Colin’s top takes of the week!
First, Colin is joined by John Middlekauff, host of “3 and Out”.
They begin with the NFL Top 100 rankings and why it’s absurd that Lamar Jackson is ranked higher than Patrick Mahomes (3:30). They give their takes on the NFL’s new kickoff rule and predict that the NFL will adapt quickly to change it if it doesn’t work well (11:00)
Then, Colin makes a bold prediction that the two rookie quarterbacks taken last in the first round could make the biggest impact, and offers a theory as to why (16:30).
Then, Colin is joined by Nick Wright, host of “First Things First” on FS1!
They start with the contract showdown between Brandon Aiyuk and the 49ers, compare the difference in player leverage between NBA and NFL contracts (2:45)
Finally, they explain why Kevin Durant sealed his legacy during the Olympics with Team USA basketball by becoming the team’s all time leading scorer (29:45)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
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Speaker 2 (01:58):
All Right starts a pretty regular hit on Sundays between
John Middlkoff, a former NFL scout with Philadelphia who has
been obviously a regular on this podcast network since I
think pretty much Day one go lows his golf podcasts
as well. So you know, I was thinking about this
(02:19):
that when I built a volume, one of the things
I think about all the time is I think of
it a little bit like a swimming area. Stay in
your lane, like there are things I know and things
I don't. We have a series of people. You're a
football guy and a golf guy, Like everybody has sort
of a lane. And it's worked that way. And I've
seen that most of my life in corporate America, and
(02:42):
in corporate America, when you have problems is when people
think you know, a sales guy suddenly comes up and
wants to talk to me about content. ESPN was famous
for that. Here, I've got a segment I think could
work well for a car dealership, and I'm like, I'll
create segments. If you can sell them, you sell them.
But iHeart has never asked me to do a segment
(03:02):
because they found a sponsor. Like, that's not the way
it works. It shouldn't work that way. So Belichick, prime example,
got into trouble. He took over personnel. Pete Carroll and
Seattle got into trouble. He and John Snyder. Once John
Snyder the last couple of years took over personnel. Seahawks
had back to back great drafts. They had several where
Pete had influence, where they just kept missing on first
(03:24):
round picks. Rashad Penny the running back's a great example
where like everything was a reach. So when the players
vote on the NFL Top one hundred, it's illuminating. It
lets you look into what matters to players. They love athleticism.
Lamar Jackson is the voted the number one quarterback over
(03:45):
Patrick Mahomes because he's viewed as hyper athletic. This is
the NBA players a majority thinking Westbrooks better than Steph
Curry despite the fact they're both guards. One can't shoot
and has bad hands, like the two most important things
for a gar.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Jokic wants Russell Westbrook on his teams, like what are
we doing?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
What are we doing? So it's interesting. I don't have
a problem. I love Lamar, He's not Patrick Mahomes. But
it's interesting they have Dak Prescott ahead of Matt Stafford
and Joe Burrow. There is not that's not nobody thinks
that like in the league when you talk to personnel people.
I mean, Dak Struggles were the best offensive line for
(04:27):
years in football to win a single playoff game. Burrow
got to the Super Bowl with an egregiously bad offensive line.
So in the days that you were working for the Eagles.
I look at the top one hundred. I'm not offended
by it, but it illuminates how players view the world.
Hyper Athleticism is viewed on a grand scale for players.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I just think the way personnel departments and coaches work
in the NBA. If the Warriors are going to do
something big, they talk with Steph Curry. Obviously, Lebron James
has a huge hand in personnel and sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't, but you got to keep him happy.
The most famous dynasty of my life, the Patriots, never
asked Tom Brady's opinion one time. Now it doesn't mean
(05:11):
they shouldn't have it, but they never never even cross
Bill's mind. Andy is not asking Patrick Mahomes, you know
his for his draft board, right or in free agency. Now,
when a player plays somebody, if you play Lamar Jackson
and he kicks your ass and you go, that was
really good? Like that, there's something to be said. But
(05:32):
in the NFL, you don't play every team. So in
the NFC, only four teams in the NFC played the
Ravens last year. Right, it rotates every four years, so
half the league is not even playing this player. And
then there are teams in the AFC that aren't playing
them either. Colin this ranking, which I honestly have to
fake even caring about, I do not care about this,
(05:53):
and the Madden rankings which had Lamar and Patrick Mahomes
right here, Josh Allen is a better player than Lamar Jackson.
He's He's a better player. Yeah, the Chiefs feared Josh Allen.
They just played him both back to back playoffs on
the road. They feared Josh Allen. They were excited to
play Lamar again. That's not saying that Lamar's not good.
They knew they could handle Lamar. Josh Allen has kind
(06:14):
of owned them. This is in the playoffs. The reason
the Bills haven't won was Sean McDermott the defense, not Josh.
To me, there is a gap again Lamar's regular season
in the playoffs, he hasn't been remotely the same. No, no,
and that's a big problem for a team that at
this point in time, Like, we're not judging the Ravens
on twelve wins, thirteen wins, like who cares? Like, Yeah,
(06:35):
I expect the Ravens to be in the playoffs. He's
getting judged on those couple of games, just like Mahomes.
And that's the thing with Josh. He hasn't won, but
I think we all go.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Not totally his fault, right.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
They were Peyton manning games early when I remember being
in like early in college and high school, and I
love Peyton and I was like, this doesn't look like
the same guy. Have just watched for sixteen weeks. And
that's how Lamar felt in the big games. Or Mahomes,
he's like he's like a chameleon. He's morphed. He was
like one point in time he was throwing like Dan Marino.
Now he's became a game manager this year because of
(07:05):
his team. It's like he can do it all.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Do you know the one position that they have asked
mahomes opinion in the draft? It's the one position Kansas
City drafts poorly, wide receiver. So they have asked Mahomes
from time to time for an opinion on college receivers.
And I imagine they listen to him if they ask
Brett Veach drafts everything great except wide receiver. And my
(07:30):
take is he has an influence if you ask, because
I heard they have asked mahomes opinion on wide receivers. Well,
if you ask his opinion, he says, I like this guy.
You're not going to avoid that guy. If he's available,
you're probably gonna And it's the one position where they've
been really immature. Tony immature, Rashi Rice immature. Xavier Worthy,
I think that's his name out of Texas.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yea, it is.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I mean he's one hundred and sixty pounds. I mean
you can jam him up on the line. He'll make
spectacular plays. But he's he's pretty talented. Go Collin, No, no,
he is. I'm not disputing that. But there's also a
video all over practice of him getting tossed around like
a crew ton and a salad bowl, just getting thrown
all over the field.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Deshaun Waite a hundred. Now, DeShawn was more talented, I
think than this player. He went in the second round
because there were a ton of question marks when you
have the elite speed. Now, DeShawn was a great route runner.
I think a lot of people view Xavier Worthy as
more than just a go route guy if he can
do everything else. Andy has a soft spot for guys
with a little trouble, Like Andy's not afraid of those.
(08:28):
Bill just wants wants to avoid that at all costs.
For the most part, Andy kind of embraces it. And
I'm not saying like, and that's the Tony's even tyreek.
Early on, Kelsey was a character guy coming out of
high school. So I think Andy feels pretty comfortable that
he can mold that. But overall, the quarterback ranking, you
can not have an NFL quarterback ranking and not have
Josh Allen second. And I take you seriously, you can't
(08:50):
do it. I think he's the second best quarterback and honestly,
like I have more faith in him winning. It's on
the organization. But I've seen him be awesome in the playoffs.
I mean, say what you want about you know the Bengals,
who the owner's been cheap, they have proven over the
last twenty years. They've had moments with Marvin Lewis and
(09:11):
Carson Palmer, some really good teams with Marvin Lewis and
the Andy Dalton teams like they can build a team.
Joe Burrow benefitted two years ago. Their team was talented.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So I was thinking like like, and I'm not. It's
just people are different and I'm not traditional, so I
can move my wife's the same way. We can move
on a dime. And the kickoff rules. It's quirky looking,
but just the new kickoff rules. Think about it in
terms of when they changed the pat it became a
(09:40):
real play, one of those your kicker misses one about
every third week unless you have the Unless you have
the Braven's kicker. So seven of eight kicks were returned
in the Hall of Fame game. Seventy three percent of
kicks last year went through the end zone or touchbacks.
