May 5, 2021 • 40 mins
On this episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast, Colin thinks one team that no one is talking about that should deal for the disgruntled Aaron Rodgers (1:00), and is joined by Indianapolis Colts GM Chris Ballard, who discusses his philosophy in this year's draft (4:00), the limited supply of truly elite pass rushers in the draft (8:00), why he ultimately decided to make the trade for Carson Wentz (13:00), why owner Jim Irsay's football knowledge makes his job easier (16:00), which under the radar player he knew would be a home run in the NFL (20:00), how he dealt with Andrew Luck's shocking retirement (30:00), and why he was so impressed by Philip Rivers in their one season together (33:00), and why he doesn't pay attention to the social media criticism (37:00).
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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. So Terry Bradshaw got some
(00:30):
Twitter heat because he came on my show The Herd
and he said, I wouldn't coddle Aaron Rodgers. I wouldn't
baby him. I just forced him to play, which, by
the way, green Bay can do, and it may be
the best remedy for at least one year because the
salary cap dead money hit would be so punitive if
(00:50):
they moved him. The reality here is Aaron Rodgers doesn't
have a no trade clause. They can send him largely
wherever they want to me the place that makes a
lot of sense isn't Denver. It's New York. The Giants
have two first round picks next year, two third round picks,
and two fourth round picks, So green Bay could get
(01:12):
a first, a third, and a fourth just next year
and it wouldn't damage the Giants rebuild, and it would
absolutely help the Packers rebuild. I'm more of a rip.
The band aid off guy to me, I'd rather just
move on fast. But it doesn't necessarily make great sense
(01:33):
for the Packers and it doesn't make great sense for
the Giants. I think you can make this move at
the trading deadline in October next year. You don't have
to make it now, and you don't have to make
it before the season, nor do you have to wait
until after the season. Let's see if Daniel Jones can play.
If he starts off six and one, eliminates the turnovers.
(01:56):
He's young, he's cheap, he's athletic, and he's winning. So
Green Bay moves off Aaron would have their own first
and two other firsts. The Packers historically pretty good at
drafting and developing. That also gives Jordan Love another six
seven eight weeks Ota exhibition season camp, seven eight weeks
(02:19):
behind Aaron Rodgers. If Jordan Loves not quite ready, give
him six or seven weeks watching Aaron play for the Packers.
With that, we bring in Chris Ballard used to work
for the Bears as their director of pro scouting, then
hooked up with Andy Reid in Kansas City. He was
the director of their football operations and is now the
(02:42):
very successful general manager of the Indianapolis Colts. So Chris, generally,
you know you've told me this before, and I agree
with this. My theory on the draft has always been,
once you have your quarterback, I would trade down as
much as I could. In fact, if you gave me
a ten year guarantee no more firsts two seconds, as
(03:03):
long as one of the seconds is top seven eight picks,
I would take that. This year, you didn't move as much.
I think you made a pick later in the draft. One.
This felt a little different in terms of Chris Ballard drafts.
That to me, it felt different. You went and got
the same You went and got two defensive ends early.
(03:25):
Some said, how come you didn't address left tackle. You
must be comfortable with who you have. So the people
that are saying, you know, that didn't look quite like
a Chris Ballard draft, you would say, what that all
of the unknown information. It's easy to move down when
you've got all the information and you feel really comfortable
with the depth of talent in the draft. So we didn't.
(03:50):
We thought there was plenty of good players. But saying that,
we just didn't feel the need to collect, you know,
a bunch of picks from three, four and five to
move down. So if we felt at every any trown
that if we like the player that we were going
to take and he had the character to match, and
that's a big thing with us, Colin. I mean, like
(04:13):
sometimes I wonder there's times I think we're almost too
hard on the character aspect of it. But a lot
of times and just you know, as long as I've
been in the league, and when I look back at
any myths that I've had and been a part of,
and I've been a part of a bunch of them,
usually it occurs because of some character fall. Whether it's
(04:36):
work ethic, whether it's instincts, whether it's toughness, there's something.
It's usually not talent. It's usually a character fall. So
we just said this year we're gonna be a little
more conservative and if we come across players that we
know one are gonna make us better. Two we're at
a position that we cove it, which you know, defensive
(04:58):
fronts always going to be one. We covered um and
three UM fit the character profile that we won, and
we're gonna we're gonna take the player. Yeah, Tom Talesco
is a buddy of mine. He's very much along those
lines they say when I spent I went and spent
um a night in their war room during the draft
(05:19):
the first round a couple of years ago. And you know,
after the side of the board there's red dots and
black dots for injuries off the board, character off the board.
There was something by the way, there's some good players.
There was an and his theory was always takes one
or two guys in a locker room can tear it apart.
You just you just doesn't matter how good your culture is.
(05:40):
So and by the way, Parcels was very much like that.
He didn't want any nonsense. I totally get that. Now,
you did take a player, one of your defensive ends
had a little bit of an achilles tendon problem. So
I mean, listen, you play football long enough, Chris, you
get hurt. So when you take one of your early
picks had an jury history, how do you weigh that
(06:03):
The talent was so high that we thought that it
was worth the risk. And then when you combine that
with you know where he was at in his rehab process,
our medical information from our doctors. We had him do
a bunch of work on it and you know, we
thought we thought Dio Dio was a you know, we
(06:23):
thought he was a first round talent, and to get
him at fifty four we felt pretty fortunate to do.
And then anytime you're able to add a disruptive player
up front is hard to do in the draft, especially
later in the draft. Any you know, usually when you
look at the defensive ends in this league, I'm sure
you're going to get some that that show up and
(06:45):
later in the draft, but the majority of them are coming,
you know, early in the draft. So when you can
get a big disruptive player at fifty four, we just
thought the risk, it was worth the risk. I'll never
forget last year and we took Julian Blackman third round,
and we got a lot of questions on the pick,
and we kept wondering because we had Julian at one
(07:05):
point at the back end of the first round and
we ended up kind of kicking him down a little bit,
but you know, he had an ACL and I just said, look,
what's the worst case scenario when we're gonna get him back.
Can we live with that? And is the player good
enough worth the wait? And we thought it was worth
the way, you know, it's the draft is funny. You're
(07:30):
seeing more and more GMS give up first round picks.
I always had two basic kind of theories on the draft.
I would rarely ever take a running back in the
first round, but I feel like i'd almost take one
every other year, like I do. Think you cannot have enough.
You need about three in this league. Now, urban Meyer
(07:52):
got some heat for taking a running back in the
first round, and I'm like that whole bell cow running back,
then you've got to be careful. McCaffrey's injured, now, Zeke's
yards per carry, So I would be So if I
was a GM, I would draft a running back two
out of three years. I'd never do I'd rarely do
it in the first My other takeaway has always been
kind of with pass rushers, which is you kind of
(08:14):
break rules for pass rushers. How many on average? You
just you just do what you gotta do to get
pass rushers on average in your life Bears Chiefs, Colls,
how many elite pass rushers per draft on your grade board? Poh,
it's I would tell you too. It at most in
(08:37):
a draft wow, where you just say you know what,
there's a no brainer, and I want you to think
back to our history, like like I look back to Chicago.
So we had Alex Brown, who was a fourth round pick,
really good football player. We traded for Wallet Gounlier, you know,
Jerry and Bobby to Paul. He made a great trade
and he kind of helped us and put that great defense.
