May 9, 2023 • 58 mins
John discusses what he’s looking out for when the NFL releases its schedule for the ‘23 season, including reports that some teams could play twice on TNF. He also looks at why getting rid of Dan Snyder could get ugly, if the Cardinals could look to deal Kyler Murray, and answers listener questions in the Middlekauff Mailbag.
Follow John onTwitter, Instagram and YouTube for the latest. Check out Gametime - the fastest growing ticketing app in the US, and the official ticketing app of 3 & Out and GoLow - for tickets to all of your favorite NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA teams. Concert and comedy show tickets, too. Go to Gametime now to create an account, download the app and use code JOHN for $20 off your first purchase. #Volume #Herd
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume, what is going on everybody? John Middlecock three
and our podcast schedule release week Buckle up, let's do it.
(00:25):
It's here, rocking and rolling, baby. I'm sure we will
have a big podcast on Friday. Reacting to the schedule release.
Do have some thoughts about the changes for the Thursday
Night Football that now you can play multiple times, Dan Snyder,
Kyler Murray. We will dive into it all as well
as a big mail bag at John middlecoff is the Instagram.
(00:48):
Just fire into those dms. It's just my name at
my name and the dms are wide open and get
your question answered here on the show, ask me anything.
We'll be rocking and rolling. We're live on app, Live
on app, download, Amazon Amp, find it on YouTube as
well and any other housekeeping I don't think so hopefully yeah,
(01:09):
should be should be it. But first, do you want
to get outside this summer? Do you want to go
do something? You should get outside your home this spring
this summer, enjoy the sun, enjoy a nice cool night,
and do it with my friends. At game time, you
can go to a concert, you can go to a
baseball game, you go to an NHL playoff game, that's
inside you can go to comedy show, you can do
whatever you want and download the app, the official ticketing
(01:31):
app of this show. Promo code John twenty dollars off.
No big deal throwing you guys a boat. I don't
even need to thank you. Just go take a brother,
take a cousin, take your wife, take your mom or dad,
and go do something fun and do it with a
little discount for me. So go to your app store
download the game Time app. You can go do anything
you want, comedy shows, concerts, to games, and use the
(01:52):
promo code John. That's my name, Jochen and get twenty
dollars off. NFL schedule release. For a split second on
Monday morning, Peter King had reported it was going to
get pushed back, and then by about mid afternoon West
Coast time, Adam Schefter had said it's on release Thursday,
(02:14):
five o'clock. Be there, b square. So clearly Roger Goodell
signed off on everything. The schedule is set, and by
throughout the week things will leak. But by Thursday at
five o'clock Pacific Xander time, or eight o'clock for those
of you on the East Coast, we will know all
of our teams where they're playing when they're playing. Obviously
(02:34):
some of it can change a little bit later in
the season, but schedule release a really big deal. Right.
The NFL now has figured out a way to dominate
the fall enormous ratings, keep rolling it into after the
Super Bowl, combine free agency, the draft, and then they've
thrown this curve ball which is now a massive, massive
night in the NFL. And one thing really jumped out
(02:55):
to me, and I'll never forget when I when I
first moved to the Bay Area, the first couple of years,
I got an accountant in downtown San Francisco, which I
had no business going to. I was by far the
guy's poorest client. I had some friends I went to
college with. They were crushing it at the time. I
was just, you know, a little old radio host. I
(03:16):
wasn't even making one hundred and rand and this guy,
a member, was really cool and he would tell me
stories about all these guys he had, these w two
employees working for Facebook and Google that were making like
more money than NFL players. But he said, the funny
thing is is, you know, he became friends with them
and they would talk a big game on Facebook and
their Twitter accounts about the way they looked at life,
(03:39):
and a lot of that was like, you know, raise taxes,
And he said, they would walk into my office and
they would want every tax loophole, you know under the sun.
They would want to save every penny, which anyone with
the brain always does. But he's like, if you look
at their Facebook account, that's not the way they're talking.
And because a lot of people talk a big game,
but they don't live it, right, It's why I don't
(04:00):
take ninety nine percent of people just publicly what they
say doesn't mean that much to me. It never has
why I don't spend that much time getting up in
arms about that many things because I think a lot
of stuff is just complete bullshit, just complete. And so
when I see the NFL forever talk a big game
(04:20):
about safety, I don't think they actually care. They just
don't want to get sued and lose a bunch of money,
which happened to them over the last decade. Right, do
they actually care what happens to these players? I mean,
clearly they don't want to lose their star players. But
if you go to enough practice these random guys, they're
very replaceable. I mean, that's just a fact. No one
(04:41):
wants anyone to get injured, but when you play football,
guys are gonna get injured. But they are over the
top about their discussion of player safety, player safety, player safety.
And then it has been reported by Schefter that no
longer teams for the last when I first got in
the NFL, Thursday Night Football was there weren't even a
(05:02):
full slate of games, right, I think there was like
five or six. I remember when I was with the
Eagles we played all three years, but by like the
third year, I think the majority of teams were played
Thursday Night Football, and then by the middle of the
decade it was a full slate, right. And so these
last several years, whether you're Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady
or the worst team in the league, you were guaranteed
(05:24):
to play on Thursday Night Football, but only once. And
now that rule is teams can play multiple times. Well,
clearly Amazon wasn't happy, which kind of a little bit
of a head scratcher to me, because one of the
things was last year that they had sold their advertising
at eleven million people and between like nine and nine
and a half million people watched it. Like I understand
(05:46):
TNT not being happy with the NBA. They lost half
their viewers over the last six seven years. So if
I think and I've sold for two or three million
people to watch a game and then only seven hundred
thousand people watching the game, we have a serious problem.
But when you're getting the NFL and I'm driving nine
to nine and a half million people to you and
(06:08):
you thought eleven we're gonna be there, I don't think
it's that big a deal. But clearly the NFL does.
And I don't necessarily think that Amazon is that caught
up in the short term or either of the NFL.
But big picture, it is inevitable that all this stuff
in the next ten to twenty years is gonna be
on these streaming platforms. Right, the NFL is already pivoted.
(06:29):
Who has the NFL package now or the NFL you know,
Sunday Ticket YouTube TV? Right? Who has there's an football Amazon?
So they they're going above and beyond making these people happy. Well,
previously it was like get the NFL, We're gonna bend
you over, We're gonna get the most money and it's
on you to figure it out. It's kind of what
the NBA has done. Right, I saw Adam Silver thinks
(06:51):
they're gonna three x their next media deal. It's like, bro,
your Raids have been in the tank for like eight
nine years. People think I'm an NBA hater. I grew
up when the NBA was thriving under Michael Jordan. I've
watched the Warriors pull record ratings, but none of the
other teams do. The NFL doesn't have that problem. They
can put a random game on Thursday night football and
nine million people watch. No other league or any other
(07:13):
industry on television, including politics non like a presidential debate
can sniff that fucking number. But clearly the NFL is
going above and beyond and like player safety, complete bullshit.
If you're making multiple teams play multiple Thursday night games, like,
to me, that's kind of crazy. But they're doing that
and that is no longer a rule and expect that
(07:34):
come Thursday. I would say, if you're a good team
right all the top, let's just say the top ten
teams in the NFL, and definitely the top needle movers
in the NFL the Chiefs, the Eagles, the Cowboys, now
that the Giants are good, the Packers with Rogers for
sure held the new York Jets, right, I mean these
(07:54):
power brands, the Steelers when you put them on television
and the needle moves, the forty nine Ers, these teams,
there's a decent chance they're getting multiple Thursday night games,
which seems insane to me. It really does. And I thought,
I think during the NFL Owners meetings, David Tepper like
raised his hand, He's like, I don't have it verbade him.
Someone had reported this, like, I know I'm new here,
(08:15):
but why are we that consumed with Amazon? Like, ultimately
it's going to be pretty good for everyone involved. We
can't freak out over one year. But this is always
the issue with football people, you know, coaches, gms and
the people that run the league. People that run the league,
the owners, the league office only care about cash. I
mean that is first and foremost. Everything else is secondary.
(08:37):
We're obviously the gms and the coaches, all they're consumed
with is winning. Well, they don't go hand in hand
because if all I'm consumed about is how can I
make Amazon happy? And hey, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen
and Dak Prescott, Kyle Shanahan and you know, and SIRIANTI
and Jalen hurts. You guys got to play multiple Thursday
night games, multiple short rest weeks. Even if we somehow
(08:59):
can manipulated a little bit, you get an early start
on Sunday, We'll give you a home game. It seems
crazy to me, but that's where we're headed. Because the
people consumed with money, they control everything, the teams, the players,
the coaches, the gms. They just don't now they profit.
They're making historic amount of money. Being involved in the
(09:20):
league as a player, as a coach, as an executive,
not like a scout, but like as a GM has
never been financially better. It's also never been more difficult,
right these OTAs I've been going to these practices forever,
they're getting less and less like what am I even watching?
And obviously training camp is just clearly a different animal
than it has been the past. And I'm not talking
(09:41):
like junction boys, no water. I'm just talking about running
real practice where I don't know, tackle to the ground.
You don't even do any of that anymore because the
player safety, player safety, player safety. But really, you know
why they did that. You know why you get mandatory
every four days in training camp a day off because
that's what the players argued over. You know what, the
owners and the league office cared about the money. We'll
(10:02):
give you that because we're gonna take more money. We'll
give you that because we're gonna have more juice when
we do something like you know what, Patrick mahomes for
the next five years, you're gonna play multiple Thursday night games.
And I don't know if that's gonna come to fruition,
but it's clearly on the table. It's been talked about,
enough said enough that these Thursday night games being a
little under eleven million, Like I would totally understand if
(10:25):
Amazon paid all this money in the league and they
thought they were getting eleven million people and six million
people were watching these games, Like we have a large discrepancy,
But I'm sorry that discrepancy, especially in year one, doesn't
seem that crazy to me. And anyone listening to this
for a while knows where I stand on the whole
streaming platform. Like if you don't have Amazon Prime, like,
I'm sorry, I can't really relate to you. I understand
(10:47):
if you don't have YouTube TV or Hulu TV, you
will soon maybe not in a year, maybe not five,
but in the next ten or the next fifteen, you will,
and that's where the league's gonna be, so that they're
clearly pivoting with their mindset and they just want these
guys to be as happy as possible. But I'd also say, like,
who is not going to overbid on the NFL. I
(11:07):
get back to the NBA because I saw that they
want to three x to their last deal and I
get live rights is very powerful, But your audience is
diminished from your last deal. Why are you guaranteed an
increase in your revenue even if it just stays status quo,
which was still a lot of money. You see what
these teams in the league is paying out, Like I
(11:28):
understood why the NFL got a huge bump in their
last media rights deal. Their ratings keep going up, right,
that's just just basic math. Now I just seems crazy
to me, but we're clearly here. The other thing that
is pretty interesting is the New York Jets and the
(11:49):
Green Bay Packers. Forever the Green Bay Packers with Rogers
and far are one of the biggest brands in football.
They're not quite I wouldn't say the Cowboys, but like
you put them on National TV Sunday Monday Night you rate,
you know, and I do wonder if it's going to
come back to earth a little bit this year. So
like one of my expectations would be the Packers are
getting some primetime games, but I bet it's early in
(12:11):
the season. Like to me, I would go like Packers
Bears Week one Monday Night Football, But I don't feel
as confident doing it later in the season as I
would of the last thirty plus years. And on the
flip side, I forget where I heard this, but I
guess it makes sense that the New York Jets have
not played on Sunday night football in a decade. That's
(12:31):
about to change. That's about to seriously change. I would
expect them, whether it turns out to be the right move,
I would expect the New York Jets to get four
to five non Thursday night games, you know, several Sundays,
multiple Mondays, because part of that division, it's pretty easy
to do matchups that work on primetime, right you can
(12:53):
honestly cross pollinate the four teams and it works. Miami,
New England now the Jets again, and obviously the Bills.
One thing that Peter King alluded to is like two teams.
For example, the Packers and the Patriots are good examples
that are big brands but might not be playoff teams
that also could get pigeonholed into those multiple Thursday night windows,
(13:17):
which I keep getting back to think is insane, Like
I just don't understand why Amazon has all the juice
right now, Like to me, the NFL in this relationship,
it's relatively new, like doesn't need to bend over hand
and fist just to do everything humanly possible to make
(13:38):
them feel their best. Like I'd say it's going pretty well.
Maybe I'm out of loop on that one. Two teams,
I'm going to be very let's go the two conferences.
Two teams on both conferences. I'm very interested to see
how their schedule plays out. Starting with the NFC, everyone's
gonna pick this team. They're kind of the darling. I
think they're pretty good on paper. I've got some people
(13:59):
DM me like I'm a Vikings fan, I'm a Packer fan,
You're crazy. I think the Lions. I'm going to pick them.