You get an extra play about six to seven time
a game. There were only like four balls kickoffs taken
(10:04):
for touchdowns last year. It almost never happens.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It's yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Mean like it may happen. It basically in the NFL
happens every six weeks. It happens once. You don't even
get that many. I mean, if a guy gets a
midfield or the other team's forty, it's considered a huge return.
So the NFL basically said, we just want more plays.
So I said this on the air, is that the
NFL constantly adjusts Baseball did when it had to. I mean,
(10:30):
Fox basically went to Baseball and said, we're not really
interested in signing you to another deal. Speed the game up.
So Fox literally told him how to tweak their schedule
speed the game up. ESPN, by the way, has no
interest from what I've heard in resigning baseball Lachlan Murdoch,
it's pretty clear in our building, it's not like baseball
(10:52):
is a priority. Baseball has changed when it's fundamentally had to,
or networks just don't want to do business with them,
and they have sped the game up. But it's a
different time and it does still feel like it lacks
juice and energy and pacing. So but the NFL in
a leadership role. I always said this about Tiger Woods,
(11:12):
number one golfer in the world, number one and change clubs.
Oprah Winfrey had the number one ratings and she literally
changed her show to more of an ethereal quality of life,
elevation of life show. She was number one Tiger and
Oprah changed. NFL does this number one pulling away and
makes changes. That's different from somebody going John, if you
(11:34):
don't quit smoking, you die. I'm not going to give
you a ton of credit for quitting when the option
is you're dead if you don't start exercising and stop smoking.
So baseball is a little bit like change or we're
just not interested in resigning you to long term deals.
So I guess my point is on the preseason thing.
People can fight it, but John, I watched it, and
(11:55):
I'm like, it's I It was the first time I
can remember watching every kickoff.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It was fascinating. I'm totally behind doing out with the
old because it was not working, but I watched. You know,
I'm kind of sick. I probably watch a coach press
conference a day different, you know, throughout the league out.
I ran into Sean Payton's yesterday. Because you get the
right coaches, they're giving you nuggets left.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And right, all sorts of nuggets.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And I saw this a couple of weeks ago aheadline
that the Packers special teams coach Rich Pasacia, probably the
number one herald the special teams coach in the league,
said the league might change things throughout the preseason. Sean
Payton doubled down on that. So I think they've told
everyone and this is where they deserve credit. We did this,
but we are not afraid to tweak it before week
(12:42):
one if we see different things. Because Sean Payton mentioned this,
and I do agree, there's a lot of moving parts
with where the ball could end up, and he's like,
it's hard to follow. It's hard for us the coaches,
it took us a while. The fans cannot follow this,
like if one goes out of bounds, if one goes
through the end zone, and obviously if you don't get
it to the front square. There are different yard lines.
I think one's twenty five, one's thirty, and one's forty
(13:03):
might be thirty five. He's like, it's too confusing. His
Sean Payton's pushback was, I'm totally cool with this change
of the formation, but just have one or the other right.
If you kick it out of the end zone or
kick it out of bounds, it starts at the forty
and if you kick it, if you don't kick it
to the square, started at the twenty. But you can't
have too many complications. And I agreed with that. The
(13:27):
one thing I think again, it was preseason game, the
Hall of Fame game. You could even have that in
his own category, like there's preseason, then there's whatever the
hell that is. I know it got ut out or whatever,
but I mean the people playing. I thought there would
be more just open lanes, and I'm not trying to
take too much away. It felt like the offensive players
(13:50):
because this guy gets a running start five yards, I
do have to back up immediately. And I in the
old rule I had more space so I could back
up and then attack. There's not really that much space.
And there were a couple of times when everyone just
went by him and the offensive guy was swallowed. So
and I assume the opposite. I was like, you're only
going to have to make a guy or two miss.
(14:10):
It's why, like Deebo Samuel's like, I want in because
in theory you think it's going to be easy, but
then you watch it in practice, you're like, maybe it's
not going to be as I would say offensive as
you it's going to be harder than who knows. Maybe
we'll see all sorts of stuff. But Sean Payton said this,
He's like, if the average if you're kicking in the
(14:31):
square and the average where they end up with the
ball is at the thirty eight yard line, over like
a two or three week period, every coach is going
to kick it in the end zone, start at the
thirty right. We'll just play the numbers, which would be bad,
which would negate everything they're trying to do and the
league obviously understands this, so they're trying. They want it
to be a play.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So a former NFL quarterback texted me the draft, and
I wrote this note down and I was, I have
notepads all over my house and I found this the
other day and I didn't bring it up, and it's
really interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Tom Brady alf draft takes.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I'm not going to go there, but he said, this
is not a small thing. Caleb Williams defensive coach, Jaden
Daniels defensive coach, Drake May defensive coach, rookie, he said,
and Michael Pennix in Atlanta backup defensive coach. He said,
(15:33):
don't be surprised if bow Nicks and JJ McCarthy with
really really bright offensive coaches in one year. If we
don't look up and go, those are the best two quarterbacks.
And this quarterback said, man, when you come into this league,
and this quarterback spoke from experience, he goes, I had
(15:53):
a defensive coach first, he said, it's a different language.
He said, bow Knicks and JJ McCarthy are getting a
master class level coaching experience that Pennix isn't getting with
a coordinator, Caleb's not getting he said. This guy said,
it's just he goes, and he said this he goes.
(16:16):
People bang on Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson for not
winning playoff games. He said, if you gave Josh Allen
to Andy Reid, do you think he'd have a super Bowl?
And his thing was, of course he would. So it's
just interesting is that we every year in this draft, John,
there's a quarterback drafted below the star. Very rarely is
(16:37):
the first quarterback taken the guy c J Stroud too,
Bryce YOUMP, So I'm not just saying now, c J.
Stroud got a great coach, a great coordinator, tanked Dell
Nicole Collins they had on draft picks. But your take
on because Kevin O connell is highly respected, I mean
the tall Sean McVay, Sean Payton, I spent a lot
of time with Sean. Shawn is way too smart to
(16:59):
be broadcasting. He has to be coaching. I think the
best over bet in the league is Bonecks at five
and a half. Like the old line's pretty good. If
the Franklin kid from Oregon works with Mems and Courtland Sutton,
they have workable tight ends. Two backs I think are capable.
What do you make of that that the first year
rookie quarterback the two with offensive coaches who are deeper
(17:22):
in the draft could be the hits.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, as I'm watching the Sean Payton press conference on
my iPhone at ten thirty at nine in my bed
next to my future wife, she's probably think I'm a nut.
He mentioned the name multiple times in Drew Brees and
obviously getting rid of the football is a big deal.
And the other thing he hammered home is like people
act like I just want to dink and dunk, like
that's the offense. No, we want to push the ball
down the field, and that is the game plan. So
(17:46):
I think the way that he talked about this guy
in the press conference was a lot of love. I
think he is really really high well. I think he
liked his like his rookie class. The way he was talking,
I think he's pretty excited about his team. This did
not feel like, you know, I think a younger Sean
Bill Parcells guy. If he's not happy, you can feel it.
He looked pretty excited with the group he has. Doesn't
(18:07):
mean they're gonna win eleven games. I'm kind of out
on Washington this year, not because I don't think Jayden
Daniels isn't really talented, but they're not that good. They
haven't been. They got rid of multiple d linemen. Now
you could say Chase Young's a little overrated. Monte Sweat
is not so that they lose talent there, they just
(18:27):
are not as talented as obviously. The Eagles are the
cowboys that divisions hard. The Giants have some players and
day ball, you have like he has been coaching, now
he's calling the offense. I could see the Washington just
having a rough season, and that's where you know big.
Of course they should. They've been been bad. They're resetting.
But when you're a quarterback and you don't have your
(18:50):
play caller and then all of a sudden, these are
offensive play caller good enough, Cliff Kingsbury, you see a
lot with defensive guys they start getting pressure, well who
they point the finger at the offensive play caller when
it goes wrong. It goes to Kyle Shanahan or Andy
Reid or Sean Payton or Kyle Shanahan and they go,
we'll fix it, and you go, yeah, they will. They'll
figure it out. And that's where it gets difficult. I
mean New England they feel a little bit like a
(19:13):
shit show right now. You know, no team in the
league has spent less cash. I've read this and heard
people say this over the last decade than them. I
mean that speaks one to the brilliants of Tom Brady
and Belichick building a team. But also I think there's
a knock on the craft can be a little cheap.
