Caleb Williams REACTION, NFC West Preseason RECAP, Greg Olsen STOPS BY

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume What is going On every Buddy John Middlecough
three In and Out Podcast Live from Los Angeles. I

(00:24):
will be on with Colin down in southern California for
the next four days. I think he's here for two
and then he's in Chicago for two, but I'll be
on the Herd so you can you can watch us
on Fox Sports One. And I got here earlier today
and I recorded a podcast because I was gonna do
like an intro part of the podcast talk about a

(00:44):
bunch of preseason football that I watched. And I interviewed
Craig Olsen last week and he's gonna be we'll put
him on the back end of the show, so he'll
be on with us today. And then I realized the
Bears were playing the night Caleb was starting and Greg
Olson was calling the game. So I was like, you
know what, I'll do a little reaction to Caleb. So
we'll do a reaction to Caleb. Some thoughts on Jackson

(01:07):
Dart cam Ward, some NFC West thoughts, Howie Roseman makes
a trade the Colts. Anytime you can't decide on a
quarterback in the middle of the late August, that means
you've probably got problems. So yeah, we'll talk a little football.
And like I said, Greg Olsen, former NFL player, a
high level NFL player now Fox broadcaster will join us

(01:30):
and really high level guy and really good broadcaster as well.
So that will be the show today and we'll have
more podcasts coming for you the rest of the week
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(01:50):
cut some stuff up, a lot of different content up there.
Make sure you subscribe. If you're not go do that now.
And uh yeah, let's talk some football. But first, you know,
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think for the majority of players and the majority of situations,

(02:59):
you judge the preseason on was that positive or was
that negative? Was that good or was that bad? Because
there's so many different variables, it's hard to put this
into context. Who's game planning, who's not game planning, how
many starters are out there, how many starters are not
out there? And then there was Caleb Williams and Ben
Johnson making their well. Ben Johnson made his debut last week,

(03:22):
but Caleb Williams didn't play. So the debut of this
offensive mastermind and his quarterback who was drafted number one overall,
and listen, there have been a lot of stories flying
out the last three weeks, fair or not, him missing
the net, him being overwhelmed by Ben Johnson, Ben Johnson
calling practice a sloppy unless you're there, and even if

(03:44):
you were there, it's like, listen, you're just gonna have
a take, and whether it's fair or not, it's just
a reality. And then there was the game they're playing
the Bills. Caleb comes out, the dude like muffs the kickoff,
so he's got to go to Julia's scoring drive, basically
the entire field, and then he was awesome. And the
knock on Caleb last year was like the timing in

(04:05):
the NFL is a lot different than college. You gotta
get rid of the ball. Playing hero ball is not something. Honestly,
if you look at the last ten twenty years, Russell
Wilson was able to make a four or five year
stretch of a career out of it. But for the
most part, it's not a way to play. And Ben
Johnson's offense is all about timing. So to me, the

(04:25):
number one question with Caleb Williams can he play on time.
Can he play in rhythm and listen, it's I mean,
he played two drives, but it's really the first drive.
Ball snapped, ball out of his hands. Ball snapped ball
out of his hands. You're like, holy shit, that was
the biggest question mark because we know Caleb has the
big arm. So the first the big explosive play to

(04:45):
comment over the middle of the field. You see him
throw the ninety mile an hour strike. But the key
to playing at a high level, and Bears fans know this.
Do you know what miss Trubisky could not do? He
could not layer a throw. He didn't have touch and
it was the reason guy drafted really high. And listen,
he's a I'm just using him as example because he
played for the Bears. There are a ton of players

(05:06):
that have been drafted high that struggle in the NFL
that can't layer the throw over the linebacker, under the safety.
And that is a way if you're gonna play quarterback
in this league, you've got to be able to do it,
especially in rapid speed, when you know your first option
is taken. He's your second option. Lovelin coming across the
middle of the field, and Caleb hit him in stride.

(05:26):
I know the touchdown pass is like the sexiest play
of the drive, but to me, that was the most
important pass and it was like getting rid of the ball.
And even on the second drive there was a pressure.
Roam ended up dropping the ball, but he got rid
of the ball quickly, And to me, that is the
whole thing if this thing is gonna work because Ben
Johnson's offense and Ben Johnson as a play caller became

(05:49):
a star with Jared Goff. Jared Goff can't move much
faster than me or you, so his entire game is
predicated on letting the coach scheme guys open and doing
what he tells me quickly. Because I can't run away
from anyone. Caleb can. But there's a balance of like
every once in a while, we're gonna need you to
do it. And there was a play on the first

(06:09):
drive where he scrambled away. I bet Ben Johnson might
even say throw the ball away, but he hit the
wide receiver pretty low and he dropped the ball whatever.
I mean, it wasn't his fault. The guy comes unblocked,
or guys break through the offensive line. You got to
make a play with your feet. But there are gonna
be a ton of plays throughout, especially Week one against
Minnesota when you're playing a really good defense and an

(06:31):
excellent defensive coordinator, where you gotta do what Ben Johnson
wants you to do. But the key to it is
getting rid of the ball, and Caleb did that tonight.
So to me, it's like, I've seen Caleb make explosive
plays and it's exciting. But the number one thing if
I'm a Bears fan I'm excited about is like under
a couple seconds under a second ball is out of
his hands. Because they got Dj Moore, they got roam,

(06:53):
they got multiple tight ends. I mean the guy they
just drafted tenth. And Greg Olsen said this, when you
draft a tight end ten tenth overall or really high
in the draft, you're not just expecting him to be
a good tight end. You're expecting him to be an
extremely productive player in the passing game, a guy that
can essentially operate as like your number two wide receiver.

(07:14):
I mean, there's a decent chance that as this season goes,
that it goes DJ Moore is there one, Loveland is
there two, and Rome is their three. And you saw
Rome drop the ball. Listen I'm a Rome guy. I
think he'll be fine. It's one pass. But if Caleb
can play on time and play in rhythm, we know
this offense works because we've just seen it. And what

(07:34):
did the Bears do this offseason. They fix the interior
of their offensive line because Caleb is not six foot six,
so he is going to need to step up into throws.
And Sean Payton made a living off doing this in
New Orleans with Drew Brees. They were good at center,
and they were good at the guard spots because stepping
up for a shorter quarterback like is really really important,

(07:57):
and protecting up the middle of the field is. And
now with so many of these teams having good interior
pass rushers and they're two guards and center, I mean
are not only highly paid, but they're good players and
we know their offensive skill. Guys have a lot of talent.
We know Caleb has a lot of talent, But you
have a drive like that, Like, I'm not gonna poo
poo the excitement that's gonna come out of Chicago over

(08:19):
the next twenty four to forty eight hours because it
should be all the preseason shit. No one cares about
it because I say this all the time. You know,
coaches do this like, hey, he doesn't understand, he's not
doing it right at practice, he struggles in the meeting room,
then he goes on the field and does well. Like
that's all fans care about. How do you do It's
why that's shador Sanders, Like, no one's gonna care what

(08:39):
Stefanski says. Well this that it's like we saw it
on the field, fair or not. And listen, So for
all the different stories coming out in the preseason people
you know, the media that were there, even a fan
that were there. Obviously the coaches and players have a
better feel for it, but for those of us that
are not there, it's like, this is kind of weird.
It's been kind of crazy. All that kind of go

(09:00):
out the window after that performance. And listen, I was
critical last week. It's like, hey, you're new with this guy, Like,
how come you're not playing him in this preseason game.
I kind of also understood it was a nationally televised
game if it doesn't go well, but same deal here,
nationally televised game Sunday night, kind of a muscle flex
by Fox, like just to remind everybody else, And I

(09:20):
bet the NFL loves doing this. During the preseason. They
used to have a Monday I don't know if they
have a Monday night game anymore, but they would have
a couple of Monday night games, have like a Sunday
night game just to like flex our muscle. Like a
game that after about ten minutes, it's like no one
even knows who's playing, and it'll do like eleven million
people watching. I would imagine the ratings for those first
two drives with Caleb Williams in the game against the Bills,

(09:42):
who were just you know, been in two AFC championships
in the last like four years. In the playoffs every year,
even if Josh isn't playing, I had to be pretty
freaking high. So that was cool, That was fun, and
their excitement is gonna be justified. This is at the
end of the day, we're talking about football and for
as ugly as things of Ben in Chicago. And here's
what I also say about Ben Johnson in theory, it

(10:05):
was like, this job is a no brainer. This job
was kind of complicated. I mean, let's face it, you're
working for Kevin Warren, who is like this business guy,
yet he kind of gets to run the organization because
the McCaskey family is doing who knows what. You get
a GM, which in theory everyone likes, but his track
record's pretty iffy that you have to work with. And