(08:58):
We had a No. Five six and then we signed
Julius Peppers for you know what a one hundred million
and he was worth every penny of it, all right,
can you go? And then you go to Kansas City
and we had Tomba and Justin Houston and Tomba was
the first round pick and Justin was a three. Um,
you know. And then we came here and the cupboard
(09:19):
was pretty dry defensively, so you know, we had to
go out and we signed to Nico Autry Um, which
initially we played him at the three, then we kicked
him at the end and we signed you know, Justin
Justin Houston. UM. So we've been kind of just piecemelling
it here and so now we're just trying to throw
as much as we can at talent. We've got some
other young players that we really like, and Taekwon Lewis,
(09:41):
who played really well for us last year. We have
another young rusher in Komoco Terray who is really talented.
It's just had some bad luck with the knee. Um.
So we've got some young kids here that we think
can also you know, get into the mix. We signed
Rochelle from that can, that can that can play a
really significant role for us, that played good football in
LA and then we have Mohammed back. You can't do
(10:04):
it with just You got to have an eight man rotation.
I fullheartedly believe this to especially now that you're talking
about an added game. We're talking about seventeen games. But
to get through the entirety of the grind of the
season and to make a real playoff run, you've got
to be able to keep your snaps down on the
front and you've got to be able to play eight
(10:26):
or nine guys through the course of the season and
be successful. So you can't have enough defensive linemen on
your football team. If you just look at the runs
that have meet. Look at Tampa last year when they
got hot, I mean they had a good rotation going,
and I know the two top front lines guys get credit,
but they weren't playing one hundred percent of the snaps.
(10:47):
You go back to Frisco the year before. You know,
they lost in the Super Bowl, but they had a
good rotation of ends. That's one of the things we
really believe in. So I just anytime you got a
chance to take it this rough diffront player, you just
do it. You just take them to call on Coward
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(11:53):
we sent you FanDuel more ways to win. Chris the
Carson Wentz deal for you, It's interesting. You have always
been you know, you'll pay big money infrequently, but you'll
do it for the rare stars. So when you're gonna
when you're gonna eat up some of that contract. You're
(12:15):
having discussions with Frank Riich. This is not something you
just you'd have a cup of coffee in the morning
and do I know your diligence. Take me to the moment,
the drive home, the drive to work, the discussion, the
moment when you Chris Powder said okay, I'm going with
Carson Wentz. We're doing it. You talk me into it.
(12:39):
We had been having long discussions and you know, you
wish there was just like an Eureka moment, like all right,
no doubt. Unfortunately, that's not how my mind works. I
have got to process things over a long period of
time and really think them through, and then decisions will
be made when they need to be made. I mean,
I've always thought that, you know, why make a decision
(13:00):
and before you have to, and let's think through all
the things that that the you know, all the parameters
of what goes into it, all the dominoes that are
gonna you know what the dominoes are going to be
down the line, not just now, but also in two
twenty two, two twenty three, in two twenty four. You've
(13:20):
got to be thinking two three years out on every
because every decision you make has an impact on your
football team. And look we look, we dabbled around with
Matt stafford um and you know, in the Rams did
a great job coming in and you know, make it.
That's the player they wanted. You know, we weren't quite
there yet. Um. And then when it came to Carson,
(13:44):
it's a little like Philip last year. You know, Frank
had a Frank and Nick Sirianni had a really good
relationship with Philip. He knew the offense and it was
almost a seamless transition when we brought him in. Well
almost see the same thing with Carson here over the
first month and a half, where it's this pretty seamless
(14:05):
transition for Carson just because of his relationship with Frank,
who also happens to be the play caller. And I
don't I don't think you can ever. I don't. I
don't think you can ever minimize how important that is, Colin.
I mean, being with coach Read and with being with
Andy for four years taught me a lot about offensive
football and how important the play caller is in all
(14:29):
of this. And you know Frank has a lot of
that any and the quarterback has to feel comfortable with
you know, who's who's pulling the who's pulling the strings,
and who's pulling the trigger. And that made the Matt
made the trade for Carson a lot easier because I
knew there was a trust level between the two of them.
And trust is everything in this league, and trust between
(14:51):
the quarterback and the play caller is everything. Now, look,
there's a lot more things that go into play. You
got to protect him, you gotta put enough weapons round him.
But if if the quarterback feels really comfortable and the
play caller feels comfortable with the quarterback, I think you
got a chance, you know, for success, Chris. You know,
(15:13):
ideally the owner would own, the general manager would manage,
the coach would coach, the quarterback would quarterback. But we
know that some quarterbacks like Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers
or Tom Brady. They want to say after they had
great success. We know there's some owners. I mean, there's
been a handful of owners that have actually played. Bill
(15:34):
Pollian told me Sunday night. He said, Jim Ersey is
about as knowledgeable. He'll watch film. This is not a
guy that meddles like. He'll come in and have an opinion.
And he said, listen, he told it actually a very
funny story on I think it was it was it
was Tony Dungee Pollion, Dwight Freeney, I forget what it was. No,
(15:55):
it was Dallas Clark, and you know he there was
a big discussion and ersays like, I like Dallas Clark
with Jim because he's been doing it so long. Have
there been moments with you that he comes in and
gives you a macro opinion and he walks out of
the room and you're like, Okay, I gotta sleep on
(16:17):
this again. It doesn't have to be specific to a
corner's hips, you know, or running backs pivot. It's just
a big world view on something. So look, I'm very
fortunate because it's good. It's it makes my job easier
because on game day mister Ersay knows what he's seeing
out there, so I don't have to come in on Monday,
(16:40):
and like there's no bs to the deal now, like
he knew, he knows what he was watching out there
on the field, and so he knows if we have
problem areas I can't. There's no sugar corner, like, yeah,
he's watching the same game I'm watching, So he knows.
So that makes and then it makes it easier from
a need standpoint. When you know he's looking at the game.
(17:02):
He goes, Chris, we really need to address this, and
he's I would tell you he's usually right on what
he's saying. So and yes, I'll give you a very
clear example is last year, we really like Jonathan Taylor,
and we like him in the building, or scouts like him,
or coach, everybody liked him, and I'll ever forget in
(17:23):
the second round, he just We're all on a zoom call,
every scouts, everybody's on it, and all of a sudden,
mister Ursay pop said and goes, hey, Chris, Chris, you
really like Jonathan Taylor. What are you doing? Go get him?
And you know, next thing you know, we're making the
trade up three picks to go get Jonathan Taylor. So
(17:44):
he just said, what you love, you did your homework,
go get him. Yeah, go get him. And I think
that's like, I think mister Orsay really has a special
for unique players, the ones that really can change the
game because you you have to have him, you know,
you can't. You got to have difference makers on Sunday.
(18:04):
And I think he saw that and he saw he
felt it from us, and he said, go get him.
And that's a that's a beautiful thing with A and
there's and and here's the here's what's even better. This
is not somebody else in his ear. This is him,
Like I would tell you that that's something that other
places have to deal with, where they're having someone in
(18:27):
someone's ears saying something. No, this is mister Erstay and
his knowledge of the game UM, and his understanding of
football and what gives him, you know, an advantage UM.
And I think it's been proven over time. Brett Veach
and Andy Reid tell the story where Brett comes in
with film it's like four years ago on Patrick Mahomes.
(18:50):
He said, Andy, you've got to see this kid. And
so Andy looks at it and you know, appeases him. Okay,
and it comes in like three months later. Andy, this
kid insane, And I mean it must be an incredible moment.
