September 2, 2026 • 41 mins
Dan welcomes Ryan Leaf back to the Mancave as they cover Leaf's journey from being the number two overall pick to reinventing himself after his playing career. Robert Griffin III also stopped by the show to talk about the state of quarterbacks in college football and how NIL would have been during his time at Baylor.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ryan Leaf, USA lead Pac-12 analyst, former NFL quarterback, and
the number two overall pick by the Chargers back in 1998.
How many teams are in the Pac-12? Eight football, nine basketball. Okay.
The opportunity to expand. Where are you getting those? Everybody
(00:28):
wants expansion. So where are we getting other teams, other schools?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I think what Teresa Gould, who's the Pac-12 commissioner, I
think her vision has really kind of become a reality.
You know, there was a time where there were the
two teams where everybody else vacated. And I don't think
there was a moment after she went and spoke to
the presidents of the university where she had a plan
in place that either one of those teams waver. If
an ACC team had come in or an ACC conference
(00:55):
would have come in or a Big 12 conference would
have came up, I don't think Washington State or Oregon
State would have left. They were going to build this
new Pac-12, rebrand it, and release it to the public
here in July. And I think it's going to be
highly competitive, a lot of fun. But I do think
they want to keep looking outside to build the brand
(01:16):
and build something bigger down the stretch. But right now,
they're really happy with the eight participants. So now we
only have power four participants. They're four power four.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Conferences, right?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Which would make sense if it's a power four then.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I don't really buy into it outside the college football
playoff saying this year that the four power four conference
champions are going to get an automatic bid into the
college football playoff. That allows for, let's say, the Pac-12
if they're the fifth best ranked conference, which I think
it is going into this season. This gives my alma
(01:51):
mater and a lot of these teams in this conference
maybe their best chance to go to the college football
playoff ever. Washington State hasn't won a championship since 2003,
so this is going to give them a much better
chance to get to the playoff and be a part
of the conversation than they ever would have had in
the old Pac-12.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
How did we get to the point where you can
go to the NFL and put on an NFL uniform
and go through training camp, get cut, And then be
allowed to go back and play college football.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So this, this is, this is something I've been a
little bit annoyed with the way the, the, the talking
heads have been, you know, you heard Dan Orlovsky go on,
get up and say, this is.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Going to open up the floodgates. It's not going to
open up the floodgates.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He said they're going to play three years in college
and get drafted in the second round and play two
years and want to come back.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
No, that can't happen.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's now a rule. It's five for five. You get
five years to play five. This rule, which was injuncted
in the courts, is being applied retroactively. So this only
affects the class of 2022 of these players. None of
them were drafted. They did not make a roster. They
have a chance to come back and do everything else
that everybody is through this five-for-five thing. So it's not
(03:00):
something that's going to be ongoing. I don't know where
the story got so out of hand this week. It
just became this bomb. Well, it's Lane Kiffin. Well, because
he's using it to his advantage. And all these other
teams should too. These are players that are due their
final year of eligibility. It's not something that's going to
affect it next year or the year after that. But
then you even have head coaches like Steve Sarkeesian go
(03:21):
on there and start talking about morality and things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I'm like.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Are you kidding me? I mean, I don't know if
they're informed at the actual court ruling.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
No, it's the concept of it, Ryan, that we think,
oh my God, this is going to be an avalanche.
The floodgates are open and now we're going to have
50 guys go to the NFL, get cut, and then
come back and play wherever they want to. Nope, never happened.
Won't happen.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
This is an injunction in the courts that is being
retroactively instituted for these players that are due their final
year of eligibility.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's it. And if they fall between these parameters, and
we're talking about maybe, what, six, seven, eight players? Like,
that's it.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's like the bigger conversation around all the things that
make it so subjective, and it's not. It's going to
piss off some other coaches because guess what? It seemingly
feels like a lot of these players want to come
back and play for Lane Kiffin.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I don't have any problem if Lane Kiffin wants to
take advantage of this. Like, I don't have the morality, please,
you know, going to LSU. He didn't invent this. If
he takes advantage of this, then fine. I'm okay with it.
I think if it was with another program and another coach,
I don't think we would have this. It was like, oh,
(04:33):
here's Lane. He'll do anything to win. If I'm in
his position, and as long as my AD is fine
with this, and I know these kids... I would open
the door. If they're allowed to do this legally, then
I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. Yeah,
I'm not even against liking it. These guys did not
(04:54):
make an NFL roster. This is an opportunity for them
to maybe play football for the last time and make name, image,
and likeness money to help them. It may be their
best opportunity to do so. I think a lot of
these coaches are talking about, I'm not going to give
a a kid who's busted his butt for seven months,
give away his spot.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Well, they're not giving away a spot. There's 105 roster spots.
None of those have been completely met. They're going to
play within this roster. And I know Lane really well.
Lane's had me come speak to three of his programs
since he was at Florida Atlantic and Ole Miss. And
I suspect I'll be down to Baton Rouge pretty soon.
I simply love the guy. I think that he has
(05:33):
really reinvented himself. I thought we saw the best possible
version of him at Ole Miss.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I even told him that. I said.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
This is the best possible version of you. You have
that at Ole Miss. But he felt like this was
something he needed to do, and so I supported him
on it. I didn't necessarily think it was the right move,
but we'll.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
See how it plays out. What does he have you
tell his team?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well, I go in and speak to consequences, a big
part of it. Also, a huge part of it is
I'm exactly where they were 25 years ago. I'm sitting
in the exact same chair, and I was in a
much better position than all of those people in that room.
I was about to be the second or first pick
in the NFL draft. And I give them that image.
(06:18):
I go, how many of you would give right now
a five-year career in the NFL, the second pick in
the NFL draft, $ 31 million, a Heisman Trophy finalist? How
many of you would give for that right now? And
every single one of them raises their hand. Because you forget,
because of how poor my professional career was, how much
sacrifice and how much you know, greatness went into the
(06:38):
first 22 years of my life. It's always thrown to
the side because of what the professional thing happened. People
always ask me the question, do you wish you would
have never played professional football? Because then you would have
this great legacy. And I'm like, why would I have
wanted that? I wanted to be the best. I wanted
to get to the NFL. It's just how it happens.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's life. But when you tell them what happened to
you after football, and I don't know if they look
at you like, Well, that's not going to impact me.
You know how kids are. They look at you like that.
They look like, that's not going to happen to me. Yes.
Which part, I say?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
The part where you're going to be the second pick
in the NFL draft or the part where you're going
to end up in a prison cell? It can happen
to anybody at any point. We just had the young
man who called in to you. I mean, I'm sitting
in your green room. That was 10 years ago that
I came on this show, and that guy heard that
that day. You talked about it just a little bit
ago in your confessional about that platform. And maybe you
(07:33):
weren't ready to talk about it, but you had me
on your show.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And I was talking about it. And that allowed it
to grow and become something. And you then took hold
of that. And now you can speak to that. And
so I think the impact that I am having would
have never been the case if I had been a
Super Bowl winning quarterback that didn't get that education.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
But- Would winning have kept you away from prescription drugs?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The failure and the judgment led to that. I didn't
use it while I was playing. It was a coping mechanism,
like you talked about with the Tony Romo and Tiger
Woods conversation. You're trying to hide something. I never had
that problem while I was playing in college. You were
never interested in I never took a drug. The only
(08:31):
drug I've ever taken in my life is Vicodin. I
didn't have my first drink until my 18th birthday. I
probably can count on two hands how many times I've
been drunk in my life. Like it's not, you know,
competition was my drug of choice. I competed at everything.
And now I've found that later in life. And, you know,
I was talking to Andrew Perloff back there and I've
been sober longer now than I ever was using, which
(08:51):
is insane. That kind of snuck up on me. How
many years?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
14 years.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And previous, in my using years, it was, I think,
I don't know, 12? 8 to 12, I think it was. So,
you know, we're even past that point. It's not something
I think about on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
There's no reminder or something that you know that feeling,
you know, or that you get that feeling, and then
you have to, like, coping mechanism?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, behavior.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Behavior.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
I think behavior is a real telling sign of that.
If you see old Ryan behavior, you know, entitlement, you know,
lack of humility.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But that's not a smell or a situation or anything?
Movies was a thing for me. I would always go
to movies and I would take them. You'd take Vicodin
and go? And I would disappear. You know, I would
just numb myself out and just, you know. And so
I always thought it was going to be hard to
go see movies again. And I love to go see movies.
