The Season with Peter Schrager: Texans GM Nick Caserio

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Season with Peter Schreeger is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, everybody, Welcome to
another episode of the Season with Peter Schreger. I'm Peter
Schreeger recording this on a Monday, November sixth, and I've

(00:31):
got my lovely producer, Aaron wan Kaufman here, Aerin. I
thought yesterday, with four games that were kind of billed
as premiere games, was one of those great NFL Sundays.
And yet what happens when you do that, when you
hype certain games, you get these other sneaky ones. And
I wanted to start this podcast off by talking about

(00:52):
Josh Dobbs and the Minnesota Vikings and what an amazing
story that is. I'm personally close to this. Josh Dobbs
and I have become friendly over the years. He was
a Tennessee quarterback and then he obviously goes to Pittsburgh.
Steevens is the third stream quarter record as well, like
those beloved guys in the league. But why I have
a connection to Dobbs. He did this thing where he

(01:13):
did an externship with NASA and it was in the
off season a couple of years back where he was
in I think an aeroscience major or arow is that
even a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Aaron aeroscience?

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Is that? I think aeroscience engineering major in college. I'm sorry,
clearly this was not my forte And in our off
season shows for Good Morning Football, it's like, who's doing
something cool this offseason in the world of football?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Who wants to come on as a guest? And Josh
Dobbs came on.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I would say it was a summer of twenty twenty
or twenty twenty one, probably three to four times. And
then he and I struck up a friendship over text
and like always just wish Josh Dobbs well.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Then he goes to Cleveland. Then he goes to last
year on like short day notice, like maybe like a
random like fifteen days like heads up. He goes to
Tennessee where he ends up starting at their final game
of the regular season and almost beating the jar and
a winning in game played very valiantly, and I was like,
you know this dude, like good for him, Like Josh Dobbs,

(02:12):
that's awesome. Then this year, with eight days you know,
left before the start of the regular season, he's traded
to the Arizona Cardinals, and he starts Week one for
the Cardinals, and a couple of weeks later, he's beating
the Cowboys in a game, and we had this really
funny moment on the show where he was like, Dobbs
was at the Arizona Cardinals team store and they had

(02:34):
all the different team jerseys, and he did a little
Instagram video where he's like, I can't even get my
own jersey. They don't sell my own jersey. I'm the
starting quarterback of the team. They don't steal a Dobbs jersey.
And we had such a fun time with that, And
then I reached out to Mark Dalton, who's the PR
guy for the Arizona Cardinals, and I'm like, you got
to get me a Dobbs when you start selling those
Dobs jerseys. Sure enough, Mark gets it to me. I'm
rocking a Dalton a Dobbs jersey multiple times in the

(02:55):
past few weeks, almost as a goof, but also because
we got love for this guy. Sure Enough, Cousins goes
down with the injury and my phone starts buzzing on
the trade deadline day that you know, the the Vikings
are making calls. I thought they were gonna sign Colt
McCoy Culte. McCoy had played for Kevin O'Connell for three
years in Washington. He's a free agent. I thought that
would be the move. Instead, they trade for Josh Dobbs.

(03:19):
I don't send a note to Dobbs. I'm like, yeah,
I can only imagine the whorld winning this guy. As
it comes out later that he still hadn't moved into
his place in Arizona yet, he has unpacked bags and
several shipments that still were coming for the Arizona house. Well,
now he moves to Minnesota and they're like, we're starting
Jaren Hall, who's a fifth round pick and has been
the backup and they really like him. And he's out

(03:39):
of BYU and he's got Jaren Hall, and what I think,
what mighte be? Like? The second drive runs around like
a chicken with his head cuddle. It gets Clawbern and
I'm laughing, but like.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Right away, oh, we got Dobs. Has the play? Tops
has the play? Now? I know Dobbs just got there.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Now everyone who's listening might say, yeah, well, Baker Mayfield
did this last year.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Here's the difference.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Baker Mayfield got there on a Tuesday to the Rams
and beat the Raiders on a Thursday. Very very incredible
quick turnaround, get it. But also Baker was the number one,
so Baker took the number one snaps in practice, Baker
had a chance to do a crash course.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Baker was there all night with McVeigh. Josh Dobbs not
the number one.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Jaron Hall this week took the number one snaps. He
just got there on Wednesday. He had never taken a
rep with the first team offense before they played this
game on Sunday afternoon against the Atlanta Falcons. So he's
thrown into the game and he saw the footage. He's
on the sidelines and he's practicing the cadence with Garrett Bradberry,

(04:38):
their starting center, and the rest of the offensive line.
I was amazed by this watching this and then he
goes out there, Aaron.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
He was awesome. He was awesome. This is against the
number six defense in the league.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
It's against Arthur Smith coached offensive was hum and also
with Heineke.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
And it also was on the road, so you're dealing
with the road crowd.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
He had never taken a snap with any of these players,
and sure enough. On a fourth and seven, wiggles out
of the sack, runs, makes a play, gets the first down,
moves the chains, and then throws a game winning touchdown
to Powell. The Josh Doabs stuff is incredible. More and
more stuff keeps on trickling out. I want to say

(05:18):
it was Kevin Seffert from ESPN had a couple of
really good tweets about how he didn't know all the
names to all the players on his team and he
hadn't taken and he's and he was like just freestyling
it with with Kevin O'Connell. I called O'Connell yesterday. We spoke.
I was like, just give me anything. Ye He's like, dude, no,
it's it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable because as the game is going,
what we did was for Josh to keep it simple.

(05:40):
Was like, here is the most basic stuff, maybe ten
to fifteen plays, like what you need to know, like
the most pig and he ran the full playbook and
he kind of did it on like an improvisational whim,
like I am so blown away by what Josh did.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Josh Jobs did yesterday. And then here's the crazy part.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Now, the Vikings are five and four, and they're looking
at the playoffs picture in the NAC The Giants done,
the Rams look to be done. The Packers aren't scaring anybody.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Who's team? Who's that six? There's seventh? You know?

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Okay, let's go through it, Aaron. You got Cowboys and Eagles, right,
so there's two there. Let's say the Saints win the
NFC South, so there's your third NFC North.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
The Lions is your fourth.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
You've got the five and the six being probably the
Niners in the Seahawks.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
There's a seventh spot sitting there. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
It's gonna be who the Buccaneers, the Falcons. Who's beat
the Falcons? The Buccaneers, I don't know. Panthers aren't doing it,
Giants are done, Commanders.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Mike's selling players off at the deadline.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Sure, I mean this Vikings team could be really, really fun.
And Josh Jobs is a heck of a story. The
other story I want to talk about is the Raiders.
So again, we were piping up the Chiefs, Dolphins into Seahawks,
Ravens into Eagles, Cowboys into Bill's Bengals. We hyped it
up as like these are like the four premier matchups

(06:58):
of the week.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
There's no reason to talk about the other games. They're
so good. And then you had that.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
One in the early window, and then in the four
o'clock window, here come the Raiders blow out the Giants.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
What a story that is.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
You saw the Jay Glazer report that you know, in
my report in the morning, was that people were surprised
that Ziggiler lost his job at the GM because he
rebuilt the whole front office over the last off season.
Now they have like a legitimate front office where you know,
in years past, people would look at the Raiders front
office and say, okay, well that's that's kind of a
wild wild West situation out there. Now they you know,
they hired from some of the best teams and Ziggler

(07:29):
is really.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Building it up. He gets fired. But also Mick Lombardi,
who if you.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Listen to Mike Lombardi, who's on a lot of these podcasts,
does a GM shuffle couse that's his son, Mike, Mick Lombardi.
He was a Belichick for years. He gets fired also,
So you fire the head coach the GM and.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
The offensive coordinator.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So the quarterbacks coach, Bo Haggerty, he takes over as
offensive coordinator and calling plays. Sure enough, the team looked alive.
They looked great. Antonio Pierce has those guys humming. They
look awesome. They're moving the ball, like just really really
inspiring stuff. Then after the game, they're smoking cigars, they're

(08:07):
dancing in the locker room and Antonio Pearce, who's rocking
two earrings, and I said, I'm good morning football. Think
it's the first head coach in NFL history to wear
two earrings on the sideline, says, you guys are off
till Wednesday. And like you could see in that little video,
DeVonta Adams nodding, smiling, like gosh, it was like a
cloud was lifted. And I'll be completely honest. And our
guests today as a long relationship with them too, Like

(08:28):
I like Josh McDaniels. I don't play for Josh McDaniels.
I'm a media guy and Josh mctaniels has always been
great to me and I've had a good relationship. He's
a family man. Like feels like a totally different team.
And now suddenly they're alive. They're four and five, they're
a real team. Raiders look good. I mean Devant Adams
is still good. Josh Jacobs look good, Max Crosby look good.
I look around the league and it's it's it's every

(08:50):
week is different story. Because I was ready to come
in and Aaron, I mean, like, we talked Seattle two
weeks ago, like, oh my god, Seattle, well they just
got the doors on off them. We talked the Niners
the first five weeks, and they've now lost three in
a row. And I'll tell you you, look at what's
going on around the league. The team that I think
might be the most exciting and the one that has

(09:10):
me out of my seat the Houston Texans.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Did you watch any of that game? Oh yeah, Houston Texans.
Not only did c J.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Stroud though for four seventy and five touchdowns, the most
passing yards of ever buy a rookie, the most touchdowns ever
buy a rookie, but they also had to go on
a game winning drive in the final minute and he
did the job and found Tank Dell Oh yeah, a
fellow rookie for the score. So as we look at
things here, this is kind of the halfway mark. There's
eighteen regular season weeks. We're through nine of them. We
got a Jets Chargers game tonight. I think the NFL

(09:45):
is wide open. I would say my Super Bowl pick
before the season was Chiefs over Niners. I'll stick with
it as good as the Eagles. Look, Aaron, what was yours?

