Colin’s top takes of the week.
First, he’s joined by Jason Timpf, host of “Hoops Tonight”.
They start with the NBA Finals and debate whether Wemby’s thin frame has become a disadvantage when playing against the thicker, stronger Karl-Anthony Towns (3:30), why the expectations that Wemby be a finished product at 22 years old are unrealistic, and why Towns has grown and learned from past mistakes that cost his teams (7:30).
They also discuss the confluence of events that have to come together in order for a non-star driven team like the Knicks to win the NBA title (12:30). They highlight that the Knicks have a special locker room chemistry that has led them to play for one another and exceed expectations (18:30).
Then, Colin is joined by former NFL stars Leonard Fournette and Jarvis Landry, hosts of “4 and South” on the Volume.
They discuss Leonard’s experience of joining the Tom Brady led Tampa Bay Bucs and eventually winning a Super Bowl, and what happened during their bye week that fixed the offense (28:00). Jarvis looks back fondly on the Browns team he played on with Baker Mayfield that made the playoffs, and why Covid helped the team focus (33:00). They also discuss the perception that Colin didn’t like Baker Mayfield, and why Colin didn’t like Baker as a fit for the Browns (36:00).
All lines provided by @hardrockbet
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
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hymns dot com slash cow hurt. So, I was thinking
(01:35):
about San Antonio and my first question to you, and
it's just kind of a statement and say what you want.
But I'm old. So I watched Moses Malone and A
Keen and Shack and it had to be less old
to watch Duncan. I didn't see Russell or Chamberlain, but
all of them were big men, but there was a foundation,
(01:58):
there was girth, there was size. Wemby and I said
this about a year ago. Is closer to Ralph Sampson
and Sam Bowie. The latter NBA career basically shortened because
of injuries, and Ralph Sampson was good, didn't last quite
as long as you think. But there is a downside
of being seven to four and a half, and that
(02:19):
is most of our great centers have not only been big,
they move people. They're powerful. We think of Cat as
almost a finesse big right, like a perimeter big. He
has bullied Wemby and we knew Mitchell, Robinson and og
have some leverage. But to me, the series is, oh,
(02:41):
Cat is the best player in the series. To me,
has that surprised you?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
No? No, I mean him being the best player in
this series. Sure, as hella surprised me. I mean him
giving Wemby issues. I think kind of is more or
less what we've expected. I think that that's been really
the story of Wenby's first playoff run is that these big,
physical centers that have some mobility with the ability to
beat him to spot. So the guys that can give
him issues, namely Isaiah Hartenstein. I even give Jalen Williams
(03:08):
a little bit of credit in the last round two.
I thought he had some moments and then Karl Anthony Towns.
And to be clear, it's like it's not like he's awful,
like he's averaging twenty eight and eleven. He's he's at
fifty four percent true shooting, which sounds bad. But this
series has been really low scoring, Like that's above the
true shooting percentage for both teams so far through two
games and Brunson for examples, at forty two percent. So
(03:31):
everyone's struggling. Wenby's actually been pretty effective. It's just looked
really hard. It's been like he's a cat in his
individual defense. And i'd extend this to the team. I
think the Knicks have done a wonderful job of just
mucking up his roles, just getting tons of bodies in
the paint as he's trying to roll to the basket
and kind of daring the Spurs to shoot, and they're
shooting thirty percent from three in the series. That's been
(03:53):
part of the problem. But as the roles have been
taken away and because he can't get close to the rim,
it's been a lot jump shots in a lot of
like even the buckets he gets around the rim. It
feels like he's fighting like hell to get just the
slightest bit of an edge, and there's no doubt that,
Like I think part of this calling, which I think
is because there's this kind of a cliche you'll hear
(04:17):
from a lot of people, like why doesn't he just
go down there every time, and it's like some of
this is he's seven to five, Like he's never going
to win leverage battles against people. That's really to me.
The story of Wemby becoming a reliable in the paint
score is more of a team coaching. How do we
get him down there, ball screens, rolling certain actions to
(04:41):
get him position. He is not going to just body
check dudes into the lane at any point in his career, right.
But the closest example of this is Anthony Davis. He
put on a bunch of muscle, it didn't help him
at all because his center of gravity is too high.
It doesn't matter like Anthony Davis would have been better
off leaning into being lean and fast, and that is
when Bee's advantage. I think, really the story of this
(05:03):
playoff ront has been just kind of a revealing an
example of what his career will look like in the future,
which is he's certainly going to have to have a
jump shot to be impactful, and getting him paint touches
is going to be a team and coaching issue revolving
how do we get him around bodies that are bigger
and more physical than him.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, and we're a little unfair on this. So in football,
a player often spends three years minimum in college with
very hard, singular coaching. It's often a Nick Saban, Lincoln Riley,
a Jim Harbaugh. It could be anybody could be Dabbos Sweeney,
any big college coach. There are some transfers, obviously, but
(05:43):
you may have two college coaches. But football coaching is hard.
Three years minimum college, often four. You often come in married.
I mean football culture is you know it's not going
to last very long. Football players tend to understand that,
like listen, I'm a bad block and it's over. They
tend to invest their money more quickly, start family sooner,
(06:07):
and get a little harder. Coaching. It's less aau bouncing
around to a tea. That's not it. It's not a
million games. It's always once a week high school, college, pro.
And so even in the NFL, with that ecosystem, we
always know, well, he's a rookie. We allow quarterbacks to
get to year three before we judge him. Well. In basketball,
(06:30):
it's often one year of college basketball. Now nil probably
makes it two or three. But a lot of these Euros,
you know, they're the academy playing against older guys. That's
an advantage. But we forget Lebron had to fail miserably
against Dallas in the finals before he added a layer
to his game. Magic Johnson at one point was called
(06:50):
tragic Johnson after a horrible finals. These are basketball cultures different.
When it's been suggested, I don't think it's a terrible
idea said, you know, you should call Kareem and develop
a little bit of a baby hook, not thirteen times
a game. Three just added dimension to it. And I think, guys,
this idea that Wemby at twenty two, Dylan Harper looks
(07:13):
really young all the time in the series. It's like, guys,
let's be fair to basketball culture, right. This is not
you know, like God, if you play baseball, Jason, you're
playing travel baseball from the time you're thirteen, you'd play
no other sports. Then you go to the minor leagues
for four years, you get to the bigs at twenty six,
(07:33):
you've played so much baseball. Some of this is the
basketball culture, even with our stars, creates holes until you're
about twenty six to twenty seven. Then you got six
year run of you know, go look at Jordan scored.
That was it. Then he developed into a up greater teammate.
(07:54):
I'm rambling, but I think we're sometimes a little unfair
because we look at these iconic prodigies and we're like, oh,
this game's not complete. Of course, who's complete at twenty two?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I think you're hitting at something that's honestly one of
my biggest long held basketball beliefs. I've actually referred to
this over the years as scar tissue. When you're a
competitor and you lose, and you know it's because you
fucked up, because you did something like a specific play
here there, it eats at you. It literally eats at you.
And I'm a big believer that it requires a certain
(08:29):
number of failures in order to properly drive and refine
those mistakes out of your game. I mean, Colin like
Karl Anthony Towns is a perfect example of this. I
went back when I was doing my player rankings and
I rewatched the Pacers Knick series last year over the summer.
Kat was one of the biggest reasons they lost. He
(08:52):
was he kept doing this thing where like he would
crash the offensive glass off the top of the key,
which is a huge basketball known because it messes up
your transition defense balance, and the Pacers were just running
it down their throats for layups and dunks like Siakam
transition dunk, transition layup. Kat was so mistake prone for
(09:12):
so long that the talking point fairly was like, can
you win with this guy? Because mistakes get you beat?
