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Speaker 1: dot com. Wednesday, in Indianapolis at the NFL Combine, Amy
Speaker 1: Wells is here, Coach Dave McGinnis is here. Rhett Bryan
Speaker 1: is here. I'm Mike Keith. We're glad to have you
Speaker 1: with us. And it's heating up. It is heating up.
Speaker 1: But Amy just made the comment there seems to be
Speaker 1: a lot more activity in here today and that's to
Speaker 1: be expected because Thursdays when they get on the field.
Speaker 1: But last night it started to move around. Interviews are
Speaker 1: going on. But as the week progresses, it will start
Speaker 1: to pick up and then it will decidedly slow down.
Speaker 1: In the last day, a lot of people will vacate.
Speaker 1: Other than and that's just the way it is. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of people will vacate, But right now we're
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of the storm now. Rhet Brian
Speaker 1: ran Carthon spoke at the podium yesterday. He also spoke
Speaker 1: to us on the OTP grades for him overall just
Speaker 1: outstanding and talking to people with how he sort of
Speaker 1: handled himself and handled some of the tough questions. I
Speaker 1: think the line I liked the most is that he said,
Speaker 1: we're not going to discuss contract negotiations publicly. You know
Speaker 1: this is something this is not how this works. Um.
Speaker 1: He did talk about Ryan Tannehill, gave him a vote
Speaker 1: of confidence, and I think that was something interesting that
Speaker 1: you figured he was going to have to answer. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he did really well. What jumped out to
Speaker 1: you Amy about the Tannehill comments from ran Carthon that
Speaker 1: they were noncommittal in in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: So on one hand, obviously he was one percent correct.
Speaker 1: He is under contract for the Tennesseeans. He is our
Speaker 1: quarterback as it stands right now. I think that he
Speaker 1: said a lot of great things about what he has
Speaker 1: done for this team, what he is able to do,
Speaker 1: his talent level, his level of trust in Ryan Tannehill,
Speaker 1: and what he's able to provide as a quarterback. He
Speaker 1: also didn't say anything definitive, and that's the thing that
Speaker 1: we're reading all over the place now is that Ryan
Speaker 1: Tannehill is the guy forever. That's not really what he said.
Speaker 1: What he talked about was very cut and dry. This
Speaker 1: is the reality of the situation. We're excited that that
Speaker 1: is the reality of the situation. He in no way
Speaker 1: said anything disparaging about Ryan Tanner A vote of confidence
Speaker 1: one percent, And I don't think that there's anybody who
Speaker 1: has been around Bryan Tannehill who would say anything disparaging
Speaker 1: about him. I think the four of us would all agree.
Speaker 1: If you're putting a percentage on Tannehill returning, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty strong percentage. Okay, yeah, it's it's high. I think
Speaker 1: the expectation that most people have is that that's what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. He's going to be the quarterback in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. But Dave McGinnis, he left the door open,
Speaker 1: and he's left the door open on several things because
Speaker 1: and this is what I think is already showing a
Speaker 1: lot of maturity about Rancarthon is he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: back himself in a corner. Mike, You're so right. He
Speaker 1: just handled it very, very professionally. Amy put it exactly right.
Speaker 1: He stated the obvious right now, and he is not
Speaker 1: in a position to show his hand on anything that
Speaker 1: he wants to do here right now, at this juncture,
Speaker 1: at this point, in the game. There's no reason for
Speaker 1: him to do anything other than he did. But he
Speaker 1: handled it very well. He wasn't nervous, he wasn't like
Speaker 1: he was hiding anything, which he wasn't. But he also
Speaker 1: very strictly said, as you know as rheta, there's some
Speaker 1: things I can't talk about right now, and we won't
Speaker 1: as an organization. We won't air these things in public
Speaker 1: right now because there are decisions to be made that
Speaker 1: it's important that we get everything lined up before we
Speaker 1: make decisions. Can I share my favorite ran Carthon ism.
Speaker 1: We've heard him say it a couple different times now,
Speaker 1: and I've never really gotten to talk about how much
Speaker 1: I love it. When he speaks on his philosophy, he
Speaker 1: says that we are not collectors of talent. We are
Speaker 1: building a football team. And that brings me so much
Speaker 1: joy because you see teams that you very clearly look
Speaker 1: at and you say, they just want all of the
Speaker 1: good players, but not always do all of the good
Speaker 1: players fit together and make a cohesive or frankly successful team.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's something that during the offseason
Speaker 1: we all look around, we say, WHOA look at that team,
Speaker 1: look at everything they've done, and then they go three
Speaker 1: and fourteen, and it's like, what happened? They were collectors
Speaker 1: of talent, they weren't building a football team. And it
Speaker 1: brings me so much joy that he continues to reiterate
Speaker 1: that that is the goal, because I'm not interested in
Speaker 1: a monstar's team. I am interested in a sustainable, long
Speaker 1: term football team. This sucessful. Another thing I took away
Speaker 1: from his pressor and conversation here at this table is
Speaker 1: that he had all of the position coaches for the
Speaker 1: Titans give him fifteen to twenty cut ups of what
Speaker 1: they're looking for and the techniques that they're trying to implement. Now,
Speaker 1: Mike Vrabel talked to us about that as well, saying
Speaker 1: that hey, listen, you know, let's not go crazy with that.
Speaker 1: We want to have collectively the same kinds of ideas
Speaker 1: in the approach. Not only do the personnel we're looking for,
Speaker 1: but the teaching approach you have led us very well
Speaker 1: into our first interview, our talk with Mike Vrabel, a
Speaker 1: chance to discuss several things with the Titans head coach.
Speaker 1: Here's Mike Vrabel with us from Indy on the OTP. Mike,
Speaker 1: you've been here since the weekend, a lot going on
Speaker 1: for you with the competition committee. What came out of
Speaker 1: all that that you were pleased with that you'll take
Speaker 1: to the owners meetings at the end of March. Well,
Speaker 1: still have another day I think, or at least some
Speaker 1: conversations that will go into really just want to try
Speaker 1: to get some clarifications, uh, just so that our fans
Speaker 1: and everybody understands we're trying to make the officiating as
Speaker 1: consistent as possible. Right now, there's there's a range, and
Speaker 1: we feel like that there should be a tighter target
Speaker 1: area between groups of officials, right group or official one
Speaker 1: to seventeen, those crews should be a little tighter than
Speaker 1: what their what their pattern is and how everybody sees
Speaker 1: it and hopefully he sees it the same. So we're
Speaker 1: trying to trying to do that, trying to clean up
Speaker 1: what replay assists looks like, um, but there's so much
Speaker 1: more as it's players safety and welfare and trying to
Speaker 1: take these helmet impacts and contacts and try to get
Speaker 1: them down and always try to get them down and
Speaker 1: continue to figure out and decide what's what's realistic and
Speaker 1: what's what's best for the game, what's best for the players, um,
Speaker 1: the technology of football, the future of football, international program.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's a lot, just more than than
Speaker 1: what goes on on the three hours on Sunday. How
Speaker 1: much do those conversations, having them now during the off
Speaker 1: season get your brain churning for things maybe you might
Speaker 1: want to tweak within your own system. I think you're
Speaker 1: always looking to do things, um, within the rules, um,
Speaker 1: but also to try to gain and whatever advantage that
Speaker 1: you possibly could, whether that's formationally. There's you know a
Speaker 1: lot of conversation about the the push on the quarterback
Speaker 1: sneak and you know where our tolerances is, you know,
Speaker 1: for for that play and what we think that that
Speaker 1: may you know, look like, or um, just how we
Speaker 1: want to try to tackle the quarterback. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Mike Tomlin put it best. We're
Speaker 1: always tell them what they can do. We need to
Speaker 1: tell them what they can do and try to give
Speaker 1: great examples of that so that we can reasonably teach it.
Speaker 1: Because it's hard to be in a position where you say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know when a player asked, well, coach, what
Speaker 1: should I be able to do? Or what can I
Speaker 1: do here. I don't ever want to be in a
Speaker 1: position where I say, I don't know, coach used as
Speaker 1: a second time around the block for you on the
Speaker 1: competition committee. So is there something in the second lap
Speaker 1: around that maybe you didn't think about in year one
Speaker 1: or is it a year to year basis based on
Speaker 1: things that happened to you situationally in games. I think
Speaker 1: it's just, you know, I never want to be a
Speaker 1: part of a group or at input if it just
Speaker 1: applies to the Tennessee Titans. I don't want that. I
Speaker 1: want to try to have an open mind and think
Speaker 1: about what's best for thirty two clubs, what's best for
Speaker 1: every player and every fan, and not just say well,
Speaker 1: we had this happened to us, so we should you know.
Speaker 1: Talking about the tablets, our tablets went down out on
Speaker 1: the sideline in Washington, and how the rule was written
Speaker 1: in the game manual was that in less both the
Speaker 1: coach's box and the and the field tablets were out,
Speaker 1: than Washington would still be able to use Theirs didn't
Speaker 1: think much of it at the time, just said hey,
Speaker 1: we'll adjust, we'll figure it out, we'll make it work,
Speaker 1: like this is what it is, but you look at it,
Speaker 1: and you know that came up, and we said, well,
Speaker 1: that probably makes a little bit more sense just to
Speaker 1: say if they don't one side doesn't have field tablets
Speaker 1: for a quarter, well then we should at least take
Speaker 1: the other ones until those are back up and running.
Speaker 1: So you know, that was a case where something applied
Speaker 1: to us. I didn't even think about it until the
Speaker 1: game ops crew. I said, oh, yeah, I guess they
Speaker 1: did go out in Washington. But it was like, well,
Speaker 1: we'll just keep it moving and just things like that.
