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Speaker 1: Dot up work dot com. D line to me, brown,
Speaker 1: look at him go gets primostrophe. It almost figures touch show,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, flagg Let me turn to the number.
Speaker 1: Every four A four hundred and twenty five pounds on
Speaker 1: the football field, and no, I am not talking about
Speaker 1: a player. Welcome to NFL, explained, it's the podcast where
Speaker 1: we answering your questions on topics, where you just learn
Speaker 1: exactly sure who to turn to for those answers. I'm like,
Speaker 1: yeam along with the d D King Kabwala add what's
Speaker 1: good today? What's great is goal posts. People are pausing
Speaker 1: saying goal post today. Let me just tell you this.
Speaker 1: When the texts are fast and furious from add and
Speaker 1: she's dropping emojis, I realized that her excitement on today's
Speaker 1: podcast is through the roof. Initially did he? I said,
Speaker 1: how many questions are there around goal posts? Like? They're there,
Speaker 1: we see them. They function as basically markers on the
Speaker 1: football field and help us score points. There's actually a
Speaker 1: lot more to it that I didn't even realize. Well,
Speaker 1: but that's the point here, Mike, right, you cannot play
Speaker 1: a game without goal post. You can't mimic the goal
Speaker 1: post with a cone. I mean, that doesn't quite do it.
Speaker 1: And if you stop to think about it, there's a
Speaker 1: million questions. Why are they yellow? Why are the uprights
Speaker 1: thirty five ft in the air? How often do you
Speaker 1: have to replace these things. Does somebody paint them? I mean,
Speaker 1: what happens if water gets inside a goal post? What
Speaker 1: happens when Antonio Brown does a crazy celebration against a
Speaker 1: goal post? Or Jimmy Graham decides to dunk a football
Speaker 1: a fake football or a real football? Was it a
Speaker 1: real football that he dunked on the goal post? Real?
Speaker 1: But it actually is a dunk because of the height
Speaker 1: of it, which is another thing that I had learned.
Speaker 1: But look, we don't have all the answers on this
Speaker 1: particular subject, so we actually had to go to some
Speaker 1: of the experts. A little bit later in this show,
Speaker 1: Ravens kicker Justin Tucker is going to be joining us.
Speaker 1: He has the most incredible story about a field goal
Speaker 1: that had Bill Belichick absolutely go nuclear and led to
Speaker 1: a major change in the sports. So Justin is gonna
Speaker 1: be joining us a little bit later in the show.
Speaker 1: And indeed, I can't help but think back to that
Speaker 1: Monday night matchup that we just saw, a classic game
Speaker 1: with the Raiders in Las Vegas and the near game winner,
Speaker 1: I mean, it almost was a game winner. And of
Speaker 1: course that game goes over time and Baltimore loses, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but think of the conversation we are
Speaker 1: going to have with Justin and just watching that thing
Speaker 1: go through the upright, so pure. Yeah, And if that
Speaker 1: had held, Mike, that would have been a seventeen game
Speaker 1: winning field goal. But I guess number seventeen we'll just
Speaker 1: have to come later on in the year. It'll happen.
Speaker 1: And as far as can I call the other guy
Speaker 1: that you talked to, like the guru of goal posts,
Speaker 1: well I think he is. I mean I called the
Speaker 1: guy who's been making goal posts for the NFL since
Speaker 1: the early nineteen eighties, whose family has been in the
Speaker 1: business of making football equipment since the nineteen twenties. Neil
Speaker 1: Gilman out of Gilman, Connecticut, gave me so much good information.
Speaker 1: And listen to this, Mike. We were on the phone
Speaker 1: for an hour and fifteen minutes. WHOA, there is a
Speaker 1: lot to learn about goal posts. So let's just get
Speaker 1: into the basics, right. I think it's a good way
Speaker 1: to start, because I think a lot of ways you
Speaker 1: have to understand the evolution of goal posts because they're
Speaker 1: always haven't looked the way that they look right now.
Speaker 1: And just for context, the measurements are actually really important
Speaker 1: and vital. Those uprights d you made reference to it.
Speaker 1: They extend thirty five ft above the crossbar. They're no
Speaker 1: less than three inches and no more than four inches
Speaker 1: in diameter, And I think all of us sort of
Speaker 1: take a look at those colored ribbons at the top
Speaker 1: of each post to understand how windy it is. It's
Speaker 1: the first thing I do every Sunday to figure out
Speaker 1: which way the winds are swirling. Those things there are
Speaker 1: four inches by forty two inches. I never would have
Speaker 1: imagined that there as long as they are. The crossbar
Speaker 1: is eighteen feet six inches in length and the top
Speaker 1: of the face of it is ten ft above the ground,
Speaker 1: which is why when you say someone's dunking, that's also
Speaker 1: the height of a regulation NBA RIM So they really
Speaker 1: do mean it. But the history add behind this stuff
Speaker 1: is is really fascinating. Wait wait, wait, one more part
Speaker 1: though much and that's the goose neck. The goose neck
Speaker 1: is the actual posts that attaches that you um sort
Speaker 1: of making letters with my fingers here, that attaches the
Speaker 1: U into the ground. It goes into a concrete footing,
Speaker 1: and we are going to be referencing that gooseneck it's
Speaker 1: the thing that you know, Antonio Brown kind of did
Speaker 1: something profane against at one point. It's the thing that
Speaker 1: has padding, didn't Did Joe Horn hide a cell phone inside? Yes?
Speaker 1: So sharpie was a sharpie hidden in there once too.