(10:26):
you get a quarterback that was just drafted number one overall,
that is not a project. But like it's gonna bring
a lot of scrutiny because he's extremely famous. He's a
Heisman Trophy winner. We've been talking about him since he
was eighteen years old. It's just like there's a lot
going on, and like no one argued about Ben Johnson
his offensive acumen when he ran the show for Dan

(10:48):
Campbell in Detroit. But you become the head coach, the
microscope's a little brighter. It's you know, it's crazy because Chicago,
I would say, for like the last fifteen years, for
the most part, hasn't been that good. Yet they're talked
about all the time. They're this massive market, the city
loves football, this little team up the road. Having been

(11:08):
there last week in Chicago and just seeing how the
geographics of like I never spend much time in Chicago,
so you see the Green Bays right up the road,
this little last town they always beat their ass. Minnesota's
been like a high level organization for a long time.
It's like, are we ever going to get it right?
And listen, the pace thing is still a little weird,
The Kevin Warren thing definitely is weird. But if Ben

(11:28):
Johnson can figure out Caleb Williams, none of that shit matters.
A wise man told me a couple of years ago
with the Jets when they were hitting on all these picks.
He's like, John, if we hit on of these eight
picks of a bunch of high level players, if we
hit on seven of them and they've become Pro Bowlers,
all Pro sweet players. Garrett Wilson's you know, Breis Halls,

(11:51):
the left tackle, the Quinn Williams, you name it, all
the different players, the Sauce Gardner. But the quarterbacks a whiff,
we're all gonna get fired. Yet, if we hit on
the quarterback and we whiff on all the other players,
we will get extensions. And listen, it's not just that
black and white and just that simple, but it kind
of is. Now. Clearly the Bears have good players, But

(12:14):
if they hit on Caleb Williams and they don't need
him to be Mahomes, they don't need him to be
Josh Allen. But if he can just be a playmaker
and just be a pretty consistent player and do what
Ben Johnson wants him to do like Jared Goff did,
Bear's gonna be fine and the Bears are gonna have
a guy that they can function with and win with.
Then it comes this football. It's a team game. How

(12:34):
good your defense, how good your run game. Things that
are out of Caleb's control. But in terms of when
this play is called on third and five and that
guy's open on that quick slant, you gotta get rid
of the ball on time because he will be open.
I will scheme him open. But if he's not open,
just in case, I will have this number two running
over here that you've got to get off him quickly
and get over there and he will be open. And

(12:56):
that's what makes it so complicated, because at a scout
tell me that the coach told him a couple of
years ago. They're like, you could take let's say sixty
four quarterbacks, the starters and the backups, every single guy,
and take them in a room with McVeigh, Shanahan, Andy Reid,
Sean Payton, and they can all just talk football, and
the overwhelming majority of that group of quarterbacks just in

(13:18):
terms of the speaking of the schematics of playing quarterback,
they're all going to be on the same level. Then
you go out to practice and some of them will
fall off. It's a little quick form, but still a
large percentage of that group will still look pretty good.
Then you get to the games, especially the regular season games.
They're game planned and you have to just on the fly.

(13:39):
You're getting pass rush, you lose a offensive guard, your
backup tackles in, and all of a sudden, there's a
very small group that can operate in that environment. And
that's what makes this so difficult. And that's what makes
Caleb such a fascinating case study. Because you want the
arms pretty elite. His athleticism is pretty high end, you know,
I mean, his arm's really explosive and accurate quarterback, and

(14:01):
now can he play within the construct of this offense
that we know works And he did tonight, and like
I said, this is there's there's good, and they're bad,
and then there's that Like that's that was pretty exciting.
That was enjoyable as someone that, like I think a
lot of people are like middle gud you just hate
the Bear. I don't care at all. I'm not emotional
about any of this stuff. If he's good, great. I
wish there are thirty two teams at thirty two sweet quarterbacks,

(14:24):
because I'd rather have all these teams matter. Like we
all know, we get, you know, a couple months into
the season, like their ten teams are unwatchable. So I
hope the Bears are good. That would make it fun.
But that was a really, really good start, and I'm
excited for every Chicago fan that's just just seeing a
lot of shit and seeing some rough times it fell.

(14:47):
I'm not trying to go overboard on the preseason version
of like the and Ded Frame moment, like oh my god,
this this might be possible. We might be set free
of this orderback purgatory and have an offensive coach that
knows what he's doing. The rivalries, the marching bands, the upsets.

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Speaker 1 (16:53):
Okay, let's dive into some other things from around the
National Football League. I was watching so much football. I
didn't do anything on Saturday beside go to the gym
in the morning, eat and watch football literally all day.
And I realized, you know what, I should probably take
some notes. I'm not breaking down these games, but things
that I see that I want to talk about. Because
I had watched cam Ward the night before and I

(17:15):
was like, you know what, let's talk about the two
rookie quarterbacks that were drafted really high. Obviously we talked
a ton about Shador. Dylan Gabriel went viral for a
comment that he was talking about the media. It was
clear he was talking about the media. He's right, We're
in the entertainment business. We're not in the win football
games business. That's the job that Kevin Stefanski's in that,
Dylan Gabriel's in this is the entertainment business, and what

(17:37):
he said was not wrong, but obviously they tried to
make it about Shador. It had nothing to do with
Shadoor Sanders. I was watching that game as he said it,
and listen, I'm not the biggest Dylan Gabriel guy as
a player, but from a character standpoint, that's not really
his mo cam Ward. I want to say this, I
always feel bad like last year the Bengals, like they

(17:58):
didn't make the playoffs. Why their defense wasn't very good.
Their owner had been cheap in recent I would say
over the last couple of years when it came to
investing on that side of the ball. Obviously, you know
their head coach is one of the lower paid guys
in the league. That's kind of what you get sometimes
like that. If I'm a fan, I'm like, well, we
have this great quarterback, we have these great weapons, but

(18:20):
we are the Bengals and Mike Brown owns our team,
so we're gonna have seasons like that. I don't feel
any sympathy. The Alabama Crimson Tide went nine and four,
Like you don't get any sympathy points for me, it
should happens like welcome to the real world. But when
your quarterback is just unwatchable and you can't even function
as a football team in college like last year with Oklahoma,

(18:43):
or in the pros like last year with the New
York Giants or the Tennessee Titans, like I do feel
bad for you a little bit. I thought the Titans
actually early in the season, we're kind of competitive, but
Will Levis was the worst player in the NFL at
his position. Honestly, it might not even have been close.
And then everything that happened with the Giants, with the
Daniel Jones saga and coming back for injury, how a

(19:03):
knemick their passing game was. I mean they cut them
by the end of the season. It was just it
was an embarrassment. It was really really rough to watch.
And when you draft a quarterback the Titans, you drafted
the guy number one overall. So the hope and listen,
I don't think there's anything more powerful than hope in life, right,
The hope of a new relationship, the hope of a

(19:25):
new job, the hope of a new quarterback. It is
a powerful, powerful emotion that drives human beings forward, and
when you have the hope of a quarterback, a young
quarterback like middle go if it's only preseason, I totally
understand that. We saw the same thing with shador a
week ago. Like that, that's a powerful thing when you
see a young player making place. Now, cam Ward is very,

(19:47):
very physically gifted. I think he's gonna be pretty good.
I actually think the Titans could be a little bit
of a sleeper, not maybe to make the playoffs, but
just relative to what they were last year, the number
one overall team, the drafting number one overall, to what
they could be this year. Wouldn't shock me if they
won seven or eight games if cam Ward's really good.
But the Giants are like one of the marquee franchises
in theory, in all of professional sports. They're the biggest

(20:10):
market in America. They're this franchise that over the last
I don't know, twenty years, have won a couple of
Super Bowls. They've taken out Belichick and Brady. They've had
just some historic moments over the course of their franchise
with Parcels and lt and Eli Manning. But let's face it,
the last I don't know decade has been pretty rough,
and anytime you take a guy, I would say late

(20:32):
first round, early second round, it's kind of that sweet
spot where it's like, is this guy any good? Like
if you take a guy I would say in the
top ten, fifteen ish, any like that, twelve thirteen is
right that sweet spot. You're expected to be a star.
You're expected to be a pro Bowl level guy, fair
or not. And obviously it doesn't turn out that way.
But when I draft you, like six, overall, my expectations

(20:54):
for you are really really high. And that's what happened
with Daniel Jones. And I remember thinking at the time,
like most people, like what are they doing? I had
a couple buddies who are really successful in the NFL,
like John I like to I think he can be
the next Alex Smith. Well, part of Alex Smith's success
is he got Jim Harbaugh and they got Amy Reid.
I mean, his career was headed down a pretty ugly

(21:15):
path till those guys showed up. Daniel Jones kind of
thrown in the fire. Clearly, it just has it gone
well and we'll find out, I would imagine over the
next couple of days if he's the starter with the
Colts and can resurrect his career, and he might have
to do that, right, But Jackson Dart was in that
spot like did they overdraft him? Did they get him?
Like did they get a steal here? No one really knows,