They like to do the most with the least amount,
where I think a lot of teams, like the Niners
(19:33):
of the Cowboy, they'll spend whatever it takes to try
to win. Like he's always it wasn't just Belichick being cheap.
You know, it felt like a kind of a mandate.
You have this rookie head coach who's not that far
removed from being a player. You got this defensive star
players underpaid that they had a kick out of practice.
It's getting weird. Diana Russini says, you know they've made
an offer to him at Judon that he's saying bullshit.
(19:56):
It's just there's a lot going on. The quarterback situation.
They have this major project. We've seen a million times.
What history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I've
seen Jacoby Brissett in a scenario on a bad team
thirty times in my life. We know exactly how this goes.
The record's terrible before Halloween, right around there, it's like,
we can't take this anymore. Throw the kid in. The
(20:17):
team's awful, and it can Jared Goff go the wrong
way and they got lucky. McVeigh came in the next
year and saved everything. But it goes the wrong way
with a situation like that, like dried Mayo ain't calling
the offensive place. You can just see how it gets ugly.
Even again, dan Quinn, he did inherit Matt Ryan. It's
(20:38):
a little harder with a young quarterback who, let's face it,
Malik Nighbors looks like a bigger thicker Odell Beckham from
eight years ago. And the other wide receiver went in
the top twenty five, and Brian Kelly got a pretty
good history of developing offensive players at Notre Dame, at
Cincinnati and now here, So I don't know. I mean,
(20:58):
dan Quinn got and I like dan Quinn. He did
get a job with Matt Ryan and Julio Jones on
the roster, so it's just they were kind of a
little more. They were already good, but Matt Ryan had
already been in the playoffs. Star it's a lot more difficult.
And I was thinking about this today. If you know
(21:19):
in that Giants dock when they tried to trade up
from three to six and Elliott Wolf essentially at the
end of the day said no, unless you give me
some godfather offer, not going to entertain it. If I
told you Drake May was with Daball who spent the
four years you know with Josh Allen, you would like
that scenario a lot more. Yes, when you put a
project on just a god awful team whose coach, I mean,
(21:44):
there's a decent doesn't mean he doesn't know football, but
he's never been remotely close to a position like this.
And now the fans are already turning on the owner
because of everything that went on with the Apple documentary
and the treatment of Beli. It's just weird. It's hard
to overcome that. I saw it when I was in
college with Alex Smith. The Niners were just a joke
that we used to joke in college. Could Pete Carroll's
(22:06):
team beat the Niners? And it was like, yeah, I
mean a lot of people would argue, I don't know,
they got about fifteen first rounders and this Niner team
struggled to win like four games, and Alex went there
and it was his career was an embarrassment, and then
he got real coaches and what happened? You're like, Alex,
it's pretty good. Yeah, it's and he's he's as mature
and smart of a quarterback that is coming to the
(22:27):
league last twenty five years. It is really really hard
to overcome negativity losing a coach who's not really comfortable.
So I guess that's a long winded way of saying,
like I I think it's so much easier when you're
When you're head coach, is the guy pulling the trigger
on the play call, he impacts the game. I'd never
quite understand, Like Sirianni, like, what really is he doing
(22:51):
on game?
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Dad?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, not calling a play, you know, toughness, Like is
he say this about Dan Campbell, Like obviously he's adding
an element of toughness to it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Are both doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, they're in a different category. But there are some guys,
you know, is Dan Quinn calling the defense? Is Drive
Mail calling the defense? So they if they take that
part away. So it's why when Robert Sala gets the
Jets job, he immediately goes, I'm not gonna be the coordinator.
It's like, well, what the fucking I hire you for?
Just to give ross peaches. I mean, you've had two
good years as a coordinator and now you're giving up
(23:25):
the asset in which I hired you for. Part of
being the head coaches, you gotta lead, You got to
you gotta motivate, you gotta run practice and ideally call
one side of the ball. That's what all these coaches do.
There's a rare group of people. Harbaugh's a great example
who can dominate Bill Parcells. Most guys have to be
pretty hands on in this modern day of football, right
(23:45):
the games. This is not nineteen eighty seven where I
can win most of my games seventeen to thirteen. If
I got the toughest guys, I can beat the shit
out of you.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
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Speaker 2 (24:45):
All right, Nick, Right, we haven't talked in a while,
so I thought this was here's an interesting topic, and
I bring this up because you're one of the bigger
NBA fans. Is that some things don't sound don't sound comforting,
and they may sound almost appalling, but they're true, and
(25:07):
that treating your employees and paying them more than they
deserve is really bad business. And that the reason the
NFL is king it's virtually impossible to find a bad
contract in the league. I can remember Albert Hainsworth for
about a year got paid a ton with the Patriots.
You remember it because it's so infrequent. It may be
(25:28):
the only bad contract for the Patriots. Every NBA team
has a terrible contract, some have three. You know, before
James Dolan got distracted by the Sphere, it was like
the half the contracts for the next were bad contracts.
Is that One of the reasons that the NFL is
king is because they have a weak union, And that
sounds terrible to say. Players have like Brandon Ayuk. They're like, no,
(25:53):
we're not going to cave. There's a bunch of good
receivers in next year's draft. We'll just go draft them. Now.
I think they want him. They're furious. They know that
the windows shrinking, their players are getting older. But I
think I've talked to a lot of guys in the NBA.
St Frank Vogel the other night at dinner. You know, La,
you see a lot of pro coaches, like especially where
I live. There all are in the beast communities, and
(26:16):
football coaches are happier. Basketball coaches are all miserable, even
the successful ones. And the reason being is they have
cost certainty, they have control. In the NFL, you can
be productive but you're a pain in the ass. I'm
moving off you. I mean, seven rounds of players half
the league's undrafted. In the NBA, after the fourteenth pick,
you run out of players. And this Brandon Ayuk situation
(26:38):
is interesting because in the NBA he would get paid
and he may go to coach fired. And in the
NFL they're like, now we got a bunch of good players.
Draft will give us nine receivers. We'll give you a number.
I mean, you didn't make like twenty three million.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
You're not making thirty.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
And I think it really so my point being is
it not giving the employee everything they want is why
the NFL succeeds. It forces players to get their shit together.
Like you don't get that nine year baseball contract. We're
like year four, five and six. You're like, I'm getting
my money. The union so strong and Brandon Ayuk, the
(27:14):
Niners are saying, take it or leave it? Well, take
it or leave it?
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I actually I so I think I look at I
might I agree with some of what you're saying. I
wanted the well, yes, I'm definitely a union guy, But
I look at this. I look at the NBA and
the Ayuk thing, separately. So let me deal with the
NBA thing first. I actually think a huge part of
the issues that you're describing with the NBA are caused
(27:43):
by the individual player max. I think so many of
the if the NBA salary cap was one hundred and
fifty million, and if you wanted to give Joker one
hundred and forty of it, you could so many of these.
So many of the complaints of the NBA go away
(28:04):
for two reasons. One is one of the reasons NBA
guys get what I would call non contract benefits, which is,
I don't want to practice today, Let's not practice today
those types of things. Is because if you're artificially capping
(28:25):
what you can pay them and everyone can pay them
the same, you have to pay them elsewhere. You have
to be like, Okay, you're actually worth one hundred million
a year, I can only pay you fifty so, and
everyone can pay you fifty so, therefore we have to
give you these fringe benefits like you know what they
give college football coaches, country club memberships, whatever, in order
(28:48):
to make up that delta. The other thing the individual
player cap does is it makes it to where the
middle class NBA is wildly overpaid, and that's what fans.