Speaker 1: I thought the sharpie was out of the sock. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, bad reference right there. But the goose neck,
Speaker 1: it is a vital part of the goal post. It is,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you made reference to that as it
Speaker 1: will continue to pop up because even that gooseneck wasn't
Speaker 1: actually there at the start and the history behind it.
Speaker 1: You gotta go back to n the NFL's first season,
Speaker 1: the goal post were actually located on the goal line
Speaker 1: and they look like the letter H, So you actually
Speaker 1: had two posts that were sticking into the ground. That
Speaker 1: changed in seven when the n C Double A moved
Speaker 1: them back to the end line. And in those days,
Speaker 1: the NFL actually just followed the college rule books, so
Speaker 1: the league basically just mimic what they were doing. But
Speaker 1: a dd that change resulted in a reduction of field
Speaker 1: goals and tied games. Who the hell wants a tie game?
Speaker 1: No one does, and the league said, we definitely don't
Speaker 1: want this, so they created their own rule book. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, they moved the goal post back to
Speaker 1: the goal line. Not surprisingly, the field goals increased twofold
Speaker 1: and the number of tie games way down, which is
Speaker 1: certainly big time for fans that like results. Not much
Speaker 1: changed a d D for thirty three years until nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six. The NFL goes, you know what, let's move
Speaker 1: those goal posts. They should be offset from the goal line,
Speaker 1: and they're actually painted bright yellow. And those uprights sitting
Speaker 1: above the crossbar. Do you know why they were painted yellow?
Speaker 1: I would imagine just from a visual standpoint with TV.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's right because the NFL started having greater interest
Speaker 1: in playing games at night, and the yellow showed up
Speaker 1: much better than the white did in a dark sky.
Speaker 1: But you know how they came up with yellow as
Speaker 1: opposed to like neon pink. I was just gonna ask,
Speaker 1: what why yellow as opposed to just any sort of
Speaker 1: neon color that you could have chosen. Well, Neon is
Speaker 1: a key here, because the NFL did actually really want
Speaker 1: a neon color, and they went to a company in
Speaker 1: Cleveland called day Glow and said, okay, show us all
Speaker 1: your colors. And the pink was, you know, bright and prank.
Speaker 1: The orange was really a nice day Glow orange. But
Speaker 1: the problem with orange for the NFL is that that
Speaker 1: was the Brown's color, and it was also the Bengals color,
Speaker 1: and the NFL wanted a color that no team was using,
Speaker 1: and so nobody is using Saturn yellow. But here, let
Speaker 1: me give you something else about the color. And this
Speaker 1: is what Neil Gilman of Gilman Gear told me is
Speaker 1: that initially this Saturn yellow paint had to be bought
Speaker 1: from day Glow in Cleveland. And what teams would have
Speaker 1: to do, or what Gilman Gear or whatever goal post
Speaker 1: manufacturers would have to do, is paint all the aluminum
Speaker 1: posts with a white primer. Then they would paint them
Speaker 1: the saturn yellow, and then they would do a third
Speaker 1: cote of clear lacquer, which was supposed to seal it.
Speaker 1: But what happens in the sun, things sort of melt
Speaker 1: and chip away and they fade. Remember when we talked
Speaker 1: about faded uniforms in the Arizona Cardinals, And if you
Speaker 1: don't remember, then you need to go listen to one
Speaker 1: of our first episodes. But anyway, the paint would fade,
Speaker 1: and Neil Gilman told me that every year he'd get
Speaker 1: a call from some groundskeeper somewhere saying, I have an
Speaker 1: ugly set of goal posts. So then it was actually
Speaker 1: Neil Gilman who figured out, let me take a chip
Speaker 1: from one of these goal posts to Sherwin Williams, and
Speaker 1: he asked them, can you color match this in a
Speaker 1: powder coating. So now all of the goal posts have
Speaker 1: a powder coating, which means that they are baked on.
Speaker 1: They do not fade. They are not supposed to chip.
Speaker 1: And if you are replacing a goal post, it is
Speaker 1: not because the color has faded. It's for another reason,
Speaker 1: which of course we will get into. Sherwin Williams coming
Speaker 1: up big for us. I love it so actually it
Speaker 1: sounds like I shouldn't say it sounds like it really
Speaker 1: is reality. Nineteen sixty six a huge year for the
Speaker 1: NFL as it pertains to goal posts. But dd that
Speaker 1: next year, nineteen sixty seven, the league actually made the
Speaker 1: decision to require the slingshot type of posts, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the letter H one that was back in the
Speaker 1: day that actually had two posts sticking into the ground.
Speaker 1: Because it was the letter H, the league was a
Speaker 1: little more concerned about safety, and you can understand with
Speaker 1: an extra post sitting at that goal line like that
Speaker 1: becomes a little bit of an issue. But then in
Speaker 1: the league they make the push, they take the goal
Speaker 1: post and they move them back to that end line.
Speaker 1: And that change was made to encourage offenses to score
Speaker 1: more touchdowns as opposed to field goals. Right, we all
Speaker 1: like t D as opposed to the f G. And
Speaker 1: it worked in a big way. And a d D
Speaker 1: maybe the most important thing about all this. It eliminated
Speaker 1: the most heart wrenching moments you can have in the
Speaker 1: game of football, like this one from Super Bowl seven.
Speaker 1: Second down seven ago, the redskin just short of the
Speaker 1: ten yard line. Earlier in this half, they reached the
Speaker 1: seven team. This has been their deepest beneface for the game, Dummer.
Speaker 1: And then the end gong and hit the goal boat.
