April 23, 2021 • 39 mins
On today's episode, Jason kicks things off with a quick thought on Anthony Davis' return to the court after missing 30 games due to injury. AD looked very rusty shooting just 2-for-10 from the field, but it was nice just to see him out there again. The biggest story of the night, however, is a somber one. Kentucky's Terrence Clarke died in a car accident while preparing for the NBA Draft in Los Angeles. He was just 19 years old. Please say a prayer for his loved ones during this difficult time. Later, ProFootballTalk creator and owner Mike Florio swings by to discuss how the pandemic has actually benefitted him in some ways professionally, why he was so fascinated by the New England Patriots' free agency spending spree, why he thinks the sports media pays entirely too much attention to the Dallas Cowboys given their overall lack of success the past 20+ years, why he believes the Washington Football Team is the class of the AFC East, why he believes that Deshaun Watson should do whatever he can to settle all 22 of his sexual assault lawsuits, why it's looking more and more likely that Mac Jones will be the San Francisco 49ers' pick at #3 in the upcoming NFL Draft, and much more!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What is up, everybody,
It's me Jason McIntyre, Straight Fire, Friday, April third, two
thousand and twenty one. Got a great interview coming up
here today on the podcast Mike Florio, the big boss
(00:25):
of pro football talk. If you follow the NFL or
have at all in any capacity, over the last I
don't know, fifteen years, Florio has kind of been a
big deal, really insightful stuff on the draft Deshaun Watson. Yes,
we talk a little bit about the Shawn Watson and um,
just the NFL in general. Florio is great. Before we
get to that, just two quick notes. One, Anthony Davis
(00:47):
returned to the Lakers Thursday night National TV game against
the MAVs, and a d looked a little rusty, kind
of look like somebody who hadn't played in a minute
two of ten, shooting four points four bore didn't play
in the second half by design. That was that was
the move. Um, Anthony Davids was just gonna suit up early.
And the Lakers got squashed by the MAVs. Um, you know,
(01:10):
not a significant win, not a significant loss, doesn't really matter.
I actually thought the bigger story. Then the Anthony Davis
returned was the just awful sad passing of freshman Kentucky
basketball player Terrence Clark. He had just declared for the
NBA Draft. He was like a high profile high school kid,
(01:31):
went to Kentucky, you know, had a decent freshman year.
Played at the beginning, was doing alrighty average, uh nine
points a game, got injured, and he's probably gonna be
a second round pick in the draft this offseason. And
he just signed with Clutch Sports. Obviously that's a Lebron's agency.
(01:51):
Terrence Clark was in l a Thursday, driving what police
was a Genesis and went through a red light middle
of the afternoon, went through a red light, struck a truck.
After hitting the truck which making which was making a
left hand turn, he hit a street poll and then
(02:13):
a brick wall, and the police say he was not
wearing his seatbelt properly and he just he died his
apparently like his family was out here and um, one
of his former teammates was in the car behind him.
And I mean, it's just an awful, sad story. It
actually reminds me of one of my cousins passed away
(02:36):
from a car accident. Uh, I don't know a little
maybe fifteen years ago and he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
And you know, I just not to put two somber
of a mood on this podcast because again, Mike Gloria
is real smart and interesting. All I'll say is, guys,
please wear your seatbelt. It's got to be the number
(02:56):
one thing when you get in the car. It life
is so valuable. A matter of fact, I had a
really fun night Thursday night, went out with somebody's shooting
the stuff, talking sports, talking investments, talking kids, talking dad life.
A couple of the dads listening to the podcast, and
(03:17):
you just kind of cherishes moments, you know, you really
have to. And I just I feel gutted for this
kid's family. I mean, nineteen years old, his whole life
in front of him, wasn't wearing a seatbelt and is
going and uh, you know, prayers out to his family.
I can't imagine what they're going through. Is absolutely brutal.
(03:41):
So um, batt'll do it for the NBA, And um
let's get to our interview with Mike Florio of Pro
Football Talk. Jason likes to think he knows everything when
it comes to sports. I know what sports dans want,
but for everything he doesn't, he knows a guy who does.
(04:02):
Let's just say, I know a guy who knows who
knows another guy. All right, welcome into straight fire. A
legend in the football media space. You know we've had
Peter King on more traditional media. This guy started his
own shop, and you know, as a guy who started
the big lead, I love an entrepreneur. Mike Florio Pro
(04:24):
Football Talk. How are you, Mike Jason? I'm doing great.
How are you? It's great to talk to you. Yeah, Yeah,
it's been a while. I feel like the last time
I saw you, I didn't go to the Combine in
twenty what nineteen Combine? I wasn't there, But I think
I saw you the Super Bowl a couple of years
prior to that. Um, how have you held up this
last year? It has been a challenging year for a
(04:47):
variety of reasons, as it has been for everyone. And
my wife has both parents still alive and they're older,
so we spent a lot of time worried about them
getting sick, and my wife spent a lot of time
making sure were properly taken care of that they had
food that they had meals that they could leave their
home at the absolute minimum. And then once the vaccines
(05:08):
became available, we were and continue to be very aggressive
about getting our friends and family to go get the
vaccination so we can start to push toward normalcy. But
my day in and day out life, I'm pretty much
a hermit anyway, Jason. I work at home. I rarely
leave the house. Even when things were normal, there would
be periods of time, like during free agency prior to
(05:28):
the draft. During the season, I maybe get out of
the house once per week. So right now, I I
go down our hill and go to the grocery store,
or go get my hair cut, or run to the bank.
I do that about once a week just to stay sane.
But other than that, my life has been no different.
In fact, this past season, I was more productive than
ever before because I did all of my NBC duties
(05:49):
from home, So I picked up, as I was telling
me before we got started, fifteen hours a week that
I would nearly would have been traveling. I was able
to do other things and it made me far more
productive this year than I've ever been. Efficiency is a
beautiful thing, huh. It's amazing and it's taught people that
there there can be other ways of doing things that
(06:10):
don't entail physical presence all the time. And moving forward,
if we are back to normal or something close to
normal disease, and I anticipate I won't be going to
Connecticut to the NBC Sports main studio every single week,
and my output will improve and and and everything overall
(06:31):
will be better because of it. Yeah, the product doesn't
decline just because you're not in the studio. I mean,
it's the only thing you really miss is the camaraderie
before after Um, maybe if you're traveling with someone, You're right,
that's all that's missing. Your your content is still phenomenal. Well,
and you're right, the camaraderie is a big part of it.
And I think that's why I would still hope to
(06:52):
get up there on a regular basis. But it doesn't
have to be that NonStop grind. I mean, I've been
doing it since two thousand and ten and this was
the first year that I didn't go up every week.
But and and trust me, this is the ultimate first
world problem. I'm not complaining about it, but it does
put you in a completely different existence where you get
(07:12):
to Saturday and that means pack up your stuff and leave,
and it's work, work, work, work, work, and it's all
days Sunday and then Monday you're exhausted and it's travel
back and you get home and it's just keep going.
And uh, it's a lot easier when you don't have
to throw that travel back and forth, the stress, the strain,
the time, everything. It just makes you so much fresher
(07:33):
and you don't feel worn down when the season ends.
Let me ask how how it's been for you in
working with sources around the league. Obviously, listen, you can
text people. I don't know if you face time folks,
Calls still happen. But have you seen a noted difference
at all in the last this offseason in regard to
player movement, draft scuttle but all that fun stuff. Yeah.
(07:55):
I I still communicate the way that I always have
and text message for me is the most efficient. And
you know, when you're creating content, and you know this,
you need to have time where you can sit at
your keyboard and create content. And the more time you
spend on the phone is less time you have available
to create content. So I try to be extremely efficient
(08:17):
when it comes to my interpersonal communications, and I'm not
rude about it. It's just, hey, I'd rather text somebody
than talk, because then you play phone tag and then
you get caught up in a conversation and the next
thing you know, you get into a fun chat and
it's twenty minutes later and you start thinking, you know,
I've got I've got a conveyor belt full of chocolates
to make an incredibly not timely reference that is rolling,
(08:39):
and I gotta get back and scoop those chocolates up.
Because when you do create content, you get an audience
that expects more content. So that's the balance. So that
hasn't changed. Really, nothing has changed, but for the fact
that I didn't travel and haven't gone anywhere since the
scouting combine of February. Yeah, I want to quickly zoom
(08:59):
out on the league. And you know a lot of
people are saying, oh, Tom, Tom Brady and the Bucks
that could go undefeated. Uh, this draft is huge. Forty nine.
I kind of want to start a little off the
board here with Bill Belichick and such an un characteristic
offseason for the Patriots, and you know, obviously the Brady
Belichick breakup was fun, and oh Brady won the breakup,
and you know, now every single players back for the Bucks.
(09:22):
I'm just curious where you see the you know, the
the near term future for Bill Belichick and the Patriots,
because it seems like the Bills are the class of
that division again. The Miami Dolphins are on the come up,
the Jets are starting over, new coach as usual. Um,
I just don't know what to make of the Patriots
and whether or not Belichick has one more Super Bowl
run in him. Well. I was so fascinated by the
(09:44):
way they handled free agency, and I thought what they
would do is wait and buy up players at a
cheaper value after the first few days of free agency
play out. But because there wasn't that usual ultra splurge
right out of the gates, they really didn't have to wait.
