May 23, 2025 • 36 mins
On today’s episode, Jason discusses the Oklahoma City Thunder’s blowout victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 2, why he an NBA MVP award doesn’t automatically make Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a top-5 player in the League, and what made Thursday a night to forget for WNBA stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. Later, ESPN columnist and author Seth Wickersham swings by to discuss his upcoming book (‘American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback’), the narrative that the Chicago Bears failed Caleb Williams in year one, the growing buzz behind University of Texas quarterback Arch Manning, what’s next for Shedeur Sanders, and much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up straight Fire? Pram HiT's me Jason McIntyre.
Straight Fire for Friday, May the twenty third. It's official.
This is Memorial Day weekend. I don't think we're gonna
have a podcast Monday. It is a holiday. I know
nobody's really working except oh well, the Herd's on. So yeah,
(00:31):
I think we'll probably skip Monday unless something bananas happens
in Minnesota, OKAC. But based on the looks of things,
we don't have much of a series. We'll get to
that shortly. I'm gonna wedge in a little Kitlin Clark
Angel Reese thing. Of course, all these you know, one
of this WNBA mob came after me for a comment
I made about the Kaitlin Clark incident from last night
(00:52):
against the Atlanta Dream and then a special guest Seth Wickersham,
who has written a pretty awesome book about quarterbacks and
football and it obviously caused an uproar with Caleb Williams.
This week we will get into that. A lot of
Arch Manning talk for you Texas Longhorns fans out there,
little Shedur Sanders action. I think you guys are really
(01:13):
gonna like this interview with Seth I've known him for
like fifteen years. Good dude. But before we get to
sas Wickersham, obviously, we must start with the Minnesota Timberwolves
getting smoked again by the OKAC Thunder. Now. I have
been dismissive of Oklahoma City for much of the season.
I thought Dave McManaman the guests yesterday summed them up
(01:35):
brilliantly when he said an NBA player who he wouldn't name,
told him that the Thunder are the best college basketball
team in the NBA. They are relentless. They have a
flotilla of young dudes who don't stop running. All you
saw in the third quarter and the fourth were runouts,
(01:55):
three on two, four on two. OKAC is relentless. Now,
I'm not saying Minutia was tired, but Rudy Gobert does
not run the floor well. Mike Conley is old. Julius
Randall was benched in the fourth quarter for I mean,
he basically had a great first half in Game one
and in the next six quarters did not show up.
He's done nothing. Anthony Edwards was pretty damn good, but
(02:16):
he still cannot make a three one of nine. But
here's the thing. I've got to give OKAC some props. Obviously.
I know some Thunder fans are so sick of me
they won't even listen to the podcast. Yes, I see
your tweets in ig dms and comments on my ig videos,
even on YouTube videos. You guys are starting to come
after me. I listen. I gotta give OKC props. Yes,
they won sixty eight games. They smoked Minnesota in Game one.
(02:39):
I said, hey, Minnesota didn't really show up well. Game two,
five point game in the third quarter, you thinking, okay,
all right, they're weathering the storm. Third quarter barrage, folks.
OKAC was up sixty eight, sixty three with five point
fifty three left in the third. Minnesota was hanging tough.
A lot of Anthony Edwards. I thought, Jayden McDaniels look good.
I'm like, we need more jad mcdays in the series
(03:00):
if we're ever gonna make this interesting. So it is
after a Anthony Edwards two, a Jaden McDaniels two, it's
a five point game in the Thunder call a timeout, Okay,
shake guilds Alexander bucket, followed by Shiga just Alexander Shake
(03:21):
guild Andrew free throw. It was a nan one Alex
Carusho bucket sga Cason Wallace from three, and all of
a sudden, it's a fifteen point lead. It's like bing
bag boom chet holmgrin with a pretty nasty alley you
and then lou Dort made it three and next thing
you know, it's a seventeen point game. They just kept
coming in swarms. Minnesota had no answers. Folks, this is
(03:44):
gonna be this is troubling. I'm not gonna lie. Okay, see,
is minus two thousand in this series. I'm fairly certain
they were minus three fifty at the beginning of the series.
I think now it's minus two thousand. Okay, zig zag theory.
Glad I didn't bet this game. I would have been
frustrated because, I mean, okay, see now that Minnesota I
think cut it to ten in the fourth. I don't
(04:06):
think they got it into single digits. But we've now
had two games in the fourth quarter where it just
hasn't been interesting. It's not a compelling series. And here's
the toughest part. Minnesota did do a lot of different
things in this In Game two to keep it close.
I don't think they quite emptied the clip, but there
it looks like Finch is at his wits end. He
took the podium after the game. It was just like
(04:28):
kind of exhausted, Like damn, Anthony Edwards can't shoot straight.
Rudy Gobert seems a little lost or slow. I don't
know what it is. Dante Divigenzo hit a couple threes
in the first half, but he ended up with four
turnovers and three makes and he was minus twenty seven.
Sga was going right at him. I mean, he's a
tough defender. At one point, Sga looked like he was
(04:51):
inviting the post up on Dante and he just took
him to school down low. Naz Reid zero for five
on threes. Nas reed, it just cannot make a three
in the series his life. Now we know the story.
When you go home, role players often deliver because they're
in friendly confines. You've got the crowd behind them. Obviously,
(05:11):
Game three must win for Minnesota. OKC is a four
and a half point favorite on the roading game. That
stunned me. I was absolutely floored by that. I wanted
to come on here and make a case for Minnesota
to come back. I thought I would see something in
game two. I saw it nothing. SGA with thirty eight
and eight assists, Jalen Williams twenty six and ten, chet
(05:36):
Homegroom with twenty two, still not shooting a great and
SGA is basically saying, I'm not shooting threes. I'm just
gonna attack the rim now and shot fifteen free throws.
So SGA free throw merchant fifteen free throw attempts. The
starters on the Timberwolves attempted sixteen. Now. There was an
incident in was it the I think it was the
fourth quarter. And SGA does this a lot. The announcers
(05:58):
did catch it. SGA. When you're reaching, when you're picking
up full court and in close, SGA hooks your arm
and pulls you in to invite the contact and get
the foul. James Harden perfected this move, I don't know
five to six seven when he was going through his
scoring spree. Okay, SGA has perfected that. For some reason,
(06:21):
the rest aren't calling it on him. So he hooks
Jayden McDaniels quickly pulls him in and then McDaniels is
up in him and SGA leans in and gets the
foul and Jaden mcdaniels's pissed and just shoves him. Obviously
he gets a flagrum for that. But at some point
the refs are gonna or the league is gonna have
to step in and be like, yeah, this is a
bad look the way they did with Harden. You guys,
remember Harden was averaging thirty five a game. There were
(06:43):
people saying that James Harden is as good of a
score as Michael Jordan. You remember this. This was pre COVID.
He was unstoppable, getting to the foul line a million times,
and they had to literally adjust the rules because it
was becoming unwatchable. I SGA's obviously a very, very skilled player,
but I'm seeing a lot of the same stuff. Guys, Yes,
(07:05):
he is torching Minnesota. I don't know that they have
an answer. I don't. I mean, you could just double
him hard, double, make him give it up, and say, hey,
if we lose because loud Door hit six threes and
j Jake Dobb goes off, fine, but we're not gonna
let SGA cook us with this hook nonsense and the flailing.
And obviously SGA deserves props. He won MVP. He's twenty six.
(07:26):
A lot of people were upset who were watching the
Herd when I said, I don't think he's a top
five player in the league. I still think Giannis is
obviously better. I think Lucas obviously better. Honestly, Nicole Jokicic
is better. I think you know this season he was great,
But you tell me Steph Curry wasn't great and he's
(07:49):
thirty seven. You tell me Lebron wasn't phenomenal like I
think Jason. If you're asking me Jay, no Giannis, no Luca,
no Jokic. You got the first pick, who you taken?
I would take Tatum over SGA, And I know that's
not gonna be popular, but I think Tatum's an overall
(08:12):
better player. Now what you'll say is, well, wait a minute,
SGA has an MVP, he's got a scoring title. Well,
Tatum doesn't have that. Who cares? Guys, When you're comparing
OKAYC and what they did this year, like Boston was
really good. Last year, their playoff one was amazing. Okayc's
has been very good. They did get pushed to seven.
