April 19, 2021 • 51 mins
On this episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast, Colin explains why he embraces the spectacle of the Jake Paul boxing phenomenon (1:00). His guest this week is former Jets and USC QB Mark Sanchez, who open up about when his Jets tenure took a turn for the worse (7:00), why Sam Darnold didn't get a fair shake in New York (9:00), why he can succeed in Carolina (12:00), if BYU's Zach Wilson has a chance (14:00), if USC prepared him for the NYC media onslaught (20:00), his memories of his first NFL start (22:00), the pros and cons of Chip Kelly's offense in the NFL (25:00), how long it takes to know if a rookie is a bust (31:00), the evolution of the NFL training camp throughout his career (37:00), what it was like to play at USC at the height of the program (40:00), why he wasn't offended Pete Carroll's criticism when he decided to turn pro (45:00), and why he's opposed to the specialization culture of youth football (48:00).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. The Colin Cowherd Podcast brought to you by
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Duel more Ways to win. Hi, everybody, Welcome to the
(00:30):
Monday Morning Podcast. Mark Sanchez is gonna be great today.
Smart dude talk about the USC days, about the New
York Jet days, about the best coordinator he ever had,
and all these young quarterback His thoughts. So, by the way,
Saturday night, I watched Jake Paul beat Ben Askron. Ben
Askin was a like an MMA guy. One punch fight,
(00:51):
Jake Paul's like a YouTuber knocked him out, And you know,
I think it's really interesting. Two things jumped to me.
First of all, it's hard to be good at two things.
It's impossible to be great at two things. When MMA
guys try to box, they look awful. When boxers going
to the octagon, they look awful. Michael Jordan couldn't hit
a baseball curve and Randy Moss couldn't hoop. The reality
(01:15):
is Dion Sanders is a once in a lifetime athlete
that could do both. But you know, it's funny about
boxing and UFC, and I've heard this, Oh it's a stick.
How can you watch? Jake Paul, Let me ask you
was it interesting? Was it interesting? Yeah? It got one
point five million pay per views? It was interesting. The
(01:40):
hell do I care? If it was a YouTube star
and it was an MMA guy. If tomorrow I opened
a new business and I just did celebrity fighting, that's it.
And I took guys who were athletic or women. They
(02:00):
were athletic. I didn't. I won't have Tom Arnold out there, okay,
but I took people that were athletic. Denzel wanted to
fight Tom Hanks and they both trained for it. You
wouldn't watch, of course, you'd watch. The reality is boxing
doesn't give us enough fascinating matchups. UFC has a lot
(02:23):
of them. They give us more than boxing. But in
the end, I always bristlet people who say, oh, how
can you watch that crap? I'm a fan of interesting.
When I was a kid growing up, there was an
industry in America that was fairly dynamic. It was Daredevil's
Evil Knevil. So I got a job in Las Vegas,
(02:47):
and I watched a couple of Daredevils perform live. To
this day, it's the first or second most captivating stuff
I've ever seen live. Daredevils are fascinating. YouTube stars boxing
MMA guys is interesting. Not everything has to be Game
seven of the World Series, and not everything has to
(03:08):
be Saturday Night SEC football. I always look at I
always look at it this way. We have a million
regular season baseball games. Look at all the sports we
have in America today. Maybe five percent of sports is
championship level stuff, the rest of its regular season, out
of conference, not urgent. I will take championship level, legitimate
(03:33):
sports first. But if you give me Jake Paul and
Ben Askren over the Milwaukee Brewers and the Atlanta Braves
on a Tuesday, I'm gonna take Jake Paul. I'll take
the championship sports first, a great Rose Bowl, a great
baseball playoff game. But second, Daredevil, I'll tell you another thing.
(03:54):
I like tight rope walking. Remember a couple of years ago,
one of those Wilendas walked on a tight route between
Icago buildings. Listen if he slipped, he's a street pizza.
I'm interested. So I'm not one of these sports fans.
That's an idealist like sometimes a NASCAR crash, a baseball
(04:15):
fight is better than the game. I have no problem
saying it. I've seen so many games in my life.
Takeaway championship level stuff, Stanley Cup, playoffs, World Series, take
that out. I wish we had more events. I've said
it before. I love pay per view events. I mean,
(04:36):
Jake Paul's a YouTube star. Ninety percent of America over
thirty five years old doesn't go to YouTube, and they
got one point five million pay per view buys. What
if he would have fought a real boxer, You're talking
three and four and five million pay per view buys.
I went to Connor McGregor and Mayweather. I gotta tell
(04:57):
you something. I walked out of that arena that was
as much fun as I had had at a live
event in years. And it was competitive. It was an event.
It was crazy. You know. When I was in Vegas
out of college, I went to a lot of boxing matches.
(05:18):
A lot of them were Tyson mismatches, Roy Jones mismatches.
But I'll tell you big events like that. If you're
asking me, I could put my favorite events. Yeah, I'd
put the World Cup up there, the Super Bowl, College
Bowl games, big ones. But there is a place for
tightrope walking, YouTube stars, boxing and daredevils. There's absolutely a
(05:44):
place for it, and I'm gonna put my arms around
it every time it's available. Well, I've known Mark Sanchez
for a while. He was a number one high school
football quarterback in the country and I'm a recruiting dorc
And then he went to USC and he was all
packed twelve, and then he left early, went to the Jets,
and I was in Connecticut, so I had the misfortune
(06:05):
of dealing with a lot of the Mets dysfunction and
was rooting for Mark Sanchez from day one. And now
he's a really, really talented broadcaster and a good all
around dude. And I love having you on. You know,
it's interesting. I watch the Zach Wilson's and the Justin
Field and I've said before, Trevor Lawrence is a prodigy.
Everybody else is a really good prospect. I felt the
(06:27):
same way about Andrew Luck. I think he get about
one a decade and I want to go back because
I was there for every snap. I saw every snap.
As a Jet, you come in yet you had a
good defense but Rex doesn't nurture quarterbacks. We know that
it's not a shot. We all know that. I've told
Rex to his face. You had a first year, you
improve your second year, started improving your third year, and
(06:48):
then you know Rex is what Rex is. When did
you know? Mark? When was the first because you were
winning a lot of games, you were winning a lot
of playoff games, Brady Peyton Manning, when was the first moment? Though?
In this process you're like, it's not right. I don't
feel like I'm kind of quite getting where I want?
(07:10):
Did you? And you may not have said it publicly, Yeah,
you may not have said it to anybody other than
your dad, But when was your first moment you had
little misgivings about the Jets? Thing was turning sideways. I
don't think it was till, you know, the end of
that third year when I really got a chance to
look back, because you gotta understand, it was Rose Bowl
(07:31):
at usc AFC Championship, a FC Championships. So for three
years all I knew was essentially postseason football, right, and
then that technically fourth year or third year as a pro,
I think because of our success with free agents, you
got to understand we played the free agency gamble game
hard like we ruled the roll the dice a lot,
(07:54):
and we hit a lot. So we bring in Jason Taylor,
We bring in Braylon Edwards, We bring in Ladanien Thomlinson.
You know, all these guys that gelled and meshed boom. Well,
we have to decide what we're doing with Santonio Holmes,
another free agent we brought in and Braylon that third year,
(08:15):
we give the money to Santonio. Braylan's gone. Now our
receiving corps takes a hit. Jericho Cottrey doesn't want to
be there because he wants to be a starter. He
wants to be a number one somewhere. So he's gone.
Then it's um. You know, we bring in Plexico Burus
and Derek Mason, and now we're in this position where
(08:38):
we got to get used to throw into each other,
or I got to throw to these guys, and you know,
we're not necessarily used to each other comfortable. Yet we
got a new coordinator. You know, things start changing so fast,
and the variables start changing so fast because we were
good at changing variables. Thrown in a pot stirred up
AFC championship, so let's do it again. And I think
we just got you know, in some ways a little
(09:02):
addicted to that success with the free agency gamble. And
that's I mean, it's nobody's fault. People were trying to
make the right decisions. And you know, Mike Tannebaum and
I have talked about this a bunch, but it's just
kind of the way it went. And then after that,
once you start changing over coaching staff. Once you know,
when Rex is there the night before saying, hey, I
think we're going to get this great running back or
(09:23):
a great receiver in the draft, and then they go
draft Geno Smith, I'm like, what are we doing? You know,
so obviously he didn't he didn't make the pick, and
so you got a GM and a coach that aren't
necessarily on the same page. And now we're you know,
we're all over the place. So it's it's hard to
develop somebody in an environment like that. But those first
couple of years, you're right, those first three years, we're
(09:45):
the trajectory was going in the right direction, yeah, you know.
And it's and I bring this up because I've said
there's five first round quarterbacks. I said, I think two
will succeed because that's the precedent, the historical precedent, I said,
Trevor Lawrence, and whoever lands with the forty nine ers,
I'm like, because you know, I mean, it's like Lamar
Jackson works with hardball, but if you don't have it,
(10:07):
maybe he doesn't. Josh Allen's great because you have Brian
Dable and we're a good GM and so. And I
bring it out with you because I really do think
unless you're a once in a decade Elway luck, it's
so much of it is where you land. We both
love Sam Darnold. They went big on a free agency.
(10:28):
They didn't hit on any of them. I mean worse,
and I know you're complaining, but that was worse than
what I experienced. I was like, dang, so, But like
you said, if you're that generational talent, okay, you're gonna
outlast maybe some coaching staffs until they land right until
it hits. But if you're not, and you can't potentially
play well enough to withstand those blows, then you get
(10:51):
run out of town. Look at Sam, I mean, you
get run out of town in three years and everybody's like, hey, Sam,
I guess nice to know you good luck. I mean,
they don't even know what they had yet. It's interesting
because I feel I do believe the Jets. Joe Douglas.
I know Joe. I thought he had a good first year.
I think he's really sharp. So I do think Zach
(11:12):
has a chance. I have no idea what Robert sala
is as a coach. I would have never guessed that
Tom Coflin out of Boston College would beat Belichick twice
in the Super Bowl. I mean, hell, who knows, right,
So I don't know. I do feel, though, I will
say this, I don't know if you know Matt Rule
or Joe Brady. I do feel like Darnold is getting
like mentors, is getting like really hands on mentors. I
(11:37):
do think Sam's gonna flourish. I really do. In Carolina,
I guess your thought. I think we're going to figure
out how good he can be, right, I think he's
finally going to have the resources there and they're gonna
build this thing around him to make him successful. And now,
whether he's a generational talent, we'll find out, but at
least it'll be a fair assessment after a couple of years.
