Speaker 1: The vine.
Speaker 2: Ean O'Connor is about to stop buy and we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about the Patriots dynasty. He wrote a great
Speaker 2: book in New York Times bestseller called Belichick. Before we
Speaker 2: start with Ian, grab your smartphone. Download the game Time app.
Speaker 2: Like all apps, it'll take you ninety seconds. You shouldn't
Speaker 2: have to worry about tickets. Great tickets, smartly priced tickets
Speaker 2: to the biggest events. Game Time is the fastest, easiest
Speaker 2: way to get tickets for all sports, comedy, music, and theater.
Speaker 2: It's the best place to find last minute tickets. In fact,
Speaker 2: you can buy on the game Time app the best
Speaker 2: seats not only up to game time, but an hour
Speaker 2: after it starts. Take the guests work out of buying tickets.
Speaker 2: In fact, they have zone deals. You picked the section
Speaker 2: in the game Time picks the seats for big time savings,
Speaker 2: all right right up to the start of the event,
Speaker 2: plus an hour later. Terms applause I. Download the game
Speaker 2: Time app. Create an account. The code is colin COLN
Speaker 2: for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply Create
Speaker 2: an account. The redeem code is colin. Download the game
Speaker 2: Time app today. It takes ninety seconds. Last minute tickets,
Speaker 2: lowest price is guaranteed. Well, we bring them on a
Speaker 2: couple times a year. Ian O'Connor four time New York
Speaker 2: Times Bestseller, twenty time first place winner, National Writing Contest,
Speaker 2: New York Post. He's written The Captain. You know, I
Speaker 2: loved The Rise and Rain of Mike Krzyzewski, author of Belichick.
Speaker 2: I was thinking of you flying back from Boston the
Speaker 2: other day. So I was flying from Boston on vacation.
Speaker 2: I came back to LA and I watched a couple
Speaker 2: episodes of Dynasty. Now that's Jeff Benedict's book, and that
Speaker 2: is you know, it's understood in the industry that that's
Speaker 2: a very craft favorable interpretation of Dynasty. Yours was not.
Speaker 2: It was and this is not a criticism of Jeff.
Speaker 2: But everybody needs sources. Everybody needs windows. Are you at
Speaker 2: all bothered in all your years? I mean to get
Speaker 2: access to coach k You know, there's certain places you
Speaker 2: got to go. Is it a hard line for you
Speaker 2: when you want because you write these long, one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty sourced books minimum, do you ever have a
Speaker 2: problem a balance of Okay, this is starting to feel
Speaker 2: like a little too Belichick a little too craft a
Speaker 2: little too brady. Is that something you struggle with?
Speaker 1: Sure? Yeah, I think I struggle with that in every
Speaker 1: book I've done, in long pieces I've done for different outlets.
Speaker 1: I've worked for Colin and he just talked to as
Speaker 1: many people as possible. And if you do that, it
Speaker 1: sort of happens organically that it balances out the negative
Speaker 1: and the positive and sort of forces you not to
Speaker 1: lean too far one way either way. So the problem
Speaker 1: is when someone is a collaborator, and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if Robert Kraft is a collaborator in this project with
Speaker 1: that book that Jeff wrote, and he's really good. I
Speaker 1: have not seen these episodes yet. I'd plan to at
Speaker 1: some point when I get a chance. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: it's a struggle with something you always have to be
Speaker 1: aware of. But again, I think if you are contacting
Speaker 1: a lot of sources on both sides of the aisle,
Speaker 1: it will happen organically where you're not favoring one party
Speaker 1: over the other too much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the there's an argument. Bill Simmons tweeted the other day,
Speaker 2: you know about God, the pettiness by the Crafts has
Speaker 2: no ceiling. Yeah, I mean, I guess I've worked with
Speaker 2: enough billionaires. I mean, they've been my bosses my entire life.
Speaker 2: You know, corporations, is they get the final word? Do
Speaker 2: you view the Crafts as petty?
Speaker 1: They can be? I know that Robert Kraft wants to
Speaker 1: be loved more than anyone I think I've ever met.
Speaker 1: He loves to be loved, and he wants to be
Speaker 1: in the Hall of Fame. And frankly, I really and
Speaker 1: this really bothers him. I'm not sure how Jerry Jones
Speaker 1: is in the Hall of Fame ahead of him, and
Speaker 1: Jones hasn't won anything in decades. And Kraft is the
Speaker 1: guy who hired Belichick, and he has made it clear
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. And frankly, I've heard this
Speaker 1: directly from him, and managing Belichick all these years was
Speaker 1: very difficult, and not many owners could have pulled it
Speaker 1: off for as long as he did. And Craft would
Speaker 1: say he would walk by him in the hallway and
Speaker 1: Bill wouldn't even say hello to This is a guy
Speaker 1: He's paying a lot of money too, and so he
Speaker 1: does deserve credit. I think that he has not gotten
Speaker 1: for managing Belichick all these years behind the scenes. That
Speaker 1: was not an easy task. He also deserves credit for
Speaker 1: hiring the guy. A lot of people, myself included infamously
Speaker 1: wrote and other people told him directly in the league office,
Speaker 1: not hire this guy, and he did, and so that
Speaker 1: was the birth of the dynasty. Really right, there was
Speaker 1: that higher and then of course the drafting and Brady.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they Robert can be petty, he can be needy,
Speaker 1: and he's certainly desirous of your affections, and he wants
Speaker 1: your Hall of Fame support, and ultimately I do think
Speaker 1: he'll get in, and I do think he deserves to
Speaker 1: get in.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting anytime somebody passes. I don't worry
Speaker 2: much about my obituary, but you know, I think I've
Speaker 2: tried to do thoughtful work. My entire career had good days,
Speaker 2: bad days. You know, you talk three hours a day
Speaker 2: for thirty forty years. You have bad segments, bad moments.
Speaker 2: But I do think about Belichick. Where do we put Spygate?
Speaker 2: So you know, Belichick's like, you know, it's pretty obvious
Speaker 2: that I was told this years ago, that Mangini told him, Bill,
Speaker 2: I know what you do. If you tape us with
Speaker 2: the Jets, I'm turning you in and Bill perhaps arrogantly
Speaker 2: said go for it. There's sort of an o maret
Speaker 2: to feel to Belichick, like, you know, it's part of
Speaker 2: the club. We got you a job. You don't get
Speaker 2: this without us. But I was told years ago that
Speaker 2: Mangini warned him, Bill, I know what's up. I know
Speaker 2: what you do. Don't tape us. How do you think
Speaker 2: that spygate as you look at Belichick's dynasty has run,
Speaker 2: Where does it fall? First, paragraph, third, fifth, or at all?
