March 13, 2025 • 50 mins
Join us as we welcome Andrew Kessler to his first Athletes First Family Podcast episode! Alongside David Mulugheta, we’re breaking down Jordan Love’s record-breaking contract and the unique journey that led to it.
In this episode, we sit down with Andrew "Kess" Kessler and David Mulugheta, two of the agents behind Jordan Love’s historic deal. We dive into Kess’s background, his early exposure to sports law through his father, Jeffrey Kessler, and how he developed a passion for representing athletes. We also explore how Kess and David worked together to recruit and represent Jordan Love, navigating the challenges and strategies that shaped his contract negotiations.
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Timestamps:
00:00:28 - Introduction to the Quarterback Series
00:02:22 - Kess’s background and career influences
00:07:16 - Interning at the NBA and working with Tony Parker
00:11:46 - Transitioning from law school to sports representation
00:16:30 - Recruiting and signing Jordan Love
00:25:15 - Jordan Love was drafted by the Packers
00:29:17 - Extending Jordan Love’s contract
00:35:19 - New contract negotiations begin
00:43:59 - Stats on Jordan Love’s record-breaking deal
00:46:03 - Lessons learned from Jordan Love’s story
00:51:16 - Closing remarks and thank
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
But I think for him, like I said, he was
stubborn on the vision, the details, he was flexible on
right in his case, Hey, I had to sit behind
one of the greatest quarterbacks.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Ever, how do I make the best of this? Well,
I'm gonna make sure.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
That I watch the way he studies, the way he prepares,
and just all the things he does to make himself
Aaron Rodgers a Hall of Fame quarterback right. So I
think for him, I think he handled the right way.
I don't know that a lot of quarterbacks would have
been able to handle it the way he did, But
for me, that's what I know that that would be.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What I learned.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome back to another episode of the Athletes First Family podcast,
the Quarterback Series. I am Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First,
joined by my trusty co host AJ Stevens. Welcome back, Aj.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Thanks Murph, happy to get back for another episode.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
On this podcast, we talk about athletes first experience representing quarterbacks.
For those new listeners out there, we currently have one
point four billion dollars of quarterback deals on our books
representing quarterbacks and today we have two agents who represent
one of those One of those players Jordan Love and
Andrew Kessler and David Molgenna.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Welcome guys, Yeah, welcome.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
David, welcome back to your setting a record. This is
your third episode. No one else has done that, so
congratulations on yet another record you can put to your resume.
And Kess, welcome to your first podcast. Uh, good to
be here. I'm very excited about this that we're taking
a very unorthodox approach today. We are also setting record
for most people on set four of us. But it's
gonna be well worth it because you two have a
(01:22):
great history together. And then Cass, you are, like I
like to say, one of one. I mean, very few,
no agents have the passion in the history and experience
of quarterbacks Andrews does. So to be very kind of you,
it go'da be awesome, all right. So, Aj, you know
the deal we've told everyone about David. He tried to
(01:42):
get us to go again. We're not going on. We
go straight to Kess, give us the give us Kess's stats.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Yeah, I know, I know David wants us to go
through his record breakers again. But first we're just going
to talk about Kess's experience. You know, a lot of
quarterback experience on their rights with the Mannings, Peyton and Eli,
Alex Smith, Mark Sanchez, Daniel Jones, and now.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
With Jordan Love.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
But you also have some other record breaking deals for
Michael Thomas, Bobby Wagner.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You've done great deals for Colecio, Smile.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Earl Thomas, Michael Dixon, highest paid punter in the.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Leagu's highest paid punters. This is the first time we've
had someone on with the highest paid punner.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
Yes, someone's got to be the highest paid Punterer's got.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
To be quite the career. Do we get all the deals?
Kess Bostam got plenty so as well. Congratulations all all that,
But we're gonna go back to the beginning, right, Like,
let's start with where did you grow up?
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Group in New York City with my mom and my
dad and yeah, pretty normal, normal childhood for a New
York City kid. But in the city or just in
the city, Yeah, right right right in the city.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Awesome, awesome. And then tell us a little bit about
your parents.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
Parents, So we're talking about my mom mostly No, I'm kidding, So, yeah,
my mom's great, normal, awesome mom. My parents met when
they were seventeen years old at Columbia and My dad
is Jeffrey Kessler, who, you know, being being modest, is
a very well known sports attorney and I trust labor litigator.
(03:07):
So I was really fortunate. A he's a better dad
than he is a lawyer, but be that he got
to expose me to a lot of what he did
growing up. And you know, he didn't he didn't read
me the collective bar and agreement at at night. I
know you liked you liked his and I say that
a joke. Better people do, so it wasn't that so much.
But he did bring me to NFLPA meetings when I
(03:29):
was a kid, so I got to build a legitimate
relationship with people like Gene Upshaw and Dick Bertleson and
Tom Condon, who I would later start my agent career
working for and stuff like that. And when I was
in high school, I got to intern at the MVPA
and meet all the people there, and he, you know,
went to a lot of games, went to All Star games,
and I certainly was very aware of what he was doing.
(03:51):
And you know, I always wanted to work on the
player side if I was going to work in sports,
which I kind of decided when I was maybe twelve thirteen,
fourteen years old to be fun to work in sports,
and realized I wasn't going to be a player. But
I certainly was always very focused on the on the
player side of it because that's what I that's what
(04:11):
I grew up, So I grew up around and in
general kind of wanted to be on the employee side,
not the not the management side.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Well, just to take a couple of steps back there,
I mean, mister Castle, Jeffrey Kessler is the number one
sports lawyer in the world right and he does international work.
He's worked for Tom Brady, He's worked for all these
great people. But he else, But he works for the NFLPA.
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Yeah, he's been the outside council for the NFLPA since
nineteen eighty nine, the other leagues too, and the MVPA,
going back even earlier to the Oscar Robertson case when
he was really young in the late seventies. He's now
the outside council for the baseball players. He's the one
of the Coale lawyers on the current NCAA litigation which
(04:55):
everyone well not at well, but people would know a
lot about that, the House settlement, that's his case. The
Alston Supreme Court case was his case. He's done a
lot of work in soccer. He's buys golfers. He helped
the US women's national soccer team in their equal pay case.
He has a case right now for Michael Jordan's NASCAR
team against NASCAR. And he's known Jordan. Going back to
(05:16):
the basketball stuff, he's done some hockey stuff. He's got
a good he's got a good resume.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We try to get him on the podcast several times.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
He keeps serving you might you might be able to
get him. He might, he might. He is not an
expert though, in NFL quarterback contracts to the level that
this group is. So you might need to different series. Yeah,
different series brought on the subject perhaps.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
But you're also like your very close friends. I mean
you golf together, vacation my dad.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
I we have a great relationship. He's and he's like
I said, he's he's as great lawyers. He's a better
better dad and grandpa than he is a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Awesome, and he's better at all that than golf. But
he's fine.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
You know what, He's got him better golf, He's gotten
all that told him. He's better golfer at seventy than
he wasn't fifty.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
They go, well, okay, so you grew up and you
were exposed to just this this world of sports that
most people have never heard of. Like David said, like
when he was in college, he didn't you really know
what a sports age. It was that every end of
the mind. But you grew up maybe not getting the
CBA read to you at night, but going to the
offices and seeing him actually whatnot. And so then death
through high school, you went off to college. Where'd you
go to college?
Speaker 6 (06:12):
I went to Pomona College in Claremont, California, which is
about forty minutes from here. And I said to my
college counselor, I said, you know, I want I want
three things for college. I want to go to a
really good school. I'd like to go to California. I'd
like to keep playing football. So my football ability was
going to rule out some of the bigger, strong academic
(06:32):
schools in California. So the East Coast is filled with
a lot of as you know as a New England guy,
it's filled with a lot of these small, really great
small schools. Williams Tough Sports, Moore, Amherst Right, Wesley and
actually a lot of the schools produced lot NFL coaches
or executives, right like Belichick, f and Wesley and Dacostas
from Colby like people like that. It's interesting. So I
(06:53):
was like, there's got to be some schools with that
in California, and there aren't a ton, but there are
a few, and Pomona College was one of them so early,
and that's where I went.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
So you went to school that you played football there, I.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
Did all four years and that maximized my little bit
of talent.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So you play there four years, you know you want
to be in sports. You know you want to be
pro player as well as.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
A pro owner.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Right, did you know you want to be a sports agent?
Speaker 6 (07:16):
So I when I was in high school actually interned
at the MVPA and one of those summers was a
lockout summer, so that was really interesting. That was that
was great. You know, I got to sit with Billy Hunter,
who was the executive director at the time, in Ron
Klempener of the general counsel, and that was pretty cool,
you know, even cool in retrospect, Right I was eighteen
and getting to do that. And then in college I
(07:38):
interned with a basketball agent named Mark Fleischer, whose father
is Larry Fleischer, who really started the m v PA.
And that was a cool experience because my first real
exposure to the agent stuff, in the first real working
with a player at that age actually was Tony Parker,
the basketball player. And my assignment was to go with
Tony on his pre have team workouts because between his
(08:05):
fluent French and broken English and my fluent English and
broken French, we could communicate pretty well. We're also right
about the same age. So Tony and I went to
Orlando Boston, Utah, I'm he's nine, he's eighteen, I'm nineteen,
and uh for about two weeks and uh, and that
was really cool. And then I culminated with him being
(08:27):
the last pick of the first round by the Spurs
and uh, you know, twenty years later he's a Hall
of Fame players all that a cool career. So that
was my first exposure to the agent stuff with Mark. Uh,
and that was that was really cool. And I so
I did two summers like that with Mark before I
you know, before I graduated, and then when I graduated,
I started working with Tom Condon, who know.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
So one of your first real work experience in sports
is to be a intern slash translator for one of
the best basketball players of all time.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, we did. Yeah at the time. It's funny
because I remember Tony where I'm not making this up,
where in Orlando he had a day between his workouts.
So we're going, we're hanging out at Universal Studios Orlando,
like going on rides, and he's like, I can't do
his French accent, but he's like, angree, like I want to,
you know, I want to have a career like Kobe,
you know, And at that time, Kobe was only so
many his career could start in young. I think that'd
(09:20):
be awesome, but like, you know, Kobe, right, and I mean,
he his career was obviously remarkable, and we you know,
we didn't stay in close touch, but he stayed a
little bit in touch and everything, and it was it
was a great Yeah, it was. It was a really
really cool first uh first experience.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
That's amazing. So you graduate from Pomona and then you
you start law school right away.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
No. I graduate from Pomona in June two thousand and three,
and I went right to work for Tom Condon at
the time was the head of IMG Football that was
a full time job and kind of supporting Tom and
whatever he needed. And I got fortunate because let's mention
Eric Schaefer. Eric Schaeffer was Tom's gener council when I
(10:00):
got there in June, but by the end of July
maybe he had taken the job with at the time
the Redskins to be their lead contract negotiator, general counsel,
salary cap guy. So Tom needed to fill the position quickly.
And the way Tom would handle that, He's not going
to get this in two thousand and three. There's no
(10:22):
broad Church. It'd be Andrew. You think you can help
me with this? Yeah, Tom, I think I can. Okay,
let's do this. And I sort of moved into that
type of like lead contracts port role immediately and did
that with Tom for a year plus until I went
to law school. And that's like, it was just a
cool time, Like we did Peyton's first big veteran deal,
(10:45):
which at the time, you know, change the market. Then
Eli was a number one overall pick of the draft,
so we did his rookie deal. That was all right
before I went to law school, which was August two
thousand and four.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
That's great, I mean, I mean like you said, you said,
you start off in basketball with a legend and then
you go work for Tom, who, like you know, absolutely,
I think we all have a lot of respect for Tom.
I know you do. Tom was great to me. He
was an absolute giant in the industry, and he did
a lot of quarterbacks.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Yeah, Toma was Greatgah, I mean, I mean David Ferman
say this many times, like if you asked me who
the two most influential people to meet, influential obviously being
my dad and Tom, and those are like the clear too. Yeah,
Tom was great, and he also the really cool thing
was he really aside from doing work, like I would
just sit in his office and he'd be on the
phone with Bill Pollyan negotiating. Right again, it's two thousand
and three, so like regular phone and speakerphone. He would
(11:37):
just like let me listen to him negotiate for an hour, right,
and then he'd call paidon and like he's playing to
paid and so it was like a lot of learning
that way. It was really it was really cool.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
So you're working this job with him, and then you
still decide to go back to law school, which most
people go to law school to get that job.
