The Cut Goes Both Ways

Former NFL GM Tom Telesco joins Ryan and Thad to break down the 53-man roster cutdown process, the toughest part of releasing players, and the guys swap swap candid stories about what it’s like when the tables turn, getting cut themselves from their GM roles.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to Rosters to Rings everyone. I am Ryan McDonough,
joined as always by Thad Levine. Thad really enjoyed last
week's show. We had on Tom te LESCo, longtime NFL executive,
with the Raiders and Chargers and Colts and other teams.
Tom's finn around the block, and I'm excited because we're
going to have him back on today. I think Tom

(00:24):
really enjoyed last week's show as well, so we'll get
into Tom Telesco talk a lot of NFL. We're now
just a week away from the beginning of the regular
season in the National Football League. We know what a
big deal that is with games starting next Thursday night.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
But that we'ere.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I want to begin the show with you, just the
two of us, before Tom joins is with a listener question,
and this one come from your backyard. This listener question
is from Matt in Minneapolis who and he says that
I saw the Thad's former team, the Minnesota Twins, is
playing the Philadelphia Phillies in the twenty twenty six Field
of Reams Game, which will take place in Dyersville, Iowa,

(01:00):
obviously based on the historic movie Field of Dreams. Fat
in your opinion. Matt in Minneapolis wants to know what
are the benefits and drawbacks of these unique, quote unquote
special event games that are becoming more common across professional sports.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
You know, Ryan, I really would love to hear your
perspective on this as well, But I got to be honest, like,
I see these things as really beneficial. I don't see
a ton of drawbacks, say, you know, I think we
could talk about logistics and some expenses and some disruptions
in the season, but I don't want to focus my
time there because I just don't feel that way. I
feel these are wonderful opportunities to expand our games, to

(01:36):
you know, reach new fan bases, and candidly just to
fundamentally to entertain people. So I think, as you reference it,
we've talked in weeks past about how the NBA has
really aggressively tried to globalize their game, and I'm sure
you're going to address that here in this segment as well. Well.
I think Bag League Baseball has done a really nice
job of investing in both growth domestically by playing some

(01:59):
of these games in markets that don't have major league
teams but have historical roots in the game. And also internationally.
So just a few examples. In addition to the games
in Dyersville, Iowa, You've got the Little League Classic game
in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. You've got games in historic rick Wood
Field and Birmingham, Alabama to honor the Negro Leagues. You

(02:19):
have the Bristol Motor Speedway Game that took place this
year in Tennessee. And then over the years we've have
international games, some exhibition, some regular season in Japan, South Korea,
Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. In preparation for
hearing this question from that, I wanted to offer a
perspective that extended beyond just my executive perspective, and so

(02:42):
I asked Scott Service, a longtime friend of mine. He's
been both a player and a manager. He said that
he felt one of the most special things he did
in his career was when he was a player, he
played in the Hall of Fame Game, and this was
a game that was annually held in Cooperstown, New York.
He said it was just an absolute thrill for him
to participate in that. Then fast forward to when he's
a manager of the Mariners and he played a series

(03:05):
in Japan to start his season, and he said that
was one of the five best experiences he's ever had
in the game, was getting to play internationally in Japan.
Each Yiuro Suzuki was on that team, and he said
it was just an utter spectacle, one of the best
experiences he's had in his career. Secondarily from a player's perspective,
a guy who joined us a couple of weeks ago,
Michael Young, said that he felt as if these experiences

(03:29):
were awesome. He loved new experiences, he loved the break
in the monotony of the regular season to get to
go play in new places, and he said he felt
he had just a responsibility to entertain the people who
were there. He was trying to convert people who had
never watched baseball into being mild fans, and he's trying
to convert mild fans into being fanatics. So I think
he took a lot of responsibility in these types of

(03:51):
situations to say, hey, it's time for us to step
up expose new fans to Major League Baseball caliber games.
And so I've always felt that way. I've always enjoyed
going to new places, playing new games, having new experiences.
These seasons are long, it's wonderful to have new experiences
with new fan bases. And Ryan, I'd love to get
your perspective both globally. I know the NBA has just

(04:12):
done such an incredible job playing international games. But also
I believe in twenty seventeen when you were the GM
of Phoenix, you guys played a game in Mexico City.
So give us a big picture. How is the NBA
tackling this and then how was the experience for you personally?

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, I think the NBA has been at the forefront
that going back to the McDonald's classic games they played
in the nineteen eighties when David Stern was trying to
build the league as commissioner, they played the Russia national
team and others on a big stage in Europe, and
they'd send the stars, whether it's Michael Jordan's with the
Chicago Bulls, other marquee teams over there.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
That started it.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
The guy named Boris Stankovitch was the head of FEEDBA,
the international governing body of basketball, and those two, David
Stern and Boris Stankovitch, really made a commitment to grow
the game globally. And we know what that's turned into
that We've talked about it on recent show. The last
handful of MVPs, including Shake Gilliers Alexander who is Canadian,
have come from outside the United States. You look at

(05:07):
Nikola Jokic, you look at Yannis and then a Kumbo
and others. We'll see if Luka Dansich and Victor wimbin
Yama joined that group someday soon. They certainly both have
an opportunity to do so. But it is a global game.
A lot of the stars are born outside of the US,
so the NBA has really strategically and intentionally leaned into
that this preseason. There are teams going to Abu Dhabi.

(05:28):
The Middle East has been a popular hotspot for the
NBA teams to play in the preseason over the last
couple of years. In fact, just last year, the Boston
Celtics and Denver Nuggets played a couple games over there.
This year in Abu Dhabi, we had the New York
Knicks in Philadelphia seventy six ers and then at Macow
a couple games over there as well, both involving the
Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns. Josi, the owner of

(05:50):
the Brooklyn nets Asian American certainly strong ties to the region.
He was involved in ali Baba, which anybody who falls
a stock marker knows a little bit about e commerce
knows what a significant player ali Baba is, especially in Asia.
So you have all that kind of history that and
that's just the preseason, and then in the regular season.
There are a couple more games overseas. One in Mexico

(06:11):
City you mentioned, we went down there when I was
GM of the Suns, and then a couple of games
in Europe this year in Berlin, Memphis and Orlando are playing.
I think those two same teams are also playing in London.
So it's become a worldwide sport and a worldwide event.
And I think one of the things that's important for
guys like us that I don't want to get your
take on it, and when I say guys like us,

(06:32):
I mean executives, players, coaches, is to put aside any
selfishness or discomfort with breaking our routine or having to
do extra, because it is extra in terms of what
you're doing. And you're right, the fans don't necessarily want
to hear this, and I understand why, but it is
a grind the season can get a little bit monotonous
at times, so doing something different is exciting and it's fun.

(06:55):
It's great from a fan media perspective, but as you know,
a lot of players and coaches in particular pretty set
in their ways and the routines and don't like deviating
from that. But that I think that is so important
for all the reasons you mentioned just a moment ago.
We're trying to grow something here, we're trying to build something,
and we're trying to continue the momentum that has now
literally the most valuable sports franchise in the history of
the planet or you know, NFL, NBA and Major League

(07:17):
Baseball teams. So how do you continue to build that?
How do you continue to grow it? I think the
leagues with their international expansion have done a great job
of that.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more and I feel,
you know, from a small picture, we're trying to do
the best we can for our franchises and increase our
chances of winning and competing. But there is a bigger
cause we have here, which is we should leave the
sport that we participate in better for having had us
participate in it. Right, So I think we do have
an honor bound responsibility to grow the sport for you, basketball,

(07:48):
for meat baseball, and what comes with that is like
putting your a little bit your concerns about the competitiveness
and the schedule and the logistics aside and saying, hey,
you know what, we're getting an opportunity to entertain fans
in a different locale. We are going to not only
seize this, but we are going to make the absolute
most of these opportunities. Right when you guys were in
Mexico City, when you're planning for that, like, how much

(08:11):
concern did you have about security and those sorts of things.
Did you get feedback from players and families or were
they just excited for the new opportunity.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, so a little bit of all of it. That's
a great question.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
I was general manager of the Phoenix Suns from twenty
thirteen till twenty eighteen, and I think it was in
the middle of that time, the twenty sixteen seventeen season,
the NBA reached out. I think they do this stuff
well in advance, before the schedule comes out the previous summer,
said hey, will you guys be willing to go to
Mexico City? So the business side asked me about it,
and it was difficult that I'm not going to sugarcoat

(08:43):
it here because basically what they're asking us to do,
and what we ended up doing was give up two
home games to play two games in Mexico City. The
first game was against the Dallas Mavericks. The second game
I was against the San Antonio Spurs. So I told
our business people ob sually privately that essentially we're playing
thirty nine home games and forty three road games and
they said, well, those are technically our home games. They said, well, no,

(09:04):
they're not. We don't play in Mexico City. The guys
don't live in Mexico City, their families can't easily come
to the games, etc. So we went back and forth
about it, but you know, I did come to the
conclusion that we just discussed that it was beneficial for
the league and our franchise in particular. And keep in mind,
there are strategic reasons that as a border state in
Arizona to kind of try to reach into Mexico and

(09:25):
grab a lot of the Mexican audience. Mexico City is
one of the biggest cities in the entire world. You know,
Mexico is the only country in North America that does
not have an NBA team. Obviously, up in Canada we
had the Raptors and they used to have the Grizzlies.
So the business side said, look, we would really appreciate
it if you could do this. So that was, you know,
kind of the message. Again, once I saw the perspective,