Speaker 1: I was watching the Super Bowl and I had one
Speaker 1: question that I had to ask you, and that is
Speaker 1: you have talked about and you've corrected me multiple times,
Speaker 1: especially in the preseason, when I talk about points of emphasis.
Speaker 1: You said, there should not be points of emphasis. We
Speaker 1: should call the rule book. When the play happened late
Speaker 1: in the game on the hold, and there was controversy
Speaker 1: from the start with television raising the point that, oh,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't call that at this point in the game.
Speaker 1: You should let them play. It's hard to see it
Speaker 1: in that way more or less is what the comment
Speaker 1: was in your mind, based on your feeling about we
Speaker 1: should call the rule book. I don't think it should
Speaker 1: matter what the down and distance, So you think it
Speaker 1: was absolutely the right call. I just am telling you
Speaker 1: that whether I agree or disagree with the call, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you that there's only one way to officiate, and
Speaker 1: that's to make sure that it is what the rules are.
Speaker 1: And if it's on the one yard line or at midfield,
Speaker 1: or if it's first and ten or third and one
Speaker 1: or fourth and one, or there's two minutes left in
Speaker 1: the game or there's thirteen minutes left in the first quarter,
Speaker 1: I just feel like that's the only way to get
Speaker 1: this and women to do their job and feel confident
Speaker 1: in officiating and taking out the interpretation. Well, do they
Speaker 1: want me to know? This is what they want you
Speaker 1: to do. And if you see the mechanisms, you see
Speaker 1: the restriction, and you feel strongly about it, then then
Speaker 1: throw the flag like that that's the only way that
Speaker 1: you can ultimately get to where we've started this conversation,
Speaker 1: was that to narrow the gap between the ones that
Speaker 1: are called and the ones that want or that weren't,
Speaker 1: or the ones that were called and we didn't want called.
Speaker 1: Like that's what there's two different types of you know,
Speaker 1: the grading scale is the calls that were missed or
Speaker 1: the ones that were no calls that we want called,
Speaker 1: or the ones that were called and we would rather
Speaker 1: let go. So two things can be true. It's disappointing
Speaker 1: that that play had such an impact, and yet it
Speaker 1: was a foul and it had to be called. That
Speaker 1: those both can be true. That it's an unfortunate time
Speaker 1: to create a penalty where a Jersey's tugged their quarterbacks
Speaker 1: looking at that vicinity. Not that that's part of the role,
Speaker 1: but you know, I mean there's certainly a lot of
Speaker 1: things that go into it, so that I don't think
Speaker 1: you can officiate based on other circumstances. You mentioned player safety,
Speaker 1: and there's been talk about expanding use of the guardian caps.
Speaker 1: After one year, a full season of using them throughout
Speaker 1: training camp, using them throughout the course of the season,
Speaker 1: what did you think of them? What was the response
Speaker 1: from your players? Do you think that was an effective tool?
Speaker 1: I do. I think the numbers would tell us that
Speaker 1: it was the number of concussions that we had in
Speaker 1: training camp. I don't want to say zero, but I
Speaker 1: think it was pretty darn close and there was no pushback.
Speaker 1: I think Initially they maybe questioned it, but in the
Speaker 1: long run, when I said, hey, just put them back
Speaker 1: on for practice, like this is what we're going to do,
Speaker 1: no player questioned it. No player. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that that's important that we're looking out for their best interest.
Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes you relax in practice and it's it's, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, something that happens and you catch a hit
Speaker 1: from the side where you really weren't expecting it, and
Speaker 1: that can protect that and that's a significant amount of
Speaker 1: impact when you talk about reducing it fifteen to twenty
Speaker 1: percent if both players have a guardian cap on. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the biggest restriction was just the equipment room
Speaker 1: and their ability to have to take them off and
Speaker 1: put them back on. So I want to thank Joey
Speaker 1: his staff for working hard to get those off for
Speaker 1: the games and for us to travel, you know, and
Speaker 1: then putting them back on. I think that'll be easier
Speaker 1: in the new model. It sounds like that's something that's
Speaker 1: going to change and help the process. This week is
Speaker 1: one of the better parts for you being able to
Speaker 1: sit down in front of these young men to kind
Speaker 1: of peek behind the curtain see who they are. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the first opportunity. Sometimes times maybe we've had some
Speaker 1: exposure with him at the Senior Bowl. Um, but but
Speaker 1: it's it's eighteen minutes or fifteen minutes in an informal
Speaker 1: setting for them to earn another opportunity and in my mind, uh,
Speaker 1: to really pique my interest for me to follow up.
Speaker 1: And you know, haven't been able to watch every single player,
Speaker 1: so this is an opportunity to give me reason to
Speaker 1: go watch, um whatever player that maybe man I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed that visit and could see him being on the
Speaker 1: football team. Let's see what type of player he is
Speaker 1: and and start to build a profile. So that that's critical.
Speaker 1: We got that started last night. We'll have those again
Speaker 1: tonight tomorrow morning. Um. But that we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: off to a good start. You're doing that with a
Speaker 1: new partner. Yeah, and Ran Carthon, how has that relationship
Speaker 1: built over the last five weeks six weeks? I think
Speaker 1: it's built been built great. Um. We haven't had a
Speaker 1: whole lot of you know, we work through some some
Speaker 1: things with some contracts. But I think as we start
Speaker 1: to blend our staffs and to try to get those
Speaker 1: two staffs to kind of understand and work together. I'm
Speaker 1: excited about that that started and been going on here
Speaker 1: at the Combine. We'll work through free agency, continue to
Speaker 1: work and look at the roster and how we want
Speaker 1: to shape this thing. Knowing that it'll look vastly different
Speaker 1: in training camp or in September than it does today.
Speaker 1: Understand that. But it's it's been good. It's been really
Speaker 1: good just to you know, a couple new faces with
Speaker 1: him and chat and so that's been really good to
Speaker 1: kind of hear their perspective and start to work. Some
Speaker 1: new faces within your coaching staff as well, and some
Speaker 1: people kind of changed around with some different roles and responsibilities.
Speaker 1: How do you take this week to kind of understand
Speaker 1: what it is that they're looking for in players in
Speaker 1: terms of people who will be in their individual rooms
Speaker 1: and kind of their style and preferences. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: theirs their preferences to be our preferences, and I and I,
Speaker 1: you know, appreciate their own opinions, um as does Ran,
Speaker 1: but there has to be a structure where you're starting
Speaker 1: and about the type of player that we're looking for
Speaker 1: and who they are as a person, what their play
Speaker 1: style is, what their ability is, UH, their their willingness
Speaker 1: to their capacity to learn, not only that, but their
Speaker 1: willingness to learn how how hard they work at it UM.
Speaker 1: And so we've we've started that, We've done that and
Speaker 1: had conversations about that back at UH Saint Thomas Sports Park.
Speaker 1: UH had got to sit down with you know, probably
Speaker 1: four position coaches last night for a for an hour
Speaker 1: and fifty minutes, UH in an informal setting. We went
Speaker 1: through a lot of front seven players that we were
Speaker 1: able to get downstairs, UH in an informal setting, and
Speaker 1: it was really cool to be a part of that,
Speaker 1: to watch them work and and UH, you know, bringing
Speaker 1: guys through. Bobby was meeting with a d lineman just
Speaker 1: because Big T was meeting with somebody else, and Crowe
Speaker 1: was meeting with an inside linebacker because Bobby was meeting
Speaker 1: with an inside linebacker. And I really really was impressed
Speaker 1: by by what they were able to do last night.
Speaker 1: That was their only opportunity, the way that the combines
Speaker 1: set up, That was their only opportunity for those front
Speaker 1: seven players to meet informally with coaches. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was an oversight or just a scheduling,
Speaker 1: but every other position group has two opportunities with their
Speaker 1: position coaches to meet on an informal basis. You know, it's, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to meet with Amy after she meets with
Speaker 1: the Chargers, or Mike after he meets with the Bengals
Speaker 1: and and the d line, the linebackers and the edge players.
Speaker 1: They only had the one night last night, so we
Speaker 1: were we were humping and jumping, and those guys did
Speaker 1: a fantastic job in a small sample size like that.
Speaker 1: How much of put the tape to the side, how
Speaker 1: much of it? And figuring out does a guy ball?
Speaker 1: How much of that is a part of the process.
Speaker 1: I love football, Yeah, I mean, you can tell me that,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that I would believe you. But I
Speaker 1: can view that. I can view if a guy's out
Speaker 1: there straining, fighting, if he's into it, if he's supporting
Speaker 1: his teammates, if he's jumping up and down, if he
Speaker 1: you know, what what what other? You know, we all
Speaker 1: love the games, you know, we all love holding the baby.
Speaker 1: But do we love being pregnant? And that's that's the
Speaker 1: process that you have to go in and study and
Speaker 1: find out who to believe it's some of these schools,
Speaker 1: because they'll all tell you different things. How much is
Speaker 1: determined already about your thirty visits to Ascension Saint Thomas
Speaker 1: Sports Park before you even start the interview process here there,
Speaker 1: there's probably been some but but not all, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one thing that we have been
Speaker 1: able to do is isolate or identify, excuse me, some
Speaker 1: of those players that we may want to bring back
Speaker 1: on on as early as Tuesday and get that started
Speaker 1: the year they shut it down with COVID. We actually
Speaker 1: had a couple of players already in and then they
Speaker 1: did away with visits, so that's been good. We all
Speaker 1: kind of come together and say, hey, who do you
Speaker 1: think and you know, if everybody's on everybody's list as
Speaker 1: the same persons on everybody's list, and we should probably
Speaker 1: bring them in. Some of those players would be draftable,
Speaker 1: but non combine invites that we may want to look at,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to find the next you know, mayor
Speaker 1: Murphy's borrow that had draftable grade that wasn't a combine
Speaker 1: invite that you bring in to get some information on.