(11:59):
But that's the thing. I sat down with Steve Young
recently and we talked about this for a while and
really beat this thing to death. But I mean, he's
told me stories about Trent Dilfer when he finally got
to Seattle and it was like the heavens opened up
and he's finally in a West coast system and the
thing finally revolves around the quarterback and you have this
epiphany of like, wow, where was this when I was
(12:21):
doing all these other travels around the country and not
just banging my head against the wall. It's hard for
people on the outside to understand, but I think Steve
put it brilliantly. He said quarterbacks don't need to be coddled,
but they need to be focused. Like, you gotta make
decisions for the quarterback, and there's a very fine line
of making it really comfortable or making it a situation
(12:46):
where they can thrive and succeed, and where you're challenging
them but also giving them resources. It's like parenting, right,
like you set your kid up for success when you can,
like you know, he can jump over this little hedge
or jump up the curb, or write his bike down
the hill or whatever, and you kind of challenge them
on it, knowing that you're there to catch them if
they fall and pick them back up and dust them off,
(13:07):
and hey, let's try it again. That's essentially what this
thing is, and there's no perfect way to do it.
It just has to be quarterback focused. You know those
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When you look at all these young quarterbacks, you like
(14:33):
Zach Wilson, and I used to quote you use the
other day you said, you know, he plays well in chaos,
but mark people tend to lean into what they're good at.
Do you worry at all? Twenty twenty one is not
a gun slinger league. Yeah, it's not. It's an efficiency league.
Do you worry he's a little too much of a gunslinger?
That's my only issue is that I said, whatever coordinator
(14:53):
he goes to when that ball snapped, you might not
know where that ball is going, and that makes some
coordinators uneasy, right, Or sometimes I think there's there's opportunities
where he can stay on platform, keep his good base
and just step into the throw and let it go
and he'll, you know, kind of jump into it or
fade away a little bit because he's gotten so used
to doing that. If you don't need it, don't use it.
(15:15):
But if you have that trick shot in your club
in your bag, take it out when appropriate. And that's
going to be part of the learning curve for him,
in addition to the speed of the game and all
that kind of stuff. You know, he's coming from the
Mountain West. He's gonna have a lot to learn. He's
going to be in a very different media market. You're
gonna have to stack all those things, and there's gonna
be a learning curve for each of those categories, whether
(15:36):
it's media, the on the field stuff, the classroom stuff,
whatever it is, it's going to be a little different.
So my only fear with him was, you know, maybe
two a little two riverboat gambler when you don't have
to be when it's an easy, just routine groundered a
second and you just flip itto first base, flip itto
first base. Don't give me any around the back, you know,
through the legs lem globetrotters. Just get the guy out,
(15:57):
you know what I'm saying. That that's the only criticism.
And then you know when you look at his film
and it's you know, it's unfair to these guys and
I was in their shoes, so I get it. But
this whole you know, three four months of this draft
process is all just like, okay, what's wrong with them?
Find find the bruise on the apple in the supermarket,
like inspect it really well too, you know. And and
(16:18):
so you're just like, well, the twenty nineteen tape doesn't
match up even close to the twenty twenty tape, right, Like,
he just he had the shoulder surgery and he just
looks like a completely different player. So you're like, you know,
player A player B. What is that? That? That's that's
where some people are. But I mean you got to
be comfortable with all that if you're going to draft him,
and and I think he's one of those kids that's
(16:39):
already maximize his potential and will do the same thing
moving forward. The only other thing with the Jets that
specific situation they're they're drafting at you know, number three
or two for a reason, right they were not very good.
They were not good. They drafted me at number five
because they trade it up from sixteen seventeen fifteen right
(17:01):
in their middle of the pack. NFL is not bad.
You're a couple of players, a couple of plays, a
couple of games away from going to the playoffs, which
I realized my first two years. So he's going to
be in that situation with a lot of young guys.
They have a ton of draft capital, but they're all
gonna have to grow at the same time. And that
means you're gonna have to hit on all these guys.
(17:21):
It's got to look like the Blue Angels, right, all
five of those planes got to be hitting in stride
in some sense, right, And that's hard to get all
those guys to grow up at the same time. It's
like that little league team that you keep together from
eight years old to high school. By the time they're
in high school, they're balling. They don't even need to
talk to each other, they don't need to practice. They're
ready to go. But is that market a market in
(17:42):
which they can let that thing marinate, cook it up, relax,
you know, manage expectations until it finally you know, it's
time to pull that thing out of the oven. I
don't know. That's that's one of the toughest things for me,
because those those expectations are awfully high. Well, it's interesting.
Eli was the SEC and his dad was a star,
and his brother's a star and Darnald from LA. I
(18:04):
thought they both handled the New York media really well.
People love Sam in New York. People loved Eli. You
were from LA two. It wasn't a wild jump. I
mean you were. I always felt the media with you.
That wasn't the issue, right, The issue was you had
a coach that didn't nurture you and I you know,
I've said this before. I think Rex is almost bad
(18:27):
for quarterbacks. He's just and in this world we live
in now, there's a Jeff Fisher quality that I think
it's hard to be that. Surely a lobsided defense, first offense,
take care of it somebody else. But now, Zach Wilsons,
small town Utah BYU, you know, very favorable coverage. Go
back to your first year in New York again. You
came from the number one college program where sports illustrated
(18:50):
there every day ESPN. Do you think it actually helped you?
Coming from SC to New York? Your first New York
press conference, the Post, the Times, Newsday, talk radio, you're
driving home, Mark Sanchez in New York and talk radio
they're just baking you did it? Do you honestly think
though it actually helped? I was at SC and not
(19:12):
air force or you know, U tap I think part
of it. I don't think I could have been more prepared, right,
Like there would have been nowhere in the country that
would have prepared me better for what I was about
to get into. And I still wasn't completely ready. It
still took a little bit of time right to get
you know, your answers fine tuned, and you say one thing,
(19:34):
it gets taken out of context or whatever, or you
think you're joking with somebody in the press conference, and
then you know, when it comes out in a headline,
you're just like, oh, that didn't That's not as funny
as it was yesterday, you know, like that that was stupid.
So those kind of things, and he'll figure that out.
Part of that his personality, just like Sam. I mean,
(19:55):
Sam's like the consummate, so cal chill dude, just like
even Keel. You know, I had a little more personality.
I was a little more you know, smiley, happy, like, hey,
this is cool, whatever, let's do it. Let's let's have fun,
let's banter back and forth. I'm witty, let's let's do it. Well.
You know, you get burned a couple of times by
(20:15):
doing stuff like that and you figure it out quickly
and then your answer has become a little bit of autopilot.
So some of that he's gonna have to learn. But
there's great people in that PR department. They're gonna help
him out. And you know, he's not gonna have to
say much those those first couple of years. Just let
everything on the field take care of itself. And like
I said, just try trying to manage expectations on the
outside is going to be the toughest thing for him
(20:37):
to deal with. But I felt that was as prepared
as I possibly could have been, and I still had
some stuff to learn. So this I'm gonna ask you
a tough question because I'm gonna ask you to take
yourself back to your first Jet start. If I recall
it's Houston, watched it, yeah, And if I recall you
had a big third down throw, a really important and
(20:58):
you completed it. I don't know why that jumps out
in my hand. It could be it could be total.
Just right now, it's yeah, you had to you didn't
play great, but you had a big third down throw.
But I want you to take me you played in
front of sold out crowds in college and in the
NFL you may not have always, but just take me
to my audience. Right now, you're a quarterback. You faced
(21:21):
Oregon State, now you're facing an NFL defensive coordinator. Take
me to your nerves, Take me to how fast it was. Maybe,
I mean, do you remember thinking, wow, I'll tell you
exactly what happened when the game ended one it was
like a blur because Joe Namas was there. My high
school coach surprised me and he was there. My dad
was there on the sidelines like before the game. You know,
(21:43):
there were all these people and I was like, dang,
I was like in a groove here, and you got
to like exit your cocoon to go, like, you know,
talk to these people as a real human and then
lock back into this laser focus and you know, of
course you're you're not terrified, but there's just like this
anxiety about it, and then this excitement that takes over
and then this like killer instinct that you have to
(22:05):
have as a quarterback that just takes over. Right, Well,
we went like I think we were almost fifty percent
maybe even higher on third down, some ridiculous like I
don't think we're that good on third down the rest
of the season. But I mean, we're we're I'm getting
to my third you know, progression on drive, on third downs,
(22:26):
we're converting like third and thirteens that we have no
business converting. You know, just crazy stuff is happening. And
by the time that game ended, I remember getting back
in the locker room and I take off my fleets
and I take on my socks, and I was like,
oh my shit, I forgot to take my ankles. I
didn't even remember to take I was like, I was
(22:47):
so nervous thinking about the game and everything else going on.
I didn't even I didn't even bother to go to
the training room take my ankles. And I take my
ankles all the time. So that goes to show you
where my head was at. I was still getting my
whole pregame routine down, like you have no idea, you
have no idea what's going on? And so um that
was that that was really funny because I remember watching
(23:08):
some of that tape and those third downs were just,
I mean, out of this world. And once you do that,
it was almost like it was almost like, um, you know,
you're teaching a kid to fundamentals in basketball and then
he's in a game and he hits a fade away
three pointer and you're like, what the hell was that?
And the worst thing that happened is he made the
shot right, because now he's thinking like, oh, I got this.
(23:28):
I can shoot fade away three pointers. I can do
whatever I want instead of you're like, hey, left foot,
right foot, elbow straight, you know, right to the target,
all that kind of stuff. So we did that, and
now I'm just like, oh, we got these third downs,
is no big deal. Come on, just chuck it in there,
you know, And then that ball's going the other way.
I'm like, oh, shoot, it doesn't work like that. I
(23:49):
think my proudest moment as a broadcaster is I remembered
that I don't know what's right. I think I was.
I was such a big sc guy and a big
Mark Sanchez guy that I just remember thinking he's not
playing great, but Jesus, he's converting all these third deaths
and then pulling their hair out. They're just like, how
can we get off the damn field? Like this is crazy? You.
(24:13):
I think you replaced Farve if I read yeah, it
was a little bit of a mess with Farve actually
ended up kind of getting. You know, Mangini didn't want him,
and Manginie acknowledges it today. He's like, if if Farv
comes in, it's gonna be Farv and the Jets. It's
gonna splinter our locker room. And it kind of did.
And then the end, Farv goes and Mangini goes. But
(24:34):
sometimes I don't think you You played for the Jets
for however long it was, and then there was a
series of a year here, a year here, a year here.
People sometimes I don't think quite understand how difficult it is.
So there was a guy years ago named Jason Campbell.
He played at Auburn, then he went to Washington. He
had seven coordinators in like eight years, and I thought
(24:58):
he was already good. And I remember saying, can you
imagine if I had a different producer for seven straight
years in radio? You differently? You had a lot of
stability in New York, and then it was here for your,
here for your, here for you, here for your. So
a lot of times I don't think fans understand that
that if you had a different boss, a different sales
manager every year, who was the single best because you
(25:22):
had a lot of quick learning to do after the Jets,
the single smartest, best play caller or coordinator you had
that you look back and think, God, I wish I
could have worked with him from day one. Well, I think,
just based on time on task, was probably Philly and
coach Kelly. I know, I know there's Philadelphia fans that
(25:43):
would kill me for saying that, because they, I mean
hated them by the end. They wanted to run him
out of town. I think some of the management moves weren't,
you know, him and Howry Roseman weren't like perfectly on
the same page, which tend to happen. Tends to happen.
