This week on the podcast John talks about Joe Flacco's comments about how he doesn't want to be looked at as a mentor, another big win for Scottie on the PGA Tour, and a key loss for the Lions to their offense. All that and more!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we doing?
John Middlecoff Three and Out Podcast. Hopefully everyone's doing well. Listen.
(00:23):
If you like this show and you're a listener of
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(00:45):
Today's a little best of of last week if you
missed anything. Joe Flacco said he's not a mentor, and
to be honest with you, totally agree with this sentiment.
On that Scottie Scheffler finds a way to win again
and the Lions lose another Pro Bowl high end player
to retirement before he hits thirty. Now this time their
franchise is good, but not ideal when you lose a really,
(01:08):
really good player before thirty. So we will dive into
all that again. Subscribe either to the podcast feed or
to the YouTube channel and we will have you covered.
But let's dive into some football. You know, I gotta
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price guaranteed. Joe Flackel made some comments I probably could
play them, but the gist of it essentially was like
I'm not here to mentor guys. Because he was asked like,
(03:58):
do you view yourself as a mentor, and he gave
a really really good answer. I thought, right, like, he's like,
I could go either way, right. I could. I could
come out and say I'm gonna be a great mentor,
and then you guys can crush me. I'm not focused
enough on on winning. I could say I'm not gonna
be a great mentor, and you guys could look at
me like I'm an asshole, and the reality is I'm
(04:18):
here to try to win games. And in fairness to
Joe Flacco, Joe Flacco knows this. Kevin Stefanski knows this
because he surely told him when Joe Flacco's came there
and signed. The entire team knows this because a couple
of years ago, Joe Flacco led them to the playoffs.
And I don't know how long it's gonna go on.
I don't know if their team's gonna be that good.
(04:38):
But when it comes to Week one, if he's healthy,
Joe Flacco's gonna be the starter. Like I saw Colin
go on this thing that Shador should be the starter
right now, Like, yeah, listen, I'm for an entertainment standpoint
and content standpoint. I'm all for it. This is not
gonna happen. Joe Flacco is the starting quarterback for the
Cleveland Browns week one. You can put that thing in
fucking sharpie. And if I'm signed to be the starter,
(05:02):
my job is not to mentor the guy. My job,
especially in the off season and in August training camp
and going into week one, is to try to help
my team win. Now, if Joe Flacco had said this
as the backup quarterback for Josh Allen or that's a
bad example because he's been in the league for a while.
Let's say the Bears had signed him to back up
(05:22):
Caleb Williams, or the Patriots had signed him to back
up Drake May and he had said this and it
was clear, like Joe, you're not the starter. I would
have been like, that's the wrong signing for that team.
Because when the Kanseye Chiefs signed Chad Henny the year
they got rid of Alex Smith for Patrick Mahomes. The
reason they signed Chad Henny obviously had a bunch of experience,
(05:44):
he was married and mature. But was this to help
Patrick Mahomes to be like an older voice in the
room on how to prepare and be a pro aka
be a mentor. That was his role. That is not
Joe Flacco's role on June first, twenty twenty five. His
job is to be the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.
So I've seen a million different thoughts and people with
(06:06):
different takes on this, Like, guy, it's not that complicated.
He's a starting quarterback. Like we all know that's going
to play out now, if by week seven and they
are two and five and he gets benched and Dylan
Gabriel of Shador is thrown in the mix, then yeah,
his job then pivots to help that guy out, which
he has surely done before. But like, you can only
(06:29):
do so much, you really can't. Like, look at last year.
I would imagine he tried to help Anthony Richardson out.
But there's a chance to some of these young guys
because this is the nature of you know, a young
I don't want to say no it all, but I
think young successful people probably think they know more than
they actually do. They're probably not asking him unlimited questions.
(06:52):
And the other thing he alluded to, like ideally, I
hope our relationship's good, Like that's just the organic nature
of being a good teammate and being around each other
and being like minded people. But there's no guarantee. It's like, yeah,
welcome to life. You can work with people if you
don't have the same values and morals and kind of standards.
(07:13):
If one guy's lazy and you don't buy into it,
or that guy, if you're lazy and the guy that's
a grinder, you're not gonna get along it's not gonna happen.
It's not gonna go. Well, we have all been in
different scenarios in our professional life. Once you get to
a certain age, if you've worked in the workforce, I
would say for over a decade you have worked with
(07:34):
someone you do not like. I think that's borderline impossible. Now,
depending on your personality, that number could be higher or lower,
but we have all worked with people. Again, not a
boss that kind of rubs you the wrong way or
pisses you off. I'm saying someone you legitimately can't stand,
someone you view as like a piece of shit, low character, loser,
(07:55):
and that's that happens. I'm sure in every locker room
there are a couple people that can't stand each other,
and you hope that's not the case, and you definitely
hope it's not in the quarterback room. But it is
not Joe Flacco's job to hold. You know, everyone's gonna
say Shador. And here's the thing with Shador. The coaching
staff in the GM drafted Dylan Gabriel first, so we
(08:16):
can all want Shador to play. From an entertainment standpoint,
who do you think Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry are
gonna put out first because they do control a lot
of this. I've said forever the moment you get drafted,
a GM and a front office can like the player,
but they don't control the practice script. They don't control
who goes in when at practice. Now, obviously some gms
(08:39):
have more juice than others, but the coach has the
majority of the poll, especially once a practice starts, he
can do whatever he wants to do. So it's it's
gonna be on those two guys who are gonna be
taking reps with backups, and who knows, maybe because Flacco
is old and has so much experience that they just
don't even give him that many reps. I have a
(09:01):
hard time seeing that in training camp, at least, because
you do need to have everyone on your team at
least think that you have the belief that winning is possible. Right,
You can flip the script pretty easily once you've lost
a couple of games. But in training camp, what's the
point of grinding if we're just going to mail in
the season. It's why tanking doesn't exist in the NFL,
(09:21):
because no one has that mentality. No one just fucking
mails it in. Now, maybe they do some sort of
you know, like they did last year with Drake May
and Jacoby Brissette. Jacoby was gonna start Week one, but
in training camp they were splitting the reps unlike most
teams would normally do. And maybe they do that with
the young players in Gabriel and Shador when it comes
(09:44):
to training camp reps with Joe Flacco, because you go,
he doesn't need as many reps. But I don't blame
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Speaker 1 (12:43):
Scottie Scheffler wins again uh I guess we shouldn't be shocked.