(09:47):
you know, went to the coaches and players and said, hey,
this is gonna be a little different. But now, in hindsight,
having done it, we had a blast. It was an
incredible time. From a security perspective, I don't think we
could have been any safer that the NBA, the league,
the whole does an incredible job. They send their security
teams and there were people everywhere. To the extent I
felt it was a bit over the top where he said,
all right, I'm gonna walk over there and get an

(10:08):
ice cream. Well, this guy will walk with you. So no,
he just naffed. I can just wave to him, you
know when I get my ConA vanilla and I'll know
I'm fine. But so they really, you know, scouted it
out well. The political aspect was great to the government
and everybody. We had police escorts, everywhere. Traffic is a
big problem in Mexico City, and where the arena is
is not really where the nicer hotels are that NBA

(10:30):
and NFL and Major League Baseball teams usually stay, so
it was some distance from the hotel in traffic, I
think it, you know, usually would take an hour or two,
but they just kind of knocked everybody out of the
way and cleared the path for us. So really, in hindsight,
it was a great experience. We lost the first game
against Dallas. We won the second game against San Antonio,
which was a big win for us. They were a
good team at the time and we were very young,

(10:51):
and the players loved it. I think Devin Booker, who
was our young star at the time, in particular he
has some Mexican heritage, really leaned into that, and I
think his popularity in Mexico City and the country of
Mexico as a whole really soared because of that experience.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
And one one additional thing I just would like to
offer to Matt in his question here, which was very thoughtful,
is I think whatever logistical concerns you have, when you
see the fans respond in these markets, it just lights
you up. So I just would like to, you know,
I've seen games in the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Rico
and Venezuela, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and each fan base

(11:28):
is so unique. You know, when you go to Japan,
it's an incredible experience. They don't have walk up music.
There's a section of the stands in the right field
bleachers that is dedicated to home fans. There's one in
the left field bleachers dedicated to visiting fans. They have
a conductor. This section sings walk up songs for every
player as they come up, and you can hear it

(11:49):
throughout the stadium. It just electrifies the whole place and
it's one of the coolest experiences you're going to have.
And then when you watch a game in the Dominican
or Puerto Rico during winter ball, you're like, in the
third inning when there's a double play, the whole dugout
floods on the field. They celebrate. A brass band jumps
on top of the dugout and a tuba is playing,
you know, some an incredible song by Don Omar or something,

(12:12):
and you're like, what is going on here? And it's
like just getting to see that and getting to see
the enthusiasm and the energy, I think puts your mind
to rest.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
It.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Hey, we're doing the right thing. We're spreading the game around,
We're increasing fanaticism, and it's just such a special thing
to be part of.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, in Fad, you made a great point. We're all
fans too, right, So whatever selfishness we have inside us,
we're saying, boy, it's tough to travel more, it's tough
to give up these home games and all that. I
think we ought to take a step back and look
at it as fans, which we are all are, first
and foremost. This past weekend, I was watching college football
the game in Dublin, Ireland, not exactly known as the
football hotbed between Kansas State and Iowa State, which by

(12:50):
the way, has one of the best nicknames in all
of sports in Pharmageddon. I didn't know that's what they
called the game, but I love that. So I was
watching it and a you know, I think historic soccer
state in Ireland was packed with the college football fans,
so it's an event.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
It's a little different.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
I feel the same thing watching the Winter Classic, you know,
when they're playing an ice hockey game on New Year's
Day and Finway Park or some other historic venue that
grabs the eye, and I think brings in a certain
segment of fan who would not watch those same two
teams play in their regular arena, right, And that's what
we're trying to do, trying to grow the sport, build
a brand. And I think the NBA, NFL, NHL, all

(13:26):
of them, major League Baseball, they've all done a really
good job of that because it is something different. That's
one of the criticisms that you and I hear about
these leagues. Well, there are too many games, especially in
baseball and in some extent the NBA and NHL, there
are too many games. Football I think has a huge
advantage with the scarcity value NFL and college football, every
game seems big bad. So with those other leagues in

(13:46):
particular that have more games. How do we make it
feel special? How do we make it feel unique? How
do we make it look unique? Whenever you were, turns
into grabs the eye. And I think the leagues have
done a really nice job of doing these different kind
of big events, and I think that's we'll continue that.
I think we'll see more of this going forward.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
So Matt count Ryan and I as huge proponents of this.
I think it was two years ago a target field
hosted the Winner Classic in the NHL. It was negative
ten degrees. It was a fields like temperature of negative
twenty five and the place was packed and nobody left.
It was an incredible spectacle. Stay with us through the break.
Tom Tellusco will join us on the other side on

(14:25):
Rosters to Rings. Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. We're
thrilled to be joined again by Tom Tullusco. Just as
a refresher. Tom spent thirty three years working in the
NFL for the Bills, the Panthers, the Colts, the Chargers

(14:47):
and the Raiders, the last eleven plus seasons serving as
a general manager. Tom, Welcome back. We wanted to pick
up where we left off in our last conversation. Somehow
we didn't even make it to your tenure with the Chargers,
but it took twenty thirteen. You're hired by the Chargers,
and just share with the listeners what went into your
decision to pursue that opportunity and ultimately to take the

(15:08):
raids of the Chargers over as the general manager.

Speaker 5 (15:11):
Yeah, you know, I don't know how you guys kind
of went through your career as you're kind of coming
up the ladder. But when I was with the Panthers
and then with the Colts for a long time.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Honestly, I didn't really think about being a GM.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
It wasn't I mean not to say it wasn't a goal,
but it's just something I really wasn't focused on until
maybe later on in my career with the Colts, after
we after we won the Super Bowl and went to
another and then kind of realized, you know, maybe I'll
get an opportunity, maybe not, But I really wasn't focused
so much on it. But yeah, So later on my

(15:43):
tenure with the Colts, Bill Pulling had been let go
and then they brought Ryan Grigson in and I was
with Ryan Grigson for one year with the Colts and
learned a lot about doing some things a different way.
Because I've been with Bill Polling for so long, it
was need to get to see a different viewpoint.

Speaker 4 (15:59):
So I learned a lot from Ryan.

Speaker 5 (16:02):
But at that point I had an opportunity to interview
with the Chargers for the GM job and the Jets
for that matter, but the Charges were a little bit
farther along in their process. So and look, you know,
you very these situations, they.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
Don't come up very often.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
So it's not like I didn't feel like I was
someone that I could just kind of sit back and hey,
I'll eventually get a GM job someday and just a
matter of when.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
So I'm gonna be really choosy.

Speaker 5 (16:27):
That's not really what I was my thinking or my
thought process, but you certainly got to look at each
situation isn't the right fit. Because my last year with
with the with the Colts, I had a chance to
interview for the Saint Louis Rams job at Saint Louis
Rams at the time, and I ended up passing on
the interview to stay with the Colts for a couple
of different reasons, just family wise, really liked Indianapolis, and

(16:51):
then professionally they made a contract amendment, which which was nice,
and like I said, I wanted to kind of see
a different viewpoint too, working with Ryan Grigson.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
So I did that for a year. So I did
pass that interview.

Speaker 5 (17:00):
But but the Chargers, you know, interview came along and
they essentially probably interviewed me just because I was on
a winning team for a long time, and I'd worked
with Bill Polling for a long time and Bill wasn't
in the Hall of Fame at the time, but obviously
he was, you know, well regarded, and so you know,
went through the process, and you know, the big thing

(17:21):
with that particular job was two things really. One is
a family run team, so the ownership is run by
a family, which I was very used to from the Colts,
so that was very comforting for me that situation. And
then they had a quarterback with Philip Rivers, so that
that team had been a j. Smith was the gym.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Before I arrived there, and he'd put together really a
powerhouse roster that had won a lot of games.

Speaker 5 (17:44):
They couldn't quite get over the hump. They put together
a really good team. But then as it goes, you know,
the team gets a little bit older. You know, a
couple of guys move on, you know, guys get traded, guys,
guys get released, and the roster wasn't quite where it
needed to be.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
And that's you know a lot of times when up
making changes.

Speaker 5 (18:01):
So went in interviewed with the Spanos family and and
Ron Wolf by the way, so Royan Wolf Legendary Hall
of Fame GM with the Green Bay Packers and really
came up before that with the Raiders. The Spanos family
had hired Ron to kind of be part of the interview.

Speaker 4 (18:17):
Process, so that was interesting for me.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
Like I'm a younger guy, I was forty years old.
I'm sitting in a conference room with the Spanos family
and Ron Wolf and they're asking me all these roster
building questions and I'm you know, I got Ron Wolf
sitting right across from me, and he's just staring me
down and I'm talking. I'm telling him about what I
would do and this is what I do, this is
what I would do. And I stopped at one point.
I'm like, Ron, you must look at me like like

(18:40):
I'm just some kid who's never done this job before,
and I'm telling you how to do it. And it
was actually kind of funny. He was he was great.
It was really actually really part of the interview process.
Was awesome to be able to talk with Ron Wolf,
and it's the way he did it was different than
Bill Pollinge, but obviously very successful.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
So it's cool getting to know him in the process.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
So I went through that whole interview process with the
Chargers that the Jets had kind of come in late
and I had decided felt really comfortable with the charger
job in the situation there, the staff that had, when
I say staff more like the support staff. We didn't
have a coaching staff at that point in ownership, and
I'd feel like I made the right decision.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
I've had a chance to be there for eleven years.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
Ownership supported me really well there, and it was kind
of similar like we put some good teams together, we
just couldn't quite get over the hump.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
But I really enjoyed my time there.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
And I'm sure the three of us will talk about
this more at some point, But statistically, to be a
general manager, to be a hard coach, head coach, is
extremely difficult to do. They're only thirty to thirty two
teams in these leagues between fifteen and fifty three players
on a roster. Certainly, none of the three of us
were saying it's easier to be a GM than play.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
We couldn't.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
It would probably scratch the surface in any of these
leagues from a physical standpoint, but it is difficult to
pass up interviews and jobs and things like that. I'm
sure we'll talk about that more in a future Your episode.
But where I want to go with you now, Tom
is today and this week because this week, I believe,
actually today we're recording the show on NFL cut Down Day.