I mean, hell, the Spurs are a perfect example. Two
of these games, Both of these games they could have
won if not for mistakes throwing the ball away. Remember
dearon Fox in Game one, just fouls McHale bridges at
the elbow in a two point game in crunch time. Like,
(09:34):
mistakes win or lose you basketball games. And it's so
interesting to see, Like we can talk about the Knicks
and there's all these different things that they're doing better,
and Mike Brown deserves all the credit, and there's crazy
numbers coming from how just differently they're playing. But a
big part of it is Cat is just not making
anywhere near as many mistakes as he used to make
because he lost, like the Knicks lost year after year
(09:58):
to build to this moment. You don't think these guys
have an extra amount of value on every possession. You
don't think they still are haunted by Tyrese Halliburton beating
them in Game one in Madison Square Guarden last year
when they blew that lead. Like, the pain of loss
builds scar tissue and builds better basketball players. And it
would have been highly unusual for a team this young
(10:20):
like San Antonio to win before going through that kind
of stuff. It would have been a testament to how
incredibly talented they are. But you know, for all to
talk about the Spurs like are they too young, this
is what a young team losing looks like. Silly mistakes
at the end of a game. Bad foul here, bad
turnover there. They had two open floor turnovers down the
(10:41):
stretch where they just threw the ball away and gave
up buckets going the other way. Yeah, the Spurs have
lost these two games in large part there's been other dynamics,
but they could have won if they would have just
not made mistakes. And so they're early in that phase
and they still have a lot of that kind of
development to go through.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Look at our champions that Toronto Blue Jays got to
a Game seven against the Dodgers. Sam Darnold's career right
labeled the bust. Jalen Brunson, You know, I always said
very good, not a star. I'm apparently wrong. I called
the Knicks a good team, not a very good team.
Is that I think one of the things and I
(11:17):
think this is very healthy for sports. Is that maturity.
Like the thing about the Knicks that really jumps out
to me. Three Villanova guys, a coach that's willing to listen.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I remember years ago, remember when Buster Douglas meet Mike Tyson.
It was the best fight easily. He was a forty
to one underdog. His mother had passed away, and it
really sort of he was so inspired for that fight.
Karl Anthony Town's mother passes away. He has been so
inspired and so focused. Like you think to yourself, wow,
(11:50):
does that matter?
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Well?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I mean I can speak for myself. I was very
close to my mother, and when my mother died, I
heard her voice. I mean I can remember being in
the car and like I was talking to my mom
because I'd heard that voice. I was closer to mom
than Dad. And they're like things happen in sports. The
Miracle on Ice, I mean I could watch that once
a week. We had no business, forget beating competing with
(12:15):
the Russians. What makes sports great is teamwork, continuity, maturity.
Sometimes we devalue it because we live in a world
of social media where people are not only stars, they
have five they have fifty eight million IG followers. Stars
have never been richer and bigger and more close closely
(12:35):
associated with movie stars, and we really forget it's a
lot of redemption projects, inspired athletes, smart guys, hard workers.
I mean, I find the nixt incredibly easy to root for.
I mean, you got the Karl Anthony town story, you know,
the brunts and story. I mean, outside of his dad
and Jalen, I mean, god, he's like the best fourth quarter.
(12:58):
I said the other day, you can compare him to Luca,
but unlike Luca, he never misses starts like the kid's incredible.
So I think I think this is such a great
story for basketball that the Knicks are not star driven.
I mean, I think Brunson has a chance to be
a Hall of Famer. Karl Anthony Towns if he wins
MVP will make the Hall of Fame. I mean, Tony
Kukokes did.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
So.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I don't know, like I've watched this and it may
be a sweep, but it just speaks well of basketball
and what really truly matters. The Spurs are all built,
draft and developed. The Knicks are all we traded for
a bunch of guys. This could be a complete tire
fire chemistry wise. They trade trade, I mean, they brought
(13:40):
in guys from everywhere, and yet it's like the closest
team emotionally. It's just speaks so well of the maturity
of the team, the draft and developed team. I understand
being close generationally. This team comes from like eight different
freeway exits. I really watching the next play, I think
(14:01):
it's fun basketball.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
No, it absolutely is. Did you happen to see that
quote from Mike Brown after the game when he was
talking specifically about how fun this group has been, And
one of the things he said is he's like he
was like, the NBA is hard, and it's not always
like this. When he said that, I thought to myself,
I was like, that is a guy who's like almost
(14:23):
shuddering internally at all of the bad locker rooms he's
been in, and like the environments where he was trying
to bring the raw raw and it just wasn't going anywhere,
you know what I mean, And he happens to be
with this group that's catching that fire, and I mean
I talked to Knicks fans. It wasn't even always perfect
this season, let alone in previous stops. And it kind
(14:45):
of reminds me of that that opening part of Bill
Simmons's basketball book when he talks about the secret, and
it's really what is the magic of sports, which is
this is so much more than just the sum of
your parts. This is so much more than what you
can just put on a spreadsheet. Sometimes a group of
guys can just catch magic and reach a level where
(15:07):
they are playing above and beyond what even they're individually
capable of and what they're capable of as a group.
And we've seen, i'd argue, as the game has changed,
like everyone's scoring numbers are down, Like if you look
at star scoring in this postseason, it's way down compared
to previous playoff runs, Like the days of a dude
like Lebron having eight forty point games. That just doesn't
(15:28):
happen anymore in a playoff runt because there's so many
double teams and so many aggressive coverages thrown. So it's
more important than ever to have that magic alchemy of
a group playing together. I think the Pacers last year
are another example of this and kind of just catching
that fire. Here's another stat just to kind of demonstrate
this idea. So I think a spot up situation is
just when someone throws a pass to guys waiting on
(15:50):
the perimeter ready to score, so either catch and shoot,
catch and drive. They in the loss to Indiana averaged
nineteen of those per game nineteen possessions. This year, so far,
they're averaging thirty three, almost double. That's how often they're
just popping the ball around there. You're seeing these beautiful
sequences where there's three four drives on the same possession
(16:11):
and the Spurs are running around like crazy and it's
just yet another wide open shot for somebody at the
tail end of the sequence. Like there is very much
something said. I used the word Cinderella on my show
last week, and I was like, that's not the right word.
It's not a Cinderella run. But there's something magical about it.
There's something magical about what the Knicks are doing.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, it's it is. You know, you have these moments
in life, like I remember when my daughter was born,
the oldest of my children, and I can remember being
in the hospital and Tualla at in Oregon and I
was not I couldn't feel like my limbs like I
was floating, like, oh my god, I created this, I
helped create this baby. And I just remember eyes wide open.
(16:54):
She was just the cutest little baby. And I remember
having this moment where I was just like I got
to sit down, like I am, I am this is
way I'm out of my element here emotionally. And I
haven't had a lot of these, but I've had four
or five or six times in my life where I'm
so happy or so sad that it's like an out
of body experience. And sports doesn't quite have that. But
(17:18):
there is something to be said about you just love
your teammates. You just it's I mean, I've played I
remember in college I had just the cool I can
name every guy I played on this intermural football team,
and they were just happened to be all great guys.