You know, I picked the Packers last year and the
Vikings won it. So I'm not claiming to be no
stre damis here, but who what the Lions schedule look
like is going to be interesting? Is a start fast?
Is it start easy? You know, because there's gonna be
(14:20):
a lot of pressure on this team. Last year, remember
they started really really slow. I think they finished their
season eight and two, you know, to become a respectable
nine to eight. But it's it's going to be a
different animal where I don't think you're viewed as like
the obviously some top five team in the league, but
people are going to take you seriously. And the Giants
are another team that you know, in theory should be
(14:43):
right back in the NFC. But let's face it, like
even Giants fans would have to admit, like it's very
impressive what da boll did because our roster wasn't that good. Well,
your roster isn't that much better a year later? Are
they just some lock to be a double digit win
team or do they have a season where they're probably
still a year away, so maybe you missed the playoffs
this year to come back next year to be like
(15:03):
an eleven win team, I think it's gonna be fair.
We obviously know their division. The division is really good,
probably the best in football. That or the AFC North right,
when you factor in the Eagles are a juggernaut. The
Cowboys are damn good, and if Washington's the worst team
in your division, you got a really good division. And
then on the flip side, I think two teams that
are just going to be under an enormous amount of
(15:24):
pressure are two teams that have super highly paid quarterbacks,
and that first starting in Denver. Part of that is
the new coach. And it's not if Russell Wilson can't
play anymore, that's not Sean Payton's fault. He didn't create
this mess. He didn't make the trade. But I think
a lot of people, myself included, are gonna be like, well,
even if Russell's a little over the hill, it's going
(15:45):
to be impossible for him to be as shit as
he was last year, because now he has an eighteen
million dollar coach. He's got a guy that knows what
he's doing. And I think the Cleveland Browns man, you
give a guy two hundred and thirty million dollars, we
give you a pass, you get suspended. You've had all
these massage therapists after you because self inflicted. I mean,
it wasn't randomly after you, but that is behind everybody now,
(16:07):
not behind them, but behind the Browns, behind Watson, like
they're all looking forward. The contract now kicks in. Are
you just are you gonna be the real deal? Are
you gonna be a playoff team? Because that division's pretty
hard right obviously, Lamar now is locked up. The Ravens
are good. The Bengals are juggernauts right now, right they are,
you could argue the second best team in the league
(16:29):
behind the Chiefs, and you know, and the Steelers are
gonna be a very very sexy team for people to pick.
I bet some people are gonna pick them to win
the division. Definitely, a lot of people, myself included, probably
gonna pick them to be a wildcard team. So the
amount of pressure when you're paying these quarterbacks this much money.
Denver has this new high price coach Cleveland really good roster,
(16:50):
Like I'm fascinated to watch the way their two schedules,
you know, kind of break down. So it's gonna be
interesting with these Thursday night teams. Any fan of you know,
it's a cool night and it's become kind of a
lead cash con night to just own. I'm sure there's
NBA playoffs, the biggest story of that night will be
the NFL schedule release. Before we dive into what's next.
(17:13):
Do you know that Angie's list is now Angie your
home for everything home and as someone who is currently
house shopping and who has bought property. Before you walk in,
you go, well, I need to fix the kitchen, I
need to want to improve this bathroom. I want to
fix some stuff in the backyard. And then you go, well,
I don't do this for a living. Where do I
even start? Who do I even contact? That's where Angie
(17:36):
has twenty years of experience combined with new tools to
simplify the process. Over two hundred and twenty thousand pros
in their network, they can help you get the best
price for your product. They have new projects that are
priced upfront and clearly lays out the cost before you buy.
With Angie, you can request quotes from multiple pros in
your area. The pros in your network are locally based.
(17:59):
In just a few taps in the Angie app or
click on the site, you can have Angie tackle your
home service project from start to finish. Download the free
Angie mobile app today or visit Angie dot com. That's
a NGI dot Com. A situation that I just kind
(18:22):
of found funny was the Washington Commanders. Peter King also
wrote that you know, this sale has been a little rocky.
It's gonna be a pretty ugly divorce. It's not just
your seamless like, hey, you want this car twenty grand,
here's the twenty grand. Take my car. Like this is
not going And it never was gonna be with Dan
Schnyder some seamless transaction. It was always gonna be weird.
(18:46):
It was always going to be ugly, and I'll be
shocked if there aren't some snags along the way before
we get to the final destination. But this story came
out the first I saw of it. I guess we
had talked about it last year that the Commanders before
or that they traded for Carson Wentz. They called every
single team in the league about their quarterback, including Mahomes.
So they were going quarterback shopping and they were willing
(19:08):
to do whatever it took to get a top quarterback.
Most teams with good quarterbacks obviously hung up. They ended
up with Carson Wentz. But one of the stories that
came out about that, I just saw this because ersa
tweeted about it that they contacted Andrew Luck, and honestly,
the first time I heard about it, I just kind
of laughed, Like when you called Andrew Luck a guy
(19:29):
that retired because he was often banged up and the
injuries he just couldn't take anymore. He hated rehab, don't
blame him, and was just like, I'm done. Well. These
people Ron and Martin Mayhew work in the NFL, right,
so they know the rules. It's not like he's just
out there like some free agent like Tom Brady to
call it, Hey, would you be interested? So it's not
(19:49):
just would you be interested, it's like, hey, man, we
would have to trade the Colts for you, and would
you want to come play for us in Washington? I
kind of laughed. Not because it was tampering, it's just
I don't believe that Washington should have to give up
some pick over that, But it's also kind of just
how dumb are you? Right? Like what you think Andrew Luck,
(20:10):
if he was going to come back, wouldn't you just
go back to the Colts? Why would he want to
come to of all teams, your squad that has been,
let's face it, pretty shitty for a long period of
time and then Ursa is tweeting that is tampering. And
I've read a couple of people that are like, I
think the Colts are going to try to pursue this.
Maybe you know, Dan Snyder forced them to do it
(20:33):
as kind of an f you to the league. Didn't
really care if he got in trouble. I don't know,
but this we can't rid ourselves of this guy quickly
enough because this is a franchise that you know, if
they were good, it'd be a lot of fun. They
showed some signs of life the last couple of years,
and it's been it's been enjoyable. But to me, as
long as is he's around, it's kind of this dark
(20:55):
cloud and this notion that is some lock to just
be done. I mean, if you ask most people for
all the NFL's like, oh, Dan Sider's already gone, Like
we sure, Like, are we totally sure Dan Sider's gone
by this fall? I mean I think so. But we
all know Dan Snyder's kind Most of us know that
guy with a lot less money. One thing they are
(21:17):
is they're petty, they're vindictive that they don't just go
without a fight. So whether you're worth one hundred dollars
or you know, ten billion dollars. That mindset and that
wiring does not change, and we know this guy man
is going to make it very very ugly before it's
all over. One story that came out from a podcast
(21:39):
the Action Network is where Sobel lives or works? That
comes on the golf podcast. My guys Stucky gambling and
they got guys that you know are locked into the
gambling circle. And there I guess one of their guys
said on a podcast that the Atlanta Falcons, And this
would make sense that Arthur Smith went sniffing around to
see if they get Ryan Tannehill this offseason and whatever
(22:02):
reason around the draft, the deal didn't go through. Now,
in fairness, like the Titans, you weren't gonna move on
from Tannehill before you knew you got a quarterback, and
then you get Levis in the second round. You might
as well just ride out Tannehill until you see Levis
can play. You know, what are you really gonna get
for Tannehill? That makes sense giving him up. The other
guy that they sniffed around was Kyler Murray. Now, the
(22:24):
hard part about Kyler Murray is twofold. One he is
under a gigantic contract, and the other he currently has
a torn ACL. So whatever you were going to trade
the guy, if you are willing to, and of course
they have a new general manager or new coach, you
would examine every option and every potential ability to improve
your team. You would get at best fifty cents on
(22:48):
the dollar for Kyler Murray. And whatever you want to
say about Kyler Murray, I'm not the biggest fan. When
a year ago, even after that devastating loss to the Rams,
coming into the season, if Kyler Murray did not have
that gigantic contract, you easily could have got like a
one in a two, a couple ones, shit them commanders.
A lot of teams would have traded for him. So
(23:11):
he's hindered by multiple things now. I also think then
it would behoove the Arizona Cardinals to not sit and
clearly they're not. He's not really tradeable now, but I
think they could potentially benefit from it because if he
comes back next year and he's healthy and he just
looks capable again, because there were moments this year before
(23:31):
he tore his ACL, he does look capable. And if
you're a coach, and most of these coaches have inflated
egos and believe they can save people. His talent is
not really debatable. He is one of the fastest players
in the league. He's got an enormous arm. When he's rolling,
he can look like a top six to seven quarterback
in the league. So what if he comes back this
year in the second half of the season, he just
(23:53):
looks solid. Then to me in the offseason, cause the
Cardinals have two things going for him. One, they're gonna suck,
meaning they're going to draft very high. They also have
the Texans pick, who might not draft one or two again,
but more likely they're closer to ten than they are twenty.
So you're gonna have two picks really high. It's viewed
(24:13):
as a really good quarterback draft. Hell next year. In general,
I was reading something the top five players going into
next season in college would be the top five players
that were just drafted in this draft. They're better than
every single player in this draft. The only two players
honestly that went in the top ten that would be
(24:34):
considered with Caleb Williams, Marvin Harrison Junior Brock Bowers Drake May.
I don't know how to say his name, but the
offensive tackle for Penn State, which would have easily been
a top three or four pick in this draft that
would be in their category would be Jalen Carter, who
we all acknowledge was the best player in this draft
but had major character concerns. And then b John Robinson
(24:56):
who's a running back, so he just can't go that
high and he still went eight. So this draft coming
in is absolutely loaded. So if Kyler Murray comes back,
he plays just decent. You don't even need to win
the games, but he just looks healthy. You get some
momentum going you go, okay, this is a capable guy.
You can either do two things. You can build around
him because you might be stuck it might be hard
(25:17):
to trade that contract. Or if he just looks good enough.
There are always teams where it's like, you know, especially
if you go, hey, he's bought in, he's being a
good guy. You just talk up his character. He's studying,
and he's gonna have time to really talk up like
how's he acting when he's rehabit is he studying? Is
he around the OTAs? Is he going to all the meetings?
Because if he's doing that, I actually think you could
(25:39):
rebuild his value again. He's never gonna be viewed, at
least in the next twelve months as some star player. Again,
I'm not saying he can't get back to that. I
would bet against it, but yeah, I don't when you're
that talented, Like ultimately, there are some guys Baker Mayfield,
even Trey Lance has some fundamental flaws the way he
(25:59):
throws the football that just don't He's not even nearly
as fast as Kyler, Like, they don't have the capability
of being that good. So I would bet against it.
But the capability is there A lot of guys like
Zach Wilson does not. Zach Wilson can't complete an out route. Yeah,
I mean he skips wheel routes to running backs. I
mean there's just fundamental layups in the passing game he
(26:21):
can't complete against NFL players. Like we all watched it
last year. It was crazy to watch because he was
a guy that Chris Sims a couple of years ago
is like, this guy could be Aaron Rodgers and when
you just watch him fling it on air or whatever,
you like, that is an elite arm great release, powerful,
like he's got it. All, and then he actually has to play,
and then you're like, what the hell is this? By
(26:42):
middle of last season, they're like, Mike White, Mike White,
and I don't even blame him because he watched Zach Wilson.
You can't even function with the guy. So I do expect.
Let me rephrase that, I do think it's gonna work
out for Arizona. In the sense of trading him right
now for absolutely nothing doesn't make that much sense because
once you sign a contract of that magnitude, as we're
(27:03):
seeing with Aaron Rodgers, it impacts your cap in the
short term, and there's a chance that maybe that's the
best you can do and he comes back he's healthy.
Use those two picks. You draft Marvin Harrison, you draft
the offensive tackle from Penn State, and you surround him
with some more talent, and you take your chances for
the next couple of years. Now, I never would assigned
him to the contract in the first place, but either way,
you know, because there is fifty to fifty seems high,
(27:26):
but I would say there's a twenty five to thirty
percent chance this team drafts number one overall. Most people,
like universally agree that this is the worst roster right
now in the NFL, like this is not like debating,
like this is the worst roster in the NFL. A
lot of people thought that last year with the Giants.
The difference is we all knew Brian da Ball. What
this guy's done in Buffalo was incredible. I think most
(27:48):
of us go, you know, Jonathan Bannon. I've had people
tell me that we're around Jonathan Bannon. You know, I
actually think he's better suited to be a head coach
than he is a coordinator. He's a much better leader
than he is like some ski So I was like,
whenever you hear that, you go, well, we'll see, you know,
we'll see. It's a little cheesy for me, but listen,
(28:09):
I thought Sean mcvagh I remember when he was hired.