Kind of kicking myself. Liked him at the PGA Championship,
but really liked him the last couple weeks. And Ben
Griffin wins at the Colonial couple weeks ago, but Scotty
wins Memorial. He goes back to back for the first
(13:07):
guy to do that at Jack's tournament. Since Tiger Woods,
he has three wins in his last four starts, and
he has combined to win those tournaments by eight shots,
five shots that would be thirteen and then four seventeen shots.
Safe to say, I thought it was a little hyperbolic
(13:28):
last year. I know he was having a Tiger like season,
but I think sometimes when you compare people to Tiger Woods,
to Tom Brady, to as a hitter, if like comparing
you to Tony Gwinn, you make these lofty comparisons. Typically
they're unfair because, like the best of the best, they
do it over a course. You know, Tiger for a
(13:49):
decade kicked everyone's ass, Tom Brady did it for fifteen
to twenty years, right, some of these guys, they have
such long careers of dominance, and you know, Scotty's really
been doing it coming into this year for like a
year and a half at the highest level, which is incredible,
which is very very hard to do with the sport.
And if you look historically, a lot of Hall of
(14:10):
Fame golfers just that have had great long careers take
advantage of like twenty four months. And if you look
at some major stretches, like guys that have won three
or two majors, they usually do it over like two
calendar years. And you just never know. Golf's really hard.
I mean, at one point in time, you would have
thought Rory back in twenty fourteen would have won ten majors.
(14:33):
You would have said the same thing for Jordan Speed.
I'm watching Jordan Speith yesterday watching the final round a memorial.
I mean, the guy has gotta be the most entertaining
golfer of all time. I mean, on any given moment,
he can hit someone in the head with a golf
ball or have a putt for like a seven foot
or per eagle. You have no clue what's coming at
any moment. It is the ultimate roller coaster ride. And
(14:56):
Scotti Scheffler currently is the complete opposite. You know exactly
what you're getting. He's not only the heavy favorite to
win next week at Oakmont. I think I speak for everybody.
It'd be shocking if he doesn't win. It really would.
He's plus two eighty And all we ever say about
this sport currently is it's never been deeper, There's never
(15:16):
been more talent. We say the same thing about the NBA,
and while I'd probably agree in terms of basketball, there
probably has never been more individual talent and more skilled
guys in the sport. It's not an individual sport. It's
a team game. And now with the mercenary kind of
element of basketball, you got guys jumping all over the place,
(15:38):
so there's no cohesion with teams. I'd argue, like top
to bottom, there have never been more I don't know,
worse teams, but just more chaotic situations. Even talented teams
aren't as good because they haven't played together for long.
When I grew up on the NBA, for example, it
was like baseball and basketball, you had core groups that
played together for a long time and you got to
(16:00):
build cohesion. Or golf, it doesn't really matter, it's just yourself.
You're just playing yourself. And the thing about team sports, like,
let's use the basketball analogy Oklahoma City. They're clearly really good.
So when they have one guy has an off night,
when you're an elite team, you got other guys to
pick you up. We've seen it in college sports forever,
like it's really easy to go on a run when
(16:23):
you have a roster like twenty nineteen LSU football, or
those couple of years of Georgia football with all the
NFL players they had, or Jim Harbass team two years
ago at Michigan Room, the decade worth of Nick Saban's teams.
They were dramatically better than everyone else, and there was
maybe a game or two throughout the season where the
competition was going to be close to equal. We've seen
(16:44):
in college basketa for ball for a long time. Some
hell this year with Duke they don't win at all,
but it was clear every game they played except maybe
two or three, they were clearly better than the other team.
So even if some random shit happens, the margin for
error because we got five guys on the court or
eleven guys on the field in football is gonna be
on my side. In golf, there's a huge randomness to
(17:07):
the sport, right What if you're just feeling shitty that day.
I was thinking this yesterday when I was recording a
podcast on Sunday, I'm like, I don't think my brain's working,
Like it was this podcast the worst podcast I've ever
done in my entire life. But like it's whatever. We
have five six days a week doing podcasts every single
week all year long, year after year. It's like, okay,
(17:28):
just keep on swinging in golf, like you play in
these tournaments a Scott he's doing. You got four days.
What if just one day you're just feeling like crap?
What if one day, like the bounces don't go your way.
Instead of like hitting two yards farther and bouncing five
feet away from the hole, it kicks back and you
get plugged in the bunker and instead of getting a birdie,
you get a double bogie. And that's the reason maybe
(17:49):
you don't make the cut. That's just not happening to
the Scotty Shuffler at all. It's what was so amazing
about Tiger Woods, which people said forever his most amazing
accomplishment of his career was his consecutive cut streak. He
never missed the cut. Why because like obviously he was
the best player, but to me that spoke. It didn't
mean he won every week because he didn't. I mean,
(18:11):
if you're an all time golfer and you're even getting
close to winning like ten percent of the time, that's
an incredible clip. Yet Tigers give a shit. Factor was
really really high. He took everything really really seriously. And
I would say the same thing about Scotty Scheffler, which
early in the year he gave him a little bit
benefited oubt because he had the injury to his hand
and everything was just a little off. You're like, it's
(18:33):
golf cut his hand, kind of a freak deal. And
then right around the Masters, it felt like, is this
gonna be Rory's year? He wins a pebble, he wins
the players, and then he finally wins the Masters. You're like,
is Rory about to have like five or six wins
this season in a couple of majors and kind of
steal the thrown back from Scotty and Scotty, to quote
Lee Corso said, not so fast, my friend, pump the
(18:54):
fucking breaks. Then he goes to the CJ Cup in
a field that, let's face it, not very good, and
you're like, listen, this is a warm up for the
PGA Championship, he'll probably win, but even if he doesn't,
as long as he gets some good momentum finishes in
the top five. Not only does he win, he wins
by eight shots. Then he goes to the PGA where
he wins by five shots. So in two straight weeks
(19:15):
he wins tournaments by a combined thirteen shots. And then
he goes to last two weeks ago with the Colonial
Ben Griffin wins. But it's not like Scotty just mailed it.