And so when I got.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Into treatment, one of the things that the therapist had
me do was we all went to a movie as
a group, and I got to see it in a
sober environment, and it was still the greatest, right? And
I remembered that. And so, you know, I take my
kid to the movies, my wife and I go all
the time. That was the one thing I thought was
going to trigger. And you find a way to get
(10:09):
past all that stuff. And then you use the tools
that you learn through the process to not be influenced
by those things and You know, I've had a couple
surgeries since I got sober, and there's been a plan
in place. It's always about transparency, talking to your doctors,
talking to people. My wife says I've built my house
(10:31):
out of glass over the last 12 years, and she's
got a point. Everybody knows my stuff. I'm not afraid
or worried that somebody may know it, and this has
zero to do with any sort of redemption for me. Like,
there are so many people who have been infected by
the justice system, mental health, or substance use. that have
gone through this, conquered it and are thriving, but no
(10:52):
one has them on the Dan Patrick show. No one
has them on a podcast and certainly not on the platforms.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It just, it's life. And it just was public for me.
And that's it. What was that feeling like when you
took a pain med for your surgery? Um, it was great.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I mean, it's, they're, they're dangerously great. Dangerously great.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I remember. Oh God.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I remember how this feels. I love this. I love
not feeling.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Negative feelings, painful feelings, the things that you're supposed to
feel as a human being. But we just had a
plan in place. My wife handled them. We took them
for a couple days, and then we didn't think about
it again.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I had knee replacement surgery. And I said to my wife,
they gave me a boatload of Percocet. Yeah. And I said,
I don't want to take it. You know, I have
an addictive person. I just, I said, no, I don't
want to. And she said, you haven't had problems with
this before. I said, I know that, but this is
knee replacement. And I was in terrible pain. That's smart.
(12:02):
And I caved in. I said, Hanlon, let me have half. Listen,
they're invented for a reason, right? Yes.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
They're for acute physical pain. There's a reason why there's,
that's a me problem. That's not a pill problem. I
used to think football was the problem. No, it's a
me problem. Football was never the problem. Football gave me everything.
I had to figure it out. That's why with the
Tony Romo statement that we just saw, I thought it
was a very good statement. Didn't need the part about
(12:31):
having debilitating back pain and stuff like that. Take that
whole paragraph out.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You don't need any of that.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
You chose to do this, and it's cost you this,
and you're going to admit to it, and you're going
to find a way to get better. That's It's almost
like the saying when you say something, but.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Everything after the but is meaningless to me. And I
was reading it with my wife yesterday and I was
just like, oh.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
No, you don't have to say that part. Everybody's had surgeries.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Everybody who's going through debilitating pain, you know, don't, you know,
I play on a golf tour with him. He was
always out there on a golf tour playing. So I'm like,
if you're in such pain, why the hell are you
out there playing golf all the time then? That's not
helping things.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah. You know, and to.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Your point, you know, you could see, you could see
the thing starting to unravel. You know, being around people
outside the celebrity in the game of football.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
But don't mask what the problem is by telling me
that you've gone through surgeries. Yeah. Same thing with Tiger Woods. Yes.
You're masking these things.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah. You know.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Let me bring you back. I'm going to talk some
actual football here. Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
We'll continue with Ryan Leaf right after this. Fox Sports
Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Catch all of our shows at foxsportsradio.com. And within the
iHeartRadio app, search FSR to listen live.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Continuing our conversation with Ryan Leaf, he's the lead Pac-12
analyst for USA Sports. And he'll be in the booth
on Saturday, Colorado State hosting Wyoming, the border war rivalry,
630 Eastern on USA Network. And then you got Memphis
at Boise State the following week. You look at the
(14:09):
number of teams that can win the national title. How
many would you say, let's say, get to a national
title game?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
As of right now, I would argue there's many more
than what we think, because I don't think anybody has
any idea what's about to trot onto the field this Saturday.
With the way that rosters change so much in the offseason,
the preseason rankings are absolutely bunk in my mind. Should
be ripped up completely after week one. You know, when
(14:39):
my Cougars go beat Washington in week one, and Washington's
a 15, you know, whatever, they're 15 ranked, it.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Gets ripped up. And Washington State probably should be in
the top 25 then, if you look at it that way. Yeah,
but this is for TV. I understand why we do it.
I get it.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
But the point about this is that I don't think
you could have any rational conclusion on how many teams
are viable options for a national championship right now.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But give me a ballpark. 30. 30 have a chance
to go to the national title game? Yes, I believe so.
30 for the playoffs, not national title game.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I would say you probably have... I think when you
get into that playoff, you have a chance.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Wait, well, are you suggesting that we could have another
Indiana this year? Definitely. But who would be Indiana this
year besides Indiana? Ole Miss. Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Ole Miss, I think Trinidad Chambliss is maybe arguably the
best in the business. My Heisman frontrunner is John Mateer
at Oklahoma. Maybe Oklahoma could be that team that comes
out of nowhere because I think they have the best quarterback. Realistically,
if you have the best quarterback– At any level, you
have a really good shot of making that. So I
(15:52):
think there is definitely a team out there that could
win the national championship that you are not talking about
right now.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I think Miami has a really good chance of going
back to the national title.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I think Mario Cristobal, I've known him for a long time.
He's been an incredible coach, a recruiter. He's back home.
He got to taste a little bit of it last year.
He continues to build a program that is rooted in winning.
So I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're back
in that That realm, once again, the ACC is such
a foreign conference than what the other three are when
(16:26):
you're talking about the power four. So, yeah, I suspect
that they could be right in the mix again.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And Mensah, they get a really good quarterback who would
be a Heisman Trophy candidate. The number of analysts who
think C.J. Carr is the best quarterback in college football. Yeah,
water's wet. You know, they're not going out on a
very far limb there to make that. Well, but Arch
Manning was the anointed and even Dante Moore. But I
(16:57):
think that you say Notre Dame, CJ Carr, I think
Arch Manning, Dante Moore. I think all those guys can
could be in that that that realm. I like I said,
I think John Mateer is the. You think he's the
best quarterback in college football?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, I think if he doesn't get hurt a year ago,
there's a much different conversation being had. He was the
best quarterback in all of college football his final year
at Washington State. He just was stuck in Pullman and
not playing against the right kind of opponents. So, yeah,
I think he's the best player. I think he's got
one of the best play callers in all of football,
and Ben Arbuckle calling plays that he's very familiar with.
(17:32):
So they've got to be good on defense, and that's
Brent Venable's area, so hopefully that makes Oklahoma– They got
a difficult schedule, but yeah, that's my guy. The prep
work leading up to being drafted now, because these kids
are programmed when they're in grade school, high school, seven-on-seven,
(17:52):
all of these things. But we're getting back to quarterbacks
being under center in the NFL, which I kept thinking,
why would you take that away? that the defense doesn't
know what I'm doing in those seven steps. If they
just see me in the shotgun, I've taken away, I
think a weapon of deception here. And so why are
(18:15):
we getting back to these quarterback? Like Mendoza has never
taken a snap under center. I've taken more snaps under
center than Mendoza.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
So why are we getting back to quarterbacks under center?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well, I think college coaches didn't care that, they weren't
preparing them for the NFL. They were trying to win
a national championship and get themselves paid in the process.
Now these players are being paid a lot of money.
So what the coaches have had to shift and pivot
to is that you come play for us. Not only
will you get paid this, that, or the other, we'll
make you and get you ready to be an NFL quarterback.
(18:48):
And to be a great NFL quarterback, you better be
knowledgeable and you have the ability to be under center,
to read a defense while you drop back, and make
things difficult when you run play action.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's what a.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Pro-style quarterback who has success in the NFL is able
to do.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But why wouldn't that help you in college if you're
a coach?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Because I think a lot of college coaches, and I
think this was stemmed by Chip Kelly, it was speed
and it was basketball on turf. It was not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So like Loyola Marymount basketball back in the 90s.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Chip believed that if we could outrun you to the perimeter,
if we could outleverage you with numbers, that was the difference.
And it still is that way. I mean, when you
scheme up an offense, that's what you're up against. You're
running into the A gap or the B gap on
the defense. And if you can get a double team
and get to the linebacker and the safety all in one,
you're going to have leverage. You're going to have the
victory there. But when you put a quarterback under center, you–
(19:44):
and remove him from that and put him in the shotgun,
especially if you put it back to the right of
him or the left of him, you pretty much... for
a defensive coordinator, you're giving him so much leeway. Now
that's why the, when the pistol came in, I really
liked that because at least you put the back behind
you in that. And, uh, and you made it difficult
for the defensive coordinator to scheme that up. You and
the shotgun and put a running back to one side,
(20:05):
like you are cutting the field in half in terms
of what a defensive coordinator can do. And he's going
to thank you in his post-game speech.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
How did J.J. McCarthy fall?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Well, I think he got injured. You know, I think that,
I don't think he played all that bad last year,
to be honest with you. I don't think that they
were very good offensively, unfortunately. Having one of the best
wide receivers out there and not getting in the football,
that's something else. But, you know, I think a lot
of it goes into what Sam Darnall was able to
(20:36):
do a year ago, what Daniel Jones has been able
to do, two guys that were on that roster and
a decision by the Vikings organization to go with J.J.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
McCarthy.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
And in this day and age, if you don't go
out and have immediate success, people are ready to throw
you out with the bathwater. And that's just something that
I don't really appreciate. I wanted a competition. Kyler clearly
walked in there and won it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I will say this.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I love Kevin O'Connell, but I'm telling you right now,
if this team doesn't win this year with Brian Flores
as the defensive coordinator, there's got to be a real
conversation that maybe he's better as an offensive coordinator, as
a quarterback whisperer than he is as a guy overseeing
an entire organization. When this is all said and done,
they have to win this year.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Plain and simple. Ryan Leaf, USA Sports lead, Pac-12 analyst,
and he'll be in the booth on Saturday at Colorado
State in Wyoming. That'll be 6.30 Eastern on USA Network.