There were no douchebags. It was like twelve great guys
and we weren't the most talented team, but we just
(17:39):
thought people and it was just I can remember being
in it and thinking, this is the closest I'm going
to get to like really like like hot, you know, college,
because everybody was a pretty good athlete. I was probably
the worst athlete of the team, but there were some
really good athletes. And I can just remember thinking, is
this is It's it's better than school, it's better than
who I'm dating. It's just the best. And I think
(18:01):
it's really hard when you become rich and professional, you
have kids, you have a life. And this is where
Kat gets a lot of credit. He was always Jason.
He was always known as kind of a flaky player
with immense talent you couldn't depend on. He has literally
been the opposite. He has literally been the sturdiest, most dependable,
(18:27):
greatest teammate. And that's not a criticism. I mean his
rep was dumbfouls, streaky, score, kind of goofy. Not the opposite.
And whatever inspired him, you could just There was a
moment in Game two in the first half where the
Spurs were on a run and I'm watching the Knicks
just take it, just take body blows, and then I
(18:49):
look up and they're like down one, and I'm like,
this series is over. You can't break this team. You can't.
They're just their resolve is it jumps through the television.
They just take your best shots. You're not knocking us
to the canvas. We're not going down. And I think
it there's a spirit about it that you can be
a casual. It's so obvious watching the series. I think
(19:12):
the series is over. San Antonio could win Game three,
I would not feel differently. This wall of physicality, this intensity,
it's it's it is very Denver. It's just nobody's beating them.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, I I I'm always hesitant to completely write off
a team like the Spurs because they're so young, Like
this is not like the Calves where you know they're
in game four and you know, all those dudes are
just thinking about their time share that they have, or
their their their airbnb that they got down in Cabo
and right and they're they're in their thirties, they're looking
(19:45):
forward to the cocktail on the beach. I'm like all
these kids in San Antonio, like they'll probably be either
playing video games or playing basketball the day after the finals,
like they're these kids. There's there's those those Spurs are
going to be playing one hundred miles an hour until
the very second that you beat them completely like that.
So there's a certain like lack of quit that you'll
have there. There was a little bit of an adjustment
(20:06):
down the stretch of that game. They stopped sending the
kitchen the game, I mean the kind they stop doubling
brunts and so much, which kind of baited bruntson into
some bad shots. Down the stretch. They got it, got
out in transition a lot, and really scored in the
open floor. Wenby started to get some things figured out
in that second half. You have twenty two points in
the second half, so like there the Spurs are not
(20:27):
going to go down without a fight. It's really, to
me just a combination of you have to win four
out of five now with three of those in that
hillacious Madison Square Garden crowd, which is going to be
so difficult to win in front of, and then everything
about what makes the Knicks special because they just are
so resilient and there's nothing about them that screams quit
or like let's say the Spurs do win two in
(20:48):
a row and you have a you have a game
six back in MSG, like they're just not going to quit.
Like the Knicks are going to be ready for that.
They're going to be prepared mentally for that environment. And
you know, I do think that that's what makes this
different than any other social experience on Earth. Like I
play a lot of basketball post college. I still to
(21:08):
this day probably played too much, considering how much my
body hurts all the time. But like when I was
coaching high school hoops in Tucson, which I did for
four years before I moved to Denver, it was by
far the most fun I had after playing, because when
you're actually in a locker room and you're actually with
the same dudes every day, and you're actually trying to
pursue some goal that's bigger than the individual, that's bigger
(21:31):
than just even that week. It's a six month goal.
For some of these guys, it's a multi year role
and you're working with them through many years of their development.
Like I just when I saw that quote from Mike Brown,
I was like that dude's experiencing like the absolute peak
of the of the sports experience, being with a special
group of guys that is experiencing that like magical alchemy
(21:52):
when they all come together like that.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
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partner and we got into a relationship with hard Rock
in the volume. I said I want another and they
said the same thing. Let's do a college another college
football podcast, but it would be cool if it was
different than the ones we have, And so Jarvis Landry
(24:11):
and Leonard Fournett both went to LSU they never overlapped.
One was the star running back, one the star receiver,
and we said, let's let's put these guys together and
let's do a test. Well, we listened for about five minutes,
and we knew we had a hit, and so I thought,
I'm gonna if you haven't heard them, I'm going to
introduce you for the next thirty thirty five minutes when
(24:34):
you go to your NFL experience. I always thought that
the Tampa thing was fascinating because when Brady went to Tampa,
we knew they needed a right tackle. They drafted one,
Tristan Wurse, but the defense was set. They had good
tight ends, excellent wide receivers, they needed a quarterback Tommy,
(24:55):
and they needed a right tackle. And then they started
adding like Gronk kind of his security blanket. I mean,
tom just but he was out of his prime. But
it didn't matter. And then they brought you in. And
my take was, I didn't know you, but I'm like, well,
Brady wouldn't okay that. Arians wouldn't okay that unless he's
like he's a dog, And like, when you got the call,
(25:18):
take me back to the Buccaneers and you get the
call and they're kind of because even when they were
like five hundred with Jamos, everybody in the league knew,
I mean Tom chose them. Everybody knew they were like, dude,
they're underachieving. They got a lot of dudes when you
got the call to go join Brady tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
So man, as you know, I got cut by Jacksonville
right two weeks later, I get calls from at the time,
I was twenty six, twenty five, twenty six, still on
my prime, you know, and that's the best year is
to get us young guys, you know, when we still
can get you know, you're milking a cow and you
get all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Out of them, especially running those Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah for sure, and I can. I can almost The
first person to reach out to him was Devin White,
right uh. I kind of mentored Devin White at.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
L s U.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
He was he was younger than me, and I always
knew Devin was going to be who he was going
to be because he worked hard. He's always smart. You know,
he's a good guy. Strong man listen, strong country guy.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You pick up hate for a living.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
So it's like I always seen that in him. But
I think, for me, what kind of what kind of
put it on? Put the cherry on the top of
when Tom reached out to him, because me and Tom
wasn't wasn't under armor together, so we always had a relationship, right,
And I called, I'm like, I'm looking at their running
back room. You know, at the time, I didn't know
who Ronald Jones was, so I come from Jacksonville being
(26:42):
a bell kyle, you know, and uh, I think when
he asked me to come over, He's like, man, you
could be a part of something special. I just felt
it in my I felt it in my heart, like
I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna give it a chance.
But in the beginning it didn't go as I thought
it would go. I thought I was gonna come in
take over number one back right. I had to go
to my adversity to become who who I became was
(27:05):
playoff Lenny, super Bowl Lenny and all those things. But
it took a while for me to get over that
hump for being cut.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well. Also think about it, Leonard is that it was
a little bit of an all star offense. Brady. Brady
views the world differently than arians. Arians wants to do it.
He's like Al Davis, like he wants to go over
the top old Raider football. Tom's very much about fallout,
quick yards after cats. That's that's his doctrine. So that
(27:35):
offense you were part of was a lot. I mean, God,
you guys were seven and five through week twelve and
you got a perfect buy. But I would argue you
guys were a bit of a mess until week twenty one.
What happened in the bye week because you didn't lose
after that? What and now you got Atlanta a couple
of times, I remember, so they got you healthy. But
(27:57):
what happened in that bye week to fix the offense?
Because it was it was hot and cold to twelve
games in Tom's first year.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, man, we had a we had an all players meeting, right,
and you know it's it's it's different when you come
from being the vocal points of certain offenses, like I
was right and Antonio Brown was the vocal point of
his offense in the Stillers, right, and we kind of
had to have that that coming to coming to guard meeting, like,
you know, we know what we can do, our egos.
You know, there's only one ball, right, Everybody's not gonna
(28:28):
be able to touch the ball. So understanding is now for
us to win our egos, our attitudes and us not
not not being a part of the game plan some
games and not being like, you know, we want to score,
we want to play. We have to cut it out,
right because after that, I mean you you had games
where our number one wide receiver Michael Evans got the
(28:51):
ball two times three times a game and did not complain.