I think they were very surgical in their tampering, and
everyone tampers. I think ahead of time they made sure
(10:07):
the agents of the players they were targeting new this
is the offer. It's only gonna be there for a
limited period of time. Once Monday at noon Eastern rolls
around and the official window opens for exchanging offers, and
if you don't want it, we got somebody else from
moving on to so let me know do you want it?
Do you want it or not? And I think that's
why they came out of the gates with so many
deals that weren't your typical ridiculous first day of free
(10:30):
agency contracts. They were all reasonable, fair, appropriate. They burned
up that cap money they had, and it told me
they are definitely in win now mode. And you know,
last year, with their struggles, you would think they were
three and thirteen except and nine is still pretty good
given that they had not nearly the talent they've had
in past years. So they go about strategically trying to
replenish the talent address the flaws they've had both in
(10:54):
drafting and developing young players, because I think development is
a big part of it that gets overlooked because it's
not like the draft and guys who don't belong in
the NFL. They're drafting guys that maybe they shouldn't but
somebody else was going to draft them. They're failing to
develop them as well. So you bring in veterans who
know what they're doing, and I think they have a
real urgency, even though they'd never admit it, to try
to get back to elite level, and they've got Tom
(11:16):
Brady and the Buccaneers coming to town this year. They're
aware of that. They want to beat him, they want
to beat the Bills. They want to be back in
that conversation of among the best teams in the NFL,
and they're doing what they can to get there. And
I I love it because we've never seen anything like
it before. And however it plays out, it's gonna be
fun to watch. And you know around the league that
every team coach GM is just looking to stick it
(11:40):
to Belichick. I mean, two decades of dominance. I know
some people think this is probably a playoff team, but
Mike that a f C is so stacked compared to
the NFC. I just don't see the Patriots being able
to pull this off, especially with Cam Newton under center,
unless something crazy happens, Mac Jones comes in or I
don't know if you're hearing they like Trey Lance or whatever,
but um, it just doesn't feel like a playoff team
(12:02):
to be Jason. What I hear is they love Cam
Newton and last year they really didn't get a fair
opportunity to see what Cam Newton could do. Earlier in
the year, Cam Newton was doing pretty well with the Patriots.
Then he gets COVID right before they're gonna play the Chiefs,
and they still almost beat the Chiefs even without Cam Newton.
I think that that COVID diagnosis affected him in ways
(12:24):
that maybe he won't fully appreciate for time to come.
I remember he was asked at one point on the radio.
I think it was w E I whether he's suffering
brain fog as a result of the COVID diagnosis, and
he denied it. But I think that something wasn't right
after that, and we're still learning what it means to
have it and how it lingers. I just think it
threw everything off the rails for the Patriots last year.
(12:45):
I think they they brought him back with the intent
that he's going to be the guy, and because they
have this win now vibe. I'd be very surprised. I
know there's a thought that they'll trade up and try
to get a quarterback. I'd be very surprised if they
do it, because I think they want to see how
far Cam Newton can take them. Year two opportunity to
be there for the full off season program, training camp, play,
some in the preseason, know the offense better and have
(13:08):
better weapons. That's the key. He's got better weapons. So
last year maybe the aberration. This year maybe the start
of a very good trend for Newton and the Patriots.
We'll see. I want to go to the Dallas Cowboys
because you know how these TV radio things work. He
play the hits. Everybody loves the Cowboys. Might the realities
they've been to a Super Bowl in twenty five years. Um,
(13:29):
this love for Doc, Let's give him forty mile blah
blah blah. Like I don't know, are we do we
pay too much attention to the Cowboys when it's been
really a generation since they've been good. Yes we do,
we do. I just needed to hear that, Yeah we do.
And it's been twenty five years, not just since they've
won a Super Bowl, it's twenty five years since they've
even played in the game to get to the Super Bowl. Washington,
(13:50):
Detroit and Dallas the only three teams in the NFC
that haven't played in an NFC Championship game since it
was Washington versus Detroit actually and in the NFC Championship.
But for all the hype, the production isn't there and
I think every year, you know I I always advocate
for teams do what you can to lower expectations, try
(14:12):
to get the bar to be set in a spot
where you're destined to overachieve. The Cowboys every year, and
it's that Jerry Jones hype machine. He shoved the bar
up as high as he can, and it seems like
far more often than not, they fail to live up
to their expectations. Look at last year. What a disaster
it was defensively. And now the same staff, the same coach,
(14:32):
the same front office that brought us the Mike Nolan
debacle has fixed everything with the hiring of Dan Quinn.
I'll believe it when I see it. And they've got
a long way to go to be among the best
teams in the NFC. They can't even win their division,
and their division had a team with a losing record
that finished in first place. But come on, dan Quinny
had such a good defense in Atlanta the last um
(14:52):
I don't know, five years. I mean, all this excited
over Quinn and Keian O'Neil, I mean, Mike, I don't
I guess I wouldn't go in on the Cowboys. They
do drive ratings every you know, when they were on
the Sunday uh primetime slot or the afternoon slot. They
they do generate massive numbers. I just my theory has
always been that Dallas came of age in the mid
(15:13):
nineties when the Internet started to take off, and you know,
twenty four hour cable news was huge, and that just
drove a boom. But I don't see it right now,
And Jason, I'll go back even farther than that. I
do not know how old you are, but I discovered
football in the early nineteen seventies, and that was when
they became America's team. They were one of the teams
(15:34):
that that was highly relevant and you didn't get many
games on TV back then, and the Cowboys always seemed
to be one of those teams. And there was always
something about the old stadium they played in. It was
the way the lights would shine off of the helmets
and the uniforms. Every game played there felt like a
much bigger deal than it otherwise would have been, and
(15:54):
there was just a magic. There was a sizzle, and
that stayed with the Cowboys even through the eighties when
they weren't dominant. From the moment that Dwight Clark jumped
up over Everson Walls and caught that pass, and the
forty Niners became the forty Niners, and the Cowboys faded
behind the likes of the Giants and Washington. They were
still very relevant. And then they get it back together.
And they've written that for thirty years, even though four,
(16:17):
as you said, twenty five of it. What what have
they really been? They went thirteen years at one point
between playoff wins. Wow. I didn't realize thirteen years between playoffs?
So what does this mean for Jerry Jones at I
know he's like, you know, it's tough to tell a billionaire, hey,
you need to fall back and you know, let some
younger people handle things. I mean, you can't. He's not
(16:39):
going to deal with that, well, right, Scott know, he
wants to win a Super Bowl with the team he built.
He made that decision after Bill Parcel's resigned the job
following the two thousand six season, because what would happen
is there was a cycle that Jerry Jones was riding
for a while, and you know, Jimmy Johnson builds a
great team and Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson can't coexist.
(17:04):
So out goes Jimmy, and then the team goes the
other way, and then he goes and gets Bill Parcels
eventually after it bottoms out and Parcels helps him build
it back up, but Parcels gets the credit after Parcels.
I believe that's when Jerry Jones made the decision it's
gonna be me. I'd rather be a second tier team
(17:25):
that I built than a super Bowl winner that's someone
else built. And and that's been that impetus, and it's
been year after years, season after season, and as he
gets older, he's joked about it. Is he gets older,
how many more of these shots does he have? And
it feels like every year there's a greater sense of
urgency because every year could be the last year that
he's the guy who actually runs the team and he's
not giving up the reins anytime soon, and uh, he
(17:46):
desperately wants to get that fourth super Bowl trophy and
more importantly, the first one that he can claim for
responsibility for. Yeah. Credit, that's a big, big running joke
in my family. So four months to this season, it's
again a can happen at the draft? Um, do you
think the Cowboys are the class of the NFC East. No,
I think that Washington is. I think they've quietly addressed
(18:08):
their weaknesses improved their team. I don't know what they're
gonna do at quarterback in the draft. Maybe they will,
maybe they will. Now when you have Ryan Fitzpatrick on
the Washington roster and Andy Dalton on the Bears roster,
and the Bears are at nineteen in Washington, the twenty
is not as obvious that they're in the quarterback market,
which makes it easier to either have one fall to
you or you can trade up a few spots and
(18:30):
get one. I'll be curious to see if they try
to make a move. There's been some talk that maybe
they will. But between adding Curtis Samuel the receiver and
they also added Adam Humphreys at receiver, they have William
Jackson the third corner. That defense is getting better. They've
got Chase Young who was awesome last year. They've got
a good offensive line and good young running back in
Antonio Gibson. I think they're the best team in the NFC.
