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Speaker 1: now live in Ohio. All right, Sean Payton headed to
Speaker 1: the Denver Broncos. So this has been a long back
Speaker 1: and forth between Sean Payton and Denver. So I talked
Speaker 1: to Sean after he was on my show yesterday. So
Speaker 1: usually I talked to Sean for about five or six
Speaker 1: minutes when he's off FS one with me, and we've
Speaker 1: been talking about this, private conversations about where he's going,
Speaker 1: where he's not. And so I went to dinner with Sean,
Speaker 1: spent about four and a half hours with him. A
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, he very much liked the Broncos ownership.
Speaker 1: His concerns were lack of cat flexibility and Russell Wilson's
Speaker 1: process a little disconnected from younger players. He was concerned
Speaker 1: about it. I shared that with you when you get
Speaker 1: into a situation like this. These new owners were going
Speaker 1: to reset the coaching salary market. So Sean Payton liked Fox.
Speaker 1: Sean Payton would have stayed at Fox, and Sean and
Speaker 1: I talked a lot about this. In fact, we talked
Speaker 1: about this after the show Monday. The things he worried
Speaker 1: about were always the same, cat flexibility and let's get
Speaker 1: Russell Wilson to get back to playing Russell Wilson style,
Speaker 1: which is almost basketball style quarterback move the pocket, move
Speaker 1: a lot instinctive. He's one of the better guys that
Speaker 1: we've ever seen do that right. So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into the Adam Schefter Ian Rappaport space. They're
Speaker 1: going back and forth on whose job this was and
Speaker 1: whose job it wasn't. I was told very early that
Speaker 1: Denver really liked Sean and it was Sean's job to lose. Now,
Speaker 1: money is a big component to any great job. The
Speaker 1: more risk, the more money any coach would want. I
Speaker 1: do not think, and I said this before, I think
Speaker 1: you need an offensive coach in Denver. I don't think
Speaker 1: Damiko Ryan's as talented as he is. You got to
Speaker 1: figure out the Russell Wilson piece. I thought Hardball was
Speaker 1: a good fit, and I thought Sean Payton was a
Speaker 1: good fit. I thought you needed, after backet, a proven
Speaker 1: commodity at head coach and an offensive commodity at head coach.
Speaker 1: So Harbon and Peyton were really good choices. So you know,
Speaker 1: when I had talked to Sean over the course of
Speaker 1: the last several weeks, he was always interested, always thought
Speaker 1: it was great. But there are gambles here. It's not simple.
Speaker 1: Everybody in the internet wants to make everything simple. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. When you start talking about the
Speaker 1: salary involved here and the components in place, it's complicated.
Speaker 1: Big time agents, billionaire owners. Sean Payton's high profile, he
Speaker 1: had a lot of leverage. I love Jim Harbaugh, but
Speaker 1: he's a lot and wants a lot of control, and
Speaker 1: Sean doesn't necessarily need that personnel control would like an opinion,
Speaker 1: doesn't need as much control. So what I was told
Speaker 1: is the Bronco owners like that very much, but jobs
Speaker 1: like this are complicated. Initially I thought it was Sean's
Speaker 1: and I do think Denver's job when you consider all
Speaker 1: the other openings. Is the best because of good roster
Speaker 1: in key spots and Russell Wilson's talented. You know, Carolina,
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting job, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: find quarterbacks. College football only gives you about one to
Speaker 1: two a year. So Carolina's job has a chance to
Speaker 1: be great. But what if they don't land Derek Carr
Speaker 1: or Garoppolo and they miss on their next two quarterback
Speaker 1: draft picks. I mean Arizona missed on one, went on another.
Speaker 1: Thought they got a hit with Kyler Murray. Now they
Speaker 1: may have a miss. He won't be available this year
Speaker 1: for much of it, and he's struggling to get along
Speaker 1: with people. So this was always really complicated. But when
Speaker 1: I talked to Sean after Monday show, in fact, he
Speaker 1: had just changed his avatar to Fox Sports. It wasn't
Speaker 1: that it was a coaching avatar. He just changed it
Speaker 1: to a broadcasting avatar, and now he's taking the Broncos job.
Speaker 1: This went back and forth. In fact, one of the
Speaker 1: tells with this is the Jim Harbaugh resurfacing room. What
Speaker 1: does that tell you? It tells you that they wanted
Speaker 1: Sean Payton. They weren't agreeing on the number, and so
Speaker 1: suddenly stories get out when somebody wants them out. Harbaugh's
Speaker 1: name surfaces to negotiating ploy. In the end, there were
Speaker 1: two coaches where this can work, Harbor Sean Payton. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of things I like about it. There are
Speaker 1: other reasons where it's not an easy job. If this
Speaker 1: was an easy job, Sean Payton would have taken this
Speaker 1: thing three weeks ago. It's not. The Russell piece is
Speaker 1: going to take work. The offensive line needs fixing, lack
Speaker 1: of cap flexibility. You've got a hit on several draft picks,
Speaker 1: and they just gave up several to the Saints to
Speaker 1: get Sean Payton. So it's complicated. But this stuff goes
Speaker 1: back and forth all the time. I had been in
Speaker 1: contact with people upstairs at my company with Sean Payton.
Speaker 1: It was a very respectful conversation. I thought Sean did
Speaker 1: a great job to keep me in the loop on it,
Speaker 1: and I congratulate. I think it was Schefter that broke
Speaker 1: the story. Good for him. That's what he does and
Speaker 1: does well. You know, I guess apparently I haven't followed it,
Speaker 1: but Ian Rappaport and Schefter have a disagreement on social
Speaker 1: media about who was a lead candidate, who wasn't a
Speaker 1: lead candidate. I don't think this job is a good
Speaker 1: job for a first time head coach on the defensive
Speaker 1: side of the ball. I don't. I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of work to get this right. Also,
Speaker 1: something Sean and I talked about at dinner. You know,
Speaker 1: Sean's a smart guy. He thought about everything, and he said, listen,
Speaker 1: Mahomes twice a year and Herbert twice a year. What
Speaker 1: if Brady goes to the Raiders twice a year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things at play here. It was never easy. It went
Speaker 1: back and forth. Teams leak this and coaches agents leak this,
Speaker 1: and that's the game. We've been talking about this. There
Speaker 1: were a bunch of job openings, and about four or
Speaker 1: five days ago we were all saying, why aren't they
Speaker 1: getting filled, because I believe everybody was waiting for Sean Payton.
Speaker 1: Then Sean gave Carolina kind of the word, I'm not
Speaker 1: taking that job. So they go to Frank Craik. He
Speaker 1: interviewed with Arizona, He interviewed with Houston and he told
Speaker 1: me about all these, or at least the Houston one.
Speaker 1: We went into some detail on that. It's private. I'm
Speaker 1: not getting into it. It was unique, but this is
Speaker 1: not simple. The division's tough. Mahomes is amazing. Herbert now
Speaker 1: has a really good offensive coordinator, I think in Kellen Moore.
Speaker 1: I don't think winning is going to be easy, but
Speaker 1: I think in the end, the Broncos had to hit
Speaker 1: a number for Sean to take the job. And Sean
Speaker 1: loved working at Fox, loved it. When I talked to
Speaker 1: him after the show, I thought he was going to
Speaker 1: stay at Fox. Then all of a sudden, you get
Speaker 1: hard boss stuff out there. It's fascinating, though, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Sean Payton's just too good not to be coaching. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever learned more from a guest than
Speaker 1: what I've learned from Sean Payton. And all the years
Speaker 1: I've been doing this twenty five thirty years, I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever learned more. There are so many parts
Speaker 1: to coaching. Some of it's not even personnel and play
Speaker 1: calling and scheming. There's a lot of personalities you have
Speaker 1: to deal with, and he had such a good fit
Speaker 1: with Gail Benson and Mickey Loomis and Jeff Ireland with
Speaker 1: the Saints, that it's going to be virtually impossible to
Speaker 1: recreate that in Denver. But what Sean wants to make
Speaker 1: sure of is, Okay, this is not going to be easy,
Speaker 1: and this is very important. This is not going to
Speaker 1: be easy. You have to commit to me. You have
Speaker 1: to commit long term resources. What should pay me? Why
Speaker 1: it's much easier to move off a coach Cliff Kingsbury
Speaker 1: salary smaller. You got this cornerback, he's young, in his prime.