Speaker 6 (11:52):
That's true. So both Tom myself talk to my dad
all thought it could be a good idea to go
to law school. Not so much because of the practicality
of what you're going to learn, right, Like you're not
sitting there and CIV pro learning stuff you're gonna apply
to this directly, but just critical thinking and developing, uh
kind of developing your you know, developing your brain, analysis, logic,
(12:13):
that type of thing. And I knew that as much
as I could, I could work during law school and
keep doing it.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I think it also helps, like when you go into
a living room and people don't know you to have
a lot of degree, you know what I mean. It's
think people put a lot of premium on that you
don't you don't necessarily need it, but I think it's helpful.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
Never hurts. It never hurts to have a lot of.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Great Yeah, so you're you're where'd you law school?
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Texas un versus of Texas? And that one again like
I'm a little formula like I once again go to
a really good school with really strong football because I
knew this was what I was doing. So that's kind
of how I picked up. That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And then so you go there three years. The whole
time you're still working with Tom and IMG.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
Yeah, the whole time.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
You graduate from you know, you're a law school. You
continue to work for Tom at IMG and then you
graduate and do you go back to IMG.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
No? I go to Tom at that point had become
an agent free agent and he had left time Jay's
contract expired him Casey Closers had a baseball, papers On
had a hockey and they all went to CIA and
started CIA Sports. So I was with Tom at CIA
then for about a year and a half until you
(13:14):
hired me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, then we hired you and then and you actually
were one of several in the first self several legends
who we were able to have come over from CA,
which another great company. But so you came over and
then you fought by Chase Armstrong and then Todd France.
What made you make a decisions to come over here?
Except for up to t B on the podcast.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Fifteen years Man Ire seventeen years, I was like, there's
gonna be a podcast I wanted So Tom had going
to CIA, and I wanted an opportunity to kind of
help maybe develop my own practice a bit, which with
Tom everything was was great, but I also it was
very much all you know, supporting Tom and another agent
(13:57):
there at the time named Ben Dagger, and as it
should be, everything was and kind of flow through them,
and like I said, kind of want to grow my
own practice. I knew athletes first was sort of on
the on the come up. I don't know if I
ever saw it going as far as you've taken it,
uh taken it. Yeah, Well, A lot of credit to
you on that, but uh, you know, I knew it
(14:17):
was it would be a kind of a cool, a
cool place to work. I knew Dave a little bit
through my dad. So if my dad connected me with Dave,
I talked with Dave. Remember I came in here with
the old office near John Wayne, sat with Dave, sat
with You, sat with Justin, sat with Mark Huminick, Matt Carmon,
Natalie at the time. That's basically who was here, right,
(14:38):
Yespiureau and uh and yet and decided to make the move,
and I thought, you know, it would be a cool uh,
a cool setup, a lot of growth, a lot of opportunity,
a lot of freedom to do things like the way
I wanted and build something. And you know, I can't
can't lie. At that point, Tom was going from Kansas
City to Saint Louis and is Orange County, California, and
(15:01):
I go to school at Pomona and uh Texcess and
I'm like, you know, I think I enjoy living here
more than more than lost.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, no, I mean it's great. And then you've accomplished
a lot of great things athletes for talking about a
record breaking deals and everything. So you now you're both
at athletes first and in the beginning of your time
athletes first. As being of your career, you guys worked
together quite a bit, right, how David, How was that?
How did that go?
Speaker 2 (15:24):
That was awesome?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You know, me being new in the business and you know,
just as important importantly, never even knowing what the business
was for the most part until you know, you know,
before the internship started. Just having somebody kind of to
mentor you and kind of passed along all the knowledge
they had and being so forthcoming with it was great.
As we started to sign guys, obviously at the beginning
(15:45):
of the career, you know, I always want to make
sure that Kess was involved, just because you know, when
guys are giving you the opportunity to work with them.
They're interesting in your career, you just want to make
sure that you don't mess it up, right, and having
Kess obviously on you, uh, you know, with everything he
had already accomplished that. You know, I want to have
somebody in my corner that was going to make sure
the guys were taken care of the contracts. You know
that as they say, the i's were dotted and teas
(16:05):
would cross. So now, it was phenomenal having you know,
cats there early on in my career and I'm still here,
but especially back then, just being somebody that could rely
on and you know, was always you know, ready to
take a phone call and kind of answer any questions
I have.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I would say, like like in some ways an odd couple, right,
you know what I mean? Like Kess grew up reading CBA.
I know he did that invent right, and you didn't
even know what the CBA was until you got here,
right either than I, uh, you know your taxes. You're
from New York City and so very different. But I'll
say you guys have one thing that's absolutely common we
talked about little bit, like you guys always put the
athletes first, right, You always advocate you advocate, You advocate
(16:40):
advocate like there's no gray areas with it. There's like
there's like you're going to do what's best for your client.
You can put the time, the effort to work, the research,
and you're going to deliver the best results. And like,
you know, we have the philosophy here. Better Together. I
think you two like that was you guys personified better together?
You would you agree with that?
Speaker 6 (16:57):
No question? Also, I mean, like you said, yeah, different backgrounds,
different you know, different different things. But and again this
goes kind of beyond the podcast, but David and I
have pretty similar personalities in a lot of ways too.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
No, that is part of that is a part of
the podcast. Yeah, yeah, explain that guy.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
What way? We have similar personalities in that both of
us are strong willed, I think, and both of us
have ideas about how we want to do things and
have a lot of confidence in that. And I think
that's an asset when you're negotiating contracts, when you're recruiting players,
when you're in business. I mean, you're the same way,
but we both are also open to other people's thoughts
(17:38):
as long as we I mean, I'm speaking for myself here,
but I think David would. I think he'd agree as
long as you sort of respect those thoughts on those people, right, Like,
we're not necessarily just gonna like listen to anyone, you know,
I mean, be polite, but we're open to to listen
to people who we think know what they're talking about,
(17:58):
and in that that can be helpful. But I think
you know, we both again, even though different backgrounds, different personalities,
that there are elements that are very similar kind of
look at the world in a similar way. That was
one thing when we met that struck me like, yeah,
here's someone again. We have a lot of differences, but
in a lot of ways we're very similar.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Neither one of you are afraid to speak your mind
and stand up for what he thinks. Right, correct, All right,
So let's get to the heart of that. Jordan Love right,
record breaking contract, controversial question from Utah State who identified
to him with someone we should recruit.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Man, if I remember correctly, you know, we had I
got a friend of mine who's a really good quarterback
coach that our values opinion, Quincy Avery, and Quincy had
told me about Jordan and started to look into him.
I mentioned him to cast and I think Cass did
some homework as well and got, you know, some great
feedback on Jordan, not only as a player, but as
a person as well. So we decided it was a
(18:55):
target that, you know, somebody that we should go after,
and I think that's kind of how it's started.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
Yeah, I remember pretty well. So Quincy mentioned to you
a guy named Ryan Gunderson, who I believes coaching somewhere now,
probably in college, who was Sean Mannion's coach in college
quarterback coach I was friendly with through Sean, one of
my clients who's played a long time and now I
was a coach, was coaching at San Jose State and
(19:21):
told me, Hey, we played against this guy who's really good,
you know, like really really like NFL good. And I
respected Gunderson's view on that. So I mentioned to David,
and David's like, yeah, Quincy told me the same thing.
And then so we kind of researched it and we
found out Jordan's from Bakersfield, and Cody Kessler, who's client
(19:44):
of mind when he played, another quarterback, also from Bakersfield.
Bakersfield's not the biggest city in the world, so I'm
like two quarterbacks both from Bakersfield, relatively similar age Cody,
his dad, someone there has to be some probable connection.
And it turned out Cody's high school coach also coached
Jordan at two different schools because he had left the
(20:05):
school Cody was at. I think Cody was at Centennial,
I'll see if I'm right on this, and then Jordan
was at Liberty and he had switched, so he coached
both his names Brian Nixon, and there was that connection
to Nixon. I think David, if I'm corrected, already been
in touch with Jordan directly a little bit, and I
got in touch with Nixon, and then we started chatting
(20:28):
with his mom man and kind of kind of went
from there.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I coincidentally enough, I think also his quarterback coach was
someone we had a relationship with.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Stephen Steve, his personal quarterback coach.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Personal quarterback coach is somebody that we have a relationship
with who happened to be Jordan's coach as well. So
there was a lot of tie in there between Quincy
and Steve and obviously the people that androduced spoke.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
About and so he told us a little bit abot
how DeShawn Watson's recruit went went right and kind of like,
you know, how how is this do you guys talk
to him a lot a lot of games other since
he's involved, was a cat fight, like what.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Was it like?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I would say, uh, with DeShawn again, as we talked
about was a little different because Sean kind of shut
everything down during the season. Well unbeknownst to us he
shut it down. I was thinking he just wasn't responding
to me, but he had shut it down. But uh, yeah,
we we had constant dialogue with Jordan's uh you know,
went down there. I remember one time we were down there,
we both you know, went bowling with him. Obviously spent
(21:23):
a lot of time talking to his mom, Anna, who
was a retired police officer. So I think, you know,
as far as from a recruitment standpoint, it was pretty
a pretty normal recruiting process. I know there was one
or two other groups that were involved. Jordan wasn't the
type of person that wanted to talk to a lot
of people spent a lot of time on it, so
it wasn't one It wasn't very drawn out, but I
think we felt good about it throughout the year, just
(21:44):
a dialogue we had with him and again his mom
obviously catch jump in.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
Yeah, I would say he's somewhat traditional professionally for the time.
You know, you had two people. He was really relying
on his mom and his high school coach.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
And yeah, he obviously signed with the athletes first. And
you guys are very excited at that time when you signed,
not only right at that time, what did you think
of his NFL potential? Do you think he was a
potential first round pick? And did you think he was
a potential franchise.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
For sophomore year? I believe it was.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
He had a phenomenal uh sophomore junior retrod sophomore, the
restro sophomore year. He had a phenomenal year, played really
really well, put up you know, you know, ridiculous numbers,
and was kind of really poised to be a first
round pick and you know, kind of depending on how
that next year went for him.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
The following year, there were some changes on his team.
You know, a lot of starters ended up leaving.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
He lost nine of the other ten stars member he told.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Me exactly nine of the other ten starters on the offense,
and so, you know, things changed a little bit. Maybe
the season statistically didn't go the way he wanted to.
But I think, you know myself and kes's talking and
talking to people that we trusted in the industry and
just watching him ourself. And he has all the arms
talent in the world. I mean, you know, has one
of the best, you know, as far as arm talent,
one of the best in the league right now.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And as a person, you know, his somebody that we
believed in and a lot of times in his business,
you're you know, you're betting on the person just as
much as you are the football part of it, right,
you can have all the time in the world, but
you know, if there's other things that getting away of
that talent doesn't matter. So I think for us, we
both believe that he would be a first round pick.
It was just a matter of how high he was
going to go. And yeah, I mean, you know, you
can never assume that he's going to end up where
(23:19):
he's been, where he's at now, uh as one of
the top, you know quarterbacks in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
But we feel really good about it.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Yeah, you know, being really hold to be a really
good Let the answer for you, because I had lunch
with you at the Combine that year. It was me
Greenberg cast sit down for lunch and he's going through
his guys in the draft class and we're looking at
it and we're like, oh, what round is he going
to go in?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Where do you think he's going to go?
Speaker 5 (23:38):
And Cass goes, oh, he's a first round pick, it's
no matter how high, and me and Greenberg kind of
look at each other because we know what the Bucks
scouts have on on all the players, and we like, really,
you think he's the first round. He's like, oh, yeah,
no doubt, no doubt, he's a first rounder. And we
walk out of the meeting and we're kind of thinking like, well,
maybe that's just like an agent trying to hype up
his guy.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
But then sure enough, he's a first round pick.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
That's when you worked for Tampa Bay.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
So a J. Kess thinks he's going to be a
first round pick. Tell us what was he where was
he drafted? And what was historic about his rookie deal?
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
So then he comes out and he ends up being
the twenty sixth overall pick, not to the team that
anyone would have thought, right, Like, they have a future
Hall of Fame quarterback and Aaron Rodgers lying or still
playing there and so they have him come up and
they draft him.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I want to know what is like, what did you
guys think of that?
