October 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks are joined by former NFL GM Tom Telesco to break down some of the biggest storylines from the first quarter of the 2025 season, including a behind-the-scenes look at sign-stealing in the NFL (1:47) and an evaluation of the backup quarterback position.(7:33) Tom also shares why teams take on the identity of their leaders, (16:22) why toughness isn’t a trait that can be easily developed (17:25) and explains what makes Derwin James and Brock Bowers two of the most unique players he ever drafted. (21:51)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's up everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Welcome to move the Sticks, DJ, Buck, and we're joined
by our good friend Tom Telesco, longtime general manager of
the National Football League. Tom, thanks for taking the time.
How you doing, man, Hey, I'm doing great. Thanks for
having me on, guys.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Man.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
This is the first question. I just come out right
out the gate. What the heck are you up to?
What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I got a lot of time on my hands right now, DJ.
But now I'm just just trying to fill the void.
You know, I'm a football guy at heart, so you know,
doing things like this, doing a little bit of serious
XM radio with with NFL Radio and volunteering at the
local high school, just trying to fill the football void.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
You got to see the Sea Kings. He gets the CDM,
he got the Sea Kings on. I know they throw
it all over to the yard.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Here the opposite were the complete opposite of Grenada Hills, complete.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Opposite throwing it all over to the yard.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Doing this stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Have you ever played them?
Speaker 5 (00:59):
Buck?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
None? No, different class, different w No. But when you
were at maybe maybe your previous time Notre Dame.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
No, when I was at Notre Dame, we never had
a chance to see him. But at the time they
had the quarterback. I think they had Garber's and they
had Yeah, and I think I think John Humphreys they
had a wide receiver that he might have had one
hundred and twenty some receptions. Because they throw it DJ
literally they throw it every down. It's a four hour
it's a four hour commitment. It's a four hour commitment.
(01:28):
When we're in Orange County. We got quarterbacks and receivers
all over the place. Down here, we have a hard.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Time finding offensive defensive lineman.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
But we can throw it. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
There's luxury car dealers in Orange County, there's insurance salesmen,
and there's private quarterback coaches. Those are the very largest
industries in Orange County. One of the things I want
to hit you on because we were talking about this
the other day, about some of the stuff, the comments
from Robert Sala last week and how that ended up
being kind of a kerfuffle, which seemed like much ado
about nothing when the way me and Bucker were looking
(01:58):
at because this is this has been part of football
for so long in terms of trying to get signals,
and we even mentioned it before, you and I had
a conversation off the air. Buck was like, oh, the
Colts were the reputation is being the absolute best.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
At being able to do this, and.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Howard Mudd got Howard Mud got a lot of the credit.
But it was a lot more that went into that,
wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Tom.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I mean, first of all, when I saw the comments
like what are we doing here, because like this is
twenty twenty five, we have coach to player communications and helmets,
so there really shouldn't be a whole lot of signaling
unless you're in a no huddle situation.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I think he was talking about shifts, so in other words,
like if we were to shift and then they were
to change, they were to signal to change coverage or
change you know what they were doing with the front.
That's why they were trying to motion and shift to
see if they could get them to give a hand
signal to change a check or change a call.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I mean maybe, and that's probably the case, but yeah,
I mean going back to you know, pre I guess
it'd be pre two thousand and eight because spy Kate
was two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
That could be a different show. But yeah, So when
I was a pro scout, like.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I'm on the road doing advances and you know I'm
there to acquire information.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You know, I don't want to call you know, stealing.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Signals, but you know you're doing it legally with your eyes,
with binoculars, with pen and paper. And it was funny
because NFL defensive coordinators they were notorious for not changing
their signals, not using multiple signalers on the sidelines. You
don't know who's live and who's a dummy. And they
never blocked their signals. So the coordinator to walk out
to the white of the sideline if they're going to
(03:29):
run over Saw, you know saw Sam and will blitz
covered to it.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It would literally be over Saw too.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
It was like.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
You're not even trying.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Ever the old road Runner dynamite where he's going like this,
both backers are blitzing like it was not hard. But okay,
but you mentioned Howard Mudd. So I go off to
San Diego to scout the Chargers and way Phillips was
the defensive coordinator and Wade was on the sidelines with
this strength coach. Next to him, and they're both signaling,
(04:03):
and I couldn't tell who was live who was the dummies.