Speaker 1: Russell's not in his prime, didn't look like he's in
Speaker 1: his prime. You can't move him for about three years minimum.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna take a lot of work. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: There are things though about this job that are you know, listen,
Speaker 1: that are really that sound great. A young running back
Speaker 1: who can be a star, left tackle, nice receivers, capable
Speaker 1: tight ends, really really high end corners. This is not
Speaker 1: a rebuild. You got to fix the offensive line and
Speaker 1: you got to make Russell Wilson work, But it's not
Speaker 1: a rebuild. There was also I'll be interested to hear
Speaker 1: about the staff, the defensive coordinator, the offensive coordinator. Sean
Speaker 1: and I have discussed that at length. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: that come out over the next probably seventy two hours.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of names out there that have been
Speaker 1: connected to jobs but are not official. This could end
Speaker 1: up being a really, really strong staff. I'll leave it
Speaker 1: at that, but I'm happy for him, smart guy. The
Speaker 1: league is pivoted to offense. This was a job for
Speaker 1: an offensive head coach, absolutely Harbon Peyton. It will be
Speaker 1: a lift some really good pieces. But you know, Russell
Speaker 1: is a unique personality. A lot of people took shots
Speaker 1: at him when he left Seattle. You don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of that with star quarterbacks. And then he played
Speaker 1: a little better at the end of the year when
Speaker 1: Hackett was gone. That's encouraging. Jerry Judy, I think it
Speaker 1: was stuck up for him in the Denver locker room.
Speaker 1: That was encouraging. So I can't wait to watch it.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what it's going to look like, and
Speaker 1: that's to me, the best stories. I'm not exactly sure
Speaker 1: what it's going to look like. I think suddenly, unless
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers goes to the Jets, Denver will be the
Speaker 1: most interesting team in the NFL this year. Now, if
Speaker 1: Aaron goes to the Jets, that's going to be fascinating.
Speaker 1: But Russell Wilson and Sean Payton, because you know, Sean
Speaker 1: Payton has definitive views on how to run a football operation,
Speaker 1: and Russell Wilson going to have to make some changes.
Speaker 1: How easily does he make those changes, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: So I saw this story today and it's a story
Speaker 1: that's been simmering and been discussed a lot in the
Speaker 1: last two weeks on the interweb. And it doesn't really
Speaker 1: mean anything because Tony Romo makes seventeen million dollars a
Speaker 1: year guaranteed. But Andrew Marshan on his podcast, a New
Speaker 1: York Post radio TV critic media critic, had said that
Speaker 1: cb YES was getting concerned about Tony Romo's sort of
Speaker 1: unconventional style, undisciplined style, and there's been slippage with Tony Romo.
Speaker 1: My takeaway was for no other reason than because I
Speaker 1: don't talk a lot of media, but I've been doing
Speaker 1: this for thirty years and I thought this is an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. I think for the audience, it's kind of instructive.
Speaker 1: So when you get out of the NFL or NBA
Speaker 1: or any sport. But let's talk NFL and Tony Romo,
Speaker 1: who I think does a fine job. I've never already
Speaker 1: bought into the hype. I thought predicting plays was kind
Speaker 1: of silly and overrated. It doesn't mean anything. The media
Speaker 1: freaked out. I don't care. That's not why I watch
Speaker 1: you to predict plays. I look for insight that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't get interviews, I wouldn't get information I wouldn't get elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think Greg Olson, by the way,
Speaker 1: is crushing at Fox. So when you first get out
Speaker 1: of the league, your first year or two, you're generally
Speaker 1: the most familiar with the league. But the NFL, two
Speaker 1: things are happening. Number One, there's younger general managers in
Speaker 1: the NFL, and they are trading players without a concern.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the average NFL career, which
Speaker 1: is about four years, the league turns over about every
Speaker 1: three to four years. So a guy like Romo can
Speaker 1: come out of football have a real understanding of the personnel,
Speaker 1: the rosters, the coordinators, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: some of those coordinators leave, go to different places, go
Speaker 1: to college football. The rosters turnover three or four years later,
Speaker 1: and you really have to do your homework. And the
Speaker 1: knock on Romo, and I'll get to this more in
Speaker 1: a second, is that he doesn't really put the time in.
Speaker 1: So networks get really really frustrated when they pay you
Speaker 1: a fortune, they put you on their number one event,
Speaker 1: and you're not prepared. So Romo makes seventeen million a year,
Speaker 1: that's been reported. And if you consider that, Jim Nance
Speaker 1: talks for more than half of the broadcast, sideline reports, commercials,
Speaker 1: the game itself, Romo's probably talking for twenty five minutes
Speaker 1: once a week. They want you to be really really
Speaker 1: dialed in for that twenty five minutes. I'm on the
Speaker 1: air fifteen hours a week ad libbing with no game,
Speaker 1: just talking. You're gonna make mistakes. Charles Barkley, by the way,
Speaker 1: doesn't follow half the league. When the Lakers made a
Speaker 1: acquisition or a trade recently for a wing from the Wizards,
Speaker 1: Shack had never heard of them. He covers the NBA.
Speaker 1: So Shack Barkley Television's entertainment Harry Kerry was a legend.
Speaker 1: He was drunk on the air at various times. But
Speaker 1: football is different. You get twenty million viewers. It really
Speaker 1: is the most important broadcast singular three and a half
Speaker 1: hours weekly for networks. And if they're paying you seventeen
Speaker 1: million dollars and you're talking about twenty minutes a week,
Speaker 1: they want it to be dialed in. I always had
Speaker 1: this theory that and I use this for years when
Speaker 1: I would interview people and I was going to hire them,
Speaker 1: if I had lunch or coffee with him, I always
Speaker 1: asked him if they loved golf, Oh, I love golf.
Speaker 1: Do you love golf? And if they said yes, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't hire them because I always had this theory that
Speaker 1: as guy's age, many of them get addicted to golf.
Speaker 1: They're on pgatour dot com. They're putting in the backyard,
Speaker 1: they're thinking about it at work, they're scheduling a trip
Speaker 1: to Scotland, and they lose sight of their other job.
Speaker 1: Romo wants to be on the tour. He literally wants
Speaker 1: to be on the tour. I mean, what's the first
Speaker 1: thing Aaron Rodgers does in the offseason. He goes in golfs.
Speaker 1: He loves it. Both by the way, great golfers, especially Romo.
Speaker 1: But I've always felt like Tony Romo is one of
Speaker 1: those guys, and we all have somebody on our social
Speaker 1: circle like this. They got the golf bug. He's had
Speaker 1: it for fifteen years. Tony wants to be on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour, but he likes to paycheck at CBS. And
Speaker 1: I don't think he does a bad job. I think
Speaker 1: he's fine. I think initially Romo was overvalued with predicting plays.
Speaker 1: That's not why you know. I mean, if he did
Speaker 1: it once in a while, it'd be great, but that's
Speaker 1: not why I'm watching you. But when you're only talking
Speaker 1: about twenty minutes a week on the biggest broadcast for
Speaker 1: a network where they pay billions of dollars annually, they
Speaker 1: watch you to be dialed in. And I'm never going
Speaker 1: to criticize somebody because they slip a word up or
Speaker 1: you know, mispronounce a name. Live TV is really easy
Speaker 1: for people who've never done it. Romo and Jim nance
Speaker 1: have producers in their ears and directors in their ears,
Speaker 1: and they've got action and they've got ads to read.
Speaker 1: It's not easy. But when I listened to Greg Olsen,
Speaker 1: he sounds like he's been studying for that three hours
Speaker 1: for six days. Romo sounds like sometimes and he's entertaining,
Speaker 1: he's winging it. And again, I think Barkley and Shack
Speaker 1: wing it. But the NFL is different, and people love
Speaker 1: Barkley and Shack, but it's the NBA. There's eighty two games.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't matter. They're on the air for hours
Speaker 1: every week. Nobody's losing any sleep if they don't know something.