Speaker 1: Jerry Smith, the tight end looked like he was open
Speaker 1: cutting behind the goal post deep in the end zone.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not the only one thinking it a
Speaker 1: d D. I have a topic from one of our
Speaker 1: next episodes, the evolution of play by play broadcasters. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine a Super Bowl game? This is Super Bowl seven,
Speaker 1: It's the fourth quarter. You got Billy Kilmer, the Washington quarterback.
Speaker 1: He misses and it's sort of mentioned there, but a
Speaker 1: wide open Jerry Smith in the end zone. The ball
Speaker 1: actually bounces off of the post. That Dolphins win that
Speaker 1: game fourteen to seven. So where's the excitement there? Add
Speaker 1: we have to do an evolution of play by play
Speaker 1: voices for the NFL. I feel like you've got a
Speaker 1: little more excitement right now than was felt in that moment.
Speaker 1: Marty Clickman is going like what someone needs to get
Speaker 1: coached up here in a big way. Look, it's fascinating
Speaker 1: here because once you make the move a D D
Speaker 1: and you move those goalposts back to that end live uh.
Speaker 1: Former Brown's coach Paul Brown, and we actually chronicled that
Speaker 1: story one of our last episodes, but he told Sports
Speaker 1: Illustrated in vo the whole end zone is open for
Speaker 1: pass patterns. Now. The goal posts were in effect another
Speaker 1: safety man. When you get inside the twenty, you couldn't
Speaker 1: run or pass around them. It was hard to punk
Speaker 1: or pass coming out of the end. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a pivotal moment for the NFL. Just that
Speaker 1: one change, and maybe we're talking about a different result
Speaker 1: in Super Bowl number seven. But the only other thing
Speaker 1: I want to add here a d D because I
Speaker 1: know I did it when I was a kid. You're
Speaker 1: playing football, Can you just imagine this. You're a wide receiver,
Speaker 1: you're running acrossing route. You actually could grab the pole,
Speaker 1: spin around quickly and go in the opposite direction. I mean,
Speaker 1: like that was like an actual thing. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: seeing that now in the modern day NFL game? It
Speaker 1: be sort of comical because the guys are so damn
Speaker 1: fast and they cut so well. But that was happening
Speaker 1: back in the day in the NFL. Well. I think
Speaker 1: that this is again justin Tucker will talk to us
Speaker 1: later about a decision that he thinks was a no brainer.
Speaker 1: I think moving the goal post back is one of
Speaker 1: those no brainers. For sure, it is, but a d D.
Speaker 1: The conversation that you had that led to some of
Speaker 1: these most incredible stories around goal posts, and yes, they
Speaker 1: are incredible. Do you want to tease one of them here?
Speaker 1: Because you had the conversation. I don't even know what
Speaker 1: the most teasable thing is because I will be hearing
Speaker 1: all of these stories for the first time when we
Speaker 1: do it. Kickers are a very special breed. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite stories that Neil Gilman told me was about
Speaker 1: Chip low Miller. Chip Low Miller was a kicker. He
Speaker 1: was a kicker for the Rams in ninet when they
Speaker 1: had freshly moved from l A to St. Louis. Chipp
Speaker 1: Loow Miller went out to the stadium to these brand
Speaker 1: new goal posts and he said to the grounds crew,
Speaker 1: m something's wrong with this crowds bar. And the grounds
Speaker 1: cree said uh. He said, no, no, no, something's wrong
Speaker 1: with this crossbar. The grounds crew brought out of tape
Speaker 1: measure and guess what the crossbar was? One in short,
Speaker 1: according to what Neil Gilman told me, so, hey, you
Speaker 1: can always trust a kicker's eyes spatial awareness. I don't
Speaker 1: know how else to describe that. That is absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: That one inch when it's ten ft up. That's something
Speaker 1: that you would be able to pick out with just
Speaker 1: your naked eye. That is an unbelievable story. And there's
Speaker 1: more of those covering up next here on NFL explaining
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Speaker 1: content optimization. He heavy William More ragged under the end
Speaker 1: zone by Jimmy Graham on the touchdown strike a purty
Speaker 1: four yard Jimmy Graham all fired up in the end
Speaker 1: zone and he does it use the little dunk. But
Speaker 1: it was like that time he was kind of hanging
Speaker 1: on the rail. I really thought the gold posts were
Speaker 1: gonna come down. Look like it, Deman donan look like
Speaker 1: a little cocka do you right now? You know that?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to NFL, explained my Kam and a da
Speaker 1: kin kawaala with you coming up in just a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, Ravens Kicker, he's a Super Bowl champion. Justin
Speaker 1: Tucker is going to be stopping by an awesome conversation
Speaker 1: with him. But I now officially have an expert on
Speaker 1: all things skull posts. I think when you spend an
Speaker 1: hour fifteen minutes on the phone with the Guru of
Speaker 1: goal posts, you're gonna be able to drop some significant knowledge.
Speaker 1: Is there one thing before we get into some of
Speaker 1: the details. One thing from your conversation with Neil Gilman
Speaker 1: from Gilman Gear that stood out to you the most
Speaker 1: just how passionate he was about it. So the Gilman
Speaker 1: family had a textile mill in the town of Gilman, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: back in the eighteen nineties. So Neil Gilman's grandparents were
Speaker 1: running this textile mill and then his dad, Marty, was
Speaker 1: playing football at Yukon. He was an offensive lineman. And
Speaker 1: this is in the nineteen twenties. And Neil tells me that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the nineteen twenties, when you're playing football,
Speaker 1: what do you use as a tackling dummy? You use
Speaker 1: your teammates. You know that there's a blocking dummy. There's
Speaker 1: nothing like that. So his dad is really smart. Dad
Speaker 1: one day comes home to his parents textile mill and
Speaker 1: he grabs this big canvas bag and he starts stuffing
Speaker 1: it with these by products from the mill. He asks
Speaker 1: his parents to sew it back up and it's a
Speaker 1: blocking dummy. So he takes it to his coach and
Speaker 1: he says, hey, coach, I don't want to hit anybody.