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Yes, I was with Jordan that was COVID, but I
was able to drive up to his mom's place in
Baker's Field, so I was with him. Not surprised that
he got picked in the first round at all, and
not surprised that, you know, he was sort of picked
in the second part of the first round, and we
thought it was possibly to go higher, but that was
kind of there. We figured very strong QB draft with Burrow,
Herbert too, etc. He had visited the Packers right before
(24:50):
the COVID shutdown, so we knew there was interest there.
But I would say even going into that night, that
would have not been one of the top five teams.
Most likely it was. It was. It was surprised, I say, surprising,
not shocking. Surprising not shocking.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And the contract that you did, which is uh, was
one hundred.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
Guaranteed right, yes, yes, the first time ever twenty six Yes,
those guarantees me I started sitting record movie. Yeah, those
guarantees moved down the first round, but you know, did.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
You know, guess that he was the second quarterback ever
out of Utah State to be taken the first round.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
You know, I know a lot of facts. I did
not know that. I did not know that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Bill Munson was a seventh pick in the nineteen.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
Sixty four NFL legendary Billy monthon how do you Do?
Did probably not great because I haven't heard of him. Yeah,
I'm trying to think about the Packers. Yeah, so I'm trying.
When when he got the call, I had thought the
Colts were possibly going to take him because there was
(25:53):
a lot of interest and dialogue there and they had
a pick right there, and then they had traded back
into the early part of the second round. I was
talking to the GM about maybe they would move up,
and so when the phone ring, I'm like, oh, wonder
this is the Cults. It was the Packers, and that
was Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I mean, I think one of the reasons the time.
I think the Packers were looking to take a receiver
maybe around that time, and the guy that they wanted,
which I think was Brandon I you, if I remember correctly,
had just got off the board, and I think, you know,
to their credit, they went best available player, and Jordan
was the best available player on their on their whatever
(26:29):
on their draft sheet, they decided to take him. I think,
you know, a lot of people are surprised, like like
he talked about, just because they had Aaron Rodgers who
was still in the prime of his career at the time,
and but you know, they invested in him. And some
are similarly to what they did the first time around
with Aaron Rodgers and Brett Faarr, Right, they picked a
quarterback while they had one sitting there, and uh, you know,
it turns out now that they're they're looking pretty smart.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
We're doing so.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Certainly was and with Rogers too, right, I mean, not
to get off subject, but both times they sort I mean,
they did trade up to get Jordan a few spots
once they're like, you know, this is the time. But
it's not like they came flying up for either guy. Right,
It's like people thought Rogers Michael one or two, he
sits there in the twenties. They take him Jordan there,
So yeah, I mean, you got to give him credit
(27:11):
hunt of credit for how they how they took both guys, right.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I think I think Brian had had a lot of
people kind of questioning that pick at the time. But
you know he kind of fast forward today and he
looks like a genius.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I would say, right.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
So, so he goes to the Packers first couple of years,
he's sitting behind the guy who ends up winning the MVP,
wins back to back m vps. Jordan's sitting there waiting
for his opportunity. He gets to through three years of
his NFL career and he's he's barely gotten on the field, right,
He's passed for six hundred yards over three seasons.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Phenomenal yards if you want.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Six hundred yards through three seasons, and the team now
has to make a decision. There's three touchdowns, three picks, right,
so nothing to write home about.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
No offense Jordan, and the team is not much to
evaluate him on a gameplay.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
And so the team has to make this decision at
this point, you know, are they going to extend his
rookie contracts? Are they going to have him start? They
decide that, you know, they they're parting ways with Rogers,
however that came to be, and now Jordan's going to
be the starter. So do they approach you about adjusting
his contract or do you talk to them? How did
that process go? Because this was a very unique situation.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
It was. So they came to us, so he had
played three years. Yes, it's a four year deal with
an option for their career.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
He had he was there three years. He hadn't played
three years.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Three years, right, So they told us that the combine
that they were unlikely to exercise the option because while
they were committed to him being the starter, they were
hesitant about guaranteeing that fifth year for that amount. But
they wanted him to have a contract for the fifth
year and give him some more money and not having
(28:58):
him in the position where hey, you're replacing your Rogers
and you're in the last year year contract kind of
you know, every single chip on the table. Yeah, David
and I said, you know, again we agree on some things.
Well listen to anything, right, you know what I mean,
Like we may not go forward, may go for we
got talked to Jordan, but like theoretically, okay, like let's
(29:18):
talk about it. And then in the spring it did
become a parent, they weren't going to do the option
because we both thought, well, maybe they actually will, and
when became a parent, they weren't. It came down to, okay,
if we're going to add it. If we're going to
still give them a fifth year, what can we get
for it? And we wound up getting an amount which
(29:39):
guaranteed Jordan significantly more money than he would have made
for the first four years of his rookie deal. Right
because the contract for the twenty six pick in the
draft is a four year deal for that time nine
to nine and a half million dollars in that range,
So this guaranteed him fifteen basically above that nine. So
(30:00):
I throw put in a position that no matter what happens,
he's now made well over twenty million dollars. It was
only one more year, so if things go really well
in the twenty three season, we'll still be in great
position to do another deal. If things go okay, well,
now he's under contract for the next year with guaranteed money,
he's likely to get another crack at it. We put
(30:22):
in upside so if he played well, if the team
did well, he could get up to what that fifth
year option number would be, or even above that. And
he wound up getting just almost right to that number
because he did well the team did well. So we
sort of thought, if you think about like a ven diagram,
we're covering all the bases as well as you could.
And it made sense because you were mitigating a lot
(30:44):
of risk. You're maybe giving up a little bit of
leverage because again they wouldn't have to use the franchise tag.
But as David and I said, look, if our issue
is we're working off of this number versus the franchise number,
means he had a great season and we're going to
do a great contract for him next year. I think
(31:04):
if you didn't women's for more, think if things didn't
go well or not as well as we hoped, We're
really happy we had this contract versus going to frid agency.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, And one thing we talked about with David when
it come to Sean Watson was you know, it's not
always you against the team. It's not always against team, right,
sometimes like you do work together, right, And you know,
I think it made a lot of sense, Like is
is just Jordan replacing Aaron Rodgers, right, and if he
just had one year left, like all your eggs in
the basket, and he's one of the coolest customers I know, right,
(31:34):
so it probably wuldn't. But like you don't have to
put him in that position, especially at that age and whatnot,
So you give a little bit to but you do
everything that you said to make sure that you could
cover all the bases, and you know, again it's a
win win for the team, you know. I mean, I
think it's good.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I think for us, Like you know, one thing that
we talked about is that you never want to rob
somebody of their first fortune, right, and for us, you know,
guaranteeing fifteen million dollars for Jordan, who hadn't made I
want to say it was around nine million over the
first years of his deal, you know, getting that fifteen
million guaranteed again, you know, that's you know, that's life
changing money there, right, And as he's as Cass stated,
(32:08):
if he played really well, then yeah, maybe we gave
up a little bit leverage, but he's going to sign
a couple hundred million dollar deal regardless, right, we were
wanting to keep oh my apologies, but if he didn't
play as well or things went wrong, we want to
make sure we covered kind of the worst case scenario
because that would be more life changing than the other
way around. So that was super important to us. And
just having that comfort and security knowing if you go
(32:31):
out there and maybe you don't have your best first
couple of games. You're not saying, hey, I'm kind of
playing for my contract here, right, knowing he had that
second year that was also guaranteed to him, Uh, you know,
that first year he was starting, I think it kind
of helped him ease his nerves and go in there knowing, hey,
I don't have to kind of set the world a
blaze right when I step on the field. And I
think it was super helpful for him, not only you know, mentally,
(32:53):
but I think, you know, kind of.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Carried over to his play.
Speaker 6 (32:56):
Yeah, and just to add up, right, the season started well,
the first few games that it didn't go so great,
and then it picked back up. But like we talked
during the year, been talking to Jordan, like when things
were not going great, it was nice knowing he had
a deal for the next year, and it was and
I think from the team's perspective too, like they were,
you know, they were mentally committed for twenty three and
(33:19):
twenty four. So again, when twenty three was not going
maybe as they had hoped obviously picked up and went great,
they weren't thinking, well, let's pivot now, you know, they
were they were committed, but having the deal, like you said,
I think was a true win win for both sides there.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So you go, he goes, he plays twenty twenty three, Cass,
You kind of just got went a little bit, and
they at the end, you know, end up winning a
playoff game, make a playoff winning.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
A playoff game. Second the league in touchdown passes, and
it's like, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Top thirty thirty four player, at the top one hundred
whatever that right, But like he plays well, he's not
the MVP of the league.
Speaker 6 (33:51):
Second half of the season, he was now questioned one
of the very best Q businesses.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yea, So overall is a great year. You just did
the contract negotiations the season ends, like when do the
new negotiations?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
So so, because of the CBO, you have to wait
a year obviously between negotiations and a renegotiation, so we
had to wait the calendar year. But I think right
after the season ended, you know, we felt really good
that he had done enough at that point to kind
of earn himself, you know, a major contract. So they
started a you know, right around a year after the
(34:23):
prior negotiation had ended.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
What month is that, man, what month did you start
the new negotiations.
Speaker 6 (34:30):
Well, they told us the combin we want to obviously
do a deal and then yeah, technically May was the
when we had done the twenty three deal, so then
May have twenty four.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
So you start the contract coach chases May and at
this point you sit down with Jordan and you ask
what was important to Jordan at that point.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
Man.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
For Jordan, I think he he you know, obviously he
wanted to you know, extend his career there. They gave
him the opportunity, drafted him. That was super important him
staying in Green Bay. He obviously loved the head coach
air La Floor. Uh, you know, Goody obviously drafted him,
So you know he had that in his mind. But
again kind of the same narrative that we talked about
over and over is our clients trust us to do
(35:07):
what's best right. So his in his mind it was, hey,
you know, get me what you guys think is the
best that I can get, and so I can, you know,
kind of focus on being the starter here, knowing that
this is my team that I get to leave the
locker room. So for us, it was a matter of
kind of going out there and seeing what the marketplace
was and at the time, I'd be the highest played
quarterback in league, and then was Joe Burrow? Was it
(35:28):
Burrow at that five year fifty five Burrows at five
years fifty five million million dollars. So that's kind of
kind of that was kind of what we took aim for. Right,
Burrow had just done his deal. Obviously, Bro's phenomenal football
player and had a great deal, and for us, you know,
it was like, how do we you know, top that?
And you know, it was it was. It was a
fun back and forth. If I remember correctly, I think
(35:49):
as we were going through it, Kess was in Japan,
if I'm correct, I was, So we had to kind
of it was it was a fun game with.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Let's say, where were you?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I don't even remember. I was in Mexico, right, Hawaii?
Why so again you.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Get all you guys just getting different times.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Accuse him, but no, we had to kind of figure
out times that work. Yeah, it was so Andrew and
for russ Ball, who was.
Speaker 6 (36:12):
In Green Bay when it happened, was we both kind
of figured the deal would likely be done by training camp,
and we both had family trips planned that first week
of training camp, David's and Hawaii with his family.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Normally we do trips around training camp. That's when guys
are occupied and they're busy. So that's why we picked
that time of the years that you know, when guys
are in camp at the time where you really have yeah,
you're only really the real downtown in his business right,
or when guys are busy with camp. So that's why
we were both.
Speaker 6 (36:41):
Correct at cook correct. So he planned the trip, I
planned a trip, and we both kind of thought the
deal would be done and we even almost thought like, oh,
it's like a little bit of a soft deadline. Didn't
go that way. So David's in Hawaii, I'm in Japan,
and Russ's in Green Bay, and yet we are finding
like the one hour a day that it's not either
(37:06):
you know, middle of the night somewhere crack of dawn,
or something's not going on. First all to get on
the phone and work on it and obviously talk to Jordan,
but you know one thing, you know, to your better
together and really helped, I think for both of us
was like again having our relationship relationship with Jordan, having
so much trust, like it was fine, like if it
(37:26):
was three am my time and David needed to talk
to Jordan. David to talk to Jordan, like tell me
what happened, same thing, reverse cast to talk to Ordan,
You talk to Jordan, you talk to us, you talk
to us, and again, like that could actually be sometime
as beneficial with two agents for a variety of reasons.