In the craziest part about this guy, he's like he
never just has a random week where he finishes like
thirty fifth. He finished fourth that week, then comes into
this week defending champ. No big deal, I'll win easily.
(19:37):
And as Jack Nicholas said, it's like, yeah, you know,
Ben Griffin, Sepstraca, Nick Taylor nice players, but let's be honest,
they're not in Scotty's league. Sepstraca won this year. Ben
Griffin literally just won last week, and he just dismissed them,
and so does Scotty kicked his ass, even though I
actually think Ben Griffin wasn't terrible. A couple way where
(19:59):
shots series right there, but what he's doing right now
in an individual sport where you have no one to
bail you out, Like if you're just feeling like shit,
if you didn't sleep well, if I don't know we've
all played golf, you just don't have it. I heard
Scott Van Pelt say this, I think a couple of
weeks ago on his podcast. He's like, the most impressive
thing always was about Tiger is like he didn't have
(20:22):
it every week, but there were some rounds where most
guys would have ended up shooting seventy four or seventy
five and essentially lost the tournament on like a Thursday
or Friday because either they missed the cut or they've
been too far back, and Tiger was always able to
find like, you know what, I'm not shooting seventy four today,
I'm gonna end up shooting seventy I'm not shooting seventy six.
(20:43):
To day, I'm shooting seventy two, and you just keep
kind of your head above water. And Scotty right now,
has I mean Rory at any moment if you tell me,
like on an individual week, mails it in finishes thirty fifth,
like totally believable. Xander I'm giving him a little benefit
of doubt this year because of the rib injury, Like
it's kind of a tough injury to play through. He
(21:04):
was incredible last year. He's been one of the better
players in the world. Clearly not quite himself this year.
But and it's hard, you know, with with Bryson and
Rahm not playing with these guys every single week. But
what Scott he's doing, Like I thought we were obviously
witnessing an all time great player. But like the Tiger comparisons,
the Jack like this is if he goes to win
(21:27):
at Oakmont, to have these back to back years of
winning at this clip and just kicking the shit out
of everybody. I understand Rory wasn't there last week, but
every player other than Rory was trying to beat this guy.
And he's just curb stomping the Justin Thomas is the
Xanders like it's not even close. The Patrick canfel As,
these guys are all gonna be like on the Ryder
(21:49):
Cup team with him, and they're just so Jack's taking
this line of the Ben Griffins, the Cepstracas aren't in
his league, like no, no, but he's in his league.
Rory's turns out not in his league, like none of
these guys are so the guys that are right behind
him on the Ryder Cup list, the Xanders, the Justin
(22:12):
Thomas says, like it's not even close. It's not a
fair fight. In a sport that like, there's just some
randomness that even if you get hot, you kind of
come back to earth. It's it's pretty crazy to witness.
I mean, I'm watching yesterday kicking myself, like, why didn't
you put an astrogonomical amount of money on this guy?
And every time I talk myself out of it, it's like, Ah,
this is gonna be the week, and then he goes
(22:32):
and wins. I always think when a player retires quote
unquote randomly, especially when there is you know, the car
situation had gotten let's say, toxic between the new coaching staff,
mainly the new head coach him. They weren't on the
same page. It clearly got weird, and I do think
(22:53):
that I would imagine we'll see when quotes come out
when Dan Campbell finally gets in front of a Mike
or Brad Holm, the GM that they would have been
in communication over the offseason with Frank ragnow their starting
center and let's face it, one of the better interior
offensive linemen in the NFL. It's always a little jarring
(23:13):
when you see a guy just choosing to quit at
twenty nine years old. Now, I think what makes pro
sports in twenty twenty five so much different than I
would say the previous We could even go the last
ten years, but anything before that is the money is
so outrageous, it really is. Frank Ragno's twenty nine years
(23:35):
old and he's already made fifty seven million dollars, you know,
so even if you factor in after taxes, he's taken
in net probably I don't know, well over thirty million dollars.
And he lives in a place that, you know, no
shade to Detroit, and obviously they have some high end places,
but is it Manhattan or Newport Beach? So his money's
(23:57):
going a little bit farther, And I do think that
may or gives guys the opportunity when they're in a
lot of pain, because the one thing with football is
we've all been critical, and I'm guilty as anybody is
being like, this is not the NFL. I knew this
is not the sport that I grew up loving. This
(24:17):
was not the sport when I was in high school.
It was suspicious. You could take out anybody, the Ronnie Lotts,
the John Lynches, the Troy Paulamalus, the Ray Lewises' that's
my NFL. It was a much more violent game in
the open field. That is true. Can't touch the quarterback anymore.
That's a fact which I do understand from a business perspective.
(24:40):
But when you're watching a game, when it's your team,
when you're betting on a game, and they throw a
roughing the passer penalty on a quarterback hit that is
like hitting him with a pillow. It makes you want
to puke. I mean, it really does. But the one
area where you can still be really violent and and
(25:00):
an area in which more and more elite players have
come into the league over the past decade at defensive tackle,
let alone, defensive end is the line of scrimmage and
the speed, the power, the size of these humans is
It's crazy whenever the combine comes around and you see
the measurables on the defensive lineman in the league. And
(25:24):
Frank Ragnow said, like I've tried to talk myself that
I'm not into a lot of pain and at the
end of the day, I just do not feel right.