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Mine was Eagles over Bengals?

Speaker 2 (09:57):
And would you off it or would you stick with it?

Speaker 3 (09:59):
I'm actually kind of feeling okay with it right now.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
I mean, like you said, Niners have suddenly just hit
this weird streak losing, and you know, Bengals last night
like they're they're overcoming whatever ills they had in the
beginning of the season. Yeah, and Higgins was, you know,
like posting people up last night.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
For ten catches there tight ends that have not played
many roles. Yeah, Tanner, Hudson, IRV Smith and Drew Sample, those.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Guys were all the place.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
So I asked you about as a Bills fan, like
you panic mode.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
I don't think panic mode. But it's in the last
three weeks the Bills have not scored. They haven't scored
like they should, like obviously, they're too many injuries. The
defense is getting hurt all the time. I feel like
every week I'm just texting my dad during the game,
like how are we so injured every week? I love
seeing Dalton Kincaid get some great work, but it's rough.

(10:58):
And I do think the Bengals are a very good team,
Like if the Ravens weren't there.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Well they are, yeah, then this is good, like the
Bengals of red hot. They've now swept the last three.
They beat the Seahawks, they beat the Niners, and then
they beat last night the Bills. Those are three real teams.
They played the Texans this weekend and then they have
the Ravens again. So they've got their they've got their
slight ahead of them. Real quick quick story. My son

(11:30):
is a big Tyreek Hill fan, and like everything is
Tyreek Hill right now.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
I don't know, you know what.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
I was a Will Clark fan when I was a kid.
Did you watch baseball as a kid? Like Will Clark
was on the San Francisco Giants. I was on the
Giants little league team and Will Clark was their first baseman.
It was like late eighties, and he was will to
throw and he was great, and he was lefty and
he was great.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
And that was like my guy as a kid.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
And my brother was done maddingly and I was Will
Clark like we had our guys. My son just loves
Tyreek Hill and everything about him. Watches like YouTube highlights
and he's only seven, like die Hard, right, So going
in this is like a parenting corner type thing. I'm
biting off Simmons, I guess. So going into this game,
I want my son to watch the Frankfurt game. I said,

(12:13):
I say, you know, I think the Chiefs are going
to beat the Dolphins.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
And I gave them all my reasons why.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
I think the Dolphins, uh, you know, are coming in hot,
but they struggle against.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
The best teams in the league.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
I also think the Chiefs such a veteran team, and
I was really big on Spagnolo and the defense knowing.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
And I've been papping myself in the back on this one.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
So long story short, saying my son, I've never done this, Like,
let's make a bet. So my son collects these toys
called squeeze Mates. Okay, never had them as a kid.
They are like literally there's these little toys, but they're
really cool. They are all the different.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Players in the league, all right.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
So it's like you collect them and each team has
one and some of them are random, like the Bills.
One is like Dalton Kincaid, I think, and like the
the Colts.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
One is Michael Pittman Junior.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
But then you've got the Mahomes, and you've got and that,
You've got like the the Jalen Hurts.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
They're really cool.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Google Google Squeeze. You have the Max Crosby Squeeze Mates.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
They're ten bucks a pop.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
So they're like old starting lineup toys. With these old
squeeze my son is obsessed. All he wanted for his
birthday was Squeeze Mates. And like, what do you do
with them?

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Nothing? You collect them?

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, you just have.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Them, right, So I'm thinking, like a wait, and then
my son comes to me and says, let's make a bet.
I'm like, oh great, all right, all the promo codes
we're giving out or paying off here, let's think a bet.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Now, he's a picky eater, my son mel He'll eat
pasta and butter every meal. He'll have pizza every meal.
He'll have bagel and cream cheese every meal. That's what
he eats, all right, doesn'ty vegetables, doesn't eat chicken, doesn't
eat anything.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
I said, all right, here's the bet.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
If the dolphins win, I will get you a new
Squeeze Mate next week. This is post birthday, post Halloween,
more gifts, just what the kid needs. I said, if
the Chiefs win, you have to have a steak dinner
with me next week. Now does that sound like a
punishment to you?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Not at all?

Speaker 3 (14:10):
That sounds that sounds like quality time with dad.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Steak dinner. Kids had steak one time in his life.
He claims he hated it. We don't force it. I
would love nothing more than a steak dinner.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
I mean, what world are you living in where if
you lose, you get a toy and if you win,
you get.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
A steak at dinner with Dad.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Yes, sign me up for that bet.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
So sure enough, game's going on. I'm texting my wife.
She's out with him. They're watching the marathon. Runners are
on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn and they're giving out water
and they're slapping five and I'm like, it's twenty one nothing,
tell mel I'm in LA And she's like, oh, that's
gonna put him in a bad mood. I'm not telling him. Whatever,
it's twenty one seven, then it's twenty one to fourteen.
I'm like, get in front of a TV. Have mel
watched this end of the game. It comes down to

(14:49):
the final thing to out of a shotgun ball, snap.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Fumble, japs wind.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
I FaceTime from la as I'm on my way to
the airport, and I'm like, nol that just my son
is distraught.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
I don't want to eat dinner.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
I want to have to get I'm just taunting. I'm like,
we can do flas we get a rib, but.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
Truly the greatest thing, and like we're in New York City,
Like I will take him anywhere for this, so we
have like this tradition.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Now maybe that we could do this.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
He was distraught and then he was so upset, and
then I got home last night and whatever, and I
talked to my wife and I'm like I should probably
still get him the squeeze mate, right, And She's like, no, no, come,
he can't just always win, and like he's got a
steak dinner and like when are you going on this
steak dinner?

Speaker 5 (15:37):
What?

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Like in my head, like it's like a fantasy land.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
We're just gonna take him to like Peter Lueger tomorrow night,
table for two.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Me and my son wearing Chiefs and Dolphins logos. End
of the story.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
I will keep you up there, and I know everyone
at home is very, very compelled to learn how this goes.
But the Steak Dinner slash Squeeze Mate. Bet they sell
Squeeze Mates online. But there is one toy store in
Tribeca on it's like on like church and probably like
Warren Street, like down there our church and somewhere they

(16:11):
sell them. And they this random toy store a church
and read like down there. Like my son knows it,
he's like he wants to go back there. But steak Dinner,
I will tell you how it goes. That's important stuff, Aaron.
I think everyone needed to hear it real quick. Halloween,
what'd you go at?

Speaker 3 (16:28):
We talked about the slash.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
You told me you went to parties with Halloween itself.
Halloween proper.

Speaker 4 (16:32):
Oh, it's a little depressing.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
So I rushed Elliott Smith.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
I didn't dress up for how So I ran.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
I rushed home, and I like got out our big
bowl I put in.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
We had a bunch of reeses.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
We had some leftover like gushers and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Some weird party we.

Speaker 4 (16:53):
Had typically Yeah, and I sat out there and no
children came.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Really as I was walking home from the subway.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
I saw a bunch of kids in costume going into
bodega's and stuff.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, I gotta come. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
And I got to the house, like, ran upstairs, filled
the bowl and I sat there for probably thirty forty minutes,
saw no one at all, And eventually I went back
upstairs and I stayed by the window just in case nothing.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah. I dressed as a slice of pizza.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
My son, Mel was a slice of pizza.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Okay, fits with his Yeah, I was a cheeseburger nice.
My wife was she kind of she she was like,
I'm getting dressed up, but she couldn't just put on
my cattiers.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Oh yeah, it counts sixy cats.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
I don't know whatever it is.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah. And then my daughter was a unicorn. We left
her at home with a babysitter. We went out, three
of us. My wife lasted a few hours. Me and
Mel were out late though. We were out till like
seven eight o'clock, and we went to our favorite pizza
place for Scotti, which is on Henry Street, Henry in
between like Orange and Pineapple, probably down in Brooklyn. For

(18:05):
Scotti cash only old school and usually there's not a
huge line. We go in and I'm like to the guys,
we're there all the time.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Like, guys, look at Mell. They took a photo with mel.
I'm like, I'm gonna frame it, gonna put it up here.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Because when you go at a slice of pizza and
you get to finish your night with at your favorite
pizza place, that's pretty damn good. With no further ado,
this is the general manager of the Houston Texans, a
team coming off one of the coolest wins in the
NFL during Week nine and of course having one of
the great starts and surprising starts to the season, the
Houston Texans, Nick Casario.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Welcome to the season with Peter Schreger.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
Good morning, Peter, Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
I love having you on. I've been trying to get
you on for weeks last year. I tried to get
You're like, we're building something.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
When the time is right, like.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Let me and you did me the favorite to come
on today after yesterday's miracle win. Now when we look
at that game and we look back at it, you
lose the kicker scores.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
You have c J.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Stroud who has more yards and passing touchdowns and any
rookie in the history of the sport. This is now
twelve hours removed from kickoff last year. Last the twenty
four hours move from kickoff, Like do you have a
day to enjoy it or is it on to the
next one.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
We've got to prepare because we've got a big game
on Sunday. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (19:13):
I think when you get home at night, you kind
of reflect and part of you know, a lot of
coaches my process to go back through the game, kind
of watch all three phases, kind of see some of
the things that we did well, what are some areas
that we can improve, whether some of the things that
popped up, and that game there was an ab and
flow to it. First half we probably didn't play as
well as we either wanted to, kind of got off

(19:34):
to a slow start, put ourselves a little bit of
a hole.