Speaker 1: I mean again, they make fun of Barkley not knowing
Speaker 1: players in the NBA. But those NFL windows man, those
Speaker 1: analyst jobs. Those networks don't want to pay those guys
Speaker 1: seventeen million dollars a year, so they sit there with
Speaker 1: a microscope and you make a mistake or they think
Speaker 1: you're not putting in the work, they're going to leak stuff.
Speaker 1: This stuff gets out, by the way. Marshand said, CBS
Speaker 1: attempted an intervention that only gets out because CBS wants
Speaker 1: it out. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Romo's
Speaker 1: agent calls CBS and asks for CBS to release a
Speaker 1: statement denying the report. Wouldn't shock me. This year, the
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Speaker 1: we bring in Mike Silver, host of open Mic on
Speaker 1: the volume long time, well sourced, hyper connected NFL Reyner.
Speaker 1: So you know, Mike, I spent five hours one night
Speaker 1: with Sean Payton a couple of weeks ago. And you
Speaker 1: and I. You're a real reporter. I occasionally have relationships,
Speaker 1: but I'm not in the story of breaking business. That's
Speaker 1: what you do, and do it very very well. But
Speaker 1: we sat down, and you know, Sean and I talked
Speaker 1: about everything. The Russell Wilson piece, the owner piece, the
Speaker 1: mahomes Herbert four times a year piece and the hard
Speaker 1: bought piece, And in our relationships with coaches, I'm I
Speaker 1: always feel like a responsibility to tell the audience as
Speaker 1: much as I can, and I will hear not everything.
Speaker 1: There are some things I want to protect my relationship
Speaker 1: with Sean. I don't want to get into the whizzing
Speaker 1: match between Ian Rappaport and Adam Schefter, but I felt
Speaker 1: when I had dinner with Sean very strongly that he
Speaker 1: was the coach, that he knew there were obstacles, and
Speaker 1: I felt, but this is my takeaway that you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to pay for Sean because this job is not easy.
Speaker 1: There's some good stuff, it's not a rebuild, but the
Speaker 1: Russell Wilson thing is real. That is that how you
Speaker 1: viewed this situation, that the price point. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: why I talked to Sean Monday after my show. I
Speaker 1: thought he was a Fox employee. I think this thing
Speaker 1: came down to Denver making a financial commitment to Sean,
Speaker 1: letting him know, Hey, we know it's not easy. We're
Speaker 1: going to take the pay scale to a different level.
Speaker 1: Is that your interpretation? Well, I think there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things. First of all, it's a leap of faith
Speaker 1: on both sides for whoever was going to take that job.
Speaker 1: You've got at least a year with Russell Wilson, and
Speaker 1: you pray it doesn't look like it did this last year,
Speaker 1: possibly two years, because it really does impact your cap.
Speaker 1: You've lost a lot of draft capital because of that
Speaker 1: trade as well, and you are in that division with
Speaker 1: Mahomes and Herbert, and you know, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, something that would give a candidate with options pause,
Speaker 1: even possibly to mke o Ryan's. He may have had
Speaker 1: his other reasons for wanting Houston, or he may have
Speaker 1: had the choice made for him and just read the
Speaker 1: tea leaves. But that was one thing. If you're looking
Speaker 1: to hire Sean Payton, you know the price tag is high.
Speaker 1: You have to give up draft capital. That's especially sensitive
Speaker 1: if you're the Broncos, because you just gave up all
Speaker 1: that draft capital for Russell, you got the one back
Speaker 1: for Chub. You're given that away. Now. If you're the Texans,
Speaker 1: you could say, yeah, we've got draft capital, we've got
Speaker 1: all that Deshaun Watson loot, but you are necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: weakening yourself. So you're giving up draft capital, you're giving
Speaker 1: up money. Now, that was a strength of the Broncos job.
Speaker 1: They do have lots of money. They do have Russell issue.
Speaker 1: You know, George Paynton is a very very well liked GM.
Speaker 1: I think if Sean was going to come in somewhere
Speaker 1: and turn the GM into essentially a director of player personnel,
Speaker 1: you know, George is someone that you could see that
Speaker 1: relationship working out, at least in the short term. He's
Speaker 1: super well liked. He goes with the flow. But you know,
Speaker 1: my read on the Broncos from Afar is that they
Speaker 1: knew that Sean was expensive, both in terms of draft
Speaker 1: capital and money, and they knew that he came in
Speaker 1: with a little swag. He wasn't kissing the ring of
Speaker 1: the Walmart and oh wow, I just want to you know,
Speaker 1: he's basically saying you should hire me because I'm awesome.
Speaker 1: So you also had to go down to parallel paths
Speaker 1: before you decided whether you're going to do that, And
Speaker 1: it just seemed to me that at least the public
Speaker 1: facing side of it. Remember, these are the richest people
Speaker 1: you know there are and they're not used to really
Speaker 1: being criticized, Like say, NFL owners normally get criticized, and
Speaker 1: people are looking at it going, well, you asked Hardbaugh,
Speaker 1: he said no, you flew off to see him again.
Speaker 1: He still said no, Dan Quinn dropped out, and Damiko
Speaker 1: Ryan's chose the Texans over you. So whether that's an
Speaker 1: accurate assessment because I think there were a lot of
Speaker 1: moving parts. Also, by the way, someone leaked that David
Speaker 1: Shaw was the favorite. So now it really looks like
Speaker 1: four different people that you either get or didn't want.
Speaker 1: And now you're like, well, how are we gonna not
Speaker 1: look like these you know, billionaires. What are we gonna do.
Speaker 1: Let's swing big baby, because money is a strength and
Speaker 1: you know that them p Sean Payton, whatever they paid
Speaker 1: shot Peyton is like you and I, you know, exchanging
Speaker 1: a burger basically. Well, and here's the thing. There are
Speaker 1: parts of the job that are really good. Like in
Speaker 1: the NFL, you've got a talented quarterback, a starting left tackle,
Speaker 1: pretty good perimeter weapons, a young running back who was
Speaker 1: hurt but people really like, yeah, some of the best
Speaker 1: corners in this sport. And you've got some defensive personnel
Speaker 1: that can you know, that can move around um. You also,
Speaker 1: it's a big brand, um, and you can, as you know,
Speaker 1: you can get draft capital pretty quickly move people here there,
Speaker 1: you can. Um. But I I said this in my
Speaker 1: ten minute ramble before you. If this was if this
Speaker 1: was an easy job, I would have taken it a
Speaker 1: month ago or three weeks ago. I think the Russell
Speaker 1: piece scares people, but I also think there's a part
Speaker 1: of show like, okay, so I use this. When the
Speaker 1: forty nine is traded for Christian McCaffrey, I had to
Speaker 1: write a column immediately for the Chronicle, and I led
Speaker 1: with something the effect of this was a move based
Speaker 1: on or born of arrogance. And I say that lovingly,
Speaker 1: by the way, as a fellow Eric. That was a
Speaker 1: great column. I read that was a great column. But
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I know what it's like. I believe
Speaker 1: in my abilities, you know, probably to a ridiculous degree
Speaker 1: at times. And if you're Kyle Shanahan, you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I know it costs a lot. But if I get
Speaker 1: Christian McCaffrey and I put him in my offense, and
Speaker 1: I like, it's gonna be insane. So you, I think
Speaker 1: you want your coach to have that streak. So look,
Speaker 1: I've known Sean Payton since the early days and I
Speaker 1: love him. And one reason I do is because he
Speaker 1: believes that Sean Payton is really really good at this.
Speaker 1: So in a way, I think you're like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can do that. And by the way, like there might
Speaker 1: be more attractiveness because everyone thinks it's a bad job
Speaker 1: and everyone thinks Russell can't be salvaged. And if you
Speaker 1: struggle at first, people might give you a little bit
Speaker 1: of elite, you know, a little bit of leeway there.