And if you look at his injury history, he's had
a bunch of injuries over the course of his career.
And you do not become a Pro Bowl level player,
a high end player, a first round pick, a guy
that is just you know, one of the better players
(25:44):
at your positioning at offensive line if you are not
a tough son of a bitch, Like no one can
question your toughness when you play center or guard and
you are a high end player at that position. So
I'm going to take him at his word that the
pain and the worry of out like this might not
work moving forward, right. Jason Kelsey talked about this when
(26:05):
he retired, like could I keep playing? Of course now
he was much older than rag now, But I'm in
so much pain when I get out of bed every morning,
not even counting the season. I'm talking about the offseason.
And I do think it makes it easier to make
life decisions when you have a lot of money in
the bank and your family is secured and you're not
gonna have to worry about anything. Is it unlimited money?
(26:29):
Is it enough where you couldn't blow it if you
did some stupid things. Of course not so. But is
it more money? Are you immediately in the top one
percent of the one percent? With having millions upon millions
upon millions of dollars in the bank, you can look
at things a little bit differently, and it has to
be difficult to make this decision. I think if you're
the Lions. I've said this before and I still believe
(26:52):
this today. Now it is more difficult in this spread
offense version of college football, this transfer port world we
live in. I always thought the guards and centers are
the most replaceable. Now when you get Pro Bowl guys,
it is hard to find another Pro Bowl guy. But
the drop off of just finding another center who can
(27:15):
function is much smaller than if Pine Sewel retired. It's like,
what do I do at tackle? It's like, yeah, you
can be screwed. I see it with the forty nine
ers all the time. When Trent Williams gets gets injured.
It's like, what do we do And the answer is
there's nothing you can do because your swing tackle can
never just step in. I hate you know. The Lions
(27:36):
over the last couple of years have actually had a
pretty good swing tackle, but it's why their offensive line's
been awesome. But for the most part, like there's a
massive drop off with your third tackle been given a
guy that your starter, especially when that starter is a
high end guy. But I think we've seen, like, you know,
Derek Carr thirty years ago is still playing football, right,
but he's made over two hundred million dollars. And it's like,
(27:58):
you know what, just kind of over this, not dealing
with the politics of this business. And Frank is like,
you know what, thirty years ago, when again, NFL players
were still making a lot of money in the nineties,
they weren't making life changing, generational changing money when you
were the center in nineteen eighty seven. You keep playing
(28:18):
because Frank, hell, he could make ten million dollars this
upcoming season. Hell, he could hold out because he has
no guaranteed money left on his contract and surely get
a raise. I mean, he's scheduled to make like nine
and a half million dollars in actual cash. I bet
he could get that number easily up to fifteen plus
million dollars. But you're like, you know, it's not even
(28:38):
worth it to me. I don't even want to deal
with this, And who knows. He's young enough that maybe
in a year, maybe he's feeling better, that he gets
the itch. And trust me, there would be either the
Lions or other teams willing to scratch that itch. But
I think a huge element of these decisions, even going
back to Calvin Johnson, you know, I think Barry Sanders'
(28:59):
decision was strictly based on this franchise. Fucking sucks. This
is not fun, this is this is a miserable experience
running around and never winning. I do think the guys
that we've seen in recent memory have factored in pain.
And I'm super rich, it's just not worth it. Patrick
Willis had the feet. I think Calvin Johnson had the
(29:20):
feet as well. You know, Derek Carr has this messed
up shoulder. Those are just ones that come to mind.
It's like, you know what, I don't need the money anymore.
Aaron Donald, I mean Aaron Donald's still kicking ass and
taking names. He's like, I've already banged one hundred million dollars.
I'm good, Doug, I'm out. I've already accomplished everything I've
set out to accomplish. I still feel good. I see
some of these clips I saw on Instagram reel of
(29:42):
Aaron Donald lifting. It's like, Jesus, guy looks fantastic. He
looks like he could he'd make it all pro this
season if he came back. I would actually been on it.
But it's like, you know what, it's not worth it
to me because football, more than these other sports like baseball,
you just play every single night. You don't practice, take
a little bit, and you play basketball if you're on
(30:02):
a good team by like Christmas, you don't even you
don't practice at all either. I don't think Lebron James
teams have practiced in like a decade, so like football
is the one sport where you practice and mentally practice
with meetings and rehab and working on your body and
lifting way more than you get to play. I say
(30:24):
this all the time because I think it's one of
the great quotes of all time. Ray Lewis saying, you
pay me Monday through Saturday. Sundays are for free because
playing football at any level, if you played in high school,
if you played pee wee's, if you good enough to
play in college, the games are the fun part, right.
It's everything else that sucks. And I think it's made
these decisions for some of these guys that could I
(30:47):
battle through a couple more years of this pain for
another twenty million dollars, which most humans would do. Well,
it's easy to go, yeah, it's not quite worth it
when you've already made millions of dollars. And I think
that's really the number one factor here. The volume m
The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we doing?
John Middlecoff Three and Out Podcast. Hopefully everyone's doing well. Listen.
(00:23):
If you like this show and you're a listener of
this show, you gotta make sure you subscribe to the
Three and Out podcast feed in the YouTube channel. Last
week we had John Spytech, the general manager of the Raiders,
on and if you listen through Collins feed you can
miss stuff like that. We have another GM lined up
for next week, so make sure you subscribe to the podcast.
(00:45):
Today's a little best of of last week if you
missed anything. Joe Flacco said he's not a mentor, and
to be honest with you, totally agree with this sentiment.