Speaker 5 (19:37):
But in the second half we held into.

Speaker 6 (19:39):
The field goal and then we were able to go
down and scoring get some points and then it was
kind of back and forth here till the end. And
in the end, it's about players making plays. So this
is a player's game. It's about the players when they're
on the field, and our players fought. The one thing
about this team, and I think it starts with Demiko
and his thought process and mindset is we're going to
battle to the end and we're gonna do everything in

(20:01):
our power to try to give ourselves an opportunity.

Speaker 5 (20:04):
And we talked about it at halftime a little.

Speaker 6 (20:06):
I mean, for as badly as we had played, it
was a one score game, so let's just for all
the things that have happened, kind of erased that and
let's get ready for the second half.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
It's a one score game.

Speaker 6 (20:19):
So we kind of kept chipping away, and you know,
those last couple series there, we scored. Dari makes the
field goal, which was interesting. It was a discussion. He
hadn't practiced that, but we were kind of looking at
it as points were probably at a premium, So Tamiko
and Frank talked about it and made a decision to
go ahead and kick a field goal and then went
up three. Then they scored and we got the ball

(20:40):
back and we were able to capitalize there at the end.
So there's certainly an emotional aspect to the game that's involved,
but you have to decompress at night and then come
in this morning. The coaches will go through the film
and the reality is we're it's Dono Cincinnati. I mean,
we're getting ready for Cincinnati against good football team next Sunday.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
That's interesting. On to Cincinnati, you've heard that one from
that works. Let's go back to like.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
January, February March, and the Texans are in this really
interesting time where you've got two picks in the first round,
you've got a void at quarterback, or at least we
thought so. I mean, there's a lot of rumors that
you guys might take a defensive player and no quarterback,
and you work out c J.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Stroud.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
Now that it's you know, coming into fruition and he's
having one of the greatest seasons we've ever seen from
a quarterback as a rookie. What was the pre draft
process with Cj? When did you fall in love with him?
And when did you know that finally after a couple
of years of not taking a quarterback on the front
of the draft, this was the year and this is
the guy.

Speaker 6 (21:40):
Yeah, we were positioned fairly well, as you alluded to,
with two and twelve kind of going into the draft,
so we knew we were going to have either a
some flexibility or hopefully we're able to get some good
players there at the top of the draft, we were
pretty confident that we were going to pick somewhere in
the top ten.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
However, when whether we moved back or we moved up,
and you know.

Speaker 6 (21:59):
Once the season was over, you know, we had done
quite a bit of work here as a scouting staff.
It's say lip in the college scout staff do an
unbelievable job during the fall accumulating information. And once you
really the line of demarcation is once the juniors underclassmen
actually declare, then you kind of know the pool of
players that's going to be available. And those are the
groups of people and players that you really have to

(22:21):
spend the most time on or with because sometimes you
have the least amount of information. But we had gone
through the quarterback group pretty extensively. You know, I think
it kind of separated itself there. There was kind of
a couple of groups of players. There was probably a
handful in one kind of category. Then there was a
tier below that we really went through every player, whether

(22:44):
it was an all star game combine thirty man visits,
I want to say we had I don't know, however
many it was a handful of quarterbacks in our building
is a part of our it's part of our process.

Speaker 5 (22:56):
And then the zoom calls.

Speaker 6 (22:57):
So you're just trying to accumulate as much information as
possible as many and give them different angles. Maybe you
feed them some information, see how they absorb it, then
follow up. Okay, we talked about this a little bit earlier.
See what their recall was. I think the most important
thing is with any player is they just have to
be who they are. So whatever their personality is, you

(23:18):
just want to see a consistency at every checkpoint from
whatever interaction you had, whether it's in the school, whether
it's at the combine, whether it's with one coaches, he
act the same way with one staff member as he
does with another staff member, because you would be surprised
at times you find some gaps or they say one
thing to one person and then they say another thing

(23:38):
and you're like, wait a minute.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Let's like in the movies where it's like that he
treated the cafeteria people poorly, like that kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
In some respects.

Speaker 6 (23:47):
Yeah, but even you know, whether they make a commentary
about something or their persona or their attitude, or how
they interact with other players that are in the building.
On the day, we usually bring in I don't know,
four or five players or groups of players in on
one particular day. We have a pretty extensive process from
the time that they walk in the building to they
meet with the entire group, and then we reconvene at

(24:08):
the end of the day and kind of recalibrate what
are our collective observations. You really get input whether it's
a strength and conditioning coach, position coach, offensive coordinator, player development, scouting,
training staff, medical, You're looking for consistency and behavior across
I would say the different areas.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
So it's a pretty rigorous day.

Speaker 6 (24:31):
We're not on the you know, let's bring them in
and bring him to a steakhouse like Yeah. In the end,
you're trying to simulate as much as possible. What is
it going to be like in the building on a
day to day basis when you're around these people when
in the end it's about football. There's nothing else they
have to worry about. This is their primary focus, and
some can handle that better than others. So I would

(24:51):
say as we work through that process, things start to
declare themselves there a little bit, you know, specific to CJ.
I mean, I think his personality. You feel it, you
feel his presence when you're in the room with them.
There's a confidence, there's a competitiveness, there's an edge and
a good way of what you want and he has
I would say, he's It's that balance of confidence in humility,

(25:12):
like you believe in yourself, but you also have to
make sure that there are times when you take a
step back and you know, you put your ego aside.
So I'd say by the time we got to April,
we kind of had an idea and then really the.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
Draft is about positioning.

Speaker 6 (25:27):
So really those last couple of weeks in April, you're
having dialogue, you're looking at your options, you're getting more information.
Let's say, you know, we did pretty extensive work and
just kind of go back and just check and double check.

Speaker 5 (25:39):
And part of the.

Speaker 6 (25:42):
You know, part of this process is finding the right
people to talk to that give you the true representation
of really what you're going to get, you know, because
then they can bottom line it for you and say, look,
in the end, here are the things that are important,
and each player is going to be a little bit different.

Speaker 5 (25:54):
So a lot of.

Speaker 6 (25:55):
Discussions, a lot of dialogue, and we felt confident by
the end, and you know, we really didn't know where
or how things were gonna unfold on draft day.

Speaker 5 (26:06):
You know, I know Demiko and I you know, we've talked.
We talk every day.

Speaker 6 (26:10):
I'd say during that time, I mean we talked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
went through scenarios, Hey, what are some different options, and
he was great. And then I'd say by the end,
we certainly had conviction. And then you know, when it
came time to make the selection, then we you know,
went ahead and did what we felt made the most
sense for our organization. So it was pick and then
you know, we were able to consummate the trade there
with Mani and move up to three and then pick

(26:33):
both players.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
And you know, here we are.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Go back into your shoes because in the media, in
my world, it was understood that Bryce Young was probably
going one, and then there were stories that you guys
were going to take Tyree Wilson out of Texas Tech.
Then there was stories that you're gonna take Will Anderson second. Overall,
then there was the S two cognition test stuff that
can and all this stuff is going on, and it
makes for great TV and good morning football when you're in.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
That building and I'll give you a great show. Thank you,
great show, great show. We love that stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
But when you're in that building and there's all this
other stuff swarming, is it like we don't even pay
attention to that stuff, all those rumors, or because I'll
say it like it is, Nick, no one knew what
Houston was doing two overall until that pick was in,
and no one knew what was happening at three overall
until that pick was in. So is that a source
of pride that no one was on your tail? There

(27:24):
is no leaks in this building and there's no one
giving it away. Or is it one of those where
it's like, this is what we were going to do,
what we weren't going to do, We don't care what
the media says.

Speaker 5 (27:33):
No, it's a great question.

Speaker 6 (27:34):
I think it's really a credit to a lot of
the people that are in the building. And I mean
Dimiko's really main message to the team, and the number
one rule is protect the team. So we all have
a responsibility to protect the team and do what is
right by the team, not by one individual or not
subject to i would say public perception or external factors.

Speaker 5 (27:57):
So part of your job, I mean, that's what you
all do.

Speaker 6 (28:00):
I mean, there's a lot that you want to talk about,
need to talk about because there's a gap. There's no
football being played, so you have essentially when free agency
is over, as you know, middle of March. Free agency
is done the first or second week in March. You
have four to five weeks or what else is there
to talk about. There's no offseason program in no football,
so you're going to talk about the draft every day.

Speaker 5 (28:18):
So I think the thing that you have to.

Speaker 6 (28:20):
Guard against more than anything is misinformation during the spring.
And it goes back to trusting your work, trusting the
time that you've put in, trust the people in the
building that who have I would say invested a significant
amount of time and effort, and just have constant dialogue
and communication and quite frankly, you have to ignore the

(28:43):
external factors. We're cognizant that it's there, that's out there.
There's going to be a lot of discussion, what are
the motives behind that?