And then the following week, Memphis at Boise State. Great
to see you. Thank you for sharing, as always.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Be sure to catch the live edition of the Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern, 6 a.m. Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Hey, it's Covino and Rich from Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
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Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yup, that's right.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
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Speaker 2 (22:14):
Spring and Robert Griffin, Jr. III. He'll serve as the
honorary captain for his Baylor Bears this Saturday in Atlanta
when they take on the Auburn Tigers. Look at you,
going out there, honorary captain. What does that mean? You
just walk out to the middle of the field? I
think that's what it means, Dan.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
You know, they got Cam Newton on the other side.
You know, all six-foot-five of them in all of his
funny hats, you know, so... We'll see how that matchup goes,
but it looks like it's going to be a pretty
interesting game. The Peach Bowl reached out, asked me to
do this as part of the athletic kickoff game, so
I'm excited. I'm excited for Baylor this year, especially with
(22:54):
DJ Lagway getting a chance to come home, go to
his dad's school, and try to make his own mark
and revive his career as a potential first-round quarterback.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
When you're around Cam Newton and you're like, that's just different.
You know, Robert, when you go, he's a quarterback and
he's as big as, I mean, physically imposing. I, I just,
and I, and he might've had the greatest individual season,
a quarterback's ever had in college. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
We talked about this before. Like, is it, is it
Cam Newton or is it Joe Burrow? Um, you know
what Cam was able to do in one year, basically
just one year of college football was extraordinary. Um, You know,
I look at Cam, he looks like Julius Peppers, you know,
when you walk next to him. So like, it's just,
it's hard to imagine like this guy was a quarterback,
(23:46):
you know, the way that he's built. I don't know
if you guys remember like a couple of years ago,
some guys tried to jump him.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah. Like a seven on seven tournament.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Yeah. And I did like a reenactment, like a reaction
to that video. And I'm like, y'all better bring more
people because this guy, this guy, it's going to take
at least seven small human beings to try to take
down this one behemoth of a man.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
The position, though, I don't I gets evolved where you
could be smaller, run around a little bit. Fran Tarkington,
you know, back in the day. But is there a
prototypical quarterback? Because we went through those stages where we
needed to have somebody with six, four, six, five pocket passer.
And where would you say we are today with the
(24:28):
if you want to call it evolution of the position?
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Yeah, I think there is no size, height, weight prototype anymore.
I mean, you got Kyler Murray, who's like 5'3, starting
for the Minnesota Vikings. You know, when I was playing,
obviously you had Brady and Manning in the 6'4, 6'5, range.
But I think what it comes down to, if if
you go out to like a local high school, you know,
(24:53):
like an advanced level seven on seven program, you know,
which we have here in Houston called RG3 seven on seven.
And you watch those quarterbacks throw the ball. It's not
a matter of who can make the throws anymore. The
quarterback position is so advanced the way that they work
through everything. I've got high schoolers right now that are
more advanced than I was throwing the football my second
(25:14):
year in college. So I think what it comes down
is two things. One is the mental makeup of decision making.
And then two, does the coach believe in you? Because
they're going to give you more opportunities when they believe
in you as you get into the league. But you
can be 5'3, like Kyler Murray. You can be 6'5,
like Cam Newton. As long as the coach believes you
and puts a system in place that you can run
(25:37):
at a high level, I don't think there's a prototypical
size weight for the quarterback anymore. And I think that's
why it's made developing quarterbacks in the such a hard line.
You have to be aligned completely from the head coach, GM, ownership,
everybody in the building has to be bought in on
that one guy. And me and you know, that's really
(25:58):
hard to do no matter what industry you're in is
to get everybody on the same page.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I've been leading the crusade for years now, and maybe
I'm fighting a losing battle. I still think having a
quarterback under center gives you a better opportunity of disguising things,
deception with the defense. You know, uh, if you're going
to do play action, I'll buy into play action. If
(26:22):
you're under center, there's no play action if you're in
the gun. So it feels like there's some NFL teams
that are now using it more. Why is that? Um, one, I,
I agree with you.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
It's easier to fold defense when you go, when you
go on the center, um, the time between you, uh,
showing that fake in the run game, snapping it back.
There's just more time on task and more time between
the play action fake and the actual plays that you're
running for the defense to be fooled. I think because
(26:59):
a guy like myself, when you have a quarterback who
is a true dual threat, triple threat quarterback, beat you
with his arm, leg, and his mind, that's when you
can really utilize gun runs because But I love Joe Burrow,
and I think Joe Burrow is a dual threat quarterback
in the sense that he's a decent scrambler. But no
(27:19):
one's really afraid of him running a zone read. It
doesn't put the same stress on the defense as when
Lamar Jackson does it, when I did it, when Jalen
Hurts did it, when Cam Newton did it.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's just a different level.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
So I think it really applies to the quarterback that
you have under center because then you can play action
out of the gun because they're afraid of him running.
Majority of the quarterbacks right now in the league do
have athleticism, but they don't have the athleticism like Lamar Jackson.
When he gets to the second level, you know, he's
he's out the gate. And I think that's the true
(27:53):
difference between gun runs and gunplay action and under center.
You can just do more there and you can disguise
more and you can put the defense in a bind
to where they don't have. one and a half seconds
to react, but here's a three-second play action. Now you're
having to cover for six to seven seconds. That's why
I think it's effective.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
He's RG3, Fox College football analyst, out of pocket with
RG3 podcast and a Heisman winner at Baylor in 2011.
If there was the NIL and transfer portal, would you
have stayed at Baylor? I like to think.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Dan, that I would have stayed at Baylor because they
would have saw the value of having a young man
who was a freshman All-American and and, you know, opened
up the.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
The pocketbook to keep a guy.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
And that's why I don't blame some of the newer
age guys that bounce around a little bit, because they're
trying to take care of their families. And if the
current school doesn't see them that way and isn't willing
to pay them, you know, I think within one hundred
thousand of what another school is willing to pay them.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
They should leave.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
You know, I've told this story multiple times. I think
I've told it to you as well. But Mack Brown
tried to get me to transfer to Texas after my
freshman year at Baylor on the field when they beat
us 42 to 20, because he felt like, you know,
halftime was 20 to 20. And he felt like they
missed out on recruiting me because they offered me as
a safety.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well, you and you and Manziel, didn't they both? Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Well, they were going to make a defensive backs. They're
going to make his defensive backs in. And he said,
you can transfer now. But, you know, back then you
had to sit out two years if you transfer. So
it was like wasn't a real thing. But I just
think the schools that have these players that develop them,
if you want to keep them, then I think that you,
you should open up your, your pocketbooks to keep them
(29:45):
instead of complaining and saying, Oh, well, this school is
going to pay him this amount of money.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
It's like, well, what do you want your legacy to be?
You want to be your legacy.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
You want your legacy to be the coach or the
team that allowed your best player to go play at
Miami or go play at Texas. I'm sure if they
pay them the same that those schools would pay them,
they'd stay and they would have a better legacy. So
that's a long way of saying I think Baylor would
have seen the value and offer me the money that
that would have made me.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Stay at the university. Who was paying the most, though,
under the table? Oh, yeah. So I, you know, I
never got paid under the table.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
I got a free pizza one time in college and
compliance found me two days later and made me go
pay for it. So that was wild. But shout out
to Baylor Compliance. Appreciate y'all not letting a brother get
a free pizza.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
They didn't give you didn't get a car. No, not
a car.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I know. This is why you're great at your job, Dan.
I love you.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
I know for a fact that the SEC was paying
the most under the table. But my my own understanding
was that there were two teams outside the SEC that
were paying a lot of guys under the table. And
it was Stanford and Florida State. How much money are
we talking about? You're talking hundreds of thousands per player.
So they're spending they were spending millions already back then
(31:05):
doing it in unique ways.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I won't get into all that. Not trying to get sued. Well,
you can give me a for instance of how can
I pay you other than here you go? Here's money
or I'm going to give this to mom.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Yeah, well, I know one of the schools, I'm not
going to be too specific, but one of the schools
was having, the players had bank accounts and those bank
accounts were set up by the school. So if they
say they win, say Florida State beats Florida or Stanford
beats USC, they would miraculously have $ 100, 000 in a bank account.