Speaker 1: We're in there. It's certainly in there, and maybe the third,
Speaker 1: maybe the fourth, maybe the fifth. I don't think the first.
Speaker 1: And frankly, with or without Spygate, I still think he
Speaker 1: has six rings. And I hope that came across from
Speaker 1: my book because it was intended to if not. And
Speaker 1: he came out of a culture Al Davison's NFL as
Speaker 1: a young coach, a lot of guys were cheating and
Speaker 1: Bill was just the last guy to sort of give
Speaker 1: it up, and he was warned. And I know the
Speaker 1: Giants always thought going up there for preseason game games
Speaker 1: or regular season games, they always sort of knew. And
Speaker 1: I remember Ernie A. Corsey told me he was flattered
Speaker 1: that Belichick might try to cheat against them and so,
Speaker 1: but the old school guys in the league sort of
Speaker 1: shrugged their shoulders and moved on. And so I think
Speaker 1: he was the last holdout from that culture and that
Speaker 1: era in the NFL, like I said, the Al Davis era,
Speaker 1: when a lot of that was going on. And so
Speaker 1: I do not think it ruins his legacy. I think
Speaker 1: it is a stain on the legacy, but not a
Speaker 1: giant one. And of course, after Spygate, Bill ended up
Speaker 1: with probably not probably definitely his best team and his
Speaker 1: best season. He just lost the super Bowl. And I
Speaker 1: have this scene in my book. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite scenes. It's after they lost that super Bowl and
Speaker 1: the chance to go down is the greatest team ever.
Speaker 1: I thought he had maybe his finest moment in front
Speaker 1: of his team. That locker room was absolutely devastated. These
Speaker 1: were broken, crying men because they knew if one of
Speaker 1: seventeen things broke their way instead of the Giants way,
Speaker 1: they would go down as the greatest team of all time.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately that didn't happen, and Bill faced that team.
Speaker 1: And I got this from three guys in the locker room,
Speaker 1: and he only spoke for about a minute, but he
Speaker 1: blamed only himself because he knew he had to coach
Speaker 1: that team through one more possession of their pain. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times when guys like him take responsibility
Speaker 1: in subtle ways, they'll also deflect it. And what we
Speaker 1: could have made more plays, or maybe even deflected a
Speaker 1: little bit to assistant coaches, or just we didn't execute.
Speaker 1: It was none of that, and I got that from
Speaker 1: a number of people. It was all about him. I
Speaker 1: did not prepare you to win this game. This is
Speaker 1: my fault, and I'm sorry. And when he walked out
Speaker 1: of the locker room, I believe it was Dante Stalworth
Speaker 1: who told me it was like he just faded the
Speaker 1: black and I ended a chapter that way, and I
Speaker 1: thought that was a powerful scene. But after Spygate, after
Speaker 1: they were discovered, he wanted to and that team wanted
Speaker 1: to punish the rest of the league and prove to
Speaker 1: everyone just how great we are. And if you look
Speaker 1: at that season, I think it's clearly the best team
Speaker 1: he ever had. Yeah, and they just couldn't get it
Speaker 1: done in the end. Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that was portrayed in Dynasty that they were pissed off.
Speaker 2: They were going to take it out on people. And
Speaker 2: for the record, they did take it out on a
Speaker 2: lot of teams. In fact, I remember that year they
Speaker 2: lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. I remember
Speaker 2: watching the Patriots and Giants play. It may have been
Speaker 2: the last week of the year regular season. I was
Speaker 2: in a bar in New York. I remember this, an
Speaker 2: Irish bar in New York. They had played in the
Speaker 2: regular season.
Speaker 1: By the way, there were only Irish bars in New York.
Speaker 2: I love partying in New York, and I was with
Speaker 2: my wife and I remember watching that game and saying,
Speaker 2: at one point, shit, they're having trouble blocking the Giants,
Speaker 2: like this is kind of competitive, this is kind of
Speaker 2: an interesting game. And then you know, weeks later when
Speaker 2: they meet in the Super Bowl several weeks later, they
Speaker 2: really had trouble blocking them, and then they could not
Speaker 2: block them for most of the game.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they said this in the piece,
Speaker 1: but they had a bad week of practice at the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl of the Patriots, and Belichick addressed his team
Speaker 1: it was either Wednesday or Thursday. I think it was Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and he said, guys, we were so bad today in practice.
Speaker 1: The Giants are now ahead of us, and they never
Speaker 1: caught up. But for some reason, receivers were dropping passes.
Speaker 1: It was just a sloppy week. And I think Colin
Speaker 1: that they ran out of gas. They were starting leaking
Speaker 1: oil in the playoffs or even that last game against
Speaker 1: the Giants, and it just caught up to them that week.
Speaker 1: But Belichick told them the Giants have now moved ahead
Speaker 1: of us this week in practice, and he was right. Ian.
Speaker 2: Peter King retired this week, and you had a line
Speaker 2: on social media that when you'd see Peter King walk
Speaker 2: into a press box, you'd go, oh shit, which is
Speaker 2: the ultimate, the ultimate compliment, by the way, and I
Speaker 2: have a really strong affection for Peter and you, and
Speaker 2: I think both of you are unique. And I pose
Speaker 2: this to Peter the other day. Peter loves baseball, but
Speaker 2: he covers football, and not that he doesn't love football.
Speaker 2: You also have a great understanding intellect with baseball, but
Speaker 2: you also cover football, And I said, and I thought
Speaker 2: about this so when I was when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: I wanted to be I remember listening to Vin Scully
Speaker 2: at seven eight years old and a transistor radio at
Speaker 2: the coast of Washington. My mom bought me a radio.
Speaker 2: It was like my friend, you know, as my dad
Speaker 2: was a workaholic, so that radio. I would listen to
Speaker 2: baseball and radio, and I wanted to be a baseball
Speaker 2: announcer until he was about twenty three twenty four, and
Speaker 2: then I kind of did local sports and over some
Speaker 2: time I became a football guy. But the scarcity argument
Speaker 2: can't just be it because you can go back one
Speaker 2: hundred years. Football has always had fewer games. There is
Speaker 2: something that happened somewhere in the seventies or eighties, and
Speaker 2: perhaps it was institutional arrogance where football just became more
Speaker 2: and more and more popular, and it is now really
Speaker 2: made everything else in sports niche. Everything the NBA feels tiny.