Speaker 1: I don't want anybody to hit me while we're practicing.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna hit this, and the coach says to him,
Speaker 1: that's wonderful. Can you make me six more So that
Speaker 1: Marty Gilman finishes playing football, graduates at Yukon, goes home
Speaker 1: to work at the textile mill, and he creates a
Speaker 1: whole new sideline which is football training equipment. And you know,
Speaker 1: he said, this is his calling in life. He went
Speaker 1: on to invent the blocking and the tackling sled, the
Speaker 1: pop up dummy, all of that. Then his son, Neil
Speaker 1: goes on to be a football player at Harvard. He
Speaker 1: was a defensive back, not quite as big as his dad,
Speaker 1: I guess. And then he graduated and he joined the
Speaker 1: company in nineteen seventy seven. And I think I said
Speaker 1: this earlier. His family has been making goal posts for
Speaker 1: the NFL since the early nineteen eighties. At one point,
Speaker 1: Gilman gear made twenty four of the thirty one NFL
Speaker 1: stadium's goal posts. Neil Gilman is the guy that came
Speaker 1: up with the idea of putting a hinge on a
Speaker 1: goal post. Surely you remember, Mike, like back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties when fans would rush the field, You're a
Speaker 1: pack twelve guy. Where I mean Wasn't that a big
Speaker 1: deal at Stanford? Didn't that happen all? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you get the Well, the game obviously between conship is
Speaker 1: certainly the big one. The bands on the field, which
Speaker 1: is a very different call and than we heard earlier
Speaker 1: in the podcast with a pass it hit the goal post, right,
Speaker 1: So you have all these students rushing the field and
Speaker 1: they're trying to take the goal post down. And as
Speaker 1: Neil Gilman says it to me, well, you know what
Speaker 1: if we take away the reason to take the goal
Speaker 1: post down, which is creating a hinge so that the
Speaker 1: groundscrew can come out and immediately sort of topple the uprights,
Speaker 1: well then maybe people won't be trying to attack goal posts.
Speaker 1: And then a few years later, George Wiley, who was
Speaker 1: a retired Pasadena police officer who had turned into an inventor,
Speaker 1: went one step further and he devised a mechanism that
Speaker 1: uses hydraulics to actually bring the goal post down, and
Speaker 1: he can do it in less than ten seconds, and
Speaker 1: so that way you don't even need the two ground
Speaker 1: screw guys to pull it down. And one notable thing though,
Speaker 1: pay attention to this when you watch this season, Mike.
Speaker 1: Those hydraulics make the gooseneck that much bigger to get
Speaker 1: that system attached to the goose neck. So the pads
Speaker 1: around the goose necks in San Francisco and Foxborough are
Speaker 1: much thicker than any place else. And two stadiums in
Speaker 1: the f felled San Francisco and New England both have
Speaker 1: this hydraulic system to their goal posts. So note to
Speaker 1: Patriots fans and forty Niners fans, don't rush the field.
Speaker 1: It just won't work, didn't They don't want anyone rushing
Speaker 1: the field. Safety, safety for everyone involved. But how often
Speaker 1: are these things even replaced? Like I would imagine you've
Speaker 1: got like this four pounds goal post. You stick that
Speaker 1: bad boy into the ground like you're good for decades. Well,
Speaker 1: you should be good for about twenty years. Right. They're
Speaker 1: made of aluminum. The reason that they are made of
Speaker 1: aluminum is so that they don't rust, so that they're
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat lightweight, such that people can actually put
Speaker 1: them up. You don't need a crane to take them
Speaker 1: up and down, which you would with steel. Lightweight four
Speaker 1: pounds I mean relatively speaking as compared to steel, which
Speaker 1: would require so much more rebar and things that I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know so much about. But in any case,
Speaker 1: they are made of aluminum. They don't rust. Now that
Speaker 1: we know that they're powder coated, they shouldn't really fade
Speaker 1: in color. But you know, natural disasters happen, and apparently
Speaker 1: in a place like Miami, where there are a lot
Speaker 1: of hurricanes, those uprights need to be replaced fairly frequently.
Speaker 1: And in a place like Buffalo, where there is indeed
Speaker 1: bad weather and where you know the lake effects, snow
Speaker 1: can do some weird things. Helped create one of the
Speaker 1: improvements in gold posts, and that again this is courtesy
Speaker 1: of Neil Gilman telling me this story. Once there was
Speaker 1: so much snow, moisture got inside the uprights, and then
Speaker 1: the uprights started shaking, vibrating, almost like a tuning fork.