Speaker 5 (28:50):
I mean, as you.

Speaker 6 (28:51):
Know, sometimes things get a little bit jaded or shifted
a certain way and you try to pain or create
a narrative. So we just have to make sure that
we maintain our discipline and just do what we think
is in the best interests of the organization. And frankly,
and I've said this publicly multiple times, I mean, the
draft's a fifty to fifty proposition.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
So there's going to.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
Be players that you think it's going to go one
way and it works out the way you hope. There's
going to be other players for whatever the reason that
doesn't go the way that you would have hoped it would.
So there's no experts in what we do. There's no
experts in our field. There's no experts in our building.
I think we have a lot of people with a
lot of pride that care about their work and are
invested fully in the process. And we have to trust

(29:33):
each other, and we have to trust ourselves, and we
have to trust the work that we put into it.
So I'd say, really the draft is a culmination of
the effort of so many people. And then really the draft,
to a certain extent, you're prepared, but you have to
be able to adjust and adapt and kind of bob
and weave as you go because you have to be
prepared for a marriag to different scenarios. So I think,

(29:55):
more than anything, it's just a credit to the people
in the building. And the reality is at some point
the information is going to get caught off and there's
going to be certain people that have access to the information.
I mean, that's just part of running just a company
or a good business.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Yeah, and everyone needs to know all the details.

Speaker 6 (30:09):
Yeah, And going going back to what Demko says, I
would say consistently is protect the team. So in the end,
we're about protecting the team and doing what's right for
the organization.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
You take CJ Stroud at too, and there's a couple
of oohs and odds, and then didn'ting the Texans are
back on the clock? Could you take us through those
six minutes of you negotiating with money asen for it
the first year GM, who is a former colleague of yours.
Who is the Arizona Cardinals GM, and how you guys
decided to make them move up to number three.

Speaker 6 (30:37):
Yeah, I mean, I'd say relationships are a huge part
of this business. Have a tremendous respect and admiration for Moni,
both personally and professionally. And we had added some constructive
dialogues probably a week or two about probably about a
week out.

Speaker 5 (30:51):
From the draft just going back and forth.

Speaker 6 (30:55):
You know, he was certainly weighing some things on his end,
and then we're able to kind of get some i
would say general parameters sort of in place if if
this happened, here's what potential it would entail. Not knowing
that whether or not it would come to fruition or not,
so we didn't know. We went back and forth, so
there was a gap there where quite frankly, you know,

(31:16):
we didn't really know what was going to happen. And
it happened quickly because there's what is it, ten minutes
in the first round, So we make the pick and
then okay, Arizona's on the clock, all right, so a
minute or two go off, So then you're at five
to six minutes and you don't have a trade. And
then there's a lot of logistics that are involved, from
agreeing to the compensation, agreeing to the trade, getting that

(31:36):
information to the league, make sure the league confirms that
you actually have the trade, and then you're on the clock,
and then have to get a hold of the player
and make sure the pick gets turned in via Microsoft
teams or whatever technology is available. So there's a lot
of that can happen so I think you just kind
of have to maintain, you know, you have to take

(31:58):
the emotion out of it. But when the trade was
actually consummated, maybe the pick, you know, we were all
excited an emotion because we felt I would say convicted.
You're really about both players. So yeah, so it was exciting.
It was an exciting time for the people that are involved.
It's an exciting time for the organization, for ownership, and
they're certainly supportive of what we're trying to do. So yeah,

(32:22):
so you know, it was a cool moment just for
everybody involved. And then you kind of take a deep
breath and realize, all right, you're not picking until round
because you don't have a second round pick.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
But I mean that's the way it goes.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Stroud gets there Anderson gets there. It's a pretty cool deal.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
You've got now your cornerstone at quarterback, your defensive end
for the future. Now, was there a moment this summer
where you saw CJ. Stroud do something and say, oh boy, okay,
we got something here.

Speaker 6 (32:47):
Yeah, I think you're just looking from the time they
walk in the building for improvement, because the reality is
whoever you pick, whenever you pick them regardless of how
talented or how productive they've been, they're really they're starting
from scratch. So they're just kind of putting the foundation
in place, learning the building, learning the people, learning, learning
the terminology, learning how to prectice, going out there making mistakes,

(33:09):
and then going back correcting do you not make the
same mistakes a second time? So the bottom line is
you're just looking for improvement from the time you start
until an endpoint. So you really have called six weeks
where you can evaluate. So you get into OTAs and
then you get into mini camps. After four or five weeks,
you say, all right, take inventory of where we are.
All right, there's some things out have gone well, here's

(33:29):
some things that we could certainly fix or improve. And
I think CJ earned the job and earned the opportunity
with his performance. And I think that started from the beginning.
What the expectation was, like, nobody's going to be handing
anything when they walk in our building. You have to
earn it on a day to day basis with your attitude,
with your behavior, and your performance. And the players that

(33:50):
do those things, those are the players that we're gonna
be able to rely on. That we're gonna be able
to trust and then we're gonna we're gonna want to
put on the field. So we came back from from
the summer, I had a little bit of break there,
came back in training camp. I would say, there was
some good plays and kind of incrementally it got better,
and I'd say after a week or two, you start
to see some things and then try to give him
a little bit more, see what he can absorb, see

(34:11):
what we can handle. And then by the time when
you know, I think we you know, got there to
the end. I think we kind of knew the direction
that we were going to go. And then you kind
of hit the reset button once a training camp is over,
and once the preseason is over, hit the reset button
and you're really kind of going back to square one's
Week one in Baltimore, which I would say not surprisingly.

(34:32):
I mean, they're one of the best teams in the league.
I think we knew it was going to be a
pretty significant challenge going into Baltimore, playing on a road,
playing against a really good team, and there were some
things that I think we learned about our team, and
not only CJ, but we've learned about our team. I
mean you know, it was a one score game, seven
to six at half time. The second half kind of
got away from us, but you know, there were some
things that we had to get corrected, corrected and fixed.
And you know then we turn around the next week

(34:54):
and we lose at home in the row and two.
But I think the team stayed invested. The attitude was great,
that morale was great, and it really it starts with
Demko and his leadership at the top.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Let's go to that higher because you guys had been
through two different coaches who lasted one year, and it's
kind of like, we got to get this one right.
You guys brought in other people and you hired Demiko,
Ryan's former player, who was a very well respected defensive
coach and then coordinator for the Sanftisco forty nine ers.
Did you have the history of Demiko at all? I
know he was with the Texans and the Eagles for
a little bit. Did you ever were you ever in

(35:25):
front office where he was one of the players.

Speaker 5 (35:26):
Yeah, no, we never overlapped.

Speaker 6 (35:28):
We played against the Texans multiple times when I was
in New England, but when Demiko was a player here
as as a matter of fact, we played against Philadelphia
when he played for I want to think he was
playing for Chip. Yeah, we played them during the regular
season there at one point. But as far as that,
I mean, we didn't have any of it. Say, we
knew of each other.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Sure, but there wasn't some long relationship with twenty years.

Speaker 6 (35:48):
No, No, we didn't know each other. I'd say on
a personal level. It was just more of kind of
from afar and you respect. You know what a coach
does when you watch their team play. You know, we
played against San Francisco in twenty he was it twenty
one when we played against them in my first year here,
went out there and played against them. So then you

(36:10):
just start to accumulate information. You know, we made the change.
You know, we put a lot of say, thought and
effort into it, and you know there are a number
of people that are involved in that process, and you
know we went through that process.

Speaker 5 (36:22):
And you know there was he was.

Speaker 6 (36:24):
He stood out amongst the would say a pretty good
group of candidates for a myriad of reasons. I think
the big thing and that there's a lot of people
in this building that were around him as a player.
I would say, who he is is you know, he's.

Speaker 5 (36:36):
True to who he is.

Speaker 6 (36:38):
He has a great mindset, he has a great personality.
He's genuine, he's very competitive, he cares about people.

Speaker 5 (36:44):
He's good at his job. He was a good player.

Speaker 6 (36:47):
He's invested in the city of Houston, and he had
success and he was a part of winning programs. I
mean what John and Kyle have done out there in
San Francisco. I mean, there's not too many programs that
have had his much success. So you know, when to
put all those factors together, you know, we made a
decision that we did. There's a lot of excitement, and
you know he deserves, you know, every amount. He deserves

(37:10):
as much credit is anybody because he's put his imprint
on this team with his message and his just consistency
day to day, and the players respond. They want to
play for him, they want to be here. He holds
him to a high standard, he holds him accountable. He
cares a lot about them, regardless win or lose. It's
the standard of performance has been established, the mindset has

(37:31):
been established. We know we're not going to win every game,
but are we doing the things on a week to week,
day to day basis that put ourselves into position and
if we.

Speaker 5 (37:38):
Don't, then here's the reason why. Here's the things that
we need to get fixed.