But I think because the system was so easy to
pick up, that was like boom. I you know, as
(26:06):
soon as I got in, I was gone, Like it
was good. We're rolling. But when we get rid of
all those playmakers, you know, the DeShawn Jackson's and Lashawn McCoy's,
and try and bring in a back that's more of
a you know, an I formation under center, stretch zone
back and DeMarco Murray and try and run gun runs
with him, it's just not the same. And then we
(26:26):
had turnover with Nick Foles and Sam Bradford, So then
I play, then don't play, and play then don't play.
That was one of the toughest things, is like I
know the system. I feel good. I could run this
tempo stuff better than anybody in my opinion, and when
we're rolling, we're rolling. We just need a little thicker playbook.
And we wanted to keep all those players. In my opinion,
(26:48):
I thought that would have been like we were right
there and early in this season. Why why is Chips
You're the second quarterback who's told me this mark, So
give me some lexicon, give me some verbiage. Why is
Chips system so easy? Um? Okay, so you know trips right,
(27:11):
you know? Um? What would we say like uh sixty
three scat z snag uh dagger would just be like
trio gator, Like it's just two words. If it was
more than two words, Chip would get pissed. So it
was just like near and far would just tell you
(27:33):
if you're on the near hash or far hash. If
you're on the far hash, it's three by one to
the field. If you're on the near hash it's two
by two. Tight end never changes sides, only the only
the slot receiver and by the time everybody learned it.
Anybody could play any position. So if you had four
whiteouts on the field, it's easy because gators one way,
seminoles the opposite. You know, Lincoln and Ford are two,
(27:56):
it's it'd be double right sixty two Sam Zebra shallow
cross is just near Lincoln. Like that was it. And
so once you learn you know dagger and blade and
you know, I don't know how to describe, it is
so easy. And everything was signaled. So the only person
(28:20):
I'd have to communicate to was the running back. And
the only reason I'd communicate to the running back was
to give him the play faster than he would get
it from the signal, so I'd have it in my helmet,
so I would just grab him and tell him where
to go, Like just put my hand on his jersey
and move him over and say, hey, we're going forty.
You got the mesh, said hut boom, and handle the ball.
He didn't need to know anything else. And so it's
(28:42):
great when you get into a groove and a rhythm.
I think there's a place for that, but I think
we're a little heavy with it because at a certain
point you get to those critical third downs and you
can't run the same play every third day. I mean,
defensive coordinators are just too good. So once you stall
and go through out and only burn thirty seconds on
the clock because he just threw it three times, there's
(29:04):
literally like fights that almost break out on the sidelines
because the defense gets you the ball back and then
you just make them go right back on the field.
They're exhausted and they're like, dude, what's the deal, Like,
just run the ball once and give us a little
break here because we're gassed. So it's I think there's
a place for it. I think he was ahead of
his time because all these RPOs that's all Chip. I mean,
(29:27):
that was all Chip. So that kind of stuff. You know,
you're essentially a second baseman turning two. You got to
have really quick hands. I talked to Sarkisian about this
and why mac Jones was so good, and he said
he's got very quick hands, just like he's turned into
like a double play. And he also is incredibly accurate
on balls that are you know, the swing passes, the
(29:50):
tunnel screens, the quick slants, all that kind of stuff.
He's a yard in front of the front number. He
never slows those guys down with the football and leaves
meat on the bone, essentially prohibits them from getting uh
you know, yack yards yards after catch, He's always pushing
them into the next window, pushing them forward, keeping their
momentum going forward towards the line of scrimmage, away from
(30:11):
the defender. That's why he's so deadly. And instead of
getting three yards or four yards, your twelve yards moved
the chains, let's roll and the defense is just like
head spinning. So that's that's what made those things so
good and so um. It was. Yeah, it was. It
was definitely ahead of its time. No, I think it was.
I mean, listen, there's a company before Facebook called myspaced.
(30:37):
He was, and then it didn't have the privacy that
Facebook did, so it had everything right. Rupert Murdoch bought it. Actually,
he would argue today even though it went under, that
it served a purpose for what Fox needed. But it
went under and Facebook was MySpace with better privacy. And
so I look a lot at chip Kelly, and I
think basically chip Kelly just needed a better personnel guy
(30:58):
and maybe an NFL core ordinator to help him situation
in the red. I mean, because he really if you
look at so much of his stuff now has been
stolen by everybody. You know, that's the reality of it.
I ask every former pro athlete or current pro athlete this.
I love the draft. I've always loved the draft. I
(31:19):
get hyped up like everybody. I think every draft class
is amazing. I'm ridiculous. But you know, as a pro athlete,
how many practices does it take when nine to ten
new guys come in for you Mark Sanchez to go, oh, dude,
can't play, or holy shit, this guy is gonna How
(31:39):
many practices does it take? Sometimes it's just a couple
of plays because all you got to see is flash.
All you gotta see her some flashes, right because once
you see it, you know, so you'll know in the
first one or two like okay, or man, that guy's
got some spring to him or whatever, or damn he's
a competitor. Or this dude, I don't know how he
(32:02):
doesn't walk out of this facility and get hit by
a bus, Like are you kidding me? He can't even
line up right like that. That freaks you out when
you're just like, whoa, there's nobody home, what's going on here?
I saw this dude ball in college? What happened? What
were they telling him to get him to do that?
Whatever they were saying, we need to start saying that
because this ain't gonna cut it. But it's I mean,
(32:24):
one or two practices, you'll know the cream rises to
the top, right, Like these guys separate themselves and it's
it's usually like a head turner kind of play or
just something that like you'll be walking down the hallway
of the facility and a coach will kind of grab
you be like, hey, you see eighty four today and
you're like, oh, you're talking about the comeback, that diving
(32:45):
comeback he caught. Yeah, man, I ain't seen a route
like that since. And they'll name somebody that it reminded
them of, you know what I mean. Like those those
moments are fun because when it happens, people kind of
recognize it at practice and then it's like, okay, back
to the script. We don't want to take too much time,
but yeah, it only takes a couple of practices. You
figured out pretty quick. Tell me in your career the
(33:06):
number one head turner, the number one rookie that walked
in and you just went wow, oh, well, all of
them were on defense thanks a lot Rex, all those
first round defenders, all those corners and no, you know
what was what was who did it every year? And
then once we had those guys together, was was Cromarty
(33:27):
and Durell revs. Right Like once we had Cromarty and
Durrell and then Jim Leonard at safety, that defense with
Bart Scott, Calvin Pace, Jason Taylor, Dave Harris like that,
that unit, it was like, damn, we need to be
on Then we get Lt. Santonio and Braylon and Jericho
(33:51):
and Dustin Keller and it was like it was real competition.
It reminded me a lot of college. The way every
day was like the defense could win, the offense could win,
let's go. But it was it was I mean every
day even if the offense played better. Darrell Reeves would
jump out on film and at one point just essentially
run a route for the receiver in coverage and either
(34:14):
bat the ball down or body somebody up or pick
the ball off. And you were just like, damn this dude,
I mean, come on, man, like one on ones we're
just like this is you know, getting into a game
of horse with Michael Jordan like what are you doing?
Like this is just silly, you know, and he would
like he was so good. He would mess around like
(34:35):
all right, like today, I know we're practicing man covered like,
but I'm only playing off like I'm better and jam
you know, just you know, bump and run kind of
man a man. But I'll just react to plays off.
I'll just react to routes off. And he'd still jump routes.
You're like, dude, you don't have a weakness, like this
ain't fair. So it was. It was really fun. You know.
(34:57):
It's interesting since you've left the league, how many years
you you've been out of the league. This would be
my third season, coming up third or fourth. I think
it's interesting. Mark McVeigh comes into the league, Sean McVeigh,
and he says, no, I'm not gonna have any of
my good players playing preseason none where people said people said,
can't do that. Yeah, goes eight no, goes eight no, no,
(35:19):
And the whole league goes, oh god, preseason's a big
con this is And by the way, he doesn't wait,
guys don't wear shells. It's really interesting. In three to
four years, Mark practice is lighter. Yeah, a preseason is lighter. Yeah,
you left about four or five years ago. Sometimes I
(35:41):
think to myself, the guys that like four or five
years ago could have stayed and left. I think it's
an easier league now, I really do. I think the
the hittings way down at practice. It feels like the
way down from your rookie year. I mean even from
this would be like two cbas ago, I guess. But
(36:01):
my first two years were the older CBA where you'd
have double days, full pads. I thought about that, like
my last couple of years. I don't know if I
could have done that. I don't know if somebody told
me right now, you know, give me two weeks or
almost twenty days rather of two days full pads, like ah,
(36:26):
I'm like, dude, my arm would just fall off. I
don't know how I did it before I was, you know,
twenty one, twenty two years old, and like who cares?
You go walk out to the field, touch your toes
and just start going like how hard is it? And
by the end of my career, I was like God,
and Rex was trying to throw us a bone. Every
fourth practice was a special team's practice essentially, so he'd
give the skill guys a break. But it was I
(36:49):
mean that's just insanity now compared to what's going on.
I mean now it's like a virtual offseason. I mean
you're you're just like show up ready to play, like
I don't know, it's it's definitely different. I like it.
I you know what Mark I am. I'm a huge
believer in this is that a lot of things we
do in life and football we do them because the
(37:11):
previous generation bread them. And I think McVeigh really changed
the way we think of football. More positivity, less yelling,
easier practice, no preseason, most of it bs. And I
gotta tell you, I look at it and I think
to myself, I think football is more fun today than
(37:31):
four years ago for an athlete. I really do. I
think it's more fun for sure. It's just there's bigger
splash plays, more offense, which is you know, great for
the league. That's what they promote. That's why the hashes
are narrower in the NFL than they are in college
in high school. I mean, they want the offense in
the middle of the field, advantage offense, right. They want
it to be, you know, tough for defenses to disguise
(37:51):
and all that kind of stuff because they want to
score more points. Nobody wants to go to a you know,
a six to three ball game. That's just not fun.