Speaker 2: March madness is a blip. Baseball last week the big
Speaker 2: story was see through Pants. I mean, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: really remarkable how insignificant other sports feel in this solar
Speaker 2: system now compared to the Sun, which is in our
Speaker 2: solar system. The NFL, I think a lot of it
Speaker 2: is Football's always had a feeling. Baseball always had this
Speaker 2: sort of arrogance, almost like cricket in England, that we're
Speaker 2: the national pastime, and soccer has this rabid sort of
Speaker 2: tribal belief that we're always playing catchup, and the NFL
Speaker 2: operates like that, always adapting, always fighting, always moving. They
Speaker 2: build a business like an underdog even though they're an
Speaker 2: overwhelming favorite. Baseball has become a massive underdog and sees
Speaker 2: itself almost a of the fray. And I just think institutionally,
Speaker 2: over thirty or forty years, those decisions and reluctance to
Speaker 2: adapt has hurt baseball and elevated football. Do you have
Speaker 2: any long winded question what has happened over thirty forty years?
Speaker 2: The separation between the two social currency television ratings is
Speaker 2: the Grand Canyon? Is there just one or two things
Speaker 2: that is a guy who's covering one of the last
Speaker 2: American cities that lives for baseball in New York.
Speaker 1: I think the pace of the game with the NFL
Speaker 1: and the fact that you're playing what ten percent of
Speaker 1: the games you're playing in baseball, and it allows the
Speaker 1: fan base to really hone in on every game, and
Speaker 1: every game matters in the NFL and it doesn't in baseball.
Speaker 1: And I used to sit there all the time and
Speaker 1: watch nine eight in games. I have a very hard
Speaker 1: time doing that now, and even though the game has
Speaker 1: sped up, and I think the rule changes most of
Speaker 1: them were good, and I still have a soft spot
Speaker 1: for baseball. But yeah, I love football, and I say
Speaker 1: Thursday nights. I don't think if I were commissioner, I
Speaker 1: would want to get rid of Thursday night football because
Speaker 1: I don't get fair to the players. But I have
Speaker 1: to admit colin it, I love watching Thursday night football too,
Speaker 1: And a lot of times you get those bad matchups
Speaker 1: and it's two teams you don't care that much about,
Speaker 1: but it's still it's the NFL. It's Thursday night. It
Speaker 1: gets you closer to Sunday. It's a bridge, and I
Speaker 1: love watching it any chance I get. It's the closest thing.
Speaker 1: I hate to say this too, but to simulated combat,
Speaker 1: and I think that is that kind of action and
Speaker 1: the package violence is attractive to people, and it's a
Speaker 1: great visual sport, particularly if it's snowing, if guys are cold,
Speaker 1: their breath, their chilled breath coming out of their face masks,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a great visual sport. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of action. Every game matters, and in the other sports,
Speaker 1: particularly baseball, where you're playing one sixty two so many games.
Speaker 1: A Tuesday night in May just doesn't matter in the
Speaker 1: big picture. There is no small picture moments or games
Speaker 1: in the NFL. And you put all that together, and
Speaker 1: that's why the NFL has become an absolute monster, you know.
Speaker 2: Culturally. You pointed to something, is that as our society
Speaker 2: has become more distracted via the iPhone, I don't have
Speaker 2: I want and I'm listening. I'm sixty, so I'm not
Speaker 2: one of these young kids. I mean, I can still
Speaker 2: go work out and not look at my phone. I
Speaker 2: don't take it to dinner with my wife. Like I'm
Speaker 2: not one of these people that live on their phone.
Speaker 2: I'm probably on it ninety minutes a day and mostly
Speaker 2: reading stories for the next day show. But I find
Speaker 2: myself more distracted and in order to grab my attention
Speaker 2: it's much harder now. I'm not one of these headline readers.
Speaker 2: I like reading columnists. I grew up with that. But
Speaker 2: I find myself having to put my phone down, like
Speaker 2: I find myself Okay, this is a five part Netflix series.
Speaker 2: Do I have the ambition to sit there with my
Speaker 2: wife for back to back nights? And I do think
Speaker 2: as society has become more distracted, and there's more options.
Speaker 2: Baseball is a harder It's a harder watch for.
Speaker 1: Me, really is, I agree to Colin. The one thing
Speaker 1: that gets me through a baseball season where I'm watching
Speaker 1: a lot of it is my wife. She's a die
Speaker 1: hard Mets fan. She doesn't like the NFL, she likes
Speaker 1: college basketball, doesn't like the NBA. But so for her,
Speaker 1: I sit there and suffer through a Mets season and
Speaker 1: we try to watch. She tries to watch one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty five or more games, and I'm there with
Speaker 1: her and feeling her pain. And sometimes you laugh and
Speaker 1: a lot of times you cry when you're a Mets fan.
Speaker 1: And so really, for her, I watch it. If she
Speaker 1: were not there, I just don't know. I check in
Speaker 1: on the Yankees and watch a few innings and flip
Speaker 1: over to the Mets for an inning. And I can't
Speaker 1: watch nine innings of a regular season game on a
Speaker 1: Tuesday or Thursday night in May. I just can't do it.
Speaker 1: But I do it for her because she loves the Mets,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible thing to do, but you can't
Speaker 1: help herself. And so I don't know. My son is
Speaker 1: twenty seven and they grew up or he grew up
Speaker 1: with his friends gathering to watch soccer and NFL game
Speaker 1: soccer on Saturday mornings from the Premier League in the UK.
Speaker 1: And they don't watch baseball. Not one of those kids
Speaker 1: that he's friends with or grew up with as teenagers
Speaker 1: watched baseball really at all. And they didn't gather for
Speaker 1: the World Series, but they would gather for a big
Speaker 1: Man you man city game on a Saturday morning. And
Speaker 1: also the NFL and fantasy football has been huge that generation.
Speaker 1: I saw my son grow up with it, and his
Speaker 1: love for the NFL grew and grew and grew through
Speaker 1: fantasy football.
Speaker 2: You know, it's really interesting. I met my wife seventeen
Speaker 2: years ago an and in New England and her boys,
Speaker 2: Josh and Riley, great kids. I noticed this seventeen years ago.
Speaker 2: They grew up in Red Sox territory, Yankee Red Sock territory,
Speaker 2: and they got up on Saturday morning and Josh, the
Speaker 2: older of the two, watched the English Premier League. And
Speaker 2: I remember as a sportscaster because I grew up in
Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest, as you know, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of soccer. Clive Charles University of Portland, the Sounders, the
Speaker 2: Timbers Northwest has sort of a European feel a little bit.
Speaker 2: They always it's just always been like Giorgiocanalia in New York.
Speaker 2: You know the Sounders NASL, New York, Minnesota Kicks. You
Speaker 2: remember that was Seattle and Portland always been big. And
Speaker 2: I remember watching her oldest son and going, they don't
Speaker 2: watch baseball. And I was starting to find myself because
Speaker 2: I still covered baseball at ESPN. I found myself spruggling
Speaker 2: outside of a Yankee Red Sox series. I would watch
Speaker 2: that and I would go to Fenway once a year,
Speaker 2: Yankee Stadium twice. I found myself saying, I gotta watch
Speaker 2: this stuff, so i'd watch it when I was working out.