Speaker 1: And so Neil Gilman says that the groundskeeper they're called
Speaker 1: him and said, oh my gosh, the gold post is
Speaker 1: vibrating like a tuning fork. And they figured out what
Speaker 1: had happened is that moisture had gotten inside the upright
Speaker 1: and it would expand and detract, expand to track. That's
Speaker 1: what was making it vibrate. So now gold posts I'll
Speaker 1: have a wheep hole inside the goose neck, you know,
Speaker 1: that part that goes into the round, so that any
Speaker 1: moisture that gets in can actually bleed out. So in theory,
Speaker 1: a goal post should indeed last for twenty years. A
Speaker 1: goal post should be able to withstand seventy mile per
Speaker 1: hour winds. And because it is in four parts, the
Speaker 1: two uprights, so are the parts that are replaced the
Speaker 1: most frequently. So I'm actually glad that you brought up
Speaker 1: the winds because I looked this up because I had
Speaker 1: seen some numbers that indicated anywhere from like seventy five
Speaker 1: to a hundred miles an hour is what those goal
Speaker 1: posts should be able to withstand. So I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: what happens if tornado comes through? Does that thing going
Speaker 1: to rip down one of those goal posts? I didn't
Speaker 1: even realize there were different categories of tornadoes A F one,
Speaker 1: F two, three, four, and five. The low end one
Speaker 1: is the F one, and that just kind of a
Speaker 1: peels roofs off of you know, some homes maybe just
Speaker 1: like not completely off but can move some cars slightly
Speaker 1: on the road. And F one a moderate tornado is
Speaker 1: roughly seventy three two hundred and twelve miles per hour,
Speaker 1: so goal post should be okay. Once you get to
Speaker 1: F two and greater adity, there's pretty good chance you're
Speaker 1: not going to see that thing stuck in the ground. Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's making me think of two things. One, have
Speaker 1: you previously worked at the Weather Channel? No, I would
Speaker 1: be awful at that anything green screen, Like I keen.
Speaker 1: Even sometimes when I do new ships for NFL Network
Speaker 1: and I have to straighten my tie and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at my monitor view, I'm always going in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: So I would be the world's worst weather person. But
Speaker 1: I was sort of fascinated by it. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: very fair. And now we know that you're not aiming
Speaker 1: for Jim Cantory's job where someone has to hold onto
Speaker 1: your leg and you stand in I'm very content being
Speaker 1: a co host of NFL explained with you. Which leads
Speaker 1: me to my other question about goal posts. If they're
Speaker 1: not getting replaced all that often, I would imagine the signal,
Speaker 1: like just even moving something that large logistically is you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like you know, I can order one of
Speaker 1: these things on Prime and next day it's they're ready
Speaker 1: to go. There's got to be some nuance here well,
Speaker 1: for sure, And there's two pieces to this. You talk
Speaker 1: about weather. So in general, the way that Gilman Gear
Speaker 1: does it is that they have the parts. They have
Speaker 1: aluminum always there, and if they needed to, if they
Speaker 1: had all the ingredients, as Neil Gilman put it to me,
Speaker 1: then they could indeed make a goal post in about
Speaker 1: three days. And of course you have a lot of
Speaker 1: experts working on it. You have your welders, you have
Speaker 1: your role benders, and the secret sauce and all of this,
Speaker 1: of course is the bending, because you have to make
Speaker 1: sure that you have the perfect contours inside the pipe
Speaker 1: and that everything is at the exact right angle. And
Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, your inches, your measurements better
Speaker 1: all be perfect. You mentioned whether so. Neil Gilman's actually
Speaker 1: said that the quickest he had to turn around a
Speaker 1: goal post was when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: as we all know, the Superdome was turned into an
Speaker 1: evacuation shelter, the Saints had moved to San Antonio, and
Speaker 1: then when New Orleans was coming back for that very
Speaker 1: first game of the two thousand six season, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: nobody real is that the goal posts weren't necessarily in
Speaker 1: pristine shape, and this is how important they are. It
Speaker 1: really mattered to the NFL that everything looked as beautiful
Speaker 1: as possible, and so there was this big rush to
Speaker 1: get the Super Dome ready. And at the time the
Speaker 1: NFL wanted new goal posts, shiny new goal post and
Speaker 1: Neil Gilman said he got a call from a vice
Speaker 1: president there. He was told, we don't care what it cost,
Speaker 1: but we need you to express it. And so fortunately
Speaker 1: they had the parts in three days. They put it
Speaker 1: together and yes they did indeed need a very very
Speaker 1: special truck. But once Neil Gilman had to send goal
Speaker 1: post to Australia for an NFL game there that was
Speaker 1: a little bit different. That was sort of an unmovable
Speaker 1: what do I call it? It was like it was
Speaker 1: mounted on a steel plate, like a roll away goal post.
Speaker 1: You know how you have like a rollaway basketball hoop
Speaker 1: in your driveway. They made a goal post like that.
Speaker 1: They shipped it via air freight and Neil kilb actually said,
Speaker 1: I think we left them there. There's no idea where
Speaker 1: they are now. They also airfraided the first goal post
Speaker 1: to London the first game that was at Wimbley Stadium
Speaker 1: in London. Gilman gear did that and uh Neil Gilman
Speaker 1: said he actually went out there just to make sure
Speaker 1: that they were set up correctly. But you know, when
Speaker 1: you talk about replacing goal posts, part of why we
Speaker 1: are going to talk to Justin Tucker is that Justin
Speaker 1: Tucker forced the replacement of every single upright in the NFL.
Speaker 1: You do know this, right, Oh, I'm aware, and we're
Speaker 1: going to relive the moment that sparked all of that
Speaker 1: when he joins us in a couple of minutes. But
Speaker 1: you're kind of touching on this, right. So thirty ft
Speaker 1: two then five more, that's got to be a real
Speaker 1: hassle to add those extra feet across the board around
Speaker 1: the NFL. So really quickly, let's tell everybody the story
Speaker 1: so that Justin doesn't have to waste his time telling
Speaker 1: us exactly this. It's a Raven's Patriots game, two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve season, and he kicks not one of his prettiest kicks,
Speaker 1: and the ball goes so high that there seems to
Speaker 1: be some sort of question as it's over the upright
Speaker 1: whether it would have been inside the upright if it
Speaker 1: extended or if it was wide. Now, Patriots coach Bill Belichick,
Speaker 1: you know what he thought. He thought it was wide,
Speaker 1: and as you said earlier, he lost his mind over it.
