Speaker 1: Joining us now on the hotline for all pro linebacker
Speaker 1: in the National Football League. Now check him out on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Shawn Merriman. That's at Shawn Merriman, co founder
Speaker 1: of Lights Out x F M m A. Now, Sean,
Speaker 1: you can you can break the biggest story in the
Speaker 1: NFL in twenty years if you have the right answer
Speaker 1: the question I'm gonna ask you. You ready, all right?
Speaker 1: All right? Tell me the time you heard Philip Rivers
Speaker 1: curse when you were his teammates. Uh. Never, zero. It's
Speaker 1: not like I didn't try. I tried my best to
Speaker 1: normally when I tried to succeed, But I didn't succeed
Speaker 1: with that one. Oh did you ever get them close?
Speaker 1: You ever get close to dropping something? Or No? I did?
Speaker 1: I did. We were kicking their bus one day in
Speaker 1: practice and uh, I think PRIMARTI had just picked another
Speaker 1: interception all and I came back and ran back to
Speaker 1: the huddle in offensive huddle and slapped Philip on his
Speaker 1: butt in his head. I told, hey, man, you gotta
Speaker 1: pick it up today. And I thought he was gonna
Speaker 1: turn back and let what lay one on me, And
Speaker 1: he never did. But that was the closest I've seen
Speaker 1: him to almost almost getting there. There is one video
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about that you posted on
Speaker 1: on Twitter a few minutes ago. And look, Philip Rivers
Speaker 1: never was never going to fool anybody into being fleet
Speaker 1: of foot. You know, he was a pocket quarterback. But
Speaker 1: it looks like, is this video of him out racing
Speaker 1: you to the end zone and practice on on on
Speaker 1: a play once? Is that true? Guys? Listen, that was
Speaker 1: a bad camera, all right, you see how how bad
Speaker 1: quality is so bad camera bad angle? Uh and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all the way around. So I'm not necessarily it
Speaker 1: could be. It could be, but I'm not claiming that
Speaker 1: one either way. What's amazing though, all right, that video aside,
Speaker 1: and maybe someone was just in a river's jersey. I
Speaker 1: think that's what we need to say. Someone else borrowed
Speaker 1: us seventeen and then the red penny. But he's kind
Speaker 1: of the end of an age of quarterbacks, right because
Speaker 1: Brady he'll still do a quarterback sneak. He's not running
Speaker 1: for twenty yards or any of that, but still you
Speaker 1: can put he'll take the ball and move the pile.
Speaker 1: We look at Drew Brees up until this past year,
Speaker 1: which now we have a torn uh fascia that becomes
Speaker 1: a story from his wife. But he was a guy
Speaker 1: that could still pick up a couple of yards. Philip
Speaker 1: is the guy that was the drop back quarterback and
Speaker 1: that was it and that's gone. Well. You know, look
Speaker 1: at this right, So to drop back pocket passing quarterbacks,
Speaker 1: you're never going away. Like for for whatever, it's never
Speaker 1: going away. They will always have some success in the NFL.
Speaker 1: The problem is now, you know, you have these guys
Speaker 1: will drop back quarterbacks who are now athletic. They're not
Speaker 1: running quarterbacks, but they're athletic enough to get away from
Speaker 1: you and pick up yards when necessary. Uh yeah, you
Speaker 1: write the dying age of the Philip Rivers and the
Speaker 1: Peyton Manning's and Drew Brees and Tom Brady's. Those guys
Speaker 1: are on those I mean, it's they won't survive long
Speaker 1: term in the league because I do believe that everything
Speaker 1: on the defense side of the ball has got more
Speaker 1: complex that you need a quarterback that's able to you know,
Speaker 1: pick up seven, the twelve and fourteen yards here and there,
Speaker 1: just to put some kind of a threatn to a defense. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the dropback standard quarterback is is pretty much
Speaker 1: a dead topic now. You know. We talked to Josh
Speaker 1: Norman of the Bills last week and we were previewing
Speaker 1: the game with him and I say, hey, what makes
Speaker 1: Philip Rivers so tough to play against me? And he
Speaker 1: just said, man, Philip doesn't care. And I said, what
Speaker 1: we mean? Philip doesn't care because he'll throw the ball.
Speaker 1: He thinks, no matter how good you are, I am
Speaker 1: better than you and I can get the football there.