Speaker 2: I would watch, you know, Mike and the Mad Dog
Speaker 2: or Maz and Felger in the workout room at my house.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I got to give a bit, well forty
Speaker 2: five minutes. I gotta hear discussions on this stuff. But
Speaker 2: to your point, you know, my kids are much more
Speaker 2: soccer driven. Now, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: Let me say one thing too, if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: I when I was a kid playing Little League, and
Speaker 1: I was a Yankees fan. I would put on my
Speaker 1: little league uniform sometimes and sit in front of the
Speaker 1: TV and watch nine innings of Reggie and Thurman and rest.
Speaker 1: And I would do that quite a bit, or come
Speaker 1: home from my own games and sit in front of
Speaker 1: the TV transfixed for three hours. Then I'd go to bed.
Speaker 1: I don't know any kids who are doing that anymore,
Speaker 1: right and again, they might catch a few innings here
Speaker 1: and there, but it's become an older person sport, which
Speaker 1: is a dangerous thing.
Speaker 2: So the football season is over for the Jets and
Speaker 2: the Giants, and I saw I saw a quote that
Speaker 2: was so damning with the Jets. So somebody asked Nicole Hardman,
Speaker 2: you know the kid who went to Kansas City. He
Speaker 2: goes to New York. It just doesn't work, and he
Speaker 2: goes back to Kansas City. And you know, he has
Speaker 2: a pretty good superos he cats. Of course he does, right,
Speaker 2: of course he does. And you know, I've been on
Speaker 2: this for a couple of years, and I know you
Speaker 2: don't probably listen to a lot of sports radio, but
Speaker 2: I've been on something for two years. Hard that the
Speaker 2: world's changed, that Belichick is allergic to offense, tone deaf,
Speaker 2: to it, and it's the last ten to twelve Super
Speaker 2: Bowl coaches I've all been offense is that overwhelmingly offensive coaches.
Speaker 2: Seventy five to eighty percent of playoff teams have offensive coaches.
Speaker 2: So if an offensive coach loses a great offensive coordinator,
Speaker 2: there's no chaos. They're fine. Mcvay's can run through them,
Speaker 2: Shanahan can run through them, Andy Reid can run through them,
Speaker 2: Sean Payton. But if a defense coach loses a sharp
Speaker 2: oc it's a problem. And so you have Robert Sala,
Speaker 2: who I like, and he did play some I think
Speaker 2: he coached a little bit of offense at some point
Speaker 2: in his career, but it was really damning. They asked
Speaker 2: Mikole Hardman about his Jet experience, and I read this
Speaker 2: and I went.
Speaker 1: Holy crap, this is a bad look.
Speaker 2: He said that. He said, there's no standardized set of
Speaker 2: offense for the Jets. It's hey, we've got Aaron, he'll
Speaker 2: figure it out. He said, there's no question there are
Speaker 2: standards and protocols for defense. It's a defensive culture. He
Speaker 2: goes offense, we just make it up. It's and he goes.
Speaker 2: Once Aaron got hurt, it was just it was just
Speaker 2: not viable. We just what are the standards under Nat Hackett,
Speaker 2: who was hired because of Aaron Rodgers. And I think
Speaker 2: there was a belief when the Jets got Aarin that
Speaker 2: this was kind of can be a better version of Farv.
Speaker 2: And I actually think it's a worse version because I
Speaker 2: think the Achilles surgery changes everything. They're locked in for
Speaker 2: another year, and Farv didn't. You didn't have to bring
Speaker 2: in people to appease Farv, like a Hacket or a
Speaker 2: cob or an alanlizard. It didn't feel It felt like,
Speaker 2: you know, Farv wanted to get out and the Jets
Speaker 2: landed him, whereas Aaron kind of accompanied the Jets and
Speaker 2: brought people with him. I look at the offensive line.
Speaker 2: I look at Breese Hall hopefully across his fingers he's healthy.
Speaker 2: I look at the offensive pivot by the league and
Speaker 2: a defensive coach on the hot seat, the impulsiveness of
Speaker 2: the Johnsons' owners, Like, I don't think it's going to
Speaker 2: end well for Aaron Rodgers. I think it's false. Hope
Speaker 2: that Micole Hardman bite was just an eye opener to
Speaker 2: the circus inside the building. Do you have optimism with
Speaker 2: the Jets at all.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm writing a book on Aaron Rodgers, so I
Speaker 1: have to have options supposed to come out at the
Speaker 1: start of the season. So I would like the Jets
Speaker 1: to defy what you just said. Do I really believe it?
Speaker 1: Deep down? I don't know. When my books, I look
Speaker 1: at my previous subjects and my book comes out and
Speaker 1: Derek Jeter, he becomes the first Yankee to get the
Speaker 1: three thousand hits and does it with a home run
Speaker 1: on a five for five day. Belichick won when my
Speaker 1: book came out, won his sixth and final Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Coach k broke John Wooden's record with his thirteenth Final
Speaker 1: Four appearance. So listen at some point, and everything you
Speaker 1: said is true. Aaron Rodgers as a GM, he was
Speaker 1: not going to be voted Executive of the Year off
Speaker 1: that performance, and even if he played, but I do
Speaker 1: think if he played some of those guys Lazarre, it
Speaker 1: certainly would have been better. And Cobb, I think would
Speaker 1: have been more useful, and Hackett would have been better.
Speaker 1: He couldn't be any worse. So that was just being
Speaker 1: in that building that night when he got hurt. I've
Speaker 1: just never been in a building where there was that
Speaker 1: sort of heartbreak in a crowd. I just it was unfathomable,
Speaker 1: But only the Jets. That was an only New York
Speaker 1: Jet moment. And so here's the thing. The Red Sox
Speaker 1: fans before two thousand and four thought they could never
Speaker 1: ever win another World Series, particularly after what happened in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three when Aaron Boone walked them off
Speaker 1: in Game seven. The franchise that had tormented them for
Speaker 1: decades did it again in two thousand and three. They
Speaker 1: come back their downh three in two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: and they win the whole thing, the end the Curse
Speaker 1: of the Bambino the Cubs in twenty sixteen. Those fans
Speaker 1: thought it's never going to happen, and it did happen.
Speaker 1: So at some point, haunted franchises usually will break through.
Speaker 1: So is it possible that the Jets had to bottom
Speaker 1: out with this horrific season? Seven to ten doesn't sound terrible,
Speaker 1: but that was a terrible season. The only saving grace
Speaker 1: was beating Belichick, breaking that fifteen game winning streak he
Speaker 1: had against the Jets and sending him out of Foxboro
Speaker 1: with a loss. Other than that, it was a disaster.