(18:52):
But it's that hype machine, NFC East, not NFC let's
not go crazy yet, NFC East. But it's that Dallas
hype machine that makes them the betting favorite to win
the division because people always want to bet on the
Cowboys because we swallowed the hook when Jerry Jones puts
debate on it. So you've watched Ryan Fitzpatrick as I have,
(19:13):
and I feel, Mike, I don't have data to back
this up. He shows really well one year, everybody gets
excited about his potential, and then he turns into a
pumpkin the following year. I know this because it was
with my Jets and they bet on him and it
was a spectacular failure. And I have a bad feeling
it doesn't work out for him in Washington, although he
was good last year in Miami he was better than
two it. When I think of Ryan Fitzpatrick, I think
(19:36):
of that toggle switch on a guitar that goes rhythm
and trouble, but it goes fits magic and fits tragic,
and whenever you think it's locked in one way, it
goes the other way. And we saw it. We saw
it in Tampa when Jameis Winston was suspended. He was
playing so well those first few games. We thought, hey,
Jamis Winston's gonna lose his job, and the moment you
(19:56):
buy in completely. Ryan Fitzpatrick is the moment he breaks
your heart, and then he disappears. You forget about him,
you overlook him, you disregard him. Like that game. I
think it was early on a Thursday night, Dolphins against Bengals,
and Joe Burrow had looked pretty good and the Bengals, Oh,
Bengal should win this game, and the Dolphins just came
out and Ryan Fitzpatrick looks awesome in that game. When
(20:18):
you overlook him, he finds a way to play like
one of the all time greats. And then when you think, hey,
this guy is pretty good, he's underrated, he's underappreciated, he
he lays an egg and that cycle just continues. And
that that's why I think if they have a young
quarterback on the roster, he won't start all seventeen games.
And even even with the guys they have, there's a
(20:39):
chance he hits a rough spot that says, Okay, we're
gonna go with Kyle Allen, We're gonna go with Taylor Heineken.
We need to do something different because our starters in
a rut. Yeah, that's a tough spot. Let's stick with
quarterbacks for a second and I you know, Mike, I'm
gonna confess I've struggled to talk about the Deshaun Watson
situation on the podcast simply because we don't know enough information.
I I know there's a lot of stuff out there.
(21:02):
Twenty two women, Jason, How was that not enough info?
I don't know. Man. We just saw the Aaron Donald
when Mike, where some guy comes out with a shut
eye and says, Aaron Donald beat me up, and everybody says,
Aaron Donald, is he gonna get suspended? And then the
video says no, Aaron Donald was a peacemaker. I know
that's not an apples to apples with Watson, But how
are you handling it on on Pro Football Talk? Are
(21:23):
you guys doing a lot of it or not? Really,
we're doing a lot of it because people want to
know about it. And Jason, I practiced law eighteen years.
So it puts me in a position where I can
understand what this all means, where it's all going, where
it maybe should go. I can interject my opinions into
the process, help people understand what it means when one
of the lawyers says something publicly trying your case in
(21:45):
the court of public opinion versus trying your case in
a court of law. And I said fairly early on,
because no one's gonna know what happened on those twenty
two occasions, because there isn't a video that's ever going
to become available like it was with Aaron Donald. And
from the get go with Aaron Donald, I said, well, hey, look,
in this day and age, we're all big brother, we're
(22:05):
all carrying around the cell phone. There's gonna be video,
there's gonna be surveillance video potentially, and there was that's
gonna show us what happened with Deshaun Watson. That's off
the table. Eventually, it's gonna come down to he said,
She said twenty two times over. And I tried enough
cases during my legal career to know this. You never
know what's gonna happen. Every jury is different. Every jury
(22:29):
is composed of individuals who come together and create their
own organism. Some are gonna be receptive, some aren't. Some
of the plaintiffs are gonna be more persuasive when they speak,
some aren't. Deshaun Watson, if he has to testify twenty
two times, maybe some days he's gonna do well. Other
days he's not. You're not going to be able to
reasonably say X number of plaintiffs will lose, x number
(22:54):
will win. So my position has been for weeks now
that the best thing DeShawn Watson can do for himself
and for the individuals who have made these claims is
set up a mediation session. It's an informal process where
you get ideally your retired judge who has gravitas, and
it creates kind of a quasi day in court so
people feel like they were heard and they're satisfied, and
(23:18):
you work out settlements in these cases, settlements that the
individuals involved who are making the allegations will believe it's
a fair payment for what they experienced and what they
claim they experienced and what they actually experienced. Maybe it's
the same thing, maybe it's a little bit different. We
don't know, but I think bringing everyone together in that
(23:38):
setting and I think that's what needs to happen for
Deshaun Watson's career. Have your reckoning, make good with the
individuals so they feel like they got their brand of justice.
That's how you resolve this so you can get on
with your football career. Because Jason, I'm convinced. If he
doesn't resolve this by the start of football season, he's
at very real risk of being on the Commissioner example
list and not playing this year and maybe maybe not
(24:00):
just this year, but next year as well, if they're
not gonna let him back on the field until these
cases are resolved, if they go all the way through
to verdicts. Now, I haven't spent any time in court,
thank goodness. Um, but I gotta I gotta be honest.
Didn't didn't these women some of them try to have
mediation and say, hey, um, you know, basically we would
(24:21):
like some money for our troubles. And didn't they try
to do this before? And Watson was like, no, I'm
not doing that. And would what would it look like
now if he did that with two women? Well, and
it wasn't a formal mediation process. And the one question
I don't know the answer to is when Tony Buzzby
approached Deshaun Watson's representatives before filing the first lawsuit Ashley
(24:41):
so Leice, who later came forward with her name, there
was an effort to resolve that and and even though
it's been characterized by Shaun Watson's lawyer as a money
grab or oh, it's all about money. You say, it's
not about money. It's all about money. Look, it's perfectly
normal and usual and routine for a lawyer who has
(25:04):
a client who has a claim that can be made
in court to contact the defendant, the potential defendant ahead
of time and give that person a chance to resolve
the case before the lawsuit is filed. And when Rusty
Harden a couple of weeks ago released emails that were
exchanged with the Shawn Watson's representatives' rather m I said,
there's nothing untoured here, there's nothing improper here. This is
(25:26):
an extortion. This is how it works. We have a claim,
we're going to file the claim. We want to give
you an opportunity to resolve that claim before we do it.
And from the planet's perspective, there's value in that your
life doesn't get turned upside down. You don't have to
go through this process of worry and stress and what
are they gonna say about me on social media? And
(25:47):
what are my neighbors going to say about me? And
am I gonna have trouble sleeping at night worrying about testifying?
Now you resolve it, you have your sense of justice
and you move forward, and Jason to break it down
to the most simple nub that I can as to
what went wrong here? When Tony Buzzby asked for a
hundred thousand dollars from Deshaun Watson on half of actually
(26:07):
so at least as an opening settlement demand, and the
response was essentially, we don't like your number, give us
a new one. That was a breach of the basic
negotiation etiquette that applies in legal cases. They should have
offered something five thousand, ten thousand, whatever, continue the discussion,
because I think Tony Buzzby would have taken between fifty
(26:27):
and seventy five thousand. And the thing that I'll never
know the answer to would there have been plane if
number two, three, four, all the way to twenty two
if they had resolved the case as the plane iff
number one, because at some point they piste off Tony
Buzzby and he was motivated to go find more people.
So Mike the the obvious question, and I'm gonna put
aside the idea that a quarterback needed twenty different women
to massage him over like acause the eight and say, hey,
(26:53):
he's he's fine. Um if he if someone if they
came to him and said, hey, hundred thousand dollars, that
settle this? What's and said, I did nothing. We can't
do that. That's crazy. Do that to the perception from
the outsiders, everybody reading it on the internet, Well he
could have just settled this for a hundred thousand dollars.
Maybe he didn't do anything. Well, he could have settled
(27:14):
it for a lot less than a hundred thousand dollars. Again,
a hundred thousand was the opener. They had room to move.
You never lead with your bottom line. And one of
the emails from the individual and athletes first, who was
communicating with buzz beyond behalf of Watson, basically said there
would be value in Deshaun learning a lesson here and
when you have to ask yourself. And I went through
(27:37):
this all the time on behalf of defendants I represented
and plaintiffs I represented, when you set aside the personal
frustration and acrimony, and look, anytime you're sued, you get upset,
you get piste off, you don't like it, it turns,
it turns your life upside down. If you can set
that aside and you can be very analytical about it,
what you can say is, Okay, they asked for a
(27:59):
hundred thousand, they probably take between fifty and seventy five thousand.
How much am I gonna spend to defend myself start
to finish, even if I win, even if the verdict
comes back in favor of me. How much money am
I gonna spend? And I'll tell you something I don't
know anythink about the legal fees in Houston. I got
(28:19):
a pretty good feeling he would have spent a lot
more than that fifty to seventy five thousand to get
a successful outcome if it was just one. Now what two,
it's gonna be a held a lot more than that
fifties and seventy five. So there's a point where and
this is where you need to have good advice. And
I think Deshaun Watson was a victim of the fact
that his reputation is so pristine and stellar. They set
(28:42):
up an echo chamber around him. Oh, there's no way
he's not capable of this. Look, at some point you
gotta set that aside and say, we got somebody who's
ready to sue us. It doesn't matter whether he did
it or not. We need to have creativity of imagination
to understand how this is going to play out if
we don't settle the case. And it doesn't take a
lot of imagination for some one who's an experienced lawyer
to know what comes next if you say, in response
(29:04):
to a hundred thousand dollar opening demand, thank you, no,
thank you, see you in court. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
within the I Heart Radio app search f s R
to listen live. All right, let's quickly wrap up with
(29:24):
some draft stuff. Mike. Obviously, the biggest question is forty
nine ers at three. You got Schefter coming out and
saying it's Mac Jones and backpedaling a little bit. You
have Mike Lombardi, whatever you think about him, he's saying
it's gonna be Trey Lance Um. Anybody who watched an
ounce of college football says it's got to be justin fields.