Speaker 1: And that's what makes him so much fun to play
Speaker 1: against and also makes it maddening because lots of times
Speaker 1: he'll get the ball there and you'll walk around and go,
Speaker 1: how did he just throw that football there? I don't.
Speaker 1: I did everything right at this and did this, and
Speaker 1: he still got the football there. Is that kind of
Speaker 1: the the guy you saw in practicing in games when
Speaker 1: you played with him. Absolutely, and I'll tell anybody to
Speaker 1: this day. I said, you know, Philip is the most
Speaker 1: competitive player I've ever played with out of any position.
Speaker 1: And when I tell you that he wants to compete,
Speaker 1: you know, not just on the field, but you can
Speaker 1: be in the locker room playing dominoes or cards, or
Speaker 1: at the cafeteria. He'll walk up to you while you're
Speaker 1: on the on the bench press in the weight room
Speaker 1: and just say something two your year walk off like
Speaker 1: he's just it's a non stop thinking him and his
Speaker 1: play shows, right, I mean that what you just said
Speaker 1: is absolutely correct. I mean he will he will think
Speaker 1: that he can beat you all the time, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, the gift and the curse of him and
Speaker 1: that you know, kind of bait him in the button
Speaker 1: once in a while, but for the most part, um,
Speaker 1: you never felt like you were out of the games, feeler,
Speaker 1: because his confidence and his competitive spirit would just never
Speaker 1: out of whack. All right, So take me back to
Speaker 1: that practice after you patted him on the head and
Speaker 1: on the butt and went back to your defensive position,
Speaker 1: how soon did he get to trash talk you? Because
Speaker 1: I know that session wasn't ending until he got at
Speaker 1: least one on you. Well, you know, he's always saved
Speaker 1: for me in practice because he has on a red jersey, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, so he can say one to me because
Speaker 1: the only way I can hurt you is coming in
Speaker 1: the late one on you. So he knew that wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna happen, So he can talk trash to me, and
Speaker 1: there was nothing I can do about it. So you know,
Speaker 1: if one of the defensive back or uh, one of
Speaker 1: the guys who had picked the ball off, that was
Speaker 1: my only way of really being able to talk trash
Speaker 1: to him because I knew I wasn't dropping back enough
Speaker 1: to pick you know, have an interception or anything like that. So, um,
Speaker 1: it was it was fun man, that you know, he
Speaker 1: made practice this fun because our team was just full
Speaker 1: of of so many big names and stars and athletes
Speaker 1: that every day was a competition, and Philip literally laid
Speaker 1: a bunch. Sean Merriman with us here a Fox Sports
Speaker 1: Radio The Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmen. All Right,
Speaker 1: if I said, what's your best Philip Rivers story? If
Speaker 1: I said, you gotta tell me the one story about
Speaker 1: Philip Rivers, a story you'll tell his Hall of Fame induction,
Speaker 1: what's the story you tell about him? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we used to have this thing called freestyle Friday. Uh,
Speaker 1: every every Friday, you know, one of the defensive players
Speaker 1: or somebody in there, they're kind of wrapping whatever the
Speaker 1: hottest song is and kind of wrap over it. Well,
Speaker 1: Philip is, you know, he's so damned smart. He picks
Speaker 1: up on everything that anybody talks about, anybody say whatever,
Speaker 1: the latest slang gears. I mean, he he listened and
Speaker 1: he got his ears always, you know, to the mat.
Speaker 1: And uh, we're sitting in the linebacker meeting rooms and
Speaker 1: uh we we hear somebody rapping coming down the hallway.
Speaker 1: I think it was the Chingy or somebody back in
Speaker 1: the you know men two thousand where Chingy would hide.
Speaker 1: And we hear somebody rapping all the way to the
Speaker 1: hallway and it's Philip. Philip is rapping the lyrics to
Speaker 1: uh to one of the rap songs walking down the hallway.
Speaker 1: And we when I tell you that the defensive meeting room,
Speaker 1: we stopped and we were on the floor crying, laughing
Speaker 1: because we just you know, he he knew every word
Speaker 1: word for word, bar for bar, and he just, um,
Speaker 1: he was just one of those guys man. He you know,
Speaker 1: he would come over and sit in if a group
Speaker 1: of linebackers and the line that we were all together
Speaker 1: sitting at a lunch table, he would come right down
Speaker 1: and sit down with us. I mean, would be the
Speaker 1: only offensive player. It's just he was. He was that
Speaker 1: guy man. And Uh, like I said, you you're gonna
Speaker 1: miss playing with You're gonna miss even playing against them.