On that Scottie Scheffler finds a way to win again
and the Lions lose another Pro Bowl high end player
to retirement before he hits thirty. Now this time their
franchise is good, but not ideal when you lose a really,
(01:08):
really good player before thirty. So we will dive into
all that again. Subscribe either to the podcast feed or
to the YouTube channel and we will have you covered.
But let's dive into some football. You know, I gotta
tell you about my friends, my partners in the official
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And we have James who works I don't even know
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I got a buddy here, Bill Pacota, who played the
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(02:11):
seen him probably four or five times in my life.
It's just a chill, awesome concert and he's rocking and
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Seems like it'd be a lot of fun. Hell, I
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if you ever want to go to Vegas to go
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that has been to this event, they can't explain it
hard enough, how incredible the experience and how moving it
all is. They've never seen anything like it. And I'm
(02:52):
seeing the same thing on social media when it comes
to the Kenny Chesney experience, They're like, this is awesome. Hell.
Even my girl, Cindy Crawford, she was there with family
taking a picture with them. So if you ever want
to get a chance to go to the Sphere and
see whoever whoever's playing there, just use game time easier
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(03:13):
I saw Portinoy say that, even Kenny told him it's
a It's a weird experience as a performer because you're
used to everyone staring at you, but instead they're staring
way above you, but I gotta go. I gotta go sometime,
and I want to go see someone like I'm not
a big deadhead, but I mean everyone hyped it up,
so I think Kenny's probably more my speed, and I
was like, I need to go. So take the guests
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work out of buying tickets with game Time. Download the
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price guaranteed. Joe Flackel made some comments I probably could
play them, but the gist of it essentially was like
I'm not here to mentor guys. Because he was asked like,
(03:58):
do you view yourself as a mentor, and he gave
a really really good answer. I thought, right, like, he's like,
I could go either way, right. I could. I could
come out and say I'm gonna be a great mentor,
and then you guys can crush me. I'm not focused
enough on on winning. I could say I'm not gonna
be a great mentor, and you guys could look at
me like I'm an asshole, and the reality is I'm
(04:18):
here to try to win games. And in fairness to
Joe Flacco, Joe Flacco knows this. Kevin Stefanski knows this
because he surely told him when Joe Flacco's came there
and signed. The entire team knows this because a couple
of years ago, Joe Flacco led them to the playoffs.
And I don't know how long it's gonna go on.
I don't know if their team's gonna be that good.
(04:38):
But when it comes to Week one, if he's healthy,
Joe Flacco's gonna be the starter. Like I saw Colin
go on this thing that Shador should be the starter
right now, Like, yeah, listen, I'm for an entertainment standpoint
and content standpoint. I'm all for it. This is not
gonna happen. Joe Flacco is the starting quarterback for the
Cleveland Browns week one. You can put that thing in
fucking sharpie. And if I'm signed to be the starter,
(05:02):
my job is not to mentor the guy. My job,
especially in the off season and in August training camp
and going into week one, is to try to help
my team win. Now, if Joe Flacco had said this
as the backup quarterback for Josh Allen or that's a
bad example because he's been in the league for a while.
Let's say the Bears had signed him to back up
(05:22):
Caleb Williams, or the Patriots had signed him to back
up Drake May and he had said this and it
was clear, like Joe, you're not the starter. I would
have been like, that's the wrong signing for that team.
Because when the Kanseye Chiefs signed Chad Henny the year
they got rid of Alex Smith for Patrick Mahomes. The
reason they signed Chad Henny obviously had a bunch of experience,
(05:44):
he was married and mature. But was this to help
Patrick Mahomes to be like an older voice in the
room on how to prepare and be a pro aka
be a mentor. That was his role. That is not
Joe Flacco's role on June first, twenty twenty five. His
job is to be the starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.
So I've seen a million different thoughts and people with
(06:06):
different takes on this, Like, guy, it's not that complicated.
He's a starting quarterback. Like we all know that's going
to play out now, if by week seven and they
are two and five and he gets benched and Dylan
Gabriel of Shador is thrown in the mix, then yeah,
his job then pivots to help that guy out, which
he has surely done before. But like, you can only
(06:29):
do so much, you really can't. Like, look at last year.
I would imagine he tried to help Anthony Richardson out.
But there's a chance to some of these young guys
because this is the nature of you know, a young
I don't want to say no it all, but I
think young successful people probably think they know more than
they actually do. They're probably not asking him unlimited questions.
(06:52):
And the other thing he alluded to, like ideally, I
hope our relationship's good, Like that's just the organic nature
of being a good teammate and being around each other
and being like minded people. But there's no guarantee. It's like, yeah,
welcome to life. You can work with people if you
don't have the same values and morals and kind of standards.
(07:13):
If one guy's lazy and you don't buy into it,
or that guy, if you're lazy and the guy that's
a grinder, you're not gonna get along it's not gonna happen.