You were a scout. You were in the cars, you
were staying at day's ends, you were eating at Applebee's
a lot. Take me to your early career. Okay, Chris,
(19:14):
you're in that car. You think you've seen somebody that
nobody else has seen and you just knew it. You knew, wow,
this it's a big twelve guy and a bad team.
Was there an electric moment for you early in your
scouting career and what that feeling is like in that car,
(19:34):
because it may back then the cell phones weren't maybe
around as much. You had to go back to the hotel.
Take me to your first magical moment as a young scout. Golly,
I can think of a couple, you know, I mean,
like you look back, like there's times I missed those
days on the road when I mean we would go,
(19:55):
I mean we'd be spent. I mean, I think I
can't remember how many nights I got into Marryott, but
it's incredible. I mean it's incredible how many total nights
I have. And so I'm gonna give you two. So
I leave training camp and Texas is freaking hot, like
it's hot, and then when you hit August, it is
like you're sweating, even when you don't want to sweat
(20:16):
even I mean, you get out of your car and
you're breaking out in a sweat. And I've gone to
watch University of Texas workout and I get in the
car and I am soaking wet. But I had just
watched the corner through drill work that was incredible. I
was like, man, this freaking kid can move. And he's
(20:36):
got everything you want. Everything. He fit us to a team,
He's got great ball skills, he's got instincts. Hey, he
has a great season. He goes to the Combine and
I think he runs four seven four at the Combine.
And we go to his pro day and he runs
again like four sixty nine. So I go back and
(20:57):
this is before Twitter, before for you know, information was
out there, but nothing like nothing like it is now,
Like it would have instantly killed this kid. So I
go back with God rest his soul. Darryl Drake we
had just hired him as a receiver coach, and Daryl
and I go and I remember looking at Darryl and going,
(21:19):
this is how you when you like a player, this
is how we get the right forty time on him.
And I hit that clock at about thirty eight yards
and got him at four fifty four. And it was
Nathan Vasher. He ended up going to the Pro Bowl
for US in Chicago and was really a good player.
And then the other one was Chris Harris, who was
at Louisiana Monroe. I'll never forget. We were at law
(21:41):
Tech early in the day. I'd scouted him. He had
one game that against LSU that I thought was incredible,
and during the season, and we were at law Tech
in the spring working out a bunch of guys and
he was having his Pro day the next day, I
mean that night, and only about four or five of
us drove over to the workout. And you know, we
(22:02):
ended up drafting him in the in the late sixth
round and ended up being an integral part of our
you know, defense in Chicago and so and so. Back
then when you first started this, there just wasn't as
many college football games, even on television. It just was
hard to get video of guys. If you go back
and watch the draft at ESPN in the eighties, the
(22:25):
reality was they didn't have video and a lot of
the players it was like my wife would gripe all
the time because we were we were still watching on
beta machines. So I thought I had a closet just
stacked with these beta tapes. I mean, he was crazy
and Jerry, like Jerry Angela was outstanding, and he was
an Jerry was an unbelievable teacher. I mean that's where
(22:49):
you know, that's where watching like really learning to watch
tape and identify the traits of successful players. And so
during the summer we would have to make these uh
time coach like almost get I get freaking convulsions thinking
about all the work. But we would have to timestamp
the in and out of every play to make these
(23:10):
cut up tapes of good and bad of players. So
I would take all summer, all our scouts with in
Chicago and we just had They would ship boxes of
beta tapes to our house to watch these, and then
we had a den downstairs in Chicago. We had a
room with all these tapes of players, their profile tapes
(23:30):
made up for years. So no technology and information is
a lot more prevalent than it is today than it
was then you know, Carson Wentz to me has more
of an Andrew luck personality than a Peyton Manning personality
or a certainly more than a Philip Rivers personality. That's
(23:52):
what it looks, that's what it feels like to me,
little understated, not as verbal, bright kid. What did you
know about his personality before you got him in the room? Well,
I mean, look, I've got a guy that coached him
for two years when was a part of the process
of drafting him, so that that was a real advantage.
(24:15):
And then his college coach was Craig Bowle who's now
at University of Wyoming, who recruited me to University of Wisconsin,
so I had an inside there into who he was.
And then North Dakota State also, you know, still had
some coaches there that were connected with But at the
end of the day, Frank and I just have a
(24:35):
lot of trust. And Frank, I mean, this guy, our
head coach, is outstanding Colin. I mean, he gets it.
He played in the league for fourteen years. He's brilliant, smart,
he's got great emotional intelligence. I mean I thought that
was the one, Like Coachree always thought had high level
emotional intelligence, And I think most great leaders have high
(24:57):
level emotional intelligence. And I think Frank does too. He's
just got a great way about him, um, you know,
dealing with the quarterback position, so you know his insight.
And then when you watch the tape, there's a lot
of good tape on Carson Lentz. I mean, I say
this all. I mean, I've said this a few times Colin,
but quarterbacks like you wish all of them came into
(25:20):
the league and just lift the league up and never
had any struggles. But there's there's a point when they
got to stand on the abyss and not jump. And
you know that's we can't let Carson jump. And I
don't think Frank will um he didn't play good last year.
I think Carson Carson admits that he didn't play good
(25:41):
last year. I mean I don't, and I think Carson
would tell you the same thing that you know, don't
don't put the blame on everybody else. I mean, we
all had our hands in you know what happened, you know,
back in you know, last year in Philly. Um for
whatever reason, you know, he was a part of that.
But it doesn't mean we still can't see the good
(26:03):
and the greatness of what's in him, and we believe
it's in there, and we believe, you know that over
time we'll get him to play at that level again.
You know, it's that you have very much. You guys
remind me a lot of Green Bay. You're not going
to mortgage your future. You're not gonna I mean, there's
(26:25):
a certain constitution to the way you do business that
frugal is probably the wrong word, but you use great
discretion on character, personality. Not every free agent attracts you,
but hey, sometimes you get stars and they're human. And
I look at the Green Bay situation, and I've said
this with Aaron Rodgers, It's very possible. It happens in marriages.
(26:49):
They've outgrown each other a little. He's California progressive, you know,
he's he's date celebrities. He's on the front of fitness magazines.
And this is a Midwest organization, that's the IBM, that's
a proud organization. And it's easy to blame the packers
or blame Aaron, but there are times that people outgrow
(27:11):
each other. And I've asked I asked Bill Polian, I've
asked two or three gms about this you know, day
of the draft, Aaron comes out, stuff leaks and I
think to myself, good god, what do you do? But
go back to your career. If you ever had players
that you loved, be at Chicago, Kansas City or the Colts,
and it's just like, hey, they've grown, we don't fit.
(27:35):
It used to be perfect. Is that something you monitor
and realize not all marriages are you know, Joanna Woodward
and Paul Newman, they don't all go sixty years, right, Yeah,
that's normal. And you know, I just look you at
the end of the day. Here, what what we try
to do is really communicate. And I don't ever like
(27:58):
if we have if we have an issue, I blame
myself for not communicating. And usually most of my screw
ups have been because I haven't done a good job communicating.
And Frank is outstanding at it. I like to think
I'm pretty good at it too. But we have a
very look, we have very like the standard that we
(28:19):
have for the way we're gonna do, the way we're
gonna play, the way we're gonna practice, the way we're
gonna prepare. That is what it is. And I think
we've brought our young players here that that have grown
up with us understand the standard and demand the standard.
Like that's that has to be and that has to
(28:40):
come from the locker room like Frank and I. Frank
and the staff can beat down on it, but for
the team to be good, it has to come from
the locker room. But then we have to constantly be
in communication at all points about what's going on, what
they you know, and and don't ever let it become
a look it can be, it can be a bump
in the road. Don't let it become a giant pothole
(29:03):
that we can't get out of. And that usually comes
back to us just communicating with our players all points.