Boston to get pushed to seven at all. Last year
(08:33):
Boston annihilated everybody, and Tatum obviously was their best player, points, rebounds, assists.
I know Jalen Brown got the MVP in the finals
and in the East, but the numbers went to Tatum.
They also don't didn't play ten to eleven guys like
this OKC team does. And I'm still of the belief
(08:54):
Sga phenomenal player, top seven faux show. I you know,
I understand how he wins the MVP. I and it's
quite possible. I'm wrong. They Sweet Minnesota dust the Knicks
er Pacers, and it's like, Jay, you look like an
ass clown that that's possible. It's not like that hasn't
happened before when you're in the prediction business. Hey, that's
that's what happens. But Sga was phenomenal with thirty eight
(09:17):
on twenty one shots, a much more efficient. We'll see
how he's refereed in the next game Saturday night. Wait
is it Saturday Sunday? Yeah, so tonight we'll be Nicks
and Pacers Game two, and then game three for the
Indiana will be Sunday. Okay, so well, I mean my
(09:38):
intention is to not do a pod for Monday. However,
there's something interesting happening Sunday. So if it goes down
the way I think it might, then I'll I might
do the pod. It'll be late, but we'll see really quickly.
So the Indiana Fever played the Atlanta Dream in like
a Home and Home and Atlanta's a tough matchup for
(10:00):
Indie because they have some really they have some just
incredible size on the interior. And fortunately for Indiana, Britney
Granner fauld that. But the real story here was this woman,
Ryan Howard. Again, I'm not a huge WNBA guy. I
don't know her. She was the number one overall pick
in twenty twenty two out of Kentucky. I guess I
probably should have known her. She was the number one
(10:21):
overall pick. She's a tough, tough cookie, good player. She
had a great game last night. She's picking up Caitlin
Clark full court and you know, bumping her, bumping her
and Kateler Clark comes across and is about to call
time out and this Howard really gets in her face
again and Clark kind of gives like, just get off,
(10:42):
and Howard just gets right up in her grill and
it's like talking trash and it's like here we go again,
people coming at Clark, and again, I don't know Ryan
Howard at all. If she had delivered a pizza to
my house earlier this week, I would not have known
who she is. Obviously, she's a very talented player. It
is undeniable that she wanted to get under the skin
in the face of Caitlin Clark, and that is the
strategy of a lot of teams. They exchange words. Clark
(11:05):
very clearly caught on camera saying I'm not afraid of you,
or I'm not scared. I'm sorry, I'm not scared of you,
like Clark said it right to her, like Howard's supposed to.
I don't know what she said to invite it, and
I couldn't find anything from the post game. But anyways,
Clark did not have a good game. Oh for six
on oh sorry, oh for five on threes. They picked
her up all over the court. She did have an
assist late when they were up one, a great pass
(11:28):
to one of the bigs for la and Clark finished
with eleven points, six assists, four boards, for turnovers, five fouls.
Fever did get the win, though, let me see who
the Fever played this weekend. I know you guys care deeply.
It is Oh, the New York Liberty Saturday at ten
am West Coast time. Yeah, I don't think I'll be
(11:51):
up for that one. New York Liberty. They've got a
Oh they're two and zero. They're good, so I guess
it should be a good game New York. By the way,
last night smoked Chicago. Now the story here again. I'm
not getting a wwa. Angel Reese has really gotten under
the skin of a lot of Caitlin Clark fans and folks.
(12:16):
If you go online just punching Angel Reese and then
hit like a Google News or go on social media
for whatever reason, people are just going after her. I
mean like they're crushing her. She's on the struggle bus.
Through two games there was she had a moment where
she collected an offensive rebound, missed a layup, collected another
(12:37):
offensive rebound, missed a layup, collected it again. This is
all in like a fifteen second span. Had her shot blocked,
got the ball again, blew the layup, got the ball
again this time said no, I'm not shot. Kicked it out, folks.
Angel Reese in twenty seven minutes was oh for eight,
two for six on free throws, had twelve rebounds, which
(12:59):
is great, but five turnovers. She has more turnovers than
baskets this season. It's only two games, it's early, but
you know, she's kind of getting lit up online and
and some of this she invites with the commentary and
the bragging and all this stuff. And I guess on
TikTok she repopped somebody about somebody had said like, oh, Angel,
look when you're incident with Caitlin Clark at the little
(13:21):
white girl looking to run away or some some phrase
like that, and Angel Rees repopped it on her TikTok,
like what are you doing? I mean, listen, this stuff
is not gonna stop. It's WNBA summer coming up. Anyways,
what's interesting coming up is Seth Wickersham, the ESPN reporter
who's dove into a great book on quarterbacks. You're gonna
(13:42):
love this here Seth Wickersham from ESPN.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live. You know, Jason likes to think he knows
everything when it comes to sports.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I know what sports fans want.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
But for everything he doesn't, he knows a guy who does.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Let's just say I know a guy who knows a
guy who knows another guy. All right, let's welcome back
to straight Fire. One of the interesting guests. He writes
a lot of books. He does deep dives, which are
few and far between in sports media now. Seth Wickersham
ESPN obviously made huge waves last week in the sports
world with his latest book, which isn't out yet, but
(14:32):
the Caleb Williams off Seth.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
How are you man, I'm great. Good to see you.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, it's good to talk to you. Every time you
do a book, massive news comes out of it because
you're such a great reporter and journalist. I've probably known
you at least fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Well, yeah, it's funny we did that big lead interview
way back when you know that was a good throwback.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, I mean, you obviously are one of the foremost
sports reporters who does deep dives. It feels like a
lost art almost in sports media, just because you know
the finances. It doesn't really make a ton of sense
to have somebody write five articles a year, but when
they're as good as yours, you know you can make
it happen. So this let's start here. What brought you
(15:16):
to the idea of this book? Which sounds super fascinating,
And I think this is just the first layer of
many that you got here.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Right, Yeah, it is the first la layer in I
mean to be honest with you and not to sound
all uncle Rico, but like it was the genesis is
of being like a failed high school quarterback and me
always wondering, you know what it was unable to cut.
I couldn't quite comprehend how some of these guys do
(15:43):
what they do, and I wanted to try to understand
that on every level. I wanted to try to understand
what it builds in you, what it trips away to
do this job. It's a I want to understand how
it became so popular in our culture and why this
very odd thing of throwing a football and throwing a
spiral became this thing that very quickly put people on
(16:03):
a level with movie stars, famous musicians, politicians.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
And it was like that almost from the start.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
And so I didn't write a history about quarterback, but
I wanted to write about, in the realist way, what.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It means to do this job.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
At every level from high school to the NFL and
college in between, and then what it's like to live
with it in retirement when you're a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
That's deep. Let me ask you. So, a lot of
people in sports media were either once athletes or they
wanted to be athletes. I'm in that wanted to be
an athlete bucket. But like I had my growth spurt
and all that stuff, I didn't hit puberty too late,
so I couldn't even make the high school teams. I
played every sport growing up and it, dude, it hurts
so bad, but look where it got me to. You know,
I play in tennis tournaments and soccer and basketball leagues
(16:53):
and I talk about sports. I didn't know about this
quarterback issue. So what were you starting quarterback? Did you
not make it?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Like?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
What was the story?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:01):
I had my design, like, I had my mind set
on it, and I was a starting quarterback for a
period of time, and I wanted to try to unset
the varsity starter ahead of me and I didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And you know, me being in.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
High school, it sent me into a little bit of
a tailspin. And that's not what the book's about. But
that's kind of my entry off point. It's like wondering.
