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Matt Ryan is officially off the Inner Circle Podcast roster and on the clock full-time as the Falcons’ president of football, so Zach Klein, Aaron Donald and Todd France keep the show moving the only way you can when a heavyweight exits: bring in another one.

This week’s guest is Jim Nagy, the former NFL scout and longtime personnel voice who ran the Senior Bowl and is now coming up on a year as the general manager at Oklahoma. And if you think the NFL front office life is intense, Nagy makes it clear college football is a different animal right now. His first transfer portal run at OU? Successful, chaotic, but successful. He explains how they went in with an actual plan, hosted 11 guys that first weekend, landed 10, then used the rest of the portal to build depth and chase developmental upside.

The eye-opener is the workload and the money side. Nagy walks through renegotiating roughly 80 contracts (and well over 100 if you count freshmen), which is a volume most NFL teams don’t sniff in a year. He explains why the college GM job never really shuts off, how roster retention starts before the season even ends, and why the portal creates pressure because there’s no draft safety net if you miss on a need.

Then it gets into the real headache: setting a price when there’s no scoreboard. In the NFL, you know the ranges. In college, Nagy says you’re basically throwing a dart because there’s no transparency in what players are getting paid. He talks about calling other GMs just to find a starting point, why that’s an imperfect system, and how a rookie wage scale and more salary visibility could clean up some of the chaos and prevent an upside-down roster where freshmen are making more than the guys actually winning games.

You’ll also hear how Oklahoma is trying to run a true NFL model, not just hand out a GM title. Nagy details the 10-person scouting staff, the grading system, and the weekly discrepancy meetings where scouts and coaches hash out disagreements instead of forcing a fit. The goal is simple: cut the clutter, get coaches more time with their players, and build a roster that can actually survive the SEC grind.

And because it’s Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl stories hit too. Aaron Donald revisits Mobile as the proving ground that helped launch his NFL arc, and Nagy explains why teams value the interview process and the competitiveness lens more than ever. You’ll get the behind-the-scenes reality of agents pulling players late, the Braden Fiske story that sounds made up until you realize it’s not, and the ultimate example of what that week can do for a player: Quinn Meinerz going from Division III unknown to one of the league’s top-paid guards.

It’s smart football talk with just enough edge to match the moment: college football is pro football now… it’s just missing the rules.

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The Inner Circle is back for the first show of 2026 — and it’s loaded.

It's a wide-ranging, behind-the-curtain episode that hits the two biggest engines in football right now: the NFL postseason grind and the chaos of modern college “free agency.” First, AD breaks down the debate every contender faces in Week 18: rest vs. rust. Using the Eagles as the jumping-off point, he explains how players feel when coaches sit starters, why veteran teams handle it differently than young rosters, and what matters more once you’re “in the dance” — seedings, travel, or simply being healthy and ready to roll.

From there, the conversation turns to incentives and the uncomfortable reality that business decisions can clash with personal milestones. Todd details how those conversations actually happen when a player is sitting just short of a bonus, and AD adds a blunt, hilarious perspective on what changes when the incentive is truly life-changing.

Then it’s time for flowers: AD gives major respect to Myles Garrett’s monster sack season, including the nuance of doing it on a team that wasn’t winning, the “asterisk” talk around 17 games, and why he believes production is production in today’s NFL.

Finally, Todd takes listeners inside his wildest season: NIL + the transfer portal. He explains what it’s like getting flooded with calls from GMs, coaches, and staffers, why “NIL” has basically become college free agency, and how many reported deals are structured in ways fans don’t realize. Zach and Todd even play a rapid-fire “cost of doing business” game by position — from quarterbacks to edge rushers to offensive tackles — and Todd makes it clear: the real numbers can be jaw-dropping.

Plus, a fascinating look ahead at the NFL Draft pipeline: training facilities, combine prep, speed work, interview prep, and what prospects don’t know until they live it.

Appreciate you being part of the Inner Circle family and thanks for listening!

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ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit (“Herbie”) joins The Inner Circle for a wide-ranging, funny, and surprisingly personal conversation about what it really takes to stay elite in sports media for three decades and why preparation is still his “superpower.”

We open with a full-circle moment: Aaron Donald brings up the Herbie trophy Kirk sent him after AD’s monster 2013 season at Pitt, and the guys have some fun reliving it—before Matt Ryan jumps in with a classic gripe: “Hold on… when did these Herbies start? Because I never got one.”

Kirk breaks down his non-stop grind—Saturday night ABC primetime, quick turnaround into Thursday Night Football prep, then back to College GameDay and another ESPN/ABC marquee game. It’s Zooms with coaches, film study, producers asking for tape, and a constant mental switch between NFL and college—because if he’s awake, he’s preparing.

Matt digs into the craft: studio analyst vs. game analyst, how you compartmentalize prep, and why there’s an art to being critical without being malicious. Kirk gets real about the direction of sports TV—how loud, clickbait culture has changed the industry—and draws a hard line: he’ll never tear people down just to go viral. Instead, he explains how to critique a QB who threw picks by telling the truth through the lens of what the defense did.

We also get college-football-tour gold: Kirk compares NFL vs. college energy, shouts out towns like Athens and Oxford, and shares some favorite “off-the-beaten-path” GameDay stops (hello, Fargo). The episode closes on a warm note with Matt sharing why Kirk’s support during his twins’ birth meant so much—plus a holiday sign-off from the whole crew.

Happy holidays and much love from the Inner Circle!

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