It doesn't mean that we're giving in or it doesn't
mean we're no. It's just about communicating and working through
any issues that we have. And I have a lot
of Like like I told our I talked to our
team on Thursday for the first time this year, very briefly,
(29:24):
and you know, I made sure I just have a
lot of trust and faith and the players that we've
brought into building that I think they understand that we're
going to do everything in our power to get them better.
That's that's our job. We want to do everything we
can do to get you to your ceiling as a player,
because that's going to help them financially. But on the
(29:45):
flip side of that, you got to give us back
something too. This can't be a one way street. And
the way you work and way you come together as
a team is important for winning. Like I still like Colin.
The team still wins. It just does. Teams still win,
and it's the teams that can come together, stay healthy,
(30:06):
get a little luck along along the way that win
in this league. You know, for as steady as the
Colts have been since you've been here, you have had
two of the toughest moments in the league. As a GM.
You have a coach he backs out, Thank god you
have a great backup plan. And then Andrew Luck retires
(30:29):
and these are like they don't happen. This isn't stuff
you go to college for. You don't Andy Reid smart.
He can't teach you that the moment of the Andrew
Luck thing, that night, did you sleep? Can I just
ask you? Did you sleep that night? So I cared
(30:50):
deeply about Andrew still do, still very close with him,
and like a player's health and well being long term,
it's it's important to us, it's important to me. I
can't like, I can't operate. Look, I look, we're judged
by our wins and losses. That that's that's how we're judged.
(31:12):
And but on the flip side of that, I like,
I cannot get not be emotionally tied. That's just who
I am. Like, I can't change who I am. So
I was extremely close with Andrew, So I understood, like
I understood, Did I did I like it? Absolutely not.
(31:33):
I got this beautiful quarterback that is just you know,
he's a top two or three guy in the league,
and you know we're about there and we think we
got a really good, freaking young team and about to
freaking take off and we get thrown a curveball. Well,
that's just that's life. I'm explaining it to my children
(31:55):
and telling them that, you know what, nobody cares about
the problem. All they care about is if you try
to if you fix it. That's that's what our league's about. Now.
Did I have some moments where you know, I'll tell
you this, cod I never had a moment where I
felt sorry for myself. And I never had a moment
(32:17):
where I left the organization feel sorry for themselves. We
were gonna just keep moving forward and problem solved and
try to fix the problem. And that's all you can do.
I mean, it just works out. If you just keep
working at this and keep doing things the right way,
it's gonna work out. I mean, that's part of that's.
(32:37):
Problems happen, you gotta fix them, keep moving forward. By
the way, Philip Rivers last year really outperformed. I mean, hell,
he gave Buffalo fits. Was there a moment last year
with Philip Rivers that you were sitting there, maybe after
(32:57):
a game with Frank having a cold one, and you thought, shit,
this old dunk can still hunt a little, this guy
can still play. It was. It was. It will go
down as one of the highlights of of like of
all the years I've been in the league, being around
Philip for a year. Tom told me that to let's
(33:17):
goo told me said, Chris, you're gonna you're gonna love him,
and all right, so we got COVID going on, so
we don't. I don't actually get the meat Philip till
like June, till he finally gets here, him and his family,
and it's very brief. I drove my wife and I
drove over to his house just to say hello, and
you know, and then we get the training camp, and
(33:37):
you know, we had all these COVID rules and we
can't be around each other, and you know, we're all
wearing masks, we're all social distancing, we're doing zoom meetings.
But as the season went on, and you know, we
had a little bit of a rough start, but I
could just see the team's confidence in Philip growing. And
(33:58):
look that and that's because of him. He is. He's
a Hall of Fame quarterback in my mind, unequivocally, he's
a special, special leader and special teammate. As the season
went on, you could just see the confidence in the
team building on the way he played. And I mean,
(34:21):
Colin the guy's toe. I mean it was this is
a I mean I went in the training room, the
things black and blue. Most people aren't playing. Dude, he
don't even miss a freaking beat. He don't practice on
Wednesday for a couple of weeks, and he finds a
way to play. And he's one of the truly all
(34:41):
time special players to play in this league. What fun
he could still play, Colin. I think Philip Philip I
could have I mean first number one, because he believes it,
like that's half the battle, Like he believes he can
still play. And two, he's he's so freaking smart, Like
(35:04):
you can't fool the guy. You can't fool him. And
he's just seen so much football he'll he could still
play and find a way to be productive. That's just
that's how special Philip was. And let me tell you
where I was really proud of him. You know, because
it's hard. This game's hard to it's hard to walk
away from. And you know, we had a great talk
(35:28):
after the season's Look, dude, you take your time and
you figure out what you want to do and what
direction you want to go. And you know, when he
decided to retire, and I thought retired on a really
good note to his career. I was very proud of Philip. Yeah,
he's funny. He's one of those guys if you miked
(35:48):
him during a game, you could it could be a
TV show, that could be a network television show. He
is a for as nice a guy as he is
and all those kids, he is a trash talker. He
and Larry Bird. Hey, look when he entered between the lines,
he's gonna try to rip your throat out. And he
doesn't cuss. He doesn't, I mean, but his I mean, look,
(36:11):
he is competitive and he is out there to win.
He's out there to win every drill in every game.
And what made this year probably even a little more
special was And it sucks because our fans really didn't
get to know him, you know, because of COVID and
we were so limited. But the game's on the road.
(36:32):
Last year when we went on the road and there's
no fans in the stands and you could hear him,
like I'd be upstairs and you could hear him, and
it was just it was it was great because usually,
you know, when you're in a box, you can't hear
that kind of stuff, but you could hear him, and
he just loved I mean, god loved to play Chris.
(36:54):
I am a I love the draft. I've said, outside
of the Super Bowl and conference championships, I could watch
the draft and have as much fun as watching the game.
I do mock drafts. They're ridiculous. Do you ever I'm
already looking at mock drafts. The corner from LSU Stingley,
(37:14):
the pass rusher from Oregon, the quarterback, you know. I mean,
I'm already into it. Do you ever because you do
this draft? Well, do you ever look at mock drafts?
I mean, is there ever a time You're like, I'm
just gonna I just want to open this crap up.
I just kind of want to set see what people
are thinking, not to be influenced, but just eyeballs on it.
I want to see what they say. Well, look, I
(37:35):
got five kids, and I got two boys or who
are always looking at it. So they're peppering me all
the time like, well this site as you're taking him
note not taking him? Why not? So I'm not gonna
tell you I never look at it. Do I agree
with it all the time? Probably not. But with my
family and my children, especially my two boys, you know,
(37:59):
they're sixteen and thirteen. Um, they look at it and
they're giving me feedback at all points of how I've
screwed it up. Um, and my thinking is all jacked
up because the mocks don't have it the way I
have it. When you when you took Darius Leonard and
people went, oh, oh no, it was better. The other
(38:21):
night after we took Dio Cole, my oldest son testing
he goes Dad. They're killing you on Twitter again. Good.
That's how I like it. Chris, it's great seeing you again, Buddy,
I love it. Congrats on everything. Can't wait for camp?
All right? All right? You bet all right? You know
(38:45):
the drill. At the Volume Sports, follow us on Twitter
and Instagram, rate, review, and subscribe. We also have a
YouTube channel at the Volume Sports. I love when GMS
tells stories. You know, they've all been scout you don't
go to college in major, in general managering, I love
(39:06):
their I love their stories. This year was so strange
for the draft because there were no car rides in hotels.