So I'm like, damn, if I'm if I'm if I'm
complaining and he's not saying nothing. All right, Well, maybe
maybe I need to dial back a little bit and
understand this is just bigger.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
This is way bigger than me.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, it's bigger than what I what I want to
commis as a player. Right, we have something to do
that probably nobody has ever done besides Grunk and Brady
and NBA has won a Super Bowl. And that's what
we did. We say, you know, we stuck our hed downs.
We say, you know, let's do it and be stuck
with it.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Jarvis, that was obviously the best team Leonard was ever on. Jarvis,
give me the best, and a lot of times the
best team isn't the best. Experience you know, you you
can get on a team that's good and you're not
and you just don't like the guys. I mean, you
were a five time Pro Bowlers, you were obviously a
great player, you were a leader, But what was your
best year in terms of experience. It doesn't have to
(29:43):
be the most wins, a cohesive unit, Jarvis that you
just loved pro football like you loved it in high school.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah, I think I think I wish I had got
that call from Brady like Leonard did.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
But but but.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I think the best team that we played on was
I have to say, say the Cleveland team that we
went to the playoffs with Baker in nineteen Yeah with Baker,
Yeah right, And I think that was one of the
best teams. Obviously, it was a weird year because it
was a little bit of COVID and things like that
happening going on around around the world. Right in the
NFL's figured some things out, But you know, I think
at that point in time, it really became strictly about
(30:21):
football for some reason, doing COVID like it was literally
home in football home.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
There was no other distractions. There was nothing else that
can come in between.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Cleveland's boring enough at COVID.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
You know, listen, Cleveland is underrated. People think Cleveland is boring.
Cleveland is very underrated. But but that team, that team,
we just had a lot of guys played well at
the right time.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
You know.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
We lost Odell that year to ACL We had a
couple other guys get injured, and we had younger guys
step up.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
We had Rashaan Higgins who stepped up right.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And if you want to say, the most most arguable
call in the last five or six years was when
he dove in for a touchdown in Kansas City.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
The helmet to helmet car guy is being a.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Touch You out played the Chiefs in that game. But
I it's no.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Question, Colin, I am still pissed at Chad Haney. Chad
Heney came into the game. Chad Henney came into the
game after not playing. I don't know, he probably didn't
play for thirty seven weeks for the last two years,
and he walked into the game. And it's a beautiful
thing about sports, and it's a beautiful thing about you know,
guys being ready when their number is called, right, But
(31:29):
I would just wish it was in that day.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, I really wish he had that little completion off
to the right and that sealed.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
That sealed it, and to play before that it was third,
I want to say it was third and fourteen, and
he ran for thirteen. And then you know, oh Andy Reid,
who always has a has one in his pocket, right
he calls a fourth down beater versus man, the man
getting a ball to Tyreek Hill as fast as possible,
and you know they convert and you know it's over.
(31:57):
But that was one of the best teams that I
was that I played on, and I was very excited
the next year, even though it didn't work out. Things
didn't work out for us in Cleveland, But the next
year I was excited because we'll be getting our pieces
back and things like that. I was hopeful that we
can carry on the you know what we what we
put on the field last year, put on a tape
last year.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
You know, but it didn't work out.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know it's people think I don't like Baker Mayfield.
It is not true.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Well, I've been I've been wanting to talk to you
for a long time about this, all.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Right, So you started because I said before I thought
Cleveland was a bad spot for him to land out
of college. I preferred Donald. I thought Darnald was a bigger,
stronger quarterback and a little bit more coachable. I thought
Baker throws a better football. But I thought Cleveland's dysfunction,
Cleveland's angry media, the beaten down fan base, and Baker
(32:47):
was really emotional. You know, he would fight with the media.
I thought, this is not good. This is and eventually
it wasn't. Stefanskin Berry and I think both those guys
are sharp. They moved on, but I never hated him.
I always said this with Baker. I said, he's absolutely
one of the twenty best quarterbacks on the earth right now.
I wouldn't make him my guy at this point. Now.
(33:07):
I have also defended him in Tampa. I'm like, guys,
sign him, re sign him. Tampa is perfect. If you
pay Baker forty million, it's like Darnold. I don't want
to pay him sixty. You pay Baker forty. Malik Willis
at twenty two is a steal. I think Malik's super talented.
But my take on Baker was he just wasn't quite
(33:28):
ready for the Cleveland experience. Hell did he gone to
the Rams and McVeigh. You know who knows, But you
tell me when I was critical of Baker and he
would fire back. I mean you were in the locker room.
Did he ever come up to you and go, hey,
don't listen to that idiot on Fox?
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Well?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I had to say that
a few times, right, But I think what was you know,
when you were as good as Baker is, right, especially
coming out of college. You know, he had all of
the intangibles rights, not maybe not physically, but as far
as throwing the ball and.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Being a winner, right and and in most.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Cases that's what you get valued at, right and in Cleveland,
and to his defense, Cleveland have been a bad team
for a long time, bad so so that's how they
were able to get guys like myself, guys like da
Marius Randall, I think Carlos Hide at the same time.
We all came in together, right, And when you're that bad,
(34:28):
you get the first round draft pick and you take
the best player on the board. And at the time,
Cleveland felt like that was Baker, and I think they
were right about it, and we're seeing that they were
right about it. Obviously it didn't work out there, but
it should have worked out there. Baker is a hell
of a competitor. He's a great team right. I do
think if you if you think about if I think
(34:48):
about his trajectory, right, I do think that at a
time of I wouldn't say him being so young, but
I will say the maturity, the maturity level that he
is at now, it's not something that he had in Cleveland.
It's not something that that's not something that any player
has when they're that young, right, and acts to take
a bad organization, a bad team, right.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
I love them, uh uh d and Jimmy Haslam, but
but but to take a pro organization that has been
through the mud and do what.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
No one could do.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
They had They had thirty seven quarterbacks in five years, right,
and more credit to John Dorsey for taking a taking
a gamble and bringing guys in to help a young quarterback.
And I thought that we had a good run. We
should have had a longer run, but I thought that
we had a good run. And as far as media
and and and you and and Baker, I just never
(35:45):
understood it, right, I just never understood that.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
You know, he was he was very young, and.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
I just felt like maybe he didn't know how to
handle the pressure. But also it was one of those
things where he was put in a situation and acts
to perform at a high level in which you would
call yourself a dysfunctional place. Yeah, so for him to
go there and succeed would be extremely tough, right, right,
(36:11):
And and for anyone to be critical, I will say
he didn't listen to There was a lot of people talking, right, Oh,
I know, there was only a certain few that broke through.
There was only a certain few that he really heard, right,
And and and it happens to all of us. It
happens to all of us. I'm sure Lena could attested
this too. You know, in sports, you know there's certain
(36:32):
you know, people that report sports, and they are reported
at a high level, and they reported very well, and
they speak their truth and there and sometimes their their
truth is is something that makes it to the player,
It makes it to the sure and yeah, and and
those are things that we think about on the field.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
Those are things that we're trying to address.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Guys. I've had I've been doing this thirty five years.
I've had media critics attack me. Most of them I
don't care. But there have been moments where a critic
is said something or a fan has said something, and
I've thought, oh, they're making a good point. That's actually
a really really good point. Like I do think criticism
as long as you don't get a wash in it,
you don't get it's not an avalanche, you don't bathe
(37:12):
in it. But I've had people I've had I've had
years and years ago when I used to read emails
from fans at least once a month, somebody would send
one and you'd be like, that's a really good point.