I was like, no one my age is gonna come
into the league and just kick ass and take names
at thirty one years old, he did, you know? He
was been awesome. I bet against that one. So I've
been wrong before, but I would say Jonathan Gannon, I
would short that stock. And a large part of that
is just the talent around it, the organization a lot
(28:30):
of turmoil. It's getting sued by former employees people coming
after his owner. Could just be a weird place quarterbacks injured.
But we'll see how that all shakes out. Okay, let's
dive into the middle Cooff mailbag at John Middlecoff is
the Instagram fire in those d ms D. I recently
(28:53):
saw Kevin Durant got a lifetime Nike deal and couldn't
figure out how that would be structured. How do you
think lifetime endorsement deals work? Love the pod, keep up
the good work. That's a hell of a question, man,
I don't know. I know obviously, you know Michael Jordan
owns the Jordan brand or as equity in it. But
(29:14):
like I saw Charles Barkley, it was like a it
was a YouTube short and it was a clip from
an interview he gave talking about how Michael Jordan has
made him so much money in his life because like
in the peak of Charles's powers, right in the mid nineties,
as a player, Nike was paying he was on like
the second highest paid athlete, like a couple million bucks.
(29:35):
And Michael said, do you need You're getting paid a
lot from the Phoenix Suns. You don't need all that
cash from Nike every year. Do this. Say, if they're
paying you a three million, take one million and have
them give the other two million dollars in stock options
and charles. Like smartest thing I ever did. And I'm
still on Nike's payroll. So like Lebron has a lifetime deal,
(29:58):
Steph has a lifetime deal with under you know Tiger
has a lifetime deal with Nike. I just think you're
just on the payroll for a long time now in
the peak of your playing powers, right like Kevin right
now or Lebron when he's playing. Clearly they don't pay
you the same amount when you're done, right, But I don't.
(30:18):
That's the question. I don't have the answer to you.
Just in life, you just get what you negotiate. So
maybe five million dollars a year, factor in inflation, I
don't know. I honestly don't. Some socks. It's a hell
of a question, very interesting. Never really thought about it,
to be honest with you. I think it's funny how
(30:39):
your new picture of you with a backwards hat on
and Colin always talks about how he doesn't want his
franchise with the hat backwards guy made me laugh. Here's
the one thing I will say is us bald people,
we play by different rules. So I would say historically,
my father, who passed away several years ago, old school
(31:02):
guy hated the hat backwards look as well. I actually
don't think it applies when you don't have hair. You know,
my dad, who was also bald when I was younger,
could have You know, in that eighties nineties you could
have the cold de sac look. You could not have
a cold de sac now and have any human being
take you seriously if you're under forty five years old,
(31:22):
I'm sorry, you just can't. So we shave our heads well.
In the picture that's used now on my profile, it
was at a forty nine er game, so it's not
like I even gave it to the volume. They ripped
it off. I probably like an Instagram photo, but I
hadn't shaved my head for a couple of days, and
I'm pretty sure I had forgotten a razor, and we
were leaving early in the morning, had been up late,
(31:43):
and I didn't have time to shave my head. Super hungover,
I was taking like a two minute shower when I
shaved my head. My shower last ten minutes because you
gotta shave it in the shower, so I wasn't gonna
rock a cold de sac to the forty nine or
RAMS game, which we'll go down as one of the
cool games I've ever seen live. It was a crazy
Week eighteen game a couple of years ago. But like,
(32:04):
I just don't think we played by the same rules
as people with hair, Like I'm sorry, we don't. I
don't disagree with a sediment about backwards guy, but I
think I play by different rules not having hair. But
it is funny. I know, I know the game has
swung on offense, with the rules especially favoring the quarterbacks.
(32:28):
The game has evolved a ton recently. Where do you
think it goes for the next five years? For example,
does defense ever make a return, Does the coaching staff
become more important, or does another position become as important
as the quarterback? Well, as we talked about earlier, the
rules are clearly not changing and safety rules are not
(32:49):
going to lean defense, So I don't see how defense
could really make a comeback when hitting has kind of
just slowly been legislated out of the game in terms
of the violent hits, cause that's really when when you
had the best, fastest most violent players on defense. You
couldn't play against you know, the great defenses because they
would destroy you. Well, that's never gonna factor in anymore,
(33:12):
right those even that Seattle team of whatever, six, eight,
nine years ago, now it's not coming back. I just
think we're kind of gonna be in this this version
of football for a while, right, Like I don't think
the game of basketball is ever going to trend back
to every team's gonna have a great center, noe. The
three point shoot shot is too valuable to the one
(33:35):
hundred and fifty percent more than the two. So you're
gonna continue to take more three stretch out the you know,
the game, and get more three point shooters. Well, I
don't think it's gonna change in football. I was thinking
about this the other day, Like Troy Aikman. When Troyigman
transferred from Oklahoma to UCLA when he was in college,
(33:55):
it was because Oklahoma was gonna start running the triple
option offense. Obviously, Troy Aikman, it's not a triple option
offensive quarterback or quarterback. Right. Think how often you know
in the seventies, eighties, even into the nineties, coordinators would
run a run heavy option level in college and definitely
in high school. Well, we talked about this last week.
(34:17):
It just bleeds uphill. Most industries kind of bleed downhill. Right.
In football, what happens at the lower levels comes up
because that's where your talent's coming from. You could argue
it's like that in society, right. I remember, like my
dad's generation, they don't all email, and a lot of
them had a lot of success without really using the computer.
(34:39):
But you can't be You could be seventy five years
old and not really email and run a company and
have people do it for you. You can't be fifty
and not know how to operate the internet. You probably
can't be twenty five years old and not be very
very versed on the computer. And I'm not talking about
just typing. I'm talking like, do you know what you know? AI?
Can you mess with chat? GPT? Can you Whatever your
(35:04):
specific industry is, you better be locked and loaded technologically, right,
Just like in football, if you're coming up to the
to the NFL, you gotta be the passing game is,
whether you're a coach or whether you're a player, is
gonna be key. And I just don't see that changing
anytime soon. Look, how it's changed the running back. We
(35:24):
value running backs infinitely more than we did a decade ago.
That play in the passing game. Hell, when I got
to the NFL in twenty ten, if you couldn't play
in the passing game, whatever, we had a change of paceback.
Is there a good running back in the league that's
not a major factor in the past game? Why was
b Jon Robinson thought so highly of he was good
(35:45):
in the pass game? Why was Gibbs the kid from
Alabama that Detroit Lions. You see that video they tweeted
out of them going berserk when they drafted him. I
mean they think the guy's like Marshall Folk, because that's
the Some of the comps I've heard are like, you know,
he's got a little Christian McCaffrey Alvin Kamara into it.
If he didn't have that, and we'll just you know,
(36:06):
Adrian Peterson is the best between the tackle runner I've
seen live in my life. In his peak of his powers,
he was incredible, not creating the passing game, won't pass block,
he could get by. He's like he'd even be an
outlier today, But I don't think he'd be as valuable
as he was fifteen years ago, because playing in the
(36:26):
passing game is a must. So I guess that's a
long way of saying I don't know. I mean I
would bet against there being dramatic changes of just kind
of where we are and where we're headed is kind
of you know what's going to continue. As a Packer fan,
I'm happy the Rogers era is over, and I'm hopeful
(36:49):
for the Love era. I think the Packers will look
a lot more like the forty nine ers. Run the ball,
play defense instead of air it out because we have
Aaron Rodgers, because we no longer have Aaron Rodgers. Also,
I think this bodes well for us in the playoffs,
because running the ball and playing defense wins in Lambeau
wins zero degrees in snowy, hence our playoff failures. I've
(37:11):
always said that the Packers were always built to dominate
in a dome, right Like what has been a huge
point of difference last year for the Chiefs they had Pachaco.
Their defense has been a lot better the last three
or four years. It's hard to win outside by just
throwing bombs, it really is. You got to play defense,
and it's just key. Anyway. I have the argument with
(37:35):
my friends, and I'm hoping you can back me up.
In my mind, Rogers is the most talented quarterback ever.
He was doing Mahomes level stuff that ESPN drools over
with Mahomes was in middle school. Now everyone says, what
about Brady Montana and Mahomes. There is a difference in
the most talented and most accomplished, and it pitches me off.
(37:55):
Aaron Rodgers is the goat of quarterback play. Tom Brady
is and will always be the most accomplished. I think
it's a tough discussion to have, right because, for example,
Aaron Rodgers is never gonna sniff Tom Brady's accomplishments. He's
only been to the one Super Bowl. Tom's been to
(38:17):
whatever ten, right, because he lost how many loser with
the Patriots? He lost three with the Patriots and he
won the one with Tampa. Yeah, so he's been to
ten Super Bowls. There's just no but Tom Brady. Tom Brady.
One time I heard him, I don't know if it
was that Monday night calling he does or it was
a podcast radio interview. I can't exactly remember where I
(38:39):
heard him say this, but it was It was fascinating
because he's like the unique part about the sport of football.
He's like, I couldn't start at any other position for
a good high school team, right, Like I couldn't play
dB or linebacker. I'm not fast enough. I couldn't play
wide receiver or tight end for them. Obviously, I'm not
(38:59):
big enough to play offensive line. Like the only thing
I can do at the high school level, let alone
the pro level, is play quarterback. Now, one thing I
would say Tom, this is hard because Aaron's just his
physical gifts. He's a much better athlete. He can just
he's got a better arm than Tom, even though Tom
has a really good arm. He's a more quote unquote
(39:21):
talented player. But is like, playing your best football in
the biggest moments when your team needs it the most.
Is that a talent? Right? I think it kind of?
Is I do? Right? Like, obviously Tiger Woods is more
physically gifted than most people he played throughout his prime,
(39:42):
But like he made every big putt when he had to.
Is that a talent? Right? Like he could just contain
himself and be super focused and keep his emotions under control.
And as a quarterback you kind of have to do
that too, And sometimes Aaron's had some incredible moments, but
I'd say he's also blown at in some big spots, right,
And I'm not talking. It's one thing to blow in
(40:03):
the Super Bowl, it's another thing to blow in the
first round of the playoffs. That'd be the knock on Peyton.
A lot of times it's like, God, he just kind
of blew it, And that to me separates Tom. But yeah,
if we were just like running around Combs and throwing
on the run, Tom can't hold his jock. And like
you said, Mahomes, Mahomes like him and Mahomes are very
very similar players. But for example, is if you gave
(40:28):
Aaron Rodgers in his prime to the Kansasity Chiefs the
last eight nine years with Andy Reid, do they win
a couple of Super Bowls? Maybe? Because that's the other
thing with football that makes it more unique than these
other sports. If I give you Steph Curry, if I
give you Lebron James, if I give you Shack or
Michael Jordan, Yeah, if you get Phil Jackson or Eric
(40:50):
Spoulster or Steve Kerr, you're locked to win. But I
think I can kind of give you an average coach
and you've got a pretty good chance to win a championship.
If I give you Aaron Rodgers, you were not guarantee
to win a Super Bowl. Dan Marino is widely considered
by everyone that played him and everyone that was much
older than me that watched his career as like one
of the best players that has ever played the game.
(41:11):
It's like not arguable or debatable. Everyone into an era
in his era, which has some all time great players
and obviously some of the greatest quarterbacks ever, including this
younger generation. Like if you ask like Brady Peyton and
Tom they hold Marino to such highest team got to
one Super Bowl and lost. Now, part of that is
like the team around him. He did have Don Shula,
(41:32):
but it was kind of an older version of Don Shula.
I guess he got there in eighty four, but not Don.
But Dan coach matters a lot. You know, Belichick kind
of knows what he's doing. Mahomes benefits from having you know,
the big guy with a mustache that matters, right. Joe
Montana really benefited from having Bill Walsh, Lawrence Taylor, all
time great player helped when he had Belichick and Parcels
(41:54):
coaching his ass. So it's complicated. I mean his two
coaches are Mike mc arthy and Lafleur, who McCarthy's solid coach.
I mean he's gone to Dallas and they've been really good.
Lafleur I think's pretty solid too. Any one of those
guys gonna be viewed as like a top three or
four coach in the league. I don't know, so it's
it's a tough debate. I probably gave you the run
around there. He's definitely one of the most talented core
(42:18):
I don't know if he's the most talented quarterback ever.
I want you to YouTube like nineteen eighty six John Elway.
That's put that talent. He's bigger than a Rogers, every
bit the arm and every bit the athlete. And Elway
was going to Super Bowls. He was losing them, but
he was going. So I put Elway up there. I
(42:38):
put I might say Elway's the most talented quarterback ever.
You know you could Josh Allen is pretty big physical freak. Like,
is Josh Allen more physically talented than Mahomes. That's what
makes this whole argument kind of hard. I if you
want to just say he's one of the most talented
guys of all time top I'd give him top three.
(43:03):
Question about the new avatar. Colin made any comments about
the backward hat, keep up the great content. People were
fascinated with the backward hat. I got a DM and
I think I'll talk about this on the Golf podcast tomorrow.