And even the guy who started ahead of me, he
played in college, but like even he had that kind
of mysterious ability, like you know, I was, I was
really good in practice, and then when the bullets started flying,
(17:39):
you know, something after doing it for a couple of years,
but like on the varsity level, like something within me
kind of broke down and these these you know, things
that I had committed to muscle memory didn't work, whereas
like he was like the opposite where he when the
bullets were flying is when he became better and became
one of the best in the state.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And you know, that's it's always stayed with me.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
But you know more than that, you know, you and
I talked to my Patriots book came out, and you know,
I got to know Tom Brady back in two thousand
and one, back before anyone knew that he would even
finish the season as the starter. And it was kind
of interesting because we were the same class in high school,
same class in college, getting our career breaks at the
same time, and it was kind of interesting to just see,
as it turned out, you know, the greatest player in
(18:22):
NFL history standing with me at that moment, and you know,
he was the one, and he and Peyton Manning were
the ones out of kind of like our era that
ended up doing this thing.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
At the highest level. And so anyway, you.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Know, it's there's a lot of quarterbacks that I write
about in the book, current and former guys. I dive
into the lives of some guys who are with us anymore.
But I needed to, you know, understand how they do
it anywhere, from you know, memorizing a playbook to two
minute drives, to how they deal with all of the
different hats you have to wear as a quarterback, from
(18:57):
you know, spokesman of a multi billion dollar organization to
matt and a idol to huge asshole at times. And
you know what it builds in you and again you
know what it strips away and what are the things
that you end up that stays with you when you're
away from the game. And you know how compatible and
incompatible are those with regular life.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah. So Caleb Williams obviously is at the center of
last week's firestorm and the quotes from his dad, which
I largely agree with, will you get too shortly? I
am curious when you approached Caleb Williams about the book.
Was he open to it because him and his family
seem like very interesting folks, forward thinking, you know, cowher
Do I work with knows the family well, and he's
(19:39):
told me some stuff. I'm interested in them. And because
you know the how did you get them on board
for the book? And what was their pushback?
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Well, when I reached out to Caleb through USC back
in when I first started working in the book, which
was really the spring of twenty twenty three, so he had,
you know, just off that great season, and you know,
he was definitely an American king, and plus you know,
the things he was doing with Nil I thought was
really interesting. He was kind of the first professional amateur quarterback.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
And you know, so I visited with him, visited with
some of the folks at us see his high.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
School, his dad, and and then you know, as the
season went on his last season at USC.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It was you know a little up and down. And then.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
When stuff was coming out about the draft, and you know,
he and his dad thinking about doing something similar to
what Jack and John Elway did in nineteen eighty three,
which I write about extensively in the book. And you
know what Archie and Eli Manning did in two thousand
and four.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
I thought it was just interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, So it was like usually when the story pops
of the Magnitude the Years did last week, there's all
kinds of denials and pushback. I didn't hear a damn
word from Shane Waldron or the eber Flushes camp. They
all went silent because clearly it's all factual. And I
am curious, how did did you hear anything privately from
anybody that was like, oh, man, come on, how are
(21:03):
you going to do me dirty like this?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
No.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I met with Carl you know, so everyone with the
book that you know that I got, you know, a
level of cooperation from I tried my best to meet
with them in person and fact check everything.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And so the.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Williams As were part of that, you know. I did
that with l Way, Steve Young, warn Moon, the Mannings,
and you know, so I think that, like, you know,
it's funny you do these stories and everyone the first question,
everyone asks what's the reaction, and so it's it's it's
kind of amusing. I'm not trying to go all Larry
David on you, but like, you know, the reaction is
(21:40):
me getting questions about what the reaction if.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's a good one, and listen, I'm sure that privately
there were some people unhappy Ben Johnson handled it. Well, Hey,
I wasn't here. We're just looking forward. I am curious.
Like the biggest knock on Caleb coming into the pros
was too much backyard action? Dude? Can he ring that in?
And he didn't really rein it in as a rookie,
but you could argue it was the coaching staff, the
(22:06):
offensive coordinator of a quarterback. He just didn't get the
support needed. Is that a fair assessment or no?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, I think there's a couple of things at play.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
So number one, you know, I write a lot about
the Pro day. You know, his pro day, and you
know what goes into a pro day?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Why do we even do them? They're kind of ridiculous,
But you know.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
The way he was trying to do it and the
way the people who are helping him do it, or
they were trying to tell a story with that Pro
day and with Caleb in particular, I think that they
wanted to try to show those who were there or
erase any doubt that he was about all football. And
I think that like when you know, so much happened
in his life so quickly.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
He won the.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Heisman Trophy, he got all the endorsements, he got so
much notoriety, and you know, that is a seductive and
dangerous place. And I write at length about that about
you know, what happens when you get that level of
fame and how easy it is to let your day
job slip a little bit. And I think that when
they lost calebs last year at USC, they lost at
(23:06):
home to Washington, and that was the game that he
cried in his mother's arms, and he didn't meet with
the press after the game, And so I think that
a lot of NFL people were wondering, like, hey, look,
that's not going to fly in the NFL, Like it's
not going to fly in the for an organization, and
it's definitely not going to fly in the locker room.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Like you need to be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
And so when I was watching Caleb's first year, more
than anything you know, in terms of like his you know,
fundamentals as a quarterback, I was really watching to.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
See like how he handled himself. And I thought he
handled himself excellently, Like he was put in some very
compromising situations by that coaching staff, and he was accountable.
He was a good leader, he never broke, and he
was tough. I mean, he was a really tough player.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
And I think that you saw teammates respond to him
in a way that I think is pretty unique. And
I also think, you know, not for nothing, that the
hardest thing to do in the NFL is to throw
in known passing situations, and he showed a talent for
being able to do that. And I think that you know,
you look at rookie years, it's rare that you have
(24:11):
a Marino or a CJ.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Stroud or a Jaden Daniels. You know, most for most
of these guys, it's about survival, and I think we
can all say that he survived pretty well.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
The whole question about quarterbacks is fascinating because I don't
know if I talk to you leading up to Mahomes
entering the draft, but you know, nobody on Earth, I
don't care who they are, saw Mahomes being this good.
Nobody nobody in the NFL. And it comes back to like,
does the NFL still struggle to grasp what a quarterback
can do in the NFL? Because like Rock Purty, dead
(24:52):
last pick in the draft, everybody passed out him, including
the Niners. Yeah, and then you know, he turns out
to be I don't want to say a superstar, but
looks like he could be a superstar and he just
got a massive contract, Lamar Jackson, end of the first round.
You could do this forever in your dealings around the
book of what makes a quarterback? Did you touch on
it all? Like why the NFL has struggled to identify
(25:14):
that quarterback position?
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (25:17):
And you know a lot of it goes back to
the things that Carl Williams was worried about, and that's
that like coaching matters, organization matters, infrastructure matters. Like you know,
if Patrick Mahomes, you know the what if game, I mean,
if he hadn't been taken by the Chiefs, he would have.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Been taken by the New Orleans Saints and John Payton.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
So he probably would have turned out well no matter what.
But let's just say that like some sorry team had
decided to sight up and pick him, right, I mean
Bryce Young, Yeah, Bryce, he has no chance. I mean
how many coaches did he have in two years three?
I think total? Like, you have no chance when it's
that type of situation. And so I think that Carl
Williams saw that hurricane coming and wanted to.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Figure out if there was a way, like Jack Elway.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Did, and like Archie Manning did you know, to give
his son some sort of agency over his future employer.