So unfortunately for the d F they you know, they'd
kill me for saying that, but that's just kind of
the way it goes. So now, you know, with somebody
like McVay, who's innovative and you know, looks at the
research of like, Okay, we're just gonna bang heads for
(38:12):
three weeks, he's like, for what, we don't need to
do that. If that's only gonna put us at risk,
Let's put that on the shelf and at least guarantee
we make it to the season ready to go, instead
of losing two or three guys just because that's what
we do, that's tradition or whatever. You know, Like, I'd
rather get to the truth of it than just do
what everybody else has done. And it looks like he's
(38:33):
done that well. Chip Kelly had morning practices at Oregon
for two reasons. He said, if I have morning practices,
the guys have to go to bed early on campus. Yeah. Secondly,
they run marathons in the morning, not afternoon. Your body
actually functions higher in the morning. So I don't know
what he did in the NFL, but people started copying
(38:55):
him in the PAC twelve because like in LA, you know,
you don't wat your players out at night, too much
to do. So Chip's thing is it's Oregon. Everybody's stoned
here in the state anyway. So I want my guys
going to bed at nine. I'm going to work. I'm
like dogs at six. So again the Chip Kelly's John mcvaything,
let's let's just be different. And I don't know, I
always think Chip. I I know Chip pretty well. I
(39:17):
always defend Chip because Philadelphia hates everybody. He went ten
and six, ten and six, and they were ready to
run him out of town his third year. And it's oh, yeah, yeah,
you do you people get it, you understand Tenant, Yeah,
I agree. So I want you to go back. College
football now is very southern. I think it hurts the sport.
(39:37):
It's two inslur And I've always said this, there's three
programs in the country that need to win for the
sport to feel big. Miami Hurricanes, Texas Longhorns, US the sport.
The sport feels big, it feels like more city and
not rural. Yeah. Now, when USC dominated the sport. I
remember going to practice and Herb Street said, this is
(40:00):
in college. It's not pro. It's right in the mat.
When you were I mean, you're an eighteen nineteen year
old kid, snoop dogg Will Ferrell. Just give me. Give
me a couple of minutes on no NFL teams in
Los Angeles. None, the Clippers sucked. There was no soccer.
It was basically SC Dodgers, Lakers. Yeah, go back and
(40:24):
and and just give give me a sense of how
I was at those USC home games. What was it
like to be the quarterback of that program. It's incredible.
It was such a such a ride, and I think
coach Sarkisian Hatison such a such a great mode of
focus and reminded us who played before us. We wore
(40:47):
yellow jerseys at practice, and he reminded us that you
wear yellow jerseys twenty four seven, like you're now the
quarterback at USC. That's a big deal and you represent
a lot of people, your family, your high school, coach,
the school, this program, the guys who played before you,
all that, the guys in this room that's liner, you know,
like Carson Palmer, you know that was a big, big deal.
(41:08):
But I mean around town it was incredible because maybe
it's not you know, small town USA where everything stops
for USC football, but it was pretty damn close, right,
like pretty close. And when you get celebrities fighting to
get on your sideline, you know something's going right, Like,
you know, Pete's recruiting his ass off to a point
(41:31):
where we were we were taking recruits just so we
didn't play against them. Like that's crazy to me. It's like,
don't go across town because we're better and we don't
want to have to play against you. Boom, Now we
have a six running back in one class and we're like,
what how do we do that? I remember that, like
what are we doing? But I remember beating Ohio State
(41:52):
in the CALCM and that was one of the biggest
games of the year, and we all go out. Boom,
somebody has this great idea to go to Hollywood. I'm like,
we're gonna do just out. Next to Sean Merriman, next
to other NFL players from San Diego who came up
to LA. We're just like this is crazy, Like what
are we doing here? It was it was like next level,
(42:15):
you know, And then it just became like what what
it was. And you know, Carson, Troy, Paula Mally, those
guys built that right with Pete, with with Norm Chow
and then Stark took it over with Kiffin and and
Pete was still there, you know, rocking it was. I mean,
there was nothing better. It's like it's it did have
(42:35):
a little bit of that small town feel like I said,
but in La in an awesome market, great weather. Uh
you know, a little little more relaxed fan base, right,
like they're not just like bringing down your neck. They
were fired up for you, you know, and it was
it was an incredible ride, man, that we're in. That
yellow jersey was really special. Yeah. Like I I remember
(43:00):
being on the sideline for the Ohio State game. I
remember I was down about the twenty yard line the
fifteen yard line, and Henry Winkler was next to me.
Denzel was there, Jerry Bruckheimer was there. I think Snoop
was on the I was on the sea side and
you threw a wheel route, somebody threw a there was
age yeah, to Stanley Avilia, number thirty one, and it
(43:23):
was my roommate. Oh. It was so that sarcused to
be in the in the room, in the quarterback room,
like on Mondays and Tuesdays, and he would take this
small expo marker. I just reminded of him of this
last week when I went to go see him in Texas,
and he would write with this tiny little expo marker
all the plays on this giant whiteboard for the week. Right.
(43:45):
So I walked in randomly and he's in there and
he's got the Killers. It's either the Killers or he
loved Journey, and it's just blaring right and he's rocking out.
He's got his call sheet and he's writing stuffed down right,
stuffed down in drawing place. And I came in. I
was like, what do we got this week? He goes, oh, Marky,
why don't you sit down. I got some good ship
for you. Watch this. He goes, Hey, they're gonna bring
a cover two slasher. Look, they're gonna be in strong safety.
(44:07):
They're gonna bring the Sam backer. All right, we're gonna
we're gonna be in flank. Okay, you tell Blake Ales,
go line up properly in flank that's flanked the Why please, Blake, Okay,
I know you like the lineup wrong let's get that right.
So he's kind of talking like John Gruden, and he goes,
you're gonna snap this ball, You're gonna remike it just
before you snap it. And Stanley Havili, I swear to God,
is gonna be wide open against a defensive end who
(44:30):
thinks he's gonna run a flat rode. He's gonna take
it to the wheel route. He's gonna run right by
his ass. Fight on. Hit up the band, Let's strike
up the band, Let's roll. And he called it like
on Monday, what was gonna happen. We've practiced it four
or five times and boom. He gives me the signal
during the game and he goes, it's coming. Here comes
field two Slasher, get ready to roll. Tell Stanley to
get on his horse, and I almost missed him. Stanley,
(44:52):
I mean I stretched him out as far as he
could go and then he kind of like somersaulted into
the end zone. But it was like, I mean, I
knew it was gonna happen for five days leading up
to the game, then it happened. I mean, that's kind
of the way those games felt. That's that's the way
we were prepared that that was our normal, and um god,
it was. It was a fun It was a fun ride, man,
(45:14):
it was you know, it's funny. Pete wasn't happy when
you left. I remember that. Weird although it was he's
not wrong. He was talking about quarterbacks in general leaving early.
The success rate is low, and then it's okay, define success, right,
Like what does that mean when a game win, ten games,
go to a playoff game? What does that mean? Be it?
(45:35):
You know, ten time super Bowl appearance like Tom Brady
is that success? So it just it's all relative. But
he was he was basically voicing his opinion, and in
that moment, you know, I understand why he wanted to
say that. He's like, hey, here's what I feel about
the matter. Mark's gonna do this and we're going to
support him. But usually people don't say what they feel like.
(45:57):
They only say like, hey, you know, whatever organization takes.
Was getting a great guy, and look at Mat Stafford,
look at Reggie Bush, look at all these guys. So
when he gave his opinion, it was just like wait
what it was like, hey, listen, we agree to disagree,
and I wish him all the best. He's a great kid.
So he wasn't like slamming me, but it just was
really awkward. Did you have to go into his office
(46:20):
to tell him? Like an hour before? No. We stayed
up to like one thirty two o'clock in the morning,
eating in and out Burger the night before this press
conference in my apartment, So I knew what he was
gonna say. That's why I didn't care. I understood, and
we were talking about his I mean him back at UOP,
we were talking about God. He told me some great
(46:41):
stories about coaches and players, and the whole time we'd
get back to all right, so are you leaving or
you staying? Like can I get you here? What are
we doing? And I was just like coachs just the
right time, like Bradford staying, Colt McCoy staying, the only
other guy that's leaving a Stafford, and maybe the kid
from Kansas State Josh Freeman, Like why wouldn't I go?
My stock can never be higher? Like this is the
(47:04):
time and you're telling me I get to go out
in a T shirt and shorts and compete against these
guys and try and become a top five pick. I'm in.
I'll bet on myself And he just you know, we
just disagreed. He wanted me back and I respected that.
But I'm literally till two in the morning the night
before the press conference. So it's not like when it
all came out and as awkwards as it look, because
(47:26):
the Times put us in that picture where we're like
kind of crossing pat like we had already like can
shake hug thing, and then we were passing each other,
so he was kind of like here and I'm here,
and it was just awkward and that picture became like oh, Pete,
Carol Mark Sanchez and then yeah, I called it. He
called me that day and was just like, oh my god,
(47:48):
I'm you know, I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean it
to be like this, and but I was like, coach,
what are you apologizing for? I get it. It's all good.
It's just it's taken on a life of its own.
It's all good. Generationally, again, you missed it by about
four or five years. These kids now are in these
seven on seven camps. It's insane. They got twenty. It's insane.
Like in high school you probably played thirty games. These
(48:10):
guys now have ten thousand throws in games. By like fourteen,
when you sit down with these quarterbacks. Now, do you
think to yourself, oh, my god, if I could have
had this coaching when I was fourteen years old, no doubt.
I think that's huge. I think the only thing that
gets lost in some of that and it's really it's
really funny. Sark and I talked about this last week too,
(48:32):
is I said my senior year or my last year
or U I see, I had three snaps from the shotgun,
three the entire season. That was in two thousand and
nine or two thousand and eight, So I'm like, where
the game has come now. I mean, these guys, a
lot of them can't even get under center. That was
one of the best things about Zach Wilson is he
goes under center, turns his back to the defense more
(48:54):
than people think in their system, but it is a
shotgun based system. And what Starts been able to do
and transition this thing to all gun They're running almost
all the same shifts, emotions and plays and concepts. He's
added RPOs and he's moved the quarterback into the shotgun.
It's very similar. He's running a ton of our plays
that we used to run, just like Chip, just like
(49:15):
all these other coordinators. But these kids have these reps,
these banked reps, like you said, ten thousand of them,
all summer long. But that means these kids obviously aren't
playing other sports like I was. You know, summer of
my junior year going into senior year of high school
was probably the best shape I'll ever be in my
entire life, because it was you know, it was football
(49:36):
practice or seven on seven and then basketball tournament and
then go throw a couple inning, go pitch couple innings
in baseball, and you know, maybe bunt or something and
sprint to first base like I would just I was
just exhausted. And then we'd go to the beach after
and like hang out on off days and just go
get exhausted, either surfing or boogie boarding, Like there's I
(49:57):
would love. That's the only time in my life where
I'm like, man, if I could go back there for
a week, that was one hell of a run. Man,
We're in really good shape. We wouldn't stop, and we're
just playing ball. So I think some of these guys,
it's great because they get to see all those reps
and bank all those reps, But at a certain point too,
it's like you know, get out, be a kid, do
some others, play some other sports, play basketball, play play tennis,
(50:19):
play whatever you play. But it's so focused now that
you know, at eight years old, little Johnny's got to
be you know, Tom Brady and go to ten Super Bowls.