So I came back with with nothing. Because you can't
get you try and guess the signals, you're screwed. Yeah,
so I come back with nothing. Howard Mudd just blew
up at me. But you know he only yelled at
those who you loved. But I didn't want to guess,
and so we had nothing. But you know, it's not
hard to conceal these signals, but we have to least try.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
But yeah, I mean, if you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Shift a motion and you look for hands signals, I mean, yeah,
that's been going on pribly since the forties and fifties.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So for the for the real quick book, just for
the the uh, the execution of something like this, right,
So I would I saw our pro guys doing the
same stuff when I was in Baltimore. But then my
question is, then, is that is that something that then
gets transferred to the coaching staff. Does I go direct
to player? What's the what's the channel of information? Yeah,
it would, it would go to the coaching staff first.
Like with us, it was, you know, the offensive line
(04:52):
coach was so good at it.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
He did a wait before I was even there, when
he was back with the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
But yeah, we would go back.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I would log in every down distance, instant yard line,
and I would just put the signal on there, and
then I'd.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Go down to Howard's office and I'd.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Have to kind of act out the signals so we
could actually see what everything was.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So I'd act him out in front of Howard.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Howard would take that information and then Howard, you know,
on game day, Howard was staying in a certain spot
on the sideline. He'd watch that defensive coordinator and you're
not going to get every single play, but you know,
if you can get certainly if you can get a
blitz that was big, or at.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Least get the coverage. But the blitz was the big thing.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And he'd look right down at the defensive coordinator and
if he saw something, he would tell Tom Moore on
the headset and then you know, we went no huddle,
so you can then you can send into the quarterback
and the way you go. But everybody did it. Then
I did it legally did it with your eyes and
pen and pencil, and you go back and you log it.
Now videotaping. That's a whole different that that's not right,
and that's illegal obviously by the NFL standards and in college,
(05:51):
but it just doesn't happen much anymore because of the
player to coach communications system.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
So two things.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
One, Tom knows this because when I went to Buffalo
in the nineties, like they were at the look the
frontier of the no huddle movement. Yeah, part of the
advantages of going fast is you forced the defense to
play vanilla and so very early in the game, whatever
they were in, they stayed in. Yes, down the line.
When I play defense, what we were doing is funny,
(06:20):
right Because Tom is talking about stealing the signals. One
of the things that defensive players were taught to do
is a signal the check. So when I look at
the tape, I know that everyone got the information. So
if it was something where they moved formation and we
changed the cover three and everyone padded their head, well,
it doesn't take a brain surgeon to be able to
(06:41):
figure out, Hey, every time we move they pat their heads,
what's the coverage that they go to?
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh, this means three. And that is part of it.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Because defensive coordinators were so scared of the communication not
being relayed to the players that they had us confirmed
the signs as much as they talked about the opposite guy. Still,
that a lot of it is on the defensive coaches
not trusting that their players could verbally communicate or know
what they were supposed to do without someone basically double
(07:14):
checking the work.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, and just change the signal every now and then. Yeah,
this doesn't have to be covered three for seventeen weeks.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, Well, I think they've gotten a little bit a
little bit better at it. And like you said, once
you have that speaker in your headset for the quarterback
eliminated a lot a lot of that stuff. I want
to get in some team building stuff, Tom, And this
is where you know, having someone who's built playoff rosters
a bunch of them during your time we were you know,
we're looking at all.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
These injuries at the quarterback position so far this year.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
We've seen a bunch including high profile guys like Joe
Burrow and Lamar Jackson just got nicked up and Rock
Perty's been hurt and on and on and on and on,
And I think that the uh, the common refrain you
here is well, how the heck do we not invest
more money in the backup quarterback. There's a supply ish you,
then there's also the cost. But how did you guys
when you were scrimmaging that in terms of placing the value?
