Khalil Mack staying put? Trey Hendrickson to the Packers? It's the defense edition of the TAFS free agency preview
The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL
The Athletic
4.6 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2025
⏱️ 82 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Khalil Mack, Jevon Holland and Josh Sweat headline the available free agent defensive players. Add in a likely Trey Hendrickson trade and a potential Myles Garrett trade, and it could be a fun week for teams that need help on defense. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen preview free agency on the defensive side of the ball on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.
Then, The Athletic's Lions beat writer Colton Pouncy joins to discuss what it will take for them to get over the hump.
Host: Robert Mays
Co-Host: Derrik Klassen
With: Joe Buscaglia
Executive Producer: Michael Beller
Producer: Michael Beller
Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...
Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.social
Follow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.social
Follow Robert on X: @robertmays
Follow Derrik on X: @QBKlass
Theme song: Haunted
Written by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love Songs
Courtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. |
| 0:06.1 | I'm Robert Mays. |
| 0:07.0 | The last of our free agency preview shows coming your guys' way today. |
| 0:11.4 | Me and Derek Classen broke down the defensive free agents, hit some of the news from yesterday with the extensions that have already happened. |
| 0:18.2 | Talked about the big ticket items in this class, Javon Hall and Koleoheehawlen, where some of those guys might land. I did a little rapid fire round where I just told Derek to put each linebacker who's available in free agency onto a team that he likes. This is very much his wheelhouse, so kind of let him cook there for a little bit. Talked about some of the signings that we think are the best fits among this group and |
| 0:39.1 | then chatted about some of the potentially realistic free or veteran trades that might |
| 0:44.8 | be on the table. |
| 0:45.6 | It was good timing considering the Trey Hendrickson news happened just after we started recording. |
| 0:50.8 | So we were able to hit what that might look like in his market as well. |
| 0:54.8 | Also chatted with our Lions writer, Colton Pouncy, today as part of the series that we |
| 1:00.2 | have done about the teams on the cusp in the NFL, two in the AFC, two in the NFC, |
| 1:05.2 | what they could potentially do to get over the top this year. |
| 1:09.2 | It's a nice little dovetailing with the 10 pass rushers I've tried to put on the |
| 1:12.9 | Lions as part of the defensive free agent discussion. |
| 1:15.6 | So really enjoyed chatting with Colton. |
| 1:17.5 | Always do. |
| 1:18.5 | Hopefully you guys enjoyed that discussion and our conversation with Derek. |
| 1:21.4 | Let's get to it right now. |
| 1:27.4 | All right, Derek. we hit the offense yesterday. |
| 1:30.3 | It is time for the defensive free agency preview. |
| 1:35.0 | We do the same stuff we did yesterday. |
| 1:36.3 | Big ticket guys, our favorite fits, a couple landmines that we're worried about, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Athletic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Athletic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.