(21:38):
and I'm basing like I'm not breaking down on miss film.
My I would say exposure to him at the highest
level was that Florida game, which is hard for me
to ever forget. And then you turn on these last
couple of weeks. He's twenty six to thirty five, He's
thrown a couple of touchdowns, he's run for a touchdown.
But listen, it's not about the stats. To me, It's

(21:59):
always about the e I'll never forget watching Mitch Trubisky
early in his career. So he's got no touch And
if you have no touch in the NFL, you have
no fucking chance excuse my language, little kids, none. If
you can't layer the ball over a linebacker under a safety,
you cannot function as a quarterback in the NFL. And
you know me, I have a soft spot for the

(22:21):
physical traits. I do think that matters over the course
of time. Right, Tom Brady had a big time army.
Why does that matter because he could handle cold weather
and we see some guys with weaker arms struggling cold
weather a little bit. I think that's a big line
of delineation for Mahomes, who obviously is a better player
than Alex Smith, but like his arm strength is so
much more superior. They immediately had success in the playoffs

(22:44):
where they couldn't with Alex. It has limitations and people
are like, how good is Jackson Dart's physical traits? We
heard the same thing last year with Bo Nicks. Why
I'm watching Sean Payton talk right now, He's like, his
physical traits are awesome. He has a plus arm, he
moves well. And I think people crush you sometimes in
your college offense because they're like, we're just throwing bubble screens.
We yeah, I mean that's kind of what a lot
of these colleges call.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
You know.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
I think it was easier to judge that twenty years ago,
kind of the rinky dink. I mean, that's what it
was considered by NFL people, you know, spread offenses, you know,
definitely Mike Leech. But what it's really become, well now,
a lot of NFL teams, you know, run, I would
say iterations of those plays. I'm watching Jackson Dart and
I go listen. I don't think he has Josh Allen's arm,

(23:29):
but he does definitely has a strong arm. But watching
him layer throws right cam Ward, same thing that ability, like,
that's going to translate obviously. Then the intangibles, your work ethic.
We saw cam Ward a couple weeks ago talk about
why he shows up so early. He's like, my dad
had a job he hated, and he showed up early.
So if I have a job I like which also
pays a premium, and I can't show up early, I

(23:51):
might as well just quit down. He's right, you know,
and so to me, if you get the work ethic,
you've get the intangibles. They have the physical traits to translate.
And the thing you never ever really know at the
highest level until you start playing, as the toughness element
when you start getting hit, like, how do you react
cause you're gonna get hit. I saw this Abdual Carter

(24:11):
clip that went viral of him getting absolutely leveled on
a chip block by a tight end and then I
think the offensive tackle took him out. It's like everyone's
making fun of him. It's like, guys, this is the NFL. Like,
unless you are like Trent Williams. I mean, I bet
Aaron Donald's got blocked and thrown to the ground at
points and times like on a given snap it happened

(24:32):
to probably JJ Watt or Lane Johnson, Like you know,
Trent's probably got smoked his foot. Is the highest level,
the highest level of competition of the best athletes, especially
for a young guy, if they don't every once in
a while get absolutely worked. And if you are a
defensive or offensive lineman, it's gonna be physical. Like welcome
to football, Welcome to the National Football League. But if

(24:54):
I'm a Giants fan, I don't just have hope right now,
Like I'm pretty fired up. I'm pretty excited for what
I've seen of the young quarterback. And here's the problem.
We saw it last year with Russell Wilson. Now it
was different because Russell was banged up and they went
with fields and then they transitioned clearly, Brian Dables like,
we're going with Russell to start. Now their schedule is

(25:15):
really really difficult. But this is this thing with Flacco,
this is you know, cam Ward's starting right off the bat,
but whenever you have a highly publicized young quarterback, whether
it's a first round pick or a third or like shit,
or a fifth round pick, no one wants to watch
the old veteran guy you know you have, like Russell
Wilson has no equity with the fans. Honestly, I would
imagine most fans view Russell Wilson like a washed up

(25:38):
has been and they're not totally wrong. I mean, he's
getting passed around.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Now.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
He's a eight to ten million dollar bridge quarterback, and
we draft this guy really high. And if you're Brian
day Ball, it's like, well, you look at the schedule.
I think everyone is somewhat realistic, probably not winning ten games.
Like best case scenario, if we had a great season,
we won eight or nine, I should be in the
mix for Coach of the Year again, But how do
I say, my job and what do I do? Because

(26:02):
part of saving your job if you're not gonna make
the playoffs is that hope thing has to like, oh,
this guy is connected to the quarterback, the quarterback loves him,
and he's got to show promise. So when you look
at the schedule, it's clear he's not gonna start right away.
I mean, the beginning of their schedule is brutal, but
I would say by mid to late October, if they're
not winning many games. By Russell Wilson, no one's gonna

(26:22):
want to hear he's not quite ready yet because coaches
love saying that. The coaches loves you don't see what
we see in practice. I got news for you, guys.
No one gives a fuck. The owner doesn't really care,
and the fans definitely don't care, and a lot of
times the front office doesn't care. It's like, we get it.
You know, all these plays on a whiteboard in your
quarterback only knows eighty percent of them. Now if they

(26:44):
clearly don't know what they're doing, a lot like Anthony
Richardson in that first preseason game doesn't even know, you know,
the protections relative to the pressures. It just gets himself cold. Clock.
I totally get it. But like I think people can
live with that as a rookie. They can't live with
that as a third year guy. But like Jackson Dart,
there's gonna be a learning process. Cool with it, but
like that physical talent, that ability, that's why once upon

(27:05):
a time Russell started. Remember it's like well he's not
quite ready. It's like no one cares. And I'll give
Pete credit. And this is why Pete like obviously what
he did at USC made him a Hall of Famer
at the college level, but then him choosing Russell Wilson,
you know, as a rookie, like changed the course of
his career, made him a first ballot Football Hall of
Famer college and pro. Right, and sometimes you gotta have balls.

(27:28):
And that's the thing with Brian Dable. You know, this guy,
this kind of like BELICHICKI in work for Sabin, kind
of tough guy. Really became a star with Josh Allen,
Like sometimes he's got to put your nuts on the table.
So we'll see how long he's willing to just write
it out with Russell Wilson, because I just know football
fans and I've lived in the Northeast. I was part

(27:49):
of that division that they are not going to have
a long you know, a lot of patience when it
comes to Russell Wilson. I watched a lot of NFC
West football, the Niners, the Rams, the Erdinals, they're all
in really Seattle. Four things stand out to me about
all four teams. One, the forty nine ers. I don't
know how this is possible. They yesterday when they were

(28:10):
playing the Raiders, it felt like every other snap they
lost a player they've already lost. I mean, it felt
like forty guys in practice. This happened to them early
on in the Kyle Shanahan tenure. A couple of years ago.
They did not have this happen, and they made the
Super Bowl. Last year they were near the top with injuries,
and right now it's not quite quantified because the rosters

(28:31):
are so fluid with ninety guys, but they got to
be near the top, if not leading the league in injuries.
I don't know how this happens. They got Stanford Medical
right down the street. They're just losing player after player
after player. They're starting guard who's actually a really good player.
They drafted last year in the third round. Got hurt
on a fucking field goal. So I don't know what's

(28:52):
in the water right now in Santa Clara, what's happening
in the training room. But guys are dropping like flies.
But that was not their biggest issue. The reality is
most NFL teams are going to play in a ton
of games or a ton of close games, right Chancy Chiefs,
who are in the middle of a dynasty, played in
like fourteen close games and they just happen to win
them all. Playing in close games is part of the NFL,

(29:13):
good or bad. The majority. I think it's like well
over eighty percent of games this is not college football,
are one score games in the fourth quarter. Right, as
a wise man once told me when I worked in
the NFL, that team could be winless. They got a
lot of guys that live in big ass homes that
drive nice ass cars, so it's like they pay a
lot of money for their team as well. And the

(29:35):
forty nine ers field goal situation or kicking situation when
it came to field goals was an abomination. And they
use a third round pick on Jake Moody, who Jim Harbaugh,
who I just saw get a ten year show. Cause, like,
how's the NCAA still operating? Like who's listening to them?
How do they still exist? I don't and I'm not
trying to act like Jim and Connor Stallions are innocent

(29:57):
on this one. I don't know, honestly, don't really care,
you know, I really don't. But how do we still
go to the NCAA and it's listen to Michigan. Sharon
Moore gets two games suspension this year, gets one next year,
but it's two games this year, Game three and four
because they're playing Oklahoma Week two. It's just what are
we doing at least in the NFL, whether you agree
or disagree. It's like Roger who works for the owners.