You had to do so much of this off highlights,
and I think the results the teams that do their
homework will really separate this year from the teams that
did not talk. Soon The Volume
The volume. The Colin Cowherd podcast brought to you by
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Duel more ways to win. So Terry Bradshaw got some
(00:30):
Twitter heat because he came on my show The Herd
and he said, I wouldn't coddle Aaron Rodgers. I wouldn't
baby him. I just forced him to play, which, by
the way, green Bay can do, and it may be
the best remedy for at least one year because the
salary cap dead money hit would be so punitive if
(00:50):
they moved him. The reality here is Aaron Rodgers doesn't
have a no trade clause. They can send him largely
wherever they want to me the place that makes a
lot of sense isn't Denver. It's New York. The Giants
have two first round picks next year, two third round picks,
and two fourth round picks, So green Bay could get
(01:12):
a first, a third, and a fourth just next year
and it wouldn't damage the Giants rebuild, and it would
absolutely help the Packers rebuild. I'm more of a rip.
The band aid off guy to me, I'd rather just
move on fast. But it doesn't necessarily make great sense
(01:33):
for the Packers and it doesn't make great sense for
the Giants. I think you can make this move at
the trading deadline in October next year. You don't have
to make it now, and you don't have to make
it before the season, nor do you have to wait
until after the season. Let's see if Daniel Jones can play.
If he starts off six and one, eliminates the turnovers.
(01:56):
He's young, he's cheap, he's athletic, and he's winning. So
Green Bay moves off Aaron would have their own first
and two other firsts. The Packers historically pretty good at
drafting and developing. That also gives Jordan Love another six
seven eight weeks Ota exhibition season camp, seven eight weeks
(02:19):
behind Aaron Rodgers. If Jordan Loves not quite ready, give
him six or seven weeks watching Aaron play for the Packers.
With that, we bring in Chris Ballard used to work
for the Bears as their director of pro scouting, then
hooked up with Andy Reid in Kansas City. He was
the director of their football operations and is now the
(02:42):
very successful general manager of the Indianapolis Colts. So Chris, generally,
you know you've told me this before, and I agree
with this. My theory on the draft has always been,
once you have your quarterback, I would trade down as
much as I could. In fact, if you gave me
a ten year guarantee no more firsts two seconds, as
(03:03):
long as one of the seconds is top seven eight picks,
I would take that. This year, you didn't move as much.
I think you made a pick later in the draft. One.
This felt a little different in terms of Chris Ballard drafts.
That to me, it felt different. You went and got
the same You went and got two defensive ends early.
(03:25):
Some said, how come you didn't address left tackle. You
must be comfortable with who you have. So the people
that are saying, you know, that didn't look quite like
a Chris Ballard draft, you would say, what that all
of the unknown information. It's easy to move down when
you've got all the information and you feel really comfortable
with the depth of talent in the draft. So we didn't.
(03:50):
We thought there was plenty of good players. But saying that,
we just didn't feel the need to collect, you know,
a bunch of picks from three, four and five to
move down. So if we felt at every any trown
that if we like the player that we were going
to take and he had the character to match, and
that's a big thing with us, Colin. I mean, like
(04:13):
sometimes I wonder there's times I think we're almost too
hard on the character aspect of it. But a lot
of times and just you know, as long as I've
been in the league, and when I look back at
any myths that I've had and been a part of,
and I've been a part of a bunch of them,
usually it occurs because of some character fall. Whether it's
(04:36):
work ethic, whether it's instincts, whether it's toughness, there's something.
It's usually not talent. It's usually a character fall. So
we just said this year we're gonna be a little
more conservative and if we come across players that we
know one are gonna make us better. Two we're at
a position that we cove it, which you know, defensive
(04:58):
fronts always going to be one. We covered um and
three UM fit the character profile that we won, and
we're gonna we're gonna take the player. Yeah, Tom Talesco
is a buddy of mine. He's very much along those
lines they say when I spent I went and spent
um a night in their war room during the draft
(05:19):
the first round a couple of years ago. And you know,
after the side of the board there's red dots and
black dots for injuries off the board, character off the board.
There was something by the way, there's some good players.
There was an and his theory was always takes one
or two guys in a locker room can tear it apart.
You just you just doesn't matter how good your culture is.
(05:40):
So and by the way, Parcels was very much like that.
He didn't want any nonsense. I totally get that. Now,
you did take a player, one of your defensive ends
had a little bit of an achilles tendon problem. So
I mean, listen, you play football long enough, Chris, you
get hurt. So when you take one of your early
picks had an jury history, how do you weigh that
(06:03):
The talent was so high that we thought that it
was worth the risk. And then when you combine that
with you know where he was at in his rehab process,
our medical information from our doctors. We had him do
a bunch of work on it and you know, we
thought we thought Dio Dio was a you know, we
(06:23):
thought he was a first round talent, and to get
him at fifty four we felt pretty fortunate to do.
And then anytime you're able to add a disruptive player
up front is hard to do in the draft, especially
later in the draft. Any you know, usually when you
look at the defensive ends in this league, I'm sure
you're going to get some that that show up and
(06:45):
later in the draft, but the majority of them are coming,
you know, early in the draft. So when you can
get a big disruptive player at fifty four, we just
thought the risk, it was worth the risk. I'll never
forget last year and we took Julian Blackman third round,
and we got a lot of questions on the pick,
and we kept wondering because we had Julian at one
(07:05):
point at the back end of the first round and
we ended up kind of kicking him down a little bit,
but you know, he had an ACL and I just said, look,
what's the worst case scenario when we're gonna get him back.
Can we live with that? And is the player good
enough worth the wait? And we thought it was worth
the way, you know, it's the draft is funny. You're
(07:30):
seeing more and more GMS give up first round picks.
I always had two basic kind of theories on the draft.
I would rarely ever take a running back in the
first round, but I feel like i'd almost take one
every other year, like I do. Think you cannot have enough.
You need about three in this league. Now, urban Meyer
(07:52):
got some heat for taking a running back in the
first round, and I'm like that whole bell cow running back,
then you've got to be careful. McCaffrey's injured, now, Zeke's
yards per carry, So I would be So if I
was a GM, I would draft a running back two
out of three years. I'd never do I'd rarely do
it in the first My other takeaway has always been
kind of with pass rushers, which is you kind of
(08:14):
break rules for pass rushers. How many on average? You
just you just do what you gotta do to get
pass rushers on average in your life Bears Chiefs, Colls,
how many elite pass rushers per draft on your grade board? Poh,
it's I would tell you too. It at most in
(08:37):
a draft wow, where you just say you know what,
there's a no brainer, and I want you to think
back to our history, like like I look back to Chicago.
So we had Alex Brown, who was a fourth round pick,
really good football player. We traded for Wallet Gounlier, you know,
Jerry and Bobby to Paul. He made a great trade
and he kind of helped us and put that great defense.
(08:58):
We had a No. Five six and then we signed
Julius Peppers for you know what a one hundred million
and he was worth every penny of it, all right,
can you go? And then you go to Kansas City
and we had Tomba and Justin Houston and Tomba was
the first round pick and Justin was a three. Um,
you know. And then we came here and the cupboard
(09:19):
was pretty dry defensively, so you know, we had to
go out and we signed to Nico Autry Um, which
initially we played him at the three, then we kicked
him at the end and we signed you know, Justin
Justin Houston. UM. So we've been kind of just piecemelling
it here and so now we're just trying to throw
as much as we can at talent. We've got some
other young players that we really like, and Taekwon Lewis,
(09:41):
who played really well for us last year. We have
another young rusher in Komoco Terray who is really talented.