So if that means a million, seven on seven tournaments,
that's I guess what it means. All right, Thanks Mark,
appreciate it. Hope everybody enjoyed our Monday morning podcast. Follow
us at The Volume Sports on Twitter and Instagram, rate review, subscribe,
(50:44):
join us, comment on us. We'll see you soon. The
(51:20):
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Duel more Ways to win. Hi, everybody, Welcome to the
(00:30):
Monday Morning Podcast. Mark Sanchez is gonna be great today.
Smart dude talk about the USC days, about the New
York Jet days, about the best coordinator he ever had,
and all these young quarterback His thoughts. So, by the way,
Saturday night, I watched Jake Paul beat Ben Askron. Ben
Askin was a like an MMA guy. One punch fight,
(00:51):
Jake Paul's like a YouTuber knocked him out, And you know,
I think it's really interesting. Two things jumped to me.
First of all, it's hard to be good at two things.
It's impossible to be great at two things. When MMA
guys try to box, they look awful. When boxers going
to the octagon, they look awful. Michael Jordan couldn't hit
a baseball curve and Randy Moss couldn't hoop. The reality
(01:15):
is Dion Sanders is a once in a lifetime athlete
that could do both. But you know, it's funny about
boxing and UFC, and I've heard this, Oh it's a stick.
How can you watch? Jake Paul, Let me ask you
was it interesting? Was it interesting? Yeah? It got one
point five million pay per views? It was interesting. The
(01:40):
hell do I care? If it was a YouTube star
and it was an MMA guy. If tomorrow I opened
a new business and I just did celebrity fighting, that's it.
And I took guys who were athletic or women. They
(02:00):
were athletic. I didn't. I won't have Tom Arnold out there, okay,
but I took people that were athletic. Denzel wanted to
fight Tom Hanks and they both trained for it. You
wouldn't watch, of course, you'd watch. The reality is boxing
doesn't give us enough fascinating matchups. UFC has a lot
(02:23):
of them. They give us more than boxing. But in
the end, I always bristlet people who say, oh, how
can you watch that crap? I'm a fan of interesting.
When I was a kid growing up, there was an
industry in America that was fairly dynamic. It was Daredevil's
Evil Knevil. So I got a job in Las Vegas,
(02:47):
and I watched a couple of Daredevils perform live. To
this day, it's the first or second most captivating stuff
I've ever seen live. Daredevils are fascinating. YouTube stars boxing
MMA guys is interesting. Not everything has to be Game
seven of the World Series, and not everything has to
(03:08):
be Saturday Night SEC football. I always look at I
always look at it this way. We have a million
regular season baseball games. Look at all the sports we
have in America today. Maybe five percent of sports is
championship level stuff, the rest of its regular season, out
of conference, not urgent. I will take championship level, legitimate
(03:33):
sports first. But if you give me Jake Paul and
Ben Askren over the Milwaukee Brewers and the Atlanta Braves
on a Tuesday, I'm gonna take Jake Paul. I'll take
the championship sports first, a great Rose Bowl, a great
baseball playoff game. But second, Daredevil, I'll tell you another thing.
(03:54):
I like tight rope walking. Remember a couple of years ago,
one of those Wilendas walked on a tight route between
Icago buildings. Listen if he slipped, he's a street pizza.
I'm interested. So I'm not one of these sports fans.
That's an idealist like sometimes a NASCAR crash, a baseball
(04:15):
fight is better than the game. I have no problem
saying it. I've seen so many games in my life.
Takeaway championship level stuff, Stanley Cup, playoffs, World Series, take
that out. I wish we had more events. I've said
it before. I love pay per view events. I mean,
(04:36):
Jake Paul's a YouTube star. Ninety percent of America over
thirty five years old doesn't go to YouTube, and they
got one point five million pay per view buys. What
if he would have fought a real boxer, You're talking
three and four and five million pay per view buys.
I went to Connor McGregor and Mayweather. I gotta tell
(04:57):
you something. I walked out of that arena that was
as much fun as I had had at a live
event in years. And it was competitive. It was an event.
It was crazy. You know. When I was in Vegas
out of college, I went to a lot of boxing matches.
(05:18):
A lot of them were Tyson mismatches, Roy Jones mismatches.
But I'll tell you big events like that. If you're
asking me, I could put my favorite events. Yeah, I'd
put the World Cup up there, the Super Bowl, College
Bowl games, big ones. But there is a place for
tightrope walking, YouTube stars, boxing and daredevils. There's absolutely a
(05:44):
place for it, and I'm gonna put my arms around
it every time it's available. Well, I've known Mark Sanchez
for a while. He was a number one high school
football quarterback in the country and I'm a recruiting dorc
And then he went to USC and he was all
packed twelve, and then he left early, went to the Jets,
and I was in Connecticut, so I had the misfortune
(06:05):
of dealing with a lot of the Mets dysfunction and
was rooting for Mark Sanchez from day one. And now
he's a really, really talented broadcaster and a good all
around dude. And I love having you on. You know,
it's interesting. I watch the Zach Wilson's and the Justin
Field and I've said before, Trevor Lawrence is a prodigy.
Everybody else is a really good prospect. I felt the
(06:27):
same way about Andrew Luck. I think he get about
one a decade and I want to go back because
I was there for every snap. I saw every snap.
As a Jet, you come in yet you had a
good defense but Rex doesn't nurture quarterbacks. We know that
it's not a shot. We all know that. I've told
Rex to his face. You had a first year, you
improve your second year, started improving your third year, and
(06:48):
then you know Rex is what Rex is. When did
you know? Mark? When was the first because you were
winning a lot of games, you were winning a lot
of playoff games, Brady Peyton Manning, when was the first moment? Though?
In this process you're like, it's not right. I don't
feel like I'm kind of quite getting where I want?
(07:10):
Did you? And you may not have said it publicly, Yeah,
you may not have said it to anybody other than
your dad, But when was your first moment you had
little misgivings about the Jets? Thing was turning sideways. I
don't think it was till, you know, the end of
that third year when I really got a chance to
look back, because you gotta understand, it was Rose Bowl
(07:31):
at usc AFC Championship, a FC Championships. So for three
years all I knew was essentially postseason football, right, and
then that technically fourth year or third year as a pro,
I think because of our success with free agents, you
got to understand we played the free agency gamble game
hard like we ruled the roll the dice a lot,
(07:54):
and we hit a lot. So we bring in Jason Taylor,
We bring in Braylon Edwards, We bring in Ladanien Thomlinson.
You know, all these guys that gelled and meshed boom. Well,
we have to decide what we're doing with Santonio Holmes,
another free agent we brought in and Braylon that third year,
(08:15):
we give the money to Santonio. Braylan's gone. Now our
receiving corps takes a hit. Jericho Cottrey doesn't want to
be there because he wants to be a starter. He
wants to be a number one somewhere. So he's gone.
Then it's um. You know, we bring in Plexico Burus
and Derek Mason, and now we're in this position where
(08:38):
we got to get used to throw into each other,
or I got to throw to these guys, and you know,
we're not necessarily used to each other comfortable. Yet we
got a new coordinator. You know, things start changing so fast,
and the variables start changing so fast because we were
good at changing variables. Thrown in a pot stirred up
AFC championship, so let's do it again. And I think
we just got you know, in some ways a little
(09:02):
addicted to that success with the free agency gamble. And
that's I mean, it's nobody's fault. People were trying to
make the right decisions. And you know, Mike Tannebaum and
I have talked about this a bunch, but it's just
kind of the way it went. And then after that,
once you start changing over coaching staff. Once you know,
when Rex is there the night before saying, hey, I
think we're going to get this great running back or
(09:23):
a great receiver in the draft, and then they go
draft Geno Smith, I'm like, what are we doing? You know,
so obviously he didn't he didn't make the pick, and
so you got a GM and a coach that aren't
necessarily on the same page. And now we're you know,
we're all over the place. So it's it's hard to
develop somebody in an environment like that. But those first
couple of years, you're right, those first three years, we're
(09:45):
the trajectory was going in the right direction, yeah, you know.
And it's and I bring this up because I've said
there's five first round quarterbacks. I said, I think two
will succeed because that's the precedent, the historical precedent, I said,
Trevor Lawrence, and whoever lands with the forty nine ers,
I'm like, because you know, I mean, it's like Lamar
Jackson works with hardball, but if you don't have it,
(10:07):
maybe he doesn't. Josh Allen's great because you have Brian
Dable and we're a good GM and so. And I
bring it out with you because I really do think
unless you're a once in a decade Elway luck, it's
so much of it is where you land. We both
love Sam Darnold. They went big on a free agency.
(10:28):
They didn't hit on any of them. I mean worse,
and I know you're complaining, but that was worse than
what I experienced. I was like, dang, so, But like
you said, if you're that generational talent, okay, you're gonna
outlast maybe some coaching staffs until they land right until
it hits. But if you're not, and you can't potentially
play well enough to withstand those blows, then you get
(10:51):
run out of town. Look at Sam, I mean, you
get run out of town in three years and everybody's like, hey, Sam,
I guess nice to know you good luck. I mean,
they don't even know what they had yet. It's interesting
because I feel I do believe the Jets. Joe Douglas.
I know Joe. I thought he had a good first year.
I think he's really sharp. So I do think Zach
(11:12):
has a chance. I have no idea what Robert sala
is as a coach. I would have never guessed that
Tom Coflin out of Boston College would beat Belichick twice
in the Super Bowl. I mean, hell, who knows, right,
So I don't know. I do feel, though, I will
say this, I don't know if you know Matt Rule
or Joe Brady. I do feel like Darnold is getting
like mentors, is getting like really hands on mentors. I
(11:37):
do think Sam's gonna flourish. I really do. In Carolina,
I guess your thought. I think we're going to figure
out how good he can be, right, I think he's
finally going to have the resources there and they're gonna
build this thing around him to make him successful. And now,
whether he's a generational talent, we'll find out, but at
least it'll be a fair assessment after a couple of years.
(11:59):
But that's the thing. I sat down with Steve Young
recently and we talked about this for a while and
really beat this thing to death. But I mean, he's
told me stories about Trent Dilfer when he finally got
to Seattle and it was like the heavens opened up
and he's finally in a West coast system and the
thing finally revolves around the quarterback and you have this
epiphany of like, wow, where was this when I was
(12:21):
doing all these other travels around the country and not
just banging my head against the wall. It's hard for
people on the outside to understand, but I think Steve
put it brilliantly. He said quarterbacks don't need to be coddled,
but they need to be focused. Like, you gotta make
decisions for the quarterback, and there's a very fine line
of making it really comfortable or making it a situation
(12:46):
where they can thrive and succeed, and where you're challenging
them but also giving them resources. It's like parenting, right,
like you set your kid up for success when you can,
like you know, he can jump over this little hedge
or jump up the curb, or write his bike down
the hill or whatever, and you kind of challenge them
on it, knowing that you're there to catch them if
they fall and pick them back up and dust them off,
(13:07):
and hey, let's try it again. That's essentially what this
thing is, and there's no perfect way to do it.