(08:05):
Because I know the old stories. I've heard Tom Moore
from from his from his mouth what his thoughts were
on the backup quarterback behind Peyton, But just the teams
that you've that you've run, what was your philosophy on
that investment and what was the way you want about it?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I know it was when I was with the Colts
when Peyton Manning was there and Bill Point was the GM,
and then when I went the Chargers. For a long
time we had Philip Rivers. It was hard to get
veteran backup quarterbacks that had talent to come because they
knew they were never going to play. But certainly as
a GM, you look at your cap and your cash
and you have all these things that you want to
(08:38):
work on, and if you have a franchise quarterback, you'd
like to use money in other places and not at
the backup quarterback spot. But in reality it's one of
the most important spots you have to budget for it,
and I think I mean last year, I think more
than half the starting quarterbacks went out with an injury
and miss games.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's a lot. And I think as as.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Quarterbacks become more mobile as they play longer into their careers,
which means that injury high risk, the higher odds of
getting injured. Certainly how offensive line is played. You have
to invest in a backup quarterback, whether it's in free agency,
whether it's in a draft, maybe drafting a quarterback higher
than usually would when you already have one. But it's
something you have to budget for. It's kind of like
(09:16):
it's kind of paying for insurance. The more you're paying premiums,
the more coverage you're going to get. And what you
don't want to do is have a playoff caliber team,
lose your starting quarterback and here season's done. But like
you said, the supply is also the problem because there
aren't sixty four qualities starting and quality high backup quarterbacks,
So you got to try and find them in their heart.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
You know, tom So like playing upon that is one
thing to acquire a backup quarterback, it's another thing to
have him getting ready. So I always hear started quarterbacks
talk about they want to dominate.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
They want to have all.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
The rest because that's how they get ready with If
there are one hundred reps in practice, how do you
allocate reps to the backup to get him ready? And
how do you develop the young quarterback if they don't
get enough reps?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Like, how do you manage both of those? How do
you serve both of those interests?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, Unfortunately, a lot of that development is in the
offseason because you're right, just a lot of starting quarterbacks
they want every snap in the regular season and it's
hard to not give it to them. You only have
so much time on the practice field. I mean most teams,
you know, we're out out there for three or four hours.
We're out there for two hours, two hours and fifteen minutes.
You only have so many snaps. And you know Philip
Rivers he wants every snap. You know Peyton Manning wants
(10:24):
every snap. So for the backup quarterback, that's why preparation
football intelligence is so huge because a lot of your
development is going to have to be without the ball
in your hands.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
It's have to be in the meeting.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Room, knowing the playbook, getting mental reps at practice because
you're also a lot of times you're running the scout team,
which you needs to get some physical work where you're
not getting the same mental works, you're not running the
same offense. So a lot goes into that position, and
a lot is very important. You know, your quarterback coach coordinator,
but certa of your quarterback coach, because that's really his
job is to develop your number two quarterback and your
(10:56):
number three if you have a nice, young developmental quarterback.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
And no doubt the famous line, by the way I
referenced earlier, which was when Tom Moore was asked, at
one point in time, why you know, why don't you
give your backup quarterback any reps? Peyton gets all the
reps every single week. You don't give the backup any reps.
He goes, look, we all know if Peyton Manning gets hurt,
we're screwed. Why would you want to practice being screwed?
That was that was like one of the lines on
(11:20):
there of like, hey, this the whole thing is over.
This guy goes down like there's no save in it.
You know, this is there's one of one when it
comes to him, which gives me the next thing, Tom,
You've had a chance to build teams around a veteran quarterback,
you've also had a chance to build teams around a
young quarterback. What what goes into the thought process of
how you surround those two guys and how is it different.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It's definitely different, just based on honestly, number one, how
much money they're banking. So obviously, if you have a
veteran quarterback on a big contract, your team's being made
up a little bit different. It's gonna have to be younger,
it's going to have to have more not rookie players,
but players are rookie contracts. But and then at offense,
like I just felt like, if you have a franchise quarterback,
whether he's a younger world or he needs to have
(12:02):
people around him, he needs to have weapons. That's the
way the culture built and that's why the charges are
building it right now. You got to have an offensive line,
you gotta have weapons to throw to, and sometimes that
may take away some talent on defense, which means you've
got to have like.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
A top flight defensive coordinator.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But I think with a lot of these younger quarterbacks
that we're seeing right now, the franchise quarterbacks, it's so
important to either have a tight end that you know
can work the middle of the field, separate and get open.
Or you know a young or veteran receiver that you
know as a top flight route runner and he's going
to be where he's supposed to be when he's supposed
to be there one of the time. Kind of the
way Keenan Allen has been for Justin Herbert to have
(12:43):
that security blanket for a young quarterback that you're building
with that he knows. I think this is where I
can go on third and eight. And then as your
quarterback gets older, like I said, your team has to change.