Speaker 1: Along with all of the things that you're doing here,
Speaker 1: you also have a roster off guys back in Nashville,
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with, and there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: going on. We saw some roster moves earlier this month,
Speaker 1: there's more to come with free agency looming. How do
Speaker 1: you balance thinking about both worlds the upcoming draft and
Speaker 1: these prospective players, but also the guys that you already have. Well,
Speaker 1: nothing's more important than the players on your team, and
Speaker 1: there's nothing more important, So you have to have a
Speaker 1: vision for the ones that you feel like you have
Speaker 1: going forward. Try to communicate with them, ask them to
Speaker 1: communicate with you as far as an individual development plan,
Speaker 1: what they saw and how they felt like their mental
Speaker 1: and physical performance was through the course of the season,
Speaker 1: what they liked about it, what they want to continue
Speaker 1: to do well, and what they would like to try
Speaker 1: to maybe focus on and change. You're in the March now,
Speaker 1: it all starts. The legal tampering period is twelve days away.
Speaker 1: Free agency is two weeks away. I mean it's on
Speaker 1: how much of your time do you spend meeting with
Speaker 1: various people for the next twelve days to fourteen days,
Speaker 1: figuring out what free agency strategy looks like and then
Speaker 1: rolling it forward to how that will affect what you're
Speaker 1: able to do towards the draft. Well, we've done that.
Speaker 1: We've done that extensively. That's part of what we've done
Speaker 1: with myself and Ran and his staff and you know,
Speaker 1: the coaches evaluated players and I watched them and we
Speaker 1: all watched them together, and you know, try to build
Speaker 1: a profile on the player and kind of feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, if if this is somebody that based on
Speaker 1: you know, fit and value, this is somebody we'd like
Speaker 1: to add to the football team. Not not every player
Speaker 1: over the out there is going to fit your team
Speaker 1: from a lot of different reasons. Um. You know, free
Speaker 1: agency can be tricky. You know, you have to know
Speaker 1: who you're bringing on to the football team. And you know,
Speaker 1: if somebody hasn't been with him or you know him
Speaker 1: fairly well, and that's that's a risky proposition, just to
Speaker 1: to jump into something like that. Making Tim Kelly available
Speaker 1: here at the NFL combine your do offensive coordinator, the
Speaker 1: decision to do that, your thought process, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: people have a lot of questions about where we may head.
Speaker 1: And you know, Tim didn't speak to the media this year. Um,
Speaker 1: so I felt like, um, you know, it just wasn't
Speaker 1: his place. I didn't think we needed to go down
Speaker 1: that road. And so therefore I felt like I wanted
Speaker 1: to make him available to speak on on the offense's behalf,
Speaker 1: on his behalf, on the offensive staff's behalf, and and
Speaker 1: I'm excited for that to happen here and just it
Speaker 1: out and added to your staff as the running back
Speaker 1: coach coming over from Denver, a really well thought of
Speaker 1: guy who got his start in high school special ed
Speaker 1: teacher Spring Westfield. Yeah, I made the Corby Meekins really
Speaker 1: good program down there in Spring Texas. You'd love it.
Speaker 1: I mean, two football fans on a Friday night, though
Speaker 1: you read, but that's your retirements out down This guy
Speaker 1: has had an amazing rise. He's really well thought of.
Speaker 1: Why bring him in? Why running backs? And what do
Speaker 1: you hope he adds? Well, that was where the role was,
Speaker 1: That's where the opportunity was. I had made a decision
Speaker 1: about Tony and what I wanted to try to see
Speaker 1: there um and met with Charles. I wanted to try
Speaker 1: to find a way to add him. I met with
Speaker 1: Justin was was upfront on what the role would be,
Speaker 1: but also maybe what the vision would be. Just trying
Speaker 1: to add a bunch of really good coaches and people
Speaker 1: did that defensively as well at some spots. So you know,
Speaker 1: I want people to know that it was well thought out,
Speaker 1: it was well planned. It wasn't just something that I,
Speaker 1: you know, threw together. I tried to, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard to get every person that you
Speaker 1: want an interview, and you know, it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: go from pro team to pro team, and sometimes that
Speaker 1: movement isn't as supported throughout the league because you can
Speaker 1: block a coach or they just they have an opportunity
Speaker 1: at the place that they've been for a few years.
Speaker 1: The mix on that offensive staff really interesting. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean a totally different I mean, I'm sure they everybody
Speaker 1: looks at football slightly differently, but that group, it would
Speaker 1: feel like with Tim Kelly leading it, with Justin with Charles,
Speaker 1: with Jason taking over the offensive line, Tony moving to
Speaker 1: tight ends, and then keeping Rob Moore where he was.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's an impressive group, and well
Speaker 1: it's only it's only as impressive as as what they
Speaker 1: can can teach and reasonably get the players to understand
Speaker 1: and execute that. That's the most important thing. And um,
Speaker 1: I think and obviously I did it for a reason,
Speaker 1: and so hopefully that that comes true, uh, and that
Speaker 1: they are able to add their ideas together. Uh, Tim's
Speaker 1: able to coordinate it, and everybody's able to have their
Speaker 1: their ideas and thoughts and vision heard and then ultimately
Speaker 1: go in a direction in which everybody is on the
Speaker 1: same page. Good stuff, as always had got about it.
Speaker 1: That's head coach Mike Rabel, who was extremely relax. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he was chill, calm as a cucumber. Especially for him, well,
Speaker 1: and especially for him interacting with you. You tend to
Speaker 1: make him feisty, and he was. You make him feisty, Mike,
Speaker 1: and he was just cool and very informative. Well, let
Speaker 1: me say this. I was on this side of the
Speaker 1: table with him, and I thought he was gonna twirl
Speaker 1: this table skirt into a ball of something that looks
Speaker 1: like a tornado trap. Here's fidgetygety, And he fidgeted with
Speaker 1: this very headset I'm on and the wires and so yes,
Speaker 1: he is. He was calmed to a degree, but he
Speaker 1: I would describe him as fidgety. That's the teeth effect.
Speaker 1: He No, he's he's an intense dude, He absolutely is.
Speaker 1: I mean, and the intensity never turns off. Fully, can't
Speaker 1: turn it off because that's who he is, right. I
Speaker 1: worked for a head coach like that when I first
Speaker 1: came into this league. I just you know that, because
Speaker 1: that's who makes them who they are. You're talking about,
Speaker 1: Mike Ditka. You think Vrabell remind you in some ways
Speaker 1: of Didca similar in all the positive ways and some
Speaker 1: of the ways that you know you've got to You've
Speaker 1: got to be able to deal with it and know
Speaker 1: that it's coming from a place of this is the
Speaker 1: dudes you want leading us, That's where it comes from.
Speaker 1: But what you said it was so true, Mike. You
Speaker 1: can't turn it off. You can't turn it off, and
Speaker 1: especially in this type of environment. We talked about how
Speaker 1: rand was, you know, how he his first time out.
Speaker 1: He was he was he was very cool, you know,
Speaker 1: he was very measured, you know, with what he's done.
Speaker 1: Mike Rabel's done this before, and Mike Rabel knows the
Speaker 1: sense of urgency as to where we are and they
Speaker 1: both do and so but Mike Rabel's going to be
Speaker 1: Mike Vrabel. You've led us brilliantly into our next point,
Speaker 1: which is this is great This is fantastic how you're
Speaker 1: doing this just perfectly. The Chicago Bears are running this deal.
Speaker 1: Every year there's a team that's basically running the draft. Generally,
Speaker 1: it's not the team from the number one pick position.
Speaker 1: For example, two years ago, everybody knew Jacksonville was selecting
Speaker 1: Trevor Lawrence number one, and so they weren't running the deal.
Speaker 1: It was it was a group of teams down the line,
Speaker 1: who's going to trade who Jacksonville wasn't trading. Now they
Speaker 1: could say whatever they want. They were taking Trevor Lawrence.
Speaker 1: That was it. Chicago has the number one pick in
Speaker 1: the draft for the first time in seventy six years
Speaker 1: since Farm Bureau Health Plans was formed in nineteen There
Speaker 1: it is. It all comes together a sponsor thing. But
Speaker 1: this is so new for the Bears, a team that's
Speaker 1: seen everything over a hundred years and has never in
Speaker 1: modern history seen this unbelievable. And I think that's what's
Speaker 1: exciting for them at this moment because they hold tons
Speaker 1: of cards. Coachmac hold all the cards. They hold all
Speaker 1: of the cards right now, and they're fortunate that they've
Speaker 1: got a quarterback that they believe in. Yes, and so
Speaker 1: now it's wide open to them, and there are the
Speaker 1: smaller number of available quarterbacks at the top of this
Speaker 1: draft plays right into their hands also because now you've
Speaker 1: got a number of people going down through probably number nine,
Speaker 1: maybe through fourteen that would be willing to come up
Speaker 1: that need a quarterback as to you know, whoever they
Speaker 1: decide they like the best at a number one. They
Speaker 1: are sitting in the catbird seat, they are, and the
Speaker 1: where their football team is now, Mike. They need more picks.
Speaker 1: They need more picks because they've got a quarterback that
Speaker 1: they believe that they can build around, but he needs
Speaker 1: dudes around him right now. And now now is a
Speaker 1: time this is a very vital draft for the Bears
Speaker 1: because they've hit kind of a drought, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean there were three and fourteen that to me, I
Speaker 1: still can't equate that in my mind with the Chicago
Speaker 1: Bears that I was involved with, I mean, three and fourteen.