You know, I was getting repetitious or using a term
or a saying, and I'd be like, that's a great point.
So you know, And and I always said this with
(37:35):
Baker Mayfield is everybody matures at a different level, and
it's it Baker, he just but he just wasn't like
Fernando Mendoza is twenty two going on forty five years old.
I mean, he's like mister Rogers. Like by the way,
(37:56):
Mayfield though,
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
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(01:35):
about San Antonio and my first question to you, and
it's just kind of a statement and say what you want.
But I'm old. So I watched Moses Malone and A
Keen and Shack and it had to be less old
to watch Duncan. I didn't see Russell or Chamberlain, but
all of them were big men, but there was a foundation,
(01:58):
there was girth, there was size. Wemby and I said
this about a year ago. Is closer to Ralph Sampson
and Sam Bowie. The latter NBA career basically shortened because
of injuries, and Ralph Sampson was good, didn't last quite
as long as you think. But there is a downside
of being seven to four and a half, and that
(02:19):
is most of our great centers have not only been big,
they move people. They're powerful. We think of Cat as
almost a finesse big right, like a perimeter big. He
has bullied Wemby and we knew Mitchell, Robinson and og
have some leverage. But to me, the series is, oh,
(02:41):
Cat is the best player in the series. To me,
has that surprised you?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
No? No, I mean him being the best player in
this series. Sure, as hella surprised me. I mean him
giving Wemby issues. I think kind of is more or
less what we've expected. I think that that's been really
the story of Wenby's first playoff run is that these big,
physical centers that have some mobility with the ability to
beat him to spot. So the guys that can give
him issues, namely Isaiah Hartenstein. I even give Jalen Williams
(03:08):
a little bit of credit in the last round two.
I thought he had some moments and then Karl Anthony Towns.
And to be clear, it's like it's not like he's awful,
like he's averaging twenty eight and eleven. He's he's at
fifty four percent true shooting, which sounds bad. But this
series has been really low scoring, Like that's above the
true shooting percentage for both teams so far through two
games and Brunson for examples, at forty two percent. So
(03:31):
everyone's struggling. Wenby's actually been pretty effective. It's just looked
really hard. It's been like he's a cat in his
individual defense. And i'd extend this to the team. I
think the Knicks have done a wonderful job of just
mucking up his roles, just getting tons of bodies in
the paint as he's trying to roll to the basket
and kind of daring the Spurs to shoot, and they're
shooting thirty percent from three in the series. That's been
(03:53):
part of the problem. But as the roles have been
taken away and because he can't get close to the rim,
it's been a lot jump shots in a lot of
like even the buckets he gets around the rim. It
feels like he's fighting like hell to get just the
slightest bit of an edge, and there's no doubt that,
Like I think part of this calling, which I think
is because there's this kind of a cliche you'll hear
(04:17):
from a lot of people, like why doesn't he just
go down there every time, and it's like some of
this is he's seven to five, Like he's never going
to win leverage battles against people. That's really to me.
The story of Wemby becoming a reliable in the paint
score is more of a team coaching. How do we
get him down there, ball screens, rolling certain actions to
(04:41):
get him position. He is not going to just body
check dudes into the lane at any point in his career, right.
But the closest example of this is Anthony Davis. He
put on a bunch of muscle, it didn't help him
at all because his center of gravity is too high.
It doesn't matter like Anthony Davis would have been better
off leaning into being lean and fast, and that is
when Bee's advantage. I think, really the story of this
(05:03):
playoff ront has been just kind of a revealing an
example of what his career will look like in the future,
which is he's certainly going to have to have a
jump shot to be impactful, and getting him paint touches
is going to be a team and coaching issue revolving
how do we get him around bodies that are bigger
and more physical than him.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, and we're a little unfair on this. So in football,
a player often spends three years minimum in college with
very hard, singular coaching. It's often a Nick Saban, Lincoln Riley,
a Jim Harbaugh. It could be anybody could be Dabbos Sweeney,
any big college coach. There are some transfers, obviously, but
(05:43):
you may have two college coaches. But football coaching is hard.
Three years minimum college, often four. You often come in married.
I mean football culture is you know it's not going
to last very long. Football players tend to understand that,
like listen, I'm a bad block and it's over. They
tend to invest their money more quickly, start family sooner,
(06:07):
and get a little harder. Coaching. It's less aau bouncing
around to a tea. That's not it. It's not a
million games. It's always once a week high school, college, pro.
And so even in the NFL, with that ecosystem, we
always know, well, he's a rookie. We allow quarterbacks to
get to year three before we judge him. Well. In basketball,
(06:30):
it's often one year of college basketball. Now nil probably
makes it two or three. But a lot of these Euros,
you know, they're the academy playing against older guys. That's
an advantage. But we forget Lebron had to fail miserably
against Dallas in the finals before he added a layer
to his game. Magic Johnson at one point was called
(06:50):
tragic Johnson after a horrible finals. These are basketball cultures different.
When it's been suggested, I don't think it's a terrible
idea said, you know, you should call Kareem and develop
a little bit of a baby hook, not thirteen times
a game. Three just added dimension to it. And I think, guys,
this idea that Wemby at twenty two, Dylan Harper looks
(07:13):
really young all the time in the series. It's like, guys,
let's be fair to basketball culture, right. This is not
you know, like God, if you play baseball, Jason, you're
playing travel baseball from the time you're thirteen, you'd play
no other sports. Then you go to the minor leagues
for four years, you get to the bigs at twenty six,
(07:33):
you've played so much baseball. Some of this is the
basketball culture, even with our stars, creates holes until you're
about twenty six to twenty seven. Then you got six
year run of you know, go look at Jordan scored.
That was it. Then he developed into a up greater teammate.
(07:54):
I'm rambling, but I think we're sometimes a little unfair
because we look at these iconic prodigies and we're like, oh,
this game's not complete. Of course, who's complete at twenty two?
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I think you're hitting at something that's honestly one of
my biggest long held basketball beliefs. I've actually referred to
this over the years as scar tissue. When you're a
competitor and you lose, and you know it's because you
fucked up, because you did something like a specific play
here there, it eats at you. It literally eats at you.
And I'm a big believer that it requires a certain
(08:29):
number of failures in order to properly drive and refine
those mistakes out of your game. I mean, Colin like
Karl Anthony Towns is a perfect example of this. I
went back when I was doing my player rankings and
I rewatched the Pacers Knick series last year over the summer.
Kat was one of the biggest reasons they lost. He
(08:52):
was he kept doing this thing where like he would
crash the offensive glass off the top of the key,
which is a huge basketball known because it messes up
your transition defense balance, and the Pacers were just running
it down their throats for layups and dunks like Siakam
transition dunk, transition layup. Kat was so mistake prone for
(09:12):
so long that the talking point fairly was like, can
you win with this guy? Because mistakes get you beat?