It's not gonna go. Well, we have all been in
different scenarios in our professional life. Once you get to
a certain age, if you've worked in the workforce, I
would say for over a decade you have worked with
(07:34):
someone you do not like. I think that's borderline impossible. Now,
depending on your personality, that number could be higher or lower,
but we have all worked with people. Again, not a
boss that kind of rubs you the wrong way or
pisses you off. I'm saying someone you legitimately can't stand,
someone you view as like a piece of shit, low character, loser,
(07:55):
and that's that happens. I'm sure in every locker room
there are a couple people that can't stand each other,
and you hope that's not the case, and you definitely
hope it's not in the quarterback room. But it is
not Joe Flacco's job to hold. You know, everyone's gonna
say Shador. And here's the thing with Shador. The coaching
staff in the GM drafted Dylan Gabriel first, so we
(08:16):
can all want Shador to play. From an entertainment standpoint,
who do you think Kevin Stefanski and Andrew Berry are
gonna put out first because they do control a lot
of this. I've said forever the moment you get drafted,
a GM and a front office can like the player,
but they don't control the practice script. They don't control
who goes in when at practice. Now, obviously some gms
(08:39):
have more juice than others, but the coach has the
majority of the poll, especially once a practice starts, he
can do whatever he wants to do. So it's it's
gonna be on those two guys who are gonna be
taking reps with backups, and who knows, maybe because Flacco
is old and has so much experience that they just
don't even give him that many reps. I have a
(09:01):
hard time seeing that in training camp, at least, because
you do need to have everyone on your team at
least think that you have the belief that winning is possible. Right,
You can flip the script pretty easily once you've lost
a couple of games. But in training camp, what's the
point of grinding if we're just going to mail in
the season. It's why tanking doesn't exist in the NFL,
(09:21):
because no one has that mentality. No one just fucking
mails it in. Now, maybe they do some sort of
you know, like they did last year with Drake May
and Jacoby Brissette. Jacoby was gonna start Week one, but
in training camp they were splitting the reps unlike most
teams would normally do. And maybe they do that with
the young players in Gabriel and Shador when it comes
(09:44):
to training camp reps with Joe Flacco, because you go,
he doesn't need as many reps. But I don't blame
him for thinking that at all. The NBA Finals are
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Speaker 1 (12:43):
Scottie Scheffler wins again uh I guess we shouldn't be shocked.
Kind of kicking myself. Liked him at the PGA Championship,
but really liked him the last couple weeks. And Ben
Griffin wins at the Colonial couple weeks ago, but Scotty
wins Memorial. He goes back to back for the first
(13:07):
guy to do that at Jack's tournament. Since Tiger Woods,
he has three wins in his last four starts, and
he has combined to win those tournaments by eight shots,
five shots that would be thirteen and then four seventeen shots.
Safe to say, I thought it was a little hyperbolic
(13:28):
last year. I know he was having a Tiger like season,
but I think sometimes when you compare people to Tiger Woods,
to Tom Brady, to as a hitter, if like comparing
you to Tony Gwinn, you make these lofty comparisons. Typically
they're unfair because, like the best of the best, they
do it over a course. You know, Tiger for a
(13:49):
decade kicked everyone's ass, Tom Brady did it for fifteen
to twenty years, right, some of these guys, they have
such long careers of dominance, and you know, Scotty's really
been doing it coming into this year for like a
year and a half at the highest level, which is incredible,
which is very very hard to do with the sport.
And if you look historically, a lot of Hall of
(14:10):
Fame golfers just that have had great long careers take
advantage of like twenty four months. And if you look
at some major stretches, like guys that have won three
or two majors, they usually do it over like two
calendar years. And you just never know. Golf's really hard.
I mean, at one point in time, you would have
thought Rory back in twenty fourteen would have won ten majors.
(14:33):
You would have said the same thing for Jordan Speed.
I'm watching Jordan Speith yesterday watching the final round a memorial.
I mean, the guy has gotta be the most entertaining
golfer of all time. I mean, on any given moment,
he can hit someone in the head with a golf
ball or have a putt for like a seven foot
or per eagle. You have no clue what's coming at
any moment. It is the ultimate roller coaster ride. And
(14:56):
Scotti Scheffler currently is the complete opposite. You know exactly
what you're getting. He's not only the heavy favorite to
win next week at Oakmont. I think I speak for everybody.
It'd be shocking if he doesn't win. It really would.
He's plus two eighty And all we ever say about
this sport currently is it's never been deeper, There's never
(15:16):
been more talent. We say the same thing about the NBA,
and while I'd probably agree in terms of basketball, there
probably has never been more individual talent and more skilled
guys in the sport. It's not an individual sport. It's
a team game. And now with the mercenary kind of
element of basketball, you got guys jumping all over the place,
(15:38):
so there's no cohesion with teams. I'd argue, like top
to bottom, there have never been more I don't know,
worse teams, but just more chaotic situations. Even talented teams
aren't as good because they haven't played together for long.
When I grew up on the NBA, for example, it
was like baseball and basketball, you had core groups that
played together for a long time and you got to
(16:00):
build cohesion. Or golf, it doesn't really matter, it's just yourself.
You're just playing yourself. And the thing about team sports, like,
let's use the basketball analogy Oklahoma City. They're clearly really good.
So when they have one guy has an off night,
when you're an elite team, you got other guys to
pick you up. We've seen it in college sports forever,
like it's really easy to go on a run when
(16:23):
you have a roster like twenty nineteen LSU football, or
those couple of years of Georgia football with all the
NFL players they had, or Jim Harbass team two years
ago at Michigan Room, the decade worth of Nick Saban's teams.
They were dramatically better than everyone else, and there was
maybe a game or two throughout the season where the
competition was going to be close to equal. We've seen
(16:44):
in college basketa for ball for a long time. Some
hell this year with Duke they don't win at all,
but it was clear every game they played except maybe
two or three, they were clearly better than the other team.
So even if some random shit happens, the margin for
error because we got five guys on the court or
eleven guys on the field in football is gonna be
on my side. In golf, there's a huge randomness to
(17:07):
the sport, right What if you're just feeling shitty that day.
I was thinking this yesterday when I was recording a
podcast on Sunday, I'm like, I don't think my brain's working,
Like it was this podcast the worst podcast I've ever
done in my entire life. But like it's whatever. We
have five six days a week doing podcasts every single
week all year long, year after year. It's like, okay,
(17:28):
just keep on swinging in golf, like you play in
these tournaments a Scott he's doing. You got four days.
What if just one day you're just feeling like crap?
What if one day, like the bounces don't go your way.