Speaker 1: But they've got a chance to dig out of it
Speaker 1: just because of what you said. The name that I
Speaker 1: select is Jeff Joniac, who is the longtime voice of
Speaker 1: the Chicago Bears. He is a friend, he is somebody
Speaker 1: admire a great deal and He is a tremendous announcer
Speaker 1: who has all the insights on his club, and he
Speaker 1: joined us on the OTP to talk about the team
Speaker 1: running the show in this draft, the Chicago Bears. Jeff Joniac,
Speaker 1: longtime voice of the Chicago Bears, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: You're sitting next to coach Max, so I certainly am
Speaker 1: in good hands. Liam of Mac always have well speak
Speaker 1: speaks the truth. Oh yeah, he's got a replication. Chicago
Speaker 1: was a pretty big part of my career and start
Speaker 1: of it. And you know, I remember when you're a
Speaker 1: head coach in Arizona and we're on the field as
Speaker 1: preseason Tom Tharre, my broadcast partner, and you say, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys, get over. I got to introduce you to
Speaker 1: somebody is a special, special guy, special guy. Do you
Speaker 1: know how it was? Who's that me? No? Uh? One
Speaker 1: of our nation's type of warriors. Oh, Pat Tillman. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I and that's the first time and he ran over, Yes, sir, Hello.
Speaker 1: I mean you could just feel his presence. Jeff was
Speaker 1: something all four of us could do five days on
Speaker 1: Pat Tillman and I'd never get tired of talking about him.
Speaker 1: If all the players I've been involved with in my career,
Speaker 1: which you know, over thirty years coaching and then doing
Speaker 1: this now. Pat Tillman has had more impact on my
Speaker 1: life than anybody else, you know, for a lot of clarity,
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. And he drew people to him
Speaker 1: like that because it was a it was a it
Speaker 1: was a really really unique situation and a unique man,
Speaker 1: just a unique man, really was. And the level of
Speaker 1: the level of pride and what he did, but the
Speaker 1: level of sadness and the way it happened, you know,
Speaker 1: both of those things, Uh, take it to another place.
Speaker 1: But Tilly and his whole family will be a big
Speaker 1: part of me for a long time. It's an impactful dude,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Yeah, you've had a chance to run
Speaker 1: into a lot of them through the course of your career. Coachmacket, you,
Speaker 1: Jeff being in Chicago for a long time covering the
Speaker 1: team and then now becoming the play by play voice
Speaker 1: for over twenty years. Yeah, it's still being number twenty three.
Speaker 1: That's twenty seven with the team pre and post before that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a Now that's a career, I guess
Speaker 1: right right now, I made it that far. So it's
Speaker 1: been less great place. Franchise is treating me great, the
Speaker 1: McCaskey family and everybody that's come through over the years,
Speaker 1: and there have been a lot of people that have
Speaker 1: come through over the years, but there's just something special
Speaker 1: about the Charter franchise. With all due respect to the
Speaker 1: other thirty one, it's just it is different. And right now,
Speaker 1: the cities I told them, you know, all gas no
Speaker 1: breaks right now because of what the situation has unfolded
Speaker 1: in terms of the draft and free agency to come. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to ask how unusual is that? How unusual
Speaker 1: a feeling is it for you approaching this draft with
Speaker 1: the number one pick. I've never seen it. It's happened
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty seven. I think that's about it for
Speaker 1: this franchise. And you know, unless you traded for it,
Speaker 1: you know, you realize, well, that's because you were at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the barrel in twenty twenty two. And
Speaker 1: I just told coach here three and fourteen didn't feel
Speaker 1: like it. Last year. It just was exciting. Games were fun,
Speaker 1: they were close for the most part. You were in
Speaker 1: it until the fourth quarter. They just didn't close. And
Speaker 1: you get this argument in Chicago from different talk show
Speaker 1: hosts and experts, But I do really feel you have
Speaker 1: to learn how to win. And other people say, well,
Speaker 1: players get that done, but you still have to You
Speaker 1: could have an all star lineup, which the Bears had
Speaker 1: at one point several times and didn't win. They didn't
Speaker 1: get to the playoffs. So I still feel you have
Speaker 1: to learn how to win. It was a super young
Speaker 1: team well, and you have a young staff leading the
Speaker 1: charge as well, new coach, young GM So there's a
Speaker 1: lot contributing to that excitement, I'm sure, just because because
Speaker 1: there's so many possibilities for this team. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just nailed it. I asked Ryan Poles yesterday when
Speaker 1: he met with Chicago media. I said, could you have
Speaker 1: too many scenarios? And he laughed. He goes, no, we
Speaker 1: can have enough, you know, And but you maybe you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to overthink everything because everything's at your feet.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got draft assets, you got major capital
Speaker 1: right now. You got a young team that played so
Speaker 1: many rookies. They outdistanced the pack by over a thousand snaps.
Speaker 1: But they didn't play poorly. They individually, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of guys undrafteds or late rounders, guys they picked up
Speaker 1: from other teams that now could form part of your depth.
Speaker 1: They may not be starters, but now you you may
Speaker 1: have played twenty twenty two for depth, and now you're
Speaker 1: going to bring into horses. So it'll be interesting. Well
Speaker 1: here's the here's the thing about Chicago. Of course they've
Speaker 1: gone through over a hundred years of so many different iterations,
Speaker 1: but the fans have always stayed there. Yeah, they're always there,
Speaker 1: and it you know, it was my first experience in
Speaker 1: the National Football League and people ask me a lot,
Speaker 1: you know about how was that starting with that group,
Speaker 1: you know, that whole Super Bowl shuffle group and that
Speaker 1: I said it was football camelot because you really, I mean,
Speaker 1: the city just embraces it. I mean, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: more than a team. It's a it's the city. And
Speaker 1: that's what makes it go because even you know, and
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, that group were just starting when we were there,
Speaker 1: and they would come watch the Bears because the Bears
Speaker 1: were the thing. But it's it's a it's a Bears
Speaker 1: and it's a Cubs down. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's just the way it is. It is, and it
Speaker 1: goes through you know, different generations. You know, Mike, you
Speaker 1: know your wife's from Chicago. We got a Chicago a
Speaker 1: Bear fan over here. Maybe I don't, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I know, but you know, it's it's deeply rooted. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm not naming names, but um, it's just you do,
Speaker 1: you do things, events and whatever. Hey, my dad took
Speaker 1: me to my first game and nineteen sixty nine. Have
Speaker 1: been a fan ever since. The new wave. Like people
Speaker 1: that I'm meeting, the young people, they you know, they're
Speaker 1: not quite ready to start buying tickets yet, they're not
Speaker 1: rich enough to do that, but they're they're there many.
Speaker 1: I love that. And that's the unique thing about these
Speaker 1: types of franchises. That's it's it's passion that is generically
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, we're in the Bobby Douglass sort of
Speaker 1: period of exciting quarterbacks. Absolutely, and now you have Justin Fields.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised? Relieved? Um? Please that Ryan Poles said
Speaker 1: yesterday that he's going to be the quarterback, that Justin
Speaker 1: Fields is going to be his quarterback in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: What the Dentamy's still gonna do is due diligence in it,
Speaker 1: which I I don't want people thinking, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: what's going on here. I think that's the proper thing
Speaker 1: to do as a general managers. Uh four or five
Speaker 1: years from now, you may be talking to some of
Speaker 1: those guys for different reasons, you know. Uh no, uh,
Speaker 1: justin I think if he would be not in the equation,
Speaker 1: the city might go crazy because he's the top athlete
Speaker 1: in the city right now. Wow, Yeah, I mean he is.
Speaker 1: He's the most discussed. Everybody loves him, and there's still
Speaker 1: work to be done. Obviously, dynamic runner, still developing as
Speaker 1: a passer, and I just think one of the biggest
Speaker 1: stories of the offseason when this league has sixteen new
Speaker 1: offensive coordinators, I think one left to be filled. That
Speaker 1: tells you a lot. Luke Getzi's staying in Chicago for
Speaker 1: a second year to be in the same system. To me,
Speaker 1: that's one of the bigger offseason stories just having the
Speaker 1: same scheme for a developing quarterback. I think you guys
Speaker 1: all would agree, well, especially in this era of the
Speaker 1: National Football League, when things flip so so quickly. You know,
Speaker 1: when I first got into the league, there there was
Speaker 1: no free agency and no salary cap. So we grew
Speaker 1: up with all of those players and all of the
Speaker 1: coaches on the same staff. I mean, there was only
Speaker 1: eight coaches on the staff and it was you know,
Speaker 1: but now with the way that it flips, you've got
Speaker 1: to have some sort of solidarity with the fans to
Speaker 1: be able to embrace the new people that come in
Speaker 1: and if you can get some consistency, and consistency at
Speaker 1: the top is hugely important. And you can't get more consistent.
Speaker 1: And we'd be remiss if we didn't mention this, you know,
Speaker 1: while we're all here together talking Bears about Virginia McCaskey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just you cannot get more consistent in that. You know,
Speaker 1: one of the best human beings on earth just celebrated
Speaker 1: home run Lumber one hundred I mean one hundred years old,
Speaker 1: so crazy, great lady sharp sharpest can be and knows
Speaker 1: her football. When she wants to talk about she knows
Speaker 1: her football. So yeah, she's been amazing in that building
Speaker 1: and kind of set the tone in the culture for
Speaker 1: what it means to be a Bear employee and what
Speaker 1: it means to be a Bear. As we sit here
Speaker 1: at the NFL Scouting Combine here in Indianapolis. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of conversation about trades and everybody moving around in
Speaker 1: draft capital and what this draft is actually going to
Speaker 1: end up looking like in April. Is there a position
Speaker 1: group maybe other than quarterback even that could keep the
Speaker 1: Bears in that number one spot if they fall in
Speaker 1: love with a killer defensive lineman or somebody like that. Possibly.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Jalen Carter's name is prominently mentioned, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's been a constant discussion about moving down
Speaker 1: from from Ryan as well to collect more assets, and
Speaker 1: I think in this position that they're in, that would
Speaker 1: be a smart move. Uh, they're looking at two, four nine.