But look, it was Caleb who was driving this. He
was the decision maker. He's a grown up, and Carl
was willing to do whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
It took if that's what Caleb wanted.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
But at the end of the day, Caleb, after some apprehension,
was sold on the Bears and really wanted to figure
out a way to make it work there.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
But you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I mean, there's very few men who can throw footballs
into the tight windows that we need in the NFL,
and there's fewer people who can identify that talent and
even fewer people who can coach at a high level.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So that all leads up. And I know that you
know you have arch Manning in the book, and I'm
sure that you're saving the best stuff for when you know,
the college football season approaches. But you know, as soon
as the twenty five mock draft was done with the
quarterback situation shot or blah blah blah, it turned to
twenty six and almost as if it was a coordinate effect,
coordinated like attack, not attack, but a coordinated effort from
(27:05):
the Manning family. All I saw from reporters were, well,
Arch Manning's probably not going to come out. I mean, seth,
it's very rare that, like every reporter has the same
thing on Arch Banning not coming out. I almost feel
like it was coming from the Manning camp, like they
had this ready, Hey, man, don't put him in your
Montracy's not coming out. I personally think that's BS. But
(27:26):
you know, we'll see he's making a ton of money
in Nil. Is there anything you can at least tease
on the Manning front that that angle from the book?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Yeah, I mean I don't know. I wasn't privy to
you know, that level of reporting. I do think that
like one of the and this you know, I'm happy
to talk about this, but like you know, when you
be when you become a quarterback, you're taking on responsibilities
that are so much different than being a shortstop or
a center fielder or a point guard, right. I mean,
that's obvious. It's it's in this lofty cultural place. If
(27:56):
you're a manning and you do that, it's even more
it's that on steroids. And so when Arch decided that
he wanted to be a quarterback, in each stage, those
kind of critical stages, I think that the family has
made decisions to slow things down a little bit. Like
they didn't put Arch as high up against the top
competition as they could.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Have when he was a flag football quarterback.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
And I think that, you know, one of the things
I talked about in the book is that like, you know,
he didn't want offers like they took. They they I
dive deep into the recruitment and one of the things
about the recruitment is they wanted it to be like
a nineteen seventy style recruitment with the head coach of
the high school running point.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
They didn't want offers.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
They didn't want him having to tweet every five minutes
that he was honored to get, you know, an offer
from Ole Miss.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I'm just making that up.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
And you know, they wanted to try to put a
semblance of a protective bubble around him, knowing that there
was this mania going on that you know, almost didn't
even need him to exist, and you know, Archie Manning
it inadvertently kind of got it going because he he
said when Arch was a freshman that he was a
little ahead of where Peyton and Eli were when they
(29:05):
were freshmen. And of that, of course, you know that
was on CNN. I mean that caught fire. What he
meant was that neither Peyton nor Eli had started at
isidor Newman on varsity as a freshman, and that's what
arch was doing. So that's what the context of it was.
But again it was kind of a reminder that there
was this mania that was going on.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
And one of the reasons.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Why, you know, I think Austin and University of Texas
were appealing to him was that it was a big town.
I mean, it's a city, and it's a place that
like he can hide a little bit better than he
would have been able to in Oxford, Mississippi.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Huh Now that what about that? I don't know if
you got into this, but there was a lot of
talk that when Quinn Yours returned, Arch didn't want to
sit another year, maybe he'll transfer to Georgia and this
team was going to offer him. Did you guys touch
on any of that speculation or no.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
I didn't write about it in the book, But I
don't think he was leaving Texas, like I just I
think that that was like you know it again, Like
I said, it doesn't need a lot from him to
even exist. And I think that people think that because
he's Arch and because he's a Manning, that you know,
everything has to be now and everything has to be
on this accelerated track, when I think that he does
(30:17):
a pretty good job of balancing what he's trying to
accomplish immediately and kind of a longer term perspective.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
So the interesting thing that I liked on the Williams
angle Caleb Williams that merges with Arches that the father
essentially said, hey man, this is an unconstitutional rookie contract.
They have you for basically up to eight years. Well,
if guys like Arch Manning stick around until twenty two
twenty three in college, you're locked into a team basically
(30:46):
until you're thirty and your prime and you know, quarterbacks
are now playing a little longer. But it does feel
a little weird that they can lock you in that long.
I am curious where do you stand Seth Wickersham Independent
and did of all the reporting, you know, where do
you stand on that? Do you think that's fair?
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I don't think it's fair at all.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I mean, you're talking about a sport where the average
career spans three years, and those prime earning years. Again,
you know, the reason that you know Caleb didn't return
to USC or go to another school where you know
he was offered a lot of money, is that everybody
wants the second contract. And you know, this is why
(31:27):
where you get picked is so important, because they have
you locked up for your four year rookie contract, fifth
year option, and then if they chose, they can franchise
you for three straight years, so you can be eight
years into your NFL career before you hit the market.
And that to me is wrong, Like you know, but
then again, it was a collectively bargained and you know,
(31:47):
I get into this in the book, but you.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Had that that time.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
I mean, this is probably around the time that you
and I first did that interview. But remember, like quarterbacks
are coming out and they were giving these huge deals
like Alex Smith Jermarcus Russell, Matthew Stafford, matt you know,
were getting these monstrous deals and they were you know,
it was causing problems all the way around, and like
good for the quarterbacks to get what they good that
what they could. Good for Tom Condon, who negotiated a
(32:11):
bunch of them and kind of became this super agent
in that time. But they were messing up a lot
of things I think within the construct of a team
that made ended up making things harder on the quarterback
in the long term. And I think that in twenty eleven,
when the league and the union got together to you know,
finalize a new collective bargaining agreement, and it was.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
A tough, tough negotiation.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
You know, one of the things that went in there
was the rookie wage scale. And I think that the
idea of a rookie wage scale, you know, I understand it.
What they're trying to do is ship that money to
the veterans. Now, how how has that worked out? I'm
not exactly quite sure. I think it's more of a
mixed perspective.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, we can wrap up with this. I don't know, Seth.
Like I do love the NFL, I don't obviously love
some of these contracts situations for quarterbacks, but I cannot
get over the Shadeur Sanders slide. A. Didn't touch on
any Shadour in the book? Or is he just no?
And did you approach him or anything? And then b
were you surprised that he plummeted to the fifth round.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
I saw Shador play when he was like seven years old,
when I was doing a Dion Sandor's profile for ESPN
the magazine. But he wasn't someone that I wrote about
at length in the book. I you see the sign
behind me, it says, go buffs. I mean, I was
born in Colorado, I grew up half my life in Boulder,
half my adolescence. And you know, I watched Shador a lot.
I thought he was a phenomenal player. When Peter King
(33:37):
watched USC so Caleb Williams versus Colorado in Boulder, he
thought Shador was a better pro prospect than Caleb Williams.
And I think that once he kind of was falling
out of the second round, it was pretty obvious that
the league looked at him like a project, whether that's
(33:58):
fair or not. And then after that, it's what baggage
comes with the project, you know, and that's you know,
can he be an understudy, Can he be under the radar?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Can his dad, who's you know, such a famous figure
and has coached him his entire life, deal with him
being a backup, maybe being a third stringer. I think
those are the questions that came into play.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
And you know, I think that like for Shaudeur, as
awful as draft day is, the draft process might have been.
I think that like the benefit in the long run,
if there is one, is that it gives him a
chance to earn the job outright rather than have it
handed to him. And I think that players in the
locker room respect that so much more than you know,
(34:40):
when a guy comes in straight out of college and
it's just kind of handed that job. I think that's
a tough position for a lot of quarterbacks to be in.
I write about it in the book, and I think
that like Shador, having to work his way up the
depth chart in the long run will probably help him.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
That's a reasonable take. And that's what he does seth Wickersham,
not that he's a tank guy, but that's a that's
a pretty I haven't heard that angle. Like in the
law run, this is probably better for him to start
at four. I don't know, maybe five, depending on where
Deshaun Watson was in a couple of months.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
So this is this interesting thing, and I mean you've
probably talked about it, but like there's this entire economy
for quarterbacks in the NFL who have been broken and
managed to find a way to hang on. And if
it's like Gino Smith and Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield
to a certain extent, these guys who like they got
got to play right away, then you know, it didn't
(35:28):
work out with that team for whatever reason, often because
of structural reasons beyond their control, especially with Donald, and
they're able to like take a step back, and then
when they maybe join a team that is some better coaching,
they're able to look at the game and it just
comes so much slower and answers are there that they
didn't see before. I think that like someone like Will
Levis could be somebody like that in the future if
(35:49):
things don't work out in Tennessee, where you know he played.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
For a year and a half.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
He made some awful turnovers last year obviously got on
the coach's nerves, but like he's shown he couldn't play
in the NFL, he can make some pretty impressive grows.
It's like things don't work out for him in Tennessee
and he goes somewhere else where there's better coaching and
a better infrastructure and the spotlight's not on him. It
gives him a chance to kind of like work his
(36:13):
way back into that second chance. And I think that,
you know, it's not exactly analogous to Shador, but I
think that the path is kind of the same where
it's a little it's not the straightest path ever, but
I think that in the long run it'll benefit him.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, it feels like a Baker Mayfield, you know in Cleveland,
like really bottom down that bounced around the league. Now
he's back to being like an all pro all right.