It's just had some bad luck with the knee. Um.
So we've got some young kids here that we think
can also you know, get into the mix. We signed
Rochelle from that can, that can that can play a
really significant role for us, that played good football in
LA and then we have Mohammed back. You can't do
(10:04):
it with just You got to have an eight man rotation.
I fullheartedly believe this to especially now that you're talking
about an added game. We're talking about seventeen games. But
to get through the entirety of the grind of the
season and to make a real playoff run, you've got
to be able to keep your snaps down on the
front and you've got to be able to play eight
(10:26):
or nine guys through the course of the season and
be successful. So you can't have enough defensive linemen on
your football team. If you just look at the runs
that have meet. Look at Tampa last year when they
got hot, I mean they had a good rotation going,
and I know the two top front lines guys get credit,
but they weren't playing one hundred percent of the snaps.
(10:47):
You go back to Frisco the year before. You know,
they lost in the Super Bowl, but they had a
good rotation of ends. That's one of the things we
really believe in. So I just anytime you got a
chance to take it this rough diffront player, you just
do it. You just take them to call on Coward
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(11:53):
we sent you FanDuel more ways to win. Chris the
Carson Wentz deal for you, It's interesting. You have always
been you know, you'll pay big money infrequently, but you'll
do it for the rare stars. So when you're gonna
when you're gonna eat up some of that contract. You're
(12:15):
having discussions with Frank Riich. This is not something you
just you'd have a cup of coffee in the morning
and do I know your diligence. Take me to the moment,
the drive home, the drive to work, the discussion, the
moment when you Chris Powder said okay, I'm going with
Carson Wentz. We're doing it. You talk me into it.
(12:39):
We had been having long discussions and you know, you
wish there was just like an Eureka moment, like all right,
no doubt. Unfortunately, that's not how my mind works. I
have got to process things over a long period of
time and really think them through, and then decisions will
be made when they need to be made. I mean,
I've always thought that, you know, why make a decision
(13:00):
and before you have to, and let's think through all
the things that that the you know, all the parameters
of what goes into it, all the dominoes that are
gonna you know what the dominoes are going to be
down the line, not just now, but also in two
twenty two, two twenty three, in two twenty four. You've
(13:20):
got to be thinking two three years out on every
because every decision you make has an impact on your
football team. And look we look, we dabbled around with
Matt stafford um and you know, in the Rams did
a great job coming in and you know, make it.
That's the player they wanted. You know, we weren't quite
there yet. Um. And then when it came to Carson,
(13:44):
it's a little like Philip last year. You know, Frank
had a Frank and Nick Sirianni had a really good
relationship with Philip. He knew the offense and it was
almost a seamless transition when we brought him in. Well
almost see the same thing with Carson here over the
first month and a half, where it's this pretty seamless
(14:05):
transition for Carson just because of his relationship with Frank,
who also happens to be the play caller. And I
don't I don't think you can ever. I don't. I
don't think you can ever minimize how important that is, Colin.
I mean, being with coach Read and with being with
Andy for four years taught me a lot about offensive
football and how important the play caller is in all
(14:29):
of this. And you know Frank has a lot of
that any and the quarterback has to feel comfortable with
you know, who's who's pulling the who's pulling the strings,
and who's pulling the trigger. And that made the Matt
made the trade for Carson a lot easier because I
knew there was a trust level between the two of them.
And trust is everything in this league, and trust between
(14:51):
the quarterback and the play caller is everything. Now, look,
there's a lot more things that go into play. You
got to protect him, you gotta put enough weapons round him.
But if if the quarterback feels really comfortable and the
play caller feels comfortable with the quarterback, I think you
got a chance, you know, for success, Chris. You know,
(15:13):
ideally the owner would own, the general manager would manage,
the coach would coach, the quarterback would quarterback. But we
know that some quarterbacks like Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers
or Tom Brady. They want to say after they had
great success. We know there's some owners. I mean, there's
been a handful of owners that have actually played. Bill
(15:34):
Pollian told me Sunday night. He said, Jim Ersey is
about as knowledgeable. He'll watch film. This is not a
guy that meddles like. He'll come in and have an opinion.
And he said, listen, he told it actually a very
funny story on I think it was it was it
was Tony Dungee Pollion, Dwight Freeney, I forget what it was. No,
(15:55):
it was Dallas Clark, and you know he there was
a big discussion and ersays like, I like Dallas Clark
with Jim because he's been doing it so long. Have
there been moments with you that he comes in and
gives you a macro opinion and he walks out of
the room and you're like, Okay, I gotta sleep on
(16:17):
this again. It doesn't have to be specific to a
corner's hips, you know, or running backs pivot. It's just
a big world view on something. So look, I'm very
fortunate because it's good. It's it makes my job easier
because on game day mister Ersay knows what he's seeing
out there, so I don't have to come in on Monday,
(16:40):
and like there's no bs to the deal now, like
he knew, he knows what he was watching out there
on the field, and so he knows if we have
problem areas I can't. There's no sugar corner, like, yeah,
he's watching the same game I'm watching, So he knows.
So that makes and then it makes it easier from
a need standpoint. When you know he's looking at the game.
(17:02):
He goes, Chris, we really need to address this, and
he's I would tell you he's usually right on what
he's saying. So and yes, I'll give you a very
clear example is last year, we really like Jonathan Taylor,
and we like him in the building, or scouts like him,
or coach, everybody liked him, and I'll ever forget in
(17:23):
the second round, he just We're all on a zoom call,
every scouts, everybody's on it, and all of a sudden,
mister Ursay pop said and goes, hey, Chris, Chris, you
really like Jonathan Taylor. What are you doing? Go get him?
And you know, next thing you know, we're making the
trade up three picks to go get Jonathan Taylor. So
(17:44):
he just said, what you love, you did your homework,
go get him. Yeah, go get him. And I think
that's like, I think mister Orsay really has a special
for unique players, the ones that really can change the
game because you you have to have him, you know,
you can't. You got to have difference makers on Sunday.
(18:04):
And I think he saw that and he saw he
felt it from us, and he said, go get him.
And that's a that's a beautiful thing with A and
there's and and here's the here's what's even better. This
is not somebody else in his ear. This is him,
Like I would tell you that that's something that other
places have to deal with, where they're having someone in
(18:27):
someone's ears saying something. No, this is mister Erstay and
his knowledge of the game UM, and his understanding of
football and what gives him, you know, an advantage UM.
And I think it's been proven over time. Brett Veach
and Andy Reid tell the story where Brett comes in
with film it's like four years ago on Patrick Mahomes.
(18:50):
He said, Andy, you've got to see this kid. And
so Andy looks at it and you know, appeases him. Okay,
and it comes in like three months later. Andy, this
kid insane, And I mean it must be an incredible moment.
You were a scout. You were in the cars, you
were staying at day's ends, you were eating at Applebee's
a lot. Take me to your early career. Okay, Chris,
(19:14):
you're in that car. You think you've seen somebody that
nobody else has seen and you just knew it. You knew, wow,
this it's a big twelve guy and a bad team.
Was there an electric moment for you early in your
scouting career and what that feeling is like in that car,
(19:34):
because it may back then the cell phones weren't maybe
around as much. You had to go back to the hotel.