Speaker 1: Those are the teams that everybody's looking at in terms
Speaker 1: of moving down. You just don't want to move down
Speaker 1: too far. Maybe you could still move down and get
Speaker 1: the same guy you were going to maybe take at
Speaker 1: number one. Could you move down multiple times? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you could. I mean you could. They want
Speaker 1: to get crazy, well, but I could see because you
Speaker 1: want to You want to have regrets four years from
Speaker 1: now when you're keeping five years in a row. If
Speaker 1: you're keeping your quarterback, yeah, which it sounds like you are.
Speaker 1: If Justin Fields is the quarterback. Then you could move
Speaker 1: to two for Houston. You could move from two to
Speaker 1: four for Indie, I got you. You could move from
Speaker 1: four to nine for Carolinas through I know. I mean
Speaker 1: what you could rack up could be like one of
Speaker 1: those NHL trades or one of those NBA trades where
Speaker 1: you're getting seventeen second round picks. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: it'll be that crazy. But I also would like to
Speaker 1: continue to look forward to twenty four and twenty five,
Speaker 1: so if you can land, because the worst thing you
Speaker 1: could do is put all your eggs in one basket.
Speaker 1: You know, Ryan is all about. Ryan Poles wants to
Speaker 1: build something that's, like you use the word consistent. You
Speaker 1: just want to be at the at the table every
Speaker 1: year if you can, and continue to devote that attention
Speaker 1: to your roster in that way. But you would agree,
Speaker 1: if you're keeping justin fields, you're probably more likely than
Speaker 1: not to trade the number one pick for the value
Speaker 1: that's there. Yeah, I would say so, I would say so.
Speaker 1: I would say, well, yeah, and as we were visiting
Speaker 1: just a little bit before we got on before we
Speaker 1: get on the air here, starting with the both fronts, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's what they I mean you go clear back to
Speaker 1: Jim fing That's how he started this whole run in
Speaker 1: the back in the day with it, you know. And
Speaker 1: now you've got a chance. With the type of lineman
Speaker 1: that are in this draft right now, the offensive and
Speaker 1: defensive front. You don't ever want to be in this
Speaker 1: position again, No, no, don't. You don't want to be
Speaker 1: three and fourteen. You can't survive many of those. You
Speaker 1: don't want to be in that butt. If you're here
Speaker 1: and you're fortunate enough to be here with a quarterback
Speaker 1: that you're staying with, this is a chance, yeah, no
Speaker 1: question about it. This is the time you believe you
Speaker 1: can make this guy into a stellar quarterback throwing the
Speaker 1: football in addition to using his legs, the dynamic aspect
Speaker 1: of it. Now, let's let's fill in the blanks here.
Speaker 1: But I'm not looking anywhere past the line of scrimmage.
Speaker 1: That's if tunnel vision right now you go, And I
Speaker 1: know it's not sexy. Everybody wants the you know, the
Speaker 1: big wide receiver and seal position players, but and the
Speaker 1: Bears have needs across the board. There's there's no position.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you guys also figure backup quarterback.
Speaker 1: You know that's you know that, you know somebody may
Speaker 1: be in a similar mold. You know that you could
Speaker 1: look at too. Not Hi, obviously, but I want that
Speaker 1: line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball to
Speaker 1: be to the shoulder, the load to be the alpha's
Speaker 1: and kick butt. Here's what sexy and football it is. Well,
Speaker 1: does that tunnel vision extend into free agency? Is that
Speaker 1: where your focus is not only in the draft but
Speaker 1: as free Great question, great question. I hate free agency.
Speaker 1: I'm I just do I do. I just don't like it.
Speaker 1: I know you gotta do it. You gotta spend what
Speaker 1: you gotta spend, but you know you're overspending, and especially
Speaker 1: in the early hours. So I don't know where they're
Speaker 1: gonna go in that regard. But I know this. They
Speaker 1: got all this money, but it really isn't all that money,
Speaker 1: you know, it says in our paper. But they have
Speaker 1: guys to resign. They got to think down the road
Speaker 1: about justin You gotta plan for that. But Ryan's going
Speaker 1: to be surgical in my opinion. You know he's not.
Speaker 1: He's not going to blow out the budget by just
Speaker 1: throwing money at guys that you know I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: guys you want that are gonna get tag yet that
Speaker 1: are going to be resigned by their own team. So sure,
Speaker 1: But I think any position is on the table in
Speaker 1: free agency. I do I personally, You tell me, because
Speaker 1: you know more than I do. Coach, I'd like to
Speaker 1: draft an offensive line, get a defensive lineman in the
Speaker 1: draft of known as well, and then you know you
Speaker 1: gotta get some guys that are veterans in there to
Speaker 1: show them away a little bit on the defensive side
Speaker 1: of the ball. That's just my thinking. I'd rather grow
Speaker 1: an offensive line together. Like we talked about the eighty
Speaker 1: five guys that started in eighty one, which Jim finks
Speaker 1: he got Jimbo Covert the cornerstone left tackle Hall of famer,
Speaker 1: and then drafted his tail off. And those guys, unlike today,
Speaker 1: played every game, every snap for several years, every snap,
Speaker 1: like five to seven years. That that was the offensive line. Well,
Speaker 1: that's cost containment. Cost containment is drafting lineman on both
Speaker 1: sides of the ball. Yeah, And that's where if you're
Speaker 1: the Titans, for example, and there's a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about the Titans at eleven taking a left tackle, it
Speaker 1: makes total sense because you get that player and your
Speaker 1: cost containment for four years is fabulous. Correct, And you
Speaker 1: know rushers are expensive. Three technique defensive tackles are expensive. Now,
Speaker 1: every everybody's corners, right corners. You know I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not afraid to go and get another corner high in
Speaker 1: the draft as well. We gotta have them. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you gotta have it. Everybody wants everything, but you can't know.
Speaker 1: But every I think you know everybody here. I mean
Speaker 1: this is a football group. Yeah, the premium position, and
Speaker 1: you understand that the upfront is where it really on
Speaker 1: both sides. It's still as wide open as it is
Speaker 1: and as entertaining as it's become, and as as free
Speaker 1: flowing as it's become. It's still a big man's game.
Speaker 1: You got still a big man's game. And you got
Speaker 1: to be able to impose your will throughout the course
Speaker 1: of a game. Maybe not at the start, but throughout
Speaker 1: a course of it. And you do it with dudes
Speaker 1: up front at Now, what do you guys say to
Speaker 1: those who say, well, you know you gotta score, You
Speaker 1: gotta score points to win. I get that, but the
Speaker 1: scoring it way up? What league? Why? Way up? Is
Speaker 1: this is here's how you going to continue. You protect
Speaker 1: your quarterback, yeah, and you hold onto the ball and
Speaker 1: you extend series. And you're not going to do that
Speaker 1: unless you have people that are working up front and
Speaker 1: finished drives and finish drives, right and finish. I love
Speaker 1: running the ball, So i'm a i'm a I'm I'm
Speaker 1: old school now. I love running the ball. And I
Speaker 1: know that's not always popular these days, but the league,
Speaker 1: there's there's been a lot. I mean, look how a
Speaker 1: two hundred yard rushing days looking in the city in
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl? Right right right? I mean, what did
Speaker 1: Mahomes throw for one eighty two? Thing? As long as
Speaker 1: pass was twenty nine and the and the bottom line
Speaker 1: is they had enough of a running game that they
Speaker 1: could protect him and that ankle and that he could
Speaker 1: throw when he needed to and he could make it quick.
Speaker 1: But right that rush was muted and that Isaiah Pacheco
Speaker 1: is a bad man, seventh round pick, man out of Rutgers,
Speaker 1: bad man runs angry. The run game is still very,
Speaker 1: very vital, but it's just not as sexy. It's there
Speaker 1: for football people. It's there because that's the way you
Speaker 1: have to as Yeah, and and Mike said it very
Speaker 1: very well. We talk about a lot on our broadcasting
Speaker 1: extending series. Staying on the field offensively helps everybody. It
Speaker 1: also helps your defense. I mean some of the best
Speaker 1: defense I ever coached in my life. In my you know,
Speaker 1: thirty one years of coaching, I was watching Walter run,
Speaker 1: you know, just standing on the sideline. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: your defense. They weren't on the field very long because
Speaker 1: these guys led the NFL in time of possession. They're
Speaker 1: pretty good. I mean that every year they led the
Speaker 1: league in time of possession. So your defense was fresh
Speaker 1: to go get the QB. Good. Nah, you're the best.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having Jeff always is with your voice
Speaker 1: of the Chicago Bears. Think about I tell him this,
Speaker 1: he's the voice of the Chicago Bears. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: one of the original listeners. That is Elite air Off.
Speaker 1: They're all thirty two of Well, I was play by play, guys.
Speaker 1: They're pretty darnfortunate. But we are very fortunate. There's very fortunate.