Speaker 6 (37:42):
So, I mean, I can't say enough great things about
who he is not as a coach, but as a
human being as a person, and those things certainly matter
when you're running a football team, when you're around each
other essentially on a day to day basis for multiple
months out of the year.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, and then he brings in Bobby Slowick as the
offensive coordinator, and you think about that forty nine ers tree.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
You know, we've already seen.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Kyle have all the success here, but like now you've
got Mike Lafleur has already been elsewhere as in OC twice.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
You've got Mike McDaniel now flourishing. And then here's this
Bobby slow who.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
I got to be honest, I wasn't aware of what
his offense would look like because he never was necessarily
calling the plays in San Francisco. And then now he
comes in. You've got to be overjoyed with the connection
he's had with Stroud and these young receivers.

Speaker 6 (38:25):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think there's a propensity
to kind of attach trees and well, this is going
to happen. And I think the reality is when you're
running a program, when you're starting a program, when you're
bringing somebody in, you sort of have to make it
your own.

Speaker 5 (38:38):
So I think all of us have a foundation.

Speaker 6 (38:41):
I'd say that we were raised on or who we
worked under, or who we learned under philosophies how that
was built. But the reality is when you go into
a building and start a program and bring people in,
is you're trying to put your own spin on whatever
that is. And it's usually a function of the players
that you have in the building and the things that
they do well. So your ability to adjust to adapt.

(39:04):
You have a core foundation the principles that are important,
but the reality is you're probably going to have to
bob and weave a little bit and you know, make
some adjustments as you go as reading something you know,
in fact, we're playing you know, Cincinnati this week with
Zach and Zach has made a comment how sometimes how
the offense starts at the beginning of the year looks
a lot different when you get midway, and really that's
sort of emblematic of what this league is about. You

(39:26):
really have to be able to adjust and make some modifications.

Speaker 5 (39:29):
And adjustments to your personnel, or.

Speaker 6 (39:30):
If something's not going well all right, maybe figure out
a different way to do it or come up with
another solution. So Bobby's a very smart person, works very hard.
He has an interesting perspective because he was on the
defensive side of the ball, and sometimes I would say,
you know, I would speak from experience. When you work
on the opposite side of the ball, it gives you

(39:51):
a better understanding of what goes on on you know,
their respective side side of the coin.

Speaker 5 (39:57):
There.

Speaker 6 (39:57):
So in Bobby's case, he kind of had a background
in defense. Of course, his dad has been a very
successful defensive coach. His brother's down here in Miami coaching
on defense. So Bobby has a really unique background.

Speaker 5 (40:10):
Very smart.

Speaker 6 (40:10):
I mean, anybody goes to Michigan Tech, like you got
to be pretty smart.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
So I think he also works for a pro football
focus for a while, I'm not mistaken, Like he was
on the analytics side doing research.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
That's different.

Speaker 6 (40:20):
So you learn a lot and then when you go
anytime you go into a situation, you're trying to figure out,
all right, these are things that are important. We want
to start here are who are the players? What are
we going to do and then you know, we're eight
games into the season. Now I think we have a
decent idea of some of the things that you know,
maybe either quarterback does well or certain players do well. Understanding,
we still have nine games out of us and there's

(40:42):
a lot of good coaches out there, so you know,
we've put together Dimico's put together a great staff.

Speaker 5 (40:47):
They work well together.

Speaker 6 (40:48):
It's a good combination of youth and experience and really,
whatever your background is, that's kind of your your starting point.
But the reality is you're trying to create your own
image of what you wanted to look like.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
All right, Now, let's talk about you a little bit here. Okay.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
You're born in lind Hurst, Ohio. All right, you're going
to have to lindn Hurst, Ohio. Okay, and you're from
what I call the John Cairol Mafia. You go to
John Carroll where all of you guys, I feel like
ninety eight percent of the gms and coaches in the
league quietly went to John Carroll. You know, John, But
it's not a straight shot to New England. You start

(41:23):
off at Saginaw Valley State as a grad assistant. You
end up going to Central Michigan and then you end
up with the Patriots as a coach and you're coaching
them for a while before making the move to moving
over to the director of pro personnel. So take us
through your path a little bit. Let's go from from
graduating college and what you wanted to do for a

(41:44):
living and how you got there.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
Yeah, so when I got to college, you know, I
thought I was going to major in political science, go
to law school, kind of take that route and switch
my majors a few times. I think I went from
marketing to finance. I enjoyed finance, even going all the
way back to when I was in my senior year
of high school. University school, we had to do kind
of a one month internship and I did an internship

(42:09):
at Kidder Peabody, which is not defunct. And then eventually
Smith Barney worked for a guy with the name of
Jeff Rotsky. Jeff actually has been a really successful high
school coach. So Jeff kind of had the balance of
football business, you know, where he was basically a stockbroker
by day, and then he ended up coaching multiple high
schools in the city at Cleveland. So anyways, so as

(42:31):
a finance major, So I finished football December nineteen ninety
eight and then started working at Merrill Lynch.

Speaker 5 (42:39):
I was working for. Jeff was working in finance. We
had a is that right?

Speaker 2 (42:43):
What were you doing? Were you like a press off?

Speaker 6 (42:45):
And he's doing research and we had a fee base
product that we were pitching at the time, so I
was kind of responsible for that. You know, where you
match up certain money managers. Here's a product we offer,
here's the uh, here's the fund, here's some of the
holdings within the fund. Essentially try to pitch that to clients.
So started doing that. In January, my best friend John
Priestep and I started working together. So John and I

(43:07):
are working together, living together. John played receiver for US
at John Carroll. He and I established an unbelievable friendship
from the time that he arrived on camp. So John
and I were working together, so we kind of had
a professional life making decent money.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Had the picture in subway ads and billboards like here
we are, this is the two guys, the two young
bros selling stock tips and yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (43:30):
So while we started working, you know, I think I
had an itch for football and sport, and I'd say
that my the root of that is, you know, my
high school coach, my high school head coach and office coordinator,
John Carroll Operella got rest his soul, had a tremendous impact,
I'd say on my life. He helped me as a player.
He helped me via calm the player that I developed into.

(43:52):
I mean, I wasn't very good, but he got the
most out of me. I'd like to think that I
worked pretty hard at football and cared a lot about football,
and I love being around the sport and being around
the game. So at the time I was single, I
didn't have any sort of connections to anybody or anything.
So I went on the football scoop or whatever. They

(44:16):
a graduate assistant job. So I literally I drove to
Concordy University, which is outside of Chicago. They interviewed there,
and then I took another day trip up to Saginaw Valley.
Literally didn't know a coach, didn't know anybody on staff.
Just wanted to be in football. So I drove to
Saganaw Valley, met with coach or Randy Ori, I was
a head coach at the time. I went over there

(44:38):
over the summer, said coach, look, I just just want
to be in football. I just want to be involved.
I'll take whatever job you have available. They had posted
a position. It was an offensive grad assistant position or
whatever it was. And then by the and along with that,
I was able to pursue an NBA you know, so
I could coach. I could still work on some schooling.
So it was kind of two for one. I'd say,

(45:00):
two areas that I was fairly passionate about. So started
Saganaw Valley.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
Let me just put this in the perspective. So, you're
making real money living in a city, right, You're living
in Cleveland.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
We're living Yeah.

Speaker 6 (45:10):
I was making a decent amount of money at the time. Yeah,
and then I took a graduate assistant position. I think
it was making I don't know, twenty five hundred dollars
a year, so.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Twenty five hundred a year. But think about this you had.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
It's very easy though, for you to say, you know what,
I've got a job, I've got a nice apartment paying
my rent.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I mean, Cleveland's cool city with my best friend. But
the football which was so great that you gave it
all up and drove with no connection to Saginaw Valley
State to work for next to nothing, just to get
your foot in the door.

Speaker 6 (45:38):
Yeah, and I think a lot of us have been
in the same situation. But I'd say going back to John,
I'd say his family was a huge impact. They essentially,
you know, helped me over a two year period. And
John is from outside of Detroit, so he had family there.
So that was the only people that I really knew.
And you know, John was supported. Here's my best friend

(45:58):
working together. He was supporting as anybody. So I went
up to Saginaw Valley. We actually had a pretty good
team my second year, so working on offense, kind of
working with the running backs, handling some of the special teams,
and then I was also going to class at night,
and I loved it. I mean, I was in football,
I was going to school. I think I'm a pretty
curious individual in nature like learning. So two seasons at

(46:20):
Saginaw Valley and then in January of twenty it would
have been twenty excuse me, two thousand and one, there
was a grad assistant position available at Central Michigan. And
the reason I came across that was typically when you're
a grad assistant and you're a college coach, you work
summer camps that's your way to make a few. So

(46:41):
worked a football camp at Central Michigan University when Mike
the Board was a coach there, and then Butch Jones
was a running backs coach at Central Michigan. So Butch
and I had kind of maintained contact.

Speaker 5 (46:52):
So he was at Central Michigan.

Speaker 6 (46:54):
So through communication, through dialogue and discussion, he had mentioned
that there was potentially a GA position that was available.
So from January oh one till June so I was
a great I had assistant at Central Michigan. I started
working on a defensive side of the ball with the
outside linebackers and John Mulligan was a defensive coordinator at
the time. We actually had a really good stat John
Mulligan was a defensive coordinator. Scott Leffler was the head

(47:16):
coach a Bowling Green it was kind of quarterbacks coach coach.
Butch Jones was he, you know, was the running backs coach,
and Mike the Board who coach had you know, he's
been an office coordinator and the SEC's been a head coach.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
So so started.