People think fans are gonna get pissed when NBA guys
are making a million a game. They're not. They're not
going to be mad when Jason Tatum, who's the best
(29:08):
player on a champion, makes a million a game. Not
more mad than there are right now when he makes
half a million a game. Where people will get mad
is when they got mad at Tobias Harris. They're like, wait,
you're the sixty third best player in the league and
you're making thirty million a year. But that exists because
of the individual player max. So that's the first that's
(29:32):
the NBA part. In my opinion. The Ayuk thing. What
I think is fascinating about Ayuk is people are wondering,
why are the Niners gonna cave? Why are the Niners
who are gonna get nothing backup substance for this season
when they've got to win, when it's the last year theoretically,
(29:53):
when perty's cheap, when Trent's thirty six million, why are
they going to cave and trade him at an inopportune time?
And I said it on the show today, and I
think it's I think people, I think this will resonate
with people if they think not of NFL teams but
of their own workplace, which is it is the leverage
(30:16):
a Ukaz is I can make it miserable here and
people don't think about that. Think about any workplace you've
been in where someone who's important and unfireable or ish
comes in has a bad attitude. Is shit talking other
people is bringing the morale? Like bringing every room they
(30:40):
walk you, they walk into you like, oh that kills
the vibe, that kills working anywhere. And I think that
is oddly the leverage au Caz. The leverage i ukaz
is this can be miserable guys, and if people doubt
how much of an impact that can have. Read the
ESPN article today on what happened to the Eagles. Eagles
(31:02):
were ten and one, they had won like twenty three
of twenty five games. Yeah, went to Super Bowl, did
all that, and then what happened to him? Well it
seems like the coach and the quarterback couldn't be in
a room one on one together and the whole thing collapsed.
So I think, oddly, the leverage I you has, or
any of these guys have, is I can be a
dick and I can make team meetings and the locker
(31:24):
room suck. And you if I'm too good to cut,
what are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
So I had an I had a couple of Olympic
team rants today and I said one of the things
I said with KD, I said, actually being the all
time leading scorer cements his legacy. So KD is salt
(31:54):
to a chef. He makes everything better, eggs, carmel. It
doesn't matter. You put him on any team to the finals.
With Westbrook, Lebron couldn't decode Westbrook right. He made the
Warriors the best team arguably ever. Even in Brooklyn. He
was outstanding the fact that his teammate wouldn't get the vaccine.
There's only so much you can do. So and then
(32:15):
you put him on this team, And I said, if
you look at even great players, you put Tatum around
great players, he kind of shrinks, Steph has to adjust
Embiid clogs it. Lebron takes a leadership role but won't
score as much. KD works everywhere. Now as long as
(32:38):
you don't ask him to lead, don't ask him to
do that, just ask him to fit. He is the
salt to the chef. Oh We've got it. Everything will
taste great tonight. So that is that's go ahead, finish. Sorry.
So it's perfect that he on a collection of the
(32:58):
world's best players that thirty years from now in a bar,
you'll be like, who's the leading scorer?
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Jordan?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, well Curry not even close? Lebron No, not close. Okay,
what time out? Let me think, was it Let's go
back to the Olympics, was it Bill Bradley will no, no, no,
it's Kevin Durant, And you'll be like, the fuck.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It is like because when you ask players. Mark Fus,
a buddy of mine, he coaches the Olympics assistant years ago.
I said, I just asked him, like, like, tell me
one thing that's just crazy about coaching the Olympics, and
he just went, Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Man, that's all he said.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Right, So the.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
He is probably if you take the this is something
Brew hasn't said this exact thing, but he's basically said
a different version of it, and I think he's right.
Take the twenty greatest players ever, he's somewhere on the
close to twenty, but on there, yeah, there is not
(34:06):
a single one of them that you can simply drop
on every great team in NBA history, and it definitely
works other than Dura. Like, I totally totally agree. It
does not matter the era, the rules, what what redundancy,
(34:29):
they already have anything. Drop him on any great team
and it works no great And so that is and
your point is, I think if if Kevin heard this,
he would say, that's what I've been saying, which is,
I don't want to be the leader. When I'm asked
(34:51):
about leadership, I'm like, that's the coach's shop.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
You know.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
What I want to do is play basketball. And you
know what everyone seems to say, say, I'm awesome at
playing basketball, and you guys tar me, I think, again,
this is what I think Kevin would say with I'm
a bad leader, but luckily my job is basketball player,
not leader, so fuck off. Like I think that's what
he's say And it's like, it's not a terrible argument
(35:19):
except for the fact that it seems like the other
guys in that room of greatness are kind of able
to multitask it or have somebody alongside him who's also great,
who can do it for him. And so it is
it is such a unique thing because I do think
(35:41):
I do think Durant is I've told you this on
the podcast before, but I'll say it again. I had
somebody who is super close with one of the greatest
players ever and it's not Durant. Say if you if
(36:01):
we were to line the twenty greatest players up and
they're all at their peak on a black tip and
ask someone who didn't know about resumes or anything whatever,
who they wanted who they think the best guy is,
and you described it's like, Okay, the points at Michael
(36:22):
Jordan and it's like, all right, tell me about that guy.
It's like, well, he's average size, amazing athlete, good not
great shooter, crazy, crazy competitor. They'd be like, okay, next
to point it shit. I mean, the most dominant physical
(36:46):
force is you know, gonna come and go with effort,
is going to be a liability at the free throw line,
but is going to give you a guaranteed thirty Okay, Nora.
They pointed Lebron all right, not the best shooter in
the room, not the best dribbler, probably the best passer,
and is probably the best athlete. Okay, what about that guy, oh, Durant, Well,
(37:12):
he's the second tallest person here. He's also the second
best shooter. He's also the fourth best dribbler. He also
can pass, he can defend, and they'd be like, well,
I'm fucking taking him. They're like, wait, he's the second
tallest and the second best shooter. They're like, oh, yeah,
he can do that. Is he durable? Well, he's gonna
play twenty years, like the can't. Is he a terrible defender?
Speaker 1 (37:34):
No, he can.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
He can, you know, credibly guard a bunch of response.
But despite that, he's probably kind of underachieved. And I like, so,
I like all of those things are true, and it's
because of that leadership component that he has been honest about, like,
I don't think that's my job, so I'm not going
(37:55):
to do it. And I think it's fascinating because when
he looks best around the best, and then other guys
when they're around the best, you're like, oh, you're a
grade lower, like Tatum. Tatum's around the best, and it's like, oh,
you're just a grade lower. Durant's around the best, and
you're like, are you the best player alive? Like it's
(38:15):
such a fascinating thing.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah no. And I think somebody said this once that
the greatest athletes. You wouldn't really want them to be
your boss because they have such bad personal tendencies. They're
very selfish, they're relentless, they're harsh. I mean, Jordan could
be just not just not a giver, a taker. Same
(38:39):
with the Lake Kobe Bryant. But Kevin Durant actually would
be a fun hang like he would be you could
do eighty two games and it'd be like he'd get
a drink with you, you know, they're you would just
he would make you laugh when you were having a
bad day. He'd put his arm around you and goes, okay, bro,
let's just go HP.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I totally agree with this, I and I it's one
of the I've tried kind of I don't want to
say behind the scenes, but I know some people that
are tight with Kevin and listen, at one point, I
you know, I know, I know definitively that Kevin, you know,
(39:16):
thought I was one of the people's kind of a
problem with the media, and that's like, that's his right,
that's fine. But I have tried to kind of throw
back channels like political stuff, like try to set up
a situation where he and I could sit and talk
basketball or sit and talk, because over the last four years,
(39:37):
I have grown to have such affection, if you will,
for kind of just how comfortable he is in his
own skin, like the he's gone a long way from
the burners and all that stuff. It's like, nah, if
I think you're full of shit on the Internet, I'm
gonna tell you. Like I thought it was hilarious that
like a couple of days into the Olympics, on and
(39:59):
off he was arguing with strangers on the internet on Twitter.
It's like, dude, you're you got half a billion dollars
your single, You're wildly famous in the Olympic village in Paris,
and you're like, I got to get these tweets off, man,
I don't care. I'm gonna sit here and argue with
you guys about basketball. And I was like, I just
(40:21):
I found it charming. And I also think he has
such an immense respect for the game itself that I
really like. So I like Durant. I really like Durant,
And I do I agree with you like he would.
I do think he'd be a great guy to be,
(40:41):
you know, to be on a team with. And I
do think he'd be of all the superstars one of
the best hangs and that's also it's also probably helpful.