Where do you weigh in on this, and given your
(29:45):
history with Kyle Shanahan, Well, I do a show every
weekday morning on Peacock and then it's on NBCs N
with Chris Simms four days a week. Typically Peter King
on Friday's. Chris has known Kyle Shanahan for years. Chris
Cante ends that Kyle Shanahan does not tell him anything
because Chris is a big mouth. And I can confirm
(30:06):
that Chris is a big mouth. But Chris has been
around Kyle long enough to know what Kyle is looking for.
They they didn't trade the twelfth overall pick and two
first round picks and a third round pick for the
third overall pick. I mean, you're ultimately investing three first
round picks in the third round pick for a player.
You're not acquiring that spot without having a pretty damn
(30:29):
good idea what player that you want? And Sims has
been convinced from day one that's Mac Jones. The betting
markets have been all over the place. It was Lance,
then it was Jones, then it was Fields, now it's
Jones again. I think it's gonna be Jones. I think
Kyle Shanahan knows it's Jones. They've got no reason to
tell us. And and also the cynical side of me
says ESPN and NFL Network are gonna want to create
(30:51):
as much uncertainty as possible. So we tune in next
Thursday Night at a p MBS trying to find out
who the pick is because we already know one and two.
If we know three, the draft didn't get read to
Atlanta at four. Yeah, I don't. Where are you on
trade lance? By the way, twenty years old. I think
he has sixteen starts in his career, maybe seventeen and
um uh, this idea that he could go in and
(31:12):
start versus being a developmental guy behind someone in Denver,
someone in San France, Where are you on trade lance? Well,
it's it's very simple to me. He clearly is one
of the top quarterbacks in this draft class. We wouldn't
be talking about him going as high as number three,
possibly four to the Falcons if he wasn't. What every
team has to ask itself when you have that opportunity,
(31:34):
when you have earned through crappy football or good trades,
when you've earned the opportunity to get that guy who
can be a franchise quarterback, and we've seen more and
more of young quarterbacks come into the NFL and play
well right away. When you know that if you get
that guy who potentially becomes a shortlist franchise quarterback, you're
gonna have him ten years fifteen years, maybe twenty years,
(31:56):
like Tom Brady was in New England. When you look
at the Falcons too, was an eight Matt Ryan who
faced the franchise after the Mike Vick Bobby Petrino debacle.
Matt Ryan's still there. You get that position taken care of,
You're gonna have a contending, relevant team for a long time.
So it all comes down to what the coaching staff
thinks to the guy, what the front office thinks to
(32:16):
the guy. But he's clearly in the conversation. And if
you get a franchise quarterback, you are set for a
long time to come. And I think there's there's every reason,
and I think it's one of the reasons why we're
looking one to three quarterback this year, maybe one, two, three,
four quarterbacks off the board. You get that young quarterback,
who's the guy you don't have to worry about the
quarterback position for a long time. My Jets zero franchise quarterbacks.
(32:39):
And no, I'm not counting Chad Pennington and Ken O'Brien.
I agree with you none since Joe Ninneth right. Let me,
you're gonna like this final question, Davonte Smith, U they
finally got his weight from when he had to go
to Indie, and I believe it was a hundred and
sixty six pounds. Uh, there's some stuff out there about
how Bill Belichick has ever drafted someone under I think
(33:02):
it was like one eighty or one ninety um and
he was kind of scoffing at a guy I know
six or seven years ago, Dexter mccullister coming out of
Old miss and it's like one sixty six, Mike, Like,
I never thought that the top ten stuff was real,
but I just one under sixty six pounds. He's getting
broken if he comes across the middle against the safety.
(33:22):
Is he not well? In this day and age, it's
not like it was, because you can go, you go
across the middle, you don't get hit like he used
to get hit. Watching YouTube games from the eighties or
nineties and they're out there the brutality, the brutality if
you just if you immediately rewind and watch a game,
it is stunning to see the way that that receivers
(33:43):
got got hit with helmets and driven into the ground
and they popped up and they kept going, and it
really is amazing to see it in comparison today's standards.
I don't know what weight is too light. I also
would love to know two things. When he went to Indianapolis,
did he know he was gonna get wade? Because maybe
(34:03):
you eat a whole pizza and drink a gallon of
water before you show up, if you know. Seriously, But no,
I'm saying if he didn't know, if he didn't know,
he'd be won seventy again. Maybe he went to indian
he didn't know he was gonna be weighed. And secondly,
did he resist at all getting on the scale because
he'd avoided the scale and he wouldn't he didn't do
it at the Senior Bowl. I just wonder if they
(34:24):
kind of caught him by surprise when he went for
a medical. If I'm him, i'd be a little piste off.
I went for a doctor's visit so they could check
out my finger, and they did the basic routine stuff
blood pressure, temperature, that get on the scale, see how,
And he probably had no idea that that was ever
going to show up anywhere. That's kind of it's fun
thinking about that because it definitely hurts his perception. It definitely.
(34:47):
I don't I didn't see who actually broke that story.
Do you know who who had? Um? So, actually that
just got me thinking, like, so let's say you know, uh,
you're gonna hire somebody over at NBC and um, you
know you you're on the interior staff and you're like, yeah,
we like this guy, and he won't give you one
(35:07):
piece of information that's kind of important when you're investing
millions of dollars in the guy. Are you a little
hesitant in some way, shape or form, Well, you are,
but you understand why he's hesitant. He's hesitant because once
the numbers out there, then it does become something that
can work against him in a showdown with Jamaar Chase
(35:28):
or Jail and Waddle his Alabama teammate. And I think
Waddle and Chase will both go before Davonte Smith. So
you strategically keep your mouth shut because you don't want
that piece out there. Because what happens is people reside
in their fears when it's time to draft. So if
you're the Dolphins and you're picking between Waddle and Smith, well,
if you pick Smith and he gets injured or he
(35:49):
has trouble getting off the line of scrimmage or whatever
the case may be, I told you so I told
you so. I told you so, he's too light. You're
not gonna have that with Chase or Waddle. And I
think that that becomes the thing that can fuel a slide.
And for the player, every spot is a significant loss
in total value over the first four years of his career.
(36:10):
So he's got every reason too to try to keep
that quiet. So it doesn't justify a team saying we're
going to go in a different direction. But don't you
think at the same time, falling would be good for
him because he's avoiding the terrible franchises that are always
picking in the top ten, often with bad front offices,
bad quarterbacks, uncertain coaching situations. He falls to like two,
(36:36):
that's probably a better scenario, is it not. It is
for that reason, Jason, And there is another reason that
I find fascinating with receivers. Being the first receiver taken
in any given year prevents you from having a chip
on your shoulder about not being the first receiver taken
and sliding all the way around two. That's the the
Michael Thomas effect where I think he was more motivated
(37:00):
by landing where he did behind so many receivers and
bad receivers who were taken boom boom boom one after
another by Washington, Minnesota and Houston in two sixteen. That
motivation becomes the the driving force for everything you achieve
in your career. I think Chase Claypool experienced that last
year when he felt around too. So, even though it
(37:22):
hurts you short term, from an earning standpoint, I think
that slap in the face in a very significant public setting,
I've been waiting my whole life to be drafted. This
is the culmination of my life to this point that
it is Wally being the first guy and you kind
of feel like, hey, I've made it. And the guy
who goes a lot later than he thought and gets
(37:43):
piste off and says, I'm going to prove everybody wrong
for the rest of my career. That's a valuable motivation
that I think a lot of receivers have profited from.
That's a great point. And it goes to quarterbacks too.
I mean, really, I think it was the Ringer looked
at the best quarterbacks in the last fifteen years taken
in the top five, and there is a lot of
bad quarterbacking that has gone in the top five. Meanwhile,
(38:04):
it's guys who have slid a little bit, Josh Allen,
a Lamar Jackson Um you know, obviously dating back to Russell, Wilson, Hell,
even Dak Prescott. Guys that fall it usually ends up
better for them in some way, shape or form. Now
you know we're playing armchair psychologists here, but I think
you're onto something with that. Mike. Well, you develop without pressure,
you develop without expectation, and you reduced the chance that
(38:26):
you exhale that you professionally exhale, and you lose your motivation.
It used to be worse Jason before two thousand eleven
the windfall that the guys at the very top of
the draft got it you had a huge cap number,
a huge financial commitment, and a real chance that you
had a guy that was never gonna listen to anybody
because what are you gonna do? Cut me? And he
(38:46):
comes in there like a Ryan Leaf and Russell and
ends up being a huge problem. And that's one of
the reasons between Leaf and Russell that they got rid
of that, but that that was part of the risk.