(30:20):
They got the CBA, like it's kind of black and white.
What happened? Now we can argue over certain suspensions. I
saw that he was gonna give Rashi Rice like a
ten game suspension, and who knows. Ultimately, point is, if
you're gonna take a kicker in the third round, I
don't mind doing that if your team's really good, he
just better be a star. And when you look at

(30:40):
kickers throughout history, but definitely in like the last twenty
five years, a lot of guys, you know, either are
undrafted or late draft und draft picks have success for
their second team. Pretty sure that Justin Tecker was an
undrafted free agent, so you typically don't have to draft. Obviously,
Sebastian Janakowski guys very high because it's one of those

(31:01):
positions where it's like you can just find guys who
could go on to have a lot of success for you,
and they drafted him and it's been kind of a debacle.
Last year was pretty embarrassing, I mean bad enough where
they had a kicking competition, and then I'm watching him
against the Raiders. He misses a long field goal, he
almost misses what's essentially was an extra point. It's like,
I think this guy's gonna get cut after this game.

(31:23):
And then he bangs a long field goal and hits
a game winning fifty nine yard field goal, and Kyle
Shanahan said something which I give him credit at least
he had missed this, like I don't even talk to kickers,
I just tell him make kicks. Kyle Shanahan despises special teams,
which I've said all along. Most people do not care
even special teams. Coaches a little quirky, little different, but
like when you're the head coach, you do have to

(31:45):
put some emphasis there, and the forty nine ers simply
do not. And they might get lucky here that Jake
Moody just maybe resurrected his career because they treated him.
I mean they might as well have just carried him
off the field. Their reaction because everyone knew it that
if this guy had missed a couple of long field goals,
especially the game winner, it would have been like that,

(32:05):
they're just this is they're gonna have to cut them
and now, and whether this is fair or not, Like
sometimes you can hit five balls out of bounds and
then finally stripe one down the middle, and that might
be the case here, but this might, if he goes
on to have a successful career for the forty nine ers,
might have been the turning point. We've been talking about
this for a while. We've been hammering this home. Something

(32:27):
is weird with the rams, right, and in fairness to them,
like they might not even know. They're like, hey, he's
got something with a disc. We're hoping this epidural. We're
hoping that, but no one knows. This is not an
injury where it's like, you know, he rolled his ankle,
he'll be back in two weeks, right, he sprained his knee,
he'll be out this long time. You don't really know
with a back. And then sometimes like he's ready to
go and then you throw him out there and all

(32:48):
of a sudden he can't get out of bed the
next day. But like a week ago. He was supposed
to throw. On Saturday, the Rams play a game, and
he wasn't gonna play in the game, but he was
gonna throw his own regiment. Everyone's asking, you know the Rams, McVeigh,
which is cool. Let's assistant coaches kind of operate during

(33:08):
the preseason, like a lot of head coaches. Do I
know that Brian Kevin O'Connell does this. You know, a
lot of play callers will let other guys, you know,
call plays during the preseason. Some guys even let them
run it, like I think Aubrey Pleasant it was the
head coach yesterday. I think McVeigh did this last year
as well. But he's like, I'm not talking about Stafford.
You got to McVeigh will talk about that on Monday.

(33:29):
And then all the reporters are going to the Rams,
like any comment on Matt Stafford. Did he throw? And
they're like, no comment. So it's like, listen, you made
a story which a little out of your control, and
I don't even believe it's like nefarious that Stafford this
offseason knew that this was coming. Maybe he did, and
if he did, that's pretty good business because this will
be the last contract he ever gets and they just

(33:50):
have a problem on their hands. He can say whatever
that he wants, and he can hype up Jimmy Garoppolop
Jimmy Garoppolos or quarterback. They have no chance to make
the playoffs. I think we all acknowledge that. I mean,
they were winning ten games with Matt Stafford. So this
is not like the Eagles, you know, where you could
probably piece male quarterback situation to ten wins because your
talent's good enough. But I would imagine and listen. I

(34:10):
like Peter Schrager, and he's mcveigh's guy. He's like, they're
not freaking out like bullshit. They gotta be losing some
sleep over this. The Cardinals. You know what's funny is
like a couple of days ago, I was just randomly
thinking about Jacoby Burssett. I'm like, I wonder whatever happened
to him just a couple of years ago. He's getting
opportunities to be a starter in multiple places, and now
he's just out of the league. And then I flip

(34:33):
on the game and it's Cardinals Broncos, and all of
a sudden, Jacoby Brissett runs in. I'm like, oh, yeahs
I don't want to screw up the GM's name. Mottin
fort Ossi mottin fort I totally just butchered his name.
But he was a former New England guy. He brings Jacoby,
he knows Jacoby, and then it kind of hit me.

(34:53):
It's like, well, clearly Jacoby, who's super high character, mature,
just salted the you're a human being type guy that
any team, especially if you have a young quarterback ers
an immature quarterback would like in the quarterback room. And
I was like, okay, I get the maturity. And then
you watch him play and you realize his skill set
and Kyler Murray's skill set couldn't be any more opposite,

(35:17):
like they are on the polar opposite end of the spectrum.
And typically I think ideally you want a quarterback with
somewhat of the similarities to your starting quarterback so if
they get injured, which a guy like Kyler Murray has
proven like he can get banged up, that there are
some parallels with the play calling with the offense, and
so it's not some crazy like remember a couple of

(35:39):
years ago, it's like Anthony Richardson to Gardner Minshew, and
I remember Ballard said one off season. He's like, what
Shane Sichin did with that offense is pretty remarkable because
they're completely opposite players. And I also understand sometimes like
the best you can get. But like, let's face it,
they brought in Jacoby Brissett, even though I think Kyler
Murray has matured from the guy that everyone was making
fun of for the call of duty, they see a

(36:00):
benefit there of having him around. Jacoby. I just know this,
if he gets injured, there is a dramatic difference of
the guy that comes in. I just think that there's
got to be a balance, you know, And I don't
love that if I'm the Cardinals, like from a coaching
standpoint or even a player standpoint, if we have to
change dramatically the scheme because what Kyler's gonna do. I mean,
Jacoby can't move. I mean he's one of the worst

(36:22):
athletes at his position by far in the NFL. So
I just I thought that was kind of interesting. Now
the forty nine ers play Seattle Week one. I'm not
trying to overreact to a preseason game. Andy Reid has
as physical of the training camp as any coach in
the NFL. I bet their guys in the middle of August.
Their legs are dead. So like my expectation for them

(36:43):
in a preseason game, coming playing late at night in Seattle, whatever.
I'm not judging them, but Seattle, if you just watch
their intensity, their physicality, they clearly a lot of people
think had a really good draft. I thought they had
a good draft last year, like they could be a problem.
And I said this when we talked about some of
the division winners, like, you know, I like the Packers,
you know, I love the Texans. I think there's value

(37:05):
in the Denver Broncos. I think at this point in time,
it's either gonna be Denver obviously, just Kansas City's gonna
win it for an eighth straight year. But like of
all the teams that had like kind of flyer odds,
I thought Seattle was, like, we know, their coach is
really good, right, Mike McDonald is one of, if not
the best defensive mind in the NFL. They have drafted

(37:27):
really well on that side of the ball the last
couple of years, have a lot of young pieces. They're
gonna fit his scheme. Sam Darnold knows Kubiak because they
work together in San Francisco, like that scheme works and
they got some pieces on offense. They won ten games
last year. It's not like, well it's like they won six.
Like they won ten games, four more than the forty
nine ers. I think that is a really really tough

(37:50):
spot for the forty nine ers week one. Like I
think if Seattle's gonna be the real deal, I think
they especially with the forty nine ers banged up as
they are, that's a really really tough spot. So yeah,
NFC West kind of interested in that one. Ashton genty
one of Frank Gore's you. I mean, he had a

(38:10):
lot of great characteristics. I mean, he was just a
very very good all around player and he's gonna be
in the Hall of Fame one day. But like part
of the reason he played for like thirty seasons in
the NFL is Frank Gored never wasted hits. Right if
he was in the open field and he could just
get to your corner, your left or right shoulder and
just kind of avoid a big hit, he'd do it.
If you get out of bounds, he'd do it. He

(38:31):
just wasn't like trying to run over everybody. And Ashton
Genty's built like a little tank and listen. He's really
really talented. But he had two plays yesterday, one where
he took on a linebacker just in the open field,
and it's like, and this is a backup linebacker, but still,
you're not gonna have a long NFL career. And I
would imagine peek, Carol and listen. I'm all for like,

(38:53):
I want tough guys. I want no one questions your
toughness ashen. But I can't have you trying to run
a linebackers in the preseason when we got seventeen games.
This is not the Mountain West. You're not taking on
New Mexico or Fresno State. You're not taking on a
bunch of guys. They're gonna be farmers and insurance salesman.
As a lot of you guys forwarded me the Jake
from picture of he's literally selling insurance now and there's

(39:15):
nothing wrong with that. Like's gonna he's gonna make a
ton in Georgia former Georgia quarterback. But we've invested in
you to be a star in this league. Watch some
Barry Sanders highlights, right, he was avoiding hits. So to
be a healthy player, to be a successful player, you
gotta play smart and no one I totally understand, like