(20:10):
Take us inside the front office. For our listeners who
have not worked for an NFL club, what is this
week and then next week? Like next week is the
opening season in the opening the regular season in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
But take us inside.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
I imagine it's a very busy time as you're trying
to get your roster cut down and then prepare for
your opening game.

Speaker 4 (20:29):
Yeah, it's it's extremely busy. It's it's like fifty to
fifty fifty.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
Part percent of it is it's a really fun process
to get to your initial fifty three man roster. The
other fifty percent, quite frankly, it sucks because you're releasing
a lot of players and that that's no fun obviously
so but administratively, it's a lot of work. We go
from ninety to fifty three, so we have to make
thirty seven transactions of releasing those players, actually thirty eight
because usually one as an international player that doesn't count

(20:55):
on your roster, so it's thirty eight transactions as far
as releasing players signing some of them back if they
clear waivers to your practice squad. But administratively to do
that over two days is a lot on the coaching staff,
the pro scouting staff, and the general manager. But so
a lot of the work is done last week. A
bulk of the work is before the third preseason game.

(21:17):
I'd sit down with our coaching staff and just kind
of sketch out, Hey, this is what we're seeing for
the roster right now at these position. You know, we're
trunning towards say, you know, like nine offensive linemen. We
think these will be the nine trending towards three tight ends. Okay,
but we've got a still a competition for the third
spot between these two players.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
These are the numbers of receiver.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
And I'll kind of get to fifty three, but kind
of frame out where we are for the third preseason
game this week, can get make sure we at the
playtime set for the third preseason game of guys that
are still up in the air, and that way when
we come in after the third preseason game, it's a
little more efficient, like, hey, we got these three or
four talking points to kind of get the roster set
and concurrently with that I'll meet with the pro scouting

(21:58):
staff who have been scouting the whole league through the
whole preseason and talk about, hey, these are the positions
we feel like we need depth that so tell me
about the players who are on the bubble who may
not make their team that could help us, and it's
we call a second draft. We'll put up a draft
board of potential players who will be released across the
league that we could possibly claim. So we'll kind of

(22:20):
put those guys up on the board, we'll talk about them,
we'll do a little extra research on those players, and
then we come in from that third preseason game and
discuss it with the coaching staff and discuss it with
the pro scouting staff. And then what you're also doing
is now that you're at fifty three, any player that
you claim, so our younger players really four years or less.

(22:41):
If you release one of those players, they have to
go through waivers first where another team could claim them.
So we'd go through our staff and hey, look, if
we claim this player and we get them, it's one
on one off. Somebody has to be released, so we
discuss who would that player be, and we'd usually leave
a couple of open practice squad spots available to move
a eye down. So it's a lot of roster shuffling.

(23:02):
What's nice now is you basically have two weeks. It
used to be cut down was on Tuesday, opening day
with Sunday, and it was a tight week because any
players you claim to bring in, they come in on Wednesday.
It's hard to tell a coach, hey, he's coming in Wednesday.
He doesn't know our playbook offense or defense, but he's
got a dress on Sunday.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
It's not a great position to be in. So the
extra time that this gives you really a whole week
to get your at least your initial fifty three set
and work your way through there with the staff and
the pro scouting staff, and then from there it just
never ends. Throughout the year.

Speaker 5 (23:31):
You're constantly due to injury, due to performance, you know,
maybe making moves on the back end of your roster.
But you know all starts this week.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
To I'm just curious when you said you're cutting down
thirty seven to thirty eight players in a two day period,
how many of those meetings would you sit in? And
then also can you take the listener inside the room
for one of those like how does that conversation go.
Who's involved?

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, so every single one of them.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
So you want to make sure I mean all these
players at the very least, if you're a first year guy,
you just spent the whole offseason, the whole spring, the
whole summer, whole training camp with us, and for a
lot of the players, you may have had them for two, three,
four or five years, so you do have a relationship
with these guys. But I thought it was really important
to make sure you sit down with each guy individually

(24:16):
and give him some feedback on the situation. So I
would Some teams do it differently. Some teams will have
the head coach and GM together talk.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
With each player.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
It's probably a little more efficient that way. The way
we end up doing it was the player would come
see me first, I talked to him, they'd go see
the head coach talk with him, and then usually a
position coach, and then go see the training staff, equipment
staff to sign out and they move on. But the
conversation are probably different for each player, But I want
to make sure they all had enough time to ask
any questions about the situation, about their opportunity. Unfortunately, for

(24:50):
a lot of times when you release a player, you know,
after you tell them we're going to release you, everything
you talk about after that just goes right over the
head because they're not really focusing a lot with more
I just got released and now they're thinking about what
happens next. But with a lot of the players, I
would try and give some feedback on you know, why
we made the move. Does he still have a future

(25:12):
with us? What would you bring him back on the
practice GUYD what would we bring him back on the
active roster? Or hey, look with us it is probably over,
but we still I still think you have a future
made with somebody else. Just try and give some honest feedback.
And for every now and then where the player that
you think is maybe at the end, I used to
try and leave it, give some advice, like, hey, look,
if you're going to move into whatever your life's work

(25:33):
after football, because these guys are all younger when they
when they stopped playing, you know, kind of give some
advice and guidance for that if they need it. So,
but I thought it was important to spend as much
time with the players as possible. They ninety five percent
of the time they did everything you asked on and
off the field to make the team. The easy release
are the guys that don't do what you ask, but

(25:53):
doesn't happen very often, so kind of go through that process.
It's not not fun because all these guys, every single
one of them, was no doubt, probably the best player
in their high school team, probably the best player in
their county, one of the best players on their college team,
and this is the first time in their life they've
been told that they're not good enough to be in
the team. And those aren't easy conversations and the ones

(26:14):
you don't like to have. I know you guys have
gone through the same thing in your sports. These guys
have been the best at the best for a long time,
and now all of a sudden they've told that they're
not good enough.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
So but again, professional football, and usually the door.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Is always open for a player to come back if they.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
Do with jazz. But that that's kind of how that
that cut down day goes.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, I've always thought it was the worst part of
the job of any of the three of our jobs
across sports, cutting a player or firing an employee, because
you're not only looking at the person thinking about them.
How you think about their wife, their children, you know,
them moving all the things that happened. When a person
has a significant job change and they're going to move on,
rarely does the person stay in the same market, especially

(26:54):
from a player's perspective. You know what that means. They're
packing their stuff and probably going somewhere else across country,
either to continue their career or as Sound said it,
for the end of their career, to go do something else. Tom,
one specific situation that I've been watching closely, I think
it's probably gotten more attention than your traditional third and
fourth quarterback on the depth chart battle is in Cleveland,

(27:16):
and I want to get your take on first the trade,
because yesterday in the NFL, the Cleveland Browns sent Kenny Pickett,
who was in the mix a quarterback, to the Las
Vegas Raiders. The Raiders needed another backup for Gino Smith
when Aidan O'Connell got hurt. O'Connell's going to be out
six to eight weeks with a fractured risk. How often
are trades this time of year, Tom, And what do

(27:37):
you think of the attention that the Browns quarterback battle.
I'll be honest with you, as a fan, it looks
like kind of a mess. But what are your thoughts
on Cleveland's quarterback room and their depth chart and all
the attention that's getting as well.

Speaker 5 (27:49):
Yeah, I don't know if the attention is on their
quarterback room or just an Sudeur Sanders, so that's probably
but yeah, so that essentially they had four quarterbacks going
to camp, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, who's a younger veteran,
and they drafted two players, Dylan Gabriel and Shooder Sanders.
So I know the original thought was, you know that

(28:11):
they would keep all for in the active roster.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
It's something you could do. It would just be really
difficult for.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
Extend amount of time of on a fifty three man
roster to hold four quarterbacks. Since only one plays and
then the other guy. They can't play special teams, they
don't do anything else, it would be really hard to
handle that.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
Now their gam is Andrew Berry. He's really sharp and smart.

Speaker 5 (28:31):
I bet he can probably do it for a little while,
but in the end, when you have some injuries, it
would just be hard to.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
Hold those four quarterbacks.

Speaker 5 (28:38):
So kind of figured one would be traded, kind of
figured he would be the one. Plus he missed about
a month of practice with the hamstring, so he really
hadn't done much. But the fact that he had some
background had some starts more so than the two rookies,
thought he could be the one that would move on.
But yeah, really the focus has really been on Shooder Sanders,

(28:58):
and it's understandable. I mean, he was the big story
of the draft. You know, he was an excellent college
quarterback that I think a lot of people myself included
thought he would be drafted higher and he wasn't. He
was drafted in the fifth round to a team that
doesn't have a future franchise quarterback. Joe Flacco was forty
years old. So there was a lot of interest there

(29:19):
watching it play out. And wherever Shadir Sanders goes, he's
a story.

Speaker 4 (29:25):
It just is what it is.