Zach Wickersham, ESPN. Great stuff, Seth. I'm waiting for the
next big domino to fall in your book and will
hopefully be able to get you back on the pod.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Thanks man, good to see you.
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up straight Fire? Pram HiT's me Jason McIntyre.
Straight Fire for Friday, May the twenty third. It's official.
This is Memorial Day weekend. I don't think we're gonna
have a podcast Monday. It is a holiday. I know
nobody's really working except oh well, the Herd's on. So yeah,
(00:31):
I think we'll probably skip Monday unless something bananas happens
in Minnesota, OKAC. But based on the looks of things,
we don't have much of a series. We'll get to
that shortly. I'm gonna wedge in a little Kitlin Clark
Angel Reese thing. Of course, all these you know, one
of this WNBA mob came after me for a comment
I made about the Kaitlin Clark incident from last night
(00:52):
against the Atlanta Dream and then a special guest Seth Wickersham,
who has written a pretty awesome book about quarterbacks and
football and it obviously caused an uproar with Caleb Williams.
This week we will get into that. A lot of
Arch Manning talk for you Texas Longhorns fans out there,
little Shedur Sanders action. I think you guys are really
(01:13):
gonna like this interview with Seth I've known him for
like fifteen years. Good dude. But before we get to
sas Wickersham, obviously, we must start with the Minnesota Timberwolves
getting smoked again by the OKAC Thunder. Now. I have
been dismissive of Oklahoma City for much of the season.
I thought Dave McManaman the guests yesterday summed them up
(01:35):
brilliantly when he said an NBA player who he wouldn't name,
told him that the Thunder are the best college basketball
team in the NBA. They are relentless. They have a
flotilla of young dudes who don't stop running. All you
saw in the third quarter and the fourth were runouts,
(01:55):
three on two, four on two. OKAC is relentless. Now,
I'm not saying Minutia was tired, but Rudy Gobert does
not run the floor well. Mike Conley is old. Julius
Randall was benched in the fourth quarter for I mean,
he basically had a great first half in Game one
and in the next six quarters did not show up.
He's done nothing. Anthony Edwards was pretty damn good, but
(02:16):
he still cannot make a three one of nine. But
here's the thing. I've got to give OKAC some props. Obviously.
I know some Thunder fans are so sick of me
they won't even listen to the podcast. Yes, I see
your tweets in ig dms and comments on my ig videos,
even on YouTube videos. You guys are starting to come
after me. I listen. I gotta give OKC props. Yes,
they won sixty eight games. They smoked Minnesota in Game one.
(02:39):
I said, hey, Minnesota didn't really show up well. Game two,
five point game in the third quarter, you thinking, okay,
all right, they're weathering the storm. Third quarter barrage, folks.
OKAC was up sixty eight, sixty three with five point
fifty three left in the third. Minnesota was hanging tough.
A lot of Anthony Edwards. I thought, Jayden McDaniels look good.
I'm like, we need more jad mcdays in the series
(03:00):
if we're ever gonna make this interesting. So it is
after a Anthony Edwards two, a Jaden McDaniels two, it's
a five point game in the Thunder call a timeout, Okay,
shake guilds Alexander bucket, followed by Shiga just Alexander Shake
(03:21):
guild Andrew free throw. It was a nan one Alex
Carusho bucket sga Cason Wallace from three, and all of
a sudden, it's a fifteen point lead. It's like bing
bag boom chet holmgrin with a pretty nasty alley you
and then lou Dort made it three and next thing
you know, it's a seventeen point game. They just kept
coming in swarms. Minnesota had no answers. Folks, this is
(03:44):
gonna be this is troubling. I'm not gonna lie. Okay, see,
is minus two thousand in this series. I'm fairly certain
they were minus three fifty at the beginning of the series.
I think now it's minus two thousand. Okay, zig zag theory.
Glad I didn't bet this game. I would have been
frustrated because, I mean, okay, see now that Minnesota I
think cut it to ten in the fourth. I don't
(04:06):
think they got it into single digits. But we've now
had two games in the fourth quarter where it just
hasn't been interesting. It's not a compelling series. And here's
the toughest part. Minnesota did do a lot of different
things in this In Game two to keep it close.
I don't think they quite emptied the clip, but there
it looks like Finch is at his wits end. He
took the podium after the game. It was just like
(04:28):
kind of exhausted, Like damn, Anthony Edwards can't shoot straight.
Rudy Gobert seems a little lost or slow. I don't
know what it is. Dante Divigenzo hit a couple threes
in the first half, but he ended up with four
turnovers and three makes and he was minus twenty seven.
Sga was going right at him. I mean, he's a
tough defender. At one point, Sga looked like he was
(04:51):
inviting the post up on Dante and he just took
him to school down low. Naz Reid zero for five
on threes. Nas reed, it just cannot make a three
in the series his life. Now we know the story.
When you go home, role players often deliver because they're
in friendly confines. You've got the crowd behind them. Obviously,
(05:11):
Game three must win for Minnesota. OKC is a four
and a half point favorite on the roading game. That
stunned me. I was absolutely floored by that. I wanted
to come on here and make a case for Minnesota
to come back. I thought I would see something in
game two. I saw it nothing. SGA with thirty eight
and eight assists, Jalen Williams twenty six and ten, chet
(05:36):
Homegroom with twenty two, still not shooting a great and
SGA is basically saying, I'm not shooting threes. I'm just
gonna attack the rim now and shot fifteen free throws.
So SGA free throw merchant fifteen free throw attempts. The
starters on the Timberwolves attempted sixteen. Now. There was an
incident in was it the I think it was the
fourth quarter. And SGA does this a lot. The announcers
(05:58):
did catch it. SGA. When you're reaching, when you're picking
up full court and in close, SGA hooks your arm
and pulls you in to invite the contact and get
the foul. James Harden perfected this move, I don't know
five to six seven when he was going through his
scoring spree. Okay, SGA has perfected that. For some reason,
(06:21):
the rest aren't calling it on him. So he hooks
Jayden McDaniels quickly pulls him in and then McDaniels is
up in him and SGA leans in and gets the
foul and Jaden mcdaniels's pissed and just shoves him. Obviously
he gets a flagrum for that. But at some point
the refs are gonna or the league is gonna have
to step in and be like, yeah, this is a
bad look the way they did with Harden. You guys,
remember Harden was averaging thirty five a game. There were
(06:43):
people saying that James Harden is as good of a
score as Michael Jordan. You remember this. This was pre COVID.
He was unstoppable, getting to the foul line a million times,
and they had to literally adjust the rules because it
was becoming unwatchable. I SGA's obviously a very, very skilled player,
but I'm seeing a lot of the same stuff. Guys, Yes,
(07:05):
he is torching Minnesota. I don't know that they have
an answer. I don't. I mean, you could just double
him hard, double, make him give it up, and say, hey,
if we lose because loud Door hit six threes and
j Jake Dobb goes off, fine, but we're not gonna
let SGA cook us with this hook nonsense and the flailing.
And obviously SGA deserves props. He won MVP. He's twenty six.
(07:26):
A lot of people were upset who were watching the
Herd when I said, I don't think he's a top
five player in the league. I still think Giannis is
obviously better. I think Lucas obviously better. Honestly, Nicole Jokicic
is better. I think you know this season he was great,
But you tell me Steph Curry wasn't great and he's
(07:49):
thirty seven. You tell me Lebron wasn't phenomenal like I
think Jason. If you're asking me Jay, no Giannis, no Luca,
no Jokic. You got the first pick, who you taken?
I would take Tatum over SGA, And I know that's
not gonna be popular, but I think Tatum's an overall
(08:12):
better player. Now what you'll say is, well, wait a minute,
SGA has an MVP, he's got a scoring title. Well,
Tatum doesn't have that. Who cares? Guys, When you're comparing
OKAYC and what they did this year, like Boston was
really good. Last year, their playoff one was amazing. Okayc's
has been very good. They did get pushed to seven.
Boston to get pushed to seven at all. Last year
(08:33):
Boston annihilated everybody, and Tatum obviously was their best player, points, rebounds, assists.
I know Jalen Brown got the MVP in the finals
and in the East, but the numbers went to Tatum.