Speaker 1: There's one team that started it. Yes, he took the
Speaker 1: words right out of my mind. Baby. If you've had
Speaker 1: a get on Saturday Night Live done about your fan base,
Speaker 1: your food. Thanks Jeff, Thanks Mike, Thanks guys. Good to
Speaker 1: have Jeff Joni k with us on the OTP. It's
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Speaker 1: I could use some Duncan right now, you could? I could?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm fired up, but I mean we're in
Speaker 1: day three here, we're walking roll a little coffee would
Speaker 1: pick you up? Or that ice coffee Ret likes right,
Speaker 1: Ret like, oh, I'm a big ice coffee guy. He's
Speaker 1: but he's become mister ice Coffee since he got the
Speaker 1: app and got the Duncan rewards. I roll up at
Speaker 1: the drive through and they're like, oh, it's ice ice
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Speaker 1: So I don't know that you're old enough, Amy, but
Speaker 1: I bet coach Mac Rhett and I would say the
Speaker 1: same thing. We grew up reading Sports Illustrated, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: one of the things I liked about Sports Illustrated so
Speaker 1: much is that I read about a lot of things
Speaker 1: I had no idea about, and beforehand, I had no
Speaker 1: major interest about. But they would find the character and
Speaker 1: the stories and the scenes and all of the things
Speaker 1: that I never considered. And so I would read stories
Speaker 1: about chess and about different cricket or because it happened
Speaker 1: to be in the publication, because in the sports that
Speaker 1: you cared about with football and baseball, that's right. But
Speaker 1: I would read Sports Illustrated cover to cover, and it
Speaker 1: was the only magazine that I did that as a
Speaker 1: as a kid, and it really doesn't exist in that
Speaker 1: same form to day. But there is a writer who's
Speaker 1: doing Sports Illustrated type things and he's doing it in
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal. His name is Andrew Beaton, and
Speaker 1: we introduced you to him on the OTP last year
Speaker 1: from the combine. I've gotten to know him because I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of what he does. He writes about some
Speaker 1: of the strangest things you've ever seen. He writes about
Speaker 1: controversial topics like liv golf. He I mean he you know,
Speaker 1: he's into every He's into the NFL. Andrew Beaton is
Speaker 1: just thirty one years old, and yet he's writing stories
Speaker 1: like he's been around for fifty years and an unusual read.
Speaker 1: His writing style, his way older than he's but to
Speaker 1: be in the Wall Street Journal too. And and to me,
Speaker 1: I love what you just wrote up about Sports Illustrated
Speaker 1: And the analogy is really good because I can remember
Speaker 1: getting Sports Illustrated and couldn't wait till it showed up
Speaker 1: right in the mail. May we've all had subscriptions if
Speaker 1: you were involved in sports at all, even from a
Speaker 1: young age. But and I find it interesting that you
Speaker 1: formed to kind of a get to know Andrew Beaton
Speaker 1: because that is a different dude. Well, he is a
Speaker 1: different dude. I mean he's a lot smarter than I am.
Speaker 1: And he well he is, I mean he is. He's
Speaker 1: a genius type who sees the world in a very
Speaker 1: different way. And we did an interview with him last year.
Speaker 1: It was so enjoyable and we got so many good
Speaker 1: reactions from the OT people that we did it again.
Speaker 1: Andrew Beaton from the Wall Street Journal talking sports with us,
Speaker 1: maybe they're just hard sports. He does talk to the
Speaker 1: NFL on the OTCH Andrew beaton Wall Street Journal Sports.
Speaker 1: It still does sound not Andrew Beaton, but Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal Sports just sounds a little odd. Well, here's the
Speaker 1: thing about it. Such a widely respect acted, highly renowned
Speaker 1: publication for something that is incredibly intellectual. Smart people read
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, and people don't always associate with
Speaker 1: smart people with sports. You think about what we do read,
Speaker 1: I don't think you know, it just doesn't kind of mash,
Speaker 1: but it is important and there is a business to it. Andrew,
Speaker 1: how do you find all the things you write about?
Speaker 1: I always just try to think that if something interests me,
Speaker 1: it'll probably interest whoever is reading about it. Because if chess,
Speaker 1: if I'm writing about chess, I'm a terrible chess player,
Speaker 1: but I found the world, the chess world, to be
Speaker 1: quirky and weird and fascinating and there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on there, and so if I'm interested in it, that's
Speaker 1: a whole heck of a lot better chance of a
Speaker 1: reader being interested in then if I'm just watching a
Speaker 1: football game and I'm bored by it, then they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna be bored what I'm writing about. So what's the
Speaker 1: response you get to writing about, say, chess. We were
Speaker 1: absolutely shocked by how much people enjoyed reading our chess covers. Wow,
Speaker 1: how do you pitch a story that's like, I've got one, guys,
Speaker 1: it's chess, roll with me here, Like, how do you
Speaker 1: pitch that and get someone to say, yeah, pursue that.
Speaker 1: You know, we've done a few over the years, and
Speaker 1: they've just sort of reliably been read really well because
Speaker 1: I think it's a game that you know, everyone has
Speaker 1: a chess board lying at home, and they might not
Speaker 1: know the quirks or the oddities of the chess world.
Speaker 1: So when you start writing about weird things over the
Speaker 1: years in the chess world, like how the best players
Speaker 1: are really particular and crazy about what chairs they're sitting
Speaker 1: in while they're playing the games. That's funny to people,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't even matter if if you know how
Speaker 1: the pieces move on the board. That's a human story
Speaker 1: where you can understand that there are these geniuses who
Speaker 1: are also really finicky and particular about things that are
Speaker 1: kind of hilarious. But at the heart of this story
Speaker 1: that you've done. Recently, one of the stars of chess
Speaker 1: has a scandal and there's accusations involved. We do love us.
Speaker 1: People love a scandal. It's kind of a great scandal
Speaker 1: in some ways too, because in some way the stakes
Speaker 1: are enormous, because that's the worst thing you can do
Speaker 1: in a game of chess. But it's also in the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of the world, not something super serious now,
Speaker 1: like dying or getting hurt or getting sick. So it's
Speaker 1: this thing that you can both kind of smile at
Speaker 1: and be entertained by without feeling totally guilty about. If
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yes, yeah, So you go to the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl a few weeks ago and you came up
Speaker 1: with some wild angles. My favorite, well, there were two.
Speaker 1: There was Jalen Hurts weightlifting. Powerlifting. Actually that's a good one. Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty great right off the tip.
Speaker 1: How did you find out about that? You know, it
Speaker 1: had been mentioned a little bit over the years, like
Speaker 1: when he was in college there was a viral video
Speaker 1: of him squatting I think six hundred pounds at Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and then people had mentioned it in passing then and
Speaker 1: it's just sort of made me curious, all right, how
Speaker 1: did this guy get into this? And the thing that's
Speaker 1: interesting to me. It wasn't just a fun fact about somebody.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all saw in that Super Bowl how
Speaker 1: many times Jalen Hurts did a quarterback sneak. That guy
Speaker 1: can move his legs, he can push. He's a powerful
Speaker 1: guy for anybody on a football field, but in particular
Speaker 1: a quarterback. And yes, he gets those Eagles guys behind
Speaker 1: him who are shoving him through the line on all
Speaker 1: those plays, but he is built differently than pretty much
Speaker 1: every other quarterback, even the other guys who run. He
Speaker 1: doesn't have necessarily the limberness and the pure straight line
Speaker 1: speed of a Justin Fields or Lamar Jackson. But he's
Speaker 1: powerful for a quarterback. And that's what really struck me
Speaker 1: that it wasn't just something he did. This was something
Speaker 1: about Jalen Hurts his past that helped to explain his success. Now.
Speaker 1: I also loved to Kevin Burkhardt's story being a broadcaster.
Speaker 1: And I've said this to Kevin, for him to come
Speaker 1: and I'll let you tell the story to our ot
Speaker 1: people about where he began, but for him to do
Speaker 1: what he's done and to get to the point where
Speaker 1: he is, he has paid the dudes he has done
Speaker 1: the work. No silver spoon had to come up the
Speaker 1: hard way, and now he's calling the Super Bowl, and
Speaker 1: to watch him call the Super Bowl was extra special
Speaker 1: to me because of that amazing story that you were
Speaker 1: able to share with the Wall Street Journal readers. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I mean, Kevin's always been an
Speaker 1: amazing story. I mean, used car salesman who's hustling while
Speaker 1: calling high school games and minor league games. But I
Speaker 1: thought the funniest thing to me was talking to him
Speaker 1: about how much the New York Mets shaped his future
Speaker 1: because I'm from New York, so I've been cursed with
Speaker 1: watching an unfortunate amount of New York Mets games and
Speaker 1: there is never a been an appeal that the New
Speaker 1: York Mets are not slipping on. And so he had
Speaker 1: to deal with hilarity, with controversy, with frankly, just a
Speaker 1: lot of really bad baseball teams that he had to
Speaker 1: try and make interesting. And you will not find a
Speaker 1: New York Mets fan who did not worship him. And
Speaker 1: that is saying something on a broadcast that has three
Speaker 1: legends in Gary Cone, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling. But
Speaker 1: Kevin Burkhardt made himself sort of like a part of
Speaker 1: your living room when you were watching a Mets game.
Speaker 1: And it was so interesting talking to him about how, yes,
Speaker 1: how the foibles of the Mets shaped his career to
Speaker 1: be basically prepared for anything. One of my favorite stories
Speaker 1: from the Super Bowl was the story about the Kelsey
Speaker 1: brothers and how much they ate? Now do yeah, like,
Speaker 1: of all the angles, of all the things to overturn
Speaker 1: two boys eating a tremendous amount of food in their youth,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you get there? Well, it's
Speaker 1: just sort of don't you hear that type of thing
Speaker 1: all the time when like you find you meet your
Speaker 1: family friend and they have three sons who are a giant.
