So I think, and I've written things in the past, I think Joe Gibbs was the best ever.
10:44 I want to turn to a Raider who a lot of people believe should be in the Hall of Fame.
10:51 I think he should be there.
10:54 He's a guy that to me, the game has evolved away from his position and I think he's hurt
11:02 because the game has changed.
11:04 But that's Todd Christensen.
11:06 Again I think this guy should be there, but you're a Hall of Fame voter.
11:12 Your opinion is a million times more valuable than mine.
11:16 What are your thoughts on him?
11:19 I think Todd Christensen is a player that deserves consideration, deserves discussion
11:24 in the Hall of Fame.
11:25 And that's the problem I have with the selection process.
11:29 We don't cycle enough people through the room for whatever reason.
11:33 I know two of the factors, 75% of all players in the Hall of Fame made all decade.
11:39 Todd didn't make all decade.
11:41 64% won championships.
11:43 Todd did win championships.
11:44 But this is a guy who won two receiving titles.
11:48 He was in that bridge era of tight ends where they moved from blockers to pass catchers.
11:55 Charlie Sanders, Ozzie Newsom, Kellen Winslow, Todd Christensen, and he's the one guy that's
12:01 fallen through the cracks.
12:03 I think he belongs.
12:04 For the longest time we didn't put tight ends in, and now with the explosion of numbers,
12:09 we're going to be looking at Jason Wittens and Travis Kelsey's and Rob Gronkowski's.
12:15 And Todd doesn't have numbers that rank with those players.
12:19 But you have to understand the game changed.
12:21 It's easier to pass now.
12:22 You can't play defense.
12:23 You can't hit these guys more than five yards down the field.
12:26 I think if Todd had made the all decade team of the 1980s, I think his chances would have
12:33 been better.
12:34 But again, Ben Coates was an all decade tight end in the 1980s.
12:38 He's never been discussed.
12:39 He needs to be discussed.
12:40 Todd Christensen needs to be discussed.
12:42 Pete Retzel after the 1950s, maybe the first great tight end, needs to be discussed.
12:46 There are a lot of tight ends right now that need to be discussed that are Hall of Fame
12:49 worthy players, and I think Todd Christensen is among those.
12:54 You are the perfecter of the modern NFL mock draft among media.
13:00 I just put mine out.
13:01 And the way I do mine is I talk to as many NFL people as I can to get their input, where
13:08 they think people are going.
13:11 I talk to scouts all the time who are telling me, "Boy, Raiders are giving a lot of attention
13:15 to this person, that person."
13:17 I talk to people in the building, outside the building, all of it.
13:20 But you perfected it.
13:24 Owners called you.
13:26 General managers called you before the draft, during the draft.
13:30 I'm not going to ask you to tell any names or stories that you can't tell, but at the
13:35 height of your mock drafts, what was that like, your interaction with owners and general
13:40 managers?
13:41 Well, I was the one guy that was talking to all 32 teams.
13:44 I had a network of about 130 people I was talking to, and I'm talking about area scouts,
13:52 personnel directors, general managers, assistant coaches, head coaches, an occasional owner,
13:59 and agents trying to get a feel.
14:02 A lot of times the agents know who's looking at their players.
14:05 And you try to talk to all these people and get all these diverse opinions and try to
14:10 pull it all together and figure out not only a mock draft, but I had a full draft board.
14:17 I'd researched 600 players, and I'd try to figure out how to stack one through 600.
14:22 Now only, what, 255 of them were getting drafted.
14:25 I had a lot of guys on my board that were not getting drafted.
14:29 And I'd try to stack the entire board, and then you approach the mock.
14:32 Because at that point, now in April, you're looking at the team needs or their picking,
14:41 and you try to match it up with the value of player on the board.
14:45 So if I had a tight end at 15 and a club needed a tight end at 14 or 16, I mean, it was easy
14:52 to lock that guy in place there.
14:56 It's a long process.
14:58 I started at the, after the Super Bowl, I would research all the players that were on
15:04 the combine.
15:06 And I'd have an idea at the combine, you know, who the good players were, who the good players
15:10 weren't.