It just has to be quarterback focused. You know those
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When you look at all these young quarterbacks, you like
(14:33):
Zach Wilson, and I used to quote you use the
other day you said, you know, he plays well in chaos,
but mark people tend to lean into what they're good at.
Do you worry at all? Twenty twenty one is not
a gun slinger league. Yeah, it's not. It's an efficiency league.
Do you worry he's a little too much of a gunslinger?
That's my only issue is that I said, whatever coordinator
(14:53):
he goes to when that ball snapped, you might not
know where that ball is going, and that makes some
coordinators uneasy, right, Or sometimes I think there's there's opportunities
where he can stay on platform, keep his good base
and just step into the throw and let it go
and he'll, you know, kind of jump into it or
fade away a little bit because he's gotten so used
to doing that. If you don't need it, don't use it.
(15:15):
But if you have that trick shot in your club
in your bag, take it out when appropriate. And that's
going to be part of the learning curve for him,
in addition to the speed of the game and all
that kind of stuff. You know, he's coming from the
Mountain West. He's gonna have a lot to learn. He's
going to be in a very different media market. You're
gonna have to stack all those things, and there's gonna
be a learning curve for each of those categories, whether
(15:36):
it's media, the on the field stuff, the classroom stuff,
whatever it is, it's going to be a little different.
So my only fear with him was, you know, maybe
two a little two riverboat gambler when you don't have
to be when it's an easy, just routine groundered a
second and you just flip itto first base, flip itto
first base. Don't give me any around the back, you know,
through the legs lem globetrotters. Just get the guy out,
(15:57):
you know what I'm saying. That that's the only criticism.
And then you know when you look at his film
and it's you know, it's unfair to these guys and
I was in their shoes, so I get it. But
this whole you know, three four months of this draft
process is all just like, okay, what's wrong with them?
Find find the bruise on the apple in the supermarket,
like inspect it really well too, you know. And and
(16:18):
so you're just like, well, the twenty nineteen tape doesn't
match up even close to the twenty twenty tape, right, Like,
he just he had the shoulder surgery and he just
looks like a completely different player. So you're like, you know,
player A player B. What is that? That? That's that's
where some people are. But I mean you got to
be comfortable with all that if you're going to draft him,
and and I think he's one of those kids that's
(16:39):
already maximize his potential and will do the same thing
moving forward. The only other thing with the Jets that
specific situation they're they're drafting at you know, number three
or two for a reason, right they were not very good.
They were not good. They drafted me at number five
because they trade it up from sixteen seventeen fifteen right
(17:01):
in their middle of the pack. NFL is not bad.
You're a couple of players, a couple of plays, a
couple of games away from going to the playoffs, which
I realized my first two years. So he's going to
be in that situation with a lot of young guys.
They have a ton of draft capital, but they're all
gonna have to grow at the same time. And that
means you're gonna have to hit on all these guys.
(17:21):
It's got to look like the Blue Angels, right, all
five of those planes got to be hitting in stride
in some sense, right, And that's hard to get all
those guys to grow up at the same time. It's
like that little league team that you keep together from
eight years old to high school. By the time they're
in high school, they're balling. They don't even need to
talk to each other, they don't need to practice. They're
ready to go. But is that market a market in
(17:42):
which they can let that thing marinate, cook it up, relax,
you know, manage expectations until it finally you know, it's
time to pull that thing out of the oven. I
don't know. That's that's one of the toughest things for me,
because those those expectations are awfully high. Well, it's interesting.
Eli was the SEC and his dad was a star,
and his brother's a star and Darnald from LA. I
(18:04):
thought they both handled the New York media really well.
People love Sam in New York. People loved Eli. You
were from LA two. It wasn't a wild jump. I
mean you were. I always felt the media with you.
That wasn't the issue, right, The issue was you had
a coach that didn't nurture you and I you know,
I've said this before. I think Rex is almost bad
(18:27):
for quarterbacks. He's just and in this world we live
in now, there's a Jeff Fisher quality that I think
it's hard to be that. Surely a lobsided defense, first offense,
take care of it somebody else. But now, Zach Wilsons,
small town Utah BYU, you know, very favorable coverage. Go
back to your first year in New York again. You
came from the number one college program where sports illustrated
(18:50):
there every day ESPN. Do you think it actually helped you?
Coming from SC to New York? Your first New York
press conference, the Post, the Times, Newsday, talk radio, you're
driving home, Mark Sanchez in New York and talk radio
they're just baking you did it? Do you honestly think
though it actually helped? I was at SC and not
(19:12):
air force or you know, U tap I think part
of it. I don't think I could have been more prepared, right,
Like there would have been nowhere in the country that
would have prepared me better for what I was about
to get into. And I still wasn't completely ready. It
still took a little bit of time right to get
you know, your answers fine tuned, and you say one thing,
(19:34):
it gets taken out of context or whatever, or you
think you're joking with somebody in the press conference, and
then you know, when it comes out in a headline,
you're just like, oh, that didn't That's not as funny
as it was yesterday, you know, like that that was stupid.
So those kind of things, and he'll figure that out.
Part of that his personality, just like Sam. I mean,
(19:55):
Sam's like the consummate, so cal chill dude, just like
even Keel. You know, I had a little more personality.
I was a little more you know, smiley, happy, like, hey,
this is cool, whatever, let's do it. Let's let's have fun,
let's banter back and forth. I'm witty, let's let's do it. Well.
You know, you get burned a couple of times by
(20:15):
doing stuff like that and you figure it out quickly
and then your answer has become a little bit of autopilot.
So some of that he's gonna have to learn. But
there's great people in that PR department. They're gonna help
him out. And you know, he's not gonna have to
say much those those first couple of years. Just let
everything on the field take care of itself. And like
I said, just try trying to manage expectations on the
outside is going to be the toughest thing for him
(20:37):
to deal with. But I felt that was as prepared
as I possibly could have been, and I still had
some stuff to learn. So this I'm gonna ask you
a tough question because I'm gonna ask you to take
yourself back to your first Jet start. If I recall
it's Houston, watched it, yeah, And if I recall you
had a big third down throw, a really important and
(20:58):
you completed it. I don't know why that jumps out
in my hand. It could be it could be total.
Just right now, it's yeah, you had to you didn't
play great, but you had a big third down throw.
But I want you to take me you played in
front of sold out crowds in college and in the
NFL you may not have always, but just take me
to my audience. Right now, you're a quarterback. You faced
(21:21):
Oregon State, now you're facing an NFL defensive coordinator. Take
me to your nerves, Take me to how fast it was. Maybe,
I mean, do you remember thinking, wow, I'll tell you
exactly what happened when the game ended one it was
like a blur because Joe Namas was there. My high
school coach surprised me and he was there. My dad
was there on the sidelines like before the game. You know,
(21:43):
there were all these people and I was like, dang,
I was like in a groove here, and you got
to like exit your cocoon to go, like, you know,
talk to these people as a real human and then
lock back into this laser focus and you know, of
course you're you're not terrified, but there's just like this
anxiety about it, and then this excitement that takes over
and then this like killer instinct that you have to
(22:05):
have as a quarterback that just takes over. Right, Well,
we went like I think we were almost fifty percent
maybe even higher on third down, some ridiculous like I
don't think we're that good on third down the rest
of the season. But I mean, we're we're I'm getting
to my third you know, progression on drive, on third downs,
(22:26):
we're converting like third and thirteens that we have no
business converting. You know, just crazy stuff is happening. And
by the time that game ended, I remember getting back
in the locker room and I take off my fleets
and I take on my socks, and I was like,
oh my shit, I forgot to take my ankles. I
didn't even remember to take I was like, I was
(22:47):
so nervous thinking about the game and everything else going on.
I didn't even I didn't even bother to go to
the training room take my ankles. And I take my
ankles all the time. So that goes to show you
where my head was at. I was still getting my
whole pregame routine down, like you have no idea, you
have no idea what's going on? And so um that
was that that was really funny because I remember watching
(23:08):
some of that tape and those third downs were just,
I mean, out of this world. And once you do that,
it was almost like it was almost like, um, you know,
you're teaching a kid to fundamentals in basketball and then
he's in a game and he hits a fade away
three pointer and you're like, what the hell was that?
And the worst thing that happened is he made the
shot right, because now he's thinking like, oh, I got this.
(23:28):
I can shoot fade away three pointers. I can do
whatever I want instead of you're like, hey, left foot,
right foot, elbow straight, you know, right to the target,
all that kind of stuff. So we did that, and
now I'm just like, oh, we got these third downs,
is no big deal. Come on, just chuck it in there,
you know, And then that ball's going the other way.
I'm like, oh, shoot, it doesn't work like that. I
(23:49):
think my proudest moment as a broadcaster is I remembered
that I don't know what's right. I think I was.
I was such a big sc guy and a big
Mark Sanchez guy that I just remember thinking he's not
playing great, but Jesus, he's converting all these third deaths
and then pulling their hair out. They're just like, how
can we get off the damn field? Like this is crazy? You.
(24:13):
I think you replaced Farve if I read yeah, it
was a little bit of a mess with Farve actually
ended up kind of getting. You know, Mangini didn't want him,
and Manginie acknowledges it today. He's like, if if Farv
comes in, it's gonna be Farv and the Jets. It's
gonna splinter our locker room. And it kind of did.
And then the end, Farv goes and Mangini goes. But
(24:34):
sometimes I don't think you You played for the Jets
for however long it was, and then there was a
series of a year here, a year here, a year here.
People sometimes I don't think quite understand how difficult it is.
So there was a guy years ago named Jason Campbell.
He played at Auburn, then he went to Washington. He
had seven coordinators in like eight years, and I thought
(24:58):
he was already good. And I remember saying, can you
imagine if I had a different producer for seven straight
years in radio? You differently? You had a lot of
stability in New York, and then it was here for your,
here for your, here for you, here for your. So
a lot of times I don't think fans understand that
that if you had a different boss, a different sales
manager every year, who was the single best because you
(25:22):
had a lot of quick learning to do after the Jets,
the single smartest, best play caller or coordinator you had
that you look back and think, God, I wish I
could have worked with him from day one. Well, I think,
just based on time on task, was probably Philly and
coach Kelly. I know, I know there's Philadelphia fans that
(25:43):
would kill me for saying that, because they, I mean
hated them by the end. They wanted to run him
out of town. I think some of the management moves weren't,
you know, him and Howry Roseman weren't like perfectly on
the same page, which tend to happen. Tends to happen.