Instead of like hitting two yards farther and bouncing five
feet away from the hole, it kicks back and you
get plugged in the bunker and instead of getting a birdie,
you get a double bogie. And that's the reason maybe
(17:49):
you don't make the cut. That's just not happening to
the Scotty Shuffler at all. It's what was so amazing
about Tiger Woods, which people said forever his most amazing
accomplishment of his career was his consecutive cut streak. He
never missed the cut. Why because like obviously he was
the best player, but to me that spoke. It didn't
mean he won every week because he didn't. I mean,
(18:11):
if you're an all time golfer and you're even getting
close to winning like ten percent of the time, that's
an incredible clip. Yet Tigers give a shit. Factor was
really really high. He took everything really really seriously. And
I would say the same thing about Scotty Scheffler, which
early in the year he gave him a little bit
benefited oubt because he had the injury to his hand
and everything was just a little off. You're like, it's
(18:33):
golf cut his hand, kind of a freak deal. And
then right around the Masters, it felt like, is this
gonna be Rory's year? He wins a pebble, he wins
the players, and then he finally wins the Masters. You're like,
is Rory about to have like five or six wins
this season in a couple of majors and kind of
steal the thrown back from Scotty and Scotty, to quote
Lee Corso said, not so fast, my friend, pump the
(18:54):
fucking breaks. Then he goes to the CJ Cup in
a field that, let's face it, not very good, and
you're like, listen, this is a warm up for the
PGA Championship, he'll probably win, but even if he doesn't,
as long as he gets some good momentum finishes in
the top five. Not only does he win, he wins
by eight shots. Then he goes to the PGA where
he wins by five shots. So in two straight weeks
(19:15):
he wins tournaments by a combined thirteen shots. And then
he goes to last two weeks ago with the Colonial
Ben Griffin wins. But it's not like Scotty just mailed it.
In the craziest part about this guy, he's like he
never just has a random week where he finishes like
thirty fifth. He finished fourth that week, then comes into
this week defending champ. No big deal, I'll win easily.
(19:37):
And as Jack Nicholas said, it's like, yeah, you know,
Ben Griffin, Sepstraca, Nick Taylor nice players, but let's be honest,
they're not in Scotty's league. Sepstraca won this year. Ben
Griffin literally just won last week, and he just dismissed them,
and so does Scotty kicked his ass, even though I
actually think Ben Griffin wasn't terrible. A couple way where
(19:59):
shots series right there, but what he's doing right now
in an individual sport where you have no one to
bail you out, Like if you're just feeling like shit,
if you didn't sleep well, if I don't know we've
all played golf, you just don't have it. I heard
Scott Van Pelt say this, I think a couple of
weeks ago on his podcast. He's like, the most impressive
thing always was about Tiger is like he didn't have
(20:22):
it every week, but there were some rounds where most
guys would have ended up shooting seventy four or seventy
five and essentially lost the tournament on like a Thursday
or Friday because either they missed the cut or they've
been too far back, and Tiger was always able to
find like, you know what, I'm not shooting seventy four today,
I'm gonna end up shooting seventy I'm not shooting seventy six.
(20:43):
To day, I'm shooting seventy two, and you just keep
kind of your head above water. And Scotty right now,
has I mean Rory at any moment if you tell me,
like on an individual week, mails it in finishes thirty fifth,
like totally believable. Xander I'm giving him a little benefit
of doubt this year because of the rib injury, Like
it's kind of a tough injury to play through. He
(21:04):
was incredible last year. He's been one of the better
players in the world. Clearly not quite himself this year.
But and it's hard, you know, with with Bryson and
Rahm not playing with these guys every single week. But
what Scott he's doing, Like I thought we were obviously
witnessing an all time great player. But like the Tiger comparisons,
the Jack like this is if he goes to win
(21:27):
at Oakmont, to have these back to back years of
winning at this clip and just kicking the shit out
of everybody. I understand Rory wasn't there last week, but
every player other than Rory was trying to beat this guy.
And he's just curb stomping the Justin Thomas is the
Xanders like it's not even close. The Patrick canfel As,
these guys are all gonna be like on the Ryder
(21:49):
Cup team with him, and they're just so Jack's taking
this line of the Ben Griffins, the Cepstracas aren't in
his league, like no, no, but he's in his league.
Rory's turns out not in his league, like none of
these guys are so the guys that are right behind
him on the Ryder Cup list, the Xanders, the Justin
(22:12):
Thomas says, like it's not even close. It's not a
fair fight. In a sport that like, there's just some
randomness that even if you get hot, you kind of
come back to earth. It's it's pretty crazy to witness.
I mean, I'm watching yesterday kicking myself, like, why didn't
you put an astrogonomical amount of money on this guy?
And every time I talk myself out of it, it's like, Ah,
this is gonna be the week, and then he goes
(22:32):
and wins. I always think when a player retires quote
unquote randomly, especially when there is you know, the car
situation had gotten let's say, toxic between the new coaching staff,
mainly the new head coach him. They weren't on the
same page. It clearly got weird, and I do think
(22:53):
that I would imagine we'll see when quotes come out
when Dan Campbell finally gets in front of a Mike
or Brad Holm, the GM that they would have been
in communication over the offseason with Frank ragnow their starting
center and let's face it, one of the better interior
offensive linemen in the NFL. It's always a little jarring
(23:13):
when you see a guy just choosing to quit at
twenty nine years old. Now, I think what makes pro
sports in twenty twenty five so much different than I
would say the previous We could even go the last
ten years, but anything before that is the money is
so outrageous, it really is. Frank Ragno's twenty nine years
(23:35):
old and he's already made fifty seven million dollars, you know,
so even if you factor in after taxes, he's taken
in net probably I don't know, well over thirty million dollars.
And he lives in a place that, you know, no
shade to Detroit, and obviously they have some high end places,
but is it Manhattan or Newport Beach? So his money's
(23:57):
going a little bit farther, And I do think that
may or gives guys the opportunity when they're in a
lot of pain, because the one thing with football is
we've all been critical, and I'm guilty as anybody is
being like, this is not the NFL. I knew this
is not the sport that I grew up loving. This
(24:17):
was not the sport when I was in high school.