Speaker 1: And it felt more like four and thirteen. So is
Speaker 1: it possible they bought them out and they come back
Speaker 1: and they have the season that they were supposed to
Speaker 1: have last year This coming season, maybe go eleven and
Speaker 1: six with an easier schedule and lower expectations and win
Speaker 1: a game or two in the tournament. I think that's
Speaker 1: feasible winning the whole thing. It's going to happen at
Speaker 1: some point, hopefully. I think you and I are about the
Speaker 1: same age. Hopefully when we're alive that that will happen.
Speaker 1: I really want to see that happen. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be this coming season, and it probably won't be,
Speaker 1: But the New York Jets winning a Super Bowl again
Speaker 1: for the first time since January sixty nine, for the
Speaker 1: first time since Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, would
Speaker 1: be the biggest sports story in my forty plus years
Speaker 1: of covering sports in New York. I think I think
Speaker 1: it's bigger than Messia in ninety four. I think it
Speaker 1: would become bigger than Nameath in Super Bowl three, although
Speaker 1: that change professional football just because of the media age
Speaker 1: we live in. Just think of how big if they
Speaker 1: wanted this coming season with Aaron Rodgers at age forty one.
Speaker 1: In December, he turns forty one, coming off in Achilles.
Speaker 1: That would be I think that would be the biggest
Speaker 1: story in my thirty eighth to forty years of doing
Speaker 1: sports in New York.
Speaker 2: All Right, I know you have there are certain boundaries
Speaker 2: you want to protect on this Aaron Rodgers book. Is
Speaker 2: he willing to talk? Can I ask that.
Speaker 1: He did talk to me recently? I visited him for
Speaker 1: a couple hours and it was very healthy, I think,
Speaker 1: a respectful give and take. I don't know how he'd
Speaker 1: classify it, but yeah, and it wasn't Listen, I would
Speaker 1: have loved ten hours with the guy. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: like full cooperation. This is an unauthorized book. It's my book,
Speaker 1: not his, And so it's more like, after all these interviews,
Speaker 1: let's check some facts here. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: I'm getting things right. And it was a sit down.
Speaker 1: That was the spirit of it. And I was grateful
Speaker 1: that he did and he certainly didn't owe me anything.
Speaker 1: So I recently did that, and so I think it
Speaker 1: will be a definitive and fair and honest and accurate
Speaker 1: account of who he is, why he is, the way
Speaker 1: he is, and I had so many people, Peter King
Speaker 1: one of them, the best ever. I think Peter is
Speaker 1: the best ever at what he does. So he knows
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers, but I don't know him. And I think
Speaker 1: there's so many really smart football people who told me
Speaker 1: they don't feel like they've got a firm grasp on
Speaker 1: who he is. So that was my objective was to
Speaker 1: try to explain who he is and hopefully I pulled
Speaker 1: it off.
Speaker 2: Let me throw something at you that, you know years ago.
Speaker 2: I can remember my dad, who was more of a
Speaker 2: Reagan Conservative. You know, it was considered healthy. It could
Speaker 2: be Abby Hoffman, it could be anybody that pushed back
Speaker 2: on the authority that was considered sort of healthy. It
Speaker 2: was mostly left leaners against authority, against wealth, against power.
Speaker 1: Now you know, the.
Speaker 2: Conservatives would argue, we're pushing back against power, and power
Speaker 2: is not only our government, but it's the media in
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley, which is there's certainly a point there to
Speaker 2: be made when I have tried to do psych one
Speaker 2: on one with Aaron Rodgers. I've said this on the air.
Speaker 2: I'm not a psychologist, but he pushed back on his
Speaker 2: parents in religion. He pushed back on authority in Green Bay.
Speaker 2: He has pushed back on the vaccine, He's pushed back
Speaker 2: on media, He's pushed back. He's a bit of a contrarian.
Speaker 2: That maybe he is, you know, he's our modern day rebel.
Speaker 2: Is that if you look at his personality, what he
Speaker 2: does is constantly push back on conventional mandates, conventional wisdom,
Speaker 2: conventional authority. That's my interpretation. He just pushes back on groupings. Now,
Speaker 2: sometimes group think is correct. I think people should have
Speaker 2: taken the vaccine if they were older, right, kids, maybe
Speaker 2: not as much. Is that a fair or reasonable interpretation
Speaker 2: of what you're discovering? Is that, you know, he's never married,
Speaker 2: No kids, may not. You know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: his pet situation. He's really an independent guy. He's wealthy,
Speaker 2: good looking, older, He's got his worldview. It's a lot
Speaker 2: like Joe Rogan's. They're both talented. But he basically just
Speaker 2: pushes back an authority. Maybe one of the reasons he's
Speaker 2: not married. He doesn't want to conform, and that's his personality,
Speaker 2: that's his id.
Speaker 1: Is that reasonable reasonable? He certainly pushes his pack on
Speaker 1: an awful lot of fronts, and I think growing up
Speaker 1: in a very strict religious household is certainly part of it,
Speaker 1: maybe the beginning of when you grow up in a
Speaker 1: household like that, I think, maybe naturally later on, and
Speaker 1: he goes to Cow, this liberal global institution, people from
Speaker 1: all over the world, and he's experiencing different cultures and
Speaker 1: backgrounds and ethnicities and races, and you grew up into
Speaker 1: town overwhelmingly white, and so I think you start to
Speaker 1: see it, maybe a cal cal Berkeley, and I think
Speaker 1: he starts pushing back, maybe against the religious upbringing, and
Speaker 1: that leads to other pushback. I think that's a reasonable
Speaker 1: interpretation of the journey of his life and where he
Speaker 1: is right now. And I think that's, you know, the
Speaker 1: one thing about him that I admire, even though I
Speaker 1: don't agree with with everything he says, is he's he
Speaker 1: is pretty fearless. He's not afraid to confront opposition and
Speaker 1: to say unpopular things and to deal with the consequences
Speaker 1: of those things. And I think that's an admirable trade.