Can we trust the guy who has so much money
that it no longer matters what he does? And some
guys don't love football enough to just say, hey, I
made it, I'm here, I've won, and I'm going to
(39:07):
enjoy my life now. Great stuff, Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk,
NBC Peacock. I mean, he's everywhere. This is what the
great ones do, Mike. Congrats on all your success man,
and thanks a lot for taking Jason great talking to
you again,
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. What is up, everybody,
It's me Jason McIntyre, Straight Fire, Friday, April third, two
thousand and twenty one. Got a great interview coming up
here today on the podcast Mike Florio, the big boss
(00:25):
of pro football talk. If you follow the NFL or
have at all in any capacity, over the last I
don't know, fifteen years, Florio has kind of been a
big deal, really insightful stuff on the draft Deshaun Watson. Yes,
we talk a little bit about the Shawn Watson and um,
just the NFL in general. Florio is great. Before we
get to that, just two quick notes. One, Anthony Davis
(00:47):
returned to the Lakers Thursday night National TV game against
the MAVs, and a d looked a little rusty, kind
of look like somebody who hadn't played in a minute
two of ten, shooting four points four bore didn't play
in the second half by design. That was that was
the move. Um, Anthony Davids was just gonna suit up early.
And the Lakers got squashed by the MAVs. Um, you know,
(01:10):
not a significant win, not a significant loss, doesn't really matter.
I actually thought the bigger story. Then the Anthony Davis
returned was the just awful sad passing of freshman Kentucky
basketball player Terrence Clark. He had just declared for the
NBA Draft. He was like a high profile high school kid,
(01:31):
went to Kentucky, you know, had a decent freshman year.
Played at the beginning, was doing alrighty average, uh nine
points a game, got injured, and he's probably gonna be
a second round pick in the draft this offseason. And
he just signed with Clutch Sports. Obviously that's a Lebron's agency.
(01:51):
Terrence Clark was in l a Thursday, driving what police
was a Genesis and went through a red light middle
of the afternoon, went through a red light, struck a truck.
After hitting the truck which making which was making a
left hand turn, he hit a street poll and then
(02:13):
a brick wall, and the police say he was not
wearing his seatbelt properly and he just he died his
apparently like his family was out here and um, one
of his former teammates was in the car behind him.
And I mean, it's just an awful, sad story. It
actually reminds me of one of my cousins passed away
(02:36):
from a car accident. Uh, I don't know a little
maybe fifteen years ago and he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
And you know, I just not to put two somber
of a mood on this podcast because again, Mike Gloria
is real smart and interesting. All I'll say is, guys,
please wear your seatbelt. It's got to be the number
(02:56):
one thing when you get in the car. It life
is so valuable. A matter of fact, I had a
really fun night Thursday night, went out with somebody's shooting
the stuff, talking sports, talking investments, talking kids, talking dad life.
A couple of the dads listening to the podcast, and
(03:17):
you just kind of cherishes moments, you know, you really
have to. And I just I feel gutted for this
kid's family. I mean, nineteen years old, his whole life
in front of him, wasn't wearing a seatbelt and is
going and uh, you know, prayers out to his family.
I can't imagine what they're going through. Is absolutely brutal.
(03:41):
So um, batt'll do it for the NBA, And um
let's get to our interview with Mike Florio of Pro
Football Talk. Jason likes to think he knows everything when
it comes to sports. I know what sports dans want,
but for everything he doesn't, he knows a guy who does.
(04:02):
Let's just say, I know a guy who knows who
knows another guy. All right, welcome into straight fire. A
legend in the football media space. You know we've had
Peter King on more traditional media. This guy started his
own shop, and you know, as a guy who started
the big lead, I love an entrepreneur. Mike Florio Pro
(04:24):
Football Talk. How are you, Mike Jason? I'm doing great.
How are you? It's great to talk to you. Yeah, Yeah,
it's been a while. I feel like the last time
I saw you, I didn't go to the Combine in
twenty what nineteen Combine? I wasn't there, But I think
I saw you the Super Bowl a couple of years
prior to that. Um, how have you held up this
last year? It has been a challenging year for a
(04:47):
variety of reasons, as it has been for everyone. And
my wife has both parents still alive and they're older,
so we spent a lot of time worried about them
getting sick, and my wife spent a lot of time
making sure were properly taken care of that they had
food that they had meals that they could leave their
home at the absolute minimum. And then once the vaccines
(05:08):
became available, we were and continue to be very aggressive
about getting our friends and family to go get the
vaccination so we can start to push toward normalcy. But
my day in and day out life, I'm pretty much
a hermit anyway, Jason. I work at home. I rarely
leave the house. Even when things were normal, there would
be periods of time, like during free agency prior to
(05:28):
the draft. During the season, I maybe get out of
the house once per week. So right now, I I
go down our hill and go to the grocery store,
or go get my hair cut, or run to the bank.
I do that about once a week just to stay sane.
But other than that, my life has been no different.
In fact, this past season, I was more productive than
ever before because I did all of my NBC duties
(05:49):
from home, So I picked up, as I was telling
me before we got started, fifteen hours a week that
I would nearly would have been traveling. I was able
to do other things and it made me far more
productive this year than I've ever been. Efficiency is a
beautiful thing, huh. It's amazing and it's taught people that
there there can be other ways of doing things that
(06:10):
don't entail physical presence all the time. And moving forward,
if we are back to normal or something close to
normal disease, and I anticipate I won't be going to
Connecticut to the NBC Sports main studio every single week,
and my output will improve and and and everything overall
(06:31):
will be better because of it. Yeah, the product doesn't
decline just because you're not in the studio. I mean,
it's the only thing you really miss is the camaraderie
before after Um, maybe if you're traveling with someone, You're right,
that's all that's missing. Your your content is still phenomenal. Well,
and you're right, the camaraderie is a big part of it.
And I think that's why I would still hope to
(06:52):
get up there on a regular basis. But it doesn't
have to be that NonStop grind. I mean, I've been
doing it since two thousand and ten and this was
the first year that I didn't go up every week.
But and and trust me, this is the ultimate first
world problem. I'm not complaining about it, but it does
put you in a completely different existence where you get
(07:12):
to Saturday and that means pack up your stuff and leave,
and it's work, work, work, work, work, and it's all
days Sunday and then Monday you're exhausted and it's travel
back and you get home and it's just keep going.
And uh, it's a lot easier when you don't have
to throw that travel back and forth, the stress, the strain,
the time, everything. It just makes you so much fresher
(07:33):
and you don't feel worn down when the season ends.
Let me ask how how it's been for you in
working with sources around the league. Obviously, listen, you can
text people. I don't know if you face time folks,
Calls still happen. But have you seen a noted difference
at all in the last this offseason in regard to
player movement, draft scuttle but all that fun stuff. Yeah.
(07:55):
I I still communicate the way that I always have
and text message for me is the most efficient. And
you know, when you're creating content, and you know this,
you need to have time where you can sit at
your keyboard and create content. And the more time you
spend on the phone is less time you have available
to create content. So I try to be extremely efficient
(08:17):
when it comes to my interpersonal communications, and I'm not
rude about it. It's just, hey, I'd rather text somebody
than talk, because then you play phone tag and then
you get caught up in a conversation and the next
thing you know, you get into a fun chat and
it's twenty minutes later and you start thinking, you know,
I've got I've got a conveyor belt full of chocolates
to make an incredibly not timely reference that is rolling,
(08:39):
and I gotta get back and scoop those chocolates up.
Because when you do create content, you get an audience
that expects more content. So that's the balance. So that
hasn't changed. Really, nothing has changed, but for the fact
that I didn't travel and haven't gone anywhere since the
scouting combine of February. Yeah, I want to quickly zoom
(08:59):
out on the league. And you know a lot of
people are saying, oh, Tom, Tom Brady and the Bucks
that could go undefeated. Uh, this draft is huge. Forty nine.
I kind of want to start a little off the
board here with Bill Belichick and such an un characteristic
offseason for the Patriots, and you know, obviously the Brady
Belichick breakup was fun, and oh Brady won the breakup,
and you know, now every single players back for the Bucks.
(09:22):
I'm just curious where you see the you know, the
the near term future for Bill Belichick and the Patriots,
because it seems like the Bills are the class of
that division again. The Miami Dolphins are on the come up,
the Jets are starting over, new coach as usual. Um,
I just don't know what to make of the Patriots
and whether or not Belichick has one more Super Bowl
run in him. Well. I was so fascinated by the
(09:44):
way they handled free agency, and I thought what they
would do is wait and buy up players at a
cheaper value after the first few days of free agency
play out. But because there wasn't that usual ultra splurge
right out of the gates, they really didn't have to wait.
I think they were very surgical in their tampering, and
everyone tampers. I think ahead of time they made sure
(10:07):
the agents of the players they were targeting new this
is the offer. It's only gonna be there for a
limited period of time. Once Monday at noon Eastern rolls
around and the official window opens for exchanging offers, and
if you don't want it, we got somebody else from
moving on to so let me know do you want it?