Speaker 1: So Bill Belichick and the Patriots proposed a rule change,
Speaker 1: and they said, instead of thirty foot uprights, let's make
Speaker 1: them forty. He wanted them ten ft higher. So the
Speaker 1: NFL called Neil Gilman and said can we do this?
Speaker 1: And Mike, do you know what the answer was? Well,
Speaker 1: the answer was we could, but it would cost way
Speaker 1: more money because the way that the goose neck is
Speaker 1: in the ground, the weight that the crossbar can support,
Speaker 1: you could only go up five additional feet. If you
Speaker 1: wanted to replace the entire field goal and dig new
Speaker 1: holes and put in more concrete and whatever that whole
Speaker 1: process of creating a post is, then sure you could
Speaker 1: go forty feet. But if you wanted to leave the
Speaker 1: goose neck and leave the crossbar and just replace the uprights,
Speaker 1: then the engineer said you could only go up five ft,
Speaker 1: five ft more from the original thirty. So that was
Speaker 1: the compromise. Five ft. It is we're all about the
Speaker 1: Benjamin's right. So the Tucker rule officially kind of in place,
Speaker 1: and we'll actually hear more about this from Justin Tucker,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to classify it as a wardrobe malfunction
Speaker 1: kind of that change the course of history. Only a
Speaker 1: few people know the story until now. So a Super
Speaker 1: Bowl champion, the Ravens kicker Tucker, is gonna be joining us,
Speaker 1: so'll explain what happened in what is arguably one of
Speaker 1: the most iconic kicks in NFL history. This podcast is
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Speaker 1: talker for the wish favorite. Wilford took his helmet off
Speaker 1: spre right for the official. This one go over the
Speaker 1: upright and was really close. Well, I'll tell you why
Speaker 1: the upbrings extend through the heavens, so be kicking over
Speaker 1: the top of it. It's good. One of those magical
Speaker 1: moments in football, especially if you were a Ravens fan,
Speaker 1: to hear the call in that tent twelve, that game
Speaker 1: winning field goal against the Patriots of Super Bowl champion
Speaker 1: of four time Pro Bowler the Ravens kicker Justin Tucker
Speaker 1: who put it through the sort of through the uprights.
Speaker 1: He joins us right now, just to appreciate you giving
Speaker 1: us some time. Man, you tell me, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember the details of all your kicks, That
Speaker 1: one to me sort of stands out. But what do
Speaker 1: you remember from that ball game and certainly those final
Speaker 1: moments It definitely went through first and form both U. Hey, man, Like,
Speaker 1: if if one of the worst kicks in my career
Speaker 1: was a game winner on Sunday Night football, I'll totally
Speaker 1: just have to settle with that, that's okay, But that
Speaker 1: one in particular was definitely like a funny kick. Came
Speaker 1: off my foot a little awkwardly. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know this, but on my drive step with my
Speaker 1: right foot too, you know, jump into the ball, my
Speaker 1: shoe like split in half, like the soule split off
Speaker 1: the bottom of the shoe, so it just kind of
Speaker 1: like dangling there. And I think that might have made
Speaker 1: my foot position at ball contact just a little bit
Speaker 1: more awkward, thus sending the ball right from where I
Speaker 1: was aiming it. But I mean, here's the thing. Only
Speaker 1: two people in the world know exactly where that ball went,
Speaker 1: because we had like the best vantage point and that
Speaker 1: Sam Cook who was holding the ball, and myself, and
Speaker 1: the TV copy makes it look like that ball went
Speaker 1: over the upright or almost even wide. But I can
Speaker 1: assure you it was good by about six inches, which
Speaker 1: is way below our standard. You know, we want to
Speaker 1: split everything right down the middle. But I can't assure
Speaker 1: you that that kick was in fact through the uprights,
Speaker 1: just an in is in first of all. Second of all,
Speaker 1: I really hope you got a new shoe deal out
Speaker 1: of that, or at least have a new shoe acre.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to uh disparage the manufacturers of
Speaker 1: the shoes because you know, it was just a flukey incident.
Speaker 1: But we're all set. I appreciate the guys putting no
Speaker 1: swushes on my feet right well, and there's a plug
Speaker 1: right there, you know, even though I don't actually have
Speaker 1: a formal deal with them, you know, but like maybe
Speaker 1: you guys can help me broker deal with those guys
Speaker 1: in organ We will do this. We will make sure
Speaker 1: that they download this episode. Whole takeaway, right, the whole
Speaker 1: takeaway from all of this, though, Justin, is that you've
Speaker 1: got so under Bill belichick skin that he wanted to
Speaker 1: rip up the way kicking has been measured for decades.
Speaker 1: What is the feeling knowing that you compelled a major
Speaker 1: rule change. I think it was about time, you know.
Speaker 1: To be perfectly honest, He's absolutely right that the goal
Speaker 1: post needed to be extended higher just due to the
Speaker 1: nature of the evolution of kicking over time. I mean,
Speaker 1: guys are hitting the ball with more force and more height,
Speaker 1: and as are just continuing to get better and better.