Like Colin said, he would never hire anybody that's addicted
to golf. You clearly spend a lot of time with golf.
Here's what I would say. I have monetized my hobbies,
(43:25):
and obviously Colin in this operation benefits from that. That's
why I started a golf podcast, why I were selling hats.
I didn't get into the golf business just because I
love golf, which I do, but I also know it's
a very financially viable market. The household income of people
that consume golf is dramatically higher than every sport. I
(43:46):
didn't just do it randomly. Now I'm lucky. I do
like it, and you could call me a golf addict,
but it's not just a pastime. You know, the two
things I spend the most time doing thinking and you
know I would say watching would be football and golf.
Turn them into a business. I'm not smart. Enough to
do random other things. So what I do I have
(44:07):
to find a way to make money off of was
I can't survive. You know. You couldn't put me at
Wells Fargo and they'd say, figure it out. I don't
even know where to start, you know, own a restaurant. Shit,
I just like like chicken or rice, cheeseburgers. I don't
know how do we make money. I know how to
operate around football and golf. So it's my life advice
(44:29):
to everybody. Turn passions into in hobbies into your job.
Find a way. I've been lucky enough too. But my
backwards hat and I'll say it over again, bald people,
we played by different rules. I'm sorry. If you got
a head of hair, like you know, put a little
jail in it. You look fine. If I haven't shaved
my head in a couple of days and I don't
(44:50):
have time for a long shower, I'm throwing on a
hat and sometimes the snapbacks they look pretty good backwards.
The situation of Djokich and the Sun's owner match Ishbia
is similar to the situation with what happened to Kyle
Lowry and the Golden State Warriors minority owner in twenty nineteen,
the Golden State Warriors owner lost his shares of the
team and was suspended from going to games. Shouldn't mat
(45:13):
Ishbia get some sort of suspension or penalty, thoughts, I'd
have to YouTube the incident with Lowry. I remember the
guy with the Warriors it being a little bit more aggressive,
if memory serves me correct Now, I do believe that
like Ishbia should be fined. I'm sorry you don't get
(45:35):
to touch the player. And I love, and I repeat,
I love how Denver's coach, Michael Malone and Jokic keep
referring to him as some fan. Obviously he's a very
rich fan. I heard him model Bill Simmons. I thought
he was a very interesting guy, and someone told me
because I just assumed self made guy, mortgage guy. Now
(45:57):
he actually replaced his father. I'm saying that he's not
an impressive guy, but like you know, he inherited his money.
You know, it's not like he just created the company.
It is is when your dad, when you replaced your
dad as the CEO. I do view you a little differently,
like Mark Cuban when he bought in the league all
of his cash. Steve Balmer, like these guys are self made.
(46:18):
I don't know, and I listen there are a lot
of NFL owners that aren't self made too, But it's
kind of looks like a rich kid in that moment, like, bro,
give up the fucking ball. It's just I thought it
was kind of a clown if you would have told me.
I mean, the guy is one of the how good
if you're watching that Denver Sun series, nicoley Jokic, I've
(46:39):
never seen anything like him. Listen a lot of friends
that are Philly fans. I don't even think it's close.
If I ran an NBA team and I got to
pick between the embid and the dude from Denver, I
wouldn't even hesitate. If I had a gentleman, I wouldn't
even have a meeting. To me, Joki is a different
tier than Embaid When he always plays too, he's just better,
(47:01):
always great on defense. He's always hurt, so is he
that great on defense? No one cares about the regular
season either, Like I watched this guy in the playoffs'
scoring fifty points pretty easily. My NBA rant. People always
think I'm like Middlecoff, you hate the NBA. Yeah, I
mean no, I just hate when you don't play in games.
I just like as a consumer when I turn it on,
(47:23):
like I know my players to playing games, right. I
actually looked up because I saw Gary Payton. His kid
plays for the Warriors, Gary Payton the Second, and he
was at one of the Warriors games earlier this series.
He might he's probably going to them all, but he
was at Chase Center and he like talked to Lebron
walking off, and I just googled Gary Payton's stats. I
(47:46):
was like, how many points of the average ruti's career
from like nineteen ninety to basically the late nineties, Gary
Payton never missed a game. And I would say Gary
Payton was consistently viewed as a top ten point player
in the NBA, and he had some years where he
was probably top six or seven player in the NBA. Okay,
I never missed a game. That's the generation a guy
(48:07):
I grew up on. So yeah, my expectations like, well,
you know the guys need rest, and you know this
is for the health, and oh kay, that's great. But
if you're only playing sixty games and you got eighty
two of them, I can't take your sport that seriously,
and neither can the rest of the consumers. Why the
ratings are in the tank. Why the Kings and Warriors rating,
you know, average eleven million people because you turn on
everyone's playing and people try hard. You know, the NBA
(48:29):
the regular season for six months. Half the teams never
even try half the league's tanking. The good teams they
try a quarter of the games. I'm not even trying
to be nostalgic about my youth, but when I see
Gary Payton play every fucking game, and I grew up,
you know, going to Oracle Arena when the Kings were terrible,
and I remember Michael Jordan Allen Iverson those players played
(48:49):
against the Kings team that was god awful in twenty
twenty three. They would not play, they would rest, and
they would basically be telling you, hey, if you live
in Sacramento, we don't give a shit about you. That's
what you do. And the consumer is the guy paying
for everything. The fan is the reason there's all this money.
Why is the NFL never made more money because they
have more fans than every other league. Sorry for the tangent,
(49:14):
big time Seattle Seahawks fan here. We've lost a few
impact guys with Al Woods and Ryan Neil. With players
like Jamal Adams coming back, is he though? I mean,
I know technically he's supposed to come back, but it
feels like Jamal Adams sure gets hurt a lot since
he's doing your team and coming back good looking as
of now, rookie, think they'll improve even more from last year. Also,
a hugely underrated signing for the Hawks that not many
(49:38):
are talking about is signing Bobby Wagner. That's gonna be
a big time improvement on our defense, especially if what
Pete said about going back to his old defensive schemes
your thoughts. I can't hold Jamal Adams, you know. To me,
(49:58):
he's basically a linebacker now. I also think Bobby Wagner
incredible guy. As people have talked shit before when I
said he wasn't a Hall of Famer, He's gonna be
a Hall of Famer first ballot. We can argue that,
but he's going to the Hall of Fame. The Hall
of Fame days are kind of over. But I hear
you for leadership, but I thought your team last year
was like pretty high level group. To me, I'm with you.
(50:22):
Your first round rookie, the dude, they drafted fifth overall Witherspoon,
stud in Jigba immediate plug and play starter with DK Lockett.
That's fantastic. You had the UCLA running back. I would say,
I'm gonna pick you as a wildcard team. Now, to me,
the question is like, does Gino have back to back
thirty touchdown seasons? Is Gino gonna throw sixty plus touchdowns
(50:44):
in two years? Clearly he's an impressive guy. I'm very
impressive with Gino. I'm a fan of Geno Smith. Now
didn't I didn't follow his career that closely, but obviously
last year, you know, falling just they were one of
the best stories in the NFL. He was being interviewed
a lot. He's an impressive guy. He's an easy guy
to root for. I see why Seattle likes him a lot.
(51:07):
But is he was last year an outlier or has
he just turned his career and he's just going to
be really good, Because if he does, then yeah, hell,
you guys can win eleven games that division. Besides Seattle
in the Niners, I mean, the Rams could suck and
we know Arizona's bad. I mean the Rams could be
a five win team. They could have serious problems. They're
(51:29):
an Aaron Donald ankle spraying away from being screwed. Before
Stafford started missing games last year, Remember he was throwing
it all over the yard. Do with the other team.
Cooper Cup got hurt last year and they were unwatchable.
They're an injury too away from being completely screwed. So
(51:51):
the only thing was Seattle the forty nine ers. You
know I have beat you twice, but who cares? I mean,
even if if the Niners win the division and you
win ten or eleven games, you might be the fifth seed. Well,
probably not. I would imagine the Cowboys probably would. But
maybe you could compete to be as good as the Cowboys.
If Jamal Adams is healthy and he can just function
(52:13):
in kind of in that linebacker role, and the rookie
adds to the secondary to go along with the rookie
corner last year who was good. Your pass rush just
improves with some younger guys, your offense should be pretty dynamic.
I mean that your two young tackles are good. If
if if Injigba is healthy to go with DK, maybe
(52:37):
Gino has another big year, Detroit winning the North. Don't
see it. I'm obviously a biased Vikings fan, but GoF
is a career sixty four percent passer. I'd argue last
year was the outlier. But with our new defensive coordinator,
Green Bay with love in Chicago, well Chicago, yep, okay,
Detroit goes nine to eight, ten and seven, just like
everyone else in the North and seven. He might win
(53:00):
the North. Right, how many games did you guys win
last year? Thirteen? I think you went thirteen to five.
Maybe it was twelve and would be thirteen and five.
That'd be eighteen games, would be thirteen to four regardless,
thirteen twelve wins, like, yeah, you could win ten games.
They can win ten games. You could win nine games.
As someone hit me with the DMS be floor as
(53:21):
is your defensive coordinator. But part of being a good
defense is the talent there. That's my question. Who's who
are your difference makers? Who's your pass rushers? Kendrick is gone.
I don't know when you guys are really good on
(53:43):
defense with Zimmer who let's face it, he's a curmudgeon,
big curmudgeon. He's pretty good defensive coordinator and in your
heyday with you guys had a ton of talents. I
don't see the talents the same. You can argue the
defensive coordinator. You guys won thirteen games, so you know,
three game regression factoring in all the close games you won.
(54:07):
That's part of football. I mean, let's be real. You
guys won one of the greatest pulled that game out
of who knows what crevice in your body game of
all time last year against the Bills. I mean that
that is one of the Did you beat the Colts too?
(54:29):
Weren't you down to the Colts by like forty points
in the first quarter? Was it twenty seven or nothing
at the end of the first quarter. You guys won
that game as well? Pretty sure? Yeah you did. So,
Like there's two wins of your thirteen that even you'd
have to acknowledge are some of the Yeah, you won
that game thirty nine thirty six. That's got to be
(54:50):
one of the craziest come I think it was. I
think it's statistically right, the biggest, one of the biggest
comebacks in NFL history. What was the other game I
was saying, the Bills game? Yeah, you won that thirty
three to thirty. What was the score at halftime? That
was twenty four to ten? And it was. It was
twenty seven, it was twenty seven to ten at one
(55:12):
point time, Hell of a comeback. Colts comeback was better.
But one thing that's weird with you guys is I
saw today a headline the Cousins was like, love to
retire a Viking. The article was like, yeah, I don't
know if the Vikings see that that way. It's kind
of in a weird spot because cousins. It's not cousins
(55:36):
willing to play for twenty million. You know, yeah, I
want to retire Viking, though, keep paying me thirty eight
forty million dollars a year, Like do you really want
to pay forty million dollars a year? I don't know.
I'm getting so many questions on this backwards hat anyway,
I see you have your hat on backwards. On the
new podcast, he used to bag on Romo constantly for
wearing his hat backwards. Again. One thing I would say
(55:57):
about Tony Romo, great hair, So you wear your hat backwards?
Guy shows laziness. Just put a little gel me like
I might have time. I have to shower fast. You
guys are able to shower fast with hair, right, I
have to shave my head in the shower. It takes
time and it's more difficult, so I put on a
backwards hat. We do not play by the same rules
(56:19):
as people with hair. I believe that to my core.
I'm not even being joking around. I'm not being sarcastic.
We are not judged the same. Think about this. When
I go play golf, or I go for a bike
ride or whatever, and the sun is out, I cannot wear,
you know, a mesh hat, a trucker hat, because I'll
(56:40):
get burned half my head. I have to cover the
complete head. You, as hair people, do not have to
worry about that. You can wear no hat, wear backwards hat,
wear you know, holy hat, whatever, a visor. I am
not able to wear visors. Think about that, when the
sun's out, my head will get burned. So this notion
that backwards hat guy. That is about quarterbacks with hair.
(57:06):
Has there been a bald quarterback since the hassleback? We
would not judge Matt Hasselback for warning backwards hat why
he does not have hair he has to cover his
head from the sun. Want him to get skin cancer?
Of course not. Tony Romo. Put a little fucking gel
in your hair. What do you know? One thing i'd
judge Tony Romo about. Why is he never shave. He's
(57:27):
called in games with Jim Nance and he's always got
He doesn't know it's one thing to have a beard
or shave. He's always just got this stubble going like
he's like four days on a bender. That's how I
judge Tony Romo. But the hat stuff I used to
get in this argument with my dad a lot. I'm sorry, Dad,
I look pretty good. The backwards hat I enjoy it.