Do you want it or not? And I think that's
why they came out of the gates with so many
deals that weren't your typical ridiculous first day of free
(10:30):
agency contracts. They were all reasonable, fair, appropriate. They burned
up that cap money they had, and it told me
they are definitely in win now mode. And you know,
last year, with their struggles, you would think they were
three and thirteen except and nine is still pretty good
given that they had not nearly the talent they've had
in past years. So they go about strategically trying to
replenish the talent address the flaws they've had both in
(10:54):
drafting and developing young players, because I think development is
a big part of it that gets overlooked because it's
not like the draft and guys who don't belong in
the NFL. They're drafting guys that maybe they shouldn't but
somebody else was going to draft them. They're failing to
develop them as well. So you bring in veterans who
know what they're doing, and I think they have a
real urgency, even though they'd never admit it, to try
to get back to elite level, and they've got Tom
(11:16):
Brady and the Buccaneers coming to town this year. They're
aware of that. They want to beat him, they want
to beat the Bills. They want to be back in
that conversation of among the best teams in the NFL,
and they're doing what they can to get there. And
I I love it because we've never seen anything like
it before. And however it plays out, it's gonna be
fun to watch. And you know around the league that
every team coach GM is just looking to stick it
(11:40):
to Belichick. I mean, two decades of dominance. I know
some people think this is probably a playoff team, but
Mike that a f C is so stacked compared to
the NFC. I just don't see the Patriots being able
to pull this off, especially with Cam Newton under center,
unless something crazy happens, Mac Jones comes in or I
don't know if you're hearing they like Trey Lance or whatever,
but um, it just doesn't feel like a playoff team
(12:02):
to be Jason. What I hear is they love Cam
Newton and last year they really didn't get a fair
opportunity to see what Cam Newton could do. Earlier in
the year, Cam Newton was doing pretty well with the Patriots.
Then he gets COVID right before they're gonna play the Chiefs,
and they still almost beat the Chiefs even without Cam Newton.
I think that that COVID diagnosis affected him in ways
(12:24):
that maybe he won't fully appreciate for time to come.
I remember he was asked at one point on the radio.
I think it was w E I whether he's suffering
brain fog as a result of the COVID diagnosis, and
he denied it. But I think that something wasn't right
after that, and we're still learning what it means to
have it and how it lingers. I just think it
threw everything off the rails for the Patriots last year.
(12:45):
I think they they brought him back with the intent
that he's going to be the guy, and because they
have this win now vibe. I'd be very surprised. I
know there's a thought that they'll trade up and try
to get a quarterback. I'd be very surprised if they
do it, because I think they want to see how
far Cam Newton can take them. Year two opportunity to
be there for the full off season program, training camp, play,
some in the preseason, know the offense better and have
(13:08):
better weapons. That's the key. He's got better weapons. So
last year maybe the aberration. This year maybe the start
of a very good trend for Newton and the Patriots.
We'll see. I want to go to the Dallas Cowboys
because you know how these TV radio things work. He
play the hits. Everybody loves the Cowboys. Might the realities
they've been to a Super Bowl in twenty five years. Um,
(13:29):
this love for Doc, Let's give him forty mile blah
blah blah. Like I don't know, are we do we
pay too much attention to the Cowboys when it's been
really a generation since they've been good. Yes we do,
we do. I just needed to hear that, Yeah we do.
And it's been twenty five years, not just since they've
won a Super Bowl, it's twenty five years since they've
even played in the game to get to the Super Bowl. Washington,
(13:50):
Detroit and Dallas the only three teams in the NFC
that haven't played in an NFC Championship game since it
was Washington versus Detroit actually and in the NFC Championship.
But for all the hype, the production isn't there and
I think every year, you know I I always advocate
for teams do what you can to lower expectations, try
(14:12):
to get the bar to be set in a spot
where you're destined to overachieve. The Cowboys every year, and
it's that Jerry Jones hype machine. He shoved the bar
up as high as he can, and it seems like
far more often than not, they fail to live up
to their expectations. Look at last year. What a disaster
it was defensively. And now the same staff, the same coach,
(14:32):
the same front office that brought us the Mike Nolan
debacle has fixed everything with the hiring of Dan Quinn.
I'll believe it when I see it. And they've got
a long way to go to be among the best
teams in the NFC. They can't even win their division,
and their division had a team with a losing record
that finished in first place. But come on, dan Quinny
had such a good defense in Atlanta the last um
(14:52):
I don't know, five years. I mean, all this excited
over Quinn and Keian O'Neil, I mean, Mike, I don't
I guess I wouldn't go in on the Cowboys. They
do drive ratings every you know, when they were on
the Sunday uh primetime slot or the afternoon slot. They
they do generate massive numbers. I just my theory has
always been that Dallas came of age in the mid
(15:13):
nineties when the Internet started to take off, and you know,
twenty four hour cable news was huge, and that just
drove a boom. But I don't see it right now,
And Jason, I'll go back even farther than that. I
do not know how old you are, but I discovered
football in the early nineteen seventies, and that was when
they became America's team. They were one of the teams
(15:34):
that that was highly relevant and you didn't get many
games on TV back then, and the Cowboys always seemed
to be one of those teams. And there was always
something about the old stadium they played in. It was
the way the lights would shine off of the helmets
and the uniforms. Every game played there felt like a
much bigger deal than it otherwise would have been, and
(15:54):
there was just a magic. There was a sizzle, and
that stayed with the Cowboys even through the eighties when
they weren't dominant. From the moment that Dwight Clark jumped
up over Everson Walls and caught that pass, and the
forty Niners became the forty Niners, and the Cowboys faded
behind the likes of the Giants and Washington. They were
still very relevant. And then they get it back together.
And they've written that for thirty years, even though four,
(16:17):
as you said, twenty five of it. What what have
they really been? They went thirteen years at one point
between playoff wins. Wow. I didn't realize thirteen years between playoffs?
So what does this mean for Jerry Jones at I
know he's like, you know, it's tough to tell a billionaire, hey,
you need to fall back and you know, let some
younger people handle things. I mean, you can't. He's not
(16:39):
going to deal with that, well, right, Scott know, he
wants to win a Super Bowl with the team he built.
He made that decision after Bill Parcel's resigned the job
following the two thousand six season, because what would happen
is there was a cycle that Jerry Jones was riding
for a while, and you know, Jimmy Johnson builds a
great team and Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson can't coexist.
(17:04):
So out goes Jimmy, and then the team goes the
other way, and then he goes and gets Bill Parcels
eventually after it bottoms out and Parcels helps him build
it back up, but Parcels gets the credit after Parcels.
I believe that's when Jerry Jones made the decision it's
gonna be me. I'd rather be a second tier team
(17:25):
that I built than a super Bowl winner that's someone
else built. And and that's been that impetus, and it's
been year after years, season after season, and as he
gets older, he's joked about it. Is he gets older,
how many more of these shots does he have? And
it feels like every year there's a greater sense of
urgency because every year could be the last year that
he's the guy who actually runs the team and he's
not giving up the reins anytime soon, and uh, he
(17:46):
desperately wants to get that fourth super Bowl trophy and
more importantly, the first one that he can claim for
responsibility for. Yeah. Credit, that's a big, big running joke
in my family. So four months to this season, it's
again a can happen at the draft? Um, do you
think the Cowboys are the class of the NFC East. No,
I think that Washington is. I think they've quietly addressed
(18:08):
their weaknesses improved their team. I don't know what they're
gonna do at quarterback in the draft. Maybe they will,
maybe they will. Now when you have Ryan Fitzpatrick on
the Washington roster and Andy Dalton on the Bears roster,
and the Bears are at nineteen in Washington, the twenty
is not as obvious that they're in the quarterback market,
which makes it easier to either have one fall to
you or you can trade up a few spots and
(18:30):
get one. I'll be curious to see if they try
to make a move. There's been some talk that maybe
they will. But between adding Curtis Samuel the receiver and
they also added Adam Humphreys at receiver, they have William
Jackson the third corner. That defense is getting better. They've
got Chase Young who was awesome last year. They've got
a good offensive line and good young running back in
Antonio Gibson. I think they're the best team in the NFC.
(18:52):
But it's that hype machine, NFC East, not NFC let's
not go crazy yet, NFC East. But it's that Dallas
hype machine that makes them the betting favorite to win
the division because people always want to bet on the
Cowboys because we swallowed the hook when Jerry Jones puts
debate on it. So you've watched Ryan Fitzpatrick as I have,
(19:13):
and I feel, Mike, I don't have data to back
this up. He shows really well one year, everybody gets
excited about his potential, and then he turns into a
pumpkin the following year. I know this because it was
with my Jets and they bet on him and it
was a spectacular failure. And I have a bad feeling
it doesn't work out for him in Washington, although he
was good last year in Miami he was better than
two it. When I think of Ryan Fitzpatrick, I think
(19:36):
of that toggle switch on a guitar that goes rhythm
and trouble, but it goes fits magic and fits tragic,
and whenever you think it's locked in one way, it
goes the other way. And we saw it. We saw
it in Tampa when Jameis Winston was suspended. He was
playing so well those first few games. We thought, hey,
Jamis Winston's gonna lose his job, and the moment you
(19:56):
buy in completely. Ryan Fitzpatrick is the moment he breaks
your heart, and then he disappears. You forget about him,
you overlook him, you disregard him. Like that game. I
think it was early on a Thursday night, Dolphins against Bengals,
and Joe Burrow had looked pretty good and the Bengals, Oh,
Bengal should win this game, and the Dolphins just came
out and Ryan Fitzpatrick looks awesome in that game. When
(20:18):
you overlook him, he finds a way to play like
one of the all time greats. And then when you think, hey,
this guy is pretty good, he's underrated, he's underappreciated, he
he lays an egg and that cycle just continues. And
that that's why I think if they have a young
quarterback on the roster, he won't start all seventeen games.