I mean, hell, the Spurs are a perfect example. Two
of these games, Both of these games they could have
won if not for mistakes throwing the ball away. Remember
dearon Fox in Game one, just fouls McHale bridges at
the elbow in a two point game in crunch time. Like,
(09:34):
mistakes win or lose you basketball games. And it's so
interesting to see, Like we can talk about the Knicks
and there's all these different things that they're doing better,
and Mike Brown deserves all the credit, and there's crazy
numbers coming from how just differently they're playing. But a
big part of it is Cat is just not making
anywhere near as many mistakes as he used to make
because he lost, like the Knicks lost year after year
(09:58):
to build to this moment. You don't think these guys
have an extra amount of value on every possession. You
don't think they still are haunted by Tyrese Halliburton beating
them in Game one in Madison Square Guarden last year
when they blew that lead. Like, the pain of loss
builds scar tissue and builds better basketball players. And it
would have been highly unusual for a team this young
(10:20):
like San Antonio to win before going through that kind
of stuff. It would have been a testament to how
incredibly talented they are. But you know, for all to
talk about the Spurs like are they too young, this
is what a young team losing looks like. Silly mistakes
at the end of a game. Bad foul here, bad
turnover there. They had two open floor turnovers down the
(10:41):
stretch where they just threw the ball away and gave
up buckets going the other way. Yeah, the Spurs have
lost these two games in large part there's been other dynamics,
but they could have won if they would have just
not made mistakes. And so they're early in that phase
and they still have a lot of that kind of
development to go through.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Look at our champions that Toronto Blue Jays got to
a Game seven against the Dodgers. Sam Darnold's career right
labeled the bust. Jalen Brunson, You know, I always said
very good, not a star. I'm apparently wrong. I called
the Knicks a good team, not a very good team.
Is that I think one of the things and I
(11:17):
think this is very healthy for sports. Is that maturity.
Like the thing about the Knicks that really jumps out
to me. Three Villanova guys, a coach that's willing to listen.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I remember years ago, remember when Buster Douglas meet Mike Tyson.
It was the best fight easily. He was a forty
to one underdog. His mother had passed away, and it
really sort of he was so inspired for that fight.
Karl Anthony Town's mother passes away. He has been so
inspired and so focused. Like you think to yourself, wow,
(11:50):
does that matter?
Speaker 5 (11:51):
Well?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
I mean I can speak for myself. I was very
close to my mother, and when my mother died, I
heard her voice. I mean I can remember being in
the car and like I was talking to my mom
because I'd heard that voice. I was closer to mom
than Dad. And they're like things happen in sports. The
Miracle on Ice, I mean I could watch that once
a week. We had no business, forget beating competing with
(12:15):
the Russians. What makes sports great is teamwork, continuity, maturity.
Sometimes we devalue it because we live in a world
of social media where people are not only stars, they
have five they have fifty eight million IG followers. Stars
have never been richer and bigger and more close closely
(12:35):
associated with movie stars, and we really forget it's a
lot of redemption projects, inspired athletes, smart guys, hard workers.
I mean, I find the nixt incredibly easy to root for.
I mean, you got the Karl Anthony town story, you know,
the brunts and story. I mean, outside of his dad
and Jalen, I mean, god, he's like the best fourth quarter.
(12:58):
I said the other day, you can compare him to Luca,
but unlike Luca, he never misses starts like the kid's incredible.
So I think I think this is such a great
story for basketball that the Knicks are not star driven.
I mean, I think Brunson has a chance to be
a Hall of Famer. Karl Anthony Towns if he wins
MVP will make the Hall of Fame. I mean, Tony
Kukokes did.
Speaker 5 (13:19):
So.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I don't know, like I've watched this and it may
be a sweep, but it just speaks well of basketball
and what really truly matters. The Spurs are all built,
draft and developed. The Knicks are all we traded for
a bunch of guys. This could be a complete tire
fire chemistry wise. They trade trade, I mean, they brought
(13:40):
in guys from everywhere, and yet it's like the closest
team emotionally. It's just speaks so well of the maturity
of the team, the draft and developed team. I understand
being close generationally. This team comes from like eight different
freeway exits. I really watching the next play, I think
(14:01):
it's fun basketball.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
No, it absolutely is. Did you happen to see that
quote from Mike Brown after the game when he was
talking specifically about how fun this group has been, And
one of the things he said is he's like he
was like, the NBA is hard, and it's not always
like this. When he said that, I thought to myself,
I was like, that is a guy who's like almost
(14:23):
shuddering internally at all of the bad locker rooms he's
been in, and like the environments where he was trying
to bring the raw raw and it just wasn't going anywhere,
you know what I mean, And he happens to be
with this group that's catching that fire, and I mean
I talked to Knicks fans. It wasn't even always perfect
this season, let alone in previous stops. And it kind
(14:45):
of reminds me of that that opening part of Bill
Simmons's basketball book when he talks about the secret, and
it's really what is the magic of sports, which is
this is so much more than just the sum of
your parts. This is so much more than what you
can just put on a spreadsheet. Sometimes a group of
guys can just catch magic and reach a level where
(15:07):
they are playing above and beyond what even they're individually
capable of and what they're capable of as a group.
And we've seen, i'd argue, as the game has changed,
like everyone's scoring numbers are down, Like if you look
at star scoring in this postseason, it's way down compared
to previous playoff runs, Like the days of a dude
like Lebron having eight forty point games. That just doesn't
(15:28):
happen anymore in a playoff runt because there's so many
double teams and so many aggressive coverages thrown. So it's
more important than ever to have that magic alchemy of
a group playing together. I think the Pacers last year
are another example of this and kind of just catching
that fire. Here's another stat just to kind of demonstrate
this idea. So I think a spot up situation is
just when someone throws a pass to guys waiting on
(15:50):
the perimeter ready to score, so either catch and shoot,
catch and drive. They in the loss to Indiana averaged
nineteen of those per game nineteen possessions. This year, so far,
they're averaging thirty three, almost double. That's how often they're
just popping the ball around there. You're seeing these beautiful
sequences where there's three four drives on the same possession
(16:11):
and the Spurs are running around like crazy and it's
just yet another wide open shot for somebody at the
tail end of the sequence. Like there is very much
something said. I used the word Cinderella on my show
last week, and I was like, that's not the right word.
It's not a Cinderella run. But there's something magical about it.
There's something magical about what the Knicks are doing.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, it's it is. You know, you have these moments
in life, like I remember when my daughter was born,
the oldest of my children, and I can remember being
in the hospital and Tualla at in Oregon and I
was not I couldn't feel like my limbs like I
was floating, like, oh my god, I created this, I
helped create this baby. And I just remember eyes wide open.
(16:54):
She was just the cutest little baby. And I remember
having this moment where I was just like I got
to sit down, like I am, I am this is
way I'm out of my element here emotionally. And I
haven't had a lot of these, but I've had four
or five or six times in my life where I'm
so happy or so sad that it's like an out
of body experience. And sports doesn't quite have that. But
(17:18):
there is something to be said about you just love
your teammates. You just it's I mean, I've played I
remember in college I had just the cool I can
name every guy I played on this intermural football team,
and they were just happened to be all great guys.
There were no douchebags. It was like twelve great guys
and we weren't the most talented team, but we just
(17:39):
thought people and it was just I can remember being
in it and thinking, this is the closest I'm going
to get to like really like like hot, you know, college,
because everybody was a pretty good athlete. I was probably
the worst athlete of the team, but there were some
really good athletes. And I can just remember thinking, is
this is It's it's better than school, it's better than
who I'm dating. It's just the best. And I think
(18:01):
it's really hard when you become rich and professional, you
have kids, you have a life. And this is where
Kat gets a lot of credit. He was always Jason.
He was always known as kind of a flaky player
with immense talent you couldn't depend on. He has literally
been the opposite. He has literally been the sturdiest, most dependable,
(18:27):
greatest teammate. And that's not a criticism. I mean his
rep was dumbfouls, streaky, score, kind of goofy. Not the opposite.