(57:47):
And now that I enough hair, I just think we
played by different rules. I'm fascinated that everyone is fascinated
by that. They're fascinated by that. And I thought Colin
hated golfers. He did, so I started podcast. We are
made money got high upside. You know, money flows, you
know we can we can look past our previous takes. Audios,
(58:10):
everybody have a good week. Uh shout out to Holst
and James, my producers doing big things behind the scenes,
and you the people for consuming this podcast. See ya.
(58:48):
The volume
The volume, what is going on everybody? John Middlecock three
and our podcast schedule release week Buckle up, let's do it.
(00:25):
It's here, rocking and rolling, baby. I'm sure we will
have a big podcast on Friday. Reacting to the schedule release.
Do have some thoughts about the changes for the Thursday
Night Football that now you can play multiple times, Dan Snyder,
Kyler Murray. We will dive into it all as well
as a big mail bag at John middlecoff is the Instagram.
(00:48):
Just fire into those dms. It's just my name at
my name and the dms are wide open and get
your question answered here on the show, ask me anything.
We'll be rocking and rolling. We're live on app, Live
on app, download, Amazon Amp, find it on YouTube as
well and any other housekeeping I don't think so hopefully yeah,
(01:09):
should be should be it. But first, do you want
to get outside this summer? Do you want to go
do something? You should get outside your home this spring
this summer, enjoy the sun, enjoy a nice cool night,
and do it with my friends. At game time, you
can go to a concert, you can go to a
baseball game, you go to an NHL playoff game, that's
inside you can go to comedy show, you can do
whatever you want and download the app, the official ticketing
(01:31):
app of this show. Promo code John twenty dollars off.
No big deal throwing you guys a boat. I don't
even need to thank you. Just go take a brother,
take a cousin, take your wife, take your mom or dad,
and go do something fun and do it with a
little discount for me. So go to your app store
download the game Time app. You can go do anything
you want, comedy shows, concerts, to games, and use the
(01:52):
promo code John. That's my name, Jochen and get twenty
dollars off. NFL schedule release. For a split second on
Monday morning, Peter King had reported it was going to
get pushed back, and then by about mid afternoon West
Coast time, Adam Schefter had said it's on release Thursday,
(02:14):
five o'clock. Be there, b square. So clearly Roger Goodell
signed off on everything. The schedule is set, and by
throughout the week things will leak. But by Thursday at
five o'clock Pacific Xander time, or eight o'clock for those
of you on the East Coast, we will know all
of our teams where they're playing when they're playing. Obviously
(02:34):
some of it can change a little bit later in
the season, but schedule release a really big deal. Right.
The NFL now has figured out a way to dominate
the fall enormous ratings, keep rolling it into after the
Super Bowl, combine free agency, the draft, and then they've
thrown this curve ball which is now a massive, massive
night in the NFL. And one thing really jumped out
(02:55):
to me, and I'll never forget when I when I
first moved to the Bay Area, the first couple of years,
I got an accountant in downtown San Francisco, which I
had no business going to. I was by far the
guy's poorest client. I had some friends I went to
college with. They were crushing it at the time. I
was just, you know, a little old radio host. I
(03:16):
wasn't even making one hundred and rand and this guy,
a member, was really cool and he would tell me
stories about all these guys he had, these w two
employees working for Facebook and Google that were making like
more money than NFL players. But he said, the funny
thing is is, you know, he became friends with them
and they would talk a big game on Facebook and
their Twitter accounts about the way they looked at life,
(03:39):
and a lot of that was like, you know, raise taxes,
And he said, they would walk into my office and
they would want every tax loophole, you know under the sun.
They would want to save every penny, which anyone with
the brain always does. But he's like, if you look
at their Facebook account, that's not the way they're talking.
And because a lot of people talk a big game,
but they don't live it, right, It's why I don't
(04:00):
take ninety nine percent of people just publicly what they
say doesn't mean that much to me. It never has
why I don't spend that much time getting up in
arms about that many things because I think a lot
of stuff is just complete bullshit, just complete. And so
when I see the NFL forever talk a big game
(04:20):
about safety, I don't think they actually care. They just
don't want to get sued and lose a bunch of money,
which happened to them over the last decade. Right, do
they actually care what happens to these players? I mean,
clearly they don't want to lose their star players. But
if you go to enough practice these random guys, they're
very replaceable. I mean, that's just a fact. No one
(04:41):
wants anyone to get injured, but when you play football,
guys are gonna get injured. But they are over the
top about their discussion of player safety, player safety, player safety.
And then it has been reported by Schefter that no
longer teams for the last when I first got in
the NFL, Thursday Night Football was there weren't even a
(05:02):
full slate of games, right, I think there was like
five or six. I remember when I was with the
Eagles we played all three years, but by like the
third year, I think the majority of teams were played
Thursday Night Football, and then by the middle of the
decade it was a full slate, right. And so these
last several years, whether you're Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady
or the worst team in the league, you were guaranteed
(05:24):
to play on Thursday Night Football, but only once. And
now that rule is teams can play multiple times. Well,
clearly Amazon wasn't happy, which kind of a little bit
of a head scratcher to me, because one of the
things was last year that they had sold their advertising
at eleven million people and between like nine and nine
and a half million people watched it. Like I understand
(05:46):
TNT not being happy with the NBA. They lost half
their viewers over the last six seven years. So if
I think and I've sold for two or three million
people to watch a game and then only seven hundred
thousand people watching the game, we have a serious problem.
But when you're getting the NFL and I'm driving nine
to nine and a half million people to you and
(06:08):
you thought eleven we're gonna be there, I don't think
it's that big a deal. But clearly the NFL does.
And I don't necessarily think that Amazon is that caught
up in the short term or either of the NFL.
But big picture, it is inevitable that all this stuff
in the next ten to twenty years is gonna be
on these streaming platforms. Right, the NFL is already pivoted.
(06:29):
Who has the NFL package now or the NFL you know,
Sunday Ticket YouTube TV? Right? Who has there's an football Amazon?
So they they're going above and beyond making these people happy. Well,
previously it was like get the NFL, We're gonna bend
you over, We're gonna get the most money and it's
on you to figure it out. It's kind of what
the NBA has done. Right, I saw Adam Silver thinks
(06:51):
they're gonna three x their next media deal. It's like, bro,
your Raids have been in the tank for like eight
nine years. People think I'm an NBA hater. I grew
up when the NBA was thriving under Michael Jordan. I've
watched the Warriors pull record ratings, but none of the
other teams do. The NFL doesn't have that problem. They
can put a random game on Thursday night football and
nine million people watch. No other league or any other
(07:13):
industry on television, including politics non like a presidential debate
can sniff that fucking number. But clearly the NFL is
going above and beyond and like player safety, complete bullshit.
If you're making multiple teams play multiple Thursday night games, like,
to me, that's kind of crazy. But they're doing that
and that is no longer a rule and expect that
(07:34):
come Thursday. I would say, if you're a good team
right all the top, let's just say the top ten
teams in the NFL, and definitely the top needle movers
in the NFL the Chiefs, the Eagles, the Cowboys, now
that the Giants are good, the Packers with Rogers for
sure held the new York Jets, right, I mean these
(07:54):
power brands, the Steelers when you put them on television
and the needle moves, the forty nine Ers, these teams,
there's a decent chance they're getting multiple Thursday night games,
which seems insane to me. It really does. And I thought,
I think during the NFL Owners meetings, David Tepper like
raised his hand, He's like, I don't have it verbade him.
Someone had reported this, like, I know I'm new here,
(08:15):
but why are we that consumed with Amazon? Like, ultimately
it's going to be pretty good for everyone involved. We
can't freak out over one year. But this is always
the issue with football people, you know, coaches, gms and
the people that run the league. People that run the league,
the owners, the league office only care about cash. I
mean that is first and foremost. Everything else is secondary.
(08:37):
We're obviously the gms and the coaches, all they're consumed
with is winning. Well, they don't go hand in hand
because if all I'm consumed about is how can I
make Amazon happy? And hey, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen
and Dak Prescott, Kyle Shanahan and you know, and SIRIANTI
and Jalen hurts. You guys got to play multiple Thursday
night games, multiple short rest weeks. Even if we somehow
(08:59):
can manipulated a little bit, you get an early start
on Sunday, We'll give you a home game. It seems
crazy to me, but that's where we're headed. Because the
people consumed with money, they control everything, the teams, the players,
the coaches, the gms. They just don't now they profit.
They're making historic amount of money. Being involved in the
(09:20):
league as a player, as a coach, as an executive,
not like a scout, but like as a GM has
never been financially better. It's also never been more difficult,
right these OTAs I've been going to these practices forever,
they're getting less and less like what am I even watching?
And obviously training camp is just clearly a different animal
than it has been the past. And I'm not talking
(09:41):
like junction boys, no water. I'm just talking about running
real practice where I don't know, tackle to the ground.
You don't even do any of that anymore because the
player safety, player safety, player safety. But really, you know
why they did that. You know why you get mandatory
every four days in training camp a day off because
that's what the players argued over. You know what, the
owners and the league office cared about the money. We'll
(10:02):
give you that because we're gonna take more money. We'll
give you that because we're gonna have more juice when
we do something like you know what, Patrick mahomes for
the next five years, you're gonna play multiple Thursday night games.
And I don't know if that's gonna come to fruition,
but it's clearly on the table. It's been talked about,
enough said enough that these Thursday night games being a
little under eleven million, Like I would totally understand if
(10:25):
Amazon paid all this money in the league and they
thought they were getting eleven million people and six million
people were watching these games, Like we have a large discrepancy,
But I'm sorry that discrepancy, especially in year one, doesn't
seem that crazy to me. And anyone listening to this
for a while knows where I stand on the whole
streaming platform. Like if you don't have Amazon Prime, like,
I'm sorry, I can't really relate to you. I understand
(10:47):
if you don't have YouTube TV or Hulu TV, you
will soon maybe not in a year, maybe not five,
but in the next ten or the next fifteen, you will,
and that's where the league's gonna be, so that they're
clearly pivoting with their mindset and they just want these
guys to be as happy as possible. But I'd also say, like,
who is not going to overbid on the NFL. I
(11:07):
get back to the NBA because I saw that they
want to three x to their last deal and I
get live rights is very powerful, But your audience is
diminished from your last deal. Why are you guaranteed an
increase in your revenue even if it just stays status quo,
which was still a lot of money. You see what
these teams in the league is paying out, Like I
(11:28):
understood why the NFL got a huge bump in their
last media rights deal. Their ratings keep going up, right,
that's just just basic math. Now I just seems crazy
to me, but we're clearly here. The other thing that
is pretty interesting is the New York Jets and the
(11:49):
Green Bay Packers. Forever the Green Bay Packers with Rogers
and far are one of the biggest brands in football.
They're not quite I wouldn't say the Cowboys, but like
you put them on National TV Sunday Monday Night you rate,
you know, and I do wonder if it's going to
come back to earth a little bit this year. So
like one of my expectations would be the Packers are
getting some primetime games, but I bet it's early in
(12:11):
the season. Like to me, I would go like Packers
Bears Week one Monday Night Football, But I don't feel
as confident doing it later in the season as I
would of the last thirty plus years. And on the
flip side, I forget where I heard this, but I
guess it makes sense that the New York Jets have
not played on Sunday night football in a decade. That's
(12:31):
about to change. That's about to seriously change. I would
expect them, whether it turns out to be the right move,
I would expect the New York Jets to get four
to five non Thursday night games, you know, several Sundays,
multiple Mondays, because part of that division, it's pretty easy
to do matchups that work on primetime, right you can
(12:53):
honestly cross pollinate the four teams and it works. Miami,
New England now the Jets again, and obviously the Bills.
One thing that Peter King alluded to is like two teams.
For example, the Packers and the Patriots are good examples
that are big brands but might not be playoff teams
that also could get pigeonholed into those multiple Thursday night windows,
(13:17):
which I keep getting back to think is insane, Like
I just don't understand why Amazon has all the juice
right now, Like to me, the NFL in this relationship,
it's relatively new, like doesn't need to bend over hand
and fist just to do everything humanly possible to make
(13:38):
them feel their best. Like I'd say it's going pretty well.
Maybe I'm out of loop on that one. Two teams,
I'm going to be very let's go the two conferences.
Two teams on both conferences. I'm very interested to see
how their schedule plays out. Starting with the NFC, everyone's
gonna pick this team. They're kind of the darling. I
think they're pretty good on paper. I've got some people
(13:59):
DM me like I'm a Vikings fan, I'm a Packer fan,
You're crazy. I think the Lions. I'm going to pick them.
You know, I picked the Packers last year and the
Vikings won it. So I'm not claiming to be no
stre damis here, but who what the Lions schedule look
like is going to be interesting? Is a start fast?