Speaker 1: And I'm and I'm glad more than anything that now
Speaker 1: that the public is just getting the chance to see
Speaker 1: with these miked ups and play him going back and
Speaker 1: forth with other players. I'm glad that everybody is getting
Speaker 1: a chance to see for the first time that it's
Speaker 1: a competitive chatter, that it's not you know, someone out
Speaker 1: there being a uh, you know, just just being a
Speaker 1: run them out and and can't stop talking, and it's
Speaker 1: more of a competitive spirit. And you you're gonna miss
Speaker 1: playing with them, You're gonna miss playing against them, all right.
Speaker 1: So Jason brought it up before Sean. We got your
Speaker 1: former team, the Buffalo Bills and Josh Norman and company
Speaker 1: trying to do what they can expecting Patrick Mahomes on
Speaker 1: the field that Josh Allen's time is that defense ready
Speaker 1: for the task of Hill and Kelsey and all the
Speaker 1: speed that Kansas City brings to pair. You know what,
Speaker 1: no one is completely ready for, right. I Mean, they're
Speaker 1: the most Kansas City is the most explosive team in
Speaker 1: all the football. But I mean, I'm gonna put that
Speaker 1: out there because they can score at any given time,
Speaker 1: and then they can have a terrible two or three
Speaker 1: quarters and light you up there, you know, for a
Speaker 1: quarter and a half and score seventeen and twenty points
Speaker 1: like it's nothing. Can they can do it? They have
Speaker 1: done it. The difference is playing the Bills is that
Speaker 1: they're very, very pretty team. You know. These guys are grinders,
Speaker 1: you know, they make the tough plays. They die for
Speaker 1: every yards yard that's there. They go and try to
Speaker 1: scramble and scrape for every single tackle. They're gonna fight
Speaker 1: you on everything you get. And that's that's the nemesis
Speaker 1: for anybody that's that's playing an explosive team like Kansas City.
Speaker 1: They're they're gonna limit the big place that every you know,
Speaker 1: they're gonna finish tackles, they're gonna swarm, they're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: do everything to prevent you from being explosive. And this
Speaker 1: this is why it's a little scary for for Kansas City.
Speaker 1: And I'm and I'm happy for the city of of Buffalo,
Speaker 1: I really am. It's unfortunate that the fans won't get
Speaker 1: a chance to go to the game. All right. Lastly,
Speaker 1: before I let you go, Hey, do you know Deshaun Watson.
Speaker 1: Can you call him and get him to the jets
Speaker 1: for me? I mean, I know, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and it looks like it's gonna look he's
Speaker 1: liking everything on Instagram, jets, it's all going back and forth.
Speaker 1: Can you get that over the top for me? You
Speaker 1: know what, I can't call him, man, that's what That's
Speaker 1: what Jesus called it. I gotta call God because I
Speaker 1: think that's gonna be the only way that that's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: They're not going to let They're not gonna let him,
Speaker 1: you know, go to that situation. I don't think and
Speaker 1: I and I saw the romans. I saw that, you know,
Speaker 1: the room mills about him possibly wanting to go to
Speaker 1: the jet um. But you know, to be honest, there
Speaker 1: there's other teams out there. There's more I guess suitable
Speaker 1: for him to go and and and really get a
Speaker 1: chance to shine UM. So sorry, man, I don't see
Speaker 1: him going out there with your jet. Well follow on
Speaker 1: Twitter anyway at Shawn Merriman. That's at Shawn Merriman. Also
Speaker 1: at Lights out XF that's at Lights out XF. Hey. Uh,
Speaker 1: hopefully this whole thing, this pandemic stuff starts and you
Speaker 1: can get back out and put some of the stuff
Speaker 1: out there. I can't wait, man soon to stay stayed
Speaker 1: at home is lifted, we'll be we'll be back out there.
Speaker 1: And we got a bunch of surprises coming up with
Speaker 1: the informer athletes transitioning over the m m A. So
Speaker 1: I can't wait to make to make those announcements. You
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Speaker 1: for lights out, so maybe Kevin Garnet will get in there.
Speaker 1: I saw that on your Twitter feed about a week ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish him and uh Udonis. I want them to
Speaker 1: the getting in and throw throw down and had them
Speaker 1: that would be funn