Speaker 6 (47:29):
So during the day I would I would go up
there and do football, and then in the evening I
would drive from Mount Pleasant to Saginaw and take my
classes two or three times a week.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
So you stayed in Saginaw, but you were coaching at
Central Michigan.

Speaker 7 (47:42):
How long?

Speaker 2 (47:43):
How far is that?

Speaker 6 (47:44):
It was about a forty five minute to sixty minute drive,
so I didn't go back and forth.

Speaker 5 (47:49):
So it was in my apartment in Mount Pleasant.

Speaker 6 (47:51):
So I worked during the day and then if I
had class, I think it was like two or three
times a week, I'd go take class and then I
come back. And that was kind of my routine for
six months in the spring.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
It's because I wanted to finish Miami.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
He's going to say, why did you? Why did you
through that NBA so aggressive? Was there always in the
back of your head, like, well, if this doesn't work out,
or is it just you always wanted it?

Speaker 5 (48:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (48:12):
I would say I was interested in finance as interested
in business, and I kind of started down that path.
And my you know, my mom and dad always taught me,
once you start something, you need to finish.

Speaker 5 (48:22):
So I did you know, I can very easily could have.

Speaker 6 (48:24):
Walked away, but I invested eighteen months of my time,
so you know, I was, you know, this semester out,
so I said there's no way I'm not going to
do this. So and coach the board was great. He
understood kind of my predicament that I was in. So,
you know, education, I would say, is a big part
of my life, but a lot of time, you know,
and be able to message that to my daughters certainly

(48:45):
be important.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
So I was able to finish my MBA.

Speaker 6 (48:48):
Like I said, I'm interested in finance, I'm interested in investments.

Speaker 5 (48:51):
I was at the time. I still am to this day.

Speaker 6 (48:55):
So finished off that kind of January until June, and
then in February of one. At the time, Josh had
been hired by New England to be kind of QC
quality control. So obviously our relationship goes back to our
time together at you know, John Carroll, so that he
had mentioned that, hey, there might be an opportunity in
New England as a scouting assistant. Would you be interested

(49:17):
in kind of play a personnel And at the time
I had no idea what player personnel in the NFL
was like zero, Like no idea.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Did you even?

Speaker 1 (49:23):
I mean, so, so Josh McDaniels is working there already
and you get this call and you're thinking, was it
was the NFL even a thought.

Speaker 5 (49:30):
No, Peter, not at all.

Speaker 6 (49:32):
I mean I was certainly happy enjoying what I was
doing in college. I thought, Okay, my next opportunity, maybe
I can get a full time position in college football somewhere,
maybe be a position coach or strict at earnings or
whatever the natural progression was.

Speaker 5 (49:44):
So so I was.

Speaker 6 (49:46):
Working through Central Central and then you know, the middle
of it was like June, June. We were just about
to finish up, you know, and Josh said, hey, look,
you know there's a position. Would you be interested? And
I said, sure, I'll come up in interview, so I'll
never forget. I got the call Nancy Meyer, who's one
of to this day one of my best friends, who
i'd say has the biggest influence in my life as anybody.

(50:07):
So she connected me. Scott at the time was overseeing
personnel and New Yeah. So Nancy said, hey, can you
get on a flight in Detroit at whatever time it was?
I said, yeah, no problem, this is probably midday, so
and Detroit was probably two to two and a half hour.
I mean, give her to I can't exactly, but it's
a decent drive for Mount Pleasant to Detroit.

Speaker 5 (50:26):
And I said yeah, no problem, I'll I'll figure it out.
So it was like a late evening flight, late afternoon flight.

Speaker 6 (50:32):
Grabbed my suit and went to the UH went to
the airport, changed into my suit in a stall in
the men's mentathroom, and then got on the plane. Got
there that night, and then interviewed the next day. It
was in scouting. It was a player of personnel assistant,
so all the things that go along with that. I
would say responsibility, scouting assistant, personnel assistant.

Speaker 5 (50:53):
Whenever you want to terament. So went up there and interviewed.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
You know, did you meet Belichick on that first interview?
You don't even get to the Belichick level.

Speaker 6 (51:00):
It might have been a quick like hey, great to
meet you, kind of a jove. And we were in
the old Foxboro State at the time, so the offices
were kind of up on a second floor. They were
kind of hidden, so it was kind of a dilapidated
rush for staying this but a little bit of a
dilapidated setup. So anyways, so I went and interviewed, went
back to UH Central and they called and they said,

(51:23):
you know, would you be interested in this position?

Speaker 5 (51:25):
And I said, you know, absolutely, So went talked to
coach to board.

Speaker 6 (51:29):
He was gracious enough to let me out and then
so I was hired in the middle of June kind
of two thousand and one in New England, went up
there for a week or two, kind of got situated
at organized, and then that fall of two thousand, training
camp two thousand and one started. I'd say, really kind
of got off to an inauspicious start if you were,
you know, with coach Ravine passed away in literally a

(51:52):
week of training camp, so there was sort of a
recalibration and reallocation of responsibilities. So and at the time
it was just whatever I'm asked to do, I'm going
to do it. So they literally handed me a playbook
and at the time we were literally hand right and
breaking down the film. I think coach Dable Brian went
through this, Josh went through it, where you literally you
diagram each play all twenty two players, the play the alignments,

(52:16):
the technique, the term. So one game took you literally
six to eight hours to break down. This isn't you know,
jump on a computer and input the information and evaluate
the data. So and I didn't have any background in
the system. I literally just got on campus. So they
literally handed me a playbook and said, you're going to
break the film down for the offensive staff. That's going

(52:37):
to be your job during the year. So part of
my job that was to stay a week ahead, so
I would do three or four games and the opponent,
and then by Friday before the Sunday game, I had
to hand that to Charlie White, who was the offensive
coording at the time, so that he could kind of
start his preparation. So I was sort of the sort
of the first introduction to the opponent. So did that

(52:58):
responsibility all year in addition to my personnel kind of
scouting assistant assignments. So that was my first year in
the NFL, and you know, it just kind of kept
I would say, snowballing from there. And then I would say,
I don't want to say each year the job kind
of changed or my role kind of changed, but I
mean the thought process was trying to show up, try

(53:19):
to put a good product out there, just work as
hard as possible I can and make them, you know,
want to keep me around, understanding nothing is guaranteed. I
mean I think I was making you know, fourteen thousand
dollars my first year in the NFL, and make work
full time in the NFL. Living in Boston, I mean
I get an apartment with Actually I live with Clay Barnetts.

(53:40):
So Clay Gary Barnett's sun was a successful a coach
at Colorado. So we literally we were in a vacated
two story building that got turned into apartments, like an
industrial building got turned into apartments where the windows there
was no locks, so you could open up and down
and you could climb like literally through the windows, like

(54:01):
if you wanted to. So matter of fact, I was
locked out of the apartment one day and the only
way get in.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
Was climb through the windows. So we lived in Providence.

Speaker 6 (54:07):
My first year is a thirty minute commute from Providence
to Foxboro Stadium.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
He probably lived at the facility though, right, I mean
who we.

Speaker 5 (54:12):
Can't exactly exactly, so you're there.

Speaker 6 (54:14):
I mean I was twenty whatever I was at the time,
so I had nothing else going on.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
So that was my first year.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
And can I throw out some names? So like your
first year there, I think Brady's a backup. He's already
been there a year. BLEDSOE goes down, where were you
for that?

Speaker 5 (54:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (54:30):
No, we were playing the Jets, so you know, we
had the whole nine to eleven situation that we were
going through. Actually, so before we get to plane the Jets.
So you know, part of my responsibility as a scouting
assistant was when we brought players in for workouts on Tuesday,
was to transport them back and forth from the stadium
to the hospital. So the Mass General Hospital is right

(54:50):
in Boston Foxboro Stadium, you know, call it thirty minutes
outside of Boston or so, so we had a group
of players in nine to eleven. So I was driving
to the airport and quarter to nine nine o'clock, just
as the plane hours, I was parking the car in
the garage of Mass General Hospital and we started to
get some information like what's going on. So we had

(55:12):
a handful of players that were in so they got
their physicals, then drove back to the stadium and then
obviously everybody has their attention turned to what was going
on in the television.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
So that was that day.

Speaker 6 (55:22):
So it was the week if we were supposed to
play the Jets that week, and then that game got canceled,
right so then we you know, shifted gears moved it
to the following week. So during home games, I would
go up in the press box and then I would
actually kind of for self scouting purposes, chart our game
so that could in put it into the system, you know,
the following morning. So during the game, like that's what
I was doing. So I was up there just charting

(55:44):
a game, going through the.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Game, Lewis Knox Blood so what's I mean?

Speaker 5 (55:47):
Yeah, I mean, and then.

Speaker 6 (55:50):
Just kind of like all right, I'm just going to
kind of keep doing my work and kind of preparing
for tomorrow. And you know, Tom went in and you know,
we actually almost won a game there at the end.
And then you know, the following week we were owing two.
Played the Colts, Okay, who were I mean, one of
the best teams, one of the best offense in the
league at the time with Peyton and Marvins.

Speaker 5 (56:08):
And the group that they had.