Speaker 1: They asked the mom, Oh, so what do you feed him? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So just kind of want to make they ate you
Speaker 1: out of house and home. That's what That's what my
Speaker 1: parents used to say. Yeah, so that's where you get it. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a question that I thought about and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you see, these two guys were enormous.
Speaker 1: They are big, big guys, built very differently, but just
Speaker 1: maybe wonder, all right, what did you feed them? And
Speaker 1: I didn't know if there would be anything there there.
Speaker 1: But credit to Ed and Donna Kelsey. They were hilarious
Speaker 1: talking about what a hassle it basically was, and these
Speaker 1: guys running up one hundred dollars bills at ihop, which
Speaker 1: I didn't know was possible. Gosh, that story made me sweat, like, wow,
Speaker 1: that sounds so expensive. All right, So, with that thought
Speaker 1: in mind, and your unique ability to put these columns
Speaker 1: together for the Wall Street Journal without giving away a
Speaker 1: future column, what are you looking for this week? At
Speaker 1: the NFL Combine? What's There's so many confluences of you know,
Speaker 1: three hundred nineteen guys that are going to be trying
Speaker 1: to chase their dreams. There's gems, there's coaches or scouts.
Speaker 1: What are you looking for? Well, one of the things
Speaker 1: I try to do a lot at the combine is listen,
Speaker 1: because you know, this is the first time we're hearing
Speaker 1: from a lot of these coaches in a long time,
Speaker 1: and it's in a lot of instances the best first
Speaker 1: glimpse we're getting at how they see their offseason. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of the times I come here and
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm going to write, and I mind
Speaker 1: even if I don't write anything off it this week.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just helping plant seeds for ideas during the
Speaker 1: NFL Draft, But a lot of it's coming here and
Speaker 1: listening and sit hearing, whether it's a coach or a
Speaker 1: GM or a prospect, what's important to them? What are
Speaker 1: they thinking about? And then that can help me think
Speaker 1: about what to think about, because you know, when you're
Speaker 1: hearing Sean Payton start talking today, or quasi famensa from
Speaker 1: the Vikings talking about Kirk Cousins in the possible future there,
Speaker 1: or what Justin Jefferson means to the Vikings, those are
Speaker 1: the type of things that are making me think about
Speaker 1: all right. I know it's important to them, so you
Speaker 1: can start thinking about, all right, what are the Vikings
Speaker 1: going to look like next year? Well we can start
Speaker 1: thinking about that because we've heard from the people who
Speaker 1: are important over there. Andrew Baton is an observer, fair
Speaker 1: I try to. I mean, that's a lot of what
Speaker 1: we're all doing, right, We're all trying to see things
Speaker 1: with her eyes and listen with her ears and call
Speaker 1: out what we think is interesting. It's what you do
Speaker 1: during Titans games. It's what I think drives a lot
Speaker 1: of us and that's how we all find our different
Speaker 1: voices about what interests us when we're watching or listening.
Speaker 1: As we start through the NFL, I guess off season
Speaker 1: quote unquote, well, let's just say, ever since they added
Speaker 1: the extra week to the regular season and everything is
Speaker 1: even more compressed with the super Bowl, there feels like
Speaker 1: zero offseason, right. It feels like a like a fake name,
Speaker 1: kind of like legal tampering, off season, legal tampering. Um.
Speaker 1: As we start and we're journeying closer and closer to
Speaker 1: free agency, you wrote a great article about Aaron Rodgers
Speaker 1: and kind of his contract structure. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: that is the first thing that we all need to
Speaker 1: observe some movement on what is going to happen with
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers before the rest of the NFL can really
Speaker 1: start doing anything. Yeah. I think teams like maybe the
Speaker 1: Jets are in a kind of weird and difficult spot because,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, if they want to go all
Speaker 1: in for Aaron Rodgers, they might have to wait a
Speaker 1: little bit. We don't have any clarity on if that
Speaker 1: decisions can be in five days or ten days or
Speaker 1: twenty days. But then let's say they find out that
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to come to the Jets, or he
Speaker 1: wants to stay in Green Bay, or he wants to retire.
Speaker 1: What if they've then missed out on the Derek Carrs
Speaker 1: and the Jimmy Garoppolos. So they're kind of in a
Speaker 1: tough spot where they could make a move for one
Speaker 1: of those other guys and then regret it if they
Speaker 1: later found out that Aaron Rodgers wants to be a Jet,
Speaker 1: But they also don't want to come up empty handed.
Speaker 1: So I think to answer your question is I think
Speaker 1: the lack of certainty about when we will find out
Speaker 1: about what Aaron Rodgers future is that's going to drive
Speaker 1: a lot more questions than anything. Because if we had
Speaker 1: a deadline, if we had a timeline for when all this,
Speaker 1: I think we'd have answers. But the uncertainty must just
Speaker 1: be driving these teams crazy. Have you made up with
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers since COVID show? And for those who don't know, Andrew,
Speaker 1: you really started the COVID toe controversy, didn't you declined
Speaker 1: to comment? I don't think a reporter could do that.
Speaker 1: But have you have you talked with him or anybody
Speaker 1: with him since? Yeah? I mean you're writing about him again,
Speaker 1: So I just wondered, Yeah, no, we talked afterwards. We
Speaker 1: had a private conversation. Okay, good, Oh, that's it true.
Speaker 1: So from your standpoint, what was that experience? Like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a little bit of a media frenzy for
Speaker 1: a moment, but then at the end of the day
Speaker 1: it returns to talking about football and chess and chess.
Speaker 1: So the Aaron Rodgers part is that really kind of
Speaker 1: where this stuff starts. I feel like that whatever happens
Speaker 1: with him and whatever happens with Lamar Jackson is where
Speaker 1: the NFL offseason starts to fall out with the stories.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. I mean, and you brought up Lamar.
Speaker 1: You know, I think most betting people would say he
Speaker 1: still ends up in Baltimore. But is that kind of
Speaker 1: the biggest wild card because things with Aaron Rodgers seemed
Speaker 1: to be trending in a direction. I think most people
Speaker 1: seem to think that he will be playing football somewhere
Speaker 1: else or won't at least be back in Green Bay
Speaker 1: if he choose to retire. But the Lamar Jackson's story,
Speaker 1: he's really clouded in mystery and the question of will
Speaker 1: he get that type of guaranteed money that he wants
Speaker 1: and that he's going to try to fight for, or
Speaker 1: is there a team that's going to be willing to
Speaker 1: offer him that money and also Baltimore an extraordinary sum
Speaker 1: of picks. So let me follow up with this. There
Speaker 1: are some who believe that the Deshaun Watson guaranteed contract
Speaker 1: maybe the last one of its kinds. Certainly front offices
Speaker 1: are hoping that that's the case. Where do you get
Speaker 1: that vibe? Yeah, I think a lot of this needs
Speaker 1: to come down to whether or not a quarterback is
Speaker 1: essentially going to push the limits and get closer and
Speaker 1: closer to free agency, because that's when you can start
Speaker 1: making those demands and having the leverage to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, Deshaun Watson wasn't a free agent, but he
Speaker 1: was in this unique position where with everything that had
Speaker 1: gone on, he had teams that were bidding on him
Speaker 1: and was, essentially, in a weird way a free agent
Speaker 1: because he can go siate contracts with multiple teams at
Speaker 1: the same time and choose where. He approved a trade too,
Speaker 1: so he was in a weird way even though he's traded,
Speaker 1: he had to leverage during his contract negotiations. Of a
Speaker 1: free agent and to a lesser scale. You saw when
Speaker 1: Kirk Cousins got his guaranteed deal. That's also during free agency.
Speaker 1: So the question with Lamar is if he really wants
Speaker 1: that fully guaranteed deal for a huge sum of money,
Speaker 1: there is a path there. It comes with some risk
Speaker 1: of playing on a franchise tag for a year maybe two,
Speaker 1: But and that ends up being one hundred million bucks
Speaker 1: right there. That's not a bad pay day, not a
Speaker 1: bad pay day. Do you think he's at a disadvantage
Speaker 1: because he does not have representation and he is his
Speaker 1: own guy. I think there's probably enough people around him.
Speaker 1: You know, the Union is around, and none of these
Speaker 1: players are really going in without guidance. And if that's
Speaker 1: what he thinks, that's what's best for him. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: he's putting himself in a position to possibly get a
Speaker 1: massive pay day. Here, let's play a game. What do
Speaker 1: you think happens with Lamar Jackson? I think them in
Speaker 1: Baltimore fun way to work out a deal. It seemed
Speaker 1: like a really big reset for the Ravens to have
Speaker 1: found a really great quarterback. I mean it's easy to
Speaker 1: forget that a few years ago, just how good that
Speaker 1: Lamar Jackson season was when he was the NB. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thirty six touchdowns, six interceptions for all everyone talks about
Speaker 1: is running man. He was scoring through the air that
Speaker 1: year and he is so good. And does Baltimore really
Speaker 1: want to press the reset button again, even if it
Speaker 1: would come with a massive haul of draft picks. So
Speaker 1: I think probably for both sides, there's a good incentive
Speaker 1: to get something done. What happens with Aaron Rodgers, I
Speaker 1: don't know where, but I think he's playing in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. Maybe it's in New York with the Jets.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a team that we aren't even really talking
Speaker 1: about when Carolina Panthers or I'm just making up names here,
Speaker 1: But we've been surprised before when teams have emerged from
Speaker 1: the woodwork to be interested in, say hey, for a
Speaker 1: year or two, we're in a roller dice with this
Speaker 1: guy and see if we can open a Super Bowl window.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you're like us. We believe that
Speaker 1: the story about the Pack is wanting to be done
Speaker 1: with it is true. You agree. I just think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of risk for them by bringing him back
Speaker 1: in terms of if he retires the next year. That
Speaker 1: sixty sem odd million cap hit that they'd have to
Speaker 1: absorb is really tough, and so this has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with that, like his abilities on the football field,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of their long term future as a franchise.