Speaker 1: So I mean it was only a matter of time
Speaker 1: until something needed to be done. But to me, it
Speaker 1: makes all the sense, the whole idea of the uprights
Speaker 1: extending into the heavens, and if a ball goes over
Speaker 1: the upright, it's considered good and it makes sense. But
Speaker 1: if you can just kind of take a little bit
Speaker 1: of the guesswork out of it for the officials, then
Speaker 1: you might as well make that change. Just you know,
Speaker 1: you strike me as a technical kicker, someone who knows
Speaker 1: every single minute detail with your craft, the goal post
Speaker 1: in particular. You know, I've heard other athletes and other
Speaker 1: sports talk about equipment, their manufactured, they're all supposed to
Speaker 1: be identical. Is that your read on goal posts when
Speaker 1: you go to the various stadiums. We definitely emphasize being
Speaker 1: a detail oriented here when it comes to, you know,
Speaker 1: making kicks. Every little thing does matter, Nothing is inconsequential
Speaker 1: as far as we're concerned. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: field is a hundred yards long, and it's fifty three
Speaker 1: and a third or whatever the number is yards wide,
Speaker 1: and the hash marks are always where they are. You
Speaker 1: pick a target line in between those uprights based on
Speaker 1: the wind, based on the field conditions, and then you
Speaker 1: aim at that target point as central as possible. The
Speaker 1: uprights just kind of happened to be there. And granted,
Speaker 1: they are important because you have to hit the ball
Speaker 1: through them to get credit for anything that you're doing
Speaker 1: out there if you're a kicker. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about my job descript
Speaker 1: and it's so black and white. You know, the kicks
Speaker 1: are either do it or they're not. And obviously the
Speaker 1: goal posts are a determining factor. But I'd rather be
Speaker 1: less familiar with the goal post than more, because if
Speaker 1: you get to know the goal post too well, then
Speaker 1: you know you're doing the balls off of them, and
Speaker 1: that's no fun for anybody. I mean, that's a very
Speaker 1: very fair point. And it's funny because I've actually talked
Speaker 1: to some kickers who can tell if the crossbar is
Speaker 1: an inch too short or if the upright leans in
Speaker 1: a little bit. But having said that, I mean, are
Speaker 1: there any stadiums where the goal posts are kind of
Speaker 1: the wonkiest, where it does feel like the wind shakes
Speaker 1: the uprights too much or you have become two from
Speaker 1: elier with the uprights? I mean, I want to say,
Speaker 1: league wide, they are the same, you know, and they
Speaker 1: have to be right. I mean, Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you guys are bringing up some points. Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't have to, you know, study the structural integrity of
Speaker 1: the uprights every time I go to a new stadium,
Speaker 1: but justin I don't know. In Cleveland, it looks like
Speaker 1: those upright shake a lot. Well they do, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's December, it's the A S. C. North. I mean,
Speaker 1: the wind is whipping around anywhere we happen to play.
Speaker 1: I feel like any time I happen to take the field,
Speaker 1: it can be like it can be today at practice
Speaker 1: an hour ago. It can be totally calm and still
Speaker 1: the whole practice, and then as soon as you know,
Speaker 1: the field goal unit is called onto the field, those
Speaker 1: little flags at the top the upright, all of a
Speaker 1: sudden they just start moving around and it's like clockwork
Speaker 1: every single time. But but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know you were still aiming in the center of
Speaker 1: the uprights, even if they are being jostled around by
Speaker 1: the wind. Justine, you're not territorial with the goalposts, are you.
Speaker 1: Like if someone happens to be celebrating near your goal post,
Speaker 1: or maybe just doing a little bit of dunk celebration,
Speaker 1: that doesn't irk you doesn't. Absolutely not. Okay, that is
Speaker 1: not a thought that has ever crossed my mind. They're
Speaker 1: just a part of the field. I'm glad that they
Speaker 1: continue to be a part of the field. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got some TV analysts that say they want to
Speaker 1: rip them down and take kickers out of football. So
Speaker 1: you know, maybe from that standpoint, I'll be territorial of
Speaker 1: the upright, not from opposing players dumping over the goal post,
Speaker 1: but sports media members who want to figuratively take them down. Well,
Speaker 1: what did you think last year? Surely you saw this
Speaker 1: right when Oklahoma States threw up on its video board
Speaker 1: yellow bars when the Texas kicker was kicking. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: low Kia savage move. But I kind of love it though,
Speaker 1: Um really I love it from like the competitive standpoint,
Speaker 1: Like is it ethical? Probably not. I mean, like it's
Speaker 1: already tough enough to make kicks as it is, Like,
Speaker 1: why are we gonna throw up some of diffal uprights?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's maybe, I mean, who knows, maybe
Speaker 1: it is legal, um, because it's not like the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. I mean, you want guys to do well,
Speaker 1: you know you don't. You don't want to like just
Speaker 1: outwardly root against them, you know, and you know, like
Speaker 1: the like, just let the players and the coaches settle
Speaker 1: it out on the field. You don't need the video
Speaker 1: department in the booth throwing anything into the mix that
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be there. Mike, you can totally see
Speaker 1: Justin calling up the M and T video board operator
Speaker 1: after this, right like hey, we were hey, we would
Speaker 1: we would never It's tough enough to make kicks in
Speaker 1: our stadium for for anybody else, you know, like like hey,
Speaker 1: like I said, let the players in the coaches just
Speaker 1: settle it on the field. What about that, which is
Speaker 1: the toughest stadium in the NFL to kick in? In
Speaker 1: your mind? I've said this before. I do believe our
Speaker 1: stadium is the toughest place to make kicks in the
Speaker 1: National Football League. I don't know if you guys know,
Speaker 1: but like the way the schedule is kind of constructed
Speaker 1: year in and year out, if you play with one
Speaker 1: team for eight consecutive years, you will complete your thirty
Speaker 1: two stadium tour of the NFL. Like you will play
Speaker 1: in every single stadium. Now, granted, a couple get built
Speaker 1: here and there, or a team may you know relocate.