But I think because the system was so easy to
pick up, that was like boom. I you know, as
(26:06):
soon as I got in, I was gone, Like it
was good. We're rolling. But when we get rid of
all those playmakers, you know, the DeShawn Jackson's and Lashawn McCoy's,
and try and bring in a back that's more of
a you know, an I formation under center, stretch zone
back and DeMarco Murray and try and run gun runs
with him, it's just not the same. And then we
(26:26):
had turnover with Nick Foles and Sam Bradford, So then
I play, then don't play, and play then don't play.
That was one of the toughest things, is like I
know the system. I feel good. I could run this
tempo stuff better than anybody in my opinion, and when
we're rolling, we're rolling. We just need a little thicker playbook.
And we wanted to keep all those players. In my opinion,
(26:48):
I thought that would have been like we were right
there and early in this season. Why why is Chips
You're the second quarterback who's told me this mark, So
give me some lexicon, give me some verbiage. Why is
Chips system so easy? Um? Okay, so you know trips right,
(27:11):
you know? Um? What would we say like uh sixty
three scat z snag uh dagger would just be like
trio gator, Like it's just two words. If it was
more than two words, Chip would get pissed. So it
was just like near and far would just tell you
(27:33):
if you're on the near hash or far hash. If
you're on the far hash, it's three by one to
the field. If you're on the near hash it's two
by two. Tight end never changes sides, only the only
the slot receiver and by the time everybody learned it.
Anybody could play any position. So if you had four
whiteouts on the field, it's easy because gators one way,
seminoles the opposite. You know, Lincoln and Ford are two,
(27:56):
it's it'd be double right sixty two Sam Zebra shallow
cross is just near Lincoln. Like that was it. And
so once you learn you know dagger and blade and
you know, I don't know how to describe, it is
so easy. And everything was signaled. So the only person
(28:20):
I'd have to communicate to was the running back. And
the only reason I'd communicate to the running back was
to give him the play faster than he would get
it from the signal, so I'd have it in my helmet,
so I would just grab him and tell him where
to go, Like just put my hand on his jersey
and move him over and say, hey, we're going forty.
You got the mesh, said hut boom, and handle the ball.
He didn't need to know anything else. And so it's
(28:42):
great when you get into a groove and a rhythm.
I think there's a place for that, but I think
we're a little heavy with it because at a certain
point you get to those critical third downs and you
can't run the same play every third day. I mean,
defensive coordinators are just too good. So once you stall
and go through out and only burn thirty seconds on
the clock because he just threw it three times, there's
(29:04):
literally like fights that almost break out on the sidelines
because the defense gets you the ball back and then
you just make them go right back on the field.
They're exhausted and they're like, dude, what's the deal, Like,
just run the ball once and give us a little
break here because we're gassed. So it's I think there's
a place for it. I think he was ahead of
his time because all these RPOs that's all Chip. I mean,
(29:27):
that was all Chip. So that kind of stuff. You know,
you're essentially a second baseman turning two. You got to
have really quick hands. I talked to Sarkisian about this
and why mac Jones was so good, and he said
he's got very quick hands, just like he's turned into
like a double play. And he also is incredibly accurate
on balls that are you know, the swing passes, the
(29:50):
tunnel screens, the quick slants, all that kind of stuff.
He's a yard in front of the front number. He
never slows those guys down with the football and leaves
meat on the bone, essentially prohibits them from getting uh
you know, yack yards yards after catch, He's always pushing
them into the next window, pushing them forward, keeping their
momentum going forward towards the line of scrimmage, away from
(30:11):
the defender. That's why he's so deadly. And instead of
getting three yards or four yards, your twelve yards moved
the chains, let's roll and the defense is just like
head spinning. So that's that's what made those things so
good and so um. It was. Yeah, it was. It
was definitely ahead of its time. No, I think it was.
I mean, listen, there's a company before Facebook called myspaced.
(30:37):
He was, and then it didn't have the privacy that
Facebook did, so it had everything right. Rupert Murdoch bought it. Actually,
he would argue today even though it went under, that
it served a purpose for what Fox needed. But it
went under and Facebook was MySpace with better privacy. And
so I look a lot at chip Kelly, and I
think basically chip Kelly just needed a better personnel guy
(30:58):
and maybe an NFL core ordinator to help him situation
in the red. I mean, because he really if you
look at so much of his stuff now has been
stolen by everybody. You know, that's the reality of it.
I ask every former pro athlete or current pro athlete this.
I love the draft. I've always loved the draft. I
(31:19):
get hyped up like everybody. I think every draft class
is amazing. I'm ridiculous. But you know, as a pro athlete,
how many practices does it take when nine to ten
new guys come in for you Mark Sanchez to go, oh, dude,
can't play, or holy shit, this guy is gonna How
(31:39):
many practices does it take? Sometimes it's just a couple
of plays because all you got to see is flash.
All you gotta see her some flashes, right because once
you see it, you know, so you'll know in the
first one or two like okay, or man, that guy's
got some spring to him or whatever, or damn he's
a competitor. Or this dude, I don't know how he
(32:02):
doesn't walk out of this facility and get hit by
a bus, Like are you kidding me? He can't even
line up right like that. That freaks you out when
you're just like, whoa, there's nobody home, what's going on here?
I saw this dude ball in college? What happened? What
were they telling him to get him to do that?
Whatever they were saying, we need to start saying that
because this ain't gonna cut it. But it's I mean,
(32:24):
one or two practices, you'll know the cream rises to
the top, right, Like these guys separate themselves and it's
it's usually like a head turner kind of play or
just something that like you'll be walking down the hallway
of the facility and a coach will kind of grab
you be like, hey, you see eighty four today and
you're like, oh, you're talking about the comeback, that diving
(32:45):
comeback he caught. Yeah, man, I ain't seen a route
like that since. And they'll name somebody that it reminded
them of, you know what I mean. Like those those
moments are fun because when it happens, people kind of
recognize it at practice and then it's like, okay, back
to the script. We don't want to take too much time,
but yeah, it only takes a couple of practices. You
figured out pretty quick. Tell me in your career the
(33:06):
number one head turner, the number one rookie that walked
in and you just went wow, oh, well, all of
them were on defense thanks a lot Rex, all those
first round defenders, all those corners and no, you know
what was what was who did it every year? And
then once we had those guys together, was was Cromarty
(33:27):
and Durell revs. Right Like once we had Cromarty and
Durrell and then Jim Leonard at safety, that defense with
Bart Scott, Calvin Pace, Jason Taylor, Dave Harris like that,
that unit, it was like, damn, we need to be
on Then we get Lt. Santonio and Braylon and Jericho
(33:51):
and Dustin Keller and it was like it was real competition.
It reminded me a lot of college. The way every
day was like the defense could win, the offense could win,
let's go. But it was it was I mean every
day even if the offense played better. Darrell Reeves would
jump out on film and at one point just essentially
run a route for the receiver in coverage and either
(34:14):
bat the ball down or body somebody up or pick
the ball off. And you were just like, damn this dude,
I mean, come on, man, like one on ones we're
just like this is you know, getting into a game
of horse with Michael Jordan like what are you doing?
Like this is just silly, you know, and he would
like he was so good. He would mess around like
(34:35):
all right, like today, I know we're practicing man covered like,
but I'm only playing off like I'm better and jam
you know, just you know, bump and run kind of
man a man. But I'll just react to plays off.
I'll just react to routes off. And he'd still jump routes.
You're like, dude, you don't have a weakness, like this
ain't fair. So it was. It was really fun. You know.
(34:57):
It's interesting since you've left the league, how many years
you you've been out of the league. This would be
my third season, coming up third or fourth. I think
it's interesting. Mark McVeigh comes into the league, Sean McVeigh,
and he says, no, I'm not gonna have any of
my good players playing preseason none where people said people said,
can't do that. Yeah, goes eight no, goes eight no, no,
(35:19):
And the whole league goes, oh god, preseason's a big
con this is And by the way, he doesn't wait,
guys don't wear shells. It's really interesting. In three to
four years, Mark practice is lighter. Yeah, a preseason is lighter. Yeah,
you left about four or five years ago. Sometimes I
(35:41):
think to myself, the guys that like four or five
years ago could have stayed and left. I think it's
an easier league now, I really do. I think the
the hittings way down at practice. It feels like the
way down from your rookie year. I mean even from
this would be like two cbas ago, I guess. But
(36:01):
my first two years were the older CBA where you'd
have double days, full pads. I thought about that, like
my last couple of years. I don't know if I
could have done that. I don't know if somebody told
me right now, you know, give me two weeks or
almost twenty days rather of two days full pads, like ah,
(36:26):
I'm like, dude, my arm would just fall off. I
don't know how I did it before I was, you know,
twenty one, twenty two years old, and like who cares?
You go walk out to the field, touch your toes
and just start going like how hard is it? And
by the end of my career, I was like God,
and Rex was trying to throw us a bone. Every
fourth practice was a special team's practice essentially, so he'd
give the skill guys a break. But it was I
(36:49):
mean that's just insanity now compared to what's going on.
I mean now it's like a virtual offseason. I mean
you're you're just like show up ready to play, like
I don't know, it's it's definitely different. I like it.
I you know what Mark I am. I'm a huge
believer in this is that a lot of things we
do in life and football we do them because the
(37:11):
previous generation bread them. And I think McVeigh really changed
the way we think of football. More positivity, less yelling,
easier practice, no preseason, most of it bs. And I
gotta tell you, I look at it and I think
to myself, I think football is more fun today than
(37:31):
four years ago for an athlete. I really do. I
think it's more fun for sure. It's just there's bigger
splash plays, more offense, which is you know, great for
the league. That's what they promote. That's why the hashes
are narrower in the NFL than they are in college
in high school. I mean, they want the offense in
the middle of the field, advantage offense, right. They want
it to be, you know, tough for defenses to disguise
(37:51):
and all that kind of stuff because they want to
score more points. Nobody wants to go to a you know,
a six to three ball game. That's just not fun.
So unfortunately for the d F they you know, they'd
kill me for saying that, but that's just kind of
the way it goes. So now, you know, with somebody
like McVay, who's innovative and you know, looks at the
research of like, Okay, we're just gonna bang heads for
(38:12):
three weeks, he's like, for what, we don't need to
do that. If that's only gonna put us at risk,
Let's put that on the shelf and at least guarantee
we make it to the season ready to go, instead
of losing two or three guys just because that's what
we do, that's tradition or whatever. You know, Like, I'd
rather get to the truth of it than just do
what everybody else has done. And it looks like he's
(38:33):
done that well. Chip Kelly had morning practices at Oregon
for two reasons. He said, if I have morning practices,
the guys have to go to bed early on campus. Yeah. Secondly,
they run marathons in the morning, not afternoon. Your body
actually functions higher in the morning. So I don't know
what he did in the NFL, but people started copying
(38:55):
him in the PAC twelve because like in LA, you know,
you don't wat your players out at night, too much
to do. So Chip's thing is it's Oregon. Everybody's stoned
here in the state anyway. So I want my guys
going to bed at nine. I'm going to work. I'm
like dogs at six. So again the Chip Kelly's John mcvaything,
let's let's just be different. And I don't know, I
always think Chip. I I know Chip pretty well. I
(39:17):
always defend Chip because Philadelphia hates everybody. He went ten
and six, ten and six, and they were ready to
run him out of town his third year. And it's oh, yeah, yeah,
you do you people get it, you understand Tenant, Yeah,
I agree. So I want you to go back. College
football now is very southern. I think it hurts the sport.