When we're with the Chargers, we knew even before we
signed Justin Herbert to the big contract a year or
two before we knew were start transitioning our team to
a little bit younger in certain areas. That's just the
(13:03):
way you're going to have to do it. As you
pay your quarterback, so you're how you build it is
going to have to change depending on how much you're
paying your quarterback.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
And that's where everybody goes about it.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
You know, Tom, it's funny when you talk about the
team building process around the quarterback and those things I
want to ask you about when you make the decision
to pay the quarterback, the young quarterback, and people kind
of get into year four and you're making that decision
whether they pick up the option in those things in
your mind, how many games does it take to make
a decision on a young quarterback, because I've heard Bill
(13:34):
Brian Bilick we talk about thirty to thirty two games.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And then when you make that.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Decision, how uneasy is it to commit to it when
you may not have seen just enough to make that
final decision.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
That's a great question. I think it's more subjective. I mean,
I could be flipping and say, justin Herbert's first drive
against the Kansas City Chiefs, at that point did I mean,
you can laugh about what we didn't know at that point,
but it was certainly a great start.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
You know, that's a good question. I think, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do rely on a lot of on a lot of
data to help us make decisions, but there is some
of it that you get to a certain point of
a young quarterbacks career you just know like, hey, this
is a guy, this is a guy we know we
can win with. This is the guy who want to
build around. How long does that take? I mean, quite honestly,
with with Justin Herbert is probably after the first year,
which isn't a lot of playtime, but you can see
because you know you're around these guys every day. A
(14:30):
big part of the guy you're an invest in is
how is he one day through Saturday in the building?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
What type of leader is he? What's his character?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Like?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
What's his football intelligence? Like?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like you you scout all that and you evaluate it
in the draft process, but until you really have them
every single day, you don't really know.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So you get a full year with a player, you
get a pretty.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Good feel for them off the field as far as
you know what what they bring to the team, because
they're gonna be the face of your franchise. And then
once you decide in your head like hey, this is
the guy, that's when you have to start adjusting how
you how you build a roster. You can't wait to
once you sign him with the big contract. Now say
all right, we have.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
To you know, we have to.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Now you know, with our salary cap, we're going to
have to let some some older veterans go, and you know,
have some more rookie contracts. So you got to start
that at least two years beforehand, So the quicker, you know,
the better, but obviously the larger body of work makes
you make the right decision. But I think at the
quarterback spot, you kind of know it when you see it,
and you know with him, you certainly did.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I was ready to just uh just walk down the
down the road and just tell the Spans fan you
go ahead and pay him after after he gave in.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
That first drive against Kansas City, didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
We didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I was trying to still trying to figure out how
you got on the field that money. And I were
sitting there calling the game going justin Herberts, and we
didn't know what had happened with Torod Taylor, so we
were we were trying to see it on the go.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I really see it. I was.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I was on the phone with the bench fingure like
what happened to Tarrod Taylor? Yeah, you know, everything happens
so quickly, and then with he had going on, you know,
as as a general manager, like you're you know, you're
concerned about your players, want to make sure he's ok.
And then you know, I look up, but I see
justin running into the end zone. That's great, nothing, but
you know that's just you know, part of being a GM,
(16:08):
you're you know, you work on some other things at
the same time the game's going on.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, that's wild man. All right, we're gonna take quick break.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Come back.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
I've got a little factor fiction I want to hit
Tom up on, so we'll do that right after this.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
All right, Tom, I'm gonna hit you.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
On two real quick here, because these are things that
have We've talked about a lot over the years, and
I want to I want to get your opinion as
someone who's run a club Factor fiction here. We always
say that a team takes on the identity of their leaders,
and that whether that's the head coach, ineral manager, quarterback,
however you want to look at it, you buy into
that factor fiction fact.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Hundred percent, and that that's definitely something we talked about.