(31:39):
And that was the way that they were able to
funnel money to the players without it being like true
cash passing hands. Some other schools also set up like
summer internships where you're not technically allowed to be paid,
but they would pay them in that way. And when
the NCAA is not truly paying attention, it's very easy
(31:59):
for those schools to kind of get through the cracks
and do those types of things. So when I hear
a lot of people right now in our industry talking about, oh,
it's the wild, wild West and this guy didn't pay.
I'm like, guys, it was always, it was always the wild,
wild West. It's just now everyone can do it legally.
And it's, it's eroded the, how would you say the
(32:21):
depth of a lot of these teams?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I know you watch the USC game.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Like they're winning 35 to three against San Jose State,
absolutely blowing them out. The second the backups get in
the game, it's like, whoa, what happened? And that's every
team in college football right now. And that's why we
have so much parity.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I laugh when I hear that nobody gets they're
getting paid under the table even now. Oh, yeah. Because
I can give you this on top. but I'm going
to give you the, like, look at, you know, Kawhi
Leonard with the Clippers. If it's true, Hey, you're going
to get this amount of money. We're going to give
you some, you know, phantom jobs here.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Listen, Shaq Shaq came out and said that when he
signed with the Lakers, they gave him a deal where they,
they also baked in like $ 20 million.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Worth of movie roles. So like, Like, come on, you know,
I watched just am and all that stuff. Like, like,
come on, you know, this is, this has.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Been going on for a long time. And I'll be
honest with you. I had heard the stories before I
went to college in, in 2008. And one of my teammates,
Jason Smith, you probably remember him. He got drafted by
the Ram second overall. He told me when we were
going to play against Texas A & M, my, my
freshman year in college, he said, Hey, if we win
this game, Make sure you go back to your apartment
(33:45):
and be ready for like a bag of money to
be there if we win this game.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
It's our biggest rival.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
So lo and behold, we beat Texas A & M
my freshman year. I am hightailing it back to the
apartment room. I'm like, oh my God, this is going
to be great. Nothing was there. And Jason Smith was
in the parking lot filming me laughing. So like these,
it was a known thing that these types of things
could happen. You know, I don't think Jason ever had
(34:10):
anything happen for him, but you know, if you gotta be,
you'd have to be really in a great place financially
as a young man coming into college to not be like, yeah,
I'll take that car.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I'll take that job.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I'll take that.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
And anyone that tells you that they wouldn't is lying
to your face.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah. Like Dajon love, you know? How did that happen
that a guy is convincing women that he's on the
Niners and he's carrying his helmet with him all the time, Robert?
Speaker 5 (34:37):
Yeah, I mean, he was a caricature of an NFL player.
And I've just never seen any NFL player have that
much time on his hands. You know, like if we're
being honest, football players like Dan, like yourself, you're one
of the best in the industry at what you do.
You just don't have a ton of time on your
hands to be hanging out on social media and giving
(34:58):
TED talks on what you should do financially. And, you know,
the guy had like 27 homes. I'm like, he just
we talk about this on the podcast, me and my wife.
And there's a moment when you have to understand that
if a guy has to tell you that he has it,
He just doesn't have it, right?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
But he's running past patterns on the beach, Robert, with
his helmet on.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Yeah, and did you see him cut off his inside
foot on a jump cut trying to run a post?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Like, come on.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
The man was backpedaling with a football holding it like,
I don't even know how he was holding it. Like,
ball security was terrible. What DB backpedals with holding the
football like that with a big old chain on? And
I don't know if you've seen his mugshot, but Lord
have mercy, no wonder he was wearing a headband. This
guy's got a seven head.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
It's crazy. Okay, okay. What's the one question you know
you could ask somebody to determine if they were a
professional football player. Oh, to determine if they're professional football?
Speaker 5 (36:00):
I thought the one question one girl asked him about,
you know, like, how did he make the team? And
he said private workout, and then he got cut. And
then he said there's three layers of getting cut. There's
the physical, the emotional, and I can't remember what the
other one was. That, to me, was a dead giveaway. Like,
(36:20):
there is no three layers of cuts or waivers that
you have to go through in that situation.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
But I just tell people....
Speaker 5 (36:30):
You can literally call the team. That's what I would
tell them. The team has a phone number. Call the
team and.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Be like, hey, is Deja on the team? I promise
you they'll pick up. They will pick up. The lady
at the front office will pick up and be like,
let me check the register. Come on. Maybe they wanted
to believe that he was a football player and he
was interested in them. They wanted to believe they had
gotten their golden ticket. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Dejan, like,
(37:00):
come on, it sounds like a key and pill skit.
Dejan Love. Dejan Love, Mississippi Baptist Junior College. You know, like,
it's perfect. But, man, he is not a real person.
He is not a real man. I feel bad for
the women. I do. RG3 serving, honorary captain for the
Baylor Bears on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, where he'll be
(37:23):
opposite Cam Newton. And the Auburn Tigers. Who is faster
right now? Between? You and Cam. I've always been faster
than Cam. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Cam has probably been a more massive human being since birth.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah. But I've always been faster than Cam. Cam knows that.
Are you faster?
Speaker 5 (37:43):
We could line it up right now. We could line
it up for a race. Maybe they'll spot my guy's
14 points if I win the race.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Who's faster now, Tyreek Hill or you?
Speaker 5 (37:55):
Oh, I mean, Tyreek Hill is fast. He's hurt right now, though,
so I could beat him in a race right now.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
But when he's healthy, Tyreek Hill. I believe in my abilities,
but I'm also understanding of small names.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Who's the fastest player in the NFL right now?
Speaker 5 (38:13):
Oh, fastest player in the NFL right now? The default
would be Xavier Worthy.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah. You know. Remember when John Ross, wasn't he with
the Bengals? And he had like a 4-2 out of Washington. Yeah.
Like the difference between like 4-1, 4-2, and let's say 4-3.
Like how much of a difference is that? Just a little?
(38:45):
Just a little bit. I would say this. When you
watch the tape, like Xavier.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Ward, I believe he still has the record for the 40, but–
I would say Rashid Shaheed from Seattle is the fastest
in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Okay. Because when you watch their play speed, like, and
don't get me wrong, Xavier's fast.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
But when you watch their play speed, Rashid Shaheed, in
my opinion, with pads on, runs faster. I don't know
what the actual metrics are because, you know, they track
these guys' speeds and whatnot. But it's not always the
40 that leads to great success in the NFL, right?
But it certainly helps, especially if you're a special teams guy,
because you've got to close that distance for the punter.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, but I'd rather have somebody who is fast for
10 than fast. for 40. I'm using 10, especially a
wide receiver, running back, an offensive lineman or defense. It
just feels like the game is really about five to
seven yards of who gets there the quickest or first.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I think it all depends on the position, right? When
you talk about wide receivers, you'd rather have a Justin
Jefferson who's a mid-4-4 guy, Odell Beckham Jr., mid-4-4 guy.
But when they run their routes, they're running full speed.
Or they're Jackson Smith and Jigba, right? Jackson Smith and
Jigba is not a 4-2 guy, but he's a mid-4-4 guy.
He might even run 4-3. I don't want to make
(40:08):
him slower than he is. But the way he runs
his routes, you can't tell where he's going.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
But how did Jerry Rice run a 4-6?
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
Well, Jerry Rice, I had a receiver in college named
Terrence Williams played for the Cowboys, third round pick. And
Terrence was a high four or five guy, but he
was high four or five. You know, when he woke up,
he was high four or five with no pads on.
He was high four or five with pads on. He
was high four or five in press coverage.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
He was high four or five and off coverage.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
So there was a consistency there that made it very
easy to throw him the football. So Jerry Rice, in
my opinion, no DB was prepared to play Jerry like
he was a 4-3 guy. So when they got ran by,
they were surprised. You line up against Tyreek Hill, look
at every DB that played Tyreek Hill. They are 29
yards off. They're like, I am not getting beat, D.
(41:02):
But with Jerry, they're like, this guy ran 4-6, I
can press him.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And then Jerry would win.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
But if you look at it, Dan, what are the
plays that you truly celebrate? It's the long-hitting... runs from
the running back, the catching runs from the wide receivers.
And that's where I think the 40 does come into play.
You need to have long speed, but you first have
to be able to get there. So that 10-yard split,
you're dead on. It's the most important figure. But you
can't have a great 10 and be a five flat guy.
(41:31):
As long as you're somewhere between 4'3 and 4'6, you're
okay in my book.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
You can be drafted. You can go be a star
in the NFL. Have fun this weekend. Great to catch
up with you, as always. Appreciate you, brother. You're the best.
That's RG3, or as McLovin says, Robert Griffin Jr.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
III.
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ryan Leaf, USA lead Pac-12 analyst, former NFL quarterback, and
the number two overall pick by the Chargers back in 1998.
How many teams are in the Pac-12? Eight football, nine basketball. Okay.
The opportunity to expand. Where are you getting those? Everybody
(00:28):
wants expansion. So where are we getting other teams, other schools?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
I think what Teresa Gould, who's the Pac-12 commissioner, I
think her vision has really kind of become a reality.