Speaker 5 (29:26):
Like, I just I was on the air yesterday yesterday
on NFL Radio and they had asked about, you know,
did Kevin Stefanski sabotage Shader Sanders in the third preseason
game and have him out there with an offensive line
it wasn't very good and call plays it didn't help him,
And I'm like, you got to be kidding me, Like
that what happened in the first preseason game when Shiro
Sanders played really well, did he decide not to sabotage

(29:48):
the first game but his third game.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
I mean, it just makes no sense.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
But this is part of the NFL is just the
focus on certain stories. But so right now we've got
Joe Flacco's a starter. He's forty years old. He could
still throw the ball really well, but you have some
concern over quarterback at that age. He played with the
Browns two years ago, had a really good year at
thirty eight years old, was with the Colts last year,
didn't play as well.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
So we'll see.

Speaker 5 (30:13):
Hopefully the Browns get the twenty three version of Flaco.
And then Dylan Gabriel was drafted in the third rounds.
He was drafted in front of Shador, so obviously their
staff felt at the time that Dylan was a better
prospect for them, and Dylan played well in the preseason.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
I thought.

Speaker 5 (30:30):
He's not the biggest quarterback in the world. He's got
really good arm strength for a smaller quarterback, which is
just in our business you don't see that often. He's
got a lot of pace on the ball and he's
a quick decision maker because the ball out of his hand.
He played a lot of snaps in college, as did Chador.
So you've got two young quarterbacks kind of waiting in
the wings that have a lot of college experience and
you can develop and you know, hope you get through

(30:52):
the year with Joe Flacco.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
So I thought the trade was really good to the Raiders.
Raiders need a veteran quarterback. Browns get back a fifth rum.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
Don't have to worry about the four man quarterback room
anymore because that's just going to be really hard to handle,
and you will move on from there.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
You know, it's amazing that you just shared all that
and you didn't even mention Deshaun Watson's part of that
room in some capacity. I know is he's hurt, but
like that was part of the reason they are back
trying to draft a quarterback because unfortunately that hasn't worked
out as they would like. And Tom, I just was
going to share a little bit of a baseball perspective
based upon the depth that you just talked about. You know,

(31:29):
one of the biggest differences in baseball relative to basketball,
or certainly to football, basketball at least has a secondary
league now is like, we just have such an evolved
minor league system. So for us, these cuts have taken
a little bit of a different tone. And the thing
that we spend and this resonates with what you just
said a relative to the quarterback room in Cleveland, is

(31:51):
we spent so much for spring training trying to identify
what's our next line of defense and what's the line
of defense after that, And so one thing that I
think paved the way for smoother conversations on the backside
when we tell players they're not making the opening day roster,
and you know, the average major league baseball team will
have sixty ish players in camp, you have a twenty
six man roster an opening day, but in practice, unless

(32:12):
you're rebuilding probably about you know, fifteen to eighteen of
those spots are pretty much ironed up before spring training,
so you've got the rest of the guys competing for
the remaining you know, six to ten spots on the roster.
Is we were extremely communicative on the front end to
try to illustrate what you are competing for here, and
sometimes it was very clear, hey, listen, you're our opening

(32:33):
day starter, you know, and if you're healthy at the
end of camp, you're going to be our number one
starting pitcher. There's times where we say, hey, listen, you
reference there's three tight ends and maybe there are two
guys competing. We'd be very clear on that, like your
opportunities to compete to be our right fielder. The landscape
is three to four guys, and go get them. And
then there were some occasions where we were just like, hey,

(32:54):
you're an up and coming prospect. We want you to
soak in as much of this as you possibly can.
You're not making the opening day roster, there's no chance
of that, but we want you to learn as much
as you possibly can while you're here, such a when
you get to the big leagues, you're ready to rock
and roll. You're not just here and getting overwhelmed by
the crush of the media or the demands of advanced
scouting or a performance team. Learn all of those things

(33:16):
so that you can just play the game between the lines.
And so then when we had the conversation on the
back end, there shouldn't be too many surprises. There occasionally
was disappointments, no doubt, but there certainly shouldn't be surprises.
And I think another thing that you guys said, which
I really believe in, is you have to be very
honest with these guys. Like I learned the hard way

(33:37):
that sometimes if you're trying to be super nice, then
it takes the guy way too long to figure out
the actual message you're giving them. And their careers aren't endless.
And so if it takes the guy two to three
months to figure out what the hell was the actual
learning moment here, you're doing a gross disservice. So for
people such as myself, who were much more inclined to
be diplomatic and very kind, I had to be very

(33:58):
blunt in those moments and tell them exactly why they
weren't getting the opportunity and the things they needed to
work on, And then I had to hold ourselves accountable
if that guy went and worked on those things and achieved,
we should try to present an opportunity for them. So
I think the biggest distinction in baseball is just simply
that just the wealth of ability to retain these players
in the minor leagues doesn't result in a ton of

(34:20):
actual abject cuts. But one thing that we experienced tom
earlier in the show was aj Hinch came on and
one of the things.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
He offered.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
The perspective is sometimes when you're cutting that guy, you're
actually telling him his careers over. And that's a whole
different conversation, right, And like, sure they can go try
to catch on somewhere else, but they probably know they're
kind of towards the end of the line. Ryan, you
said it, but like, you have to be empathetic in
those moments. It's the most humanitarian opportunity we have to
deal with the facts but also deal with the empathy

(34:48):
required to handle these things responsibly.

Speaker 5 (34:51):
Yeah, I can see that, And that's I've always told
players that if we're releasing them, hey, look this is
our opinion or my opinion of why not making the
team and your skills. But the GM at the next
team he may see you completely different. And I had
a stretch for a little bit that each kicker I
released went on to make the Pro Bowl the next year.
So we let we let young way Ku go, and like,

(35:15):
I don't know, week two or three of the season,
and I toldim, I said, look, I think you're gonna
get it eventually. We just don't have time to wait.
But I said, hey, the last kicker I let go
made the Pro Bowl the next year, and what do
you know what, Young way Kug goes Atlanta and makes
the Pro Bowl.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
So like, it's an evaluation business.

Speaker 5 (35:31):
And we're not right all the time, and and sometimes
we're just wrong evaluation why sometimes we just can't wait
as long as we would like to. So just because
you don't have a future here, it does not mean
another team will not see your talent and think you're
a better fit.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
Did you find the kicker started lining up outside your
office asking to be released?

Speaker 4 (35:49):
I mean, I'll tell you what we had for my time.

Speaker 5 (35:53):
We brought it more kickers to work out, had more
kickers come through, and then we finally a couple of
years ago, we signed Cameron Dicker i think during training camp,
right after training camp, and you know, with the long
term extension, he's going to be there a long time.
So we finally found one.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
But man, it was.

Speaker 5 (36:10):
There is no worst feeling on a football team than
if your kicker is inconsistent. Because I've told all of
our kickers, like championship teams have championship kickers. They're a
big part of the game. But the finally consistent one
that can do it, you know, a week after week
some teams found them. We just we just struggled trying

(36:30):
to find the right guy, and sometimes we find the
right guy and he would get hurt.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
So the Chargers have a really good one right now.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Tom, I think the story you should go with is
you're just looking for the guy with the best nickname,
because Dicker the kicker is one of the best nicknames
I think in all of sports.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Oh yeah, that's one one of my all time favorites. Yeah,
but no.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
So the next topical NFL question I have for you is,
as you mentioned, this time of year, in particular in
the NFL, certain storylines dominate the headlines, and one that
popped up again this past weekend was the Dallas Cowboys
and the Micah Parsons situation. I was actually really proud
that I don't know, you know, if you know the guy,
but one of the local guys in Dallas added some

(37:08):
context to the situation because there were pictures and videos
and Michaeh. Parsons he was lying down, looked like on
a training table, and one of the reporters who I
think covers the Cowboys was around the team say wait
a minute, don't extrapolate that snapshot and take it out
of context because he did that for a brief period
of time, but he was also up and walking around
and interacting with people. But we know how it is

(37:28):
in pro sports, especially in the social media age, there
are certain snippets or sound bites or pictures that go viral,
and that was one of them. So, Tom, that's a
long window way of me asking what are your thoughts
on Michaeh Parson's situation and how do you think it
gets resolved with the Cowboys.

Speaker 5 (37:43):
Yeah, this one is so unique in this particular situation,
and it's funny that laying on the table. I get
it you don't want snapshots, but to me, like thirty seconds,
thirty minutes, it's just not the look I'm looking for
on our sideline. But yeah, this situation has been different
than other holdouts hold ins, and I'd be curious to

(38:05):
get some feedback from you guys. So you know, typically
in our league, like GM owner whoever, front office negotiates
with the agent unless a player doesn't have an agent,
which doesn't happen very often. Now, the Cowboys they do
some things a little bit differently. I know they've they've
i think a negotiate with some players one on one,
but typically you're going to go through the agent. So

(38:27):
in this particular process, it sounds like they haven't talked
to the agent at all, which just boggles my mind.
I mean, I just don't know how you can get
a deal done, especially a deal like this, without having
the agent part of it. And you know, I know
the agency, I know the agent. I just there's just
no way it's going to happen without them being part
of it. And you know, I can't believe I would
carry an agent's water. I'm a GM, but it is

(38:49):
what it is like, it's there, They're part of the process.
It's just and there's a reason why players have agents.
I mean, I know some players could probably do their
own negotiations, but could they do it as well as
an agent does it every day for their life, you know,
for their for their career.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
They do that for a living.

Speaker 5 (39:05):
So players have these agents to get guidance advice on
their contract. There's a lot of little pieces that go
into it, not just the numbers, but the payouts and
the and the language and the clauses.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
So the agent is part of the process.

Speaker 5 (39:19):
And right now it's hard to do negotiating when nobody's
talking to each other.

Speaker 4 (39:23):
So I don't know where this is going to go.
The one thing I do know is.