Is it start easy? You know, because there's gonna be
(14:20):
a lot of pressure on this team. Last year, remember
they started really really slow. I think they finished their
season eight and two, you know, to become a respectable
nine to eight. But it's it's going to be a
different animal where I don't think you're viewed as like
the obviously some top five team in the league, but
people are going to take you seriously. And the Giants
are another team that you know, in theory should be
(14:43):
right back in the NFC. But let's face it, like
even Giants fans would have to admit, like it's very
impressive what da boll did because our roster wasn't that good. Well,
your roster isn't that much better a year later? Are
they just some lock to be a double digit win
team or do they have a season where they're probably
still a year away, so maybe you missed the playoffs
this year to come back next year to be like
(15:03):
an eleven win team, I think it's gonna be fair.
We obviously know their division. The division is really good,
probably the best in football. That or the AFC North right,
when you factor in the Eagles are a juggernaut. The
Cowboys are damn good, and if Washington's the worst team
in your division, you got a really good division. And
then on the flip side, I think two teams that
are just going to be under an enormous amount of
(15:24):
pressure are two teams that have super highly paid quarterbacks,
and that first starting in Denver. Part of that is
the new coach. And it's not if Russell Wilson can't
play anymore, that's not Sean Payton's fault. He didn't create
this mess. He didn't make the trade. But I think
a lot of people, myself included, are gonna be like, well,
even if Russell's a little over the hill, it's going
(15:45):
to be impossible for him to be as shit as
he was last year, because now he has an eighteen
million dollar coach. He's got a guy that knows what
he's doing. And I think the Cleveland Browns man, you
give a guy two hundred and thirty million dollars, we
give you a pass, you get suspended. You've had all
these massage therapists after you because self inflicted. I mean,
it wasn't randomly after you, but that is behind everybody now,
(16:07):
not behind them, but behind the Browns, behind Watson, like
they're all looking forward. The contract now kicks in. Are
you just are you gonna be the real deal? Are
you gonna be a playoff team? Because that division's pretty
hard right obviously, Lamar now is locked up. The Ravens
are good. The Bengals are juggernauts right now, right they are,
you could argue the second best team in the league
(16:29):
behind the Chiefs, and you know, and the Steelers are
gonna be a very very sexy team for people to pick.
I bet some people are gonna pick them to win
the division. Definitely, a lot of people, myself included, probably
gonna pick them to be a wildcard team. So the
amount of pressure when you're paying these quarterbacks this much money.
Denver has this new high price coach Cleveland really good roster,
(16:50):
Like I'm fascinated to watch the way their two schedules,
you know, kind of break down. So it's gonna be
interesting with these Thursday night teams. Any fan of you know,
it's a cool night and it's become kind of a
lead cash con night to just own. I'm sure there's
NBA playoffs, the biggest story of that night will be
the NFL schedule release. Before we dive into what's next.
(17:13):
Do you know that Angie's list is now Angie your
home for everything home and as someone who is currently
house shopping and who has bought property. Before you walk in,
you go, well, I need to fix the kitchen, I
need to want to improve this bathroom. I want to
fix some stuff in the backyard. And then you go, well,
I don't do this for a living. Where do I
even start? Who do I even contact? That's where Angie
(17:36):
has twenty years of experience combined with new tools to
simplify the process. Over two hundred and twenty thousand pros
in their network, they can help you get the best
price for your product. They have new projects that are
priced upfront and clearly lays out the cost before you buy.
With Angie, you can request quotes from multiple pros in
your area. The pros in your network are locally based.
(17:59):
In just a few taps in the Angie app or
click on the site, you can have Angie tackle your
home service project from start to finish. Download the free
Angie mobile app today or visit Angie dot com. That's
a NGI dot Com. A situation that I just kind
(18:22):
of found funny was the Washington Commanders. Peter King also
wrote that you know, this sale has been a little rocky.
It's gonna be a pretty ugly divorce. It's not just
your seamless like, hey, you want this car twenty grand,
here's the twenty grand. Take my car. Like this is
not going And it never was gonna be with Dan
Schnyder some seamless transaction. It was always gonna be weird.
(18:46):
It was always going to be ugly, and I'll be
shocked if there aren't some snags along the way before
we get to the final destination. But this story came
out the first I saw of it. I guess we
had talked about it last year that the Commanders before
or that they traded for Carson Wentz. They called every
single team in the league about their quarterback, including Mahomes.
So they were going quarterback shopping and they were willing
(19:08):
to do whatever it took to get a top quarterback.
Most teams with good quarterbacks obviously hung up. They ended
up with Carson Wentz. But one of the stories that
came out about that, I just saw this because ersa
tweeted about it that they contacted Andrew Luck, and honestly,
the first time I heard about it, I just kind
of laughed, Like when you called Andrew Luck a guy
(19:29):
that retired because he was often banged up and the
injuries he just couldn't take anymore. He hated rehab, don't
blame him, and was just like, I'm done. Well. These
people Ron and Martin Mayhew work in the NFL, right,
so they know the rules. It's not like he's just
out there like some free agent like Tom Brady to
call it, Hey, would you be interested? So it's not
(19:49):
just would you be interested, it's like, hey, man, we
would have to trade the Colts for you, and would
you want to come play for us in Washington? I
kind of laughed. Not because it was tampering, it's just
I don't believe that Washington should have to give up
some pick over that, But it's also kind of just
how dumb are you? Right? Like what you think Andrew Luck,
(20:10):
if he was going to come back, wouldn't you just
go back to the Colts? Why would he want to
come to of all teams, your squad that has been,
let's face it, pretty shitty for a long period of
time and then Ursa is tweeting that is tampering. And
I've read a couple of people that are like, I
think the Colts are going to try to pursue this.
Maybe you know, Dan Snyder forced them to do it
(20:33):
as kind of an f you to the league. Didn't
really care if he got in trouble. I don't know,
but this we can't rid ourselves of this guy quickly
enough because this is a franchise that you know, if
they were good, it'd be a lot of fun. They
showed some signs of life the last couple of years,
and it's been it's been enjoyable. But to me, as
long as is he's around, it's kind of this dark
(20:55):
cloud and this notion that is some lock to just
be done. I mean, if you ask most people for
all the NFL's like, oh, Dan Sider's already gone, Like
we sure, Like, are we totally sure Dan Sider's gone
by this fall? I mean I think so. But we
all know Dan Snyder's kind Most of us know that
guy with a lot less money. One thing they are
(21:17):
is they're petty, they're vindictive that they don't just go
without a fight. So whether you're worth one hundred dollars
or you know, ten billion dollars. That mindset and that
wiring does not change, and we know this guy man
is going to make it very very ugly before it's
all over. One story that came out from a podcast
(21:39):
the Action Network is where Sobel lives or works? That
comes on the golf podcast. My guys Stucky gambling and
they got guys that you know are locked into the
gambling circle. And there I guess one of their guys
said on a podcast that the Atlanta Falcons, And this
would make sense that Arthur Smith went sniffing around to
see if they get Ryan Tannehill this offseason and whatever
(22:02):
reason around the draft, the deal didn't go through. Now,
in fairness, like the Titans, you weren't gonna move on
from Tannehill before you knew you got a quarterback, and
then you get Levis in the second round. You might
as well just ride out Tannehill until you see Levis
can play. You know, what are you really gonna get
for Tannehill? That makes sense giving him up. The other
guy that they sniffed around was Kyler Murray. Now, the
(22:24):
hard part about Kyler Murray is twofold. One he is
under a gigantic contract, and the other he currently has
a torn ACL. So whatever you were going to trade
the guy, if you are willing to, and of course
they have a new general manager or new coach, you
would examine every option and every potential ability to improve
your team. You would get at best fifty cents on
(22:48):
the dollar for Kyler Murray. And whatever you want to
say about Kyler Murray, I'm not the biggest fan. When
a year ago, even after that devastating loss to the Rams,
coming into the season, if Kyler Murray did not have
that gigantic contract, you easily could have got like a
one in a two, a couple ones, shit them commanders.
A lot of teams would have traded for him. So
(23:11):
he's hindered by multiple things now. I also think then
it would behoove the Arizona Cardinals to not sit and
clearly they're not. He's not really tradeable now, but I
think they could potentially benefit from it because if he
comes back next year and he's healthy and he just
looks capable again, because there were moments this year before
(23:31):
he tore his ACL, he does look capable. And if
you're a coach, and most of these coaches have inflated
egos and believe they can save people. His talent is
not really debatable. He is one of the fastest players
in the league. He's got an enormous arm. When he's rolling,
he can look like a top six to seven quarterback
in the league. So what if he comes back this
year in the second half of the season, he just
(23:53):
looks solid. Then to me in the offseason, cause the
Cardinals have two things going for him. One, they're gonna suck,
meaning they're going to draft very high. They also have
the Texans pick, who might not draft one or two again,
but more likely they're closer to ten than they are twenty.
So you're gonna have two picks really high. It's viewed
(24:13):
as a really good quarterback draft. Hell next year. In general,
I was reading something the top five players going into
next season in college would be the top five players
that were just drafted in this draft. They're better than
every single player in this draft. The only two players
honestly that went in the top ten that would be
(24:34):
considered with Caleb Williams, Marvin Harrison Junior Brock Bowers Drake May.
I don't know how to say his name, but the
offensive tackle for Penn State, which would have easily been
a top three or four pick in this draft that
would be in their category would be Jalen Carter, who
we all acknowledge was the best player in this draft
but had major character concerns. And then b John Robinson
(24:56):
who's a running back, so he just can't go that
high and he still went eight. So this draft coming
in is absolutely loaded. So if Kyler Murray comes back,
he plays just decent. You don't even need to win
the games, but he just looks healthy. You get some
momentum going you go, okay, this is a capable guy.
You can either do two things. You can build around
him because you might be stuck it might be hard
(25:17):
to trade that contract. Or if he just looks good enough.
There are always teams where it's like, you know, especially
if you go, hey, he's bought in, he's being a
good guy. You just talk up his character. He's studying,
and he's gonna have time to really talk up like
how's he acting when he's rehabit is he studying? Is
he around the OTAs? Is he going to all the meetings?
Because if he's doing that, I actually think you could
(25:39):
rebuild his value again. He's never gonna be viewed, at
least in the next twelve months as some star player. Again,
I'm not saying he can't get back to that. I
would bet against it, but yeah, I don't when you're
that talented, Like ultimately, there are some guys Baker Mayfield,
even Trey Lance has some fundamental flaws the way he
(25:59):
throws the football that just don't He's not even nearly
as fast as Kyler, Like, they don't have the capability
of being that good. So I would bet against it.
But the capability is there A lot of guys like
Zach Wilson does not. Zach Wilson can't complete an out route. Yeah,
I mean he skips wheel routes to running backs. I
mean there's just fundamental layups in the passing game he
(26:21):
can't complete against NFL players. Like we all watched it
last year. It was crazy to watch because he was
a guy that Chris Sims a couple of years ago
is like, this guy could be Aaron Rodgers and when
you just watch him fling it on air or whatever,
you like, that is an elite arm great release, powerful,
like he's got it. All, and then he actually has to play,
and then you're like, what the hell is this? By
(26:42):
middle of last season, they're like, Mike White, Mike White,
and I don't even blame him because he watched Zach Wilson.
You can't even function with the guy. So I do expect.
Let me rephrase that, I do think it's gonna work
out for Arizona. In the sense of trading him right
now for absolutely nothing doesn't make that much sense because
once you sign a contract of that magnitude, as we're
(27:03):
seeing with Aaron Rodgers, it impacts your cap in the
short term, and there's a chance that maybe that's the
best you can do and he comes back he's healthy.
Use those two picks. You draft Marvin Harrison, you draft
the offensive tackle from Penn State, and you surround him
with some more talent, and you take your chances for
the next couple of years. Now, I never would assigned
him to the contract in the first place, but either way,
you know, because there is fifty to fifty seems high,
(27:26):
but I would say there's a twenty five to thirty
percent chance this team drafts number one overall. Most people,
like universally agree that this is the worst roster right
now in the NFL, like this is not like debating,
like this is the worst roster in the NFL. A
lot of people thought that last year with the Giants.
The difference is we all knew Brian da Ball. What
this guy's done in Buffalo was incredible. I think most
(27:48):
of us go, you know, Jonathan Bannon. I've had people
tell me that we're around Jonathan Bannon. You know, I
actually think he's better suited to be a head coach
than he is a coordinator. He's a much better leader
than he is like some ski So I was like,
whenever you hear that, you go, well, we'll see, you know,
we'll see. It's a little cheesy for me, but listen,
(28:09):
I thought Sean mcvagh I remember when he was hired.
I was like, no one my age is gonna come
into the league and just kick ass and take names
at thirty one years old, he did, you know? He
was been awesome. I bet against that one. So I've
been wrong before, but I would say Jonathan Gannon, I
would short that stock. And a large part of that
is just the talent around it, the organization a lot
(28:30):
of turmoil. It's getting sued by former employees people coming
after his owner. Could just be a weird place quarterbacks injured.