It was suspicious. You could take out anybody, the Ronnie Lotts,
the John Lynches, the Troy Paulamalus, the Ray Lewises' that's
my NFL. It was a much more violent game in
the open field. That is true. Can't touch the quarterback anymore.
That's a fact which I do understand from a business perspective.
(24:40):
But when you're watching a game, when it's your team,
when you're betting on a game, and they throw a
roughing the passer penalty on a quarterback hit that is
like hitting him with a pillow. It makes you want
to puke. I mean, it really does. But the one
area where you can still be really violent and and
(25:00):
an area in which more and more elite players have
come into the league over the past decade at defensive tackle,
let alone, defensive end is the line of scrimmage and
the speed, the power, the size of these humans is
It's crazy whenever the combine comes around and you see
the measurables on the defensive lineman in the league. And
(25:24):
Frank Ragnow said, like I've tried to talk myself that
I'm not into a lot of pain and at the
end of the day, I just do not feel right.
And if you look at his injury history, he's had
a bunch of injuries over the course of his career.
And you do not become a Pro Bowl level player,
a high end player, a first round pick, a guy
that is just you know, one of the better players
(25:44):
at your positioning at offensive line if you are not
a tough son of a bitch, Like no one can
question your toughness when you play center or guard and
you are a high end player at that position. So
I'm going to take him at his word that the
pain and the worry of out like this might not
work moving forward, right. Jason Kelsey talked about this when
(26:05):
he retired, like could I keep playing? Of course now
he was much older than rag now, But I'm in
so much pain when I get out of bed every morning,
not even counting the season. I'm talking about the offseason.
And I do think it makes it easier to make
life decisions when you have a lot of money in
the bank and your family is secured and you're not
gonna have to worry about anything. Is it unlimited money?
(26:29):
Is it enough where you couldn't blow it if you
did some stupid things. Of course not so. But is
it more money? Are you immediately in the top one
percent of the one percent? With having millions upon millions
upon millions of dollars in the bank, you can look
at things a little bit differently, and it has to
be difficult to make this decision. I think if you're
the Lions. I've said this before and I still believe
(26:52):
this today. Now it is more difficult in this spread
offense version of college football, this transfer port world we
live in. I always thought the guards and centers are
the most replaceable. Now when you get Pro Bowl guys,
it is hard to find another Pro Bowl guy. But
the drop off of just finding another center who can
(27:15):
function is much smaller than if Pine Sewel retired. It's like,
what do I do at tackle? It's like, yeah, you
can be screwed. I see it with the forty nine
ers all the time. When Trent Williams gets gets injured.
It's like, what do we do And the answer is
there's nothing you can do because your swing tackle can
never just step in. I hate you know. The Lions
(27:36):
over the last couple of years have actually had a
pretty good swing tackle, but it's why their offensive line's
been awesome. But for the most part, like there's a
massive drop off with your third tackle been given a
guy that your starter, especially when that starter is a
high end guy. But I think we've seen, like, you know,
Derek Carr thirty years ago is still playing football, right,
but he's made over two hundred million dollars. And it's like,
(27:58):
you know what, just kind of over this, not dealing
with the politics of this business. And Frank is like,
you know what, thirty years ago, when again, NFL players
were still making a lot of money in the nineties,
they weren't making life changing, generational changing money when you
were the center in nineteen eighty seven. You keep playing
(28:18):
because Frank, hell, he could make ten million dollars this
upcoming season. Hell, he could hold out because he has
no guaranteed money left on his contract and surely get
a raise. I mean, he's scheduled to make like nine
and a half million dollars in actual cash. I bet
he could get that number easily up to fifteen plus
million dollars. But you're like, you know, it's not even
(28:38):
worth it to me. I don't even want to deal
with this, And who knows. He's young enough that maybe
in a year, maybe he's feeling better, that he gets
the itch. And trust me, there would be either the
Lions or other teams willing to scratch that itch. But
I think a huge element of these decisions, even going
back to Calvin Johnson, you know, I think Barry Sanders'
(28:59):
decision was strictly based on this franchise. Fucking sucks. This
is not fun, this is this is a miserable experience
running around and never winning. I do think the guys
that we've seen in recent memory have factored in pain.
And I'm super rich, it's just not worth it. Patrick
Willis had the feet. I think Calvin Johnson had the
(29:20):
feet as well. You know, Derek Carr has this messed
up shoulder. Those are just ones that come to mind.
It's like, you know what, I don't need the money anymore.
Aaron Donald, I mean Aaron Donald's still kicking ass and
taking names. He's like, I've already banged one hundred million dollars.
I'm good, Doug, I'm out. I've already accomplished everything I've
set out to accomplish. I still feel good. I see
some of these clips I saw on Instagram reel of
(29:42):
Aaron Donald lifting. It's like, Jesus, guy looks fantastic. He
looks like he could he'd make it all pro this
season if he came back. I would actually been on it.
But it's like, you know what, it's not worth it
to me because football, more than these other sports like baseball,
you just play every single night. You don't practice, take
a little bit, and you play basketball if you're on
(30:02):
a good team by like Christmas, you don't even you
don't practice at all either. I don't think Lebron James
teams have practiced in like a decade, so like football
is the one sport where you practice and mentally practice
with meetings and rehab and working on your body and
lifting way more than you get to play. I say
(30:24):
this all the time because I think it's one of
the great quotes of all time. Ray Lewis saying, you
pay me Monday through Saturday. Sundays are for free because
playing football at any level, if you played in high school,
if you played pee wee's, if you good enough to
play in college, the games are the fun part, right.
It's everything else that sucks. And I think it's made
these decisions for some of these guys that could I
(30:47):
battle through a couple more years of this pain for
another twenty million dollars, which most humans would do. Well,
it's easy to go, yeah, it's not quite worth it
when you've already made millions of dollars. And I think
that's really the number one factor here. The volume m
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Jason McIntyre
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