Speaker 5 (39:26):
This so so he is a hold in, he's not
a holdout. If you hold out in the NFL before
a training camp, you would go on a reserve did
not report list, and on the reserve not report list
you don't get paid. So if you're not there for
week one of the you don't play in the first game,
you don't get paid.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
But a hold in is.

Speaker 5 (39:44):
Really just a really nice way of saying, I mean,
the player is refusing to practice and play because he's
on the active roster. So he's on the active roster,
and come next week on Tuesday, if he's on the
active roster just like he is now, the Cowboys have
to pay for week one whether he plays or not,
which is like one point three million dollars. And I
don't know very many gms or owners and want to

(40:06):
pay a player one point three million to not play.
So between now and next Tuesday, something has to happen.
It's either going to be they get a deal done.
Hopefully that happens.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
If not, you're.

Speaker 5 (40:16):
Looking at probably a suspension for conduct detrimental which is
that's that's what we would be.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
Usually you'd be.

Speaker 5 (40:23):
Finding the player right now for conduct detrimental, for not practicing.
That's discretionary. You can if you want. Usually by this
far in the preseason you probably would, and maybe they
are I don't know, but certainly for that first regular
season game, if he's still playing, I'm not playing, you'd
probably put him on a suspended list and you'd go
on reserve suspended, which means you don't get paid for

(40:43):
that week. So and typically if you're holding out for
more money, you don't want to give money back. So
I got to think by next Tuesday, like we're gonna
have some sort of resolution. There's either gonna be a
deal that's done or he's gonna have to be put
on a suspended list so they don't have to pay
him for that week. So we're going to find out
a lot. But this process has been different than the

(41:04):
other ones, just because it just sounds like the club
doesn't want to negotiate with the agent, and there's been
playing negotiations. I didn't want to negotiate with the agent either,
but it's necessary evil and quite honestly, it's just easier
that way I don't I mean to do it with
a player. You wouldn't want the feeling that the player
feels like you're going to pull one over on them.
I mean, teams negotiate for a living. Players play football

(41:24):
for a living, so you wouldn't want to have that feeling.
I just think it's easier to discuss a player and
who he compares to in all his contracts with an agent.
It's more efficient, bit easier way to go. So we'll
know the next seven days exactly what happens here.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
I just I would love to hear your perspective on
this as well, Ryan, because you know in baseball, we
don't have holdouts or hold ins. We tend not to
have players demand trades. You guys deal with that on
a regular basis. And you know, the only reason I
think we don't have it as a few fold one
when our contracts bind large guaranteed and so there's less

(42:02):
risk the players assuming on a regular basis. But you know, Tom,
you mentioned the relationship with agents. I always thought that
that was a little bit overplayed. You know, we see
the movies and it seems as if the executive and
the agent are always yelling at each other. And diametrically
opposed and whatnot. I found in my career that that
was like a pretty significant misrepresentation. Like the best agents

(42:26):
were actually partners, you know, in some regards, I want
nothing more than to have to pay your player a
lot of money, and that's because he's performed well enough
to demand a very high salary. Therefore, he's performed very
well for our team and hopefully we've as a result
won a lot of games. Like that's actually a really
good outcome. The worst contracts I felt I had to
negotiate was when you're kind of hammering a guy because
he hadn't performed well. He was a disappointment, he was

(42:49):
an underachiever, Like, I actually want to pay you a
lot of money. And so the best relationships I had
with agents, we spent so much more time talking when
we weren't negotiating, and kind both pulling on the same
end of the rope, you know, like they were helping
us try to figure out pass forward for their player
to excel. We were doing the same with the common
goal that nothing would draw more pleasure for both of

(43:11):
us if this player made a lot of money, because
that meant he delivered on his promise, and so that
was kind of a baseball perspective I just wanted to share.
But Ryan, it seems to be most prevalent in the NBA.
I know Tom you deal with it as well, but
like this notion, and I know that this is part
of the nuance of the Micah Parsons an insinuation that
he doesn't want to play there anymore. But Ryan, you've

(43:33):
dealt with this the most, Like does how does this
happen mechanically when an agent tells you hey, or the
player tells you, hey, listen, I want to be traded,
and then what happens next?

Speaker 1 (43:41):
From your standpoint, it's one of my biggest frustrations with
the NBA, And one of the reasons is, frankly, that
I haven't rushed back to the team side. That the
players do have a ton of control right now, and
to some extent, as they should. And he knows the
player empowerment era. These guys are the best athletes in
the world, and they're among the very highest paid athletes.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
In the world.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
In one of the things, I know it would have
been contentions, but I thought in the most recent round
of collective bargaining agreement negotiations. The league should have put
in some kind of clause that where if a player
signed a maximum contract in particular, he could not be
traded for a certain period of time. So whether the
player wanted to be traded or the team wanted to
trade him, I kind of view it like a marriage,
where they should try to figure it out at least

(44:22):
for a certain period of time, and then toward the
back end of the contract, certainly with the year left,
maybe with a couple of years left, that would open
up and you could trade the player. Because what's happened
now in the NBA is I don't think a great
trend for the teams in the league. And one of
the things I realized working for NBATV was I think
it was twenty twenty two. I was heading to Atlanta

(44:42):
to do the free agency shows from the Turner Studios
and Kevin Durant had just demanded a trade from the
Brooklyn Nets, and I'm looking at his contract, I'm saying,
wait a minute, he just signed a three year extension
last fall and that extension has not started yet, so
he wants to be traded from the team that gave
him an extension. That technically does not be in for
a few more days and has three years left on it.
I think that's that's a problem. So but yeah, it's

(45:05):
something I think the NBA, you know, it's certainly aware of.
But you know, one of these things, and you guys
know this. I mean, there are three leagues, NFL, NBA,
Major League Baseball are the three biggest in the world arguably.
So it then becomes a question of what are people
willing to go to the mat for and what are
people willing to risk work stoppage for it, and and
owners losing money and players losing money. And in the NBA,

(45:28):
I guess it turns out it was it was not that,
but yeah, that's really a town. The players make so
much money. The contracts are guaranteed, and the term now
that I kind of laugh at now that I'm not
of the team site at least, is pre agency. They
call it pre agency instead of free agency. Say well,
instead of becoming a free agent, why don't you get
your money now it's guaranteed. And then if down the
road you don't like the situation, the money is guaranteed.

(45:50):
Usually your own team can pay you more than any
other team can pay you. And then when that money's
in the bank and guaranteed demand to trade then. And
so that's the way it works in the NBA. I
really dislike it. But at the same time, if the
league doesn't go to the mat for it and collective bargaining,
I don't think that changes anytime soon.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
Yeah, with all the trade requests I got over the years,
basically went in this year and out the other. I
never really paid a whole lot of attention to it,
like if and that's just some way that we really
wanted to trade.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
But other than that, and I didn't. I just it
was just outside noise.

Speaker 5 (46:20):
But the one thing I learned, and like when I
when I came up under Bill Pulling and Bill with
his negotiations with agents, it was a war, yelling, screaming war.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
That's just how we did it, you know.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
That was his personality worked pretty well at it. My
personality is different. But the one thing I learned I
learned this from our I had two really good cap
and contract negotiators, Salary cap Ed MacGuire with the Chargers
and then one year at Tom Delaney with the Raiders.
And what I learned from those guys is it's up
to us to come up with solutions. You know, it's

(46:51):
usually a player we want to pay, and there's plenty
of good agents out there. They do the same thing,
just from a different side. But let's come up with
a solution to get this done. And some time it
takes longer than others. But that's what it's about, is
just trying to you know, hey, there's certain non negotiables
for us that this we have to have, but we
can move on this agent will give you, Hey, this
is what we have to have, but there they would

(47:13):
never say like this, but we have some movement here.
But that's and that's how you start moving things around.
And my year with the Raiders with Tom Delaney, he
was so good at that. I've just kind of come
up with options and solutions rather than us just saying, hey,
this is what we're offering is take it or leave it.
You know, that doesn't get you anywhere, and usually that
take it. I would never say take or leave it

(47:33):
because that pretty much puts you in a box. You know,
whatever you tell an agent like I want to be
honest up front, and I'm never going to say take
or leave it and then we move on it later.
That'd be awful. It would kill my reputation. But it's
our jobs as GMS is come up with solutions. We had,
but one of my bigger regrets we drafted Melvin Gordon

(47:53):
with the with the Chargers, and I love Melvin Gordon.
He was a really good player for us, but then
he was holding out and it's up to me to
come up with a solution, and we just couldn't come
up with a solution. That was one of the few
times that we just couldn't get just couldn't get it done.
So we ended up he ended up holding out for
a while, end up coming in and then he held
off for so long, probably didn't have a great year.

(48:14):
We end up extending Austin Eckler instead, and then Melvin
moved on in free agency to the Broncos. But I
always kind of prided myself on to find a way,
even if it takes forever, we've got to find a
way to work our way through.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Is that one we didn't quite get there.