He's one of the only superstars of that level that's
still like a single guy, like hanging out with the
fellas like Steph and Lebron. Everybody's married with kids. Durance
is like, Nah, I'm gonna play video games, smoke a
(41:02):
little weed and play basketball. Like I don't know about
you guys. Spell them a life man.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
take a moment, rate and review
The volume.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
All right, forget what the calendar says. The football season
actually to me, starts Saturday. The Baltimore Ravens open their
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Speaker 2 (01:58):
All Right starts a pretty regular hit on Sundays between
John Middlkoff, a former NFL scout with Philadelphia who has
been obviously a regular on this podcast network since I
think pretty much Day one go lows his golf podcasts
as well. So you know, I was thinking about this
(02:19):
that when I built a volume, one of the things
I think about all the time is I think of
it a little bit like a swimming area. Stay in
your lane, like there are things I know and things
I don't. We have a series of people. You're a
football guy and a golf guy, Like everybody has sort
of a lane. And it's worked that way. And I've
seen that most of my life in corporate America, and
(02:42):
in corporate America, when you have problems is when people
think you know, a sales guy suddenly comes up and
wants to talk to me about content. ESPN was famous
for that. Here, I've got a segment I think could
work well for a car dealership, and I'm like, I'll
create segments. If you can sell them, you sell them.
But iHeart has never asked me to do a segment
(03:02):
because they found a sponsor. Like, that's not the way
it works. It shouldn't work that way. So Belichick, prime example,
got into trouble. He took over personnel. Pete Carroll and
Seattle got into trouble. He and John Snyder. Once John
Snyder the last couple of years took over personnel. Seahawks
had back to back great drafts. They had several where
Pete had influence, where they just kept missing on first
(03:24):
round picks. Rashad Penny the running back's a great example
where like everything was a reach. So when the players
vote on the NFL Top one hundred, it's illuminating. It
lets you look into what matters to players. They love athleticism.
Lamar Jackson is the voted the number one quarterback over
(03:45):
Patrick Mahomes because he's viewed as hyper athletic. This is
the NBA players a majority thinking Westbrooks better than Steph
Curry despite the fact they're both guards. One can't shoot
and has bad hands, like the two most important things
for a gar.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Jokic wants Russell Westbrook on his teams, like what are
we doing?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
What are we doing? So it's interesting. I don't have
a problem. I love Lamar, He's not Patrick Mahomes. But
it's interesting they have Dak Prescott ahead of Matt Stafford
and Joe Burrow. There is not that's not nobody thinks
that like in the league when you talk to personnel people.
I mean, Dak Struggles were the best offensive line for
(04:27):
years in football to win a single playoff game. Burrow
got to the Super Bowl with an egregiously bad offensive line.
So in the days that you were working for the Eagles.
I look at the top one hundred. I'm not offended
by it, but it illuminates how players view the world.
Hyper Athleticism is viewed on a grand scale for players.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I just think the way personnel departments and coaches work
in the NBA. If the Warriors are going to do
something big, they talk with Steph Curry. Obviously, Lebron James
has a huge hand in personnel and sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't, but you got to keep him happy.
The most famous dynasty of my life, the Patriots, never
asked Tom Brady's opinion one time. Now it doesn't mean
(05:11):
they shouldn't have it, but they never never even cross
Bill's mind. Andy is not asking Patrick Mahomes, you know
his for his draft board, right or in free agency. Now,
when a player plays somebody, if you play Lamar Jackson
and he kicks your ass and you go, that was
really good? Like that, there's something to be said. But
(05:32):
in the NFL, you don't play every team. So in
the NFC, only four teams in the NFC played the
Ravens last year. Right, it rotates every four years, so
half the league is not even playing this player. And
then there are teams in the AFC that aren't playing
them either. Colin this ranking, which I honestly have to
fake even caring about, I do not care about this,
(05:53):
and the Madden rankings which had Lamar and Patrick Mahomes
right here, Josh Allen is a better player than Lamar Jackson.
He's He's a better player. Yeah, the Chiefs feared Josh Allen.
They just played him both back to back playoffs on
the road. They feared Josh Allen. They were excited to
play Lamar again. That's not saying that Lamar's not good.
They knew they could handle Lamar. Josh Allen has kind
(06:14):
of owned them. This is in the playoffs. The reason
the Bills haven't won was Sean McDermott the defense, not Josh.
To me, there is a gap again Lamar's regular season
in the playoffs, he hasn't been remotely the same. No, no,
and that's a big problem for a team that at
this point in time, Like, we're not judging the Ravens
on twelve wins, thirteen wins, like who cares? Like, Yeah,
(06:35):
I expect the Ravens to be in the playoffs. He's
getting judged on those couple of games, just like Mahomes.
And that's the thing with Josh. He hasn't won, but
I think we all go.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Not totally his fault, right.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
They were Peyton manning games early when I remember being
in like early in college and high school, and I
love Peyton and I was like, this doesn't look like
the same guy. Have just watched for sixteen weeks. And
that's how Lamar felt in the big games. Or Mahomes,
he's like he's like a chameleon. He's morphed. He was
like one point in time he was throwing like Dan Marino.
Now he's became a game manager this year because of
(07:05):
his team. It's like he can do it all.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Do you know the one position that they have asked
mahomes opinion in the draft? It's the one position Kansas
City drafts poorly, wide receiver. So they have asked Mahomes
from time to time for an opinion on college receivers.
And I imagine they listen to him if they ask
Brett Veach drafts everything great except wide receiver. And my
(07:30):
take is he has an influence if you ask, because
I heard they have asked mahomes opinion on wide receivers. Well,
if you ask his opinion, he says, I like this guy.
You're not going to avoid that guy. If he's available,
you're probably gonna And it's the one position where they've
been really immature. Tony immature, Rashi Rice immature. Xavier Worthy,
I think that's his name out of Texas.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yea, it is.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I mean he's one hundred and sixty pounds. I mean
you can jam him up on the line. He'll make
spectacular plays. But he's he's pretty talented. Go Collin, No, no,
he is. I'm not disputing that. But there's also a
video all over practice of him getting tossed around like
a crew ton and a salad bowl, just getting thrown
all over the field.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Deshaun Waite a hundred. Now, DeShawn was more talented, I
think than this player. He went in the second round
because there were a ton of question marks when you
have the elite speed. Now, DeShawn was a great route runner.
I think a lot of people view Xavier Worthy as
more than just a go route guy if he can
do everything else. Andy has a soft spot for guys
with a little trouble, Like Andy's not afraid of those.
(08:28):
Bill just wants wants to avoid that at all costs.
For the most part, Andy kind of embraces it. And
I'm not saying like, and that's the Tony's even tyreek.
Early on, Kelsey was a character guy coming out of
high school. So I think Andy feels pretty comfortable that
he can mold that. But overall, the quarterback ranking, you
can not have an NFL quarterback ranking and not have
Josh Allen second. And I take you seriously, you can't
(08:50):
do it. I think he's the second best quarterback and honestly,
like I have more faith in him winning. It's on
the organization. But I've seen him be awesome in the playoffs.
I mean, say what you want about you know the Bengals,
who the owner's been cheap, they have proven over the
last twenty years. They've had moments with Marvin Lewis and
(09:11):
Carson Palmer, some really good teams with Marvin Lewis and
the Andy Dalton teams like they can build a team.
Joe Burrow benefitted two years ago. Their team was talented.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So I was thinking like like, and I'm not. It's
just people are different and I'm not traditional, so I
can move my wife's the same way. We can move
on a dime. And the kickoff rules. It's quirky looking,
but just the new kickoff rules. Think about it in
terms of when they changed the pat it became a
(09:40):
real play, one of those your kicker misses one about
every third week unless you have the Unless you have
the Braven's kicker. So seven of eight kicks were returned
in the Hall of Fame game. Seventy three percent of
kicks last year went through the end zone or touchbacks.
You get an extra play about six to seven time
a game. There were only like four balls kickoffs taken
(10:04):
for touchdowns last year. It almost never happens.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
It's yeah, I.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Mean like it may happen. It basically in the NFL
happens every six weeks. It happens once. You don't even
get that many. I mean, if a guy gets a
midfield or the other team's forty, it's considered a huge return.
So the NFL basically said, we just want more plays.