Speaker 6 (56:10):
So that was kind of my first introduction to the
NFL the regular season, and then you know, fortunately I
was able to stay in one place for twenty some
odd years before I got here to Houston.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
You couldn't have been too much older than Brady, Like
I would imagine you're a couple of years older than him,
did you, guys?

Speaker 5 (56:26):
It's close?

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Would you guys bes like, was that like a division
of labor.

Speaker 6 (56:31):
Yeah, I wasn't hanging out with the players, so to
stay as far away from the players as possible to
try to do my job. You know, I think there's
a certain professionalism that you know, you respect the players
and their privacy and what they're there to do. And
my job was to work and focus on my job
and not worry about things that you know, quite frankly
don't matter. So because in the end, I think this
league is about work. So if you keep the focus

(56:53):
on work, keep the focus on the things that are important,
Like that's the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
All right, give me a Vrabel story.

Speaker 5 (57:01):
Actually I might.

Speaker 6 (57:03):
You know, so I the first year, my first year
with the team was when you know, Scott and Bill
has signed Mike in a free agency, so that I
think we sent it up signing I don't know, twenty three,
twenty four to twenty five players that year is free agents.
So I mean Mike came in and then Mike would
go through his kind of pregame warm up routine. So
it kind of evolved into me throwing routes to Mike

(57:26):
his I'd say warm up, you know, and he'd always
make the comment about Hines Ward and his hands were
as good as heines word hard to refute that when.

Speaker 5 (57:33):
You go back to his history. But Mike was Mike
was as tough as a come. He was as smart
as a come. He was as tough as a come.
He was very instinctive.

Speaker 6 (57:42):
He cared a lot about football, but he and he
had a great sense of humor, and he worked his
ass off in practice. I would say that team there
probably you know three, you know four with Rodney, Mike Willie, like,
Mike would go back during practice, so when the offense
was going against the defensive look team working on the

(58:02):
cards for the next opponent, Mike would go back there
at free safety just to give Brady a hard time,
to try to make him work, to try to simulate.
And he'd take a lot of pride and a lot
of joy out of that. So and he'd talk a
lot of trash during practice. But I mean, Mike cares
about football a ton, and I think you see the
way the Titans play, they kind of play to Mike's

(58:25):
personality and you saw that. And Mike was a player
like whatever he was asked to do, he did it.
He played outside linebacker in three to four. Then we
needed him an inside linebacker, and Bill told him, look,
you're going to play inside linebacker and based defense. Mike
had really never played inside linebacker before, but he went
in there and he played well because that was the
best thing for the team. And I think because of

(58:45):
his intelligence, because of his instinctiveness, he was able to
go in there and function. And then we you know,
Charlie and Bill, you know, and go linees. John Rump
in their situations put him in there a tight end.
So you're trying to create as much value and versatility
as a player, and I'd say Mike was certainly emblematic
of that. And I think those are the always the
situations that are hard. You know, Mike was there for

(59:06):
or you know, on O nine and you know then
the decision was made to to move on from him.
You know, those are always, would say, the tough decisions
that you have to make, and you know that the
organization has to go through. Mike went on have a
few more productive years and then he started his career
in coaching, and you know, Mike's one of the best
coaches we have in this league.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
Sure, you know, it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
So you progressed in your career going on, and everyone
knows Belichick as the greatest coach of all time, but
he's got a KNIGHTE for personnel too. For the listeners,
Bill Belichick as the evaluator, what did you learn from him?
And you know how how important is he in playing
a role in your career as you've been guided through
that New England system that eventually in Houston.

Speaker 5 (59:45):
Now, yeah, massive.

Speaker 6 (59:47):
I think he's so invested in every aspect of the process.

Speaker 5 (59:52):
It's it's rare.

Speaker 6 (59:54):
I mean, it's uncommon, the level of detail, the overall understanding.
So I think one of the things that I learned
from him was, among many things, was just the big
picture perspective of understanding all different pieces and phases fit together,
from offense to understanding what's going on defense defense, understanding
what offenses are trying to do, how they use personnel,

(01:00:16):
what are some of the things that are important, how
to evaluate players, how to focus on their strengths, what
are some of the things that they do well? And
I think just the breath and overall understanding of players
in the league. You'd be hard pressed to find anybody
who has that type of mental acuity as Bill has.

Speaker 5 (01:00:37):
So I mean it taught me a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:00:39):
And I think you know the fact that he had
enough faith and confidence and trust and you know what
I brought to the table. I mean certainly speaks to
his humility and just allowing people to do their jobs.
So I mean we could spend you know, one podcast
talking about the things offense Bill, but I'd say his
just level and depth understanding of every aspect of football,

(01:01:01):
from you know, coaching what the punt team should look like,
to the technique that you need to understanding you know,
what should happen on this double team block or the
three technique, the backup three technique, and what are his
strengths and how the team is going to use him.
So just his overall breath and understanding of multiple aspects.
What that taught me was, Okay, you want to have

(01:01:24):
is why the scope as possible? Just understanding because any
end it's a players German league, it's very personnel driven league,
and I think everybody has their own way that they
evaluate players, or how they view the game or how
they you know, how they go through preparing for an opponent.
But I would say just team philosophy, understanding coordinators that

(01:01:45):
typically spills over into how they call a game, it
spills over into how they assemble the team. So those
are all some things I think that you know, over
the course of twenty some odd years, you saw that
and they kind of was able to develop my own
process and you know realize, okay, well this is didn't work.

Speaker 5 (01:02:02):
Here's a reason why. Just understanding the why behind it.

Speaker 6 (01:02:05):
So you know, I can't thank billing Off for the
opportunity that he provided for not only myself but a
number of people that have been in that building through
the years.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
All Right, so you're in New England for nearly twenty years,
you're a rising star, and I tak for the last
ten of those twenty your names. Your name would come
up every year for the GM candidacy at some team
and it was always all right, there's this Candidcate and
then Nick Casara, we he'll never leave New England or
is this going to be the time he finally does
leave New England. You took the Houston job, you went

(01:02:35):
for it. What was so compelling and what was so
appealing to that Houston job that you finally left the
Foxborough I'd say friendly confines of where you were comfortable
and where you'd raised a family and your daughter's got
to go to school in the same school, and everything
you want in a career you left.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Finally you took the leap. Why Houston.

Speaker 6 (01:02:53):
Yeah, I think you know, our family has been very blessed.
I mean what this league is done for us. I mean,
we certainly can't repay the people that will provide the opportunities.
And I think we all you don't want to check
challenge ourselves, and you know, sometimes you need to make
decisions that you know, quite frankly, you know, puts you

(01:03:13):
maybe out of your comfort zone. Because anytime you take
on a new situation of going to something new, there's
typically a reason that they're sort of starting over because
things aren't going all that well. But you know, there
had been some opportunities at different points. I mean, you know,
you know, Houston was a team that you know, and
mister McNair was here.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
You know, they had expressed some interests.

Speaker 6 (01:03:34):
Or some sentiments, and you know, when Billy was here
for a period of time, I mean, you know, there
was some things, some dalliances through the years, and I
think as we kind of got to the end, it
was an opportunity that.

Speaker 5 (01:03:44):
You know, we thought might be a chance.

Speaker 6 (01:03:46):
To build something here, you know, from the ground up
after twenty some odd years. So I think more than anything,
more but curiosity and the challenge in front of us.
And you know, i'd say the reputation ownership that they
had in terms of providing people with the opportunity, you know,
they deserve so anyway, so you know, we out here
in twenty twenty one, you know, candidly, I mean the

(01:04:07):
first couple of years probably didn't go the way that
any of us would have hoped. But I think the
one thing that you you do, you hope you just
learn along the way and you just got to make
it work. You got to figure it out. So just
take it one day at a time. Just be disciplined,
just be consistent, you know, try to make good decisions.
If it's not going the way that you either wanted
to or hope to, you know, do something to get

(01:04:28):
it fixed. So, you know, it's a team that had
had some success at different points. You know, i'd say
be remiss. I mean, look, th realit. We've faced a
lot of challenges here, you know, the last couple of years.
But I think we've worked.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Do you feel like there's a light now, Like it's
funny because I don't want to say it was so
dark because in the moment you don't look at it
that way. But through the Watson stuff, through the Watson trade,
through those different coaching stats, and now it's like people
are talking about the Texans in there, this fun, young,
energetic team, and of course you would have loved that
from go, but it's almost like you had to walk
through the mud to get to this point.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Does it feel that way?

Speaker 6 (01:05:01):
Yeah, I think the reality is, Peter, things are never
as bad or good as you think they are or
people make them out to be. So I'd say everybody
has challenges that they face on a day to day basis.
Every program is going to have to deal with something.
I think what we have to do is just try
to fix problems and find solutions, and sometimes it takes
a few steps back in order to go forward. I

(01:05:24):
think there's a lot of people that invested a lot
of time into this building, through a lot of good people,
you know, and I think the players have remained committed
through sort of the ups and downs. You know, when
you bring Demico into the building with the you know,
his mindset, his attitudes infectious, and it's about the players.
So continue, hopefully, we continue to add good players into

(01:05:44):
the building with the right thought process, with the right mindset,
that are committed to winning, that put the team, you know,
above themselves, because in the end, that's what it takes,
is reading a quote or you know, after you know,
the Rangers won the World Series. You know, Boach made
a comment, you know, just about like the selflessness of
his team that they don't care about like who gets
the credit. They care about each each other and it's

(01:06:07):
not about you know, who did what. And you know,
when you have multiple people and multiple players that have
that mindset and you overlay allow over they overlay that
with a competitive nature, you're going to give yourself a chance.
I mean, your reality is this league is so damn competitive.