Speaker 1: But if you don't and you come in and you know,
Speaker 1: make the playoffs next year, people are gonna go Sean Payton, man,
Speaker 1: look what he did, you know, and dun Peterson just
Speaker 1: kind of did it. He had an easy division. But
Speaker 1: you know, Sean Payton is one of the absolute best
Speaker 1: in the world at what he does, and he knows
Speaker 1: it and his knowledge of that is part of what
Speaker 1: makes him who he is, and that's what you're paying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I felt I said this early that I thought
Speaker 1: this was a job for an offensive coach. Like an example,
Speaker 1: I think Brian Larez is kind of a fascinating hire
Speaker 1: in Arizona Special Team's defense in Miami got good in
Speaker 1: a week. And he's an ass kicker. He won't take
Speaker 1: He's an alpha, he won't take any Kyler stuff. But
Speaker 1: Mike and I've been on this for a year and
Speaker 1: it's tedious to the audience. But the league is changing.
Speaker 1: Belichick struggling now. Andy Reid is the new Belichick. And
Speaker 1: this job, the defense is so talented. You can get
Speaker 1: a good coordinator. I think you got a massage the
Speaker 1: Russell piece. I think it needed. And this is not
Speaker 1: a shot at Demiko. I think it needed a veteran
Speaker 1: offensive coach who was dealt with drama, with quarterbacks, with coordinators.
Speaker 1: This is a solvable job, but Mike, it's a hard job, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And going back to the floors thing. Okay, So, first
Speaker 1: of all, you and I have talked about this publicly
Speaker 1: and private. Brian Flores did not get fired because he
Speaker 1: was not doing a good job as a coach. He
Speaker 1: got fired because of interpersonal abrasiveness, really, and he was
Speaker 1: not getting along with a lot of people, including first
Speaker 1: and foremost his incumbent quarterbacks, who we saw with a
Speaker 1: little love this year. And yeah, gobatock brilliance was a
Speaker 1: lot different. So I'm a little scared when you say that.
Speaker 1: I yet why And look, first of all, I want
Speaker 1: Brian Floors to get another job at some point. I
Speaker 1: do believe there's system of racism and hiring practices, and
Speaker 1: you know, he had the guts to to you know, Sue,
Speaker 1: and I hope that that is not factriged to whether
Speaker 1: he gets an their job. I'd be happy for him.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, man, it's the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: like the Broncos can't just say we goofed on Russell goodbye.
Speaker 1: Yet at least the Cardinals can't do that with Kyler
Speaker 1: and given Brian floors track record. If two like I agree,
Speaker 1: you want to draw the line and start changing the paradigm.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Sean Payne's gonna do the same
Speaker 1: thing with Russell. Shohn's gonna be like he't rust that
Speaker 1: sixth person team that follows you around the facility. They're gone, buddy.
Speaker 1: And you know how, you have a bigger office than
Speaker 1: I do. Let's either switch or I'm giving that office
Speaker 1: to you know whoever. So that's going to happen. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Sean has great people skills and
Speaker 1: will get that done. And Russell will have, you know,
Speaker 1: the emotional intelligence to take it in the spirit it's intended.
Speaker 1: If Bryan Flores comes in and starts, you know, treating
Speaker 1: Kyler like dirt. That look, you paid Kyler. You tried
Speaker 1: to put a close in his contract that made him
Speaker 1: look like a twelve year old, and then actually backed
Speaker 1: off even worse, you acknowledge that he doesn't study enough.
Speaker 1: In your eyes, then it looked terrible because you tried
Speaker 1: to put it in the contract. And then you're like, fine, fine,
Speaker 1: don't even study, but here's all the money. He's injured
Speaker 1: and speed is part of what makes him great. And
Speaker 1: you know now you're gonna bring in someone who's like, hey, Kyler, man,
Speaker 1: we don't like your act at all, and you either
Speaker 1: get with it or that might not be the best
Speaker 1: thing organizationally either. I think the Cardinals have to treat
Speaker 1: Kyler unfortunately for them, the way the Broncos have to
Speaker 1: treat Russell right now. Make it work in the short term,
Speaker 1: and if you're Sean Payton, you have the credibility to
Speaker 1: get Russell to buy in. If you are Brian Flores
Speaker 1: and Kyler's not Russell either, I think that scares me
Speaker 1: a little bit. And again I'm not saying Brian Flores
Speaker 1: is a really good head coach. Hope he gets another job.
Speaker 1: They'll deserve it. That particular one scares me a little.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that is a reality and
Speaker 1: I pushed against and maybe because I haven't been offered
Speaker 1: this level of money, but sometimes you just get offered
Speaker 1: money you can't say no to. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen coaches take jobs and I've seen actors do movies.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is absurd. What are you And then
Speaker 1: you see the you see the price tag and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it. I understand it. So I believe that
Speaker 1: what the Broncos page Sean Payton, and this is why
Speaker 1: hardball came in again. I think I think Sean liked
Speaker 1: working in television and new next year, you've got two
Speaker 1: great college quarterbacks who are both guys that can start
Speaker 1: I think in the end, and it won't come out
Speaker 1: maybe for a while. Could this just have been you know,
Speaker 1: twenty five million a year? I'll figure it out, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that you know there's always a number for sure,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean I don't know exactly how it
Speaker 1: played out again, because we saw we saw the public
Speaker 1: facing part of it and the owners, the new owners
Speaker 1: were looking like amateurs. They have some It's a it's
Speaker 1: a less attractive job in some ways, along with the
Speaker 1: fact that it gets even less attractive if you have
Speaker 1: to give up a one and a two when you're
Speaker 1: already strapped to hire this specific person. What is their
Speaker 1: strength that they could offer. We are so rich that
Speaker 1: when you hear the numbers like that, what we hear
Speaker 1: is Yea'll take fries with that. Go back to my
Speaker 1: Burger analogy. I mean, it's just not the way that
Speaker 1: you know, a norrable human would think of it. Now,
Speaker 1: we saw Temper do that in North Carolina, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that ruffled the feathers of the billionaires club. He was
Speaker 1: joining whatever. But I think the problem is that he
Speaker 1: did it with Matt Rule, who it turned out, was
Speaker 1: not a you know, a guy who could come into
Speaker 1: the NFL, snap his fingers and make it awesome. But
Speaker 1: Sean Payton's as close to that as what we have right,
Speaker 1: He's as close to you could put him in an
Speaker 1: NFL context and have a very strong belief that he's
Speaker 1: going to succeed. Danny Ainge made a career Boston and
Speaker 1: l Utah Jazz finding desperate people, kg to the Brooklyn deal,
Speaker 1: the Rudy Gobert, the t Wolf steal, which got like
Speaker 1: nine different pieces. Belichick in his prime made a lot
Speaker 1: of deals with the Browns and the poorly run Bills
Speaker 1: and Dolphins who are poorly run anymore? Right? Is that?
Speaker 1: Like they always say that the best hitters in baseball
Speaker 1: get a majority of their hits up the three and
Speaker 1: four starters, not the aces, right, And so I don't
Speaker 1: know if Aaron Rodgers is a great fit with the Jets,
Speaker 1: but well run organizations have a history of finding desperate
Speaker 1: trading partners. And I look at the very stable Packers
Speaker 1: with Aaron Rodgers. Robert Sale's got to win, Joe Douglas
Speaker 1: gotta win. The owners have a history of reaching, and
Speaker 1: I look at that and I think Nathaniel Hackett needs
Speaker 1: to rebuild his reputation with the guy who helped him
Speaker 1: get there. That's where Aaron to the Jets, a stable
Speaker 1: organization that's ready to move off, I can ship him
Speaker 1: over there. It does feel like you could get the
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, they've got some good young players for
Speaker 1: the Jets. They need a left tackling a quarterback. I
Speaker 1: can see him saying, here's a one to two and
Speaker 1: a one and Green Bay going that's where that one
Speaker 1: feels kind of possible. And I could I could see
Speaker 1: all that, and I could see Aaron going, uh, like
Speaker 1: the Niners. So I'm sorry that you won't be getting
Speaker 1: the one two in a one, but I will retire
Speaker 1: if you do not stupid trade. But if you trade
Speaker 1: me to the Niners, for hold on, let me text
Speaker 1: John Lynch a three and a conditional two. If I
Speaker 1: you know whatever, I will make the money right and
Speaker 1: you'll be able to move on rebuild. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: know you're right. So that's what that's what's always fascinating.