And whatever inspired him, you could just There was a
moment in Game two in the first half where the
Spurs were on a run and I'm watching the Knicks
just take it, just take body blows, and then I
(18:49):
look up and they're like down one, and I'm like,
this series is over. You can't break this team. You can't.
They're just their resolve is it jumps through the television.
They just take your best shots. You're not knocking us
to the canvas. We're not going down. And I think
it there's a spirit about it that you can be
a casual. It's so obvious watching the series. I think
(19:12):
the series is over. San Antonio could win Game three,
I would not feel differently. This wall of physicality, this intensity,
it's it's it is very Denver. It's just nobody's beating them.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, I I I'm always hesitant to completely write off
a team like the Spurs because they're so young, Like
this is not like the Calves where you know they're
in game four and you know, all those dudes are
just thinking about their time share that they have, or
their their their airbnb that they got down in Cabo
and right and they're they're in their thirties, they're looking
(19:45):
forward to the cocktail on the beach. I'm like all
these kids in San Antonio, like they'll probably be either
playing video games or playing basketball the day after the finals,
like they're these kids. There's there's those those Spurs are
going to be playing one hundred miles an hour until
the very second that you beat them completely like that.
So there's a certain like lack of quit that you'll
have there. There was a little bit of an adjustment
(20:06):
down the stretch of that game. They stopped sending the
kitchen the game, I mean the kind they stop doubling
brunts and so much, which kind of baited bruntson into
some bad shots. Down the stretch. They got it, got
out in transition a lot, and really scored in the
open floor. Wenby started to get some things figured out
in that second half. You have twenty two points in
the second half, so like there the Spurs are not
(20:27):
going to go down without a fight. It's really, to
me just a combination of you have to win four
out of five now with three of those in that
hillacious Madison Square Garden crowd, which is going to be
so difficult to win in front of, and then everything
about what makes the Knicks special because they just are
so resilient and there's nothing about them that screams quit
or like let's say the Spurs do win two in
(20:48):
a row and you have a you have a game
six back in MSG, like they're just not going to quit.
Like the Knicks are going to be ready for that.
They're going to be prepared mentally for that environment. And
you know, I do think that that's what makes this
different than any other social experience on Earth. Like I
play a lot of basketball post college. I still to
(21:08):
this day probably played too much, considering how much my
body hurts all the time. But like when I was
coaching high school hoops in Tucson, which I did for
four years before I moved to Denver, it was by
far the most fun I had after playing, because when
you're actually in a locker room and you're actually with
the same dudes every day, and you're actually trying to
pursue some goal that's bigger than the individual, that's bigger
(21:31):
than just even that week. It's a six month goal.
For some of these guys, it's a multi year role
and you're working with them through many years of their development.
Like I just when I saw that quote from Mike Brown,
I was like that dude's experiencing like the absolute peak
of the of the sports experience, being with a special
group of guys that is experiencing that like magical alchemy
(21:52):
when they all come together like that.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
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partner and we got into a relationship with hard Rock
in the volume. I said I want another and they
said the same thing. Let's do a college another college
football podcast, but it would be cool if it was
different than the ones we have, And so Jarvis Landry
(24:11):
and Leonard Fournett both went to LSU they never overlapped.
One was the star running back, one the star receiver,
and we said, let's let's put these guys together and
let's do a test. Well, we listened for about five minutes,
and we knew we had a hit, and so I thought,
I'm gonna if you haven't heard them, I'm going to
introduce you for the next thirty thirty five minutes when
(24:34):
you go to your NFL experience. I always thought that
the Tampa thing was fascinating because when Brady went to Tampa,
we knew they needed a right tackle. They drafted one,
Tristan Wurse, but the defense was set. They had good
tight ends, excellent wide receivers, they needed a quarterback Tommy,
(24:55):
and they needed a right tackle. And then they started
adding like Gronk kind of his security blanket. I mean,
tom just but he was out of his prime. But
it didn't matter. And then they brought you in. And
my take was, I didn't know you, but I'm like, well,
Brady wouldn't okay that. Arians wouldn't okay that unless he's
like he's a dog, And like, when you got the call,
(25:18):
take me back to the Buccaneers and you get the
call and they're kind of because even when they were
like five hundred with Jamos, everybody in the league knew,
I mean Tom chose them. Everybody knew they were like, dude,
they're underachieving. They got a lot of dudes when you
got the call to go join Brady tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
So man, as you know, I got cut by Jacksonville
right two weeks later, I get calls from at the time,
I was twenty six, twenty five, twenty six, still on
my prime, you know, and that's the best year is
to get us young guys, you know, when we still
can get you know, you're milking a cow and you
get all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Out of them, especially running those Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah for sure, and I can. I can almost The
first person to reach out to him was Devin White,
right uh. I kind of mentored Devin White at.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
L s U.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
He was he was younger than me, and I always
knew Devin was going to be who he was going
to be because he worked hard. He's always smart. You know,
he's a good guy. Strong man listen, strong country guy.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You pick up hate for a living.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
So it's like I always seen that in him. But
I think, for me, what kind of what kind of
put it on? Put the cherry on the top of
when Tom reached out to him, because me and Tom
wasn't wasn't under armor together, so we always had a relationship, right,
And I called, I'm like, I'm looking at their running
back room. You know, at the time, I didn't know
who Ronald Jones was, so I come from Jacksonville being
(26:42):
a bell kyle, you know, and uh, I think when
he asked me to come over, He's like, man, you
could be a part of something special. I just felt
it in my I felt it in my heart, like
I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna give it a chance.
But in the beginning it didn't go as I thought
it would go. I thought I was gonna come in
take over number one back right. I had to go
to my adversity to become who who I became was
(27:05):
playoff Lenny, super Bowl Lenny and all those things. But
it took a while for me to get over that
hump for being cut.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well. Also think about it, Leonard is that it was
a little bit of an all star offense. Brady. Brady
views the world differently than arians. Arians wants to do it.
He's like Al Davis, like he wants to go over
the top old Raider football. Tom's very much about fallout,
quick yards after cats. That's that's his doctrine. So that
(27:35):
offense you were part of was a lot. I mean, God,
you guys were seven and five through week twelve and
you got a perfect buy. But I would argue you
guys were a bit of a mess until week twenty one.
What happened in the bye week because you didn't lose
after that? What and now you got Atlanta a couple
of times, I remember, so they got you healthy. But
(27:57):
what happened in that bye week to fix the offense?
Because it was it was hot and cold to twelve
games in Tom's first year.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Yeah, man, we had a we had an all players meeting, right,
and you know it's it's it's different when you come
from being the vocal points of certain offenses, like I
was right and Antonio Brown was the vocal point of
his offense in the Stillers, right, and we kind of
had to have that that coming to coming to guard meeting, like,
you know, we know what we can do, our egos.
You know, there's only one ball, right, Everybody's not gonna
(28:28):
be able to touch the ball. So understanding is now for
us to win our egos, our attitudes and us not
not not being a part of the game plan some
games and not being like, you know, we want to score,
we want to play. We have to cut it out,
right because after that, I mean you you had games
where our number one wide receiver Michael Evans got the
(28:51):
ball two times three times a game and did not complain.
So I'm like, damn, if I'm if I'm if I'm
complaining and he's not saying nothing. All right, Well, maybe
maybe I need to dial back a little bit and
understand this is just bigger.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
This is way bigger than me.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, it's bigger than what I what I want to
commis as a player. Right, we have something to do
that probably nobody has ever done besides Grunk and Brady
and NBA has won a Super Bowl. And that's what
we did. We say, you know, we stuck our hed downs.