They also don't didn't play ten to eleven guys like
this OKC team does. And I'm still of the belief
(08:54):
Sga phenomenal player, top seven faux show. I you know,
I understand how he wins the MVP. I and it's
quite possible. I'm wrong. They Sweet Minnesota dust the Knicks
er Pacers, and it's like, Jay, you look like an
ass clown that that's possible. It's not like that hasn't
happened before when you're in the prediction business. Hey, that's
that's what happens. But Sga was phenomenal with thirty eight
(09:17):
on twenty one shots, a much more efficient. We'll see
how he's refereed in the next game Saturday night. Wait
is it Saturday Sunday? Yeah, so tonight we'll be Nicks
and Pacers Game two, and then game three for the
Indiana will be Sunday. Okay, so well, I mean my
(09:38):
intention is to not do a pod for Monday. However,
there's something interesting happening Sunday. So if it goes down
the way I think it might, then I'll I might
do the pod. It'll be late, but we'll see really quickly.
So the Indiana Fever played the Atlanta Dream in like
a Home and Home and Atlanta's a tough matchup for
(10:00):
Indie because they have some really they have some just
incredible size on the interior. And fortunately for Indiana, Britney
Granner fauld that. But the real story here was this woman,
Ryan Howard. Again, I'm not a huge WNBA guy. I
don't know her. She was the number one overall pick
in twenty twenty two out of Kentucky. I guess I
probably should have known her. She was the number one
(10:21):
overall pick. She's a tough, tough cookie, good player. She
had a great game last night. She's picking up Caitlin
Clark full court and you know, bumping her, bumping her
and Kateler Clark comes across and is about to call
time out and this Howard really gets in her face
again and Clark kind of gives like, just get off,
(10:42):
and Howard just gets right up in her grill and
it's like talking trash and it's like here we go again,
people coming at Clark, and again, I don't know Ryan
Howard at all. If she had delivered a pizza to
my house earlier this week, I would not have known
who she is. Obviously, she's a very talented player. It
is undeniable that she wanted to get under the skin
in the face of Caitlin Clark, and that is the
strategy of a lot of teams. They exchange words. Clark
(11:05):
very clearly caught on camera saying I'm not afraid of you,
or I'm not scared. I'm sorry, I'm not scared of you,
like Clark said it right to her, like Howard's supposed to.
I don't know what she said to invite it, and
I couldn't find anything from the post game. But anyways,
Clark did not have a good game. Oh for six
on oh sorry, oh for five on threes. They picked
her up all over the court. She did have an
assist late when they were up one, a great pass
(11:28):
to one of the bigs for la and Clark finished
with eleven points, six assists, four boards, for turnovers, five fouls.
Fever did get the win, though, let me see who
the Fever played this weekend. I know you guys care deeply.
It is Oh, the New York Liberty Saturday at ten
am West Coast time. Yeah, I don't think I'll be
(11:51):
up for that one. New York Liberty. They've got a
Oh they're two and zero. They're good, so I guess
it should be a good game New York. By the way,
last night smoked Chicago. Now the story here again. I'm
not getting a wwa. Angel Reese has really gotten under
the skin of a lot of Caitlin Clark fans and folks.
(12:16):
If you go online just punching Angel Reese and then
hit like a Google News or go on social media
for whatever reason, people are just going after her. I
mean like they're crushing her. She's on the struggle bus.
Through two games there was she had a moment where
she collected an offensive rebound, missed a layup, collected another
(12:37):
offensive rebound, missed a layup, collected it again. This is
all in like a fifteen second span. Had her shot blocked,
got the ball again, blew the layup, got the ball
again this time said no, I'm not shot. Kicked it out, folks.
Angel Reese in twenty seven minutes was oh for eight,
two for six on free throws, had twelve rebounds, which
(12:59):
is great, but five turnovers. She has more turnovers than
baskets this season. It's only two games, it's early, but
you know, she's kind of getting lit up online and
and some of this she invites with the commentary and
the bragging and all this stuff. And I guess on
TikTok she repopped somebody about somebody had said like, oh, Angel,
look when you're incident with Caitlin Clark at the little
(13:21):
white girl looking to run away or some some phrase
like that, and Angel Rees repopped it on her TikTok,
like what are you doing? I mean, listen, this stuff
is not gonna stop. It's WNBA summer coming up. Anyways,
what's interesting coming up is Seth Wickersham, the ESPN reporter
who's dove into a great book on quarterbacks. You're gonna
(13:42):
love this here Seth Wickersham from ESPN.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live. You know, Jason likes to think he knows
everything when it comes to sports.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I know what sports fans want.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
But for everything he doesn't, he knows a guy who does.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Let's just say I know a guy who knows a
guy who knows another guy. All right, let's welcome back
to straight Fire. One of the interesting guests. He writes
a lot of books. He does deep dives, which are
few and far between in sports media now. Seth Wickersham
ESPN obviously made huge waves last week in the sports
world with his latest book, which isn't out yet, but
(14:32):
the Caleb Williams off Seth.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
How are you man, I'm great. Good to see you.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah, it's good to talk to you. Every time you
do a book, massive news comes out of it because
you're such a great reporter and journalist. I've probably known
you at least fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Well, yeah, it's funny we did that big lead interview
way back when you know that was a good throwback.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, I mean, you obviously are one of the foremost
sports reporters who does deep dives. It feels like a
lost art almost in sports media, just because you know
the finances. It doesn't really make a ton of sense
to have somebody write five articles a year, but when
they're as good as yours, you know you can make
it happen. So this let's start here. What brought you
(15:16):
to the idea of this book? Which sounds super fascinating,
And I think this is just the first layer of
many that you got here.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Right, Yeah, it is the first la layer in I
mean to be honest with you and not to sound
all uncle Rico, but like it was the genesis is
of being like a failed high school quarterback and me
always wondering, you know what it was unable to cut.
I couldn't quite comprehend how some of these guys do
(15:43):
what they do, and I wanted to try to understand
that on every level. I wanted to try to understand
what it builds in you, what it trips away to
do this job. It's a I want to understand how
it became so popular in our culture and why this
very odd thing of throwing a football and throwing a
spiral became this thing that very quickly put people on
(16:03):
a level with movie stars, famous musicians, politicians.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
And it was like that almost from the start.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
And so I didn't write a history about quarterback, but
I wanted to write about, in the realist way, what.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
It means to do this job.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
At every level from high school to the NFL and
college in between, and then what it's like to live
with it in retirement when you're a Hall of Famer.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
That's deep. Let me ask you. So, a lot of
people in sports media were either once athletes or they
wanted to be athletes. I'm in that wanted to be
an athlete bucket. But like I had my growth spurt
and all that stuff, I didn't hit puberty too late,
so I couldn't even make the high school teams. I
played every sport growing up and it, dude, it hurts
so bad, but look where it got me to. You know,
I play in tennis tournaments and soccer and basketball leagues
(16:53):
and I talk about sports. I didn't know about this
quarterback issue. So what were you starting quarterback? Did you
not make it?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Like?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
What was the story?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Well?
Speaker 4 (17:01):
I had my design, like, I had my mind set
on it, and I was a starting quarterback for a
period of time, and I wanted to try to unset
the varsity starter ahead of me and I didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And you know, me being in.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
High school, it sent me into a little bit of
a tailspin. And that's not what the book's about. But
that's kind of my entry off point. It's like wondering.
And even the guy who started ahead of me, he
played in college, but like even he had that kind
of mysterious ability, like you know, I was, I was
really good in practice, and then when the bullets started flying,
(17:39):
you know, something after doing it for a couple of years,
but like on the varsity level, like something within me
kind of broke down and these these you know, things
that I had committed to muscle memory didn't work, whereas
like he was like the opposite where he when the
bullets were flying is when he became better and became
one of the best in the state.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
And you know, that's it's always stayed with me.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
But you know more than that, you know, you and
I talked to my Patriots book came out, and you know,
I got to know Tom Brady back in two thousand
and one, back before anyone knew that he would even
finish the season as the starter. And it was kind
of interesting because we were the same class in high school,
same class in college, getting our career breaks at the
same time, and it was kind of interesting to just see,
as it turned out, you know, the greatest player in
(18:22):
NFL history standing with me at that moment, and you know,
he was the one, and he and Peyton Manning were
the ones out of kind of like our era that
ended up doing this thing.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
At the highest level. And so anyway, you.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Know, it's there's a lot of quarterbacks that I write
about in the book, current and former guys. I dive
into the lives of some guys who are with us anymore.