Speaker 1: You know, fans understandably live in this fantasy football like
Speaker 1: reality where it's like, why can't we just do that,
Speaker 1: We'll trade this for this, or you know it's like
Speaker 1: Derek Carr, well, you know they're not going to send
Speaker 1: them there? Why why would they cut them? And we
Speaker 1: always forget that, you know, the money and the cap
Speaker 1: and the players other leverage points like I don't like
Speaker 1: you or I don't want to play for you, especially
Speaker 1: when they're old enough to walk away, you know, those
Speaker 1: are going to factor into and as you know, Callum,
Speaker 1: these conversations are all going on unofficially. You know, there's
Speaker 1: players are figuring out their markets, Teams are figuring out
Speaker 1: what's possible. Agents and coaches and general managers and players
Speaker 1: are all having conversations that will coalesce at the combine,
Speaker 1: if not before, when everyone's in person and drinking, and
Speaker 1: there'll be media people involved as well, not not too
Speaker 1: many of us, A lot of people who act like
Speaker 1: they will, but a few of us will actually be
Speaker 1: in those rooms and you know we might be drinking two. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I just think it's something, you know, Aaron. I
Speaker 1: don't think Aaron wants to retire, but when you start
Speaker 1: talking about it, you're at least considering it. I do
Speaker 1: think Aaron wants to take that last one hundred million,
Speaker 1: and he's still really really good. I know he still is.
Speaker 1: I contend that Titans make sense because he's never had
Speaker 1: a consistent great defense and a great consistent run game,
Speaker 1: and he'd have both in a wonky division. Do you
Speaker 1: buy the Titans and Aaron at all? I think he
Speaker 1: liked I think Vrabels his kind of guy. Uh in
Speaker 1: a way. Yeah, I could see that will go it
Speaker 1: either way. Yeah. I mean, look like, you know, if
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers plays like he did in twenty twenty, man
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick would be like, Hey, you know that uh
Speaker 1: you know that podcast you do every week with Pat
Speaker 1: mc fee where you just say whatever you want and
Speaker 1: the lot pressure on the organization. Yeah, you know it's okay.
Speaker 1: I just keep doing it because you're so good. But
Speaker 1: if you're playing like Aaron Rodgers of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: I think Mike Vrabel and a lot of other coaches
Speaker 1: would be like yo yo yo, like not like what
Speaker 1: he says on a podcast is that big a deal?
Speaker 1: Just just an example, but I think you know Aaron
Speaker 1: is Aaron's gonna be high maintenance. Tom in many ways
Speaker 1: is going to be high maintenance. And I think again,
Speaker 1: people with strong senses of self attract each other. So
Speaker 1: you would say, on paper, with Kyle Shanahan, who wants
Speaker 1: everything to be done his way, and Tom Brady, who
Speaker 1: likes a lot of control at the line, or Aaron Rodgers,
Speaker 1: who likes full control at the line, possibly be able
Speaker 1: to coexist. They're philosophically so unaligned in terms of how
Speaker 1: they view the way the offense should could ducked itself.
Speaker 1: I feel like Kyle Shanna gets in a room with
Speaker 1: one of those guys that they're both like, dude, I
Speaker 1: you are so amazing to play quarterback. Dude. I love
Speaker 1: the way you call a game, like, we'll figure it
Speaker 1: out and it Sometimes that ends up being hard and
Speaker 1: sometimes it doesn't. But I think people with a lot
Speaker 1: of faith of their own abilities are more likely to
Speaker 1: embrace challenges that other people would go, oh, that's too much,
Speaker 1: and they're more likely to want to do it together
Speaker 1: because they you know, they view themselves as rare and
Speaker 1: they're attracted room. Yeah, when I started in this business,
Speaker 1: opinion was rare. When I first started in this business,
Speaker 1: there was no national sports talk radio. Rome was the
Speaker 1: first to make it. And then now it's exploded. Opinion
Speaker 1: now dominates cable TV. Opinion is where the money is.
Speaker 1: A I was a local sportscaster and I had a
Speaker 1: fine career as a local sportscaster. But when opinion became
Speaker 1: more influential, driving revenue and ratings, my career explode. I
Speaker 1: didn't get more talented, I got more opportunities. So Andy
Speaker 1: Reid enter this league when you could grab his receivers.
Speaker 1: His receivers could be crushed over the fielding, you could
Speaker 1: drive his quarterbacks into the turf. They were always hurt.
Speaker 1: And then it changed. Then the league, due to safety
Speaker 1: CTE safety regulations, has now given all the rules not
Speaker 1: to Belichick's side, to Andy's side, and to Andy. Andy
Speaker 1: was always always as good or better than Belichick, but
Speaker 1: his industry was built against him. And now finally there's
Speaker 1: even footing or advantage Andy, and he is separating from Belichick. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: I do think that where I'll give Belichick credit is
Speaker 1: I do think he has a better grasp on the
Speaker 1: coaching minuchet that drives me nuts, the clock management, the
Speaker 1: challenge stuff in a way that Andy still struggles with
Speaker 1: at times. But holistically, I think it's one hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1: And I had on Thursday, I had Mahomes on the
Speaker 1: TV show, and I kept every time I talked about
Speaker 1: the Chiefs being disrespected, the Chiefs, super Bowl window, any
Speaker 1: of these things. Now and listen, he's a brand, and
Speaker 1: he knows, you know, how to handle himself. His love
Speaker 1: for Andy Reid popped off the screen. He said, when
Speaker 1: I asked him, did it seem like the national media
Speaker 1: was ready to turn the page from the Chiefs and
Speaker 1: love the Bills or the Bengals or the Chargers prematurely.
Speaker 1: What he said was, I think as long as we
Speaker 1: have Andy Reid, we should be the favorites like that,
Speaker 1: and so he that relationship there. Andy's, by the way,
Speaker 1: not a young man anymore. And no one our mutual
Speaker 1: friend Danny Parkins made this point. I think it was smart.
Speaker 1: He said, no one is discussing is Andy Reid retiring
Speaker 1: if they win this Super Bowl. He's obviously dealt with
Speaker 1: personal tragedy. You know, he's done it. He's a Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer all these things. And what Danny's point was is,
Speaker 1: and it's because everyone's like, why would he retire? He
Speaker 1: is Patrick Mahomes. They're going to continue to dominate. He
Speaker 1: can climb. He's three wins away Colin from being fourth
Speaker 1: all time in regular season wins. He's already now second
Speaker 1: all time in playoff wins. He's going to have a
Speaker 1: claim as the second greatest coach of this era of football.
Speaker 1: I think he already has that claim. And I think
Speaker 1: your point is, what if the Chiefs win three of
Speaker 1: the next five and then he walks out the door.
Speaker 1: Can you make the case he's the best, Like, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting. It's at least going to be on
Speaker 1: the board if he ends with four and Belichick has six,
Speaker 1: but especially if the Patriots never pop back up, because
Speaker 1: I know what people people can say, Well, Andy had Mahomes, Yes,
Speaker 1: but Andy made five conference championship games in Philadelphia without
Speaker 1: a Hall of Fame quarterback, with a good quarterback, without
Speaker 1: an accurate quarterback. Yeah, I mean McNabb was not a
Speaker 1: bad quarterback, but he was not a Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: level player, and he made five NFC championship games. There
Speaker 1: might have been six. I think it's five. But it
Speaker 1: is interesting is that sometimes cultures change and opportunities present themselves,
Speaker 1: and people don't suddenly just get talented at fifty. Let's
Speaker 1: be honest, you flourish in the opinion space, could you
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't be as effective as a local sports anchor,
Speaker 1: all right. I got caught from the Syracuse college radio
Speaker 1: station trying to do play by play because I couldn't
Speaker 1: the at war that before you can even try to
Speaker 1: do play by play, you have to do a ninety
Speaker 1: second sports update, like you know what they used to
Speaker 1: do on local radio station. Yes, yeah, yeah, Colin. I
Speaker 1: came in twice a week, ninety minutes each time, for
Speaker 1: three semesters a year and a half, trying to get
Speaker 1: cleared to do ninety second sports updates at a college
Speaker 1: radio station. And then God love him, the guy who's
Speaker 1: now the voice of the Las Vegas Raiders, Jason Horowitz,
Speaker 1: had to call me. It was like, buddy, you're a
Speaker 1: second semester sophomore, and you're not even the first step.