So I said this on the air, is that the
NFL constantly adjusts Baseball did when it had to. I mean,
(10:30):
Fox basically went to Baseball and said, we're not really
interested in signing you to another deal. Speed the game up.
So Fox literally told him how to tweak their schedule
speed the game up. ESPN, by the way, has no
interest from what I've heard in resigning baseball Lachlan Murdoch,
it's pretty clear in our building, it's not like baseball
(10:52):
is a priority. Baseball has changed when it's fundamentally had to,
or networks just don't want to do business with them,
and they have sped the game up. But it's a
different time and it does still feel like it lacks
juice and energy and pacing. So but the NFL in
a leadership role. I always said this about Tiger Woods,
(11:12):
number one golfer in the world, number one and change clubs.
Oprah Winfrey had the number one ratings and she literally
changed her show to more of an ethereal quality of life,
elevation of life show. She was number one Tiger and
Oprah changed. NFL does this number one pulling away and
makes changes. That's different from somebody going John, if you
(11:34):
don't quit smoking, you die. I'm not going to give
you a ton of credit for quitting when the option
is you're dead if you don't start exercising and stop smoking.
So baseball is a little bit like change or we're
just not interested in resigning you to long term deals.
So I guess my point is on the preseason thing.
People can fight it, but John, I watched it, and
(11:55):
I'm like, it's I It was the first time I
can remember watching every kickoff.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
It was fascinating. I'm totally behind doing out with the
old because it was not working, but I watched. You know,
I'm kind of sick. I probably watch a coach press
conference a day different, you know, throughout the league out.
I ran into Sean Payton's yesterday. Because you get the
right coaches, they're giving you nuggets left.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And right, all sorts of nuggets.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
And I saw this a couple of weeks ago aheadline
that the Packers special teams coach Rich Pasacia, probably the
number one herald the special teams coach in the league,
said the league might change things throughout the preseason. Sean
Payton doubled down on that. So I think they've told
everyone and this is where they deserve credit. We did this,
but we are not afraid to tweak it before week
(12:42):
one if we see different things. Because Sean Payton mentioned this,
and I do agree, there's a lot of moving parts
with where the ball could end up, and he's like,
it's hard to follow. It's hard for us the coaches,
it took us a while. The fans cannot follow this,
like if one goes out of bounds, if one goes
through the end zone, and obviously if you don't get
it to the front square. There are different yard lines.
I think one's twenty five, one's thirty, and one's forty
(13:03):
might be thirty five. He's like, it's too confusing. His
Sean Payton's pushback was, I'm totally cool with this change
of the formation, but just have one or the other right.
If you kick it out of the end zone or
kick it out of bounds, it starts at the forty
and if you kick it, if you don't kick it
to the square, started at the twenty. But you can't
have too many complications. And I agreed with that. The
(13:27):
one thing I think again, it was preseason game, the
Hall of Fame game. You could even have that in
his own category, like there's preseason, then there's whatever the
hell that is. I know it got ut out or whatever,
but I mean the people playing. I thought there would
be more just open lanes, and I'm not trying to
take too much away. It felt like the offensive players
(13:50):
because this guy gets a running start five yards, I
do have to back up immediately. And I in the
old rule I had more space so I could back
up and then attack. There's not really that much space.
And there were a couple of times when everyone just
went by him and the offensive guy was swallowed. So
and I assume the opposite. I was like, you're only
going to have to make a guy or two miss.
(14:10):
It's why, like Deebo Samuel's like, I want in because
in theory you think it's going to be easy, but
then you watch it in practice, you're like, maybe it's
not going to be as I would say offensive as
you it's going to be harder than who knows. Maybe
we'll see all sorts of stuff. But Sean Payton said this,
He's like, if the average if you're kicking in the
(14:31):
square and the average where they end up with the
ball is at the thirty eight yard line, over like
a two or three week period, every coach is going
to kick it in the end zone, start at the
thirty right. We'll just play the numbers, which would be bad,
which would negate everything they're trying to do and the
league obviously understands this, so they're trying. They want it
to be a play.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So a former NFL quarterback texted me the draft, and
I wrote this note down and I was, I have
notepads all over my house and I found this the
other day and I didn't bring it up, and it's
really interesting.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Tom Brady alf draft takes.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
I'm not going to go there, but he said, this
is not a small thing. Caleb Williams defensive coach, Jaden
Daniels defensive coach, Drake May defensive coach, rookie, he said,
and Michael Pennix in Atlanta backup defensive coach. He said,
(15:33):
don't be surprised if bow Nicks and JJ McCarthy with
really really bright offensive coaches in one year. If we
don't look up and go, those are the best two quarterbacks.
And this quarterback said, man, when you come into this league,
and this quarterback spoke from experience, he goes, I had
(15:53):
a defensive coach first, he said, it's a different language.
He said, bow Knicks and JJ McCarthy are getting a
master class level coaching experience that Pennix isn't getting with
a coordinator, Caleb's not getting he said. This guy said,
it's just he goes, and he said this he goes.
(16:16):
People bang on Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson for not
winning playoff games. He said, if you gave Josh Allen
to Andy Reid, do you think he'd have a super Bowl?
And his thing was, of course he would. So it's
just interesting is that we every year in this draft, John,
there's a quarterback drafted below the star. Very rarely is
(16:37):
the first quarterback taken the guy c J Stroud too,
Bryce YOUMP, So I'm not just saying now, c J.
Stroud got a great coach, a great coordinator, tanked Dell
Nicole Collins they had on draft picks. But your take
on because Kevin O connell is highly respected, I mean
the tall Sean McVay, Sean Payton, I spent a lot
of time with Sean. Shawn is way too smart to
(16:59):
be broadcasting. He has to be coaching. I think the
best over bet in the league is Bonecks at five
and a half. Like the old line's pretty good. If
the Franklin kid from Oregon works with Mems and Courtland Sutton,
they have workable tight ends. Two backs I think are capable.
What do you make of that that the first year
rookie quarterback the two with offensive coaches who are deeper
(17:22):
in the draft could be the hits.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, as I'm watching the Sean Payton press conference on
my iPhone at ten thirty at nine in my bed
next to my future wife, she's probably think I'm a nut.
He mentioned the name multiple times in Drew Brees and
obviously getting rid of the football is a big deal.
And the other thing he hammered home is like people
act like I just want to dink and dunk, like
that's the offense. No, we want to push the ball
down the field, and that is the game plan. So
(17:46):
I think the way that he talked about this guy
in the press conference was a lot of love. I
think he is really really high well. I think he
liked his like his rookie class. The way he was talking,
I think he's pretty excited about his team. This did
not feel like, you know, I think a younger Sean
Bill Parcells guy. If he's not happy, you can feel it.
He looked pretty excited with the group he has. Doesn't
(18:07):
mean they're gonna win eleven games. I'm kind of out
on Washington this year, not because I don't think Jayden
Daniels isn't really talented, but they're not that good. They
haven't been. They got rid of multiple d linemen. Now
you could say Chase Young's a little overrated. Monte Sweat
is not so that they lose talent there, they just
(18:27):
are not as talented as obviously. The Eagles are the
cowboys that divisions hard. The Giants have some players and
day ball, you have like he has been coaching, now
he's calling the offense. I could see the Washington just
having a rough season, and that's where you know big.
Of course they should. They've been been bad. They're resetting.
But when you're a quarterback and you don't have your
(18:50):
play caller and then all of a sudden, these are
offensive play caller good enough, Cliff Kingsbury, you see a
lot with defensive guys they start getting pressure, well who
they point the finger at the offensive play caller when
it goes wrong. It goes to Kyle Shanahan or Andy
Reid or Sean Payton or Kyle Shanahan and they go,
we'll fix it, and you go, yeah, they will. They'll
figure it out. And that's where it gets difficult. I
mean New England they feel a little bit like a
(19:13):
shit show right now. You know, no team in the
league has spent less cash. I've read this and heard
people say this over the last decade than them. I
mean that speaks one to the brilliants of Tom Brady
and Belichick building a team. But also I think there's
a knock on the craft can be a little cheap.
They like to do the most with the least amount,
where I think a lot of teams, like the Niners
(19:33):
of the Cowboy, they'll spend whatever it takes to try
to win. Like he's always it wasn't just Belichick being cheap.