Speaker 1: I don't think that he's doing it just for that reason,
Speaker 1: just to push back. I do think he believes in
Speaker 1: what he says, but I think that's a it's a
Speaker 1: good read on the Journey of Aaron Rodgers, and I
Speaker 1: did ask him some QUI for instance, when he said
Speaker 1: I'd been immunized, and then he got killed for that
Speaker 1: later on, of course, when it came out that he
Speaker 1: did not get the vaccine, and he explained why he
Speaker 1: said what he said, and he was allergic to an
Speaker 1: ingredient in Maderna and Pfizer and also concerned about the
Speaker 1: side effects, the reported alleged side effects of the Johnson
Speaker 1: and Johnson shot. Is why didn't you just say that
Speaker 1: in August of that year when he gave that press
Speaker 1: conference instead of saying I've been immunized and sort of
Speaker 1: misleading people. And I thought his answer to that, which
Speaker 1: I'd like to say for the book, was very interesting,
Speaker 1: And because if I were sitting there as a columnist,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel Colin about vaccines. And
Speaker 1: I got vaccinated, but I put myself sort of in
Speaker 1: the middle on it, because I do think it was
Speaker 1: not quite as effective as it was advertised, and I
Speaker 1: got COVID twice. And so I said, if you gave
Speaker 1: that explanation about being allergic and also being concerned about
Speaker 1: side effects, I actually I think that's a reasonable explanation,
Speaker 1: I would have accepted it. Unlike Kyrie Irving, who could
Speaker 1: not play because of the mandate of New York. You
Speaker 1: could play with that position. And my biggest problem with
Speaker 1: Kyrie Irving is what he was doing to his teammates
Speaker 1: and particularly Kevin Durant, but also to middle and bottom
Speaker 1: of the roster players whose careers were being affected and
Speaker 1: could be elevated by winning a championship that they had
Speaker 1: no chance of winning with him not playing. So Aaron
Speaker 1: Rodgers didn't have to deal with that. He was eligible
Speaker 1: to play with the position of not taking the vaccine.
Speaker 1: But I think if I were sitting there as a
Speaker 1: columnist and he gave the explanation he gave months later,
Speaker 1: I would have thought that was reasonable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's New York. Sports is really interesting.
Speaker 2: I was talking about this to a friend. There's been
Speaker 2: a convergence of sports entertainment for thirty years now. It's
Speaker 2: jet fueled. We all know it. You know, athletes moved
Speaker 2: to California. They all get production companies in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: right now, in California as a whole, but Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: our coaches are stars Harbaugh, Lincoln Riley, Sean McVay. Our
Speaker 2: quarterbacks are stars, Stafford Herbert shohe O, Tani, Mookie Betts,
Speaker 2: Freddie Freeman. You can go down the line. We've done
Speaker 2: this a couple of times. We have a Bosa pass
Speaker 2: rusher in LA and they got one in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: Steph Curry, Draymond Green. The state of California and specifically
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. We go about twenty deep. I mean, Cooper
Speaker 2: Cup doesn't make the top eighteen. Like it's insane. New
Speaker 2: York right now has Aaron Judge, Aaron Rodgers, kind of
Speaker 2: Jalen Brunson, and it's weird. It's a moneyed city, it's
Speaker 2: a major market. It's well capitalized, like California, it's heavily
Speaker 2: there's a heavy burden on taxing.
Speaker 1: We have better weather.
Speaker 2: But I got into this discussion and I'm with Jason
Speaker 2: McIntyre on my show. We've talked about on air and
Speaker 2: off air. New York has been in about a seven
Speaker 2: eight year star drought and I can't explain it. Chicago's
Speaker 2: going through a lot of the same stuff. Ian La
Speaker 2: is not, you know, Dallas is not, Miami is not.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's taxes, weather, but right now,
Speaker 2: there is something in New York. I just feel like,
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like Jalen Brunson is the most
Speaker 2: trustable athlete in the city. Like I know his personality Villanova,
Speaker 2: he plays DFA. I love Jalen Brunson. I think he's terrific.
Speaker 2: I think he's the heart of that city. He's a
Speaker 2: hard working kid, second rounder. But there has been in
Speaker 2: your time in New York. Has there been a six
Speaker 2: or seven year period where it just feels like everything
Speaker 2: is off the rails a little?
Speaker 1: Not like this. It's a good read too. And obviously
Speaker 1: the last championship was what of the major men's sports,
Speaker 1: the last championship was the Giants in twenty eleven. And
Speaker 1: the Giants have played a grand total of three playoff
Speaker 1: games since that Super Bowl victory over the Patriots, and
Speaker 1: they got destroyed in two of them. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: Daniel Jones beat Kirk Cousins on the road a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, and that was that. But you're right,
Speaker 1: and Aaron Judge is homegrown. He was drafted by the
Speaker 1: Yankee so it wasn't like they got him. Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 1: was interesting because there weren't a lot of suitors, and
Speaker 1: he looked at it. Okay, I think he looked at
Speaker 1: it this way. Where could I go? Where if I
Speaker 1: win a championship, my legacy could explode and I could
Speaker 1: get back into that Brady stratosphere. And that was the Jets.
Speaker 1: And so unlike far who didn't want to go to
Speaker 1: the Jets got there late, so they really couldn't do
Speaker 1: a whole lot for him, even if he demanded pieces
Speaker 1: to be added. They got him late in that preseason,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to go to Minnesota anyway, Rogers absolutely
Speaker 1: wanted New York. So he's the rare superstar of elte
Speaker 1: in sports who thought New York was a really good idea.
Speaker 1: I think Weather's part of it, no question about it.
Speaker 1: Taxes also the I largely believe the New York media
Speaker 1: thing is a myth, but a lot of athletes still
Speaker 1: look at that as a factor. And also Colin the
Speaker 1: world is so small now because of the social media
Speaker 1: age that you don't need New York anymore. You could
Speaker 1: be a global superstar in Oklahoma City, in Cleveland, wherever.
Speaker 1: So I think years ago New York was more appealing
Speaker 1: to superstar athletes in that context. But you just don't
Speaker 1: need the Big Apple anymore to sell your brand and
Speaker 1: to grow your brand, and that's a part of it
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Get in on the action with the Draftking sports Book
Speaker 2: and official sports betting partner of the NBA. New customers
Speaker 2: who deposit five dollars or more can get a no
Speaker 2: sweat bet up to one thousand dollars back in bonus bets.
Speaker 2: How cool of a deal is that. All you have
Speaker 2: to do is download the Draftking sports Book app now
Speaker 2: takes ninety seconds, and use the code colin cli n
Speaker 2: This is the best deal you're gonna find new customers.
Speaker 2: It's a no sweat bet up to one thousand dollars
Speaker 2: if your first bet loses.
Speaker 1: How cool is that?
Speaker 2: Only at Draftking sports Book code is Colin. The crown is.
Speaker 3: Yours gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler or in
Speaker 3: West Virginia, visit one eight hundred gambler dot net. In
Speaker 3: New York call eight seven seven eight hope and WY
Speaker 3: or text hope and Y four six seven three six nine.