Speaker 1: We gotta you, gotta go. You're not. I got cut
Speaker 1: from my college radio state because oh I was. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the whole reason I went there. So the whole
Speaker 1: reason I went there. But I was fortunate in that
Speaker 1: I was already working on the talk show staff and
Speaker 1: I then just grab and I was kind of realizing, like, man,
Speaker 1: I thought I wanted to do growing up. I thought
Speaker 1: I want to do play by play, but what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was color commentary. I would watch the
Speaker 1: NBA on NBC with with Costas and Walton and Steve
Speaker 1: Snapper Jones, and what I wanted to do was the
Speaker 1: color But I didn't realize you can't do that unless
Speaker 1: you're a former player or former coach. They're not hiring
Speaker 1: me color commentary. But then you know, they did hire
Speaker 1: Dennis Miller briefly like they hired Kornheiser. So I was like,
Speaker 1: oh maybe at some point um so no, I was.
Speaker 1: I was crushed, but I didn't. It made me fully
Speaker 1: pivot to talk show and you know, little humble Bragg
Speaker 1: here now at War the talk show studio is named
Speaker 1: after me and my pictures on the wall. I'm a
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer there. That's true. Story Marv Albert, Bob Costas,
Speaker 1: Nick Wright are the three studios there. That's true and so.
Speaker 1: But the point is I'm not a great broadcast. I'm
Speaker 1: I have a like a traditional broadcaster, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I can't read off a teleprompter. I'm not
Speaker 1: good at like I have a nasal. But there is
Speaker 1: a specific thing I can do, which is confidently argue no,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, one on one with my wife
Speaker 1: or in front of a million people. Well, also, you're entertaining.
Speaker 1: In my preamble I talked about this. Charles Barkley doesn't
Speaker 1: watch the league he broadcasts. He literally doesn't know ninety
Speaker 1: percent of the players. He's entertaining nobody, wildly entertaining the audience.
Speaker 1: They don't care, nobody cares the entertainment business that we're in.
Speaker 1: And then you get extra credit for being right and
Speaker 1: smart and all these things. But what a lot of
Speaker 1: I think broadcasters don't understand is this, the perfect storm
Speaker 1: is entertaining, smart, funny, correct analysis. Right. That's like you.
Speaker 1: If you could check every box, that would be it.
Speaker 1: You can get away with. You can even thrive if
Speaker 1: you're with your picks, always being wrong, with your analysis,
Speaker 1: always being off, as long as you're entertaining and captivating,
Speaker 1: if you could be right on every prediction, know the
Speaker 1: name of every player. And there's a few broadcasters you
Speaker 1: and I both know we don't have name names that
Speaker 1: are like this, that are buttoned up on every briefing,
Speaker 1: and they're boring. But if you're if you're boring and
Speaker 1: don't captivate the audience, you're drawn dead. Ye're just flatly
Speaker 1: drawn dead. Years ago, there was a guy named Pete
Speaker 1: Jennescini at ESPN. Guy. Yeah yeah, yeah, really nice guy.
Speaker 1: And when I got to ESPN, they didn't they weren't
Speaker 1: doing radio very well, and they brought in a guy
Speaker 1: named Bruce Gilbert to kind of fix Mike and Mike
Speaker 1: there was a big vote whether to keep him or
Speaker 1: not when I first got there, and it was like
Speaker 1: nine people voted five to four keep them. Wow. So
Speaker 1: Bruce Gilbert came in to fix them and hire somebody
Speaker 1: to replace Kornheiser when that was that was the guy.
Speaker 1: And Pete's a really good guy and real smart guy.
Speaker 1: But we had a discussion one time and he said
Speaker 1: the number one the number one thing at ESPN is
Speaker 1: to be informative. And I said, Pete, it's number two.
Speaker 1: I said, I've watched you either demote or get rid
Speaker 1: of really informative people this company. He has never gotten
Speaker 1: rid of somebody that's funny on the air and enter entertaining.
Speaker 1: Ever ever they may leave you, you don't get rid
Speaker 1: of them. I've watched you not promote people who are informative.
Speaker 1: I said, we Radio TV is the entertainment business. Remember
Speaker 1: when Barbara Walters was a journalist and she was doing
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and she was doing sit Down Kushey interviews
Speaker 1: with Johnny Carson and Steven Spielberg. That was the entertainment division.
Speaker 1: It was the highest rated thing she did. That's why
Speaker 1: Barbara Walters made a fortune not because of her journalism,
Speaker 1: because she would do these sit down interviews that got
Speaker 1: massive ratings, and they were that was part of the
Speaker 1: entertainment budget. And so when I had this this discussion
Speaker 1: with Pete who again this is not a criticism, and
Speaker 1: I just said, Pete, I'm watching what the company does
Speaker 1: you promote really entertaining people. The messaging is be entertainment.
Speaker 1: Well listen, and for me that was listen. That took
Speaker 1: me a long time to grasp on television because I
Speaker 1: figured out radio. I'd figured out how to do like
Speaker 1: the radio show exactly the way I needed to. And
Speaker 1: then when I got on TV, I think the first
Speaker 1: year maybe I thought the job was to always have
Speaker 1: all the answers, to have my you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: to have the facts exactly right, to have to never
Speaker 1: to never be wrong, you know what I mean, to
Speaker 1: always and what I'm you know. I've now done the
Speaker 1: show five and a half years, by a country mile.
Speaker 1: The most successful version of the show I've ever done
Speaker 1: is the one I'm doing right now this moment with
Speaker 1: Wilds and Bruce Arry. It's the funniest, it's the funniest
Speaker 1: and That's why now I still it's not like I
Speaker 1: had forgotten that info. I still have the info available
Speaker 1: to me, but I am not out there. I used
Speaker 1: to approach the TV show with the perspective of I
Speaker 1: have to I have to prove how smart I am
Speaker 1: to the audience every single day, and now I approach
Speaker 1: it as our entire goal is to put on a
Speaker 1: show that people smile while they're watching. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, That people smile while they're watching and have
Speaker 1: a good time, and that has enough meet to it
Speaker 1: to where it's not all empty calories. There's got to
Speaker 1: be the information, there's got to be the analysis, but
Speaker 1: there's also got to be a lot of bells and
Speaker 1: whistles and funny stuff, and you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: guys messing with each other and that's what works. And
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. That took me a while
Speaker 1: to figure out because people, you know, when I first started,
Speaker 1: they would say to me, the best version of you
Speaker 1: is when you're on with Colin. They're like, can you
Speaker 1: can you try to be more of that on First
Speaker 1: Things First? And I think part of it I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I get up for First Things First at three thirty,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. Oh, I'm not certain. But the
Speaker 1: other thing was especially early in our relationship and I
Speaker 1: still do it, but especially early in our relationship, I
Speaker 1: was really really trying to impress you, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to make you laugh. Like every time I came on,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's successful if I make Colin lamb
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I was too stupid to fucking realize
Speaker 1: I should just be trying to make the audience laugh too,
Speaker 1: and I have to get out there and like to
Speaker 1: tell jokes. But the saint, you know, and so, but
Speaker 1: that was the best version of me at the time,
Speaker 1: was because I wasn't trying. I felt like you knew
Speaker 1: I was smart, so I wasn't trying to prove it
Speaker 1: to yet, right, so you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: I could just kind of be the best version of myself.
Speaker 1: And that's what works. That's what works in this business.
Speaker 1: You go across the networks. I'll give credit to the
Speaker 1: other network, even though this show happens to be up
Speaker 1: against mine. One point. A show that I think really
Speaker 1: works on the other network is NFL Live because those
Speaker 1: people like each other and they're fun together and they
Speaker 1: bust each other's chops and they have real info, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like that show whenever I can't
Speaker 1: watch it is all the same time. But the clips,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Oh, they're fun. They're funny. That works. That
Speaker 1: always will work. People that get along, that are smart,
Speaker 1: that know what they're talking about will always work. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I don't watch that show, but I know the
Speaker 1: people on it and they're likable and they're fun. And
Speaker 1: this mug is from war the radio station that cut me.
Speaker 1: That's fun. They've sent it to me today. Hey listen,
Speaker 1: you're fine, here's a mug. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. So people think from time to time.