Speaker 5 (48:29):
But you know, that's our job is to It's to
come up with solutions and answers to problems, and sometimes
we're better than others at it.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
But that's a big part of the job.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
And Tom, I think I think my experience echoes yours,
which is I think the responsibility was on the executive
side more than the agent side. I would say the
vast majority of deals I've negotiated, whether there were contract extension,
free agent deals, trades, what you hear on the other
side at some point is like, well, there's nothing more
we have to talk about, and like if you take
that at face value, or if you take the this

(49:00):
is the taket to leave it at face value, you
just don't get deals done. It becomes emotional, it becomes irrational.
So I felt like the science of getting a deal
done was being prepared, knowing all the information, knowing where
a fair deal was, what the range for fair was
in that deal. I think the art form, though, was
to listen as best you could, to hearing what are
other things this player wants? What are the quality of

(49:22):
life things that I can deliver? Then maybe don't have
as much value to me that I can really give on.
And then when you hear no, it's not that you
throw it up your hands and say, well, I guess
there's nothing we can do here, but rather it's like, okay,
now we're going back to the drawing board. And I
don't mean to sound anything inappropriate here, but I feel
like there were so many times where I was negotiating
both sides of the deal because you had to equip

(49:44):
the agent with the arguments he could take back to
the player to make the player feel good about signing
the deal. And so you did it subtly. You tried
to get the guy on board and collaborate with them,
but buying large, what you're doing is you want to
make sure he feels comfortable at the deal. It was
very rare that one point two million was the absolute
right number. One point one was absolutely wrong. It was
the feel associated with the numbers. If you could get

(50:07):
to drill down what is the feel, what matters to them,
deliver rational arguments to justify why one point one is
better than one point two, you can oftentimes prevail. When
the agent is taking the posture there's nothing more for
us to talk about. And so I think that was
really important to me in these negotiations. Ryan, how was
that for you?

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, I agree with that. It was absolutely the same.
And one of the things that you know, movies and
to some extent even the more mainstream media over dramatizes
is the you know, screw you, I'm never doing business
with you again. An executive on one side and an
agent on the other shouting at each other and then
vowing never to speak again. That doesn't happen, or it
can't happen, because, especially in the NBA, the big agencies,

(50:48):
you know, c A. Wasserman, Clutch sal you know, they
control a lot of players. And if you do that,
you're shooting yourself on the foot regardless of what happens
or doesn't happen with this player. So that's not really
something that happens, at least in the NBA. Taed, I
have a question for you that it's similar, but I
think a little bit different slant relative to arbitration. And
it ties into what you were just saying, because talking

(51:09):
to Major League Baseball executives, a lot of whom are
friends of mine and ours, you know, a lot of
mutual friends in that group, A lot of them will say, look,
we want to avoid arbitration because in Major League Baseball,
arbitration essentially you're saying everything you don't like about your player,
and then the player and the agent hear that, and
that really damages the relationship. So I want to get
your take on that, because I do think it ties

(51:30):
into what we're talking about. You want to be fair,
you want to be principled. Yes, everybody wants to get
a good deal in a negotiation, but at the same time,
you don't want to burn the relationship so badly or
push so hard that you've fractured that relationship between the
player and the team.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
Yeah, it's a great question. So for major League baseball players,
the first six years of their career, we control them.
The first three years is called pre arbitration. It's actually
unilateral negotiations, so we effectively dictate what they're going to
get paid. They have to get paid at least the
major league minimum, and they get raises. For the first
three years, you ideally come to a negotiated agreement, but
by and large, I can just tell you you're getting

(52:05):
paid seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Then the next three years they enter into arbitration, which
is a bilateral negotiation. Their agent now comes into play,
and if we don't come to a negotiated agreement, we
both submit figures to a panel, and so we submit
a number that's lower they submit a number that's higher,
and then the panel we both make presentations in front
of a panel. The panel literally at the beginning of

(52:29):
this process, we both sign a contract that is a
blank contract, so I sign on the bottom on behalf
of the club. The player signs on behalf of himself.
The one line that's empty is how much we're paying them,
and we give that to the panel. At the end
of it, they effectively deliver the contract back with either
the player's salary or our salary as the salary that
will govern their earning potential for the next year. But

(52:50):
during that time, as you illuminated, we have to justify
why the lower figure makes sense. They have to justify
a way the higher figure makes sense. What I always
thought were the best arbitration cases to go I went
to was when the player was excellent and we're saying, hey,
we think he's excellent. They think he's excellent. Now we
just have to determine in this lexicount of how excellent
they are, where do they fit. The worst were when

(53:11):
it was a player who really struggled because the mechanics
of it, as you're literally sitting the width of a
table across from the players staring him in the eyes
and either you're presenting it or your legal representative is
presenting why the person has fallen short and why he
doesn't deserve anything, and then you break afterwards, everyone has
a you know, a club sandwich. We both get on

(53:33):
the plane and go back to spring training and say, hey,
no hard feelings, and you have this look in there
eye were like, I think there may have been some
hard feelings here, and so most teams try to avoid
those things at all costs. I did find the best
ones to go into. Or when you're talking about Vlad
Guerrero and how awesome he was, or you know, these
guys who've done some epically good things, when you're talking
about the players who faltered, it is it is a

(53:54):
hell of a thing to do, because it's hard not
to come in off as being a owner's employee trying
to keep the little player down and really highlighting all
their flaws in front of a room of people. It
just comes across very, very inhumane.

Speaker 5 (54:08):
I think actually that just triggers something with me because
I know you guys have been through this before. So
I mean, a GM has two negotiations, one with the
player agent, one with your own ownership because you have
to tell ownership, hey, this is why I want to
invest this much money in this player, and you got
to really spell it out. And then if that number
starts to creep up, you have to go back to
ownership and say, look, I know it's going to cost

(54:29):
this much, but this is where I think it's going
to go. Those aren't great conversation to have, especially if
you really miss which that would not be a good sign.
But because part of the negotiation is there has to
be an end point somewhere, like you got to decide
where that is, and it can't you can't tell an
owner you know, hey, this is where my endpoint is
and then come back in hey, you know I got

(54:50):
to spend.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
An extra four million dollars. That doesn't go well.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
I remember with different, little different situation, but we had
drafted Hunter Henry at tight end from Arkansas outstanding play,
one of my favorite players when I was with the
Chargers and thought he'd be with us for ten plus years.
It's a high level tight end. You know, we were
gonna pair him with the Antonio Gates for a while.
When when Gates retires and goes to canton we got
Hunter Henry to come in. Well, he was a free agent,

(55:16):
but our offensive line was very weak at that point.
I want to invest more money in the offensive line,
especially at center. So we had a line for Hunter
Henry that I was hoping to get him for, but
it realized the market it may not get there, and
the Patriots offered him a lot more and end up
using his money to go get Corey Linsley, who was
a center from the Packers, which was a great signing

(55:39):
for us. You'm going to a Pro Bowl and he
was a really good player. But it was painful to
let one of our own go because now we're fixing
other areas of the roster. But trying to find out
where that jumping off point is is really really difficult. Now,
if you're closed, you can kind of reason it, but
you know, if it's a pretty big gap and you
got to let a guy go that you want to keep,
but those are that that's why the GM has to

(56:01):
sit down with this captain contract staff and really discuss
where's the market for this player. So we know going
in and you know our surprise in the end.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
Tom.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
I think it also works the other way, which is
if you tell the agent, Hey, I think this guy's
worth five million, and then you come back and sign
them for two million. It also looks like you're sandbagging
it a little bit. So it's really important to I think,
know the marketplace, but also be fair in your proposals,
like we're not looking to, you know, vanquish the foe
in these negotiations. We do want to treat the players fairly.
We want to get a deal closer to our end

(56:33):
of fair. But I never approached these as a negotiation
where I was seeking an adda boy from the owner
because I told them the player's worth four million, and
I got them for a million dollars less like I
want to treat the players fairly, like I want them
to not be disgruntled. But Tom, I just wanted to
follow up with you because I think you bring up
an extremely important point here, which is the relationship with owners.

(56:53):
And over the course of your last three steps, you
work for three of the more storied franchises. You get
to work for the Ersay family, the Spanos family, and
then the Davis family. I will say personally, because I
grew up in Northern Virginia, nineteen eighty four was a
dark day when mister Ersay took the Colts away from us.
So I don't have the most fond memories of the

(57:15):
Ersay family, But talk to us a little bit about
the you know, forging relationships with those three incredible families,
and how much I played into your experience and your
satisfaction on the job working for those three franchises.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:28):
Well, first, you know jim Irsay, who was who just
passed away. He was a lot different than his dad.
His dad to move the Colts from Baltimore, so Jim
was a completely different guy. But I wasn't in the
GMC with the Colts. I'd see Bill Pollyne work with
jim Irsay, but I wasn't part of that a whole lot.
But again, it was a family run team, so that
was very I was used to seeing that now with

(57:49):
the Spanos family and then Mark Davis. Again, I was
just used to the family atmosphere and used to people
that have owned the team for really for most of
their lives. I mean the Ersay family. Jim Mersey was
I think a teenager when his dad bought the team,
so he grew up in the business. Dean Spanles was
a little bit older when his dad bought the team,
but Dean essentially grew up around NFL football with the

(58:11):
Chargers that Mark Davis, you know, basically from birth until
now has been in the NFL. So I think it
was important number one, to kind of tap into that
guidance can come from anywhere, and even though the owner
is hiring you to make the football decisions, there were
still a lot of things. First of all, owners they
want to have some input. I mean they should, it's
their team, a billion dollar team that they own. But like, like,

(58:35):
like Dean Spance was great on league matters and kind
of comparing to you know, how things worked in the
league before I was in the league and trying to
get some some advice and guidance from that, and then
Mark Davis.

Speaker 4 (58:48):
Had really seen everything.

Speaker 5 (58:50):
But it was really big on Really with any ownership
is just communication of not just what you're doing, but
why you're doing it. I was so lucky you like
both both Dean and Mark Davis. They gave me the
unilateral authority to make the decisions, which not every team
I think has.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
But it was always hey, this is the why.