You know, there was a time where there were the
two teams where everybody else vacated. And I don't think
there was a moment after she went and spoke to
the presidents of the university where she had a plan
in place that either one of those teams waver. If
an ACC team had come in or an ACC conference
(00:55):
would have come in or a Big 12 conference would
have came up, I don't think Washington State or Oregon
State would have left. They were going to build this
new Pac-12, rebrand it, and release it to the public
here in July. And I think it's going to be
highly competitive, a lot of fun. But I do think
they want to keep looking outside to build the brand
(01:16):
and build something bigger down the stretch. But right now,
they're really happy with the eight participants. So now we
only have power four participants. They're four power four.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Conferences, right?
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Which would make sense if it's a power four then.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I don't really buy into it outside the college football
playoff saying this year that the four power four conference
champions are going to get an automatic bid into the
college football playoff. That allows for, let's say, the Pac-12
if they're the fifth best ranked conference, which I think
it is going into this season. This gives my alma
(01:51):
mater and a lot of these teams in this conference
maybe their best chance to go to the college football
playoff ever. Washington State hasn't won a championship since 2003,
so this is going to give them a much better
chance to get to the playoff and be a part
of the conversation than they ever would have had in
the old Pac-12.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
How did we get to the point where you can
go to the NFL and put on an NFL uniform
and go through training camp, get cut, And then be
allowed to go back and play college football.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So this, this is, this is something I've been a
little bit annoyed with the way the, the, the talking
heads have been, you know, you heard Dan Orlovsky go on,
get up and say, this is.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Going to open up the floodgates. It's not going to
open up the floodgates.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
He said they're going to play three years in college
and get drafted in the second round and play two
years and want to come back.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
No, that can't happen.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It's now a rule. It's five for five. You get
five years to play five. This rule, which was injuncted
in the courts, is being applied retroactively. So this only
affects the class of 2022 of these players. None of
them were drafted. They did not make a roster. They
have a chance to come back and do everything else
that everybody is through this five-for-five thing. So it's not
(03:00):
something that's going to be ongoing. I don't know where
the story got so out of hand this week. It
just became this bomb. Well, it's Lane Kiffin. Well, because
he's using it to his advantage. And all these other
teams should too. These are players that are due their
final year of eligibility. It's not something that's going to
affect it next year or the year after that. But
then you even have head coaches like Steve Sarkeesian go
(03:21):
on there and start talking about morality and things like that.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I'm like.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Are you kidding me? I mean, I don't know if
they're informed at the actual court ruling.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
No, it's the concept of it, Ryan, that we think,
oh my God, this is going to be an avalanche.
The floodgates are open and now we're going to have
50 guys go to the NFL, get cut, and then
come back and play wherever they want to. Nope, never happened.
Won't happen.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
This is an injunction in the courts that is being
retroactively instituted for these players that are due their final
year of eligibility.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
That's it. And if they fall between these parameters, and
we're talking about maybe, what, six, seven, eight players? Like,
that's it.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
It's like the bigger conversation around all the things that
make it so subjective, and it's not. It's going to
piss off some other coaches because guess what? It seemingly
feels like a lot of these players want to come
back and play for Lane Kiffin.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I don't have any problem if Lane Kiffin wants to
take advantage of this. Like, I don't have the morality, please,
you know, going to LSU. He didn't invent this. If
he takes advantage of this, then fine. I'm okay with it.
I think if it was with another program and another coach,
I don't think we would have this. It was like, oh,
(04:33):
here's Lane. He'll do anything to win. If I'm in
his position, and as long as my AD is fine
with this, and I know these kids... I would open
the door. If they're allowed to do this legally, then
I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. Yeah,
I'm not even against liking it. These guys did not
(04:54):
make an NFL roster. This is an opportunity for them
to maybe play football for the last time and make name, image,
and likeness money to help them. It may be their
best opportunity to do so. I think a lot of
these coaches are talking about, I'm not going to give
a a kid who's busted his butt for seven months,
give away his spot.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Well, they're not giving away a spot. There's 105 roster spots.
None of those have been completely met. They're going to
play within this roster. And I know Lane really well.
Lane's had me come speak to three of his programs
since he was at Florida Atlantic and Ole Miss. And
I suspect I'll be down to Baton Rouge pretty soon.
I simply love the guy. I think that he has
(05:33):
really reinvented himself. I thought we saw the best possible
version of him at Ole Miss.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I even told him that. I said.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
This is the best possible version of you. You have
that at Ole Miss. But he felt like this was
something he needed to do, and so I supported him
on it. I didn't necessarily think it was the right move,
but we'll.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
See how it plays out. What does he have you
tell his team?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Well, I go in and speak to consequences, a big
part of it. Also, a huge part of it is
I'm exactly where they were 25 years ago. I'm sitting
in the exact same chair, and I was in a
much better position than all of those people in that room.
I was about to be the second or first pick
in the NFL draft. And I give them that image.
(06:18):
I go, how many of you would give right now
a five-year career in the NFL, the second pick in
the NFL draft, $ 31 million, a Heisman Trophy finalist? How
many of you would give for that right now? And
every single one of them raises their hand. Because you forget,
because of how poor my professional career was, how much
sacrifice and how much you know, greatness went into the
(06:38):
first 22 years of my life. It's always thrown to
the side because of what the professional thing happened. People
always ask me the question, do you wish you would
have never played professional football? Because then you would have
this great legacy. And I'm like, why would I have
wanted that? I wanted to be the best. I wanted
to get to the NFL. It's just how it happens.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's life. But when you tell them what happened to
you after football, and I don't know if they look
at you like, Well, that's not going to impact me.
You know how kids are. They look at you like that.
They look like, that's not going to happen to me. Yes.
Which part, I say?
Speaker 3 (07:10):
The part where you're going to be the second pick
in the NFL draft or the part where you're going
to end up in a prison cell? It can happen
to anybody at any point. We just had the young
man who called in to you. I mean, I'm sitting
in your green room. That was 10 years ago that
I came on this show, and that guy heard that
that day. You talked about it just a little bit
ago in your confessional about that platform. And maybe you
(07:33):
weren't ready to talk about it, but you had me
on your show.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
And I was talking about it. And that allowed it
to grow and become something. And you then took hold
of that. And now you can speak to that. And
so I think the impact that I am having would
have never been the case if I had been a
Super Bowl winning quarterback that didn't get that education.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
But- Would winning have kept you away from prescription drugs?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The failure and the judgment led to that. I didn't
use it while I was playing. It was a coping mechanism,
like you talked about with the Tony Romo and Tiger
Woods conversation. You're trying to hide something. I never had
that problem while I was playing in college. You were
never interested in I never took a drug. The only
(08:31):
drug I've ever taken in my life is Vicodin. I
didn't have my first drink until my 18th birthday. I
probably can count on two hands how many times I've
been drunk in my life. Like it's not, you know,
competition was my drug of choice. I competed at everything.
And now I've found that later in life. And, you know,
I was talking to Andrew Perloff back there and I've
been sober longer now than I ever was using, which
(08:51):
is insane. That kind of snuck up on me. How
many years?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
14 years.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
And previous, in my using years, it was, I think,
I don't know, 12? 8 to 12, I think it was. So,
you know, we're even past that point. It's not something
I think about on a daily basis.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
There's no reminder or something that you know that feeling,
you know, or that you get that feeling, and then
you have to, like, coping mechanism?
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, behavior.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Behavior.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
I think behavior is a real telling sign of that.
If you see old Ryan behavior, you know, entitlement, you know,
lack of humility.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But that's not a smell or a situation or anything?
Movies was a thing for me. I would always go
to movies and I would take them. You'd take Vicodin
and go? And I would disappear. You know, I would
just numb myself out and just, you know. And so
I always thought it was going to be hard to
go see movies again. And I love to go see movies.
And so when I got.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Into treatment, one of the things that the therapist had
me do was we all went to a movie as
a group, and I got to see it in a
sober environment, and it was still the greatest, right? And
I remembered that. And so, you know, I take my
kid to the movies, my wife and I go all
the time. That was the one thing I thought was
going to trigger. And you find a way to get
(10:09):
past all that stuff. And then you use the tools
that you learn through the process to not be influenced
by those things and You know, I've had a couple
surgeries since I got sober, and there's been a plan
in place. It's always about transparency, talking to your doctors,
talking to people. My wife says I've built my house
(10:31):
out of glass over the last 12 years, and she's
got a point. Everybody knows my stuff. I'm not afraid
or worried that somebody may know it, and this has
zero to do with any sort of redemption for me. Like,
there are so many people who have been infected by
the justice system, mental health, or substance use. that have
gone through this, conquered it and are thriving, but no
(10:52):
one has them on the Dan Patrick show. No one
has them on a podcast and certainly not on the platforms.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It just, it's life. And it just was public for me.