Speaker 5 (01:06:24):
I mean, the.

Speaker 6 (01:06:24):
Margins are very small, and it's designed for everybody to
kind of be in the middle. It's kind of where
we are now, and there's some outliers on both sides.
So you just want to put yourself in a position
where you give yourself a chance. I mean, what going
into last week, was it seventy five percent or eighty
percent of the games in week seven or eight.

Speaker 5 (01:06:43):
Or one score games in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 6 (01:06:45):
So I think that speaks to the competitive nature of
our league for the amount of i'd say good good coaches,
good players, and so you're either going to rise to
the challenge and embrace that or you're going to cower
and walk away. So again, regardless of how bad or
good people think it's going or it looks on the surface,
you got to find the silver lining somewhere and you

(01:07:06):
just got to find solutions and just keep people moving
in the right direction. Understanding that you know, you can't
accomplish anything by yourself.

Speaker 5 (01:07:14):
It's going to take a team effort.

Speaker 6 (01:07:16):
So if you can just get as many people with
that mindset, and quite frankly, I kind of view my
role as just to kind of be a facilitator. Sure,
sort of get out of the way, just sort of
get everything on the right track, empower the people that
are here that you believe in, that you trust, and
give them the opportunity to do their job. So, you know,
hopefully I've been a good steward in that respect. And
certainly we don't have everything figured out, and we have

(01:07:36):
a lot of work in front of us, but it's
always exciting when you can see the fruits of your
labor at least start to come to fruition.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
My last question, and we're going to let you go.
You've already given us more than enough time. And I'm
loving this. I could do this for three hours with you.
You get to the combine and you get in an
elevator and there's a kid there with a tie on
and an ill fitting suit and he's got a resume
and a Manilla folder and he says, Hey, I what
would be your thirty seconds of advice for getting into

(01:08:03):
the league and how to position yourself best for you
needy to someday be a general manager and NFL team.

Speaker 6 (01:08:09):
Yeah, I would say, just be yourself, be true to
who you are, be authentic, and just do the work
because in the end, it's going to be about the work,
and try to learn and maintain as much curiosity along
the way. Understanding you're going to face some challenges is
not going to be easy, and wherever you start doesn't
really matter because really all of us were given an

(01:08:30):
opportunity to start.

Speaker 5 (01:08:32):
Once you're given an.

Speaker 6 (01:08:33):
Opportunity, ultimately it's going to be about your performance, about
your mindset, about your intent on a day to day
basis so and in the end, it comes back to
the work.

Speaker 5 (01:08:43):
So do the work.

Speaker 6 (01:08:45):
Remain curious and take whatever opportunity comes before you because
you never know where that's going to lead. And no
job is too small. Don't think your first step is
the most important step. So just be willing to take
it and dive right in and jump in and understanding
that you know it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:03):
Could lead you astray, but just keep working and don't
lose hope.

Speaker 6 (01:09:07):
And if you really believe in what you want to accomplish,
you know there's a lot of people that are going
to be there to help you along the way.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
So just like to you know, bring it back to
my industry.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
In the sports media, it's everyone wants to be on TV,
everyone wants to write for the New York Times, everyone
wants to be calling games. But you just said something,
No job is too small, Like the jobs that I
had in my twenties. If I don't do those, I'm
tucking blogging for websites that don't exist, and writing for
free newspapers in New York City, then we don't get
to the point we're at now where we're doing the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
We have a show.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
And I think Nick and our worlds are similar and
parallel that like, yeah, everyone thinks they can do it,
but you gotta wait your time, and you also have
to put the work in.

Speaker 6 (01:09:45):
You need to have patience, you need to have the
right attitude, you have to have the right mindset, and
you know, quite frankly, like you have to put the
ego aside. Just because you work in the NFL, just
because you work in the TV industry, quite frankly, it
doesn't really mean anything.

Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
And that's why I guarantees us is the next day.

Speaker 6 (01:10:03):
And again it's about opportunity and it goes back and look,
you guys, you know, you guys have a great show
because you put the work in and it takes a
lot of work behind the scenes, and candidly, not everybody
is cut out for that, but you've put the time in,
You've put yourself in a position, and you know, it's
a credit to your mindset because again, none of us

(01:10:23):
were given anything in life, period.

Speaker 5 (01:10:25):
So it's about what we do with those opportunities.

Speaker 6 (01:10:28):
And reality is there's a lot of people that are
helping us along the way, and those are the people
that we need to lean on. The most and tell
them how much we care about them and tell them
how much we love them. So a lot of respect
for you know what you've done and what you guys
have accomplished. I mean, you know, all seriousness. You've got
one of the great shows on television because of the
people and because of the work. And it's no different
than any end. It's about the people and it's about

(01:10:50):
the work, and that's the reality of it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
You know, my feelings about you as a man, and
I respect you as what you're doing in Houston. It
feels like the bedrock is there now and you guys
are building something and I'm excited to watch it. Last
night's game, yesday's game was exciting, and it's just a
I think it's just a window and what could be
the future for the Houston Texans, all those young players
and just to throw some more on it, like Dalton
Schultz making plays and Nico Collins making plays and Mark

(01:11:14):
seeing guys like Shaquille.

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
Griffin, like these are not just rookies.

Speaker 5 (01:11:18):
You have some.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
Veteran acquisitions that are making plays too. And I love
the makeup with the team and Nick, I really appreciate
you coming on during the season.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
We'll do this again in the offseason.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
I feel like we're going to go through your career
more but an hour of your time after the biggest
Texans win in probably two years.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
I so appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (01:11:35):
Man, Thank you, you best for Peter, Thank you, and
keep j mack in line.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
Real quick, mccordy, real quick.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
What was your scouting report on mccorty, because you didn't
draft him out of ten out of Rutgers, but he
did eventually sign him as a free agent.

Speaker 6 (01:11:48):
Love j Mack, him and Devin. I mean, you're not
gonna find too better. I'll give you a quick story
on James. Actually, so he got released. I want to
say Cleveland. It was Cleveland. I think he was in Cleveland.
They released him. It was in May or whatever it was.
And before he was released, I walked into Bill's office
and said, hey, what do you think Mac? And you know,
he said, hey, all right, let's look at it's take

(01:12:09):
a look at it. So we ended up trading for
him before he was released, just to get him in
the building. And I would say everything that you all
are seeing. I mean, you're to talk about salt of
the earth and just a great human being. I mean
him and them actor like it's just you don't find
people like that. So we were excited and ecstatic to
get Jason in the building because I mean, he'd been

(01:12:30):
a good player at Tennessee. You know, in Cleveland, he
had some injuries, didn't work out, but he helped our
team immensely, and he you know, he you know, he
went through some tough times. I mean, there's another talk
about somebody that went through some tough time. Yeah, went
through some tough times at Tennessee. And then we were
fortunate to get him in New England and you know,
end up going to the super Bowl, and you know,
to have him and Devin celebrate together, you know, it

(01:12:50):
was a pretty special moment.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
He might make the biggest play in this super bill.
He knocks the pass from Brandon Cooks and he darts
off his man to go make it. I've been honored
and blessed to be his teammate now for two years,
and I was so proud of him yesterday. Who's calling
the game. And you know, I don't search social media
for my own, but I just typed it his and
it was universal praise.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
I was like, just like, that's my guy who he
des it was great. All right, Nick Seria, this is awesome.

Speaker 7 (01:13:14):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Go do your thing and you got a game against
the Bengals. We're on to Cincinnati. Is such a familiar refrain.
Good luck, my truth.

Speaker 7 (01:13:19):
Thanks guys.

Speaker 1 (01:13:31):
It's time for delivering results presented by Uber Eats. Each
week we give out an award for who delivered results.
I'm gonna go one might not be an obvious one.
I'm gonna go with the Cleveland Browns defense. Another shutout,
another win, twenty seven to nothing, complete destruction of the
Arizona Cardinals, held the Cardinals under seventy yards of offense.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
Are you serious?

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
Jim Schwartz is the man in front, But of course
you've got guys like Miles, Garrett and Emerson and Ward.
This team is legit. They If the playoffs were to
start today, the Cleveland Browns would be in. And you
know what their defense is leading the way. That was
delivering results presented by Uber eats, where you get almost
almost anything, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL.

(01:14:18):
Order Now, Fun Interview, Fun Podcast, Rare Monday one.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Aaron, always a pleasure with you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
Jason English, our friend from the iHeart Team is not here,
so we will have to give him crap for that.
Shout out to everybody out west and Arizona football continues
to win. That is the official team of the season
with Peter Scheger. We had Jedfish on August fourteenth. They
have been one of the best surprises of college football.
Matt Schneider, Jason Kleinman, our executives out on the LA

(01:14:50):
side of things. They are Arizona football fans and Arizona alums.
I know they listen to this podcast. Another win, another
victory for Jedfish. Bear down, and then for all the
folks who are listening, please subscribe.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Tell your friends really help. I really appreciate it. See
you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.

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Host

Peter Schrager

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