We say, you know, let's do it and be stuck
with it.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Jarvis, that was obviously the best team Leonard was ever on. Jarvis,
give me the best, and a lot of times the
best team isn't the best. Experience you know, you you
can get on a team that's good and you're not
and you just don't like the guys. I mean, you
were a five time Pro Bowlers, you were obviously a
great player, you were a leader, But what was your
best year in terms of experience. It doesn't have to
(29:43):
be the most wins, a cohesive unit, Jarvis that you
just loved pro football like you loved it in high school.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Yeah, I think I think I wish I had got
that call from Brady like Leonard did.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
But but but.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I think the best team that we played on was
I have to say, say the Cleveland team that we
went to the playoffs with Baker in nineteen Yeah with Baker,
Yeah right, And I think that was one of the
best teams. Obviously, it was a weird year because it
was a little bit of COVID and things like that
happening going on around around the world. Right in the
NFL's figured some things out, But you know, I think
at that point in time, it really became strictly about
(30:21):
football for some reason, doing COVID like it was literally
home in football home.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
There was no other distractions. There was nothing else that
can come in between.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Cleveland's boring enough at COVID.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
You know, listen, Cleveland is underrated. People think Cleveland is boring.
Cleveland is very underrated. But but that team, that team,
we just had a lot of guys played well at
the right time.
Speaker 5 (30:45):
You know.
Speaker 4 (30:45):
We lost Odell that year to ACL We had a
couple other guys get injured, and we had younger guys
step up.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Right.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
We had Rashaan Higgins who stepped up right.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And if you want to say, the most most arguable
call in the last five or six years was when
he dove in for a touchdown in Kansas City.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
The helmet to helmet car guy is being a.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Touch You out played the Chiefs in that game. But
I it's no.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Question, Colin, I am still pissed at Chad Haney. Chad
Heney came into the game. Chad Henney came into the
game after not playing. I don't know, he probably didn't
play for thirty seven weeks for the last two years,
and he walked into the game. And it's a beautiful
thing about sports, and it's a beautiful thing about you know,
guys being ready when their number is called, right, But
(31:29):
I would just wish it was in that day.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, I really wish he had that little completion off
to the right and that sealed.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
That sealed it, and to play before that it was third,
I want to say it was third and fourteen, and
he ran for thirteen. And then you know, oh Andy Reid,
who always has a has one in his pocket, right
he calls a fourth down beater versus man, the man
getting a ball to Tyreek Hill as fast as possible,
and you know they convert and you know it's over.
(31:57):
But that was one of the best teams that I
was that I played on, and I was very excited
the next year, even though it didn't work out. Things
didn't work out for us in Cleveland, But the next
year I was excited because we'll be getting our pieces
back and things like that. I was hopeful that we
can carry on the you know what we what we
put on the field last year, put on a tape
last year.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
You know, but it didn't work out.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
You know it's people think I don't like Baker Mayfield.
It is not true.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Well, I've been I've been wanting to talk to you
for a long time about this, all.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Right, So you started because I said before I thought
Cleveland was a bad spot for him to land out
of college. I preferred Donald. I thought Darnald was a bigger,
stronger quarterback and a little bit more coachable. I thought
Baker throws a better football. But I thought Cleveland's dysfunction,
Cleveland's angry media, the beaten down fan base, and Baker
(32:47):
was really emotional. You know, he would fight with the media.
I thought, this is not good. This is and eventually
it wasn't. Stefanskin Berry and I think both those guys
are sharp. They moved on, but I never hated him.
I always said this with Baker. I said, he's absolutely
one of the twenty best quarterbacks on the earth right now.
I wouldn't make him my guy at this point. Now.
(33:07):
I have also defended him in Tampa. I'm like, guys,
sign him, re sign him. Tampa is perfect. If you
pay Baker forty million, it's like Darnold. I don't want
to pay him sixty. You pay Baker forty. Malik Willis
at twenty two is a steal. I think Malik's super talented.
But my take on Baker was he just wasn't quite
(33:28):
ready for the Cleveland experience. Hell did he gone to
the Rams and McVeigh. You know who knows, But you
tell me when I was critical of Baker and he
would fire back. I mean you were in the locker room.
Did he ever come up to you and go, hey,
don't listen to that idiot on Fox?
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Well?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I had to say that
a few times, right, But I think what was you know,
when you were as good as Baker is, right, especially
coming out of college. You know, he had all of
the intangibles rights, not maybe not physically, but as far
as throwing the ball and.
Speaker 5 (34:04):
Being a winner, right and and in most.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Cases that's what you get valued at, right and in Cleveland,
and to his defense, Cleveland have been a bad team
for a long time, bad so so that's how they
were able to get guys like myself, guys like da
Marius Randall, I think Carlos Hide at the same time.
We all came in together, right, And when you're that bad,
(34:28):
you get the first round draft pick and you take
the best player on the board. And at the time,
Cleveland felt like that was Baker, and I think they
were right about it, and we're seeing that they were
right about it. Obviously it didn't work out there, but
it should have worked out there. Baker is a hell
of a competitor. He's a great team right. I do
think if you if you think about if I think
(34:48):
about his trajectory, right, I do think that at a
time of I wouldn't say him being so young, but
I will say the maturity, the maturity level that he
is at now, it's not something that he had in Cleveland.
It's not something that that's not something that any player
has when they're that young, right, and acts to take
a bad organization, a bad team, right.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
I love them, uh uh d and Jimmy Haslam, but
but but to take a pro organization that has been
through the mud and do what.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
No one could do.
Speaker 4 (35:24):
They had They had thirty seven quarterbacks in five years, right,
and more credit to John Dorsey for taking a taking
a gamble and bringing guys in to help a young quarterback.
And I thought that we had a good run. We
should have had a longer run, but I thought that
we had a good run. And as far as media
and and and you and and Baker, I just never
(35:45):
understood it, right, I just never understood that.
Speaker 5 (35:48):
You know, he was he was very young, and.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
I just felt like maybe he didn't know how to
handle the pressure. But also it was one of those
things where he was put in a situation and acts
to perform at a high level in which you would
call yourself a dysfunctional place. Yeah, so for him to
go there and succeed would be extremely tough, right, right,
(36:11):
And and for anyone to be critical, I will say
he didn't listen to There was a lot of people talking, right, Oh,
I know, there was only a certain few that broke through.
There was only a certain few that he really heard, right,
And and and it happens to all of us. It
happens to all of us. I'm sure Lena could attested
this too. You know, in sports, you know there's certain
(36:32):
you know, people that report sports, and they are reported
at a high level, and they reported very well, and
they speak their truth and there and sometimes their their
truth is is something that makes it to the player,
It makes it to the sure and yeah, and and
those are things that we think about on the field.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
Those are things that we're trying to address.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Guys. I've had I've been doing this thirty five years.
I've had media critics attack me. Most of them I
don't care. But there have been moments where a critic
is said something or a fan has said something, and
I've thought, oh, they're making a good point. That's actually
a really really good point. Like I do think criticism
as long as you don't get a wash in it,
you don't get it's not an avalanche, you don't bathe
(37:12):
in it. But I've had people I've had I've had
years and years ago when I used to read emails
from fans at least once a month, somebody would send
one and you'd be like, that's a really good point.
You know, I was getting repetitious or using a term
or a saying, and I'd be like, that's a great point.
So you know, And and I always said this with
(37:35):
Baker Mayfield is everybody matures at a different level, and
it's it Baker, he just but he just wasn't like
Fernando Mendoza is twenty two going on forty five years old.
I mean, he's like mister Rogers. Like by the way,
(37:56):
Mayfield though,
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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