But in this case it was totally fine and it
worked out, worked out really well. But yeah, there's a
(37:46):
great uh.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
My wife took a great picture of me in Japan
and Nara surrounded by deer at a deer park on
the phone, like locked in talking with like nine deer
all over me working on the deal. It's a good uh,
it's a good family picture.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
It was a good thing to you doing with rush
Ball is one of our favorite people and just very
understanding of family.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
Guy, and she was. He was. At one point he
got a little frustrated. He's like, you know, you're you're
in Tokyo and he's in Maui, and like, but yes,
he was. He was great. Russ was great. It was Jordan.
We wound up getting the deal done a few days
into training camp. But for the type of deal it was,
for the type of negotiations, uh, it was as harmonious
as could be.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, and then at the same time we talked about this,
you know, like the same time Aj and Ryan were
working on Tua, and Aj and and Todd we're working
on deck like a little bit like how did having
all that information, you know, under the same roof, how
did that help you guys with Jordan's deal?
Speaker 6 (38:40):
It's helpful because obviously we're talking about the marketplace and
David betchat the Burrow contract and then Trevor Lawrence gets
his deal done during the year donn Star start during
your juror negotiations, which is a five year, fifty five
million dollar deal, and that deal gets done, and we
(39:02):
thought that helped our position a lot. And then knowing
that to his deal would likely be done, Dax deal,
while if it wasn't going to be done right away,
be done at some point you could kind of talk
about not only where the market is at the time,
but where it's going. And that's a big thing because
(39:22):
and I you know, with some of these other episodes
I've listened to, you talk about the current market, you
talk about the the cap growth, right, but you also
want to talk about where it's going to be a
special when you're doing, you know, a four year extension
with the year left is five year towelve contract. So
knowing where the market is and where it's going really
allowed us to analyze it in the best way, you know,
to make the best arguments to get the best deal.
(39:44):
So that was certainly, you know, advantageous, you know, I
think for all of us, because we had an idea
that too it was likely to also get done at
a very similar time. More than an idea. We knew,
you know, it's unlikely to it was going to go
fully practiced without a contract the same way Jordan it wasn't.
And the Dak situation was a little bit different. He's
in the last year of a major veteran deal. He
(40:05):
hasn't no franchise clause. He you know, he played through
a tabby. You know, Dak's deal we thought could get
done and if it didn't did was get done at
some point. But that's a little different, different time frame.
But but knowing that that was out there and having something
INSIGHT's very helpful, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I mean, I think the goal is always, as you
do these contracts, is how do you continue to elevate
kind of the marketplace for the position, right, The goal
is how do we if you know, Trevor Lawrence did
his deal and we know too is going and we're going,
and that whatever that order is is always you always
want to do something better on the next contract for
these level guys. So that had benefits the next guy,
which may or may not be your guy. In this case,
(40:40):
it happened to be our guys with t and Dak
and Jordan. But in other situations, you know, if you
could make it better for another player that maybe you
don't represent, and then he makes it better, it comes
back around when it's your turn and negotiate a contract
for your guy. So I think for us, you know,
and Russ is a smart guy. Ros Bauld at Greenbay,
like you said, he knew that and we were you know,
we made sure to you know, let him know.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
We knew that A two is going to get done.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
But be that Dak because of what you know, our
partner Todd France and negotiating his deal with a new
franchise clause him and aj that that deal was going
to move the market, and so knowing that Jordan maybe
hadn't had as many starts as these other guys. But
knowing where the market was going to go, we were
able to really push on that and our goal was, hey,
you know, for Jordan being so young, knowing that you know,
(41:26):
his best football was ahead of him, we wanted to
try to do a four year deal as opposed to
the top of the market five year deals that had
been done by you know, Burrow, that had been done
by Lawrence Lawrence, you know, these five year deals, which
are also great deals, but how do we improve that? Right,
It's to get that same average on less year so
you can get back to the table sooner. And that's
what we're able to do with Jordan.
Speaker 6 (41:45):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
You know, again a win win. The team obviously wants
to sign him to an extension.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
They believe in them.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
They drafted him, you know, so this you know, anytime
you can draft a guy and then give him a
large contract, you know, I know the public may not
see it as as soci as you're paying them so much,
but you know, GMS happy to do so because hey,
I picked the right.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Guy in the draft.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So I think for Goody Russ and those guys in
Green Bay, they considered a win. And obviously when we
were able to get him and you know, make him
the highest paid quarterback on a four year deal, the
largest four year number ever and tied to the highest
average ever on any type of deal. It was we
thought it was a win win for us. Jordan was
obviously ecstatic, So now we were happy to kind of
see you know where it started.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
You know, everybody's road. We always tell people everybody rode.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Is different, you know, I mean it's all about the
destination when you get there, uh, you know, do you
end up where you want to be?
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (42:31):
And him sitting behind a rod, learning from a rod,
picking up you know, kind of tendencies and how a
rod prepared and be one of the best ever. You know,
I think that was super helpful to Jordan. And if
he had it to do it all over again, I
I don't think he'd had it any other way.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yeah, a Jay, why don't you give us the stats?
These guys know. But for the listeners was what was
this record breaking deal?
Speaker 5 (42:50):
Yes, the final deal ends up being a fifty five
million dollars per year, which it hit the high water
mark there with with those other two deals. But the
big win to separate this deal was that it was
a four year term rather than those other two deals
were five year terms. It had a seventy five million
dollars signing bonus, which was the largest in NFL history.
It also had one hundred and sixty million dollars of guarantees.
(43:13):
And I want to say the stat there is that
it is the largest pro rata right guarantee new yorite,
so on a per year basis the largest new guarantee
at the time.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
Yeah, one thing, just briefly, but in general, like the
NFL contracts are different than baseball and hockey and basketball.
So everyone wants to compare every single contract, and that's
they don't. They don't all compare perfectly. Right, you have
a free agent contract to an extension or a guy
extension one year left or two years left. So when
we do a deal, checking this CAGs for Jordan, it's like,
(43:46):
let's do things that are unprecedented and excellent for Jordan
in this context. Right. So again, like that's seventy five
million dollars signing bonus, which was all paid within six months.
Like that's you know, that's something which is extremely valuable
to him in like a real life way. And we
had an opportunity to do that because the team we
were working with. That was an important thing. When other
(44:08):
teams like that type of sign of bonus that payments
just knocking in the tables, you focus on different things.
But because the nature of NFL contracts versus some of
the other team sports, there's different things you focus on. So,
like everything Aj said there, those are the things that
we were looking to maximize for Jordan and what made
sense for him in this context and this contract which
is different, right, you know than like the amazing deal
(44:30):
David did for DeShawn which is five year, fully guaranteed contract. Yep,
that was going to happen in that situation. That wasn't
gonna be this situation with Jordan here. So okay, well,
what what can we do that makes sense for him here?
That works? Right?
Speaker 3 (44:42):
The goal is to negotiate the ideal contract for that.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Player correct in that situation.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
That well, listen an unbelievable story, record breaking podcast cas
we end all these as you might have seen, you know,
lessons learned. I will say one of our first podcasts
went up in one of the comments was you need
Mulligetta and Kessler on this. So whoever that was here,
they are you that person?
Speaker 6 (45:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Give me a RaSE saying that was my son DJ was.
Speaker 6 (45:09):
That was that DJ B and Jordan Kessela the.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Lessons learned from me and I go back. I learned
this lesson from Drew Bludsoe. And you know, like I said, uh,
you know, I don't work with Jordan, but I've got
to know him over the years, and like, you know,
you get someone drafted behind Aaron Rodgers and like that's
not ideal in his mind. He wants to go out
and he wants to play. He wants to do things right.
But watching Jordan being out there, envision of a j.
Dillon and all the guys that we represent, Coach Laflora
(45:32):
like joy and love. Like just when I saw he
never like complained, He never said this isn't fair. He
never and he might have to do guys, probably like
publicly in the locker room with his teammates, like he
put his best fourth forward and he sat and he waited,
but he didn't just sit away.
Speaker 6 (45:48):
He got better.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
He got better, He got better. He challenged himself so
let when the time came, he was ready to go.
And I think like in today's sports where we hear
a lot of the griping. We hear a lot of
you know, contract like fights and that, but like, here's
a kid from Utah State, from you know, Bakersfield, California,
draft in the first round, waiting three years and then
(46:09):
coming out and performing like he did on the field,
being the leader that he is in the locker room,
being the great guy he is in the community, and
then to see all of that get paid off, like
he did the right things with the right business, right people,
and then he got paid contract in NFL history, and
then eventually you can get Super Bowl too, right. But
that's awesome, man, and and you guys know, but what
(46:31):
he deserves it. He's just a great person. So my
lesson learned, man, that's you know, when things go wrong,
like you got to be like Jordan loved and just
keep going straight.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
AJ Yeah, I think my lesson learned from this is
really going to go back to the first veteran deal.
I guess we'd call it a veteran deal that you
guys did for Jordan, where you know, it's one of
those positions where you're you're not sure what the future
is going to be, You're not sure how he's going
to perform when he gets the opportunity to be the
full time starter. But you have to take into account
(47:01):
the mentality of the player, because we're not negotiating for widgets, right,
We're We're not just doing this on a Nextcel spreadsheet.
You have to think about the player's mentality and what
is going to help him in his career long term.
And in this case, it was taking too account that,
you know, the security of getting him some additional money
this year and locking in some guarantees for next year,
although below the level of what he was going to
(47:23):
be worth after that season, it was it was enough
to keep him, you know, hopefully mentally locked in and
you know, willing to get on the field and go
out there and play loosely so that he could do
what he did, and then you get right back to
the table and you get to maximize the next deal anyway,
So I think that was that was my takeaway from
this one.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
No widgets, yeah, David, I.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Mean I think for me what it taught me, especially
Jordan's seeing the way he handled it, was sometimes you
gotta you know, you got to be stubborn on your vision,
but you can be flexible on the details, right, And
what I mean by that is like he was focused
on where he wanted to be, but he didn't look
over and say, hey man, y'all got a guy that
was drafted in my same draft class, like Toua or
Justin Herbert or or whether all playing right, even like
(48:06):
a Jalen Hurst, Right, you had to play early, and
it's like sometimes you know, you see your vision and
it's not going your way, and you start to not,
you know, really believe that that's where you're gonna end up.
But I think for him, like I said, he was
stubborn on the vision. The details. He was flexible on right.
In his case, Hey, I had to sit behind one
of the greatest quarterbacks. Ever, how do I make the
best of this?
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Well, I'm gonna make.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Sure I watch the way he studies, the way he prepares,
and just all the things he does to make himself
Aaron Rodgers a Hall of Fame quarterback, right.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
So I think for him, I think he handled the
right way.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
I don't know that a lot of quarterbacks would have
been able to handle it the way he did. But
for me, that's what I you know, that's that that
would do what I learned.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Love that stubborn around the vision, flexbone details. Yeah, that's
my diet philosophy. Appreciate gush yep.
Speaker 6 (48:47):
Along the same lines, I'll quote one of my older
clients who I got to represent and his career, Brian Waters.
He said, everyone always focuses on what they don't have,
but you should really focus on what you do have
a lot of the time. And I think that's what
Jordan did. Like again, he wasn't playing, It wasn't really
in his hands when he was going to play, But
(49:07):
like what did he have? He was in you know,
he was in Green Bay. He was learning from Aaron Rodgers,
he was learning from a great head coach. He knew
he had a really good organization around him. He knew
he had a really good team around him, right, And
he knew that at some point when he got in
the field, he was set up for success. Right. You
hear people talk all the time, oh, set up for success?
(49:27):
And is this you know? Can you know so much
of the quarterback play is reflective of what's around them.
He knew the right stuff was around him, and he
knew at some point he would get his chance, and
so we focused on that, did all the right stuff.
So when the chance came he could take advantage of it.
And I think if more people football, non football, sports,
non sports, whatever, you know, had that philosophy right again,
(49:51):
focus on what you do have, not what you don't,
that would probably to a lot of testsments, something I
tried to do myself. I'm certainly not perfect at it,
but I try to do that as well.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
No, great, great lesson CAUs. I want to thank Gus
for you coming on your first podcast. Amazing job, David.
Three podcasts in a row. We're going to see you
for the safety series.
Speaker 6 (50:10):
Retire podcast, hat trick right there.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yeah, that's amazing time at this point. Well, guys, we
really appreciate it. At the end of this pod week,
the next podcast is we're going to bring Todd France
in and we're going to talk about the Dak Prescott deal,
although you gave that ending way too, and uh we
look forward to that. So thanks guys, and uh, thank
you for all you've done for athletes. First, we obviously
want to be the same without you, and it's been
a fun ride and uh we just can't start, I
(50:34):
think in some ways. So we'll see you next time.