Speaker 3: In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call eight
Speaker 3: eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or
Speaker 3: visit CCPG dot org. Please play responsibly on behalf of
Speaker 3: boothill casino when resorting Kansas twenty one and over age
Speaker 3: varies by jurisdiction, Void and Ontario. Yeah one. No sweaed
Speaker 3: bet per new customer issued as one bonus bet based
Speaker 3: on amount of initial losing bet. Bonus bets expire one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty eight hours after issue. Ince See dkg
Speaker 3: dot com slash promos for deposit wagering and eligibility restrictions,
Speaker 3: terms and responsible gaming resources.
Speaker 2: You know the newspaper industry. LA Times now has eighteen
Speaker 2: people on staff. We have eight pro teams. That's insane.
Speaker 2: I mean, high school football in La is substantial. We
Speaker 2: have USC UCLA. I mean it's a tiny, tiny, granular
Speaker 2: sports section compared to you know what it was even
Speaker 2: seven eight years ago. And you could certainly write books.
Speaker 2: I mean you're working on one now, but you you
Speaker 2: still do columnist work, and I know it's not just
Speaker 2: for income. Do you still like the newspaper part of it?
Speaker 2: Are you turned off by a lot of the information
Speaker 2: that's often hijacked from you ends up on blogs. Nobody
Speaker 2: gets credit is for somebody that's been doing this for
Speaker 2: forty years at a high level. How do you view
Speaker 2: your industry.
Speaker 1: I still actually like holding a newspaper and reading, and
Speaker 1: it's like I still like holding a book and reading
Speaker 1: a book instead of reading a book on kindle. But
Speaker 1: I don't rage against technology, and I certainly use all
Speaker 1: those social media tools to consume information and read. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I will always be a newspaper person at heart, without question.
Speaker 1: And so there were very few of us left, and
Speaker 1: that's fine, that's that's the way it goes. The industry
Speaker 1: is entirely different. When I entered it, the goal was
Speaker 1: to become a columnist. Now columnists really don't exist. Any
Speaker 1: general commists anyway, There are very few left. And so
Speaker 1: when I talk to kids coming out of college and
Speaker 1: I say, now, if you want the most visibility and
Speaker 1: the most money, and you're in the print game, it's
Speaker 1: about being a twenty four to seven insider. Now, if
Speaker 1: you are a feature writer slash calmness journalist at heart,
Speaker 1: you can still do it and you can make a living.
Speaker 1: But obviously, when you look at where the business is
Speaker 1: right now, it's well, what you do. You're one of
Speaker 1: the all time greats at what you do, Colin, and
Speaker 1: so very few people are going to do it at
Speaker 1: that level. But I'm talking about sort of more rank
Speaker 1: and file and writers, calmness who become TV personalities. The
Speaker 1: way to get there, to get to the top, to
Speaker 1: get the most visibility, to get on TV is really
Speaker 1: to break news and just be a twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven all consuming insider. And as you look at woes,
Speaker 1: you look at chapter, you look at rapaport and charms
Speaker 1: and others and so. But if you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that, you can still make a good living. But
Speaker 1: that is the best way to get become an expert
Speaker 1: in something. And like me, I think I'm known as
Speaker 1: somebody who knows a little bit about everything. But maybe
Speaker 1: I'm known years ago as a basketball guy and then
Speaker 1: a golf guy later and then an NFL guy. But
Speaker 1: bouncing around is not going to get you to the
Speaker 1: to the top. It's becoming an expert at something. And
Speaker 1: that's us it the advice I give.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I view you as a storyteller. I think you're
Speaker 2: a great American sports storyteller, and that's what I value. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean your books. I've read them all and I
Speaker 2: can't wait for this. Aaron Rodgers, that's a really you
Speaker 2: know part of this book writing thing is the topic.
Speaker 2: I tell people this all the time in my business.
Speaker 2: You can be the greatest sports talk show host of
Speaker 2: all time. You choose hockey, I choose football. I win
Speaker 2: the segment. It doesn't matter how great you are, howeverage
Speaker 2: I am. Topic matters, and right now I can't wait
Speaker 2: to read the Aaron Rodgers book.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: That's a great topic. I can't because nobody's really done
Speaker 2: the seminal book on him, because he's been a little
Speaker 2: bit elusive, he's a little bit prickly. He can be
Speaker 2: a tab aloof and he's not that giving.
Speaker 3: Teammates don't know him.
Speaker 2: He's not that giving. So do you know the name
Speaker 2: for it yet?
Speaker 1: Out of the Darkness? Oh my, the mystery Daron Rodgers
Speaker 1: is sort of the subtitle, but he he has said
Speaker 1: those words, out of the darkness. I came out of
Speaker 1: the darkness. It was more last year than I guess
Speaker 1: this year. But when he went on that darkness retreat
Speaker 1: and came outside, he still wanted to play. Then he
Speaker 1: wanted to play for the Jets. And so the idea
Speaker 1: is to bring light to the mystery of who he is.
Speaker 1: And so that's why that title was picked. And so
Speaker 1: you're not really you're not a huge fan of his
Speaker 1: as a as a figure right as a personality.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I first ballot Hall of Famer would
Speaker 2: always choose him over Far But I thought he was
Speaker 2: more efficient and more of a thinking man's player. I
Speaker 2: consider him like a Rod or Kevin Durant, an all
Speaker 2: time talent, not a great leader, a little passive, aggressive.
Speaker 2: Jeter's more leader, Brady's more leader, and I think there's
Speaker 2: a there's a distinction between the two. I think Lebron
Speaker 2: has leadership quality. Steph Curry does. I think Kawhi Leonard's
Speaker 2: just great, and so we tend to think quarterbacks all
Speaker 2: have to be great leaders. Manning certainly was. He was
Speaker 2: very confrontational with Jeff Saturday, Brady with a coordinator Mahomes
Speaker 2: with a coach that's not Aaron. But I do think
Speaker 2: he's a fascinating personality. He's a content machine. He's a contrarian,
Speaker 2: and I appreciate him. I think he suffers from a
Speaker 2: little bit of that smartest guy in the room disease.
Speaker 2: Rich single doesn't really have to sacrifice for kids, a family,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like you when you're married
Speaker 2: it's a series of sacrifices. I'm willing to do all
Speaker 2: of them. But it's a different lifestyle than Aaron and
Speaker 2: I think, you know, Bill Simmons and I have talked
Speaker 2: about this older richer, handsome, never married. You know, you
Speaker 2: kind of get into your own You get into your
Speaker 2: mirror a lot. You are the son the galaxy and
Speaker 2: the stars, and I think there's a bit of that
Speaker 2: that's a little over the top. But I respect the
Speaker 2: hell out of him.