(39:37):
trying to prove as a young player to your teammates,
to your coaches, like I'm a tough sob just we
gotta be careful because he gets this hit and he
immediately goes to the tent. Now he comes back. But
it's like, you are too important. If we're gonna be
a team that's on the rise, not even this year,
but over the course of the next three or four years,
you're gonna be one of our most important players. I

(39:58):
was thinking about this because in the college football a
lot you can get buying college football sometimes with multiple quarterbacks.
I mean the Florida Tebow's rookie year won the Super Bowl,
or not the Super Bowl, the National Championship with multiple
quarterbacks Chris League and Tim Tebow. It happens sometimes now
typically one guy separates from the other. But in the NFL,

(40:20):
if you do not know who your starting quarterback is
in the middle to late August, you just not I
can't take you seriously. Like the Browns, most people don't
take them that seriously. We don't think the Browns are
going to be that good, rightfully, so Flacco, Kenny Pickett obviously,
Dylan Gabriel and Shador Like they're all gonna play in
what order at what time. No one knows, but I'll
promise you this. Maybe they cut Kenny Pickett to go

(40:43):
with Flaco, or maybe they cut Flacco to go with
Kenny Pickett. I would imagine Flacco ends up starting, But
Dylan Gabriel and Chador Sanders are starting games. I would
bet four figures on that immediately. How many starts compared
to the two of us, I don't know, But Dylan
Gabriel and Shador See will both star games this year
for the Cleveland Bress Bad teams. That happens, right even

(41:06):
I'll give Brian Dayball credit, like he just nips in
the bud right away. Russells Sharter Russell as Scharter And
they said this, you know, way back four months ago
when they were doing spring ball the Colts, Like this
is why I'm out on them. It's like we'll know
who the quarterback is soon. That's what Shane Syke keeps saying,
Like if you don't have your quarterback picked at this
point in time, like I just can't take you seriously

(41:27):
as a playoff contender, even if I do like your
roster and think you got a good coach, and think
you got you know, a a well run schematic advantage.
I got lou Amruno, good coach. If you got some
defensive players, I bet Colts are way better on defense.
I think Shane Sikin's a good coach. But if you
don't know who your quarterback is on August seventeenth, like,
I'm kind of out on your franchise. And one thing's clear,

(41:51):
Hayie Roseman just loves doing trades. I mean, the guy
just loves making trades. And he said to Will and
Taylor on bus with the Boys last week, it's funny
bobbling the pr guy who've known forever in forty nine ers.
I was like, how he said, it'll come on my
podcast in the spring. He's like, oh, yeah, we're really busy,
and I guess I could go. I could go to Philly.

(42:12):
I've just known the guy for fifteen years. These guys,
you know, went on part of my take when I'm
bustling with the boys that they did go out to novacare.
I just I wanted to a zoom so advantage them.
Maybe I should next year, I have to go to
Novacare to get that in person interview, but how he
basically said one thing my biggest regret as a general
manager was what everyone talks about passing on a guy

(42:34):
that's gonna be a first bout Hall of Famer one
day and Justin Jefferson one of the more talented players
that we've seen in the NFL in recent memory, right,
and he took Jalen Rager. And that's my mom can see.
That's a fuck up. It's not like he's acknowledging anything
that we already don't know. But he also said that,
like sometimes you just don't need to overthink this and
just take good players from the best teams, like and

(42:56):
that's really what the Eagles and even he mentioned like
maybe we don't go to two super Bowls in the
last three years if we don't have that, you know,
historic screw up. And I mean it was because of
that draft. And you know, Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer
were on Zoom and we saw that clip of them
high five and they couldn't believe it. But John Metchi

(43:18):
I saw today who they just traded for with the
Houston Texans. They gave up a backup tight end and
they like they gave a fIF the Texans gave a fifth,
and the Eagles gave a sixth. I mean, the draft
picks are just late picks. Metchi was a guy that
played at Alabama that hurt his knee. Was there with
Jamison Williams. I mean, it looked like they were gonna
win the national championship. Then both those guys got hurt
when they replayed Georgia. They lost because they didn't have

(43:38):
any wide receivers. But I would say his careers never
really got on track. And this will now be the
ninth player from Alabama that will be on the Eagles.
And I do think they believe they have an advantage
with these guys getting them around their crew. And what
have they done. They've littered their roster with guys from
Nick Saban and Kirby Smart, which essentially are the same guy,

(44:00):
because Kirby Smart is just the mentee to Nick Saban,
and I listen, he likes value. He sees a guy
that was drafted really high. Clearly Mechi was not gonna
work with the Houston Texans for whatever reason. But I
feel like how he's already made multiple trades this preseason

(44:20):
and it wouldn't shock me at all if over the
next couple of weeks that he makes another trade. So yeah,
I mean speaking of the Texans, and this is one
area I saw CJ Stroud. They joint practice with the Panthers,
and you know, he's known Bryce because they both are
from southern California. I'm actually sitting probably not too far
away where they grew up, and CJ is just pretty

(44:42):
high level guy, super just impressive guy whenever he talks,
and it really got me thinking, is like one area
that I might have screwed up when it came to Bryce.
And I would say any especially any quarterback that played, Like,
say what you want about Tua. He's got some limitations
physically physically, but he's pretty solid and mentally he's pretty tough, right,

(45:03):
and clearly Bryce young Sometimes I try to quantify. It's like, well,
he's way too small, and listen, he's not very big.
I think he's one of the smallest quarterbacks we'll ever
see in NFL history, right, And definitely when he first
got drafted and he played in a preseason game as
a rookie, You're like, this guy looks tiny, but you
can't underestimate at at quarterback, the importance of all the

(45:25):
stuff that doesn't get all the intangible stuff, all the
unquantifiable stuff, how tough you are, how mentally tough you are,
how smart you are, how unfazed you'll be by adversity,
or how well that you can handle the tough times.
And if you've played for Nick Saban, like you've been
getting mf from the moment you step on campus. And

(45:46):
I was talking to someone about the Panthers and they're like, actually,
I think their line of scrimmage on both sides are
pretty good, and if offensively some of their weapons, you know,
they draft a guy in the top ten at wide
receiver if they can be pretty good. But like Bryce
has looked really really good this preseason and clearly the
way everything happened last year that he couldn't have been
much worse to start the season. Is this is why.

(46:08):
And we talked about this last week with Jason light
talking about like, we don't draft douchebags and assholes. And
I think on the other side, it's why you emphasize
character and intangibles because this stuff's really really hard, and
playing quarterback in the NFL is extremely difficult, even if

(46:29):
you are talented, so mentally, how tough you are, how
smart you are, how willing you are to grind. That
helps separate guys because a lot of people, like in
any line of work or any walk of life, the
easiest thing always is to tap out, is to quit,
is to make an excuse, I'm just not good enough.

(46:49):
I saw Tom Brady talk about this with Greg Olsen.
He's like so many people I played with or played against,
would just it was so easy to be like, didn't
have it today, Yeah, just not feeling it this week.
It's like, what like that you can It's so easy
to get a negative mindset for all of us, I
don't care what you're doing, and to go down that

(47:09):
rabbit hole and to make an excuse, and especially for
cig Or, I mean for Bryce, he could have been like, Wow,
I'm just with a shitty organization. They put me in
a bad spot. It's not all my fault. Instead, it
just felt like kind of kept his mouth shut, went
to work and then bounce back. And while I think
there's there's like a legit chance if you told me
Seattle wins the NFC West, I would not be shocked

(47:30):
at all. I don't think that the Carolina Panthers can
win the division. But if you told me, like heading
into December, they're like in the wild card discussion, I
think that's very, very possible. Now. I think if you
had a redo and you gave the opportunity to every
general manager in the NFL, would you take c J.
Stroud or Bryce Young? You would take c J.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Stroud.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
But I do think there's a chance within the next
year or two we look back and go, you know
what Bryce young'zahid player? Well, no shit. We saw him
at Alabama, played a really high level. We knew the
competition where the competitor was in him. We knew he
was tough. I remember watching him against that Georgia team
that had one hundred guys playing in the NFL. Him
just getting peppered, molly wopped like every other play with

(48:12):
Metchi and Jamison Williams injured, and just kept getting up
and kept swinging him Like God. I like this guy,
and I think it's why a lot of NFL people
will drawn to him, even though he doesn't check a
lot of boxes, I mean five to nine a buck
eighty five, but the intangibles with him are going to
be the reason you know, the guy has success if

(48:33):
they have a good year. And honestly, I could see
the Panthers just being a little sneaky this year. Okay,
very very excited to have a fourteen year NFL VET

(48:54):
and critically acclaimed broadcaster, A man who I think it
pretty unprecedented move started broadcasting while he was still playing
Greg Olsen live from Charlotte. What's going on on? Man?