But I needed to, you know, understand how they do
it anywhere, from you know, memorizing a playbook to two
minute drives, to how they deal with all of the
different hats you have to wear as a quarterback, from
(18:57):
you know, spokesman of a multi billion dollar organization to
matt and a idol to huge asshole at times. And
you know what it builds in you and again you
know what it strips away and what are the things
that you end up that stays with you when you're
away from the game. And you know how compatible and
incompatible are those with regular life.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yeah. So Caleb Williams obviously is at the center of
last week's firestorm and the quotes from his dad, which
I largely agree with, will you get too shortly? I
am curious when you approached Caleb Williams about the book.
Was he open to it because him and his family
seem like very interesting folks, forward thinking, you know, cowher
Do I work with knows the family well, and he's
(19:39):
told me some stuff. I'm interested in them. And because
you know the how did you get them on board
for the book? And what was their pushback?
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Well, when I reached out to Caleb through USC back
in when I first started working in the book, which
was really the spring of twenty twenty three, so he had,
you know, just off that great season, and you know,
he was definitely an American king, and plus you know,
the things he was doing with Nil I thought was
really interesting. He was kind of the first professional amateur quarterback.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
And you know, so I visited with him, visited with
some of the folks at us see his high.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
School, his dad, and and then you know, as the
season went on his last season at USC.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It was you know a little up and down. And then.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
When stuff was coming out about the draft, and you know,
he and his dad thinking about doing something similar to
what Jack and John Elway did in nineteen eighty three,
which I write about extensively in the book. And you
know what Archie and Eli Manning did in two thousand
and four.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
I thought it was just interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, So it was like usually when the story pops
of the Magnitude the Years did last week, there's all
kinds of denials and pushback. I didn't hear a damn
word from Shane Waldron or the eber Flushes camp. They
all went silent because clearly it's all factual. And I
am curious, how did did you hear anything privately from
anybody that was like, oh, man, come on, how are
(21:03):
you going to do me dirty like this?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
No.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
I met with Carl you know, so everyone with the
book that you know that I got, you know, a
level of cooperation from I tried my best to meet
with them in person and fact check everything.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
And so the.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Williams As were part of that, you know. I did
that with l Way, Steve Young, warn Moon, the Mannings,
and you know, so I think that, like, you know,
it's funny you do these stories and everyone the first question,
everyone asks what's the reaction, and so it's it's it's
kind of amusing. I'm not trying to go all Larry
David on you, but like, you know, the reaction is
(21:40):
me getting questions about what the reaction if.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's a good one, and listen, I'm sure that privately
there were some people unhappy Ben Johnson handled it. Well, Hey,
I wasn't here. We're just looking forward. I am curious.
Like the biggest knock on Caleb coming into the pros
was too much backyard action? Dude? Can he ring that in?
And he didn't really rein it in as a rookie,
but you could argue it was the coaching staff, the
(22:06):
offensive coordinator of a quarterback. He just didn't get the
support needed. Is that a fair assessment or no?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well, I think there's a couple of things at play.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
So number one, you know, I write a lot about
the Pro day. You know, his pro day, and you
know what goes into a pro day?
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Why do we even do them? They're kind of ridiculous,
But you know.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
The way he was trying to do it and the
way the people who are helping him do it, or
they were trying to tell a story with that Pro
day and with Caleb in particular, I think that they
wanted to try to show those who were there or
erase any doubt that he was about all football. And
I think that like when you know, so much happened
in his life so quickly.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
He won the.
Speaker 4 (22:46):
Heisman Trophy, he got all the endorsements, he got so
much notoriety, and you know, that is a seductive and
dangerous place. And I write at length about that about
you know, what happens when you get that level of
fame and how easy it is to let your day
job slip a little bit. And I think that when
they lost calebs last year at USC, they lost at
(23:06):
home to Washington, and that was the game that he
cried in his mother's arms, and he didn't meet with
the press after the game, And so I think that
a lot of NFL people were wondering, like, hey, look,
that's not going to fly in the NFL, Like it's
not going to fly in the for an organization, and
it's definitely not going to fly in the locker room.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Like you need to be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
And so when I was watching Caleb's first year, more
than anything you know, in terms of like his you know,
fundamentals as a quarterback, I was really watching to.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
See like how he handled himself. And I thought he
handled himself excellently, Like he was put in some very
compromising situations by that coaching staff, and he was accountable.
He was a good leader, he never broke, and he
was tough. I mean, he was a really tough player.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
And I think that you saw teammates respond to him
in a way that I think is pretty unique. And
I also think, you know, not for nothing, that the
hardest thing to do in the NFL is to throw
in known passing situations, and he showed a talent for
being able to do that. And I think that you know,
you look at rookie years, it's rare that you have
(24:11):
a Marino or a CJ.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Stroud or a Jaden Daniels. You know, most for most
of these guys, it's about survival, and I think we
can all say that he survived pretty well.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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Speaker 2 (24:31):
The whole question about quarterbacks is fascinating because I don't
know if I talk to you leading up to Mahomes
entering the draft, but you know, nobody on Earth, I
don't care who they are, saw Mahomes being this good.
Nobody nobody in the NFL. And it comes back to like,
does the NFL still struggle to grasp what a quarterback
can do in the NFL? Because like Rock Purty, dead
(24:52):
last pick in the draft, everybody passed out him, including
the Niners. Yeah, and then you know, he turns out
to be I don't want to say a superstar, but
looks like he could be a superstar and he just
got a massive contract, Lamar Jackson, end of the first round.
You could do this forever in your dealings around the
book of what makes a quarterback? Did you touch on
it all? Like why the NFL has struggled to identify
(25:14):
that quarterback position?
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (25:17):
And you know a lot of it goes back to
the things that Carl Williams was worried about, and that's
that like coaching matters, organization matters, infrastructure matters. Like you know,
if Patrick Mahomes, you know the what if game, I mean,
if he hadn't been taken by the Chiefs, he would have.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Been taken by the New Orleans Saints and John Payton.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
So he probably would have turned out well no matter what.
But let's just say that like some sorry team had
decided to sight up and pick him, right, I mean
Bryce Young, Yeah, Bryce, he has no chance. I mean
how many coaches did he have in two years three?
I think total? Like, you have no chance when it's
that type of situation. And so I think that Carl
Williams saw that hurricane coming and wanted to.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Figure out if there was a way, like Jack Elway.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Did, and like Archie Manning did you know, to give
his son some sort of agency over his future employer.
But look, it was Caleb who was driving this. He
was the decision maker. He's a grown up, and Carl
was willing to do whatever.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
It took if that's what Caleb wanted.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
But at the end of the day, Caleb, after some apprehension,
was sold on the Bears and really wanted to figure
out a way to make it work there.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
But you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I mean, there's very few men who can throw footballs
into the tight windows that we need in the NFL,
and there's fewer people who can identify that talent and
even fewer people who can coach at a high level.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So that all leads up. And I know that you
know you have arch Manning in the book, and I'm
sure that you're saving the best stuff for when you know,
the college football season approaches. But you know, as soon
as the twenty five mock draft was done with the
quarterback situation shot or blah blah blah, it turned to
twenty six and almost as if it was a coordinate effect,
coordinated like attack, not attack, but a coordinated effort from
(27:05):
the Manning family. All I saw from reporters were, well,
Arch Manning's probably not going to come out. I mean, seth,
it's very rare that, like every reporter has the same
thing on Arch Banning not coming out. I almost feel
like it was coming from the Manning camp, like they
had this ready, Hey, man, don't put him in your
Montracy's not coming out. I personally think that's BS. But
(27:26):
you know, we'll see he's making a ton of money
in Nil. Is there anything you can at least tease
on the Manning front that that angle from the book?