Speaker 6 (50:36):
Thank you for having us. There's a lot of fun,
But I think for him, like I said, he was
stubborn on the vision, the details, he was flexible on
right in his case, Hey, I had to sit behind
one of the greatest quarterbacks.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Ever, how do I make the best of this? Well,
I'm gonna make sure.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
That I watch the way he studies, the way he prepares,
and just all the things he does to make himself
Aaron Rodgers a Hall of Fame quarterback right. So I
think for him, I think he handled the right way.
I don't know that a lot of quarterbacks would have
been able to handle it the way he did, But
for me, that's what I know that that would be.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What I learned.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Welcome back to another episode of the Athletes First Family podcast,
the Quarterback Series. I am Brian Murphy, CEO of Athletes First,
joined by my trusty co host AJ Stevens. Welcome back, Aj.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Thanks Murph, happy to get back for another episode.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
On this podcast, we talk about athletes first experience representing quarterbacks.
For those new listeners out there, we currently have one
point four billion dollars of quarterback deals on our books
representing quarterbacks and today we have two agents who represent
one of those One of those players Jordan Love and
Andrew Kessler and David Molgenna.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Welcome guys, Yeah, welcome.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
David, welcome back to your setting a record. This is
your third episode. No one else has done that, so
congratulations on yet another record you can put to your resume.
And Kess, welcome to your first podcast. Uh, good to
be here. I'm very excited about this that we're taking
a very unorthodox approach today. We are also setting record
for most people on set four of us. But it's
gonna be well worth it because you two have a
(01:22):
great history together. And then Cass, you are, like I
like to say, one of one. I mean, very few,
no agents have the passion in the history and experience
of quarterbacks Andrews does. So to be very kind of you,
it go'da be awesome, all right. So, Aj, you know
the deal we've told everyone about David. He tried to
(01:42):
get us to go again. We're not going on. We
go straight to Kess, give us the give us Kess's stats.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Yeah, I know, I know David wants us to go
through his record breakers again. But first we're just going
to talk about Kess's experience. You know, a lot of
quarterback experience on their rights with the Mannings, Peyton and Eli,
Alex Smith, Mark Sanchez, Daniel Jones, and now.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
With Jordan Love.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
But you also have some other record breaking deals for
Michael Thomas, Bobby Wagner.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You've done great deals for Colecio, Smile.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Earl Thomas, Michael Dixon, highest paid punter in the.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Leagu's highest paid punters. This is the first time we've
had someone on with the highest paid punner.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
Yes, someone's got to be the highest paid Punterer's got.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
To be quite the career. Do we get all the deals?
Kess Bostam got plenty so as well. Congratulations all all that,
But we're gonna go back to the beginning, right, Like,
let's start with where did you grow up?
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Group in New York City with my mom and my
dad and yeah, pretty normal, normal childhood for a New
York City kid. But in the city or just in
the city, Yeah, right right right in the city.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Awesome, awesome. And then tell us a little bit about
your parents.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
Parents, So we're talking about my mom mostly No, I'm kidding, So, yeah,
my mom's great, normal, awesome mom. My parents met when
they were seventeen years old at Columbia and My dad
is Jeffrey Kessler, who, you know, being being modest, is
a very well known sports attorney and I trust labor litigator.
(03:07):
So I was really fortunate. A he's a better dad
than he is a lawyer, but be that he got
to expose me to a lot of what he did
growing up. And you know, he didn't he didn't read
me the collective bar and agreement at at night. I
know you liked you liked his and I say that
a joke. Better people do, so it wasn't that so much.
But he did bring me to NFLPA meetings when I
(03:29):
was a kid, so I got to build a legitimate
relationship with people like Gene Upshaw and Dick Bertleson and
Tom Condon, who I would later start my agent career
working for and stuff like that. And when I was
in high school, I got to intern at the MVPA
and meet all the people there, and he, you know,
went to a lot of games, went to All Star games,
and I certainly was very aware of what he was doing.
(03:51):
And you know, I always wanted to work on the
player side if I was going to work in sports,
which I kind of decided when I was maybe twelve thirteen,
fourteen years old to be fun to work in sports,
and realized I wasn't going to be a player. But
I certainly was always very focused on the on the
player side of it because that's what I that's what
(04:11):
I grew up, So I grew up around and in
general kind of wanted to be on the employee side,
not the not the management side.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Well, just to take a couple of steps back there,
I mean, mister Castle, Jeffrey Kessler is the number one
sports lawyer in the world right and he does international work.
He's worked for Tom Brady, He's worked for all these
great people. But he else, But he works for the NFLPA.
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Yeah, he's been the outside council for the NFLPA since
nineteen eighty nine, the other leagues too, and the MVPA,
going back even earlier to the Oscar Robertson case when
he was really young in the late seventies. He's now
the outside council for the baseball players. He's the one
of the Coale lawyers on the current NCAA litigation which
(04:55):
everyone well not at well, but people would know a
lot about that, the House settlement, that's his case. The
Alston Supreme Court case was his case. He's done a
lot of work in soccer. He's buys golfers. He helped
the US women's national soccer team in their equal pay case.
He has a case right now for Michael Jordan's NASCAR
team against NASCAR. And he's known Jordan. Going back to
(05:16):
the basketball stuff, he's done some hockey stuff. He's got
a good he's got a good resume.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We try to get him on the podcast several times.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
He keeps serving you might you might be able to
get him. He might, he might. He is not an
expert though, in NFL quarterback contracts to the level that
this group is. So you might need to different series. Yeah,
different series brought on the subject perhaps.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
But you're also like your very close friends. I mean
you golf together, vacation my dad.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
I we have a great relationship. He's and he's like
I said, he's he's as great lawyers. He's a better
better dad and grandpa than he is a lawyer.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Awesome, and he's better at all that than golf. But
he's fine.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
You know what, He's got him better golf, He's gotten
all that told him. He's better golfer at seventy than
he wasn't fifty.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
They go, well, okay, so you grew up and you
were exposed to just this this world of sports that
most people have never heard of. Like David said, like
when he was in college, he didn't you really know
what a sports age. It was that every end of
the mind. But you grew up maybe not getting the
CBA read to you at night, but going to the
offices and seeing him actually whatnot. And so then death
through high school, you went off to college. Where'd you
go to college?
Speaker 6 (06:12):
I went to Pomona College in Claremont, California, which is
about forty minutes from here. And I said to my
college counselor, I said, you know, I want I want
three things for college. I want to go to a
really good school. I'd like to go to California. I'd
like to keep playing football. So my football ability was
going to rule out some of the bigger, strong academic
(06:32):
schools in California. So the East Coast is filled with
a lot of as you know as a New England guy,
it's filled with a lot of these small, really great
small schools. Williams Tough Sports, Moore, Amherst Right, Wesley and
actually a lot of the schools produced lot NFL coaches
or executives, right like Belichick, f and Wesley and Dacostas
from Colby like people like that. It's interesting. So I
(06:53):
was like, there's got to be some schools with that
in California, and there aren't a ton, but there are
a few, and Pomona College was one of them so early,
and that's where I went.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
So you went to school that you played football there, I.
Speaker 6 (07:03):
Did all four years and that maximized my little bit
of talent.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So you play there four years, you know you want
to be in sports. You know you want to be
pro player as well as.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
A pro owner.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Right, did you know you want to be a sports agent?
Speaker 6 (07:16):
So I when I was in high school actually interned
at the MVPA and one of those summers was a
lockout summer, so that was really interesting. That was that
was great. You know, I got to sit with Billy Hunter,
who was the executive director at the time, in Ron
Klempener of the general counsel, and that was pretty cool,
you know, even cool in retrospect, Right I was eighteen
and getting to do that. And then in college I
(07:38):
interned with a basketball agent named Mark Fleischer, whose father
is Larry Fleischer, who really started the m v PA.
And that was a cool experience because my first real
exposure to the agent stuff, in the first real working
with a player at that age actually was Tony Parker,
the basketball player. And my assignment was to go with
Tony on his pre have team workouts because between his
(08:05):
fluent French and broken English and my fluent English and
broken French, we could communicate pretty well. We're also right
about the same age. So Tony and I went to
Orlando Boston, Utah, I'm he's nine, he's eighteen, I'm nineteen,
and uh for about two weeks and uh, and that
was really cool. And then I culminated with him being
(08:27):
the last pick of the first round by the Spurs
and uh, you know, twenty years later he's a Hall
of Fame players all that a cool career. So that
was my first exposure to the agent stuff with Mark. Uh,
and that was that was really cool. And I so
I did two summers like that with Mark before I
you know, before I graduated, and then when I graduated,
I started working with Tom Condon, who know.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
So one of your first real work experience in sports
is to be a intern slash translator for one of
the best basketball players of all time.
Speaker 6 (08:59):
Yeah, yeah, we did. Yeah at the time. It's funny
because I remember Tony where I'm not making this up,
where in Orlando he had a day between his workouts.
So we're going, we're hanging out at Universal Studios Orlando,
like going on rides, and he's like, I can't do
his French accent, but he's like, angree, like I want to,
you know, I want to have a career like Kobe,
you know, And at that time, Kobe was only so
many his career could start in young. I think that'd
(09:20):
be awesome, but like, you know, Kobe, right, and I mean,
he his career was obviously remarkable, and we you know,
we didn't stay in close touch, but he stayed a
little bit in touch and everything, and it was it
was a great Yeah, it was. It was a really
really cool first uh first experience.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
That's amazing. So you graduate from Pomona and then you
you start law school right away.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
No. I graduate from Pomona in June two thousand and three,
and I went right to work for Tom Condon at
the time was the head of IMG Football that was
a full time job and kind of supporting Tom and
whatever he needed. And I got fortunate because let's mention
Eric Schaefer. Eric Schaeffer was Tom's gener council when I
(10:00):
got there in June, but by the end of July
maybe he had taken the job with at the time
the Redskins to be their lead contract negotiator, general counsel,
salary cap guy. So Tom needed to fill the position quickly.
And the way Tom would handle that, He's not going
to get this in two thousand and three. There's no
(10:22):
broad Church. It'd be Andrew. You think you can help
me with this? Yeah, Tom, I think I can. Okay,
let's do this. And I sort of moved into that
type of like lead contracts port role immediately and did
that with Tom for a year plus until I went
to law school. And that's like, it was just a
cool time, Like we did Peyton's first big veteran deal,
(10:45):
which at the time, you know, change the market. Then
Eli was a number one overall pick of the draft,
so we did his rookie deal. That was all right
before I went to law school, which was August two
thousand and four.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
That's great, I mean, I mean like you said, you said,
you start off in basketball with a legend and then
you go work for Tom, who, like you know, absolutely,
I think we all have a lot of respect for Tom.
I know you do. Tom was great to me. He
was an absolute giant in the industry, and he did
a lot of quarterbacks.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
Yeah, Toma was Greatgah, I mean, I mean David Ferman
say this many times, like if you asked me who
the two most influential people to meet, influential obviously being
my dad and Tom, and those are like the clear too. Yeah,
Tom was great, and he also the really cool thing
was he really aside from doing work, like I would
just sit in his office and he'd be on the
phone with Bill Pollyan negotiating. Right again, it's two thousand
and three, so like regular phone and speakerphone. He would
(11:37):
just like let me listen to him negotiate for an hour, right,
and then he'd call paidon and like he's playing to
paid and so it was like a lot of learning
that way. It was really it was really cool.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
So you're working this job with him, and then you
still decide to go back to law school, which most
people go to law school to get that job.
Speaker 6 (11:52):
That's true. So both Tom myself talk to my dad
all thought it could be a good idea to go
to law school. Not so much because of the practicality
of what you're going to learn, right, Like you're not
sitting there and CIV pro learning stuff you're gonna apply
to this directly, but just critical thinking and developing, uh
kind of developing your you know, developing your brain, analysis, logic,
(12:13):
that type of thing. And I knew that as much
as I could, I could work during law school and
keep doing it.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
I think it also helps, like when you go into
a living room and people don't know you to have
a lot of degree, you know what I mean. It's
think people put a lot of premium on that you
don't you don't necessarily need it, but I think it's helpful.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
Never hurts. It never hurts to have a lot of.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Great Yeah, so you're you're where'd you law school?