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Doing great? Appreciate you having me on. How you guys
doing doing good?

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Doing really good? Uh? I you know, I thought let's
just jump into what you got going on with you
think my wife told me a couple of months ago
that she's pregnant and we are having our a son
here in early January. And I was just watching you
with Tom. That'd be Tom Brady talking a lot about,
you know, raising children, what goes on with athletics. And

(49:33):
you and I are the same age. We graduated high
school the same year, and we grew up in an area.
I know your dad was your high school coach, but
where my dad just dropped me off at practice and
picked me up. You know, you played high school sports,
the travel leagues might have gone within a sixty mile radius.
I mean I have families that you know, I live
in Scottsdale, and I got a bunch of family that
still lives in California and they're traveling baseball team, like

(49:55):
this is a short trip for them from California. I'm like,
this is insane, and it's just it's kind of a
completely It was very simple, I would say growing up
in the nineties when it came to athletics, you either
good enough like yourself or who you weren't like me.
But it wasn't the traveling sports that the camps for football.
I mean, that's just how do you navigate it as

(50:19):
a dad?

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah, So I think the best way to put, you know,
the best way to kind of summarize everything you just
said is so spot on. The best way really to
summarize is back in the day, there was no decisions
to be made. You played for your town rec league.
If it was winter, you played basketball, if it was spring,
you played baseball or lacrosse or soccer. And if it
was the fall, you played football. And that was pretty

(50:41):
much it in our lives. Those were the only offerings,
and you played with the same kids every season, and
everyone did the exact same thing. Nowadays, every day is
a decision. What level of competition do I want my
kid to play? What teams should they play for? What
if he's not batting or playing the right position, does
he play enough? What school should he go to? What
high school should he go to? Should he go to

(51:02):
multiple high schools? Should he go to a sports academy?
I mean there are unlimited options right now, and when
done right there is there's no better time to develop
as an athlete than there is right now. The access
to information resources, the training, the skill development, the way
kids are using the weight room, that eating, the nutrition,

(51:23):
just everything about youth sports now you used to not
get until you were in college. That's now creeped down
into the middle school. You know, sports teams at schools.
But with that, everyone loses track of what is the
ultimate goal and the open the ultimate goal is to
keep long term athletic development as the core driver of
everything you do. And when you race development and when

(51:45):
it's a race to twelve and a race to thirteen,
you skip over a lot of really important steps. You
skip over adversity, you skip out of sticking with it
when you're not getting playing time or when you're not
the best kid on the team, and you don't just
get to flip flop and go to fifty different teams
till you find out when you're the quarterback. Like, those
are the realities of the world, and for a lot
of kids, we're skipping those steps. So it's everything you

(52:08):
said is so spot on. There are so many different
things being thrown at these kids, these families. And as
someone who grew up in this world, as you know,
from the time I was a little boy around my
dad's high school teams and obviously made a career out
of it. Now as the other side of the as
things have come full circle and now I'm a dad,
there's a lot of things about this world that I
don't know what to do. And I and I really

(52:29):
have a lot of understanding and patience for parents who
really who reach out to us and say, we don't
know what to do with our son or our daughter,
We don't know if we're on the right track. Help
us get better information, And a lot of those conversations
are the ones that we're having on you think.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
You know what's funny is I think about all the time,
Like it it's so easy if you have a son
be like, well, he's not gonna play in the NBA
or the NFL's why even waste time if he's not
that good playing high school football, and it's easy to
push him away and listen, I was never like you.
I was never gonna play Division one football, but playing
in high school made me fall in love with a sport,
create relationships with guys. You know, twenty plus years later,

(53:04):
I'm still close with because of my love of football.
I got to work for Andy Reid, I do what
I do now. It changed my life. But looking back,
it's like, well, he's not any good, why would he play?
But my dad and my parents were like, do whatever
you want. Like they were very supportive because it was
an arrow where it's like you want to be on
the swim team, you want to play basketball, you want
to play, but you just kind of did everything. You know,
It's like, let's go play golf, let's go try tennis,

(53:25):
Like who cares? Just do whatever you want. And it's
kind of sad because I would imagine playing basketball for
you as you went on in your football career. Some
of those attributes that you learned on a basketball court
in high school translated to try to get open against
safeties and linebackers throughout your NFL career.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Right, Yeah, So I think the multi sport argument I
always say is twofold number one. Like you said, there
is a physical development component to playing different sports that
are unique to the said sport. Right. In basketball, it's footwork,
it's change of direction, it's metrics, it's jumping, it's catching
the ball above your head, it's landing on one foot,

(54:04):
being in balance defending. Like, there's a lot of movements
in basketball that are really good carryover to football and
vice versa. I think baseball brings a mental component of
struggling and failure, and you know you're in a zero
for ten slump, but you can't just pack it in
and walk off the field. So I think it's a
slower game, more of a mental game, more of a
mental grind than it is a physical demand. I think

(54:27):
a lot of those qualities will serve you well in
other sports. So I think every sports unique culture and demands,
both physically and mentally, are a really good way to
broaden your your you know, your horizons a little bit
on but not only your just your physical capabilities and
your physical development, but also your ability to be mentally
tough to deal with adversity and all of those sort

(54:47):
of things. I also think there's an element when I
think back to my time in high school. When I
walked onto the football field comes sophomore year in high school,
it was it was a given I was going to
go play college football. That was my path, that that
was my future. Everyone in the area knew it. Everyone
that came to one of our games knew it. When
I walked in as a high school junior into the
basketball court, there was no pressure on me to be

(55:09):
the best player on the field. It was amazing. Like
I loved high school track and field, I loved high
school basketball. I was not going to be a college
Olympic track and field athlete. I was not going to
be a college anything basketball player. There was something freeing
about just going out there and just playing with my buddies.

(55:30):
It wasn't the end of the world like football was.
Football was very serious that the expectations were that I
was going to be the best player and I had
to make every play and we had to win the
state championship. There was a lot of burden as a
young high school kid that you felt because that was
the expectations of your future. It wasn't that way in basketball.
So I loved basketball season because I could just go

(55:51):
out and play and we'd win, we'd lose. You're with
your buddies. It wasn't the end of the world. So
I also think even for these kids that clearly have
their future laid out by sophomore in junior year, and
it's a given, this sport is the sport you have,
there's something very liberating about playing in the other sports
where there are no expectations, there is no pressure and
just go out and be a high school kid and compete,

(56:13):
and knowing you don't have to be the best, you know,
to just go out and compete, like I just believe
so wholeheartedly that that's going to serve you so well
as you continue to move forward. And I look back
as much as I loved high school football, is you know,
it's the best moment of your life. It's the best
time in your life. I look back on my high
school days as a basketball player in a track and

(56:34):
throwing the shot put and running into four by four relays.
Like we didn't win the state championship. We weren't the
best team around, but it was a blast and I
think those high school memories kids are missing out.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
On when I think viral a couple of weeks ago
when you were all with Will and Taylor talking about
the youth team that you coach. Yeah, and you know,
I grew up in Davis and California, so we had
a small college and when the UC Davis guy would
show up to either pee wee football it was actually
called midgets back then, or to recess or whatever, it
was a big deal. But I can only imagine what

(57:07):
it's like when you guys initially committed. I would imagine,
because your son's on the team for you, Luke, what's
the turnout out there with the other dads whose sons
are playing, Because I'd imagine a lot of guys your age, right, Yeah,
they grew up watching you grew up. I mean we're
in their twenties and thirties when you were playing as

(57:28):
the experience of the intensity of it. But like those dads,
how often they asked me to come hang out.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Yeah, we welcome and all the sports that we coach,
we welcome families to be around practice. I love when
our families come watch what we do. I love when
they listen in on our team meetings and our team
huddle and the end of practice review. I want them
to hear me too, Are you the head coach? Yeah,
of the middle school team, just of the middle school team.
So I love when the parents hear us tell their

(57:54):
kid how good they did. But I also like when
their parents hear us coach their kid and correct their
kid and tell them that their efforts not good enough
or we need to be better. Like I think they
need to hear the truth, and they need to hear
it firsthand. I don't like when kids have to go
home and wait, why'd you do a practice? I did good?
What did coach say? I don't know if they're in
you know, the kids, at least my own kids, like,

(58:16):
they can't relay what happened. They're teenage boys. They for
you know, they don't even know what day it is.
So we first off, we welcome people to come to
our practice. We don't get a ton of family parent
coming to our practice. We have a full time coaching
staff of like six guys, so we have plenty of
plenty of helping hands devoted to just our middle school team.