And even even with the guys they have, there's a
(20:39):
chance he hits a rough spot that says, Okay, we're
gonna go with Kyle Allen, We're gonna go with Taylor Heineken.
We need to do something different because our starters in
a rut. Yeah, that's a tough spot. Let's stick with
quarterbacks for a second and I you know, Mike, I'm
gonna confess I've struggled to talk about the Deshaun Watson
situation on the podcast simply because we don't know enough information.
I I know there's a lot of stuff out there.
(21:02):
Twenty two women, Jason, How was that not enough info?
I don't know. Man. We just saw the Aaron Donald
when Mike, where some guy comes out with a shut
eye and says, Aaron Donald beat me up, and everybody says,
Aaron Donald, is he gonna get suspended? And then the
video says no, Aaron Donald was a peacemaker. I know
that's not an apples to apples with Watson, But how
are you handling it on on Pro Football Talk? Are
(21:23):
you guys doing a lot of it or not? Really,
we're doing a lot of it because people want to
know about it. And Jason, I practiced law eighteen years.
So it puts me in a position where I can
understand what this all means, where it's all going, where
it maybe should go. I can interject my opinions into
the process, help people understand what it means when one
of the lawyers says something publicly trying your case in
(21:45):
the court of public opinion versus trying your case in
a court of law. And I said fairly early on,
because no one's gonna know what happened on those twenty
two occasions, because there isn't a video that's ever going
to become available like it was with Aaron Donald. And
from the get go with Aaron Donald, I said, well, hey, look,
in this day and age, we're all big brother, we're
(22:05):
all carrying around the cell phone. There's gonna be video,
there's gonna be surveillance video potentially, and there was that's
gonna show us what happened with Deshaun Watson. That's off
the table. Eventually, it's gonna come down to he said,
She said twenty two times over. And I tried enough
cases during my legal career to know this. You never
know what's gonna happen. Every jury is different. Every jury
(22:29):
is composed of individuals who come together and create their
own organism. Some are gonna be receptive, some aren't. Some
of the plaintiffs are gonna be more persuasive when they speak,
some aren't. Deshaun Watson, if he has to testify twenty
two times, maybe some days he's gonna do well. Other
days he's not. You're not going to be able to
reasonably say X number of plaintiffs will lose, x number
(22:54):
will win. So my position has been for weeks now
that the best thing DeShawn Watson can do for himself
and for the individuals who have made these claims is
set up a mediation session. It's an informal process where
you get ideally your retired judge who has gravitas, and
it creates kind of a quasi day in court so
people feel like they were heard and they're satisfied, and
(23:18):
you work out settlements in these cases, settlements that the
individuals involved who are making the allegations will believe it's
a fair payment for what they experienced and what they
claim they experienced and what they actually experienced. Maybe it's
the same thing, maybe it's a little bit different. We
don't know, but I think bringing everyone together in that
(23:38):
setting and I think that's what needs to happen for
Deshaun Watson's career. Have your reckoning, make good with the
individuals so they feel like they got their brand of justice.
That's how you resolve this so you can get on
with your football career. Because Jason, I'm convinced. If he
doesn't resolve this by the start of football season, he's
at very real risk of being on the Commissioner example
list and not playing this year and maybe maybe not
(24:00):
just this year, but next year as well, if they're
not gonna let him back on the field until these
cases are resolved, if they go all the way through
to verdicts. Now, I haven't spent any time in court,
thank goodness. Um, but I gotta I gotta be honest.
Didn't didn't these women some of them try to have
mediation and say, hey, um, you know, basically we would
(24:21):
like some money for our troubles. And didn't they try
to do this before? And Watson was like, no, I'm
not doing that. And would what would it look like
now if he did that with two women? Well, and
it wasn't a formal mediation process. And the one question
I don't know the answer to is when Tony Buzzby
approached Deshaun Watson's representatives before filing the first lawsuit Ashley
(24:41):
so Leice, who later came forward with her name, there
was an effort to resolve that and and even though
it's been characterized by Shaun Watson's lawyer as a money
grab or oh, it's all about money. You say, it's
not about money. It's all about money. Look, it's perfectly
normal and usual and routine for a lawyer who has
(25:04):
a client who has a claim that can be made
in court to contact the defendant, the potential defendant ahead
of time and give that person a chance to resolve
the case before the lawsuit is filed. And when Rusty
Harden a couple of weeks ago released emails that were
exchanged with the Shawn Watson's representatives' rather m I said,
there's nothing untoured here, there's nothing improper here. This is
(25:26):
an extortion. This is how it works. We have a claim,
we're going to file the claim. We want to give
you an opportunity to resolve that claim before we do it.
And from the planet's perspective, there's value in that your
life doesn't get turned upside down. You don't have to
go through this process of worry and stress and what
are they gonna say about me on social media? And
(25:47):
what are my neighbors going to say about me? And
am I gonna have trouble sleeping at night worrying about testifying?
Now you resolve it, you have your sense of justice
and you move forward, and Jason to break it down
to the most simple nub that I can as to
what went wrong here? When Tony Buzzby asked for a
hundred thousand dollars from Deshaun Watson on half of actually
(26:07):
so at least as an opening settlement demand, and the
response was essentially, we don't like your number, give us
a new one. That was a breach of the basic
negotiation etiquette that applies in legal cases. They should have
offered something five thousand, ten thousand, whatever, continue the discussion,
because I think Tony Buzzby would have taken between fifty
(26:27):
and seventy five thousand. And the thing that I'll never
know the answer to would there have been plane if
number two, three, four, all the way to twenty two
if they had resolved the case as the plane iff
number one, because at some point they piste off Tony
Buzzby and he was motivated to go find more people.
So Mike the the obvious question, and I'm gonna put
aside the idea that a quarterback needed twenty different women
to massage him over like acause the eight and say, hey,
(26:53):
he's he's fine. Um if he if someone if they
came to him and said, hey, hundred thousand dollars, that
settle this? What's and said, I did nothing. We can't
do that. That's crazy. Do that to the perception from
the outsiders, everybody reading it on the internet, Well he
could have just settled this for a hundred thousand dollars.
Maybe he didn't do anything. Well, he could have settled
(27:14):
it for a lot less than a hundred thousand dollars. Again,
a hundred thousand was the opener. They had room to move.
You never lead with your bottom line. And one of
the emails from the individual and athletes first, who was
communicating with buzz beyond behalf of Watson, basically said there
would be value in Deshaun learning a lesson here and
when you have to ask yourself. And I went through
(27:37):
this all the time on behalf of defendants I represented
and plaintiffs I represented, when you set aside the personal
frustration and acrimony, and look, anytime you're sued, you get upset,
you get piste off, you don't like it, it turns,
it turns your life upside down. If you can set
that aside and you can be very analytical about it,
what you can say is, Okay, they asked for a
(27:59):
hundred thousand, they probably take between fifty and seventy five thousand.
How much am I gonna spend to defend myself start
to finish, even if I win, even if the verdict
comes back in favor of me. How much money am
I gonna spend? And I'll tell you something I don't
know anythink about the legal fees in Houston. I got
(28:19):
a pretty good feeling he would have spent a lot
more than that fifty to seventy five thousand to get
a successful outcome if it was just one. Now what two,
it's gonna be a held a lot more than that
fifties and seventy five. So there's a point where and
this is where you need to have good advice. And
I think Deshaun Watson was a victim of the fact
that his reputation is so pristine and stellar. They set
(28:42):
up an echo chamber around him. Oh, there's no way
he's not capable of this. Look, at some point you
gotta set that aside and say, we got somebody who's
ready to sue us. It doesn't matter whether he did
it or not. We need to have creativity of imagination
to understand how this is going to play out if
we don't settle the case. And it doesn't take a
lot of imagination for some one who's an experienced lawyer
to know what comes next if you say, in response
(29:04):
to a hundred thousand dollar opening demand, thank you, no,
thank you, see you in court. Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and
within the I Heart Radio app search f s R
to listen live. All right, let's quickly wrap up with
(29:24):
some draft stuff. Mike. Obviously, the biggest question is forty
nine ers at three. You got Schefter coming out and
saying it's Mac Jones and backpedaling a little bit. You
have Mike Lombardi, whatever you think about him, he's saying
it's gonna be Trey Lance Um. Anybody who watched an
ounce of college football says it's got to be justin fields.