Speaker 6 (12:31):
Texas un versus of Texas? And that one again like
I'm a little formula like I once again go to
a really good school with really strong football because I
knew this was what I was doing. So that's kind
of how I picked up. That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
And then so you go there three years. The whole
time you're still working with Tom and IMG.
Speaker 6 (12:45):
Yeah, the whole time.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
You graduate from you know, you're a law school. You
continue to work for Tom at IMG and then you
graduate and do you go back to IMG.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
No? I go to Tom at that point had become
an agent free agent and he had left time Jay's
contract expired him Casey Closers had a baseball, papers On
had a hockey and they all went to CIA and
started CIA Sports. So I was with Tom at CIA
then for about a year and a half until you
(13:14):
hired me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Yeah, then we hired you and then and you actually
were one of several in the first self several legends
who we were able to have come over from CA,
which another great company. But so you came over and
then you fought by Chase Armstrong and then Todd France.
What made you make a decisions to come over here?
Except for up to t B on the podcast.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
Fifteen years Man Ire seventeen years, I was like, there's
gonna be a podcast I wanted So Tom had going
to CIA, and I wanted an opportunity to kind of
help maybe develop my own practice a bit, which with
Tom everything was was great, but I also it was
very much all you know, supporting Tom and another agent
(13:57):
there at the time named Ben Dagger, and as it
should be, everything was and kind of flow through them,
and like I said, kind of want to grow my
own practice. I knew athletes first was sort of on
the on the come up. I don't know if I
ever saw it going as far as you've taken it,
uh taken it. Yeah, Well, A lot of credit to
you on that, but uh, you know, I knew it
(14:17):
was it would be a kind of a cool, a
cool place to work. I knew Dave a little bit
through my dad. So if my dad connected me with Dave,
I talked with Dave. Remember I came in here with
the old office near John Wayne, sat with Dave, sat
with You, sat with Justin, sat with Mark Huminick, Matt Carmon,
Natalie at the time. That's basically who was here, right,
(14:38):
Yespiureau and uh and yet and decided to make the move,
and I thought, you know, it would be a cool uh,
a cool setup, a lot of growth, a lot of opportunity,
a lot of freedom to do things like the way
I wanted and build something. And you know, I can't
can't lie. At that point, Tom was going from Kansas
City to Saint Louis and is Orange County, California, and
(15:01):
I go to school at Pomona and uh Texcess and
I'm like, you know, I think I enjoy living here
more than more than lost.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, no, I mean it's great. And then you've accomplished
a lot of great things athletes for talking about a
record breaking deals and everything. So you now you're both
at athletes first and in the beginning of your time
athletes first. As being of your career, you guys worked
together quite a bit, right, how David, How was that?
How did that go?
Speaker 2 (15:24):
That was awesome?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
You know, me being new in the business and you know,
just as important importantly, never even knowing what the business
was for the most part until you know, you know,
before the internship started. Just having somebody kind of to
mentor you and kind of passed along all the knowledge
they had and being so forthcoming with it was great.
As we started to sign guys, obviously at the beginning
(15:45):
of the career, you know, I always want to make
sure that Kess was involved, just because you know, when
guys are giving you the opportunity to work with them.
They're interesting in your career, you just want to make
sure that you don't mess it up, right, and having
Kess obviously on you, uh, you know, with everything he
had already accomplished that. You know, I want to have
somebody in my corner that was going to make sure
the guys were taken care of the contracts. You know
that as they say, the i's were dotted and teas
(16:05):
would cross. So now, it was phenomenal having you know,
cats there early on in my career and I'm still here,
but especially back then, just being somebody that could rely
on and you know, was always you know, ready to
take a phone call and kind of answer any questions
I have.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I would say, like like in some ways an odd couple, right,
you know what I mean? Like Kess grew up reading CBA.
I know he did that invent right, and you didn't
even know what the CBA was until you got here,
right either than I, uh, you know your taxes. You're
from New York City and so very different. But I'll
say you guys have one thing that's absolutely common we
talked about little bit, like you guys always put the
athletes first, right, You always advocate you advocate, You advocate
(16:40):
advocate like there's no gray areas with it. There's like
there's like you're going to do what's best for your client.
You can put the time, the effort to work, the research,
and you're going to deliver the best results. And like,
you know, we have the philosophy here. Better Together. I
think you two like that was you guys personified better together?
You would you agree with that?
Speaker 6 (16:57):
No question? Also, I mean, like you said, yeah, different backgrounds,
different you know, different different things. But and again this
goes kind of beyond the podcast, but David and I
have pretty similar personalities in a lot of ways too.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
No, that is part of that is a part of
the podcast. Yeah, yeah, explain that guy.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
What way? We have similar personalities in that both of
us are strong willed, I think, and both of us
have ideas about how we want to do things and
have a lot of confidence in that. And I think
that's an asset when you're negotiating contracts, when you're recruiting players,
when you're in business. I mean, you're the same way,
but we both are also open to other people's thoughts
(17:38):
as long as we I mean, I'm speaking for myself here,
but I think David would. I think he'd agree as
long as you sort of respect those thoughts on those people, right, Like,
we're not necessarily just gonna like listen to anyone, you know,
I mean, be polite, but we're open to to listen
to people who we think know what they're talking about,
(17:58):
and in that that can be helpful. But I think
you know, we both again, even though different backgrounds, different personalities,
that there are elements that are very similar kind of
look at the world in a similar way. That was
one thing when we met that struck me like, yeah,
here's someone again. We have a lot of differences, but
in a lot of ways we're very similar.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Neither one of you are afraid to speak your mind
and stand up for what he thinks. Right, correct, All right,
So let's get to the heart of that. Jordan Love right,
record breaking contract, controversial question from Utah State who identified
to him with someone we should recruit.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Man, if I remember correctly, you know, we had I
got a friend of mine who's a really good quarterback
coach that our values opinion, Quincy Avery, and Quincy had
told me about Jordan and started to look into him.
I mentioned him to cast and I think Cass did
some homework as well and got, you know, some great
feedback on Jordan, not only as a player, but as
a person as well. So we decided it was a
(18:55):
target that, you know, somebody that we should go after,
and I think that's kind of how it's started.
Speaker 6 (19:00):
Yeah, I remember pretty well. So Quincy mentioned to you
a guy named Ryan Gunderson, who I believes coaching somewhere now,
probably in college, who was Sean Mannion's coach in college
quarterback coach I was friendly with through Sean, one of
my clients who's played a long time and now I
was a coach, was coaching at San Jose State and
(19:21):
told me, Hey, we played against this guy who's really good,
you know, like really really like NFL good. And I
respected Gunderson's view on that. So I mentioned to David,
and David's like, yeah, Quincy told me the same thing.
And then so we kind of researched it and we
found out Jordan's from Bakersfield, and Cody Kessler, who's client
(19:44):
of mind when he played, another quarterback, also from Bakersfield.
Bakersfield's not the biggest city in the world, so I'm
like two quarterbacks both from Bakersfield, relatively similar age Cody,
his dad, someone there has to be some probable connection.
And it turned out Cody's high school coach also coached
Jordan at two different schools because he had left the
(20:05):
school Cody was at. I think Cody was at Centennial,
I'll see if I'm right on this, and then Jordan
was at Liberty and he had switched, so he coached
both his names Brian Nixon, and there was that connection
to Nixon. I think David, if I'm corrected, already been
in touch with Jordan directly a little bit, and I
got in touch with Nixon, and then we started chatting
(20:28):
with his mom man and kind of kind of went
from there.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I coincidentally enough, I think also his quarterback coach was
someone we had a relationship with.
Speaker 6 (20:36):
Stephen Steve, his personal quarterback coach.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Personal quarterback coach is somebody that we have a relationship
with who happened to be Jordan's coach as well. So
there was a lot of tie in there between Quincy
and Steve and obviously the people that androduced spoke.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
About and so he told us a little bit abot
how DeShawn Watson's recruit went went right and kind of like,
you know, how how is this do you guys talk
to him a lot a lot of games other since
he's involved, was a cat fight, like what.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Was it like?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
I would say, uh, with DeShawn again, as we talked
about was a little different because Sean kind of shut
everything down during the season. Well unbeknownst to us he
shut it down. I was thinking he just wasn't responding
to me, but he had shut it down. But uh, yeah,
we we had constant dialogue with Jordan's uh you know,
went down there. I remember one time we were down there,
we both you know, went bowling with him. Obviously spent
(21:23):
a lot of time talking to his mom, Anna, who
was a retired police officer. So I think, you know,
as far as from a recruitment standpoint, it was pretty
a pretty normal recruiting process. I know there was one
or two other groups that were involved. Jordan wasn't the
type of person that wanted to talk to a lot
of people spent a lot of time on it, so
it wasn't one It wasn't very drawn out, but I
think we felt good about it throughout the year, just
(21:44):
a dialogue we had with him and again his mom
obviously catch jump in.
Speaker 6 (21:49):
Yeah, I would say he's somewhat traditional professionally for the time.
You know, you had two people. He was really relying
on his mom and his high school coach.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
And yeah, he obviously signed with the athletes first. And
you guys are very excited at that time when you signed,
not only right at that time, what did you think
of his NFL potential? Do you think he was a
potential first round pick? And did you think he was
a potential franchise.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
For sophomore year? I believe it was.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
He had a phenomenal uh sophomore junior retrod sophomore, the
restro sophomore year. He had a phenomenal year, played really
really well, put up you know, you know, ridiculous numbers,
and was kind of really poised to be a first
round pick and you know, kind of depending on how
that next year went for him.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
The following year, there were some changes on his team.
You know, a lot of starters ended up leaving.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
He lost nine of the other ten stars member he told.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Me exactly nine of the other ten starters on the offense,
and so, you know, things changed a little bit. Maybe
the season statistically didn't go the way he wanted to.
But I think, you know myself and kes's talking and
talking to people that we trusted in the industry and
just watching him ourself. And he has all the arms
talent in the world. I mean, you know, has one
of the best, you know, as far as arm talent,
one of the best in the league right now.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And as a person, you know, his somebody that we
believed in and a lot of times in his business,
you're you know, you're betting on the person just as
much as you are the football part of it, right,
you can have all the time in the world, but
you know, if there's other things that getting away of
that talent doesn't matter. So I think for us, we
both believe that he would be a first round pick.
It was just a matter of how high he was
going to go. And yeah, I mean, you know, you
can never assume that he's going to end up where
(23:19):
he's been, where he's at now, uh as one of
the top, you know quarterbacks in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
But we feel really good about it.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
Yeah, you know, being really hold to be a really
good Let the answer for you, because I had lunch
with you at the Combine that year. It was me
Greenberg cast sit down for lunch and he's going through
his guys in the draft class and we're looking at
it and we're like, oh, what round is he going
to go in?
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Where do you think he's going to go?
Speaker 5 (23:38):
And Cass goes, oh, he's a first round pick, it's
no matter how high, and me and Greenberg kind of
look at each other because we know what the Bucks
scouts have on on all the players, and we like, really,
you think he's the first round. He's like, oh, yeah,
no doubt, no doubt, he's a first rounder. And we
walk out of the meeting and we're kind of thinking like, well,
maybe that's just like an agent trying to hype up
his guy.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
But then sure enough, he's a first round pick.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
That's when you worked for Tampa Bay.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
So a J. Kess thinks he's going to be a
first round pick. Tell us what was he where was
he drafted? And what was historic about his rookie deal?
Speaker 6 (24:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
So then he comes out and he ends up being
the twenty sixth overall pick, not to the team that
anyone would have thought, right, Like, they have a future
Hall of Fame quarterback and Aaron Rodgers lying or still
playing there and so they have him come up and
they draft him.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
I want to know what is like, what did you
guys think of that?
Speaker 6 (24:26):
Yes, I was with Jordan that was COVID, but I
was able to drive up to his mom's place in
Baker's Field, so I was with him. Not surprised that
he got picked in the first round at all, and
not surprised that, you know, he was sort of picked
in the second part of the first round, and we
thought it was possibly to go higher, but that was
kind of there. We figured very strong QB draft with Burrow,
Herbert too, etc. He had visited the Packers right before
(24:50):
the COVID shutdown, so we knew there was interest there.
But I would say even going into that night, that
would have not been one of the top five teams.
Most likely it was. It was. It was surprised, I say, surprising,
not shocking. Surprising not shocking.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And the contract that you did, which is uh, was
one hundred.