You know, when you're interviewing head coaches, the identity of
your team is directly reflected in your head coach, especially
the character of your head coach. And to me, the
most important part of team building is having an identity
on both the ball.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's hard to get to.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
You can see the teams that have been consistent winners
in this league. You know, when you put the tape
on what you're going to get on both sides of
the ball, even as the players change, because players come
in and out and coaches changed too, But to have
an identity on both sides of the ball is so
important and that comes from that coach.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Then the last one, I'll ask you just quickly, do
you need to And I guess I'll just put it
to you like this, do you need to draft toughness
or can you develop toughness?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Oh boy, I want to say draft you either have
it or you don't in my mind, and if you
had the toughness you had always going all the way
back to Pop Warner to high school to college, and
I'm sure there's some things you can do in your
program at the pro level to maybe make sure you
bring it out of the player. But I'd like to
hear your guys's point in our opinions on that too.
(17:51):
It's to me, either have it or you don't. But
I'd be curious to hear you guys on that one too.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
I would say Tom, like, I believe you have to
have it in you, but I it can be enhanced
with peer pressure. And the reason why I say that
is as someone who went from offense to defense in
Kansas City, when I walked into the building with Marty
Schottenheimer and there was an expectation that everybody had to
do that.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
There's a pressure that you have, like, well, I don't
want to be the weekly.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
And when you have those things, if you're competitive, if
the person is competitive, they can raise it up a notch.
I would never be a trained killer, but I knew
when you're the hood with Dale Carter and James Hasty
and Derek Thomas, like, I can't be the one that
is the weekly because they're gonna look at me.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
So I do believe they have to have it.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
But I think your environment, if it's always talked about
discuss physicality, toughness, how we get after it. I do
believe it becomes an organizational thing and the guys that
come in when they walk through those doors, they know, hey,
this is how we go about doing our business.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I would say from the Baltimore stuff, which was, you know,
probably the toughest team or the team those viewed as
the toughest team in the league that for that period
of time, it was still nine out of ten of
the guys we brought in were tough like they they
came in with that toughness, and then we would have
we would make exceptions one one guy here, one guy there.
And that was the famous Rex line in the UH
(19:13):
in the draft firm, where we say we have enough ants,
we can carry a cockroach. Like you know, it's kind
of like you can make you can have some one
offs of these. But I also think it was because
that culture could could pull that out of you know,
one or two players. You just couldn't bring in a
wave of them and let that group outnumber.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
The tough group.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
But then I go from there to Cleveland and you know,
I was like, we don't have a bus driver here,
We don't have somebody to steer that, so you have
to avoid those players. It made it scouting much harder
when you're a team that doesn't already have that tough identity.
Because if you want to become a tough team, Tom,
you've got to those guys are off your board, Like,
you can't bring those guys into that environment because it's
going to get worse.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, it's a filter.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
You know, if you want to be a fast football team,
don't draft slow players.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Is this in rocket science? If you want to be.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You want to be a tough football team, don't bring
in guys who either don't love football or like soft.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I mean, yeah, maybe you.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Can improve them a little bit, But Buck, I do
agree with you on that, Like once you have once
you have the tough players, you can still have the culture.
Make sure you're bringing out of them and first being
the weak link. What you don't want to have is
on Monday when they show the clip to everybody in
the room and all of a sudden you're dunking your
head and you're missing a tackle on the perimeter and
(20:22):
everybody sees it.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
You don't want to be that guy.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Yeah, but you know what, that also speaks to having
a level of accountability in the building. So when we
talk about toughness, I don't think you have a tough
team without having different levels of accountability. That's coach to player,
but also player the player because where he gets tough
and you know Tom, for those old teams in Buffalo,
the worst thing DJ is not having the answer to
(20:46):
a coach, but having to answer to Bruce Smith and
Darryl Talley and those guys. Like having to walk into
those huddles with those players looking at you sideways. That's
when you have had me going. And I will say
that I think is Buffalo. That experience was unusual because
we didn't have pads on much. We didn't do a
whole lot of hitting and contact, but that was a
(21:09):
very physical team, maybe because it was an older team,
but it was a weird environment being young and seeing
that play out, Like we don't have pazz on we
practice him for ninety minutes, and we're a team that's going.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
To force three Super Bowls? How is this possible?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
That's what it was.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Fuck it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
But can you imagine you're in the huddle with Darryl Tally,
I mean Darryl Tally.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I mean that's one.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Intimidating guy, so you better make every talking behind him.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
That's fantastic. God, those are fun teams, man. Yeah, And
just the Cowboys came along at the wrong time or
they've got a couple of Super Bowls. Tom want to
ask you about two players here, and we kind of
wrapped this one up here in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
But you've drafted two players with.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Unique ability, and I would say over the last ten
to fifteen years, I don't know that we've seen more
than one Derwin James and I don't know that we've
seen more than one Brock Bowers. I know it's early
on Bowers, but when you look at those two players,
what did you see on him on college tape? And
how confident were you that all the incredible stuff they
(22:14):
did at that level was gonna was going to happen
for him at the next level.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well, with with Derwin James, and you probably remember this
his last year at Florida State, they did not have
a good team. I remember going to see Florida State
at Boston College and it just wasn't your normal Florida
State team as far as playing with energy, playing with physicality,
and they had some talent, but just wasn't the same.