And that's it. What was that feeling like when you
took a pain med for your surgery? Um, it was great.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
I mean, it's, they're, they're dangerously great. Dangerously great.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I remember. Oh God.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I remember how this feels. I love this. I love
not feeling.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Negative feelings, painful feelings, the things that you're supposed to
feel as a human being. But we just had a
plan in place. My wife handled them. We took them
for a couple days, and then we didn't think about
it again.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I had knee replacement surgery. And I said to my wife,
they gave me a boatload of Percocet. Yeah. And I said,
I don't want to take it. You know, I have
an addictive person. I just, I said, no, I don't
want to. And she said, you haven't had problems with
this before. I said, I know that, but this is
knee replacement. And I was in terrible pain. That's smart.
(12:02):
And I caved in. I said, Hanlon, let me have half. Listen,
they're invented for a reason, right? Yes.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
They're for acute physical pain. There's a reason why there's,
that's a me problem. That's not a pill problem. I
used to think football was the problem. No, it's a
me problem. Football was never the problem. Football gave me everything.
I had to figure it out. That's why with the
Tony Romo statement that we just saw, I thought it
was a very good statement. Didn't need the part about
(12:31):
having debilitating back pain and stuff like that. Take that
whole paragraph out.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
You don't need any of that.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
You chose to do this, and it's cost you this,
and you're going to admit to it, and you're going
to find a way to get better. That's It's almost
like the saying when you say something, but.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Everything after the but is meaningless to me. And I
was reading it with my wife yesterday and I was
just like, oh.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
No, you don't have to say that part. Everybody's had surgeries.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Everybody who's going through debilitating pain, you know, don't, you know,
I play on a golf tour with him. He was
always out there on a golf tour playing. So I'm like,
if you're in such pain, why the hell are you
out there playing golf all the time then? That's not
helping things.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah. You know, and to.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Your point, you know, you could see, you could see
the thing starting to unravel. You know, being around people
outside the celebrity in the game of football.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
But don't mask what the problem is by telling me
that you've gone through surgeries. Yeah. Same thing with Tiger Woods. Yes.
You're masking these things.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah. You know.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Let me bring you back. I'm going to talk some
actual football here. Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
We'll continue with Ryan Leaf right after this. Fox Sports
Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Catch all of our shows at foxsportsradio.com. And within the
iHeartRadio app, search FSR to listen live.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Continuing our conversation with Ryan Leaf, he's the lead Pac-12
analyst for USA Sports. And he'll be in the booth
on Saturday, Colorado State hosting Wyoming, the border war rivalry,
630 Eastern on USA Network. And then you got Memphis
at Boise State the following week. You look at the
(14:09):
number of teams that can win the national title. How
many would you say, let's say, get to a national
title game?
Speaker 3 (14:17):
As of right now, I would argue there's many more
than what we think, because I don't think anybody has
any idea what's about to trot onto the field this Saturday.
With the way that rosters change so much in the offseason,
the preseason rankings are absolutely bunk in my mind. Should
be ripped up completely after week one. You know, when
(14:39):
my Cougars go beat Washington in week one, and Washington's
a 15, you know, whatever, they're 15 ranked, it.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Gets ripped up. And Washington State probably should be in
the top 25 then, if you look at it that way. Yeah,
but this is for TV. I understand why we do it.
I get it.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
But the point about this is that I don't think
you could have any rational conclusion on how many teams
are viable options for a national championship right now.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
But give me a ballpark. 30. 30 have a chance
to go to the national title game? Yes, I believe so.
30 for the playoffs, not national title game.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
I would say you probably have... I think when you
get into that playoff, you have a chance.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Wait, well, are you suggesting that we could have another
Indiana this year? Definitely. But who would be Indiana this
year besides Indiana? Ole Miss. Okay.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Ole Miss, I think Trinidad Chambliss is maybe arguably the
best in the business. My Heisman frontrunner is John Mateer
at Oklahoma. Maybe Oklahoma could be that team that comes
out of nowhere because I think they have the best quarterback. Realistically,
if you have the best quarterback– At any level, you
have a really good shot of making that. So I
(15:52):
think there is definitely a team out there that could
win the national championship that you are not talking about
right now.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I think Miami has a really good chance of going
back to the national title.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I think Mario Cristobal, I've known him for a long time.
He's been an incredible coach, a recruiter. He's back home.
He got to taste a little bit of it last year.
He continues to build a program that is rooted in winning.
So I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're back
in that That realm, once again, the ACC is such
a foreign conference than what the other three are when
(16:26):
you're talking about the power four. So, yeah, I suspect
that they could be right in the mix again.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
And Mensah, they get a really good quarterback who would
be a Heisman Trophy candidate. The number of analysts who
think C.J. Carr is the best quarterback in college football. Yeah,
water's wet. You know, they're not going out on a
very far limb there to make that. Well, but Arch
Manning was the anointed and even Dante Moore. But I
(16:57):
think that you say Notre Dame, CJ Carr, I think
Arch Manning, Dante Moore. I think all those guys can
could be in that that that realm. I like I said,
I think John Mateer is the. You think he's the
best quarterback in college football?
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, I think if he doesn't get hurt a year ago,
there's a much different conversation being had. He was the
best quarterback in all of college football his final year
at Washington State. He just was stuck in Pullman and
not playing against the right kind of opponents. So, yeah,
I think he's the best player. I think he's got
one of the best play callers in all of football,
and Ben Arbuckle calling plays that he's very familiar with.
(17:32):
So they've got to be good on defense, and that's
Brent Venable's area, so hopefully that makes Oklahoma– They got
a difficult schedule, but yeah, that's my guy. The prep
work leading up to being drafted now, because these kids
are programmed when they're in grade school, high school, seven-on-seven,
(17:52):
all of these things. But we're getting back to quarterbacks
being under center in the NFL, which I kept thinking,
why would you take that away? that the defense doesn't
know what I'm doing in those seven steps. If they
just see me in the shotgun, I've taken away, I
think a weapon of deception here. And so why are
(18:15):
we getting back to these quarterback? Like Mendoza has never
taken a snap under center. I've taken more snaps under
center than Mendoza.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
So why are we getting back to quarterbacks under center?
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Well, I think college coaches didn't care that, they weren't
preparing them for the NFL. They were trying to win
a national championship and get themselves paid in the process.
Now these players are being paid a lot of money.
So what the coaches have had to shift and pivot
to is that you come play for us. Not only
will you get paid this, that, or the other, we'll
make you and get you ready to be an NFL quarterback.
(18:48):
And to be a great NFL quarterback, you better be
knowledgeable and you have the ability to be under center,
to read a defense while you drop back, and make
things difficult when you run play action.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
That's what a.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Pro-style quarterback who has success in the NFL is able
to do.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
But why wouldn't that help you in college if you're
a coach?
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Because I think a lot of college coaches, and I
think this was stemmed by Chip Kelly, it was speed
and it was basketball on turf. It was not necessarily.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So like Loyola Marymount basketball back in the 90s.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Chip believed that if we could outrun you to the perimeter,
if we could outleverage you with numbers, that was the difference.
And it still is that way. I mean, when you
scheme up an offense, that's what you're up against. You're
running into the A gap or the B gap on
the defense. And if you can get a double team
and get to the linebacker and the safety all in one,
you're going to have leverage. You're going to have the
victory there. But when you put a quarterback under center, you–
(19:44):
and remove him from that and put him in the shotgun,
especially if you put it back to the right of
him or the left of him, you pretty much... for
a defensive coordinator, you're giving him so much leeway. Now
that's why the, when the pistol came in, I really
liked that because at least you put the back behind
you in that. And, uh, and you made it difficult
for the defensive coordinator to scheme that up. You and
the shotgun and put a running back to one side,
(20:05):
like you are cutting the field in half in terms
of what a defensive coordinator can do. And he's going
to thank you in his post-game speech.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
How did J.J. McCarthy fall?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Well, I think he got injured. You know, I think that,
I don't think he played all that bad last year,
to be honest with you. I don't think that they
were very good offensively, unfortunately. Having one of the best
wide receivers out there and not getting in the football,
that's something else. But, you know, I think a lot
of it goes into what Sam Darnall was able to
(20:36):
do a year ago, what Daniel Jones has been able
to do, two guys that were on that roster and
a decision by the Vikings organization to go with J.J.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
McCarthy.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
And in this day and age, if you don't go
out and have immediate success, people are ready to throw
you out with the bathwater. And that's just something that
I don't really appreciate. I wanted a competition. Kyler clearly
walked in there and won it.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I will say this.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I love Kevin O'Connell, but I'm telling you right now,
if this team doesn't win this year with Brian Flores
as the defensive coordinator, there's got to be a real
conversation that maybe he's better as an offensive coordinator, as
a quarterback whisperer than he is as a guy overseeing
an entire organization. When this is all said and done,
they have to win this year.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Plain and simple. Ryan Leaf, USA Sports lead, Pac-12 analyst,
and he'll be in the booth on Saturday at Colorado
State in Wyoming. That'll be 6.30 Eastern on USA Network.