Speaker 1: I don't like certain people. I don't like Russell Westbrook's
Speaker 1: half court game. He's probably a wonderful guy, it drives
Speaker 1: me crazy. I don't like, don't like the neediness of
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers. I think he's a smart guy and a
Speaker 1: wonderful quarterback. But I do think about it that if
Speaker 1: I ran into Aaron or Russell, they wouldn't like me,
Speaker 1: and I totally get that. Andy Dalton once ran into
Speaker 1: me and I called him the Beige water Pistol for
Speaker 1: a decade, and he was really really sweet. But Rogers
Speaker 1: is a fascinating person because he really does project a lot.
Speaker 1: He had another one this week when he said, you know,
Speaker 1: apparently they're doing discussions. You know, I'm not involved, which
Speaker 1: is interesting, and I thought, it's interesting, Aaron, You're so smart,
Speaker 1: but you lack a basic self awareness that you are
Speaker 1: projecting constantly, passive, aggressively. And it's why you know, I've
Speaker 1: said this about Aaron. We give too much credit to talent.
Speaker 1: What really separates Mahomes is his self awareness. He's so
Speaker 1: eff and good at the podium. He is such a
Speaker 1: good teammate. He almost never ever compliments himself. He goes
Speaker 1: the talent thing. I think that Mahomes is gifted, but
Speaker 1: I think when I talked to Sean Payton, I went
Speaker 1: to dinner with him, spent four hours with him. Sean
Speaker 1: Payton told me that they flew in to Lubbock or
Speaker 1: whatever god forsaken town he played college football in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they wanted to draft him, but go ahead. After the workout,
Speaker 1: they brought in information they thought would overwhelm him and
Speaker 1: would take three days. Within two hours, he had digested
Speaker 1: it and was vomiting it out to them. He said,
Speaker 1: it's the smartest player I'd ever interviewed. We got on
Speaker 1: a plane, we told nobody we were there, and Sean
Speaker 1: said it was the greatest quarterback I'd ever worked out
Speaker 1: or gone to a whiteboard, and that where Mahomes is underrated.
Speaker 1: His ability to consume information, see things and let go
Speaker 1: of the ball instinctively is the greatest I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I think I think John Allen has a stronger arm.
Speaker 1: I think Lamar is faster. I think Kyler Murray is
Speaker 1: almost more elusive. I think above the shoulders, Mahomes is
Speaker 1: almost the performance artist. He's he's prince, he is, He's
Speaker 1: the world looks different. His dad was on I'll mentioned
Speaker 1: second second Danny Parkins shout out. But his dad was
Speaker 1: on Danny's radio show a couple days ago and said
Speaker 1: the Bear the reason Mahomes counted on his fingers when
Speaker 1: he scored a tough sounding against the Bears was because
Speaker 1: the Bears told him were drafting you three and then
Speaker 1: they trade it up for Trabisky and Mahomes was crushed
Speaker 1: because you really wanted to go to Chicago. But in
Speaker 1: that same interview, and I'd never heard anyone say this,
Speaker 1: he said that Patrick has an identic memory, which I
Speaker 1: just googled what that meant. Yes, and that you can
Speaker 1: see something once and then always be able to pull
Speaker 1: it back, which I'd never heard someone say that about him.
Speaker 1: And maybe that's a dad, you know, embellishing about his kid.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but if that's true or something close
Speaker 1: to it, and what you know you're saying, Sean Payton
Speaker 1: told you it does. Now all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: have like so for let me give you a four instance.
Speaker 1: Lebron has the highest basketball like you I've ever seen,
Speaker 1: plus kind of the perfect body for basketball. If you
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, I want to play twenty years in
Speaker 1: the NBA. It's like, Okay, you're gonna have to be
Speaker 1: big enough to withstand injuries, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: tall enough. It's like, okay, So when check check on
Speaker 1: like a brain thing and a body thing that leads
Speaker 1: you to this, right, Mahomes has the physical gifts of
Speaker 1: like the crazy arm angle stuff and the arm strength
Speaker 1: from playing baseball. So that's like the physical stuff check
Speaker 1: the memory thing that. Now we've had Sean Payton talk
Speaker 1: about his dad talk about it feels like we have
Speaker 1: contemporary evidence from seeing how he plays. Ye, like, oh,
Speaker 1: there might have been like two genetic lottery things where
Speaker 1: it's like the in the same way that Michael Phelps
Speaker 1: like has the webbed fingers, and it's like, oh, so
Speaker 1: it's like, it's not just that you work so hard
Speaker 1: in all these things, you also happen to be kind
Speaker 1: of blessed specifically for this type of greatness. Yes, and
Speaker 1: so because they're there is an element with Patrick and
Speaker 1: I think you want to tuck Rogers Rodgers too, but
Speaker 1: with Patrick of he can. He can, with the exception
Speaker 1: of like a three week stretch during last season, he
Speaker 1: can instantly figure out what the defense is doing and
Speaker 1: within a half adjust if need be, in a way
Speaker 1: that I've seen very few quarterbacks ever consistently be able
Speaker 1: to do, and the only one that I've seen be
Speaker 1: able to do it at this level is Manning, and
Speaker 1: Manning's problem, I think problem is listening is one three
Speaker 1: best quarterbacks ever. But for Peyton, what I think heard
Speaker 1: him a bit was he had that ability and almost
Speaker 1: couldn't turn it off to where if guys weren't where
Speaker 1: they were supposed to be, or guys through he didn't
Speaker 1: have the improvisational ability that Patrick has, which are as
Speaker 1: good as anyone I've ever seen. Yeah, as good as
Speaker 1: anyone I've ever seen. What do you think's going to
Speaker 1: happen with Aaron? I think Green Bay ideally wants to
Speaker 1: send him to the Raiders because with Peyton and Russ
Speaker 1: Herbert and Kellen Moore and Andy and Mahomes, he'll finish
Speaker 1: in fourth place. And so if Jordan Love is bumpy initially,
Speaker 1: which Aaron was in his first year, that you know,
Speaker 1: Minnesota's not going eleven and no one one score games,
Speaker 1: Chicago still awful, and Detroit still Detroit, although they're better that.
Speaker 1: I don't think they know quite yet what Jordan is.
Speaker 1: But if they can get another first round pick, address
Speaker 1: their tight end situation edge rusher, and get supplemental picks
Speaker 1: right that if the Jordan loves situations a little bumpy,
Speaker 1: Aaron's not crushing light in the world on fire, Yeah yeah, so,
Speaker 1: and I think I think they want to move off
Speaker 1: and and I think this is why the Raiders right
Speaker 1: now are holding on a Derek Carr that the Raiders
Speaker 1: may be saying the Raiders don't want to give up
Speaker 1: as much. I think Green Bay has leaked already publicly.
Speaker 1: All this stuff gets out, Nick because somebody wants it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've already leaked AFC All there's Aaron even said it. Well,
Speaker 1: they're talking about me, So Green Bay wants it out
Speaker 1: to the league, not Aaron. We are ready to move
Speaker 1: off him. Their takeaway is we don't know exactly know
Speaker 1: what Jordan Love is, but what we don't want is
Speaker 1: far too The Vikings good at least for a year.
Speaker 1: Correct and listen, I the Jets obviously want them. They
Speaker 1: hired Hackett. Here's my but I think Jets Raiders are
Speaker 1: obviously the leading contenders. Here. I'm gonna throw something at you. Yep.
Speaker 1: When Quentin Tarantina came on the scene, it's all anybody
Speaker 1: talked about for two years. Spielberg has done far more,
Speaker 1: far longer. But it wasn't new and shiny and fun.
Speaker 1: That we're not dissing Lebron or Brady or Spielberg, but
Speaker 1: we like the new stuff. We like the new restaurant,
Speaker 1: the new nightclub, the new job morant, Zion Williamson, Josh Allen,
Speaker 1: who you've accurately said, we like him more than his
Speaker 1: game produces, and that I think Lebron was great early, great, middle, great, late.
Speaker 1: He's never had the story arcs going to baseball like
Speaker 1: MJ the fight with his GM, the no couldn't win
Speaker 1: without Pippin, then had Pippin, and then he left for baseball,
Speaker 1: and then he came back and then he lost to Orlando.