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Yeah, I mean I don't know. I wasn't privy to
you know, that level of reporting. I do think that
like one of the and this you know, I'm happy
to talk about this, but like you know, when you
be when you become a quarterback, you're taking on responsibilities
that are so much different than being a shortstop or
a center fielder or a point guard, right. I mean,
that's obvious. It's it's in this lofty cultural place. If
(27:56):
you're a manning and you do that, it's even more
it's that on steroids. And so when Arch decided that
he wanted to be a quarterback, in each stage, those
kind of critical stages, I think that the family has
made decisions to slow things down a little bit. Like
they didn't put Arch as high up against the top
competition as they could.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Have when he was a flag football quarterback.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
And I think that, you know, one of the things
I talked about in the book is that like, you know,
he didn't want offers like they took. They they I
dive deep into the recruitment and one of the things
about the recruitment is they wanted it to be like
a nineteen seventy style recruitment with the head coach of
the high school running point.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
They didn't want offers.
Speaker 4 (28:36):
They didn't want him having to tweet every five minutes
that he was honored to get, you know, an offer
from Ole Miss.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I'm just making that up.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
And you know, they wanted to try to put a
semblance of a protective bubble around him, knowing that there
was this mania going on that you know, almost didn't
even need him to exist, and you know, Archie Manning
it inadvertently kind of got it going because he he
said when Arch was a freshman that he was a
little ahead of where Peyton and Eli were when they
(29:05):
were freshmen. And of that, of course, you know that
was on CNN. I mean that caught fire. What he
meant was that neither Peyton nor Eli had started at
isidor Newman on varsity as a freshman, and that's what
arch was doing. So that's what the context of it was.
But again it was kind of a reminder that there
was this mania that was going on.
Speaker 3 (29:25):
And one of the reasons.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
Why, you know, I think Austin and University of Texas
were appealing to him was that it was a big town.
I mean, it's a city, and it's a place that
like he can hide a little bit better than he
would have been able to in Oxford, Mississippi.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Huh Now that what about that? I don't know if
you got into this, but there was a lot of
talk that when Quinn Yours returned, Arch didn't want to
sit another year, maybe he'll transfer to Georgia and this
team was going to offer him. Did you guys touch
on any of that speculation or no.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
I didn't write about it in the book, But I
don't think he was leaving Texas, like I just I
think that that was like you know it again, Like
I said, it doesn't need a lot from him to
even exist. And I think that people think that because
he's Arch and because he's a Manning, that you know,
everything has to be now and everything has to be
on this accelerated track, when I think that he does
(30:17):
a pretty good job of balancing what he's trying to
accomplish immediately and kind of a longer term perspective.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
So the interesting thing that I liked on the Williams
angle Caleb Williams that merges with Arches that the father
essentially said, hey man, this is an unconstitutional rookie contract.
They have you for basically up to eight years. Well,
if guys like Arch Manning stick around until twenty two
twenty three in college, you're locked into a team basically
(30:46):
until you're thirty and your prime and you know, quarterbacks
are now playing a little longer. But it does feel
a little weird that they can lock you in that long.
I am curious where do you stand Seth Wickersham Independent
and did of all the reporting, you know, where do
you stand on that? Do you think that's fair?
Speaker 3 (31:05):
I don't think it's fair at all.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I mean, you're talking about a sport where the average
career spans three years, and those prime earning years. Again,
you know, the reason that you know Caleb didn't return
to USC or go to another school where you know
he was offered a lot of money, is that everybody
wants the second contract. And you know, this is why
(31:27):
where you get picked is so important, because they have
you locked up for your four year rookie contract, fifth
year option, and then if they chose, they can franchise
you for three straight years, so you can be eight
years into your NFL career before you hit the market.
And that to me is wrong, Like you know, but
then again, it was a collectively bargained and you know,
(31:47):
I get into this in the book, but you.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Had that that time.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
I mean, this is probably around the time that you
and I first did that interview. But remember, like quarterbacks
are coming out and they were giving these huge deals
like Alex Smith Jermarcus Russell, Matthew Stafford, matt you know,
were getting these monstrous deals and they were you know,
it was causing problems all the way around, and like
good for the quarterbacks to get what they good that
what they could. Good for Tom Condon, who negotiated a
(32:11):
bunch of them and kind of became this super agent
in that time. But they were messing up a lot
of things I think within the construct of a team
that made ended up making things harder on the quarterback
in the long term. And I think that in twenty eleven,
when the league and the union got together to you know,
finalize a new collective bargaining agreement, and it was.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
A tough, tough negotiation.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
You know, one of the things that went in there
was the rookie wage scale. And I think that the
idea of a rookie wage scale, you know, I understand it.
What they're trying to do is ship that money to
the veterans. Now, how how has that worked out? I'm
not exactly quite sure. I think it's more of a
mixed perspective.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Yeah, we can wrap up with this. I don't know, Seth.
Like I do love the NFL, I don't obviously love
some of these contracts situations for quarterbacks, but I cannot
get over the Shadeur Sanders slide. A. Didn't touch on
any Shadour in the book? Or is he just no?
And did you approach him or anything? And then b
were you surprised that he plummeted to the fifth round.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
I saw Shador play when he was like seven years old,
when I was doing a Dion Sandor's profile for ESPN
the magazine. But he wasn't someone that I wrote about
at length in the book. I you see the sign
behind me, it says, go buffs. I mean, I was
born in Colorado, I grew up half my life in Boulder,
half my adolescence. And you know, I watched Shador a lot.
I thought he was a phenomenal player. When Peter King
(33:37):
watched USC so Caleb Williams versus Colorado in Boulder, he
thought Shador was a better pro prospect than Caleb Williams.
And I think that once he kind of was falling
out of the second round, it was pretty obvious that
the league looked at him like a project, whether that's
(33:58):
fair or not. And then after that, it's what baggage
comes with the project, you know, and that's you know,
can he be an understudy, Can he be under the radar?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Can his dad, who's you know, such a famous figure
and has coached him his entire life, deal with him
being a backup, maybe being a third stringer. I think
those are the questions that came into play.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
And you know, I think that like for Shaudeur, as
awful as draft day is, the draft process might have been.
I think that like the benefit in the long run,
if there is one, is that it gives him a
chance to earn the job outright rather than have it
handed to him. And I think that players in the
locker room respect that so much more than you know,
(34:40):
when a guy comes in straight out of college and
it's just kind of handed that job. I think that's
a tough position for a lot of quarterbacks to be in.
I write about it in the book, and I think
that like Shador, having to work his way up the
depth chart in the long run will probably help him.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
That's a reasonable take. And that's what he does seth Wickersham,
not that he's a tank guy, but that's a that's
a pretty I haven't heard that angle. Like in the
law run, this is probably better for him to start
at four. I don't know, maybe five, depending on where
Deshaun Watson was in a couple of months.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
So this is this interesting thing, and I mean you've
probably talked about it, but like there's this entire economy
for quarterbacks in the NFL who have been broken and
managed to find a way to hang on. And if
it's like Gino Smith and Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield
to a certain extent, these guys who like they got
got to play right away, then you know, it didn't
(35:28):
work out with that team for whatever reason, often because
of structural reasons beyond their control, especially with Donald, and
they're able to like take a step back, and then
when they maybe join a team that is some better coaching,
they're able to look at the game and it just
comes so much slower and answers are there that they
didn't see before. I think that like someone like Will
Levis could be somebody like that in the future if
(35:49):
things don't work out in Tennessee, where you know he played.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
For a year and a half.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
He made some awful turnovers last year obviously got on
the coach's nerves, but like he's shown he couldn't play
in the NFL, he can make some pretty impressive grows.
It's like things don't work out for him in Tennessee
and he goes somewhere else where there's better coaching and
a better infrastructure and the spotlight's not on him. It
gives him a chance to kind of like work his
(36:13):
way back into that second chance. And I think that,
you know, it's not exactly analogous to Shador, but I
think that the path is kind of the same where
it's a little it's not the straightest path ever, but
I think that in the long run it'll benefit him.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, it feels like a Baker Mayfield, you know in Cleveland,
like really bottom down that bounced around the league. Now
he's back to being like an all pro all right.
Zach Wickersham, ESPN. Great stuff, Seth. I'm waiting for the
next big domino to fall in your book and will
hopefully be able to get you back on the pod.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Thanks man, good to see you.
Host
Jason McIntyre
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