And then the following week, Memphis at Boise State. Great
to see you. Thank you for sharing, as always.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Be sure to catch the live edition of the Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at 9 a.m. Eastern, 6 a.m. Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Hey, it's Covino and Rich from Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Now, in addition to hearing us live weekdays from 5
to 7 p.m. Eastern, 2 to 4 Pacific on Fox
Sports Radio, we're excited to announce a brand new YouTube
channel for the show.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yup, that's right.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
You can now watch Covino & Rich live on YouTube
every day. All you gotta do, search Covino & Rich
FSR on YouTube. Again, go to YouTube, search Covino &
Rich FSR. Check us out on YouTube, subscribe, hit that
thumbs up icon, and comment away.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Spring and Robert Griffin, Jr. III. He'll serve as the
honorary captain for his Baylor Bears this Saturday in Atlanta
when they take on the Auburn Tigers. Look at you,
going out there, honorary captain. What does that mean? You
just walk out to the middle of the field? I
think that's what it means, Dan.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
You know, they got Cam Newton on the other side.
You know, all six-foot-five of them in all of his
funny hats, you know, so... We'll see how that matchup goes,
but it looks like it's going to be a pretty
interesting game. The Peach Bowl reached out, asked me to
do this as part of the athletic kickoff game, so
I'm excited. I'm excited for Baylor this year, especially with
(22:54):
DJ Lagway getting a chance to come home, go to
his dad's school, and try to make his own mark
and revive his career as a potential first-round quarterback.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
When you're around Cam Newton and you're like, that's just different.
You know, Robert, when you go, he's a quarterback and
he's as big as, I mean, physically imposing. I, I just,
and I, and he might've had the greatest individual season,
a quarterback's ever had in college. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
We talked about this before. Like, is it, is it
Cam Newton or is it Joe Burrow? Um, you know
what Cam was able to do in one year, basically
just one year of college football was extraordinary. Um, You know,
I look at Cam, he looks like Julius Peppers, you know,
when you walk next to him. So like, it's just,
it's hard to imagine like this guy was a quarterback,
(23:46):
you know, the way that he's built. I don't know
if you guys remember like a couple of years ago,
some guys tried to jump him.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah. Like a seven on seven tournament.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Yeah. And I did like a reenactment, like a reaction
to that video. And I'm like, y'all better bring more
people because this guy, this guy, it's going to take
at least seven small human beings to try to take
down this one behemoth of a man.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
The position, though, I don't I gets evolved where you
could be smaller, run around a little bit. Fran Tarkington,
you know, back in the day. But is there a
prototypical quarterback? Because we went through those stages where we
needed to have somebody with six, four, six, five pocket passer.
And where would you say we are today with the
(24:28):
if you want to call it evolution of the position?
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Yeah, I think there is no size, height, weight prototype anymore.
I mean, you got Kyler Murray, who's like 5'3, starting
for the Minnesota Vikings. You know, when I was playing,
obviously you had Brady and Manning in the 6'4, 6'5, range.
But I think what it comes down to, if if
you go out to like a local high school, you know,
(24:53):
like an advanced level seven on seven program, you know,
which we have here in Houston called RG3 seven on seven.
And you watch those quarterbacks throw the ball. It's not
a matter of who can make the throws anymore. The
quarterback position is so advanced the way that they work
through everything. I've got high schoolers right now that are
more advanced than I was throwing the football my second
(25:14):
year in college. So I think what it comes down
is two things. One is the mental makeup of decision making.
And then two, does the coach believe in you? Because
they're going to give you more opportunities when they believe
in you as you get into the league. But you
can be 5'3, like Kyler Murray. You can be 6'5,
like Cam Newton. As long as the coach believes you
and puts a system in place that you can run
(25:37):
at a high level, I don't think there's a prototypical
size weight for the quarterback anymore. And I think that's
why it's made developing quarterbacks in the such a hard line.
You have to be aligned completely from the head coach, GM, ownership,
everybody in the building has to be bought in on
that one guy. And me and you know, that's really
(25:58):
hard to do no matter what industry you're in is
to get everybody on the same page.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I've been leading the crusade for years now, and maybe
I'm fighting a losing battle. I still think having a
quarterback under center gives you a better opportunity of disguising things,
deception with the defense. You know, uh, if you're going
to do play action, I'll buy into play action. If
(26:22):
you're under center, there's no play action if you're in
the gun. So it feels like there's some NFL teams
that are now using it more. Why is that? Um, one, I,
I agree with you.
Speaker 5 (26:36):
It's easier to fold defense when you go, when you
go on the center, um, the time between you, uh,
showing that fake in the run game, snapping it back.
There's just more time on task and more time between
the play action fake and the actual plays that you're
running for the defense to be fooled. I think because
(26:59):
a guy like myself, when you have a quarterback who
is a true dual threat, triple threat quarterback, beat you
with his arm, leg, and his mind, that's when you
can really utilize gun runs because But I love Joe Burrow,
and I think Joe Burrow is a dual threat quarterback
in the sense that he's a decent scrambler. But no
(27:19):
one's really afraid of him running a zone read. It
doesn't put the same stress on the defense as when
Lamar Jackson does it, when I did it, when Jalen
Hurts did it, when Cam Newton did it.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
It's just a different level.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
So I think it really applies to the quarterback that
you have under center because then you can play action
out of the gun because they're afraid of him running.
Majority of the quarterbacks right now in the league do
have athleticism, but they don't have the athleticism like Lamar Jackson.
When he gets to the second level, you know, he's
he's out the gate. And I think that's the true
(27:53):
difference between gun runs and gunplay action and under center.
You can just do more there and you can disguise
more and you can put the defense in a bind
to where they don't have. one and a half seconds
to react, but here's a three-second play action. Now you're
having to cover for six to seven seconds. That's why
I think it's effective.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
He's RG3, Fox College football analyst, out of pocket with
RG3 podcast and a Heisman winner at Baylor in 2011.
If there was the NIL and transfer portal, would you
have stayed at Baylor? I like to think.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Dan, that I would have stayed at Baylor because they
would have saw the value of having a young man
who was a freshman All-American and and, you know, opened
up the.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
The pocketbook to keep a guy.
Speaker 5 (28:43):
And that's why I don't blame some of the newer
age guys that bounce around a little bit, because they're
trying to take care of their families. And if the
current school doesn't see them that way and isn't willing
to pay them, you know, I think within one hundred
thousand of what another school is willing to pay them.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
They should leave.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
You know, I've told this story multiple times. I think
I've told it to you as well. But Mack Brown
tried to get me to transfer to Texas after my
freshman year at Baylor on the field when they beat
us 42 to 20, because he felt like, you know,
halftime was 20 to 20. And he felt like they
missed out on recruiting me because they offered me as
a safety.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Well, you and you and Manziel, didn't they both? Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:23):
Well, they were going to make a defensive backs. They're
going to make his defensive backs in. And he said,
you can transfer now. But, you know, back then you
had to sit out two years if you transfer. So
it was like wasn't a real thing. But I just
think the schools that have these players that develop them,
if you want to keep them, then I think that you,
you should open up your, your pocketbooks to keep them
(29:45):
instead of complaining and saying, Oh, well, this school is
going to pay him this amount of money.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
It's like, well, what do you want your legacy to be?
You want to be your legacy.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
You want your legacy to be the coach or the
team that allowed your best player to go play at
Miami or go play at Texas. I'm sure if they
pay them the same that those schools would pay them,
they'd stay and they would have a better legacy. So
that's a long way of saying I think Baylor would
have seen the value and offer me the money that
that would have made me.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Stay at the university. Who was paying the most, though,
under the table? Oh, yeah. So I, you know, I
never got paid under the table.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
I got a free pizza one time in college and
compliance found me two days later and made me go
pay for it. So that was wild. But shout out
to Baylor Compliance. Appreciate y'all not letting a brother get
a free pizza.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
They didn't give you didn't get a car. No, not
a car.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I know. This is why you're great at your job, Dan.
I love you.
Speaker 5 (30:42):
I know for a fact that the SEC was paying
the most under the table. But my my own understanding
was that there were two teams outside the SEC that
were paying a lot of guys under the table. And
it was Stanford and Florida State. How much money are
we talking about? You're talking hundreds of thousands per player.
So they're spending they were spending millions already back then
(31:05):
doing it in unique ways.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I won't get into all that. Not trying to get sued. Well,
you can give me a for instance of how can
I pay you other than here you go? Here's money
or I'm going to give this to mom.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Yeah, well, I know one of the schools, I'm not
going to be too specific, but one of the schools
was having, the players had bank accounts and those bank
accounts were set up by the school. So if they
say they win, say Florida State beats Florida or Stanford
beats USC, they would miraculously have $ 100, 000 in a bank account.