Speaker 1: Michael's career had so many different chapters. Lebron, Spielberg, Brady great, early, great, middle, great, late.
Speaker 1: What's there to say? Well, I think there's that. I
Speaker 1: also think that when the so I don't know if
Speaker 1: you saw this, but you're by when people hear or
Speaker 1: see this, it'll it'll be I think on February third
Speaker 1: is when this will come out. Your former employer is
Speaker 1: doing across all shows tomorrow because tomorrow is two three
Speaker 1: slash twenty three Michael Jordan tributes, and if you you
Speaker 1: I understand the timing on the calendar, but you also
Speaker 1: can't convince me that's not some editorial decisions by folks
Speaker 1: who are heavily invested in Michael Jordan remaining the gold
Speaker 1: standard for everything that we are going to be potentially
Speaker 1: a day away from Lebron breaking Kareem's record, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna have wal to wal Michael Jordan coverage. I mean,
Speaker 1: give me a goddamn break, And so there is I
Speaker 1: think there has been so so much of our sports
Speaker 1: logic forever has been I shouldn't say forever, for the
Speaker 1: last thirty years, has not been based on what is
Speaker 1: objectively the best, but has been based on what is
Speaker 1: objectively the most similar to Michael Jordan's arc that we have.
Speaker 1: We've perverted so many arguments, like Tim Duncan was a
Speaker 1: more successful, more impactful, more winning, more everything than Kobe Bryant.
Speaker 1: But when you say Tim Duncan was better than Kobe,
Speaker 1: it breaks some people's brains because they're not judging who's better,
Speaker 1: They're judging who remind you more of Michael Jordan. I'm
Speaker 1: old enough to remember, as are you, that when Tom
Speaker 1: Brady before he got to seven rings, after the Seattle
Speaker 1: Super Bowl, when he had four rings and then two
Speaker 1: super Bowl losses, there were people that argued Joe Montana's
Speaker 1: four rings were better than Brady's four rings because Montana
Speaker 1: never lost a Super Bowl, which is objectively idiotic because
Speaker 1: it just means he didn't get there. But the reason
Speaker 1: that was the case was because we had already decided
Speaker 1: that Jordan's six and ozho was better than Kareem's six
Speaker 1: and four, which never made any sense. Objectively speaking, that
Speaker 1: same logic would dictate by the way that Patrick Mahomes actually,
Speaker 1: if he loses in the week, yeah, that logic dictates,
Speaker 1: you know, it was bad for him to have this
Speaker 1: legendary performance on one leg and beat the Bengals. Would
Speaker 1: have been better to just lose that game, because losses
Speaker 1: pre championship round don't hurt you, but losses in the
Speaker 1: championship round due so much of it is about protecting
Speaker 1: the narrative, and I think the Lebron if we wanted
Speaker 1: to tell the Lebron story the same way people want
Speaker 1: to tell the Michael Jordan's story, the story of overcoming
Speaker 1: incompetent coaching at various steps, overcoming incompetent teammates, of having
Speaker 1: no true like basketball training. He's come straight out of
Speaker 1: high school. A suppose having Dean Smith. Instead of coming
Speaker 1: from a great two parent household, he had one parent
Speaker 1: incredibly poor, and that one parent dealt with their own issues.
Speaker 1: All of that could be part of the legend, but
Speaker 1: since the guy's been twenty seven, a huge part of
Speaker 1: the story surrounding him has been discrediting what he's accomplished
Speaker 1: because people want to protect Jordan. I truly believe that,
Speaker 1: and I think we're still seeing it. Can I throw
Speaker 1: this in? This is engineered by Michael, who remains a
Speaker 1: grudge holder and incredibly petty. And the reason he okayed
Speaker 1: use of certain footage to ESPN because after Lebron beat
Speaker 1: the Warriors there were real discussions that Lebron's better than
Speaker 1: MJ and m the next day, the next the day
Speaker 1: after the parade yep, and now as Lebron gets ready
Speaker 1: to set the record. This is not coincidental. Michael is petty,
Speaker 1: He's a grudgeholder. He still holds a grudge to Isaiah Thomas,
Speaker 1: who the f cares that he bore about Charles Barkley,
Speaker 1: who used to be his best friend. It's the and
Speaker 1: it is just I don't think because and but the
Speaker 1: other part of it, forget the Michael part of it.
Speaker 1: The other part of it is on the media writ
Speaker 1: large for just deciding what we are and are not
Speaker 1: going to treat with important I made this point on
Speaker 1: the TV show, but I didn't make it to you.
Speaker 1: I think you'll agree with me. There was far more
Speaker 1: day by day breathless coverage of Steph Curry breaking the
Speaker 1: three point record last year. Then there has been about
Speaker 1: Lebron breaking the all time points record. Last night or
Speaker 1: Wednesday night, Lebron passed four and five in the all
Speaker 1: time assists rankings. Nobody cares, so he's going to be
Speaker 1: top four and assists the day he becomes number one
Speaker 1: in points, and it feels like it has been a
Speaker 1: sub story. Go ahead, no, you know, Nick, One of
Speaker 1: the things I've noticed by the media. I never blame
Speaker 1: fans it's short for fanatic for having favorites. That's why
Speaker 1: they're great. But one of the things I've noticed, I
Speaker 1: remember Jerry Seinfeld was asked, it was like two years ago,
Speaker 1: and he was asked about the media and the COVID
Speaker 1: coverage and people and their opinions, and you know, I
Speaker 1: remember reading somewhere Jerry Seinfeld said, well, maybe the media
Speaker 1: should do a better job. And I do believe the
Speaker 1: media can be condescending. They have agendas. I see it
Speaker 1: in the coverage about our careers, where it's so I
Speaker 1: only can judge based on information I have and stuff
Speaker 1: that's written about our careers. Radio TV, What's it like
Speaker 1: for politicians, what's it like for star athletes? So I
Speaker 1: don't think what's funny is Jordan basically refused to talk
Speaker 1: to Sports Illustrated because of a cover. Jordan won't talk
Speaker 1: to Isaiah Thomas or Charles Barkley. He's petty. Lebron James
Speaker 1: may call out certain people, but Lebron has been the
Speaker 1: most available NBA star outside of maybe Magic of My Life.
Speaker 1: He is every night, local regional, correct every night. And
Speaker 1: he doesn't do the big sit down interviews anymore except
Speaker 1: for you know, maybe once a year, unless it's with
Speaker 1: his own company. You know, he has his own production company,
Speaker 1: so he does with him, which makes sense. But I mean,
Speaker 1: talking all the time, and it's just it is incredibly
Speaker 1: frustrating to me. And the other thing that is also
Speaker 1: frustrating to me is that none of us, myself included,
Speaker 1: none of us thought it was possible for him to
Speaker 1: be in year twenty playing like this year nineteen and twenty,
Speaker 1: he's averaging thirty points, thirty six minutes per game, better
Speaker 1: than fifty percent shooting. None of us thought it was possible,
Speaker 1: and yet almost nobody has stopped to appreciate it. We
Speaker 1: didn't think it was possible, and then we instantly started
Speaker 1: taking it for granted and they're like, oh, they're not
Speaker 1: winning enough, which is true except for the fact that
Speaker 1: this is an unbelievable stat. When Lebron's on the court, Colin,
Speaker 1: the Lakers have a better net rating than Milwaukee. When
Speaker 1: he's off the court, they have a worse net rating
Speaker 1: than the Hornets. So with the teammates around him, when
Speaker 1: he plays, they are a one contenders. When he goes
Speaker 1: to the bench, they're a bottom three team. And I mean,
Speaker 1: that's an indictment on the general managing and on the
Speaker 1: roster construction, but it's not an indictment on Lebron. The volume,
Speaker 1: make sure to check out The Draymond Green Show. I
Speaker 1: brought Draymond Green into the volume because one of the
Speaker 1: more entertaining voices in sports, unique perspective understands behind the rope.
Speaker 1: Also chops up with guests like Gary Peyton, Zach Levine,
Speaker 1: Tracy McGrady. Make sure download The Draymond Green Show wherever
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