(58:36):
So but but they're welcome as far as the environment
that we're trying to create, like we don't shy away
from it. We are trying to emulate a water down
but a very like high school football type of environment.
And we do summer workouts three days a week all
summer long. Kids are expected to be at them. We're

(58:56):
doing strength and conditioning, We're in the weight room, we're
doing speed and agility. We're training like we are preparing
these kids to what high school football commitment looks like
for them, some of them a year from now, some
of them two years from now as they enter high school.
So it's it's a blast. We're hard on them. We
coach them hard. We demand that they do things the
right way. We preach physicality, we preach we approach run

(59:20):
into the ball and being violent, and we just we
really try to teach them the game, the way the
game is played. As they continue to get older, and
I think to try to teach them the game in
any other form or fashion is doing them all at disservice.
So they respond to it. They're young boys, they love it.
They they you know, even the kids that haven't played before,

(59:41):
maybe they're a little hesitant early, they don't quite know.
But if you bring them along in the right stages,
all of a sudden that light bulb goes off and
they let it rip. So we got a lot of
fun with it. We got about fifty kids on the team,
seventh and eighth graders, which is a good turnout and
we love it. It's a blast.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
Could you envision your obviously your broadcasting career's gone pretty
damn well, but ever coaching at a higher level than
you're doing now. I know your dad was a long
time high school coach. Is your dad's on your staff now? Correct?

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
My dad's on our Yeah. So our staff is full
time staff. We got six full time guys. We've got me,
my dad, Luke, Jonathan Stewart, and Todd Blackledge. And we
have a new staff member, the new kid, one of
our members of the team. He played college ball at
v Tech. Just a dad that has the flexibility to
come help us. So we have a full staff of

(01:00:30):
guys on site. We can do a ton of individual work,
a ton of small group try to really limit the
amount of standing around as much as we can. You know,
we don't do the whole practice of just eleven on
eleven and then the other thirty kids just stand on
the sideline. I know what that's like. I know what
that feels like for those kids. That is not a
good way to develop everyone. So it's as much small

(01:00:52):
group an individual as we can possibly do. And then
of course at some point you've got to bring everybody
together and put it on. It's a little harder to
get the kids the reps there, but we've been doing
it now four years at the young level, and we
feel like we're still learning and still figure out exactly
the best way to kind of do it age appropriate.
But for the most part, we have a pretty good
feel of what it looks like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
You know what's cool is these kids. I mean they're young,
but you know when they're twenty five thirty and they're
working at Wells Fargo or Golden and Sacks or any
tech this will be a legendary story that they will
tell about Jonathan Stewart. No, I was a running back
on my middle school team and Jonathan Stewart was telling
about the angles to hit in the sea gap.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
I hope so, I hope the kids look back on
these and you brought up such a good point before.
We are not coaching any of these kids are all
of the time we're putting in and the entire summer
and the four and a half hour training camp days
we just had one this morning, Like, we're not doing
any of this under any false pretense that these kids
are going to become professional footballers. Maybe some of them will,

(01:01:54):
I don't know, but if none of them do, it's
still all worth it. And that's the point, like we
have to continue to get across to these kids. If
the idea of youth sports was to generate professional athletes,
everybody should just stop doing it because the odds of
that being your kid are so small. Totally, it should
be about everything else, you know. We tell them it's
supposed to be hard. You're gonna be tired. It's early

(01:02:17):
mornings and you're not gonna want to wake up. But
guess what life's about showing up and working even when
you don't always want to. And that's gonna serve you
well at Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. It's gonna serve
you well in your marriage. It's gonna serve you well
in the classroom. That's the point of all of this.
In the process of teaching these kids football, we're teaching
these kids what life looks like and that life is

(01:02:38):
not vacation and life is there's not everything always gonna
go your way, but you're gonna have to battle through
some stuff, and you're gonna have to be a keld
accountable and you're gonna be pushed hard, and you're gonna
have to you know, it might be a coach you
don't like, or a teacher you don't like, or a
boss you don't like. Guess what that's that's the real world.
And we got to start showing these kids what that
looks like. And there's no better way to do it

(01:02:59):
than through youth sports.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
You know, it's funny you and Tom were talking about
the transfer portal, and obviously it's a polarizing topic. I
don't think you could meet any human being that you
would respect that has any issue with anyone making any
real money now in college athletics. But the transferring all
over the place, I mean most people, and the knock
is always like, well, if you were a student on campus,
not a football player, you could earn whatever. Most of

(01:03:23):
those people weren't bouncing around colleges, though they stayed. They
help relationships, and those people might hire three of the
people for their company that they lived with in this
little apartment. And especially as a football player, you playing
at Miami or any college could be D one DOUBLEA.
The struggle you went through, those guys would go on
to be your good friends, godfathers of your kids. And

(01:03:43):
I start thinking, I know a bunch of people that
work in college. I mean they get kids that have
been to three schools in like a calendar year. It's
like the relationships. How could you even meet any human
beings and forge any sort of relationships that are extremely
important when you're eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old looking back
when you're our age and these people that you still
text on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Yeah, everyone's just a mercenary, right, We've just created a
sports culture of mercenaries. And again, everyone has to do
what they feels in their best interest. Everyone's now just
playing by the rules as they're written. This is not
unique to college. High school has really just become mercenary.
Bounce around. If you don't like the school you're at,
go to the school down the street, either rent an apartment,

(01:04:24):
go to a public school, or obviously the private schools
are just easy and they're getting anybody in and it's
just accumulate as many good players as you can. There's
everything about the youth sports scene, not even not everything,
so much of the youth sports scene right now, from
high school on down, and even obviously at the college level,
even though I don't consider that like youth sports anymore.
Is development is now secondary to player acquisition. Everything is

(01:04:47):
just about player acquisition. If Kid A is not good enough,
you're just going to go out and get Kid B.
And it's a dangerous game. I think we're losing development
in the long run. I think everybody's always looking for
where the grass is greener, and it's ultimately a challenge.
But the situation you just laid out about relationships, it

(01:05:07):
all comes down to there's it just it affects your culture,
and it's hard to establish. It's hard to establish culture
and consistency. And we're all going through the hard times together.
And our freshman year none of us traveled, and then
as red shirt freshmen, we traveled, but we didn't play.
And then all of a sudden, in year three, you
carve it yourself out a nice role and then your

(01:05:29):
four you're a starter. Those days are over. Those days
don't exist, and I just hate that kids don't learn
the value and the lessons of long term grit and
long term just pushing through in adversity because at the
first sign of adversity you can just go somewhere else.
And I think it's a dangerous game, but again, we're

(01:05:52):
playing the hand that we're dealt that The simple solution
to all of this is you can either take nil
money or you can be able to transfer. You can't
do both. I think that would clean everything up. You
want the opportunity to bounce around to find the best fit.
No problem. You can't make a dollar the second I
give you a dollar, you cannot break your contract with me.
We cannot have NFL free agency every single year. Everyone's

(01:06:15):
fine with the kids making money, But if Nebraska pays
your four million a year for the next four years
and you never become the starting quarterback, tough business. You
took sixteen million and you went to the wrong school,
that's on you, like you can't have it. You can't
shop your service. In my opinion, you should not be
able to shop your services every single year and sometimes

(01:06:38):
bi annually. Because of the way the transfer portal windows,
you can really enter the portal multiple times in a
calendar year and just in essence, just shop yourself to
the highest bidder. It's just it doesn't exist in any
other framework of sports anywhere in the world, accepting college athletics.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
I mean, how many guys that you played with when
you went to Miami and then the peak of their powers.
I mean where I grew up in Northern California, DJ
Williams was like a mythological figure. I mean it was
like Ray Lewis meets Walter Payton. I played against his
two younger brothers that played at Grant High School. One
ended up I think they both ended up going to
cow but DJ went to De La Sala's brothers played

(01:07:27):
in Sacramento. But I mean that guy. I mean these
in those guys. Back in those days, the world wasn't
as flat. So like Tom going to Michigan from Northern
California or DJ going to Miami. Wasn't you going from
Jersey to Miami. It wasn't all these guys like now
it's very normal for California kids go on all over
the country. It was more of a one off situation
or a small percentage of guys. But you know your

(01:07:51):
roster at Miami, like I'm not starting as a freshman
like I'm out right, I just would have gone to
Clemson or Alabama or whatever. I just think those days
days of these programs, and you see it right now
in college football. Georgia, Alabama, even Ohio State on a
year to year basic them out of a good season,
but over the course of five years are just not
going to be as deep.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Yeah, well, that's really what it comes down to. The
days of accumulating great depth up and down your roster
are done. I had lunch with a prominent college coach
earlier this offseason, and the way they looked at it is,
in the old days, you tried to get as many
layers deep on your roster as humanly possible. If you're Georgia, Alabama, Miami, USC,
Ohio State, Penn State, those kind of those programs you

(01:08:32):
could really have. In the old days, you could have
four year running cycles of top tier four or five
star recruits from senior year to freshman year and capture it.
Everyone nowadays is just trying to get to at least
too deep. Anything past too deep on your roster is gone.
You have to assume that anybody who's not an immediate backup.