Speaker 5 (59:12):
Behind it, and explain, hey, look and if it doesn't work,
this is why it didn't work and have no pri
I never had any problems like admitting, hey, look this
is what we thought going in, we knew this with
the downside, Well guess what we hit the downside. You're
just not gonna be right on every decision. But I
think the biggest thing is giving the why to the
decisions you're making, just to give some thought and clarity there.
What was easy with with with the Chargers and Raiders

(59:35):
as ownership was in the building a lot, so communication
was super simple. You know, you weren't on the phone
trying to chase people down. They weren't all over the
world like they were invested in their teams and they
were around and that just makes everything just you know,
it could be like a fifteen minute conversation, you know,
just some passing or you know, demad come down to
my office except for you know, ten or fifteen minutes

(59:55):
to kind of give an update of you know, kind
of where we are, and then you'd move on somewhere else.
But like, it was just easy communication. Same with Mark Davis.
Mark was in the building every single day. You know,
he wasn't a controlling owner, but he wanted to know
what's going on which was good, and you give him updates,
you know, throughout the throughout the day or throughout the week.
And I just think that's that's a major part of

(01:00:18):
the GM's job is to keep ownership abreast of what's
going on, and you know the why behind the making decision,
or the why behind why you're not making decision, why
you're not.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Going to make this move, this this.

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
Player that's out there, boy, he sounds great. Are you
guys gonna go after him? Well, the answers no, But
these are the reasons why. So just having that, you know,
back and forth, I think it's really important.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Tom.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
One of the things that's going to get a lot
of discussion over the next week or so leading up
to Opening Night in the NFL are the win totals.
We'll see every prominent media member will have some kind
of prediction this team is going to win the Super Bowl.
Here are the teams we like the over on the
sports betting. Here are the teams we think are going
to underperform. In your time with the Chargers and Ray,

(01:01:00):
is that something that you talked about at all? Would
you use that, you know, with the coaches, with the
players either, you know, in terms of encouragement. Hey, people
think we're going to be pretty good and I think
so as well, or you know, take the other side
of it. Nobody really believes in us, right right, this
is disrespectful. Is that something that would get talked about
at all inside NFL locker rooms?

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
From your experience, you know what, not much.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
I know my last year at the Colts Andrew Lux
rookie year, we were I don't know where it was.
We were picked to finish like, you know, thirtieth in
the league or something like that. So we made a
big deal out of that kind of chip on our shoulder,
and you know, everyone thinks we suck, and actually we
actually made the playoffs that year. But other than that,
I don't really remember talking about it too much. I know,

(01:01:43):
I know they talk about win totals in baseball a lot,
and it's actually it's amazing. It seems like like those
win totals before the season kind of really bear out
in the end, which is amazing to me. NFL to me,
it is literally it's week to week and my philosopher's always, hey,
look we're going to line up in play seventeen games,
will add them up at the end.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
Of the year.

Speaker 5 (01:02:01):
Like, I was never focused on, Hey, what's the end
win total? Hey, this is where I think we can be.
I think we can be a ten win team, a
twelve win team. I was just worried about game to
game to game, and.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
That's It's like each week is really a season end itself.

Speaker 5 (01:02:15):
In football, it's just a lot different. So I never
really paid too much attention to the win total predictions.
But I was kind of fascinated in baseball that I've
seen those before the season and then seen after the
season and see like how remarkable, Like how many of
those kind of hit football.

Speaker 4 (01:02:31):
Probably it doesn't seem like it's the same, but it
wasn't discussed a whole lot of lease around me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Yeah, and Tom, I think it has become more prevalent
in baseball. I think for a long time we were
not as responsive to those things, and now we're realizing
that some of these sites out there, Fangrafts as an example,
they really do a nice job, and they're doing it
based upon a real in depth assessment of your talent,
how it compares to your division, your schedule, and then

(01:02:59):
it kind gives you a sense of like, okay, based
upon your talent and the schedule it maps to a
certain number of wins, and I think the way Baseball
looked at it mostly was like, you're less attentive to
the extraal win total, but more the ordinal rank, Like
where do we rank in our division based upon this
assessment of our talent and what are the gaps and

(01:03:20):
how do we see it? Because make no mistake, every
Major League Baseball team also has their own system that
they're overlaying with this. But I think the one thing
to just be honest about these systems is these systems
recommend certain types of players. You go acquire those types
of players. Therefore, most teams like their own systems more
because you've acquired the players that the systems identified as

(01:03:40):
being more valuable than other teams value those players. So really,
when you're looking for the really objective viewpoint, you do
go to places like fangrafts and you look at it.
And I think we always use that you referenced it
earlier the conversations with ownership to try to offer like
kind of a level set before the season of you know,
we're all probably a little bit in the business of

(01:04:00):
under promising and over delivering, but you do want to
provide that empirical data of Hey, listen, you know the
fans are whipped into a fervor we just signed a
great tree agent, but in practice, on paper, it still
looks like we're slated to be the second or third
best team in the division. And you know, I just
remember talking to players in the past Michael Young jumps
out to me where he would say, you know, I'd
have to say, like, if this team doesn't do well

(01:04:23):
and we do well, then something could happen. Well, you
want to do a stand up in front of a
group of people and say, if everyone in our division
plays to the best of their ability, we're going to
still kick their butt. Because like that, when you have
too many if then statements that need to be answered
positively to win, that doesn't mean you can't win, but
it also means you're kind of fighting an up till battle.
When I was always asked like, how many games do
you think you guys are going to win this year?

(01:04:44):
I would always say the target is to win at
least one more than the second place team, and I
didn't care if we did that with eighty two wins,
the ninety two wins or one hundred two wins. If
we're in the playoffs and playing home home games in
the playoffs, I'll consider that a successful season. But I
do think a lot of those preseason numbers have become
much more. They've tracked much more in baseball recently than
they ever once did. Ryan, does that apply to the

(01:05:08):
NBA at all?

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Yeah, I'd say the sports books across sports, but speaking
from an NBA perspective, are pretty sharp. I mean they're
pretty accurate. In fact, I have somebodies who'd asked me,
you know, the preseason, Hey, what do you think? And
I'll look at all thirty teams and just give them
privately some advice, and I'll say, these twenty five or
so majority of league, I wouldn't touch those because to me,
those look right on the number. And then I think,
you know, there are a couple of handful or less,

(01:05:31):
say three to five the standout say actually, personally, I
think this team's going to be a little better or
a little worse than the win total. But yeah, something
and Tom made a great point earlier. So much of
it is what do you say to your locker room,
what do you say to the media, the fans? All that,
But then also what do you say to the owner,
Because I worked for a couple of different owners, one
in particular was very unrealistic, where around the draft, you'd

(01:05:52):
want to win the draft, you'd want to make trades,
you want to load up on young players, and then
the roster be set. Opening night would be upon us,
and you say, our goals to make the playoffs, And
we said, that's not really how we built this thing.
Looking backwards, if we knew that, we would have done
a lot differently over the last few months in terms
of trying to build for the future. So you hope
that yes, obviously, outwardly you're always projecting confident within reason,

(01:06:14):
but confidence enthusiasm, and we're try to win as many
games as possible. But then internally you think and hope
that everybody from the owner to the business side and
on down is realistic about what it is, because you know,
not all thirty two NFL teams have a chance to
win the championship when the game start next week. We
know that, but the challenge is that the people in
the building know that. And if you're building for something,

(01:06:35):
especially long term over time, do the fans know that?
Are they going to be patient with it? And you
guys know, these things have certain ebbs and flows and
life cycles. Sometimes, even if you're doing the right thing
in the short term, on a rebuild, you run out
of time and don't get to see it through on
the back end.

Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
So the perfect tagline for the podcast should be under
sell over deliver.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
It's a good way. It correlateshime to job security. I
would say, Tom, you've been exceptionally generous with your time.
I have one last question for you before we let
you go, and understand you may want to plead the
fifth here, but if you would share with us, here's
another thing that I think is over dramatized in movies,
which is, you know, all of these jobs are meant

(01:07:19):
to come to an end at some point. There's a
reason the three of us are talking today here. We've
all had these experiences. You had a great run with
the San Diego Chargers. It comes to an end.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
What is that take?

Speaker 3 (01:07:31):
Take the listener inside the conversation. What is that conversation
like when you're notified that you know your time with
the Chargers has come to an end.

Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
Oh boy, we're ending this on a really high note.
That say what for me?

Speaker 5 (01:07:45):
It was we had because I got let go during
the season at the end of the season.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
I don't even know. It was like maybe four weeks ago.

Speaker 5 (01:07:52):
We had just played Thursday night at the Raiders, so
pretty big rival.

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
And we lost. It was I don't know, sixty something
to twelve. I lost track.

Speaker 5 (01:08:03):
It was one of the worst games I'd ever seen
a team play, was how we played that day, and
we gave up just a ton of points. And I
guess being in the league long enough and I knew
what the stakes were.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
We had made the.

Speaker 5 (01:08:13):
Playoffs the year before, it had a really tough loss
that Jacksonville were up big at the in the first
half and then lost. I kind of knew going into
the next year, I've been there eleven years. If we
don't win big in the playoffs this year, my time's
probably up. And I understood that and was and was
okay with that. Like I had a pretty good run,
so it didn't it doesn't mean you're not competitive. But

(01:08:36):
so after that Raiders game, I came into work next morning,
I could just feel like, this is this is not
isn't going to end well.

Speaker 4 (01:08:42):
I can tell that.

Speaker 5 (01:08:43):
So I didn't know exactly when, but all so when
and then I got let go of that morning. And
you know, it's tough because you were with one I
was with them for eleven years, and and you know,
with ownership for that long, and you know, you worked
side by side through a lot of difficult situations, become
really tight with people. But it's also professional sports, you
know how it works. But I remember going home that

(01:09:05):
day and I was just exhausted. I mean, it's, as
you guys know, like it's a twenty four to seven job,
three hundred and sixty five days a year.