But we'll see how that all shakes out. Okay, let's
dive into the middle Cooff mailbag at John Middlecoff is
the Instagram fire in those d ms D. I recently
(28:53):
saw Kevin Durant got a lifetime Nike deal and couldn't
figure out how that would be structured. How do you
think lifetime endorsement deals work? Love the pod, keep up
the good work. That's a hell of a question, man,
I don't know. I know obviously, you know Michael Jordan
owns the Jordan brand or as equity in it. But
(29:14):
like I saw Charles Barkley, it was like a it
was a YouTube short and it was a clip from
an interview he gave talking about how Michael Jordan has
made him so much money in his life because like
in the peak of Charles's powers, right in the mid nineties,
as a player, Nike was paying he was on like
the second highest paid athlete, like a couple million bucks.
(29:35):
And Michael said, do you need You're getting paid a
lot from the Phoenix Suns. You don't need all that
cash from Nike every year. Do this. Say, if they're
paying you a three million, take one million and have
them give the other two million dollars in stock options
and charles. Like smartest thing I ever did. And I'm
still on Nike's payroll. So like Lebron has a lifetime deal,
(29:58):
Steph has a lifetime deal with under you know Tiger
has a lifetime deal with Nike. I just think you're
just on the payroll for a long time now in
the peak of your playing powers, right like Kevin right
now or Lebron when he's playing. Clearly they don't pay
you the same amount when you're done, right, But I don't.
(30:18):
That's the question. I don't have the answer to you.
Just in life, you just get what you negotiate. So
maybe five million dollars a year, factor in inflation, I
don't know. I honestly don't. Some socks. It's a hell
of a question, very interesting. Never really thought about it,
to be honest with you. I think it's funny how
(30:39):
your new picture of you with a backwards hat on
and Colin always talks about how he doesn't want his
franchise with the hat backwards guy made me laugh. Here's
the one thing I will say is us bald people,
we play by different rules. So I would say historically,
my father, who passed away several years ago, old school
(31:02):
guy hated the hat backwards look as well. I actually
don't think it applies when you don't have hair. You know,
my dad, who was also bald when I was younger,
could have You know, in that eighties nineties you could
have the cold de sac look. You could not have
a cold de sac now and have any human being
take you seriously if you're under forty five years old,
(31:22):
I'm sorry, you just can't. So we shave our heads well.
In the picture that's used now on my profile, it
was at a forty nine er game, so it's not
like I even gave it to the volume. They ripped
it off. I probably like an Instagram photo, but I
hadn't shaved my head for a couple of days, and
I'm pretty sure I had forgotten a razor, and we
were leaving early in the morning, had been up late,
(31:43):
and I didn't have time to shave my head. Super hungover,
I was taking like a two minute shower when I
shaved my head. My shower last ten minutes because you
gotta shave it in the shower, so I wasn't gonna
rock a cold de sac to the forty nine or
RAMS game, which we'll go down as one of the
cool games I've ever seen live. It was a crazy
Week eighteen game a couple of years ago. But like,
(32:04):
I just don't think we played by the same rules
as people with hair, Like I'm sorry, we don't. I
don't disagree with a sediment about backwards guy, but I
think I play by different rules not having hair. But
it is funny. I know, I know the game has
swung on offense, with the rules especially favoring the quarterbacks.
(32:28):
The game has evolved a ton recently. Where do you
think it goes for the next five years? For example,
does defense ever make a return, Does the coaching staff
become more important, or does another position become as important
as the quarterback? Well, as we talked about earlier, the
rules are clearly not changing and safety rules are not
(32:49):
going to lean defense, So I don't see how defense
could really make a comeback when hitting has kind of
just slowly been legislated out of the game in terms
of the violent hits, cause that's really when when you
had the best, fastest most violent players on defense. You
couldn't play against you know, the great defenses because they
would destroy you. Well, that's never gonna factor in anymore,
(33:12):
right those even that Seattle team of whatever, six, eight,
nine years ago, now it's not coming back. I just
think we're kind of gonna be in this this version
of football for a while, right, Like I don't think
the game of basketball is ever going to trend back
to every team's gonna have a great center, noe. The
three point shoot shot is too valuable to the one
(33:35):
hundred and fifty percent more than the two. So you're
gonna continue to take more three stretch out the you know,
the game, and get more three point shooters. Well, I
don't think it's gonna change in football. I was thinking
about this the other day, Like Troy Aikman. When Troyigman
transferred from Oklahoma to UCLA when he was in college,
(33:55):
it was because Oklahoma was gonna start running the triple
option offense. Obviously, Troy Aikman, it's not a triple option
offensive quarterback or quarterback. Right. Think how often you know
in the seventies, eighties, even into the nineties, coordinators would
run a run heavy option level in college and definitely
in high school. Well, we talked about this last week.
(34:17):
It just bleeds uphill. Most industries kind of bleed downhill. Right.
In football, what happens at the lower levels comes up
because that's where your talent's coming from. You could argue
it's like that in society, right. I remember, like my
dad's generation, they don't all email, and a lot of
them had a lot of success without really using the computer.
(34:39):
But you can't be You could be seventy five years
old and not really email and run a company and
have people do it for you. You can't be fifty
and not know how to operate the internet. You probably
can't be twenty five years old and not be very
very versed on the computer. And I'm not talking about
just typing. I'm talking like, do you know what you know? AI?
Can you mess with chat? GPT? Can you Whatever your
(35:04):
specific industry is, you better be locked and loaded technologically, right,
Just like in football, if you're coming up to the
to the NFL, you gotta be the passing game is,
whether you're a coach or whether you're a player, is
gonna be key. And I just don't see that changing
anytime soon. Look, how it's changed the running back. We
(35:24):
value running backs infinitely more than we did a decade ago.
That play in the passing game. Hell, when I got
to the NFL in twenty ten, if you couldn't play
in the passing game, whatever, we had a change of paceback.
Is there a good running back in the league that's
not a major factor in the past game? Why was
b Jon Robinson thought so highly of he was good
(35:45):
in the pass game? Why was Gibbs the kid from
Alabama that Detroit Lions. You see that video they tweeted
out of them going berserk when they drafted him. I
mean they think the guy's like Marshall Folk, because that's
the Some of the comps I've heard are like, you know,
he's got a little Christian McCaffrey Alvin Kamara into it.
If he didn't have that, and we'll just you know,
(36:06):
Adrian Peterson is the best between the tackle runner I've
seen live in my life. In his peak of his powers,
he was incredible, not creating the passing game, won't pass block,
he could get by. He's like he'd even be an
outlier today, But I don't think he'd be as valuable
as he was fifteen years ago, because playing in the
(36:26):
passing game is a must. So I guess that's a
long way of saying I don't know. I mean I
would bet against there being dramatic changes of just kind
of where we are and where we're headed is kind
of you know what's going to continue. As a Packer fan,
I'm happy the Rogers era is over, and I'm hopeful
(36:49):
for the Love era. I think the Packers will look
a lot more like the forty nine ers. Run the ball,
play defense instead of air it out because we have
Aaron Rodgers, because we no longer have Aaron Rodgers. Also,
I think this bodes well for us in the playoffs,
because running the ball and playing defense wins in Lambeau
wins zero degrees in snowy, hence our playoff failures. I've
(37:11):
always said that the Packers were always built to dominate
in a dome, right Like what has been a huge
point of difference last year for the Chiefs they had Pachaco.
Their defense has been a lot better the last three
or four years. It's hard to win outside by just
throwing bombs, it really is. You got to play defense,
and it's just key. Anyway. I have the argument with
(37:35):
my friends, and I'm hoping you can back me up.
In my mind, Rogers is the most talented quarterback ever.
He was doing Mahomes level stuff that ESPN drools over
with Mahomes was in middle school. Now everyone says, what
about Brady Montana and Mahomes. There is a difference in
the most talented and most accomplished, and it pitches me off.
(37:55):
Aaron Rodgers is the goat of quarterback play. Tom Brady
is and will always be the most accomplished. I think
it's a tough discussion to have, right because, for example,
Aaron Rodgers is never gonna sniff Tom Brady's accomplishments. He's
only been to the one Super Bowl. Tom's been to
(38:17):
whatever ten, right, because he lost how many loser with
the Patriots? He lost three with the Patriots and he
won the one with Tampa. Yeah, so he's been to
ten Super Bowls. There's just no but Tom Brady. Tom Brady.
One time I heard him, I don't know if it
was that Monday night calling he does or it was
a podcast radio interview. I can't exactly remember where I
(38:39):
heard him say this, but it was It was fascinating
because he's like the unique part about the sport of football.
He's like, I couldn't start at any other position for
a good high school team, right, Like I couldn't play
dB or linebacker. I'm not fast enough. I couldn't play
wide receiver or tight end for them. Obviously, I'm not
(38:59):
big enough to play offensive line. Like the only thing
I can do at the high school level, let alone
the pro level, is play quarterback. Now, one thing I
would say Tom, this is hard because Aaron's just his
physical gifts. He's a much better athlete. He can just
he's got a better arm than Tom, even though Tom
has a really good arm. He's a more quote unquote
(39:21):
talented player. But is like, playing your best football in
the biggest moments when your team needs it the most.
Is that a talent? Right? I think it kind of?
Is I do? Right? Like, obviously Tiger Woods is more
physically gifted than most people he played throughout his prime,
(39:42):
But like he made every big putt when he had to.
Is that a talent? Right? Like he could just contain
himself and be super focused and keep his emotions under control.
And as a quarterback you kind of have to do
that too, And sometimes Aaron's had some incredible moments, but
I'd say he's also blown at in some big spots, right,
And I'm not talking. It's one thing to blow in
(40:03):
the Super Bowl, it's another thing to blow in the
first round of the playoffs. That'd be the knock on Peyton.
A lot of times it's like, God, he just kind
of blew it, And that to me separates Tom. But yeah,
if we were just like running around Combs and throwing
on the run, Tom can't hold his jock. And like
you said, Mahomes, Mahomes like him and Mahomes are very
very similar players. But for example, is if you gave
(40:28):
Aaron Rodgers in his prime to the Kansasity Chiefs the
last eight nine years with Andy Reid, do they win
a couple of Super Bowls? Maybe? Because that's the other
thing with football that makes it more unique than these
other sports. If I give you Steph Curry, if I
give you Lebron James, if I give you Shack or
Michael Jordan, Yeah, if you get Phil Jackson or Eric
(40:50):
Spoulster or Steve Kerr, you're locked to win. But I
think I can kind of give you an average coach
and you've got a pretty good chance to win a championship.
If I give you Aaron Rodgers, you were not guarantee
to win a Super Bowl. Dan Marino is widely considered
by everyone that played him and everyone that was much
older than me that watched his career as like one
of the best players that has ever played the game.
(41:11):
It's like not arguable or debatable. Everyone into an era
in his era, which has some all time great players
and obviously some of the greatest quarterbacks ever, including this
younger generation. Like if you ask like Brady Peyton and
Tom they hold Marino to such highest team got to
one Super Bowl and lost. Now, part of that is
like the team around him. He did have Don Shula,
(41:32):
but it was kind of an older version of Don Shula.
I guess he got there in eighty four, but not Don.
But Dan coach matters a lot. You know, Belichick kind
of knows what he's doing. Mahomes benefits from having you know,
the big guy with a mustache that matters, right. Joe
Montana really benefited from having Bill Walsh, Lawrence Taylor, all
time great player helped when he had Belichick and Parcels
(41:54):
coaching his ass. So it's complicated. I mean his two
coaches are Mike mc arthy and Lafleur, who McCarthy's solid coach.
I mean he's gone to Dallas and they've been really good.
Lafleur I think's pretty solid too. Any one of those
guys gonna be viewed as like a top three or
four coach in the league. I don't know, so it's
it's a tough debate. I probably gave you the run
around there. He's definitely one of the most talented core
(42:18):
I don't know if he's the most talented quarterback ever.
I want you to YouTube like nineteen eighty six John Elway.
That's put that talent. He's bigger than a Rogers, every
bit the arm and every bit the athlete. And Elway
was going to Super Bowls. He was losing them, but
he was going. So I put Elway up there. I
(42:38):
put I might say Elway's the most talented quarterback ever.
You know you could Josh Allen is pretty big physical freak. Like,
is Josh Allen more physically talented than Mahomes. That's what
makes this whole argument kind of hard. I if you
want to just say he's one of the most talented
guys of all time top I'd give him top three.
(43:03):
Question about the new avatar. Colin made any comments about
the backward hat, keep up the great content. People were
fascinated with the backward hat. I got a DM and
I think I'll talk about this on the Golf podcast tomorrow.
Like Colin said, he would never hire anybody that's addicted
to golf. You clearly spend a lot of time with golf.
Here's what I would say. I have monetized my hobbies,
(43:25):
and obviously Colin in this operation benefits from that. That's
why I started a golf podcast, why I were selling hats.