Where do you weigh in on this, and given your
(29:45):
history with Kyle Shanahan, Well, I do a show every
weekday morning on Peacock and then it's on NBCs N
with Chris Simms four days a week. Typically Peter King
on Friday's. Chris has known Kyle Shanahan for years. Chris
Cante ends that Kyle Shanahan does not tell him anything
because Chris is a big mouth. And I can confirm
(30:06):
that Chris is a big mouth. But Chris has been
around Kyle long enough to know what Kyle is looking for.
They they didn't trade the twelfth overall pick and two
first round picks and a third round pick for the
third overall pick. I mean, you're ultimately investing three first
round picks in the third round pick for a player.
You're not acquiring that spot without having a pretty damn
(30:29):
good idea what player that you want? And Sims has
been convinced from day one that's Mac Jones. The betting
markets have been all over the place. It was Lance,
then it was Jones, then it was Fields, now it's
Jones again. I think it's gonna be Jones. I think
Kyle Shanahan knows it's Jones. They've got no reason to
tell us. And and also the cynical side of me
says ESPN and NFL Network are gonna want to create
(30:51):
as much uncertainty as possible. So we tune in next
Thursday Night at a p MBS trying to find out
who the pick is because we already know one and two.
If we know three, the draft didn't get read to
Atlanta at four. Yeah, I don't. Where are you on
trade lance? By the way, twenty years old. I think
he has sixteen starts in his career, maybe seventeen and
um uh, this idea that he could go in and
(31:12):
start versus being a developmental guy behind someone in Denver,
someone in San France, Where are you on trade lance? Well,
it's it's very simple to me. He clearly is one
of the top quarterbacks in this draft class. We wouldn't
be talking about him going as high as number three,
possibly four to the Falcons if he wasn't. What every
team has to ask itself when you have that opportunity,
(31:34):
when you have earned through crappy football or good trades,
when you've earned the opportunity to get that guy who
can be a franchise quarterback, and we've seen more and
more of young quarterbacks come into the NFL and play
well right away. When you know that if you get
that guy who potentially becomes a shortlist franchise quarterback, you're
gonna have him ten years fifteen years, maybe twenty years,
(31:56):
like Tom Brady was in New England. When you look
at the Falcons too, was an eight Matt Ryan who
faced the franchise after the Mike Vick Bobby Petrino debacle.
Matt Ryan's still there. You get that position taken care of,
You're gonna have a contending, relevant team for a long time.
So it all comes down to what the coaching staff
thinks to the guy, what the front office thinks to
(32:16):
the guy. But he's clearly in the conversation. And if
you get a franchise quarterback, you are set for a
long time to come. And I think there's there's every reason,
and I think it's one of the reasons why we're
looking one to three quarterback this year, maybe one, two, three,
four quarterbacks off the board. You get that young quarterback,
who's the guy you don't have to worry about the
quarterback position for a long time. My Jets zero franchise quarterbacks.
(32:39):
And no, I'm not counting Chad Pennington and Ken O'Brien.
I agree with you none since Joe Ninneth right. Let me,
you're gonna like this final question, Davonte Smith, U they
finally got his weight from when he had to go
to Indie, and I believe it was a hundred and
sixty six pounds. Uh, there's some stuff out there about
how Bill Belichick has ever drafted someone under I think
(33:02):
it was like one eighty or one ninety um and
he was kind of scoffing at a guy I know
six or seven years ago, Dexter mccullister coming out of
Old miss and it's like one sixty six, Mike, Like,
I never thought that the top ten stuff was real,
but I just one under sixty six pounds. He's getting
broken if he comes across the middle against the safety.
(33:22):
Is he not well? In this day and age, it's
not like it was, because you can go, you go
across the middle, you don't get hit like he used
to get hit. Watching YouTube games from the eighties or
nineties and they're out there the brutality, the brutality if
you just if you immediately rewind and watch a game,
it is stunning to see the way that that receivers
(33:43):
got got hit with helmets and driven into the ground
and they popped up and they kept going, and it
really is amazing to see it in comparison today's standards.
I don't know what weight is too light. I also
would love to know two things. When he went to Indianapolis,
did he know he was gonna get wade? Because maybe
(34:03):
you eat a whole pizza and drink a gallon of
water before you show up, if you know. Seriously, But no,
I'm saying if he didn't know, if he didn't know,
he'd be won seventy again. Maybe he went to indian
he didn't know he was gonna be weighed. And secondly,
did he resist at all getting on the scale because
he'd avoided the scale and he wouldn't he didn't do
it at the Senior Bowl. I just wonder if they
(34:24):
kind of caught him by surprise when he went for
a medical. If I'm him, i'd be a little piste off.
I went for a doctor's visit so they could check
out my finger, and they did the basic routine stuff
blood pressure, temperature, that get on the scale, see how,
And he probably had no idea that that was ever
going to show up anywhere. That's kind of it's fun
thinking about that because it definitely hurts his perception. It definitely.
(34:47):
I don't I didn't see who actually broke that story.
Do you know who who had? Um? So, actually that
just got me thinking, like, so let's say you know, uh,
you're gonna hire somebody over at NBC and um, you
know you you're on the interior staff and you're like, yeah,
we like this guy, and he won't give you one
(35:07):
piece of information that's kind of important when you're investing
millions of dollars in the guy. Are you a little
hesitant in some way, shape or form, Well, you are,
but you understand why he's hesitant. He's hesitant because once
the numbers out there, then it does become something that
can work against him in a showdown with Jamaar Chase
(35:28):
or Jail and Waddle his Alabama teammate. And I think
Waddle and Chase will both go before Davonte Smith. So
you strategically keep your mouth shut because you don't want
that piece out there. Because what happens is people reside
in their fears when it's time to draft. So if
you're the Dolphins and you're picking between Waddle and Smith, well,
if you pick Smith and he gets injured or he
(35:49):
has trouble getting off the line of scrimmage or whatever
the case may be, I told you so I told
you so. I told you so, he's too light. You're
not gonna have that with Chase or Waddle. And I
think that that becomes the thing that can fuel a slide.
And for the player, every spot is a significant loss
in total value over the first four years of his career.
(36:10):
So he's got every reason too to try to keep
that quiet. So it doesn't justify a team saying we're
going to go in a different direction. But don't you
think at the same time, falling would be good for
him because he's avoiding the terrible franchises that are always
picking in the top ten, often with bad front offices,
bad quarterbacks, uncertain coaching situations. He falls to like two,
(36:36):
that's probably a better scenario, is it not. It is
for that reason, Jason, And there is another reason that
I find fascinating with receivers. Being the first receiver taken
in any given year prevents you from having a chip
on your shoulder about not being the first receiver taken
and sliding all the way around two. That's the the
Michael Thomas effect where I think he was more motivated
(37:00):
by landing where he did behind so many receivers and
bad receivers who were taken boom boom boom one after
another by Washington, Minnesota and Houston in two sixteen. That
motivation becomes the the driving force for everything you achieve
in your career. I think Chase Claypool experienced that last
year when he felt around too. So, even though it
(37:22):
hurts you short term, from an earning standpoint, I think
that slap in the face in a very significant public setting,
I've been waiting my whole life to be drafted. This
is the culmination of my life to this point that
it is Wally being the first guy and you kind
of feel like, hey, I've made it. And the guy
who goes a lot later than he thought and gets
(37:43):
piste off and says, I'm going to prove everybody wrong
for the rest of my career. That's a valuable motivation
that I think a lot of receivers have profited from.
That's a great point. And it goes to quarterbacks too.
I mean, really, I think it was the Ringer looked
at the best quarterbacks in the last fifteen years taken
in the top five, and there is a lot of
bad quarterbacking that has gone in the top five. Meanwhile,
(38:04):
it's guys who have slid a little bit, Josh Allen,
a Lamar Jackson Um you know, obviously dating back to Russell, Wilson, Hell,
even Dak Prescott. Guys that fall it usually ends up
better for them in some way, shape or form. Now
you know we're playing armchair psychologists here, but I think
you're onto something with that. Mike. Well, you develop without pressure,
you develop without expectation, and you reduced the chance that
(38:26):
you exhale that you professionally exhale, and you lose your motivation.
It used to be worse Jason before two thousand eleven
the windfall that the guys at the very top of
the draft got it you had a huge cap number,
a huge financial commitment, and a real chance that you
had a guy that was never gonna listen to anybody
because what are you gonna do? Cut me? And he
(38:46):
comes in there like a Ryan Leaf and Russell and
ends up being a huge problem. And that's one of
the reasons between Leaf and Russell that they got rid
of that, but that that was part of the risk.
Can we trust the guy who has so much money
that it no longer matters what he does? And some
guys don't love football enough to just say, hey, I
made it, I'm here, I've won, and I'm going to
(39:07):
enjoy my life now. Great stuff, Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk,
NBC Peacock. I mean, he's everywhere. This is what the
great ones do, Mike. Congrats on all your success man,
and thanks a lot for taking Jason great talking to
you again,
Host
Jason McIntyre
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