Speaker 6 (25:10):
Guaranteed right, yes, yes, the first time ever twenty six Yes,
those guarantees me I started sitting record movie. Yeah, those
guarantees moved down the first round, but you know, did.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
You know, guess that he was the second quarterback ever
out of Utah State to be taken the first round.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
You know, I know a lot of facts. I did
not know that. I did not know that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Bill Munson was a seventh pick in the nineteen.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
Sixty four NFL legendary Billy monthon how do you Do?
Did probably not great because I haven't heard of him. Yeah,
I'm trying to think about the Packers. Yeah, so I'm trying.
When when he got the call, I had thought the
Colts were possibly going to take him because there was
(25:53):
a lot of interest and dialogue there and they had
a pick right there, and then they had traded back
into the early part of the second round. I was
talking to the GM about maybe they would move up,
and so when the phone ring, I'm like, oh, wonder
this is the Cults. It was the Packers, and that
was Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I mean, I think one of the reasons the time.
I think the Packers were looking to take a receiver
maybe around that time, and the guy that they wanted,
which I think was Brandon I you, if I remember correctly,
had just got off the board, and I think, you know,
to their credit, they went best available player, and Jordan
was the best available player on their on their whatever
(26:29):
on their draft sheet, they decided to take him. I think,
you know, a lot of people are surprised, like like
he talked about, just because they had Aaron Rodgers who
was still in the prime of his career at the time,
and but you know, they invested in him. And some
are similarly to what they did the first time around
with Aaron Rodgers and Brett Faarr, Right, they picked a
quarterback while they had one sitting there, and uh, you know,
it turns out now that they're they're looking pretty smart.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
We're doing so.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Certainly was and with Rogers too, right, I mean, not
to get off subject, but both times they sort I mean,
they did trade up to get Jordan a few spots
once they're like, you know, this is the time. But
it's not like they came flying up for either guy. Right,
It's like people thought Rogers Michael one or two, he
sits there in the twenties. They take him Jordan there,
So yeah, I mean, you got to give him credit
(27:11):
hunt of credit for how they how they took both guys, right.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I think I think Brian had had a lot of
people kind of questioning that pick at the time. But
you know he kind of fast forward today and he
looks like a genius.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I would say, right.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
So, so he goes to the Packers first couple of years,
he's sitting behind the guy who ends up winning the MVP,
wins back to back m vps. Jordan's sitting there waiting
for his opportunity. He gets to through three years of
his NFL career and he's he's barely gotten on the field, right,
He's passed for six hundred yards over three seasons.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Phenomenal yards if you want.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Six hundred yards through three seasons, and the team now
has to make a decision. There's three touchdowns, three picks, right,
so nothing to write home about.
Speaker 6 (27:56):
No offense Jordan, and the team is not much to
evaluate him on a gameplay.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
And so the team has to make this decision at
this point, you know, are they going to extend his
rookie contracts? Are they going to have him start? They
decide that, you know, they they're parting ways with Rogers,
however that came to be, and now Jordan's going to
be the starter. So do they approach you about adjusting
his contract or do you talk to them? How did
that process go? Because this was a very unique situation.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
It was. So they came to us, so he had
played three years. Yes, it's a four year deal with
an option for their career.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
He had he was there three years. He hadn't played
three years.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Three years, right, So they told us that the combine
that they were unlikely to exercise the option because while
they were committed to him being the starter, they were
hesitant about guaranteeing that fifth year for that amount. But
they wanted him to have a contract for the fifth
year and give him some more money and not having
(28:58):
him in the position where hey, you're replacing your Rogers
and you're in the last year year contract kind of
you know, every single chip on the table. Yeah, David
and I said, you know, again we agree on some things.
Well listen to anything, right, you know what I mean,
Like we may not go forward, may go for we
got talked to Jordan, but like theoretically, okay, like let's
(29:18):
talk about it. And then in the spring it did
become a parent, they weren't going to do the option
because we both thought, well, maybe they actually will, and
when became a parent, they weren't. It came down to, okay,
if we're going to add it. If we're going to
still give them a fifth year, what can we get
for it? And we wound up getting an amount which
(29:39):
guaranteed Jordan significantly more money than he would have made
for the first four years of his rookie deal. Right
because the contract for the twenty six pick in the
draft is a four year deal for that time nine
to nine and a half million dollars in that range,
So this guaranteed him fifteen basically above that nine. So
(30:00):
I throw put in a position that no matter what happens,
he's now made well over twenty million dollars. It was
only one more year, so if things go really well
in the twenty three season, we'll still be in great
position to do another deal. If things go okay, well,
now he's under contract for the next year with guaranteed money,
he's likely to get another crack at it. We put
(30:22):
in upside so if he played well, if the team
did well, he could get up to what that fifth
year option number would be, or even above that. And
he wound up getting just almost right to that number
because he did well the team did well. So we
sort of thought, if you think about like a ven diagram,
we're covering all the bases as well as you could.
And it made sense because you were mitigating a lot
(30:44):
of risk. You're maybe giving up a little bit of
leverage because again they wouldn't have to use the franchise tag.
But as David and I said, look, if our issue
is we're working off of this number versus the franchise number,
means he had a great season and we're going to
do a great contract for him next year. I think
(31:04):
if you didn't women's for more, think if things didn't
go well or not as well as we hoped, We're
really happy we had this contract versus going to frid agency.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, And one thing we talked about with David when
it come to Sean Watson was you know, it's not
always you against the team. It's not always against team, right,
sometimes like you do work together, right, And you know,
I think it made a lot of sense, Like is
is just Jordan replacing Aaron Rodgers, right, and if he
just had one year left, like all your eggs in
the basket, and he's one of the coolest customers I know, right,
(31:34):
so it probably wuldn't. But like you don't have to
put him in that position, especially at that age and whatnot,
So you give a little bit to but you do
everything that you said to make sure that you could
cover all the bases, and you know, again it's a
win win for the team, you know. I mean, I
think it's good.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
I think for us, Like you know, one thing that
we talked about is that you never want to rob
somebody of their first fortune, right, and for us, you know,
guaranteeing fifteen million dollars for Jordan, who hadn't made I
want to say it was around nine million over the
first years of his deal, you know, getting that fifteen
million guaranteed again, you know, that's you know, that's life
changing money there, right, And as he's as Cass stated,
(32:08):
if he played really well, then yeah, maybe we gave
up a little bit leverage, but he's going to sign
a couple hundred million dollar deal regardless, right, we were
wanting to keep oh my apologies, but if he didn't
play as well or things went wrong, we want to
make sure we covered kind of the worst case scenario
because that would be more life changing than the other
way around. So that was super important to us. And
just having that comfort and security knowing if you go
(32:31):
out there and maybe you don't have your best first
couple of games. You're not saying, hey, I'm kind of
playing for my contract here, right, knowing he had that
second year that was also guaranteed to him, Uh, you know,
that first year he was starting, I think it kind
of helped him ease his nerves and go in there knowing, hey,
I don't have to kind of set the world a
blaze right when I step on the field. And I
think it was super helpful for him, not only you know, mentally,
(32:53):
but I think, you know, kind of.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Carried over to his play.
Speaker 6 (32:56):
Yeah, and just to add up, right, the season started well,
the first few games that it didn't go so great,
and then it picked back up. But like we talked
during the year, been talking to Jordan, like when things
were not going great, it was nice knowing he had
a deal for the next year, and it was and
I think from the team's perspective too, like they were,
you know, they were mentally committed for twenty three and
(33:19):
twenty four. So again, when twenty three was not going
maybe as they had hoped obviously picked up and went great,
they weren't thinking, well, let's pivot now, you know, they
were they were committed, but having the deal, like you said,
I think was a true win win for both sides there.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So you go, he goes, he plays twenty twenty three, Cass,
You kind of just got went a little bit, and
they at the end, you know, end up winning a
playoff game, make a playoff winning.
Speaker 6 (33:42):
A playoff game. Second the league in touchdown passes, and
it's like, you know.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Top thirty thirty four player, at the top one hundred
whatever that right, But like he plays well, he's not
the MVP of the league.
Speaker 6 (33:51):
Second half of the season, he was now questioned one
of the very best Q businesses.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yea, So overall is a great year. You just did
the contract negotiations the season ends, like when do the
new negotiations?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
So so, because of the CBO, you have to wait
a year obviously between negotiations and a renegotiation, so we
had to wait the calendar year. But I think right
after the season ended, you know, we felt really good
that he had done enough at that point to kind
of earn himself, you know, a major contract. So they
started a you know, right around a year after the
(34:23):
prior negotiation had ended.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
What month is that, man, what month did you start
the new negotiations.
Speaker 6 (34:30):
Well, they told us the combin we want to obviously
do a deal and then yeah, technically May was the
when we had done the twenty three deal, so then
May have twenty four.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
So you start the contract coach chases May and at
this point you sit down with Jordan and you ask
what was important to Jordan at that point.
Speaker 6 (34:46):
Man.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
For Jordan, I think he he you know, obviously he
wanted to you know, extend his career there. They gave
him the opportunity, drafted him. That was super important him
staying in Green Bay. He obviously loved the head coach
air La Floor. Uh, you know, Goody obviously drafted him,
So you know he had that in his mind. But
again kind of the same narrative that we talked about
over and over is our clients trust us to do
(35:07):
what's best right. So his in his mind it was, hey,
you know, get me what you guys think is the
best that I can get, and so I can, you know,
kind of focus on being the starter here, knowing that
this is my team that I get to leave the
locker room. So for us, it was a matter of
kind of going out there and seeing what the marketplace
was and at the time, I'd be the highest played
quarterback in league, and then was Joe Burrow? Was it
(35:28):
Burrow at that five year fifty five Burrows at five
years fifty five million million dollars. So that's kind of
kind of that was kind of what we took aim for. Right,
Burrow had just done his deal. Obviously, Bro's phenomenal football
player and had a great deal, and for us, you know,
it was like, how do we you know, top that?
And you know, it was it was. It was a
fun back and forth. If I remember correctly, I think
(35:49):
as we were going through it, Kess was in Japan,
if I'm correct, I was, So we had to kind
of it was it was a fun game with.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
Let's say, where were you?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I don't even remember. I was in Mexico, right, Hawaii?
Why so again you.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Get all you guys just getting different times.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Accuse him, but no, we had to kind of figure
out times that work. Yeah, it was so Andrew and
for russ Ball, who was.
Speaker 6 (36:12):
In Green Bay when it happened, was we both kind
of figured the deal would likely be done by training camp,
and we both had family trips planned that first week
of training camp, David's and Hawaii with his family.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Normally we do trips around training camp. That's when guys
are occupied and they're busy. So that's why we picked
that time of the years that you know, when guys
are in camp at the time where you really have yeah,
you're only really the real downtown in his business right,
or when guys are busy with camp. So that's why
we were both.
Speaker 6 (36:41):
Correct at cook correct. So he planned the trip, I
planned a trip, and we both kind of thought the
deal would be done and we even almost thought like, oh,
it's like a little bit of a soft deadline. Didn't
go that way. So David's in Hawaii, I'm in Japan,
and Russ's in Green Bay, and yet we are finding
like the one hour a day that it's not either
(37:06):
you know, middle of the night somewhere crack of dawn,
or something's not going on. First all to get on
the phone and work on it and obviously talk to Jordan,
but you know one thing, you know, to your better
together and really helped, I think for both of us
was like again having our relationship relationship with Jordan, having
so much trust, like it was fine, like if it
(37:26):
was three am my time and David needed to talk
to Jordan. David to talk to Jordan, like tell me
what happened, same thing, reverse cast to talk to Ordan,
You talk to Jordan, you talk to us, you talk
to us, and again, like that could actually be sometime
as beneficial with two agents for a variety of reasons.
But in this case it was totally fine and it
worked out, worked out really well. But yeah, there's a
(37:46):
great uh.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Uh.
Speaker 6 (37:47):
My wife took a great picture of me in Japan
and Nara surrounded by deer at a deer park on
the phone, like locked in talking with like nine deer
all over me working on the deal. It's a good uh,
it's a good family picture.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
It was a good thing to you doing with rush
Ball is one of our favorite people and just very
understanding of family.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
Guy, and she was. He was. At one point he
got a little frustrated. He's like, you know, you're you're
in Tokyo and he's in Maui, and like, but yes,
he was. He was great. Russ was great. It was Jordan.