Speaker 4 (01:09:14):
It's always on your mind.

Speaker 5 (01:09:15):
Like even on a Friday night, if I'm out to
dinner with my wife and some friends, and it could
be in season or out of season. I may be
discussing non football stuff with somebody, but it's it's still
in my head, like you're always just thinking about the
next move, the next transaction, what we have to do,
Concerned about this, concerned about that.

Speaker 4 (01:09:34):
It just never goes away.

Speaker 5 (01:09:36):
So it was just a sense of just take a
step back and just kind of get refreshed. And and
like I said, I was really grateful for the time
I had there and the relationships I made, and I
thought we did a good job.

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
There just not good enough. And then I you know,
rolled right into the Raiders' job, which I didn't expect.

Speaker 5 (01:09:54):
You know, it's just life in the NFL, but.

Speaker 4 (01:09:57):
But yeah, it was.

Speaker 5 (01:09:59):
You know, we all know the time comes for all.
Very few of us are going to just have this
job and then retire on our own and you know,
move on to doing podcasts like this. So you always
and it's always you know in the back of your mind, O, hey,
what would I do if I don't work.

Speaker 4 (01:10:13):
As a GM.

Speaker 5 (01:10:14):
Well, for a lot of us is go back to
a team and you know, maybe as a consultant, maybe
as an assistant GM whatever it is, or maybe you know,
do some media stuff like we're doing right now and
just kind of educating people on our experiences and telling
some stories and give some perspective what goes in the job.
So no complaints. For me, I've been extremely lucky. I
knew that when I had the job, never took it

(01:10:35):
for granted a day in my life, and just really
enjoyed just I enjoyed leading people.

Speaker 4 (01:10:39):
That was kind of the best part of.

Speaker 5 (01:10:40):
The job is you get a chance to kind of
implement your vision and people, you know, and lead people
it's fun, but you also know at some point it's
gonna end like it did for the three of us.
But now we got all the answers because we're on
a podcast, so there's got no no no owners, no agents,
no players. You know, we can just you know, give
all of our answers and like we're always right.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
When I ultimately had a conversation with the twins and
parted ways, much to my surprise, it ended with owner
Joe Pollett and team president Dave San Peter both standing
up and giving me a hug at the end, and
I was like, this isn't how I was expecting this
all to go down. I've watched the movies where people
are throwing chairs and you know, lighting things on fire
as they slammed doors on the way out. It's like,

(01:11:24):
and here we are hugging each other and.

Speaker 4 (01:11:27):
The same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:11:27):
You know, like in sports, like you're you're working with people.
It's it's wins and losses, highs and lows. It's just
it's not your regular dusk job. So you end up
getting really connected with the people you work for. And
I wasn't mad. I was disappointed, but I wasn't mad.

Speaker 4 (01:11:41):
I was being let go. I was more disappointed that
I couldn't deliver to them what they hired me to do,
Like you just couldn't get over the hump. That's what
I felt worse.

Speaker 5 (01:11:49):
About, is just couldn't you know, I just couldn't get there.
And same thing with the Raiders, or just couldn't couldn't
deliver what I was hired for. Is that That's usually
the first thing that entered my mind more so than Hey, look,
I wasn't given a chance like the Raiders hired me
right off coming getting let go by the Chargers, so
you know, I can't complain about that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
They gave me an opportunity.

Speaker 5 (01:12:07):
You know, things change, so but yeah, I mean we're
paid to win and if you don't win enough, then
go get somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
The thing that stands out for me when I get
let go as GM of the Phoenix Suns was it's
kind of an out of body experience that may sound
weird to our listeners, but I was thinking about everybody
else but myself. You know, I'm thinking about my wife
and the kids, how are they going to be? And
then the staff in particular, that's where my mind immediately jumps. Hey, well,
if they're making a change at the top or a
bunch of these men and women who are great people,

(01:12:38):
work hard. You guys know that people behind the scenes
do a ton of the work and get very little credit.
You know, they're not making GM or head coach money,
So what's going to happen to them? And then kind
of all all of that so mine. I'd say the
timing of when I got fired and Phoenix was a
surprise because it was the middle of preseason, which is
an unusual time to make a change in the.

Speaker 4 (01:12:59):
NBA, really time to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Yeah, the owner was a different guy, but the fact
that I got look go was not a surprise because
you know, on the team for about twenty years. Somebody
pointed out when I got fired, I was the longest
tenure general manager or head coach. And almost one of
the things I'd encourage our listeners to do is take
a step back from any one of the three of us,
or really any one individual in general, and look at
certain franchises, Tom in your league. The Pittsburgh Stealers stand

(01:13:24):
out to me, the consistency, the longevity. It seems like
the Ravens I have a lot of that too. In
the NBA, I'd say San Antonio, Miami, Boston, And it's
kind of a chicken or the egg argument. Are those
guys entrench because they're exceptional or is it because they're
extremely Their ownership is extremely patient and gives them the
benefit of the doubt and is willing to see them

(01:13:45):
through and let them do their job. So, you know,
for me in Phoenix, it was it was weird and
what I realized, and it happened over the phone. I
got a call from the owner on a Sunday, which
again the timing surprised me, but we had just had
a significant draft and we had a significant disagreement on
draft night. I thought we needed a primarily primary ball handler.
We weren't able to acquire one, and I spent the

(01:14:05):
entire offseason trying to get one who is decent, not
at the level of the guys that we just passed on.
So I bring that all up because he told me
over the phone what he was thinking, and you know,
I took the high road and said, appreciate, accepted all that,
and I said, well, actually I was going to call
you to recommend a trade because this team wants to
do this deal. And I said I think we should
do it, and then I caught myself. I said, correction,

(01:14:26):
I think you guys should do it, So if you
want to do it, yeah, because I want to see
the franchise do well. And I knew, you know, kind
of what it meant that that destabilization at the top
of the organization with a GM going out, what it
meant to the head coach and the players and all that.
So I said, look, call this guy with this organization.
He and I just verbally agreed on the deal. I
was going to call you and recommend it, but if
you guys want to do it, that's on you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
And it was. It was just like I said, it
kind of an.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Out out of body experience because for me, it did
happen over the phone, and I just kind of went
down to my office.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Nobody knew about it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
I just kind of cleared out, you know, the personal
belongings and pictures and you know, tax documents and all
the stuff I had there that probably shouldn't be keeping
the office, and then just you know, went home and
had dinner with the wife and waited for the rest
of the world to find out. The next morning on
a Monday, and it was Yeah, it was kind of
a bizarre time, but you know, like I said, you're
certainly appreciative of these opportunities and you always want to

(01:15:15):
try that as best you can. Take the high road
because you know, you guys point out this happens to everybody,
literally everybody in pro sports. If you're a GM or
head coach long enough, you're going to get fired at
some point.

Speaker 5 (01:15:24):
Yeah, take the high road and then educate your kids
on what you're going to read the next twenty four
to forty eight hours.

Speaker 4 (01:15:30):
That it's just part of the business, which.

Speaker 5 (01:15:32):
I I kind of with our kids, I kind of
thought it was a good education for them of you know,
handling adversity, handling what people say. You know, you can
you can complain about, you know, head coaches and gms
that you have to go through that, but we try
to use as a positive to kind of develop, you know,
some tough skin, which I think kids need. So you know,
your your dad's you know, the same guy as he was,

(01:15:54):
you know a couple of years ago. He just has
a job that's you know that a lot of people
see and they see every mistake you make. But you
got to handle that. You got to handle that socially.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
Yeah, Josh Burns was a good friend of mine and
a mentor, and he said when I started my career,
like you hope you work long enough to get fired.
And he said, you know, there's two ways to approach
these jobs. You either try to survive every day and
covet the job and don't make decisions that could be judged,
or you try to do things to arrive on behalf
of the organization. If you do that long enough, you're

(01:16:25):
eventually going to make a mistake and you're probably in the.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Need to get relieved of your duties.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
So there's a world in which like getting relieved of
your duties means you were genuinely trying. It doesn't mean
we always did the right thing, but we never stopped trying,
and we never put the franchises, you know, you know,
ourselves ahead of the franchises. And one other thing Ryan,
I would just share with you anecdotally relative to trying
to take care of the people around you in these
circumstances is I remember, and I won't mention the general

(01:16:51):
manager I was working for, but we were on a
particularly bad vender in the middle of the season ownership
impromptu called to a meeting. He rushed into my office
and he gave me this envelope and he said, if
I don't come back, open this envelope. And so I'm like, okay, buddy.
So that he finally came back that afternoons, like, he
can give me the envelope back. They didn't fire me,
So what was in the envelope? And he was like,

(01:17:11):
it was extensions for you and four of the other guys,
and I had already signed off on it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
So I was like, it's a bummer you didn't get fired.
We were all going to get to a big payday.
But he was that committed to try to take care
of us.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
I don't think we would have ever acted on that
or that would have passed, but he actually had thought
about it. It was the in case of emergency break
glass box that he had given me, and it was
extensions for his leadership team.

Speaker 4 (01:17:32):
That's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
I love that story. That's what it's all about. It's,
you know, top of the organization. The GM head coach
get the credit. But I think what makes the three
of us a little bit unique is that we've been
at every level of the organization, starting in the video
room and then or low level scouting and then working
our way up. Well that was Tom Celesco. Tom, we
really appreciate you joining us on rosters to rings that
now will be doing this every week going forward. Next

(01:17:56):
week we have the NFL getting started, We have the
Major League Baseball Play payoff race in full swing. The
NBA regular season and preseason just around the corner. He
istad Levine. I am Ryan McDonald join us again next
week on rosters to rank