(01:08:53):
At the minimum the next rotation of the transfer portal,
they're going to be on somebody else's team. It's just
the way of the world nowadays. The freshman third string
guy is not willing to wait to be a junior
to start and get two hundred touches. It's just he's
either going to transfer down, he's going to transfer parallel,
or he's going to move somewhere where someone promises him

(01:09:15):
via nil money, or it just promises him through depth
chart evaluation. You're the guy day one when you step
on campus, come here, and I get it. No one
wants to sit, No one wants to practice all day
and not play. But again, did you earn it? I
could make an argument that you didn't earn it. I
can make an argument that you just went to the

(01:09:36):
path of least resistance and even though you did play,
And for a lot of guys, it works out like
there's a callousness that gets built up over working your
way through the system. And I think back to my
freshman year at Miami. I red shirted and I was
on the scout team. My red shirt freshman year, I
was the second tight end in double tight end and

(01:09:57):
I probably played twenty snaps a game, twenty five snaps
a game, and then my third year, my red shirt
junior year, I was the starter. Then I started that year,
I started one more and I went off into the NFL.
But that that red shirt year where I was the
scout team trying to get open on a Wednesday practice
against Sean Taylor and Antrell Role and Jonathan Wilma and

(01:10:20):
DJ Williams and Vince Wilfork, and that was the defense
in two thousand and three, my senior year, Like that
was good for me. I mean, my freshman year, that
was good for me. Like that was a big part
of my development. I could have probably gone to thirty
other schools in America and started as a freshman, but
I wasn't going to start at Miami. I wasn't going

(01:10:40):
to start at Alabama. I wasn't ready. It was good
for me for that stage in my life, at eighteen
years old, to have to go be on the scout
team and be a grunt for a year, because that
was very different than my high school career. But that
was good for me, and I think it's good for
a lot of these kids to see the real world
and not always have to be put on a pedestal

(01:11:01):
and be told since they were twelve years old, you're
the greatest player we've ever seen. Our team can't exist
without you. And then we wonder why there's a sense
of entitlement across the culture.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
How much is your perspective on the sport change from
transitioning to a player to now doing your role of
probably forging pretty close relationships with not just head coaches,
but coordinators and probably a lot of personnel men around
the league to kind of just view football differently from
maybe all your years as a player in college and
the pros.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
It's been the coolest part of the process. It's fun
as sitting in the stadiums and calling the games and
all that. The coolest part of the process is the
insight into how a lot of these teams work, just organizationally,
both through structure, through communication, through processes, through what they
have in place of how they evaluate talent and how
they roster construct and how they do the draft. And

(01:11:53):
you know, when you sit down and you talk to
general managers in front office personnel and they really give
you a clear vision of why we done certain decisions
over the last two or three years to get to
this point. It's an unbelievable insight and process into how
much time and thought is put into why certain teams
are really good. And then you talk to other teams
and you get off and you're like, these guys have

(01:12:13):
no idea what they're doing, and it's no wonder they're
not good. Like there's countless times a year where I
hang up off of some coaches conference meeting and I'm like,
I get why Sean McVay wins a lot, I get
why Kevin O'Connell wins a lot. And there's a million guys.
And then you also get off some other calls and
you're like, they have no clue, they're making shit up,
like they're just and it's amazing at the NFL level,

(01:12:35):
but that's real. So that's the most interesting part. And
then from a schematic standpoint, just keeping up to date
with the trends and the ebbs and flows of professional football.
It's very different than college football. It's very different than
NFL football when I first came into the league in
two thousand and seven. So staying up on where the
game is going, how our defense is constructing fronts, howard

(01:12:56):
defenses constructing coverages. How do rule changes something as simple
as the kickoff rule changing where the touchback is. What
does that do to fourth down decision makings on the
goal line? Like all of those aspects. I don't think
when I was a player and I was worried about
playing tight end against your defense, I didn't really have
to waste my time being concerned with any of that

(01:13:18):
stuff out it was above my pay grade. Now, to
be able to be able to wrap your head around
the entire picture is really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Is there a specific coach that you kind of lean
on if you ever have questions throughout the week? Maybe
if even if you're not calling his game.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Yeah, so I try. I try not to bother the
guys if I'm not calling their game. But there's a
handful of guys in the league that I can text
them on a Monday or Tuesday and like they'll text
you right back. Or you say, hey, coach, when you
get a free minute tonight, I wanted to run by something,
and it's less to say, like give me the game plan.
Like you never want to make the coaches feel like
you're trying to like pry for information, but you can

(01:13:59):
just talk philosophically with them and say, hey, coach, tell
me if I'm just completely off base here, Like, as
I'm watching them, I see your strengths being here there
blah blah blah, And more often than not, they're gonna
be like, you're spot on. I think a lot of
the things that you're talking about. I think you're going
to really like our plan this week of what we're doing.
And you go, got it, you know what I mean?

(01:14:20):
So you know I could tech you know, guys like
dan Quinn and Sirianni and McVeigh, like, these are guys that,
like you're texting them like they're genuinely interested in you
your prep, they want to know about your kids middle
school football game like they're just genuinely really good dudes.
And there's a handful of guys that when I jump

(01:14:40):
on the calls with them, zooms like this. The first
ten minutes of the call, we're talking middle school football
and they're asking me what our new wrinkle of the
week is, and they're asking us how the game went
and how are we being able to teach double teams?
And I'm asking, you know, on the sideline, I'm asking
dan quinn, Hey, we're having a hard time getting our
defensive linemen to stunt correct correctly on their stunt games,

(01:15:01):
Like what's a good drill? And here he is. He's
the defensive coordinator of the Cowboys at the time, and
he's demonstrating in pregame. Hey, here's a really good drill
for young kids to teach him. Blah blah blah blah blah,
Like it's really cool. They genuinely care and more often
than not, that's the experience with most of the guys
in the league.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
Okay, I'll get you out of here on this. If
I would have told you three or four years ago
the tight end you wouldn't just be the biggest offseason
NFL event, but it would have been headlined by Taylor Swift.
Would you have believed me?

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
No, there's no question. When we started that event in
twenty twenty one, just George and I texting initially just hey,
congrats you retired. If you're ever down in Nashville, A
bunch of young tight ends live down here, we trained together,
would love you to come by. From that conversation to
getting Travis involved to where it's grown five years later
is pretty remarkable. I think it's a testament to the position.

(01:15:56):
I think it's a testament to the type of guy
who plays the position where there's enough pizzazz and fun
and excitement that makes the position. There's enough to talk about.
They're athletic, they're tough, but it's really just their mindset.
They're hungry, they want to learn. You got Kittle and
Kelsey in the hundred Degrees, and you know, between mini
camp and training camp, they could be anywhere in the world,

(01:16:19):
and they're in Nashville and one hundred degrees, fully cleaned
up on the field, running full speed routes with guys
who've never played a snap in the league and are
just taking it all in like that's the special nature
of the event and the position, and that's why it
all works.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
I remember running to Kelsey maybe a year or two
before he started dating Taylor out here in Scottsdale at
the golf course, and I know Andy and Veech, so
I go up to him and he couldn't wait to
get back to O TA. So we're starting a couple
of weeks, and I think that gets lost sometimes now
and it started. I'm like that guy, George. It's easy
to see, but Travis is a football junkie.

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
Yeah, and they all are. There's no good play that
I've ever been around, or played with or played against
that didn't wake up every single day fully consumed with
the craft of improvement and the craft of their position,
the game, the sport, you know, develop any of that.
And we try to drill this into our young middle
school kids. They're in seventh to eighth grade. I say, guys,

(01:17:18):
the path of development and the art of learning. The
day it ends is the day you stop playing. If
it ends anytime before that, you will never maximize. I
don't care how good you are now. The idea of
perpetual improvement in time, in forever, that's the goal. And
that's why guys like that have gotten better as their

(01:17:39):
careers have gotten longer, they've gotten better, they've gotten older. Like,
that's not a mistake. You can't have your best season
in your five. If your best year is in year five,
you're probably going to play seven. If your best year
is in year ten, you'll probably play fourteen. Like that's
kind of how it all works. And the guys who
get that, and the guys who never give up on

(01:18:00):
that quest for improvement, no matter how many pro balls
I've made, it's about the next one. No matter how
much money I make or how many contracts I want,
the next one, like it never stops until you literally
just can't physically do it anymore. And those days come
for everybody, but man, the guys that live it, eat it,
and breathe it. It's amazing how their days, their days

(01:18:22):
take a little longer to get here.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Well, Greg, I appreciate all the time. And you're probably
gonna have to get on the whole now with like
Doctor Dre or the Rolling Stones to try to top
this year. So congrats on everything, and do you think
thing that's awesome man, And hopefully you guys have a
big season on the football. You said undefeated, so I'm
gonna be checking this.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
Try put a target on our back. We'll see see you, Greg,
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
The volume

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John Middlekauff

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