I didn't get into the golf business just because I
love golf, which I do, but I also know it's
a very financially viable market. The household income of people
that consume golf is dramatically higher than every sport. I
(43:46):
didn't just do it randomly. Now I'm lucky. I do
like it, and you could call me a golf addict,
but it's not just a pastime. You know, the two
things I spend the most time doing thinking and you
know I would say watching would be football and golf.
Turn them into a business. I'm not smart. Enough to
do random other things. So what I do I have
(44:07):
to find a way to make money off of was
I can't survive. You know. You couldn't put me at
Wells Fargo and they'd say, figure it out. I don't
even know where to start, you know, own a restaurant. Shit,
I just like like chicken or rice, cheeseburgers. I don't
know how do we make money. I know how to
operate around football and golf. So it's my life advice
(44:29):
to everybody. Turn passions into in hobbies into your job.
Find a way. I've been lucky enough too. But my
backwards hat and I'll say it over again, bald people,
we played by different rules. I'm sorry. If you got
a head of hair, like you know, put a little
jail in it. You look fine. If I haven't shaved
my head in a couple of days and I don't
(44:50):
have time for a long shower, I'm throwing on a
hat and sometimes the snapbacks they look pretty good backwards.
The situation of Djokich and the Sun's owner match Ishbia
is similar to the situation with what happened to Kyle
Lowry and the Golden State Warriors minority owner in twenty nineteen,
the Golden State Warriors owner lost his shares of the
team and was suspended from going to games. Shouldn't mat
(45:13):
Ishbia get some sort of suspension or penalty, thoughts, I'd
have to YouTube the incident with Lowry. I remember the
guy with the Warriors it being a little bit more aggressive,
if memory serves me correct Now, I do believe that
like Ishbia should be fined. I'm sorry you don't get
(45:35):
to touch the player. And I love, and I repeat,
I love how Denver's coach, Michael Malone and Jokic keep
referring to him as some fan. Obviously he's a very
rich fan. I heard him model Bill Simmons. I thought
he was a very interesting guy, and someone told me
because I just assumed self made guy, mortgage guy. Now
(45:57):
he actually replaced his father. I'm saying that he's not
an impressive guy, but like you know, he inherited his money.
You know, it's not like he just created the company.
It is is when your dad, when you replaced your
dad as the CEO. I do view you a little differently,
like Mark Cuban when he bought in the league all
of his cash. Steve Balmer, like these guys are self made.
(46:18):
I don't know, and I listen there are a lot
of NFL owners that aren't self made too, But it's
kind of looks like a rich kid in that moment, like, bro,
give up the fucking ball. It's just I thought it
was kind of a clown if you would have told me.
I mean, the guy is one of the how good
if you're watching that Denver Sun series, nicoley Jokic, I've
(46:39):
never seen anything like him. Listen a lot of friends
that are Philly fans. I don't even think it's close.
If I ran an NBA team and I got to
pick between the embid and the dude from Denver, I
wouldn't even hesitate. If I had a gentleman, I wouldn't
even have a meeting. To me, Joki is a different
tier than Embaid When he always plays too, he's just better,
(47:01):
always great on defense. He's always hurt, so is he
that great on defense? No one cares about the regular
season either, Like I watched this guy in the playoffs'
scoring fifty points pretty easily. My NBA rant. People always
think I'm like Middlecoff, you hate the NBA. Yeah, I
mean no, I just hate when you don't play in games.
I just like as a consumer when I turn it on,
(47:23):
like I know my players to playing games, right. I
actually looked up because I saw Gary Payton. His kid
plays for the Warriors, Gary Payton the Second, and he
was at one of the Warriors games earlier this series.
He might he's probably going to them all, but he
was at Chase Center and he like talked to Lebron
walking off, and I just googled Gary Payton's stats. I
(47:46):
was like, how many points of the average ruti's career
from like nineteen ninety to basically the late nineties, Gary
Payton never missed a game. And I would say Gary
Payton was consistently viewed as a top ten point player
in the NBA, and he had some years where he
was probably top six or seven player in the NBA. Okay,
I never missed a game. That's the generation a guy
(48:07):
I grew up on. So yeah, my expectations like, well,
you know the guys need rest, and you know this
is for the health, and oh kay, that's great. But
if you're only playing sixty games and you got eighty
two of them, I can't take your sport that seriously,
and neither can the rest of the consumers. Why the
ratings are in the tank. Why the Kings and Warriors rating,
you know, average eleven million people because you turn on
everyone's playing and people try hard. You know, the NBA
(48:29):
the regular season for six months. Half the teams never
even try half the league's tanking. The good teams they
try a quarter of the games. I'm not even trying
to be nostalgic about my youth, but when I see
Gary Payton play every fucking game, and I grew up,
you know, going to Oracle Arena when the Kings were terrible,
and I remember Michael Jordan Allen Iverson those players played
(48:49):
against the Kings team that was god awful in twenty
twenty three. They would not play, they would rest, and
they would basically be telling you, hey, if you live
in Sacramento, we don't give a shit about you. That's
what you do. And the consumer is the guy paying
for everything. The fan is the reason there's all this money.
Why is the NFL never made more money because they
have more fans than every other league. Sorry for the tangent,
(49:14):
big time Seattle Seahawks fan here. We've lost a few
impact guys with Al Woods and Ryan Neil. With players
like Jamal Adams coming back, is he though? I mean,
I know technically he's supposed to come back, but it
feels like Jamal Adams sure gets hurt a lot since
he's doing your team and coming back good looking as
of now, rookie, think they'll improve even more from last year. Also,
a hugely underrated signing for the Hawks that not many
(49:38):
are talking about is signing Bobby Wagner. That's gonna be
a big time improvement on our defense, especially if what
Pete said about going back to his old defensive schemes
your thoughts. I can't hold Jamal Adams, you know. To me,
(49:58):
he's basically a linebacker now. I also think Bobby Wagner
incredible guy. As people have talked shit before when I
said he wasn't a Hall of Famer, He's gonna be
a Hall of Famer first ballot. We can argue that,
but he's going to the Hall of Fame. The Hall
of Fame days are kind of over. But I hear
you for leadership, but I thought your team last year
was like pretty high level group. To me, I'm with you.
(50:22):
Your first round rookie, the dude, they drafted fifth overall Witherspoon,
stud in Jigba immediate plug and play starter with DK Lockett.
That's fantastic. You had the UCLA running back. I would say,
I'm gonna pick you as a wildcard team. Now, to me,
the question is like, does Gino have back to back
thirty touchdown seasons? Is Gino gonna throw sixty plus touchdowns
(50:44):
in two years? Clearly he's an impressive guy. I'm very
impressive with Gino. I'm a fan of Geno Smith. Now
didn't I didn't follow his career that closely, but obviously
last year, you know, falling just they were one of
the best stories in the NFL. He was being interviewed
a lot. He's an impressive guy. He's an easy guy
to root for. I see why Seattle likes him a lot.
(51:07):
But is he was last year an outlier or has
he just turned his career and he's just going to
be really good, Because if he does, then yeah, hell,
you guys can win eleven games that division. Besides Seattle
in the Niners, I mean, the Rams could suck and
we know Arizona's bad. I mean the Rams could be
a five win team. They could have serious problems. They're
(51:29):
an Aaron Donald ankle spraying away from being screwed. Before
Stafford started missing games last year, Remember he was throwing
it all over the yard. Do with the other team.
Cooper Cup got hurt last year and they were unwatchable.
They're an injury too away from being completely screwed. So
(51:51):
the only thing was Seattle the forty nine ers. You
know I have beat you twice, but who cares? I mean,
even if if the Niners win the division and you
win ten or eleven games, you might be the fifth seed. Well,
probably not. I would imagine the Cowboys probably would. But
maybe you could compete to be as good as the Cowboys.
If Jamal Adams is healthy and he can just function
(52:13):
in kind of in that linebacker role, and the rookie
adds to the secondary to go along with the rookie
corner last year who was good. Your pass rush just
improves with some younger guys, your offense should be pretty dynamic.
I mean that your two young tackles are good. If
if if Injigba is healthy to go with DK, maybe
(52:37):
Gino has another big year, Detroit winning the North. Don't
see it. I'm obviously a biased Vikings fan, but GoF
is a career sixty four percent passer. I'd argue last
year was the outlier. But with our new defensive coordinator,
Green Bay with love in Chicago, well Chicago, yep, okay,
Detroit goes nine to eight, ten and seven, just like
everyone else in the North and seven. He might win
(53:00):
the North. Right, how many games did you guys win
last year? Thirteen? I think you went thirteen to five.
Maybe it was twelve and would be thirteen and five.
That'd be eighteen games, would be thirteen to four regardless,
thirteen twelve wins, like, yeah, you could win ten games.
They can win ten games. You could win nine games.
As someone hit me with the DMS be floor as
(53:21):
is your defensive coordinator. But part of being a good
defense is the talent there. That's my question. Who's who
are your difference makers? Who's your pass rushers? Kendrick is gone.
I don't know when you guys are really good on
(53:43):
defense with Zimmer who let's face it, he's a curmudgeon,
big curmudgeon. He's pretty good defensive coordinator and in your
heyday with you guys had a ton of talents. I
don't see the talents the same. You can argue the
defensive coordinator. You guys won thirteen games, so you know,
three game regression factoring in all the close games you won.
(54:07):
That's part of football. I mean, let's be real. You
guys won one of the greatest pulled that game out
of who knows what crevice in your body game of
all time last year against the Bills. I mean that
that is one of the Did you beat the Colts too?
(54:29):
Weren't you down to the Colts by like forty points
in the first quarter? Was it twenty seven or nothing
at the end of the first quarter. You guys won
that game as well? Pretty sure? Yeah you did. So,
Like there's two wins of your thirteen that even you'd
have to acknowledge are some of the Yeah, you won
that game thirty nine thirty six. That's got to be
(54:50):
one of the craziest come I think it was. I
think it's statistically right, the biggest, one of the biggest
comebacks in NFL history. What was the other game I
was saying, the Bills game? Yeah, you won that thirty
three to thirty. What was the score at halftime? That
was twenty four to ten? And it was. It was
twenty seven, it was twenty seven to ten at one
(55:12):
point time, Hell of a comeback. Colts comeback was better.
But one thing that's weird with you guys is I
saw today a headline the Cousins was like, love to
retire a Viking. The article was like, yeah, I don't
know if the Vikings see that that way. It's kind
of in a weird spot because cousins. It's not cousins
(55:36):
willing to play for twenty million. You know, yeah, I
want to retire Viking, though, keep paying me thirty eight
forty million dollars a year, Like do you really want
to pay forty million dollars a year? I don't know.
I'm getting so many questions on this backwards hat anyway,
I see you have your hat on backwards. On the
new podcast, he used to bag on Romo constantly for
wearing his hat backwards. Again. One thing I would say
(55:57):
about Tony Romo, great hair, So you wear your hat backwards?
Guy shows laziness. Just put a little gel me like
I might have time. I have to shower fast. You
guys are able to shower fast with hair, right, I
have to shave my head in the shower. It takes
time and it's more difficult, so I put on a
backwards hat. We do not play by the same rules
(56:19):
as people with hair. I believe that to my core.
I'm not even being joking around. I'm not being sarcastic.
We are not judged the same. Think about this. When
I go play golf, or I go for a bike
ride or whatever, and the sun is out, I cannot wear,
you know, a mesh hat, a trucker hat, because I'll
(56:40):
get burned half my head. I have to cover the
complete head. You, as hair people, do not have to
worry about that. You can wear no hat, wear backwards hat,
wear you know, holy hat, whatever, a visor. I am
not able to wear visors. Think about that, when the
sun's out, my head will get burned. So this notion
that backwards hat guy. That is about quarterbacks with hair.
(57:06):
Has there been a bald quarterback since the hassleback? We
would not judge Matt Hasselback for warning backwards hat why
he does not have hair he has to cover his
head from the sun. Want him to get skin cancer?
Of course not. Tony Romo. Put a little fucking gel
in your hair. What do you know? One thing i'd
judge Tony Romo about. Why is he never shave. He's
(57:27):
called in games with Jim Nance and he's always got
He doesn't know it's one thing to have a beard
or shave. He's always just got this stubble going like
he's like four days on a bender. That's how I
judge Tony Romo. But the hat stuff I used to
get in this argument with my dad a lot. I'm sorry, Dad,
I look pretty good. The backwards hat I enjoy it.
(57:47):
And now that I enough hair, I just think we
played by different rules. I'm fascinated that everyone is fascinated
by that. They're fascinated by that. And I thought Colin
hated golfers. He did, so I started podcast. We are
made money got high upside. You know, money flows, you
know we can we can look past our previous takes. Audios,
(58:10):
everybody have a good week. Uh shout out to Holst
and James, my producers doing big things behind the scenes,
and you the people for consuming this podcast. See ya.
(58:48):
The volume
Host
John Middlekauff
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.