You know, it felt like a kind of a mandate.
You have this rookie head coach who's not that far
removed from being a player. You got this defensive star
players underpaid that they had a kick out of practice.
It's getting weird. Diana Russini says, you know they've made
an offer to him at Judon that he's saying bullshit.
(19:56):
It's just there's a lot going on. The quarterback situation.
They have this major project. We've seen a million times.
What history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I've
seen Jacoby Brissett in a scenario on a bad team
thirty times in my life. We know exactly how this goes.
The record's terrible before Halloween, right around there, it's like,
we can't take this anymore. Throw the kid in. The
(20:17):
team's awful, and it can Jared Goff go the wrong
way and they got lucky. McVeigh came in the next
year and saved everything. But it goes the wrong way
with a situation like that, like dried Mayo ain't calling
the offensive place. You can just see how it gets ugly.
Even again, dan Quinn, he did inherit Matt Ryan. It's
(20:38):
a little harder with a young quarterback who, let's face it,
Malik Nighbors looks like a bigger thicker Odell Beckham from
eight years ago. And the other wide receiver went in
the top twenty five, and Brian Kelly got a pretty
good history of developing offensive players at Notre Dame, at
Cincinnati and now here, So I don't know. I mean,
(20:58):
dan Quinn got and I like dan Quinn. He did
get a job with Matt Ryan and Julio Jones on
the roster, so it's just they were kind of a
little more. They were already good, but Matt Ryan had
already been in the playoffs. Star it's a lot more difficult.
And I was thinking about this today. If you know
(21:19):
in that Giants dock when they tried to trade up
from three to six and Elliott Wolf essentially at the
end of the day said no, unless you give me
some godfather offer, not going to entertain it. If I
told you Drake May was with Daball who spent the
four years you know with Josh Allen, you would like
that scenario a lot more. Yes, when you put a
project on just a god awful team whose coach, I mean,
(21:44):
there's a decent doesn't mean he doesn't know football, but
he's never been remotely close to a position like this.
And now the fans are already turning on the owner
because of everything that went on with the Apple documentary
and the treatment of Beli. It's just weird. It's hard
to overcome that. I saw it when I was in
college with Alex Smith. The Niners were just a joke
that we used to joke in college. Could Pete Carroll's
(22:06):
team beat the Niners? And it was like, yeah, I
mean a lot of people would argue, I don't know,
they got about fifteen first rounders and this Niner team
struggled to win like four games, and Alex went there
and it was his career was an embarrassment, and then
he got real coaches and what happened? You're like, Alex,
it's pretty good. Yeah, it's and he's he's as mature
and smart of a quarterback that is coming to the
(22:27):
league last twenty five years. It is really really hard
to overcome negativity losing a coach who's not really comfortable.
So I guess that's a long winded way of saying,
like I I think it's so much easier when you're
When you're head coach, is the guy pulling the trigger
on the play call, he impacts the game. I'd never
quite understand, Like Sirianni, like, what really is he doing
(22:51):
on game?
Speaker 4 (22:51):
Dad?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, not calling a play, you know, toughness, Like is
he say this about Dan Campbell, Like obviously he's adding
an element of toughness to it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Are both doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, they're in a different category. But there are some guys,
you know, is Dan Quinn calling the defense? Is Drive
Mail calling the defense? So they if they take that
part away. So it's why when Robert Sala gets the
Jets job, he immediately goes, I'm not gonna be the coordinator.
It's like, well, what the fucking I hire you for?
Just to give ross peaches. I mean, you've had two
good years as a coordinator and now you're giving up
(23:25):
the asset in which I hired you for. Part of
being the head coaches, you gotta lead, You got to
you gotta motivate, you gotta run practice and ideally call
one side of the ball. That's what all these coaches do.
There's a rare group of people. Harbaugh's a great example
who can dominate Bill Parcells. Most guys have to be
pretty hands on in this modern day of football, right
(23:45):
the games. This is not nineteen eighty seven where I
can win most of my games seventeen to thirteen. If
I got the toughest guys, I can beat the shit
out of you.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
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Speaker 2 (24:45):
All right, Nick, Right, we haven't talked in a while,
so I thought this was here's an interesting topic, and
I bring this up because you're one of the bigger
NBA fans. Is that some things don't sound don't sound comforting,
and they may sound almost appalling, but they're true, and
(25:07):
that treating your employees and paying them more than they
deserve is really bad business. And that the reason the
NFL is king it's virtually impossible to find a bad
contract in the league. I can remember Albert Hainsworth for
about a year got paid a ton with the Patriots.
You remember it because it's so infrequent. It may be
(25:28):
the only bad contract for the Patriots. Every NBA team
has a terrible contract, some have three. You know, before
James Dolan got distracted by the Sphere, it was like
the half the contracts for the next were bad contracts.
Is that One of the reasons that the NFL is
king is because they have a weak union, And that
sounds terrible to say. Players have like Brandon Ayuk. They're like, no,
(25:53):
we're not going to cave. There's a bunch of good
receivers in next year's draft. We'll just go draft them. Now.
I think they want him. They're furious. They know that
the windows shrinking, their players are getting older. But I
think I've talked to a lot of guys in the NBA.
St Frank Vogel the other night at dinner. You know, La,
you see a lot of pro coaches, like especially where
I live. There all are in the beast communities, and
(26:16):
football coaches are happier. Basketball coaches are all miserable, even
the successful ones. And the reason being is they have
cost certainty, they have control. In the NFL, you can
be productive but you're a pain in the ass. I'm
moving off you. I mean, seven rounds of players half
the league's undrafted. In the NBA, after the fourteenth pick,
you run out of players. And this Brandon Ayuk situation
(26:38):
is interesting because in the NBA he would get paid
and he may go to coach fired. And in the
NFL they're like, now we got a bunch of good players.
Draft will give us nine receivers. We'll give you a number.
I mean, you didn't make like twenty three million.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
You're not making thirty.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
And I think it really so my point being is
it not giving the employee everything they want is why
the NFL succeeds. It forces players to get their shit together.
Like you don't get that nine year baseball contract. We're
like year four, five and six. You're like, I'm getting
my money. The union so strong and Brandon Ayuk, the
(27:14):
Niners are saying, take it or leave it? Well, take
it or leave it?
Speaker 4 (27:18):
I actually I so I think I look at I
might I agree with some of what you're saying. I
wanted the well, yes, I'm definitely a union guy, But
I look at this. I look at the NBA and
the Ayuk thing, separately. So let me deal with the
NBA thing first. I actually think a huge part of
the issues that you're describing with the NBA are caused
(27:43):
by the individual player max. I think so many of
the if the NBA salary cap was one hundred and
fifty million, and if you wanted to give Joker one
hundred and forty of it, you could so many of these.
So many of the complaints of the NBA go away
(28:04):
for two reasons. One is one of the reasons NBA
guys get what I would call non contract benefits, which is,
I don't want to practice today, Let's not practice today
those types of things. Is because if you're artificially capping
(28:25):
what you can pay them and everyone can pay them
the same, you have to pay them elsewhere. You have
to be like, Okay, you're actually worth one hundred million
a year, I can only pay you fifty so, and
everyone can pay you fifty so, therefore we have to
give you these fringe benefits like you know what they
give college football coaches, country club memberships, whatever, in order
(28:48):
to make up that delta. The other thing the individual
player cap does is it makes it to where the
middle class NBA is wildly overpaid, and that's what fans.
People think fans are gonna get pissed when NBA guys
are making a million a game. They're not. They're not
going to be mad when Jason Tatum, who's the best
(29:08):
player on a champion, makes a million a game. Not
more mad than there are right now when he makes
half a million a game. Where people will get mad
is when they got mad at Tobias Harris. They're like, wait,
you're the sixty third best player in the league and
you're making thirty million a year. But that exists because
of the individual player max. So that's the first that's
(29:32):
the NBA part. In my opinion. The Ayuk thing. What
I think is fascinating about Ayuk is people are wondering,
why are the Niners gonna cave? Why are the Niners
who are gonna get nothing backup substance for this season
when they've got to win, when it's the last year theoretically,
(29:53):
when perty's cheap, when Trent's thirty six million, why are
they going to cave and trade him at an inopportune time?