We wound up getting the deal done a few days
into training camp. But for the type of deal it was,
for the type of negotiations, uh, it was as harmonious
as could be.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Yeah, and then at the same time we talked about this,
you know, like the same time Aj and Ryan were
working on Tua, and Aj and and Todd we're working
on deck like a little bit like how did having
all that information, you know, under the same roof, how
did that help you guys with Jordan's deal?
Speaker 6 (38:40):
It's helpful because obviously we're talking about the marketplace and
David betchat the Burrow contract and then Trevor Lawrence gets
his deal done during the year donn Star start during
your juror negotiations, which is a five year, fifty five
million dollar deal, and that deal gets done, and we
(39:02):
thought that helped our position a lot. And then knowing
that to his deal would likely be done, Dax deal,
while if it wasn't going to be done right away,
be done at some point you could kind of talk
about not only where the market is at the time,
but where it's going. And that's a big thing because
(39:22):
and I you know, with some of these other episodes
I've listened to, you talk about the current market, you
talk about the the cap growth, right, but you also
want to talk about where it's going to be a
special when you're doing, you know, a four year extension
with the year left is five year towelve contract. So
knowing where the market is and where it's going really
allowed us to analyze it in the best way, you know,
to make the best arguments to get the best deal.
(39:44):
So that was certainly, you know, advantageous, you know, I
think for all of us, because we had an idea
that too it was likely to also get done at
a very similar time. More than an idea. We knew,
you know, it's unlikely to it was going to go
fully practiced without a contract the same way Jordan it wasn't.
And the Dak situation was a little bit different. He's
in the last year of a major veteran deal. He
(40:05):
hasn't no franchise clause. He you know, he played through
a tabby. You know, Dak's deal we thought could get
done and if it didn't did was get done at
some point. But that's a little different, different time frame.
But but knowing that that was out there and having something
INSIGHT's very helpful, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
I mean, I think the goal is always, as you
do these contracts, is how do you continue to elevate
kind of the marketplace for the position, right, The goal
is how do we if you know, Trevor Lawrence did
his deal and we know too is going and we're going,
and that whatever that order is is always you always
want to do something better on the next contract for
these level guys. So that had benefits the next guy,
which may or may not be your guy. In this case,
(40:40):
it happened to be our guys with t and Dak
and Jordan. But in other situations, you know, if you
could make it better for another player that maybe you
don't represent, and then he makes it better, it comes
back around when it's your turn and negotiate a contract
for your guy. So I think for us, you know,
and Russ is a smart guy. Ros Bauld at Greenbay,
like you said, he knew that and we were you know,
we made sure to you know, let him know.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
We knew that A two is going to get done.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
But be that Dak because of what you know, our
partner Todd France and negotiating his deal with a new
franchise clause him and aj that that deal was going
to move the market, and so knowing that Jordan maybe
hadn't had as many starts as these other guys. But
knowing where the market was going to go, we were
able to really push on that and our goal was, hey,
you know, for Jordan being so young, knowing that you know,
(41:26):
his best football was ahead of him, we wanted to
try to do a four year deal as opposed to
the top of the market five year deals that had
been done by you know, Burrow, that had been done
by Lawrence Lawrence, you know, these five year deals, which
are also great deals, but how do we improve that? Right,
It's to get that same average on less year so
you can get back to the table sooner. And that's
what we're able to do with Jordan.
Speaker 6 (41:45):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
You know, again a win win. The team obviously wants
to sign him to an extension.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
They believe in them.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
They drafted him, you know, so this you know, anytime
you can draft a guy and then give him a
large contract, you know, I know the public may not
see it as as soci as you're paying them so much,
but you know, GMS happy to do so because hey,
I picked the right.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
Guy in the draft.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
So I think for Goody Russ and those guys in
Green Bay, they considered a win. And obviously when we
were able to get him and you know, make him
the highest paid quarterback on a four year deal, the
largest four year number ever and tied to the highest
average ever on any type of deal. It was we
thought it was a win win for us. Jordan was
obviously ecstatic, So now we were happy to kind of
see you know where it started.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
You know, everybody's road. We always tell people everybody rode.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Is different, you know, I mean it's all about the
destination when you get there, uh, you know, do you
end up where you want to be?
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (42:31):
And him sitting behind a rod, learning from a rod,
picking up you know, kind of tendencies and how a
rod prepared and be one of the best ever. You know,
I think that was super helpful to Jordan. And if
he had it to do it all over again, I
I don't think he'd had it any other way.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yeah, a Jay, why don't you give us the stats?
These guys know. But for the listeners was what was
this record breaking deal?
Speaker 5 (42:50):
Yes, the final deal ends up being a fifty five
million dollars per year, which it hit the high water
mark there with with those other two deals. But the
big win to separate this deal was that it was
a four year term rather than those other two deals
were five year terms. It had a seventy five million
dollars signing bonus, which was the largest in NFL history.
It also had one hundred and sixty million dollars of guarantees.
(43:13):
And I want to say the stat there is that
it is the largest pro rata right guarantee new yorite,
so on a per year basis the largest new guarantee
at the time.
Speaker 6 (43:24):
Yeah, one thing, just briefly, but in general, like the
NFL contracts are different than baseball and hockey and basketball.
So everyone wants to compare every single contract, and that's
they don't. They don't all compare perfectly. Right, you have
a free agent contract to an extension or a guy
extension one year left or two years left. So when
we do a deal, checking this CAGs for Jordan, it's like,
(43:46):
let's do things that are unprecedented and excellent for Jordan
in this context. Right. So again, like that's seventy five
million dollars signing bonus, which was all paid within six months.
Like that's you know, that's something which is extremely valuable
to him in like a real life way. And we
had an opportunity to do that because the team we
were working with. That was an important thing. When other
(44:08):
teams like that type of sign of bonus that payments
just knocking in the tables, you focus on different things.
But because the nature of NFL contracts versus some of
the other team sports, there's different things you focus on. So,
like everything Aj said there, those are the things that
we were looking to maximize for Jordan and what made
sense for him in this context and this contract which
is different, right, you know than like the amazing deal
(44:30):
David did for DeShawn which is five year, fully guaranteed contract. Yep,
that was going to happen in that situation. That wasn't
gonna be this situation with Jordan here. So okay, well,
what what can we do that makes sense for him here?
That works? Right?
Speaker 3 (44:42):
The goal is to negotiate the ideal contract for that.
Speaker 6 (44:45):
Player correct in that situation.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
That well, listen an unbelievable story, record breaking podcast cas
we end all these as you might have seen, you know,
lessons learned. I will say one of our first podcasts
went up in one of the comments was you need
Mulligetta and Kessler on this. So whoever that was here,
they are you that person?
Speaker 6 (45:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Give me a RaSE saying that was my son DJ was.
Speaker 6 (45:09):
That was that DJ B and Jordan Kessela the.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Lessons learned from me and I go back. I learned
this lesson from Drew Bludsoe. And you know, like I said, uh,
you know, I don't work with Jordan, but I've got
to know him over the years, and like, you know,
you get someone drafted behind Aaron Rodgers and like that's
not ideal in his mind. He wants to go out
and he wants to play. He wants to do things right.
But watching Jordan being out there, envision of a j.
Dillon and all the guys that we represent, Coach Laflora
(45:32):
like joy and love. Like just when I saw he
never like complained, He never said this isn't fair. He
never and he might have to do guys, probably like
publicly in the locker room with his teammates, like he
put his best fourth forward and he sat and he waited,
but he didn't just sit away.
Speaker 6 (45:48):
He got better.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
He got better, He got better. He challenged himself so
let when the time came, he was ready to go.
And I think like in today's sports where we hear
a lot of the griping. We hear a lot of
you know, contract like fights and that, but like, here's
a kid from Utah State, from you know, Bakersfield, California,
draft in the first round, waiting three years and then
(46:09):
coming out and performing like he did on the field,
being the leader that he is in the locker room,
being the great guy he is in the community, and
then to see all of that get paid off, like
he did the right things with the right business, right people,
and then he got paid contract in NFL history, and
then eventually you can get Super Bowl too, right. But
that's awesome, man, and and you guys know, but what
(46:31):
he deserves it. He's just a great person. So my
lesson learned, man, that's you know, when things go wrong,
like you got to be like Jordan loved and just
keep going straight.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
AJ Yeah, I think my lesson learned from this is
really going to go back to the first veteran deal.
I guess we'd call it a veteran deal that you
guys did for Jordan, where you know, it's one of
those positions where you're you're not sure what the future
is going to be, You're not sure how he's going
to perform when he gets the opportunity to be the
full time starter. But you have to take into account
(47:01):
the mentality of the player, because we're not negotiating for widgets, right,
We're We're not just doing this on a Nextcel spreadsheet.
You have to think about the player's mentality and what
is going to help him in his career long term.
And in this case, it was taking too account that,
you know, the security of getting him some additional money
this year and locking in some guarantees for next year,
although below the level of what he was going to
(47:23):
be worth after that season, it was it was enough
to keep him, you know, hopefully mentally locked in and
you know, willing to get on the field and go
out there and play loosely so that he could do
what he did, and then you get right back to
the table and you get to maximize the next deal anyway,
So I think that was that was my takeaway from
this one.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
No widgets, yeah, David, I.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Mean I think for me what it taught me, especially
Jordan's seeing the way he handled it, was sometimes you
gotta you know, you got to be stubborn on your vision,
but you can be flexible on the details, right, And
what I mean by that is like he was focused
on where he wanted to be, but he didn't look
over and say, hey man, y'all got a guy that
was drafted in my same draft class, like Toua or
Justin Herbert or or whether all playing right, even like
(48:06):
a Jalen Hurst, Right, you had to play early, and
it's like sometimes you know, you see your vision and
it's not going your way, and you start to not,
you know, really believe that that's where you're gonna end up.
But I think for him, like I said, he was
stubborn on the vision. The details. He was flexible on right.
In his case, Hey, I had to sit behind one
of the greatest quarterbacks. Ever, how do I make the
best of this?
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Well, I'm gonna make.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Sure I watch the way he studies, the way he prepares,
and just all the things he does to make himself
Aaron Rodgers a Hall of Fame quarterback, right.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
So I think for him, I think he handled the
right way.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
I don't know that a lot of quarterbacks would have
been able to handle it the way he did. But
for me, that's what I you know, that's that that
would do what I learned.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Love that stubborn around the vision, flexbone details. Yeah, that's
my diet philosophy. Appreciate gush yep.
Speaker 6 (48:47):
Along the same lines, I'll quote one of my older
clients who I got to represent and his career, Brian Waters.
He said, everyone always focuses on what they don't have,
but you should really focus on what you do have
a lot of the time. And I think that's what
Jordan did. Like again, he wasn't playing, It wasn't really
in his hands when he was going to play, But
(49:07):
like what did he have? He was in you know,
he was in Green Bay. He was learning from Aaron Rodgers,
he was learning from a great head coach. He knew
he had a really good organization around him. He knew
he had a really good team around him, right, And
he knew that at some point when he got in
the field, he was set up for success. Right. You
hear people talk all the time, oh, set up for success?
(49:27):
And is this you know? Can you know so much
of the quarterback play is reflective of what's around them.
He knew the right stuff was around him, and he
knew at some point he would get his chance, and
so we focused on that, did all the right stuff.
So when the chance came he could take advantage of it.
And I think if more people football, non football, sports,
non sports, whatever, you know, had that philosophy right again,
(49:51):
focus on what you do have, not what you don't,
that would probably to a lot of testsments, something I
tried to do myself. I'm certainly not perfect at it,
but I try to do that as well.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
No, great, great lesson CAUs. I want to thank Gus
for you coming on your first podcast. Amazing job, David.
Three podcasts in a row. We're going to see you
for the safety series.
Speaker 6 (50:10):
Retire podcast, hat trick right there.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
Yeah, that's amazing time at this point. Well, guys, we
really appreciate it. At the end of this pod week,
the next podcast is we're going to bring Todd France
in and we're going to talk about the Dak Prescott deal,
although you gave that ending way too, and uh we
look forward to that. So thanks guys, and uh, thank
you for all you've done for athletes. First, we obviously
want to be the same without you, and it's been
a fun ride and uh we just can't start, I
(50:34):
think in some ways. So we'll see you next time.
Speaker 6 (50:36):
Thank you for having us. There's a lot of fun,
Hosts And Creators
Brian Murphy
AJ Stevens
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