Speaker 1: So at this point, the only stadium I have not
Speaker 1: kicked in is so Fi Stadium out in l A.
Speaker 1: But I've been very fortunate to kick in every single
Speaker 1: stadium that the league's teams have to offer, and I
Speaker 1: would the toughest stadiums to kick in ore, you know,
Speaker 1: mostly in our division. I mean I would just say,
Speaker 1: like every single one in our division, and then, uh,
Speaker 1: Buffalo's Stadium is a really really tough place to kick
Speaker 1: those lakes, is what it is? Just the last one
Speaker 1: from uh, the last one from us. You said that
Speaker 1: you did like the idea of the uprights going taller.
Speaker 1: Is there any other change you would like to make
Speaker 1: to the goal posts? Um, I've heard the idea of
Speaker 1: narrowing the goal post, and maybe that would create an
Speaker 1: advantage for some over others. But it's already tough enough
Speaker 1: to make kicks, you know what I'm saying. Like the
Speaker 1: hallmark of a true professional in any aspect of sport
Speaker 1: is they make their jobs look easy because they do
Speaker 1: them exceedingly well with a high level of consistency. Right,
Speaker 1: And I've heard people say to me before, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you make it look easy out there. It's it's never easy.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of a lot of hard work
Speaker 1: coming together in a positive way. So as far as
Speaker 1: changes to the uprights, like, do we need to make
Speaker 1: it any harder, I don't think so. Do you need
Speaker 1: to make it any easier? Absolutely not. I think those
Speaker 1: strange yellow uprights are perfect just the way they are. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll take them. They're beautiful to see on the football field.
Speaker 1: And Justin, if you, I'm disappointed that you didn't get
Speaker 1: the shoe deal that you were hoping for, especially after
Speaker 1: all the attention Zion Williamson had when he was at
Speaker 1: Duke and he split his sneaker open, uh during a game.
Speaker 1: I feel like there would have been something like that
Speaker 1: for you. That was wild. Justin, We're gonna work on
Speaker 1: this for you. We're gonna get this done. We're okay.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm open. I'm open to the idea. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe I could be Maybe I could be a Jordan guy.
Speaker 1: I just I bought like my first parent this offseason.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like, you know, I gotta keep up with
Speaker 1: the swag of this team. You know, I'm the thirty
Speaker 1: one year old dinosaur dad. It feels like just behind
Speaker 1: Sam Cook, you know he's been I think he's going
Speaker 1: into his forty seventh year in the NFL. We uh,
Speaker 1: I got to keep up with all these guys man
Speaker 1: Like my swag has got to be taken to the
Speaker 1: next level. And maybe you guys could broken the deal
Speaker 1: with the Jordan guys. I don't know. I love how
Speaker 1: you go from no deal to like the best possible
Speaker 1: do that you could have with Jordan Brand. We will
Speaker 1: work on that. Hey, justin appreciate the insight and the
Speaker 1: time my friend, and and looking forward to having another
Speaker 1: conversation with you more on the specifics of of kicking
Speaker 1: down the road sounds great. Thanks for having you got
Speaker 1: thanks just so there are no going that is good
Speaker 1: water performers. Tell me the truth, Mike, you do know
Speaker 1: more about goalposts now, right? Are you kidding me? Like
Speaker 1: the education that I just gapped as epic and would
Speaker 1: love to hear any kicking stories that people have, maybe
Speaker 1: their best field goal moment, their worst one, something that
Speaker 1: sort of resonates with them. You can hit us up
Speaker 1: on Twitter at my underscore yam at a kick kabwala
Speaker 1: and of course used that hashtag. NFL explained. I will
Speaker 1: leave you with this have you ever kicked a field goal? Ad?
Speaker 1: Can we save that for another episode? We totally can.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you mine because I had to do it
Speaker 1: in Salt Lake City at a Utah football practice. I
Speaker 1: was there and they had me fielding punts one year.
Speaker 1: It became kind of like a running joke. Uh. Kyle Whittingham,
Speaker 1: who's still their head coach. He had Dennis Erickson on
Speaker 1: his staff, and of course Dennis's, you know, Hall of famer,
Speaker 1: a guy that coached the NFL a bunch of years,
Speaker 1: coach in college a bunch of years. He's talking smack
Speaker 1: to me. He said, you can't go and kick this
Speaker 1: field goal, And of course they They literally pushed me
Speaker 1: out there. The team is circled around me like a
Speaker 1: half circle. They set it up. My good friend Anthony
Speaker 1: Heron with the bad snap, my really good friend Jogi
Speaker 1: Roth with a good hold, put it right through the
Speaker 1: uprights from no it was really from twenty five. But
Speaker 1: the point is I got it through. I mean it
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a worm burner, but it
Speaker 1: got through a d D. And that, to me is
Speaker 1: the best field goal moment that I can possibly think of.
Speaker 1: It's a lady I you know what, I feel like
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. If there's not video, there is video proof,
Speaker 1: and I will send you that video proof. Believe me,
Speaker 1: we got that one of it. There's enough bloopers of
Speaker 1: me that if there's something positive, I think I might
Speaker 1: even have that one on my phone because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hold on to that one forever. But it looks if
Speaker 1: anyone's got a cool video, I would love to see
Speaker 1: some of those once again. Use that hashtag NFL Explain.
Speaker 1: You can follow the NFL Explained podcast wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. And always appreciate you guys taking part in
Speaker 1: our conversation and send us your questions. We will do
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