But yet he was the guy that just kept showing
(22:38):
up and once we dropped them. Once you get to
know him, you can see why. Like his football character
is second to nine. I've never been around anybody like
him that's such a great teammate leader, smile on his face,
but holds people accountable and holds people accountable the right way.
And then all of his physical attributes of size and speed,
and you know he can play almost any position on
(23:00):
the field and what was nice too in those situations
because uh, you know, Florida State had a bad year.
You have to kind of filter through our scouts where
you know, with Kevin Kelly being the director, like right,
you get very few consensus players. You know, always want
consensus players, but everybody was right down the road, right
down where they need to be with him as far
(23:20):
as a player. And then just the versatility you can
do so much and use so many different ways. And
then brock Bauer is just you know, a little bit
different situation for us. But the Raiders, it's just you know,
we had we didn't have enough talent across the board
and over you know, they had a lot of regime changes,
they'd missed on a lot of first round draft picks,
and I know, going in, I just want to make sure, like,
(23:42):
whoever we take with this first pick, it needs to
have the highest odds of success because we have to
keep we have to start adding some talent to this team.
We can't miss on a player. And obviously we know
we could have used a quarterback at that point. And
we're also looking at it like, you know, do we
have the infrastructure right right now to really support you know,
a franchise quarterback. You know, our offensive line was in flux.
(24:04):
We didn't have any weapons on offense. At defense, we
had some pieces, but not enough. And with Brock Bauers,
I mean, nobody is a Cantonus. There's no guarantees. But
he was about as high as a player as I've
ever seen with how he played the game with the
skill set and then is off the field, his work
ethic is intangible. So you know, to be a great
player in this league, you got to have both. You
(24:25):
got to have the talent level, the speed, the explosion,
the strength, the size, but you got to have the intangibles,
the work ethic, the preparation, the love of the game.
And if you can find those two, and it's easier
said than done. Sometimes we think we found it and
it doesn't happen. But those two guys had it to
the first degree.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
What's funny Tom is having known Derwin since he was sixteen,
seventeen years old.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I just remember like being around him.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
I coached the team that he was on, and I've
never seen someone so passionate about playing a game. And
he had come back, he was already a Florida State
and he's helping us out at a Nike it and
that passion was just ridiculous. And I want to ask you, like,
when you talk about like the football character, I think
is really important for our listeners to understand, what do
(25:12):
you mean when it comes to football character?
Speaker 4 (25:14):
What exactly are the things that y'all are?
Speaker 5 (25:16):
We talk about more character being a good person, but
when it comes to character related to football, what the
things that define it?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You know, it's so funny because we talk about football
character all the time, but trying to actually evaluate it,
it's really hard.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
It's so subjective.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But you know, because we talk about, hey, passion for
the game. Love for the game's easy to say, but
you know, how do you really tell?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Now?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
With Derwin his style of play, If you watch the tape,
you can kind of see like the passionate plays with,
but then after you meet them it's even more so.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
He was actually pretty easy when you.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Talk about a passion to play, a passion to get
better as a player, because at this, you know, the
college level, a lot of these kids they can produce
because there's so much more talented than the players are
playing against. They're playing against a lot of players who
won't play NFL football. You get to this level, everybody's good,
so you have to keep improving. So you have to
have that we call it what we would call it
drive and desire, a drive and desire to be great
and has to keep improving at this level. So those
(26:13):
are two important things, but you have to but evaluating
that at the college level it's just really hard. And
that's you know, we interview players, and interviews were important,
but to me, they weren't the most important thing. The
most important thing to me was the information. There are scouts,
so we get at the school from the sources they
have that know that player for an extended amount of time,
(26:35):
maybe recruited them and had them for two or three
years in college. And then if our scout had a
good relationship with that source, that was really good, unbiased
as much as you can without an agenda, information who
saw the player on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
That to me was much more important.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
That information was more important to me than a combine
interview that we felt was really was a great combine interview.