(31:39):
And that was the way that they were able to
funnel money to the players without it being like true
cash passing hands. Some other schools also set up like
summer internships where you're not technically allowed to be paid,
but they would pay them in that way. And when
the NCAA is not truly paying attention, it's very easy
(31:59):
for those schools to kind of get through the cracks
and do those types of things. So when I hear
a lot of people right now in our industry talking about, oh,
it's the wild, wild West and this guy didn't pay.
I'm like, guys, it was always, it was always the wild,
wild West. It's just now everyone can do it legally.
And it's, it's eroded the, how would you say the
(32:21):
depth of a lot of these teams?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I know you watch the USC game.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Like they're winning 35 to three against San Jose State,
absolutely blowing them out. The second the backups get in
the game, it's like, whoa, what happened? And that's every
team in college football right now. And that's why we
have so much parity.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I laugh when I hear that nobody gets they're
getting paid under the table even now. Oh, yeah. Because
I can give you this on top. but I'm going
to give you the, like, look at, you know, Kawhi
Leonard with the Clippers. If it's true, Hey, you're going
to get this amount of money. We're going to give
you some, you know, phantom jobs here.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Listen, Shaq Shaq came out and said that when he
signed with the Lakers, they gave him a deal where they,
they also baked in like $ 20 million.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Worth of movie roles. So like, Like, come on, you know,
I watched just am and all that stuff. Like, like,
come on, you know, this is, this has.
Speaker 5 (33:21):
Been going on for a long time. And I'll be
honest with you. I had heard the stories before I
went to college in, in 2008. And one of my teammates,
Jason Smith, you probably remember him. He got drafted by
the Ram second overall. He told me when we were
going to play against Texas A & M, my, my
freshman year in college, he said, Hey, if we win
this game, Make sure you go back to your apartment
(33:45):
and be ready for like a bag of money to
be there if we win this game.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
It's our biggest rival.
Speaker 5 (33:50):
So lo and behold, we beat Texas A & M
my freshman year. I am hightailing it back to the
apartment room. I'm like, oh my God, this is going
to be great. Nothing was there. And Jason Smith was
in the parking lot filming me laughing. So like these,
it was a known thing that these types of things
could happen. You know, I don't think Jason ever had
(34:10):
anything happen for him, but you know, if you gotta be,
you'd have to be really in a great place financially
as a young man coming into college to not be like, yeah,
I'll take that car.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I'll take that job.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
I'll take that.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
And anyone that tells you that they wouldn't is lying
to your face.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah. Like Dajon love, you know? How did that happen
that a guy is convincing women that he's on the
Niners and he's carrying his helmet with him all the time, Robert?
Speaker 5 (34:37):
Yeah, I mean, he was a caricature of an NFL player.
And I've just never seen any NFL player have that
much time on his hands. You know, like if we're
being honest, football players like Dan, like yourself, you're one
of the best in the industry at what you do.
You just don't have a ton of time on your
hands to be hanging out on social media and giving
(34:58):
TED talks on what you should do financially. And, you know,
the guy had like 27 homes. I'm like, he just
we talk about this on the podcast, me and my wife.
And there's a moment when you have to understand that
if a guy has to tell you that he has it,
He just doesn't have it, right?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
But he's running past patterns on the beach, Robert, with
his helmet on.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Yeah, and did you see him cut off his inside
foot on a jump cut trying to run a post?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Like, come on.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
The man was backpedaling with a football holding it like,
I don't even know how he was holding it. Like,
ball security was terrible. What DB backpedals with holding the
football like that with a big old chain on? And
I don't know if you've seen his mugshot, but Lord
have mercy, no wonder he was wearing a headband. This
guy's got a seven head.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
It's crazy. Okay, okay. What's the one question you know
you could ask somebody to determine if they were a
professional football player. Oh, to determine if they're professional football?
Speaker 5 (36:00):
I thought the one question one girl asked him about,
you know, like, how did he make the team? And
he said private workout, and then he got cut. And
then he said there's three layers of getting cut. There's
the physical, the emotional, and I can't remember what the
other one was. That, to me, was a dead giveaway. Like,
(36:20):
there is no three layers of cuts or waivers that
you have to go through in that situation.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
But I just tell people....
Speaker 5 (36:30):
You can literally call the team. That's what I would
tell them. The team has a phone number. Call the
team and.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Be like, hey, is Deja on the team? I promise
you they'll pick up. They will pick up. The lady
at the front office will pick up and be like,
let me check the register. Come on. Maybe they wanted
to believe that he was a football player and he
was interested in them. They wanted to believe they had
gotten their golden ticket. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Dejan, like,
(37:00):
come on, it sounds like a key and pill skit.
Dejan Love. Dejan Love, Mississippi Baptist Junior College. You know, like,
it's perfect. But, man, he is not a real person.
He is not a real man. I feel bad for
the women. I do. RG3 serving, honorary captain for the
Baylor Bears on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, where he'll be
(37:23):
opposite Cam Newton. And the Auburn Tigers. Who is faster
right now? Between? You and Cam. I've always been faster
than Cam. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Cam has probably been a more massive human being since birth.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah. But I've always been faster than Cam. Cam knows that.
Are you faster?
Speaker 5 (37:43):
We could line it up right now. We could line
it up for a race. Maybe they'll spot my guy's
14 points if I win the race.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Who's faster now, Tyreek Hill or you?
Speaker 5 (37:55):
Oh, I mean, Tyreek Hill is fast. He's hurt right now, though,
so I could beat him in a race right now.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
But when he's healthy, Tyreek Hill. I believe in my abilities,
but I'm also understanding of small names.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
Who's the fastest player in the NFL right now?
Speaker 5 (38:13):
Oh, fastest player in the NFL right now? The default
would be Xavier Worthy.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Yeah. You know. Remember when John Ross, wasn't he with
the Bengals? And he had like a 4-2 out of Washington. Yeah.
Like the difference between like 4-1, 4-2, and let's say 4-3.
Like how much of a difference is that? Just a little?
(38:45):
Just a little bit. I would say this. When you
watch the tape, like Xavier.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
Ward, I believe he still has the record for the 40, but–
I would say Rashid Shaheed from Seattle is the fastest
in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Okay. Because when you watch their play speed, like, and
don't get me wrong, Xavier's fast.
Speaker 5 (39:04):
But when you watch their play speed, Rashid Shaheed, in
my opinion, with pads on, runs faster. I don't know
what the actual metrics are because, you know, they track
these guys' speeds and whatnot. But it's not always the
40 that leads to great success in the NFL, right?
But it certainly helps, especially if you're a special teams guy,
because you've got to close that distance for the punter.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, but I'd rather have somebody who is fast for
10 than fast. for 40. I'm using 10, especially a
wide receiver, running back, an offensive lineman or defense. It
just feels like the game is really about five to
seven yards of who gets there the quickest or first.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
I think it all depends on the position, right? When
you talk about wide receivers, you'd rather have a Justin
Jefferson who's a mid-4-4 guy, Odell Beckham Jr., mid-4-4 guy.
But when they run their routes, they're running full speed.
Or they're Jackson Smith and Jigba, right? Jackson Smith and
Jigba is not a 4-2 guy, but he's a mid-4-4 guy.
He might even run 4-3. I don't want to make
(40:08):
him slower than he is. But the way he runs
his routes, you can't tell where he's going.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
But how did Jerry Rice run a 4-6?
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (40:18):
Well, Jerry Rice, I had a receiver in college named
Terrence Williams played for the Cowboys, third round pick. And
Terrence was a high four or five guy, but he
was high four or five. You know, when he woke up,
he was high four or five with no pads on.
He was high four or five with pads on. He
was high four or five in press coverage.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
He was high four or five and off coverage.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
So there was a consistency there that made it very
easy to throw him the football. So Jerry Rice, in
my opinion, no DB was prepared to play Jerry like
he was a 4-3 guy. So when they got ran by,
they were surprised. You line up against Tyreek Hill, look
at every DB that played Tyreek Hill. They are 29
yards off. They're like, I am not getting beat, D.
(41:02):
But with Jerry, they're like, this guy ran 4-6, I
can press him.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
And then Jerry would win.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
But if you look at it, Dan, what are the
plays that you truly celebrate? It's the long-hitting... runs from
the running back, the catching runs from the wide receivers.
And that's where I think the 40 does come into play.
You need to have long speed, but you first have
to be able to get there. So that 10-yard split,
you're dead on. It's the most important figure. But you
can't have a great 10 and be a five flat guy.
(41:31):
As long as you're somewhere between 4'3 and 4'6, you're
okay in my book.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
You can be drafted. You can go be a star
in the NFL. Have fun this weekend. Great to catch
up with you, as always. Appreciate you, brother. You're the best.
That's RG3, or as McLovin says, Robert Griffin Jr.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
III.
Hosts And Creators
Todd "Fritzy" Fritz
Dan Patrick
Patrick "Seton" O'Connor
Paul Pabst
Marvin Prince
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