Take me to your first magical moment as a young scout. Golly,
I can think of a couple, you know, I mean,
like you look back, like there's times I missed those
days on the road when I mean we would go,
(19:55):
I mean we'd be spent. I mean, I think I
can't remember how many nights I got into Marryott, but
it's incredible. I mean it's incredible how many total nights
I have. And so I'm gonna give you two. So
I leave training camp and Texas is freaking hot, like
it's hot, and then when you hit August, it is
like you're sweating, even when you don't want to sweat
(20:16):
even I mean, you get out of your car and
you're breaking out in a sweat. And I've gone to
watch University of Texas workout and I get in the
car and I am soaking wet. But I had just
watched the corner through drill work that was incredible. I
was like, man, this freaking kid can move. And he's
(20:36):
got everything you want. Everything. He fit us to a team,
He's got great ball skills, he's got instincts. Hey, he
has a great season. He goes to the Combine and
I think he runs four seven four at the Combine.
And we go to his pro day and he runs
again like four sixty nine. So I go back and
(20:57):
this is before Twitter, before for you know, information was
out there, but nothing like nothing like it is now,
Like it would have instantly killed this kid. So I
go back with God rest his soul. Darryl Drake we
had just hired him as a receiver coach, and Daryl
and I go and I remember looking at Darryl and going,
(21:19):
this is how you when you like a player, this
is how we get the right forty time on him.
And I hit that clock at about thirty eight yards
and got him at four fifty four. And it was
Nathan Vasher. He ended up going to the Pro Bowl
for US in Chicago and was really a good player.
And then the other one was Chris Harris, who was
at Louisiana Monroe. I'll never forget. We were at law
(21:41):
Tech early in the day. I'd scouted him. He had
one game that against LSU that I thought was incredible,
and during the season, and we were at law Tech
in the spring working out a bunch of guys and
he was having his Pro day the next day, I
mean that night, and only about four or five of
us drove over to the workout. And you know, we
(22:02):
ended up drafting him in the in the late sixth
round and ended up being an integral part of our
you know, defense in Chicago and so and so. Back
then when you first started this, there just wasn't as
many college football games, even on television. It just was
hard to get video of guys. If you go back
and watch the draft at ESPN in the eighties, the
(22:25):
reality was they didn't have video and a lot of
the players it was like my wife would gripe all
the time because we were we were still watching on
beta machines. So I thought I had a closet just
stacked with these beta tapes. I mean, he was crazy
and Jerry, like Jerry Angela was outstanding, and he was
an Jerry was an unbelievable teacher. I mean that's where
(22:49):
you know, that's where watching like really learning to watch
tape and identify the traits of successful players. And so
during the summer we would have to make these uh
time coach like almost get I get freaking convulsions thinking
about all the work. But we would have to timestamp
the in and out of every play to make these
(23:10):
cut up tapes of good and bad of players. So
I would take all summer, all our scouts with in
Chicago and we just had They would ship boxes of
beta tapes to our house to watch these, and then
we had a den downstairs in Chicago. We had a
room with all these tapes of players, their profile tapes
(23:30):
made up for years. So no technology and information is
a lot more prevalent than it is today than it
was then you know, Carson Wentz to me has more
of an Andrew luck personality than a Peyton Manning personality
or a certainly more than a Philip Rivers personality. That's
(23:52):
what it looks, that's what it feels like to me,
little understated, not as verbal, bright kid. What did you
know about his personality before you got him in the room? Well,
I mean, look, I've got a guy that coached him
for two years when was a part of the process
of drafting him, so that that was a real advantage.
(24:15):
And then his college coach was Craig Bowle who's now
at University of Wyoming, who recruited me to University of Wisconsin,
so I had an inside there into who he was.
And then North Dakota State also, you know, still had
some coaches there that were connected with But at the
end of the day, Frank and I just have a
(24:35):
lot of trust. And Frank, I mean, this guy, our
head coach, is outstanding Colin. I mean, he gets it.
He played in the league for fourteen years. He's brilliant, smart,
he's got great emotional intelligence. I mean I thought that
was the one, Like Coachree always thought had high level
emotional intelligence, And I think most great leaders have high
(24:57):
level emotional intelligence. And I think Frank does too. He's
just got a great way about him, um, you know,
dealing with the quarterback position, so you know his insight.
And then when you watch the tape, there's a lot
of good tape on Carson Lentz. I mean, I say
this all. I mean, I've said this a few times Colin,
but quarterbacks like you wish all of them came into
(25:20):
the league and just lift the league up and never
had any struggles. But there's there's a point when they
got to stand on the abyss and not jump. And
you know that's we can't let Carson jump. And I
don't think Frank will um he didn't play good last year.
I think Carson Carson admits that he didn't play good
(25:41):
last year. I mean I don't, and I think Carson
would tell you the same thing that you know, don't
don't put the blame on everybody else. I mean, we
all had our hands in you know what happened, you know,
back in you know, last year in Philly. Um for
whatever reason, you know, he was a part of that.
But it doesn't mean we still can't see the good
(26:03):
and the greatness of what's in him, and we believe
it's in there, and we believe, you know that over
time we'll get him to play at that level again.
You know, it's that you have very much. You guys
remind me a lot of Green Bay. You're not going
to mortgage your future. You're not gonna I mean, there's
(26:25):
a certain constitution to the way you do business that
frugal is probably the wrong word, but you use great
discretion on character, personality. Not every free agent attracts you,
but hey, sometimes you get stars and they're human. And
I look at the Green Bay situation, and I've said
this with Aaron Rodgers, It's very possible. It happens in marriages.
(26:49):
They've outgrown each other a little. He's California progressive, you know,
he's he's date celebrities. He's on the front of fitness magazines.
And this is a Midwest organization, that's the IBM, that's
a proud organization. And it's easy to blame the packers
or blame Aaron, but there are times that people outgrow
(27:11):
each other. And I've asked I asked Bill Polian, I've
asked two or three gms about this you know, day
of the draft, Aaron comes out, stuff leaks and I
think to myself, good god, what do you do? But
go back to your career. If you ever had players
that you loved, be at Chicago, Kansas City or the Colts,
and it's just like, hey, they've grown, we don't fit.
(27:35):
It used to be perfect. Is that something you monitor
and realize not all marriages are you know, Joanna Woodward
and Paul Newman, they don't all go sixty years, right, Yeah,
that's normal. And you know, I just look you at
the end of the day. Here, what what we try
to do is really communicate. And I don't ever like
(27:58):
if we have if we have an issue, I blame
myself for not communicating. And usually most of my screw
ups have been because I haven't done a good job communicating.
And Frank is outstanding at it. I like to think
I'm pretty good at it too. But we have a
very look, we have very like the standard that we
(28:19):
have for the way we're gonna do, the way we're
gonna play, the way we're gonna practice, the way we're
gonna prepare. That is what it is. And I think
we've brought our young players here that that have grown
up with us understand the standard and demand the standard.
Like that's that has to be and that has to
(28:40):
come from the locker room like Frank and I. Frank
and the staff can beat down on it, but for
the team to be good, it has to come from
the locker room. But then we have to constantly be
in communication at all points about what's going on, what
they you know, and and don't ever let it become
a look it can be, it can be a bump
in the road. Don't let it become a giant pothole
(29:03):
that we can't get out of. And that usually comes
back to us just communicating with our players all points.