15:12 And start stacking a board there, start making the calls.
15:14 There are times I'd be up at two o'clock in the morning.
15:17 There are times I'm calling coaches and scouts at five in the morning.
15:20 These are, a lot of times, 20-hour workdays trying to put all this information together.
15:26 And at the bottom, you know, bottom line, it was pretty good.
15:31 One GM told me, they considered me the 33rd team, because I had the one consensus board.
15:38 And I shared information with teams, and they shared information with me.
15:43 And a lot of times I got calls that last week, "Where do you have this guy?
15:47 Why do you have him that low?
15:48 Why do you have him that high?"
15:50 And that's, you know, and I give him the scouting reports that I had, and they would take it
15:55 and what they want with it.
15:59 You were so well respected around the league, and one man that respected you and you respected
16:04 him, I don't think it was friendship, but it was mutual respect, was Al Davis.
16:09 What stood out to you the most about Al?
16:13 I think Al had a spirit of fair play.
16:16 And I think you saw it with his dealings with the league, with his dealings with his team,
16:21 with his dealings with opponents.
16:24 I think Al had great respect for the opponents.
16:29 I think he respected the Broncos, the Chiefs, the Chargers, because he was competing with
16:34 them.
16:35 He didn't necessarily have to like them, but he respected them.
16:38 And I think Al had, he dealt everybody fairly with a healthy dose of respect, even the media.
16:46 Well, I don't have your connections, but I try to follow your example with my mock drafts,
16:53 and you are certainly the best that there is.
16:55 He is the one and only.
16:58 Last question for you.
17:00 And Amy Trask is a person that, obviously the first female president of a team, she
17:09 was Al's right-hand lady for so long.
17:12 What was your impression of Amy Trask when she worked with Al and then ran the Raiders?
17:20 She was one of a kind.
17:23 I think she was the glue to that organization.
17:25 Al's doing his thing, and you got the coaches and the players, and Amy was the one stable
17:29 factor in the front office that kind of held the whole thing together.
17:33 I think she could talk to Al.
17:36 She could tell Al if something was wrong, something was right.
17:39 I think she had the same accent with the head coach.
17:43 Again, if she felt something was wrong, something was right.
17:46 She was unique.
17:47 She was different.
17:48 She held the whole thing together, I think.
17:52 I don't think a person should get in the Hall of Fame just because she's the first woman,
17:59 but I am curious.
18:00 Do you think she belongs in Canton?
18:02 I'm not a person that says a person belongs or doesn't belong, but I do think she needs
18:07 discussion.
18:08 I think a lot more people need discussion than we're seeing.
18:13 I'm talking coaches, players, executives, anybody that impacted the game.
18:18 We put the Sables, Steve and Ed Sable, in for the contributions they made to NFL Films,
18:23 which helped grow the game.
18:25 I think Amy certainly deserves discussion because she was the first and because the
18:31 quality of work that she did with the Raiders.
18:34 That's a championship franchise.
18:36 Again, there's so many people that need discussion, and Amy is in that group that needs discussion.
18:42 Awesome.
18:43 He is a living legend that you get the privilege of hearing from.
18:48 I get the privilege of calling him my friend and mentor.
18:51 I love it.
18:52 Every Deep Dive article, every big article I do, he looks at it.
18:56 He'll make suggestions.
18:57 He edits.
18:58 I mean, the guy is—I do what I do because of him.
19:03 My father honored him.
19:05 My father revered him.
19:08 I got that reverence for him.
19:12 To have one day met him and then him become a friend, I can tell all of you, as great
19:17 of a writer as Rick Gosling is, he's an absolutely better human being.
19:21 I'm a better person because he's in my life.
19:24 I love him dearly.
19:25 Rick, it's always a pleasure.
19:27 Thank you for being so gracious with your time.
19:29 Hold on, if you would.
19:30 I want to tell you something real quick.
19:31 Remember, that's the great Rick Gosling.
19:34 I'm Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated's Fannation Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast.
19:38 You can find me on X, formerly known as Twitter @HondoCarpenter, and on Instagram @HondoSR.