Speaker 1: Oh it's interesting because the Jets, the players love him
Speaker 1: to death, and I think most of them did. In
Speaker 1: Green Bay, he had two guys, Greg Jennings and Jamichael Finley,
Speaker 1: who had some negative things to say about him and
Speaker 1: his leadership style and approach over the years. There's really
Speaker 1: kind of just those two guys. And I had a
Speaker 1: prominent NFL figure. I used this quote in the book,
Speaker 1: but I'll give it to you now. I didn't name
Speaker 1: the person because he said, listen, I can't stand Aaron
Speaker 1: Rodgers and everything he stands for, particularly on the vaccine.
Speaker 1: And this is somebody who's done a lot of business
Speaker 1: with the Packers and the Jets, prominent NFL figure, and
Speaker 1: he said, but I have to admit I've never met
Speaker 1: an NFL player who doesn't like so in the locker room.
Speaker 1: He's loved in a lot corners and so Hard Knocks
Speaker 1: was very good for him. I think it became an
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers infomercial really in terms of how he connected
Speaker 1: with players, older players, younger players, and how they responded
Speaker 1: to him. So we'll see, we'll see how the season
Speaker 1: plays out. I just want him to be healthy. I
Speaker 1: just want to see the season. I just want to
Speaker 1: see him make fifteen starts. And I've never I've covered
Speaker 1: some of his games here and there, but I've never
Speaker 1: seen a full Aaron Rodgers season. I'd love to see
Speaker 1: it in my backyard with the Jets. And if he
Speaker 1: could win a championship with the Jets, which is unlikely,
Speaker 1: that would do a tremendous amount for his legacy. I
Speaker 1: think right now i'd have him fifth all time on
Speaker 1: the quarterback list. I think he could probably move up
Speaker 1: to two or three, and with a Super Bowl victory
Speaker 1: with the Jets, i'd probably putt Well, Brady's won Mahomes two,
Speaker 1: Montana three, Manning four, and I'd have Rogers five. But
Speaker 1: I think he can move up a step or two
Speaker 1: if he went on with the Jets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have Brady Mahomes, Montana, Peyton l Way, and
Speaker 2: then I think you get into the next four or
Speaker 2: five guys. He's in that discussion.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you have more like seven eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have him more like eight. But I always
Speaker 2: preferred him over far of who I thought was reckless,
Speaker 2: not as coachable, was more instinct driven, which I understood
Speaker 2: John Madden's affection for him. But I like guys who
Speaker 2: are more kind of buttoned up on script and take
Speaker 2: the layups and not everything is sort of you know,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it my way. I think that's a
Speaker 2: very outdated way to play football. So Ian O'Connor is
Speaker 2: one of my favorite and I've told him this many times,
Speaker 2: one of my favorite sports writers, A dogged reporter, exceptional writer.
Speaker 2: So am I reading this right? I know this is personal,
Speaker 2: but you put it out there A bomb scare on
Speaker 2: a plane you were recently on. When did this happen?
Speaker 1: Looks last week? That's when I was flying out to
Speaker 1: see Aaron Rodgers and so we were going Newark to Lax.
Speaker 1: We got well about it an hour and a half
Speaker 1: into the flight. Pilot comes on and says, we have
Speaker 1: a situation on board. We need to land his plane.
Speaker 1: So we're going to land in Chicago. And he didn't
Speaker 1: say medical situation, so that concerned me. So now we
Speaker 1: have a situation, and so you're thinking the worst. Is
Speaker 1: there a serious mechanical problem on the plane. Is it
Speaker 1: possible we're going to crash? And as we're landing at O'Hare,
Speaker 1: we were coming in pretty hot, so we had no information,
Speaker 1: and we saw the emergency vehicles with their lights flashing.
Speaker 1: So that's not good. You don't want to see that
Speaker 1: when you're coming in pretty hot. And so we landed.
Speaker 1: It was bouncy, but okay, we parked the plane and
Speaker 1: we're far away from the terminal. They did not want
Speaker 1: our plane near that terminal. And then we found out.
Speaker 1: The senior crew member gets on the intercom and says,
Speaker 1: now we can tell you what the situation is. And
Speaker 1: we had somebody go in the bathroom and leave a
Speaker 1: message that there's a bomb on this plane, and so
Speaker 1: we're going to get you off and law enforcement will
Speaker 1: come on and inspect the plane and we'll see what
Speaker 1: where we go from here. Meanwhile, they didn't rush us off,
Speaker 1: so we're thinking that it's possible there's a bomb on
Speaker 1: the plane. We'd like to get off as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: They finally got us off, They loaded us onto buses.
Speaker 1: They eventually took us to the terminal. We sat there,
Speaker 1: or I did, anyway, for seven hours. They checked the
Speaker 1: plane head to toe and that was it. The interesting
Speaker 1: thing is I ended up taking the same plane from
Speaker 1: O'Hare to Lax seven hours later, and it might have
Speaker 1: been the safest plane in the air because of the
Speaker 1: way it was checked. But that was odd to me
Speaker 1: that I ended up back on that plane and it
Speaker 1: was covered to some degree nationally and locally. But as
Speaker 1: far as they know, nobody was ever arrested. And if
Speaker 1: it was just a hoax, that's a fello in these
Speaker 1: notes in mid air, Okay. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's a statement on news outlets and all the cutbacks
Speaker 1: and layoffs in these newsrooms have been completely slashed, and
Speaker 1: there's been I keep checking, How could they're not be
Speaker 1: an arrest, How could there not be any follow up? Nothing?
Speaker 1: Now I understand it. Maybe it's so embarrassing that United
Speaker 1: Airlines or the FAA doesn't want this to get out
Speaker 1: whatever the result was, if it was just a total hoax,
Speaker 1: but I can't believe that. If I weren't so busy
Speaker 1: with my book and I have to get this thing done,
Speaker 1: I would probably turn it into a personal crusade to
Speaker 1: find out what exactly happened. But there's been no follow
Speaker 1: up whatsoever, and it just went away. And I guess
Speaker 1: the bottom line is, I'm happy that everybody's safe, but
Speaker 1: somebody did something on that plane to cause that, and
Speaker 1: as far as I know, nothing's coming it.
Speaker 2: Ian O'Connor, God, what a pleasure. Thankfully you landed safely,
Speaker 2: an American hero. You came in hot and landed. By
Speaker 2: the way, I've only been on one bad flight. There
Speaker 2: is nothing worse when you when you're on a hot flight,
Speaker 2: it's bumpy. You gotta get down, not just.
Speaker 1: Get on the ground, right, Just get on the ground,
Speaker 1: that's all.
Speaker 2: Mike Breen's got some all he's flown enough. He's got
Speaker 2: some all time stories as well. In the air I
Speaker 2: and is always it's a great talking to you.
Speaker 1: It's my pleasure. Colin. Thanks so much the volume.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
Speaker 2: take a moment rate and review