It doesn't mean that we're giving in or it doesn't
mean we're no. It's just about communicating and working through
any issues that we have. And I have a lot
of Like like I told our I talked to our
team on Thursday for the first time this year, very briefly,
(29:24):
and you know, I made sure I just have a
lot of trust and faith and the players that we've
brought into building that I think they understand that we're
going to do everything in our power to get them better.
That's that's our job. We want to do everything we
can do to get you to your ceiling as a player,
because that's going to help them financially. But on the
(29:45):
flip side of that, you got to give us back
something too. This can't be a one way street. And
the way you work and way you come together as
a team is important for winning. Like I still like Colin.
The team still wins. It just does. Teams still win,
and it's the teams that can come together, stay healthy,
(30:06):
get a little luck along along the way that win
in this league. You know, for as steady as the
Colts have been since you've been here, you have had
two of the toughest moments in the league. As a GM.
You have a coach he backs out, Thank god you
have a great backup plan. And then Andrew Luck retires
(30:29):
and these are like they don't happen. This isn't stuff
you go to college for. You don't Andy Reid smart.
He can't teach you that the moment of the Andrew
Luck thing, that night, did you sleep? Can I just
ask you? Did you sleep that night? So I cared
(30:50):
deeply about Andrew still do, still very close with him,
and like a player's health and well being long term,
it's it's important to us, it's important to me. I
can't like, I can't operate. Look, I look, we're judged
by our wins and losses. That that's that's how we're judged.
(31:12):
And but on the flip side of that, I like,
I cannot get not be emotionally tied. That's just who
I am. Like, I can't change who I am. So
I was extremely close with Andrew, So I understood, like
I understood, Did I did I like it? Absolutely not.
(31:33):
I got this beautiful quarterback that is just you know,
he's a top two or three guy in the league,
and you know we're about there and we think we
got a really good, freaking young team and about to
freaking take off and we get thrown a curveball. Well,
that's just that's life. I'm explaining it to my children
(31:55):
and telling them that, you know what, nobody cares about
the problem. All they care about is if you try
to if you fix it. That's that's what our league's about. Now.
Did I have some moments where you know, I'll tell
you this, cod I never had a moment where I
felt sorry for myself. And I never had a moment
(32:17):
where I left the organization feel sorry for themselves. We
were gonna just keep moving forward and problem solved and
try to fix the problem. And that's all you can do.
I mean, it just works out. If you just keep
working at this and keep doing things the right way,
it's gonna work out. I mean, that's part of that's.
(32:37):
Problems happen, you gotta fix them, keep moving forward. By
the way, Philip Rivers last year really outperformed. I mean, hell,
he gave Buffalo fits. Was there a moment last year
with Philip Rivers that you were sitting there, maybe after
(32:57):
a game with Frank having a cold one, and you thought, shit,
this old dunk can still hunt a little, this guy
can still play. It was. It was. It will go
down as one of the highlights of of like of
all the years I've been in the league, being around
Philip for a year. Tom told me that to let's
(33:17):
goo told me said, Chris, you're gonna you're gonna love him,
and all right, so we got COVID going on, so
we don't. I don't actually get the meat Philip till
like June, till he finally gets here, him and his family,
and it's very brief. I drove my wife and I
drove over to his house just to say hello, and
you know, and then we get the training camp, and
(33:37):
you know, we had all these COVID rules and we
can't be around each other, and you know, we're all
wearing masks, we're all social distancing, we're doing zoom meetings.
But as the season went on, and you know, we
had a little bit of a rough start, but I
could just see the team's confidence in Philip growing. And
(33:58):
look that and that's because of him. He is. He's
a Hall of Fame quarterback in my mind, unequivocally, he's
a special, special leader and special teammate. As the season
went on, you could just see the confidence in the
team building on the way he played. And I mean,
(34:21):
Colin the guy's toe. I mean it was this is
a I mean I went in the training room, the
things black and blue. Most people aren't playing. Dude, he
don't even miss a freaking beat. He don't practice on
Wednesday for a couple of weeks, and he finds a
way to play. And he's one of the truly all
(34:41):
time special players to play in this league. What fun
he could still play, Colin. I think Philip Philip I
could have I mean first number one, because he believes it,
like that's half the battle, Like he believes he can
still play. And two, he's he's so freaking smart, Like
(35:04):
you can't fool the guy. You can't fool him. And
he's just seen so much football he'll he could still
play and find a way to be productive. That's just
that's how special Philip was. And let me tell you
where I was really proud of him. You know, because
it's hard. This game's hard to it's hard to walk
away from. And you know, we had a great talk
(35:28):
after the season's Look, dude, you take your time and
you figure out what you want to do and what
direction you want to go. And you know, when he
decided to retire, and I thought retired on a really
good note to his career. I was very proud of Philip. Yeah,
he's funny. He's one of those guys if you miked
(35:48):
him during a game, you could it could be a
TV show, that could be a network television show. He
is a for as nice a guy as he is
and all those kids, he is a trash talker. He
and Larry Bird. Hey, look when he entered between the lines,
he's gonna try to rip your throat out. And he
doesn't cuss. He doesn't, I mean, but his I mean, look,
(36:11):
he is competitive and he is out there to win.
He's out there to win every drill in every game.
And what made this year probably even a little more
special was And it sucks because our fans really didn't
get to know him, you know, because of COVID and
we were so limited. But the game's on the road.
(36:32):
Last year when we went on the road and there's
no fans in the stands and you could hear him,
like I'd be upstairs and you could hear him, and
it was just it was it was great because usually,
you know, when you're in a box, you can't hear
that kind of stuff, but you could hear him, and
he just loved I mean, god loved to play Chris.
(36:54):
I am a I love the draft. I've said, outside
of the Super Bowl and conference championships, I could watch
the draft and have as much fun as watching the game.
I do mock drafts. They're ridiculous. Do you ever I'm
already looking at mock drafts. The corner from LSU Stingley,
(37:14):
the pass rusher from Oregon, the quarterback, you know. I mean,
I'm already into it. Do you ever because you do
this draft? Well, do you ever look at mock drafts?
I mean, is there ever a time You're like, I'm
just gonna I just want to open this crap up.
I just kind of want to set see what people
are thinking, not to be influenced, but just eyeballs on it.
I want to see what they say. Well, look, I
(37:35):
got five kids, and I got two boys or who
are always looking at it. So they're peppering me all
the time like, well this site as you're taking him
note not taking him? Why not? So I'm not gonna
tell you I never look at it. Do I agree
with it all the time? Probably not. But with my
family and my children, especially my two boys, you know,
(37:59):
they're sixteen and thirteen. Um, they look at it and
they're giving me feedback at all points of how I've
screwed it up. Um, and my thinking is all jacked
up because the mocks don't have it the way I
have it. When you when you took Darius Leonard and
people went, oh, oh no, it was better. The other
(38:21):
night after we took Dio Cole, my oldest son testing
he goes Dad. They're killing you on Twitter again. Good.
That's how I like it. Chris, it's great seeing you again, Buddy,
I love it. Congrats on everything. Can't wait for camp?
All right? All right? You bet all right? You know
(38:45):
the drill. At the Volume Sports, follow us on Twitter
and Instagram, rate, review, and subscribe. We also have a
YouTube channel at the Volume Sports. I love when GMS
tells stories. You know, they've all been scout you don't
go to college in major, in general managering, I love
(39:06):
their I love their stories. This year was so strange
for the draft because there were no car rides in hotels.
You had to do so much of this off highlights,
and I think the results the teams that do their
homework will really separate this year from the teams that
did not talk. Soon The Volume
Host
Colin Cowherd
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