Speaker 1: This is also the off season when they have to
Speaker 1: decide on Jordan Love's fifth year option, So there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of big decisions that seem to be converging
Speaker 1: at the same moment that at least my hunch would
Speaker 1: be that he's somewhere else. Biggest offseason story for the
Speaker 1: NFL that enterest the Wall Street Journals Andrew Beaton, I mean,
Speaker 1: the movement of the quarterbacks is always one, and I
Speaker 1: think that is trumped up this year. When you have
Speaker 1: names like Lamar Jackson, names like Aaron Rodgers, I mean,
Speaker 1: Aaron Rodgers one of the best quarterbacks of all time.
Speaker 1: He could be playing somewhere else next year. That's kind
Speaker 1: of crazy, right, And so that is really the biggest one.
Speaker 1: But then also this is a kind of fascinating draft
Speaker 1: where last year's draft, you look at the quarterbacks, those
Speaker 1: they always steal the headlines. But last year's draft had
Speaker 1: one quarterback taken in the first round, and there was
Speaker 1: a chance some people thought there'd be none. And this
Speaker 1: year's draft, how many were we looking at? Four? Maybe five? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's a lack of consensus on them that I
Speaker 1: think is gonna be really interesting in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: a few years from now, one of these teams in
Speaker 1: the one to fifteen range is gonna look really smart,
Speaker 1: and then some are gonna look pretty dumb. But nobody
Speaker 1: right now seems to know exactly who's who. You know,
Speaker 1: some people absolutely swear by Bryce Young. Other people think
Speaker 1: his frame is a little slight to be a quarterback.
Speaker 1: And so with all of these quarterbacks, you can run
Speaker 1: through different scenarios where you can see them becoming superstars,
Speaker 1: where you can see reasons why they might not succeed.
Speaker 1: And I would love to look back on this draft
Speaker 1: in a few years and see who's right and who's wrong.
Speaker 1: As a journalist, how tempting is it for you? It
Speaker 1: seems like you always find a little of a different angle,
Speaker 1: you a little something different to approach a story, and
Speaker 1: it makes you a very fascinating person to read. How
Speaker 1: tempting is it though, to just kind of take the
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit and be like top five quarterbacks in
Speaker 1: the draft, or how we do this? Yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 1: what we do every day. But really, there are so
Speaker 1: many of what seems like redundancies just because everybody is
Speaker 1: covering the same few stories, but you always find the
Speaker 1: different angle. How do you do that? And how do
Speaker 1: you resist just being like, man, I could do this
Speaker 1: story in ten minutes. Well, I think my editor would
Speaker 1: laugh at me if I tried to do the first
Speaker 1: five quarterbacks, because he knows I'm nowhere near good enough
Speaker 1: scout to pretend to do that. But what I'd say
Speaker 1: is like, even all those stories are useful. I'm a
Speaker 1: voracious reader, and I learned about the draft by reading
Speaker 1: the You know, there's hundreds of media here. You learn
Speaker 1: by reading all these people's insights to the people who
Speaker 1: watch the tape for over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: So even though those lists often can seem like redundancies,
Speaker 1: you can still learn a lot by reading the people
Speaker 1: who you think are smart and think about trusting. And
Speaker 1: for me, I know I'm not good enough to evaluate
Speaker 1: Will Levis first, Anthony Richardson's arm, so I have to
Speaker 1: find something different. I tell you, anytime you put out
Speaker 1: something new, I read it and I can't say that
Speaker 1: about a lot of people. You write about a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff I know nothing about. In many cases I
Speaker 1: have no interest in, and I come away from it
Speaker 1: being interested. So thank you for what you do, Andrew
Speaker 1: beaton Wall Street Journal. It's just it's it's a great read.
Speaker 1: Every time you've put something out. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking time with us on the OTPA. I absolutely
Speaker 1: love it. Thank you so much for having it. Fun guy,
Speaker 1: fun guy to get to up. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: I love to combine is you're like, why would you
Speaker 1: throw that on on the OTP from the combine, And
Speaker 1: it's because everybody's here. Everybody is here, Mike, and that
Speaker 1: is so fascinating to get all of those I meause
Speaker 1: everybody see it's not just coaches in general managers that
Speaker 1: are involved now in the world of the National Football League.
Speaker 1: There is a whole ecosystem that works around this because
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great game, but it's a massive business.
Speaker 1: It's a massive business with a lot of tentacles to it,
Speaker 1: and everybody that's involved even like this, Yes they're here,
Speaker 1: they're here because this is the this is the epicenter
Speaker 1: of what's going on. Right now in the National Football League.
Speaker 1: That's why Indy fought to keep the combine. Absolutely it
Speaker 1: is because it draws so many people from so many
Speaker 1: different places all to one concentrated area where they can
Speaker 1: all interact and intermingle. I mean, Andrew was even saying
Speaker 1: that he comes to Indianapolis just to listen and observe.
Speaker 1: That's mostly what he's doing. And there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different journalists who are able to be here and
Speaker 1: do that because everybody is orbiting around each other in
Speaker 1: one I mean matter of a couple blocks. Everybody is
Speaker 1: right in the same space, and there's so much information
Speaker 1: that you're able to take in in this space. Other
Speaker 1: cities wouldn't be able to provide what Indianapolis provides well Geographically,
Speaker 1: that's why this has worked for so long. With the
Speaker 1: exception of the West Coast teams, majority of the National
Speaker 1: Football League is right very near to here. It's a
Speaker 1: central location for I mean think about the Tennessee Titans
Speaker 1: are just down the road, the Indianapolis Colds are right
Speaker 1: here in the backyard. But all the East Coast teams
Speaker 1: it's not that far to get to Indianapolis. Well, and
Speaker 1: coach Mac almost a quarter of the teams are no
Speaker 1: longer sending their coaching staffs to the combine. And it's
Speaker 1: an interesting development, it really is. And I think two
Speaker 1: things lynt to that, Mike. First of all, coaching staffs
Speaker 1: are turning over at a faster rate than they ever have.
Speaker 1: So this time of year, when you've got a new
Speaker 1: staff as a coaching staff, it's vital to start pulling together.
Speaker 1: Once you get people hired, Hey, what are we gonna do.
Speaker 1: What's our basic plan, what's our basic playbook? Look like?
Speaker 1: What's our And this is vital time right now. The
Speaker 1: scouting process of this and the medical process of this
Speaker 1: is what the genesis of this was. That those people,
Speaker 1: those people are all here every those people are all here,
Speaker 1: you know, doing that. But I can understand especially new
Speaker 1: coaching staffs or staffs that have had a pretty good turnover.
Speaker 1: And here's the other thing. The technology now, before when
Speaker 1: I first started doing this, if you didn't come here
Speaker 1: to see it, it might be a week or two
Speaker 1: or maybe longer before you ever got this. This information
Speaker 1: now is like bam button, it's back to you and
Speaker 1: you've got everything that you want. And especially then the workouts, bam,
Speaker 1: it's right back to you. So I think a lot
Speaker 1: of things have lent themselves to that, and I think
Speaker 1: more and more you will see some coaching staffs maybe
Speaker 1: have some people come in that are involved in a
Speaker 1: lot of evaluations, but not everybody. And because it used
Speaker 1: to be everybody, and then some teams are choosing, as
Speaker 1: you said, not to do it now. All right, so
Speaker 1: more to come from us again, we are soliciting for
Speaker 1: your otp qes for Jim Wyatt, for a live mailbag
Speaker 1: OTP with Jim white Um Disappointing Responses, Disappointing response Station. However,
Speaker 1: I know that the people will show up. They always
Speaker 1: rise to the occasion. Tennessee Titans dot com slash otp
Speaker 1: q all your Titans questions. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: draft related whatever. Really I mean we need you can
Speaker 1: ask about almost anything. We would really just like to
Speaker 1: have your questions be able to answer them. It's from
Speaker 1: Jim Wyatt. You know he knows what he's talking about,
Speaker 1: and we're just excited to hear from you guys. So
Speaker 1: Tennessee Titans dot com slash otp q's or if you
Speaker 1: want to tweet them, if you don't mess around, with
Speaker 1: the Internet. I don't know. Hit me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Titans Amy, am I E. I'll get them that way too.
Speaker 1: And why are we imploring for this? Listen? Think about
Speaker 1: this ot people. How cool would it be to have
Speaker 1: your OTP Q answered on an OTP not just in
Speaker 1: a regular mail bags sitting I would have on Tennessee
Speaker 1: Titans dot Com from Jim Wyatt sitting here in Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: There it is making it happen. There is the valid
Speaker 1: there it is okay. So at Titans Amy, that's a
Speaker 1: m I E. At Titans Amy. Rhet Brian's Twitter is
Speaker 1: at Rhett b Tennessee And for that matter, we'll just
Speaker 1: throw at Jim White's Twitter at j Wyatt Sports. So
Speaker 1: follow them on Twitter. We've got a lot more coming up,
Speaker 1: more interviews, more discussion, more from Indianapolis. On Thursday. That's
Speaker 1: the fourth day of the combined group. So we'll be
Speaker 1: back to bar for Coach Mack, for Rett Brian for
Speaker 1: Amy Wells. I'm Mike Keith. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 1: the O T. Pete. Welcome to the big show where
Speaker 1: the license go. Everybody knows it's our house fighting thoughts
Speaker 1: Tennessee makings to read Greatness is Metsi be