(39:37):
It's two inslur And I've always said this, there's three
programs in the country that need to win for the
sport to feel big. Miami Hurricanes, Texas Longhorns, US the sport.
The sport feels big, it feels like more city and
not rural. Yeah. Now, when USC dominated the sport. I
remember going to practice and Herb Street said, this is
(40:00):
in college. It's not pro. It's right in the mat.
When you were I mean, you're an eighteen nineteen year
old kid, snoop dogg Will Ferrell. Just give me. Give
me a couple of minutes on no NFL teams in
Los Angeles. None, the Clippers sucked. There was no soccer.
It was basically SC Dodgers, Lakers. Yeah, go back and
(40:24):
and and just give give me a sense of how
I was at those USC home games. What was it
like to be the quarterback of that program. It's incredible.
It was such a such a ride, and I think
coach Sarkisian Hatison such a such a great mode of
focus and reminded us who played before us. We wore
(40:47):
yellow jerseys at practice, and he reminded us that you
wear yellow jerseys twenty four seven, like you're now the
quarterback at USC. That's a big deal and you represent
a lot of people, your family, your high school, coach,
the school, this program, the guys who played before you,
all that, the guys in this room that's liner, you know,
like Carson Palmer, you know that was a big, big deal.
(41:08):
But I mean around town it was incredible because maybe
it's not you know, small town USA where everything stops
for USC football, but it was pretty damn close, right,
like pretty close. And when you get celebrities fighting to
get on your sideline, you know something's going right, Like,
you know, Pete's recruiting his ass off to a point
(41:31):
where we were we were taking recruits just so we
didn't play against them. Like that's crazy to me. It's like,
don't go across town because we're better and we don't
want to have to play against you. Boom, Now we
have a six running back in one class and we're like,
what how do we do that? I remember that, like
what are we doing? But I remember beating Ohio State
(41:52):
in the CALCM and that was one of the biggest
games of the year, and we all go out. Boom,
somebody has this great idea to go to Hollywood. I'm like,
we're gonna do just out. Next to Sean Merriman, next
to other NFL players from San Diego who came up
to LA. We're just like this is crazy, Like what
are we doing here? It was it was like next level,
(42:15):
you know, And then it just became like what what
it was. And you know, Carson, Troy, Paula Mally, those
guys built that right with Pete, with with Norm Chow
and then Stark took it over with Kiffin and and
Pete was still there, you know, rocking it was. I mean,
there was nothing better. It's like it's it did have
(42:35):
a little bit of that small town feel like I said,
but in La in an awesome market, great weather. Uh
you know, a little little more relaxed fan base, right,
like they're not just like bringing down your neck. They
were fired up for you, you know, and it was
it was an incredible ride, man, that we're in. That
yellow jersey was really special. Yeah. Like I I remember
(43:00):
being on the sideline for the Ohio State game. I
remember I was down about the twenty yard line the
fifteen yard line, and Henry Winkler was next to me.
Denzel was there, Jerry Bruckheimer was there. I think Snoop
was on the I was on the sea side and
you threw a wheel route, somebody threw a there was
age yeah, to Stanley Avilia, number thirty one, and it
(43:23):
was my roommate. Oh. It was so that sarcused to
be in the in the room, in the quarterback room,
like on Mondays and Tuesdays, and he would take this
small expo marker. I just reminded of him of this
last week when I went to go see him in Texas,
and he would write with this tiny little expo marker
all the plays on this giant whiteboard for the week. Right.
(43:45):
So I walked in randomly and he's in there and
he's got the Killers. It's either the Killers or he
loved Journey, and it's just blaring right and he's rocking out.
He's got his call sheet and he's writing stuffed down right,
stuffed down in drawing place. And I came in. I
was like, what do we got this week? He goes, oh, Marky,
why don't you sit down. I got some good ship
for you. Watch this. He goes, Hey, they're gonna bring
a cover two slasher. Look, they're gonna be in strong safety.
(44:07):
They're gonna bring the Sam backer. All right, we're gonna
we're gonna be in flank. Okay, you tell Blake Ales,
go line up properly in flank that's flanked the Why please, Blake, Okay,
I know you like the lineup wrong let's get that right.
So he's kind of talking like John Gruden, and he goes,
you're gonna snap this ball, You're gonna remike it just
before you snap it. And Stanley Havili, I swear to God,
is gonna be wide open against a defensive end who
(44:30):
thinks he's gonna run a flat rode. He's gonna take
it to the wheel route. He's gonna run right by
his ass. Fight on. Hit up the band, Let's strike
up the band, Let's roll. And he called it like
on Monday, what was gonna happen. We've practiced it four
or five times and boom. He gives me the signal
during the game and he goes, it's coming. Here comes
field two Slasher, get ready to roll. Tell Stanley to
get on his horse, and I almost missed him. Stanley,
(44:52):
I mean I stretched him out as far as he
could go and then he kind of like somersaulted into
the end zone. But it was like, I mean, I
knew it was gonna happen for five days leading up
to the game, then it happened. I mean, that's kind
of the way those games felt. That's that's the way
we were prepared that that was our normal, and um god,
it was. It was a fun It was a fun ride, man,
(45:14):
it was you know, it's funny. Pete wasn't happy when
you left. I remember that. Weird although it was he's
not wrong. He was talking about quarterbacks in general leaving early.
The success rate is low, and then it's okay, define success, right,
Like what does that mean when a game win, ten games,
go to a playoff game? What does that mean? Be it?
(45:35):
You know, ten time super Bowl appearance like Tom Brady
is that success? So it just it's all relative. But
he was he was basically voicing his opinion, and in
that moment, you know, I understand why he wanted to
say that. He's like, hey, here's what I feel about
the matter. Mark's gonna do this and we're going to
support him. But usually people don't say what they feel like.
(45:57):
They only say like, hey, you know, whatever organization takes.
Was getting a great guy, and look at Mat Stafford,
look at Reggie Bush, look at all these guys. So
when he gave his opinion, it was just like wait
what it was like, hey, listen, we agree to disagree,
and I wish him all the best. He's a great kid.
So he wasn't like slamming me, but it just was
really awkward. Did you have to go into his office
(46:20):
to tell him? Like an hour before? No. We stayed
up to like one thirty two o'clock in the morning,
eating in and out Burger the night before this press
conference in my apartment, So I knew what he was
gonna say. That's why I didn't care. I understood, and
we were talking about his I mean him back at UOP,
we were talking about God. He told me some great
(46:41):
stories about coaches and players, and the whole time we'd
get back to all right, so are you leaving or
you staying? Like can I get you here? What are
we doing? And I was just like coachs just the
right time, like Bradford staying, Colt McCoy staying, the only
other guy that's leaving a Stafford, and maybe the kid
from Kansas State Josh Freeman, Like why wouldn't I go?
My stock can never be higher? Like this is the
(47:04):
time and you're telling me I get to go out
in a T shirt and shorts and compete against these
guys and try and become a top five pick. I'm in.
I'll bet on myself And he just you know, we
just disagreed. He wanted me back and I respected that.
But I'm literally till two in the morning the night
before the press conference. So it's not like when it
all came out and as awkwards as it look, because
(47:26):
the Times put us in that picture where we're like
kind of crossing pat like we had already like can
shake hug thing, and then we were passing each other,
so he was kind of like here and I'm here,
and it was just awkward and that picture became like oh, Pete,
Carol Mark Sanchez and then yeah, I called it. He
called me that day and was just like, oh my god,
(47:48):
I'm you know, I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean it
to be like this, and but I was like, coach,
what are you apologizing for? I get it. It's all good.
It's just it's taken on a life of its own.
It's all good. Generationally, again, you missed it by about
four or five years. These kids now are in these
seven on seven camps. It's insane. They got twenty. It's insane.
Like in high school you probably played thirty games. These
(48:10):
guys now have ten thousand throws in games. By like fourteen,
when you sit down with these quarterbacks. Now, do you
think to yourself, oh, my god, if I could have
had this coaching when I was fourteen years old, no doubt.
I think that's huge. I think the only thing that
gets lost in some of that and it's really it's
really funny. Sark and I talked about this last week too,
(48:32):
is I said my senior year or my last year
or U I see, I had three snaps from the shotgun,
three the entire season. That was in two thousand and
nine or two thousand and eight, So I'm like, where
the game has come now. I mean, these guys, a
lot of them can't even get under center. That was
one of the best things about Zach Wilson is he
goes under center, turns his back to the defense more
(48:54):
than people think in their system, but it is a
shotgun based system. And what Starts been able to do
and transition this thing to all gun They're running almost
all the same shifts, emotions and plays and concepts. He's
added RPOs and he's moved the quarterback into the shotgun.
It's very similar. He's running a ton of our plays
that we used to run, just like Chip, just like
(49:15):
all these other coordinators. But these kids have these reps,
these banked reps, like you said, ten thousand of them,
all summer long. But that means these kids obviously aren't
playing other sports like I was. You know, summer of
my junior year going into senior year of high school
was probably the best shape I'll ever be in my
entire life, because it was you know, it was football
(49:36):
practice or seven on seven and then basketball tournament and
then go throw a couple inning, go pitch couple innings
in baseball, and you know, maybe bunt or something and
sprint to first base like I would just I was
just exhausted. And then we'd go to the beach after
and like hang out on off days and just go
get exhausted, either surfing or boogie boarding, Like there's I
(49:57):
would love. That's the only time in my life where
I'm like, man, if I could go back there for
a week, that was one hell of a run. Man,
We're in really good shape. We wouldn't stop, and we're
just playing ball. So I think some of these guys,
it's great because they get to see all those reps
and bank all those reps, But at a certain point too,
it's like you know, get out, be a kid, do
some others, play some other sports, play basketball, play play tennis,
(50:19):
play whatever you play. But it's so focused now that
you know, at eight years old, little Johnny's got to
be you know, Tom Brady and go to ten Super Bowls.
So if that means a million, seven on seven tournaments,
that's I guess what it means. All right, Thanks Mark,
appreciate it. Hope everybody enjoyed our Monday morning podcast. Follow
us at The Volume Sports on Twitter and Instagram, rate review, subscribe,
(50:44):
join us, comment on us. We'll see you soon. The
(51:20):
Volume
Host
Colin Cowherd
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