And I said it on the show today, and I
think it's I think people, I think this will resonate
with people if they think not of NFL teams but
of their own workplace, which is it is the leverage
(30:16):
a Ukaz is I can make it miserable here and
people don't think about that. Think about any workplace you've
been in where someone who's important and unfireable or ish
comes in has a bad attitude. Is shit talking other
people is bringing the morale? Like bringing every room they
(30:40):
walk you, they walk into you like, oh that kills
the vibe, that kills working anywhere. And I think that
is oddly the leverage au Caz. The leverage i ukaz
is this can be miserable guys, and if people doubt
how much of an impact that can have. Read the
ESPN article today on what happened to the Eagles. Eagles
(31:02):
were ten and one, they had won like twenty three
of twenty five games. Yeah, went to Super Bowl, did
all that, and then what happened to him? Well it
seems like the coach and the quarterback couldn't be in
a room one on one together and the whole thing collapsed.
So I think, oddly, the leverage I you has, or
any of these guys have, is I can be a
dick and I can make team meetings and the locker
(31:24):
room suck. And you if I'm too good to cut,
what are you going to do?
Speaker 2 (31:30):
So I had an I had a couple of Olympic
team rants today and I said one of the things
I said with KD, I said, actually being the all
time leading scorer cements his legacy. So KD is salt
(31:54):
to a chef. He makes everything better, eggs, carmel. It
doesn't matter. You put him on any team to the finals.
With Westbrook, Lebron couldn't decode Westbrook right. He made the
Warriors the best team arguably ever. Even in Brooklyn. He
was outstanding the fact that his teammate wouldn't get the vaccine.
There's only so much you can do. So and then
(32:15):
you put him on this team, And I said, if
you look at even great players, you put Tatum around
great players, he kind of shrinks, Steph has to adjust
Embiid clogs it. Lebron takes a leadership role but won't
score as much. KD works everywhere. Now as long as
(32:38):
you don't ask him to lead, don't ask him to
do that, just ask him to fit. He is the
salt to the chef. Oh We've got it. Everything will
taste great tonight. So that is that's go ahead, finish. Sorry.
So it's perfect that he on a collection of the
(32:58):
world's best players that thirty years from now in a bar,
you'll be like, who's the leading scorer?
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Jordan?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, well Curry not even close? Lebron No, not close. Okay,
what time out? Let me think, was it Let's go
back to the Olympics, was it Bill Bradley will no, no, no,
it's Kevin Durant, And you'll be like, the fuck.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
It is like because when you ask players. Mark Fus,
a buddy of mine, he coaches the Olympics assistant years ago.
I said, I just asked him, like, like, tell me
one thing that's just crazy about coaching the Olympics, and
he just went, Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Man, that's all he said.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Right, So the.
Speaker 4 (33:43):
He is probably if you take the this is something
Brew hasn't said this exact thing, but he's basically said
a different version of it, and I think he's right.
Take the twenty greatest players ever, he's somewhere on the
close to twenty, but on there, yeah, there is not
(34:06):
a single one of them that you can simply drop
on every great team in NBA history, and it definitely
works other than Dura. Like, I totally totally agree. It
does not matter the era, the rules, what what redundancy,
(34:29):
they already have anything. Drop him on any great team
and it works no great And so that is and
your point is, I think if if Kevin heard this,
he would say, that's what I've been saying, which is,
I don't want to be the leader. When I'm asked
(34:51):
about leadership, I'm like, that's the coach's shop.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
You know.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
What I want to do is play basketball. And you
know what everyone seems to say, say, I'm awesome at
playing basketball, and you guys tar me, I think, again,
this is what I think Kevin would say with I'm
a bad leader, but luckily my job is basketball player,
not leader, so fuck off. Like I think that's what
he's say And it's like, it's not a terrible argument
(35:19):
except for the fact that it seems like the other
guys in that room of greatness are kind of able
to multitask it or have somebody alongside him who's also great,
who can do it for him. And so it is
it is such a unique thing because I do think
(35:41):
I do think Durant is I've told you this on
the podcast before, but I'll say it again. I had
somebody who is super close with one of the greatest
players ever and it's not Durant. Say if you if
(36:01):
we were to line the twenty greatest players up and
they're all at their peak on a black tip and
ask someone who didn't know about resumes or anything whatever,
who they wanted who they think the best guy is,
and you described it's like, Okay, the points at Michael
(36:22):
Jordan and it's like, all right, tell me about that guy.
It's like, well, he's average size, amazing athlete, good not
great shooter, crazy, crazy competitor. They'd be like, okay, next
to point it shit. I mean, the most dominant physical
(36:46):
force is you know, gonna come and go with effort,
is going to be a liability at the free throw line,
but is going to give you a guaranteed thirty Okay, Nora.
They pointed Lebron all right, not the best shooter in
the room, not the best dribbler, probably the best passer,
and is probably the best athlete. Okay, what about that guy, oh, Durant, Well,
(37:12):
he's the second tallest person here. He's also the second
best shooter. He's also the fourth best dribbler. He also
can pass, he can defend, and they'd be like, well,
I'm fucking taking him. They're like, wait, he's the second
tallest and the second best shooter. They're like, oh, yeah,
he can do that. Is he durable? Well, he's gonna
play twenty years, like the can't. Is he a terrible defender?
Speaker 1 (37:34):
No, he can.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
He can, you know, credibly guard a bunch of response.
But despite that, he's probably kind of underachieved. And I like, so,
I like all of those things are true, and it's
because of that leadership component that he has been honest about, like,
I don't think that's my job, so I'm not going
(37:55):
to do it. And I think it's fascinating because when
he looks best around the best, and then other guys
when they're around the best, you're like, oh, you're a
grade lower, like Tatum. Tatum's around the best, and it's like, oh,
you're just a grade lower. Durant's around the best, and
you're like, are you the best player alive? Like it's
(38:15):
such a fascinating thing.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Yeah no. And I think somebody said this once that
the greatest athletes. You wouldn't really want them to be
your boss because they have such bad personal tendencies. They're
very selfish, they're relentless, they're harsh. I mean, Jordan could
be just not just not a giver, a taker. Same
(38:39):
with the Lake Kobe Bryant. But Kevin Durant actually would
be a fun hang like he would be you could
do eighty two games and it'd be like he'd get
a drink with you, you know, they're you would just
he would make you laugh when you were having a
bad day. He'd put his arm around you and goes, okay, bro,
let's just go HP.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I totally agree with this, I and I it's one
of the I've tried kind of I don't want to
say behind the scenes, but I know some people that
are tight with Kevin and listen, at one point, I
you know, I know, I know definitively that Kevin, you know,
(39:16):
thought I was one of the people's kind of a
problem with the media, and that's like, that's his right,
that's fine. But I have tried to kind of throw
back channels like political stuff, like try to set up
a situation where he and I could sit and talk
basketball or sit and talk, because over the last four years,
(39:37):
I have grown to have such affection, if you will,
for kind of just how comfortable he is in his
own skin, like the he's gone a long way from
the burners and all that stuff. It's like, nah, if
I think you're full of shit on the Internet, I'm
gonna tell you. Like I thought it was hilarious that
like a couple of days into the Olympics, on and
(39:59):
off he was arguing with strangers on the internet on Twitter.
It's like, dude, you're you got half a billion dollars
your single, You're wildly famous in the Olympic village in Paris,
and you're like, I got to get these tweets off, man,
I don't care. I'm gonna sit here and argue with
you guys about basketball. And I was like, I just
(40:21):
I found it charming. And I also think he has
such an immense respect for the game itself that I
really like. So I like Durant. I really like Durant,
And I do I agree with you like he would.
I do think he'd be a great guy to be,
(40:41):
you know, to be on a team with. And I
do think he'd be of all the superstars one of
the best hangs and that's also it's also probably helpful.
He's one of the only superstars of that level that's
still like a single guy, like hanging out with the
fellas like Steph and Lebron. Everybody's married with kids. Durance
is like, Nah, I'm gonna play video games, smoke a
(41:02):
little weed and play basketball. Like I don't know about
you guys. Spell them a life man.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
The volume.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
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Host
Colin Cowherd
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