It's good that I happened, and that's it's good, you know,
first piece to puzzle. But you can get fooled in
interviews too. In fifteen twenty minutes, we have to bring
a guy in for a day in a thirty visit.
So the information we received from the school, from people
who know the players, they give us the best picture
(27:14):
of the player.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Was the most important part for me.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, I think that term we've been using too is
care factor, like just having a real, real high care
factor and trying to figure out that information is the
tricky part.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Tom. I think you're.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Almost in these interviews and they're so condensed, and they're
so formatted, and everybody's been so trained almost thought. Even
just when we have guys on conversationally, I think you
learn more asking them about their teammates than you do
ask them about themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
That's a good point.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
And with the interview, certainly at the combine where you
have twenty minutes, you have to be very strategic with
how you want to handle it to try and pull
out some answers. And because again a lot of it's scripted,
a lot of it, you know, a player may be
very guarded is in a room with a lot of
people who doesn't know. I think we have too many
people in the room to really get good to try
and cut it down. But yeah, you gotta be strategic
(28:04):
with how you want to ask the question is just
to get some good information out. And actually it was
just great to ask about their teammates because we can
learn what they think of their teammates and sometimes they're honest,
sometimes they're not. But try and find some untraditional ways
just to get a feel for the personality of the
player was really important.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
It's fantastic, man.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
This has been fun, Tom, so much fun that we're
gonna spread this out to another episode so we can
pick your brain a little bit on some big games
coming up this weekend, so that'll be on tomorrow's episode.
I appreciate everybody hanging with us today. We'll see you
right back here tomorrow on Move the Sticks.
And now move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's up everybody.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Welcome to move the Sticks, DJ, Buck, and we're joined
by our good friend Tom Telesco, longtime general manager of
the National Football League. Tom, thanks for taking the time.
How you doing, man, Hey, I'm doing great. Thanks for
having me on, guys.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 4 (00:20):
Man.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
This is the first question. I just come out right
out the gate. What the heck are you up to?
What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I got a lot of time on my hands right now, DJ.
But now I'm just just trying to fill the void.
You know, I'm a football guy at heart, so you know,
doing things like this, doing a little bit of serious
XM radio with with NFL Radio and volunteering at the
local high school, just trying to fill the football void.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
You got to see the Sea Kings. He gets the CDM,
he got the Sea Kings on. I know they throw
it all over to the yard.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Here the opposite were the complete opposite of Grenada Hills, complete.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Opposite throwing it all over to the yard.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Doing this stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Have you ever played them?
Speaker 5 (00:59):
Buck?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
None? No, different class, different w No. But when you
were at maybe maybe your previous time Notre Dame.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
No, when I was at Notre Dame, we never had
a chance to see him. But at the time they
had the quarterback. I think they had Garber's and they
had Yeah, and I think I think John Humphreys they
had a wide receiver that he might have had one
hundred and twenty some receptions. Because they throw it DJ
literally they throw it every down. It's a four hour
it's a four hour commitment. It's a four hour commitment.
(01:28):
When we're in Orange County. We got quarterbacks and receivers
all over the place. Down here, we have a hard.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Time finding offensive defensive lineman.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
But we can throw it. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
There's luxury car dealers in Orange County, there's insurance salesmen,
and there's private quarterback coaches. Those are the very largest
industries in Orange County. One of the things I want
to hit you on because we were talking about this
the other day, about some of the stuff, the comments
from Robert Sala last week and how that ended up
being kind of a kerfuffle, which seemed like much ado
about nothing when the way me and Bucker were looking
(01:58):
at because this is this has been part of football
for so long in terms of trying to get signals,
and we even mentioned it before, you and I had
a conversation off the air. Buck was like, oh, the
Colts were the reputation is being the absolute best.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
At being able to do this, and.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Howard Mudd got Howard Mud got a lot of the credit.
But it was a lot more that went into that,
wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Tom.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I mean, first of all, when I saw the comments
like what are we doing here, because like this is
twenty twenty five, we have coach to player communications and helmets,
so there really shouldn't be a whole lot of signaling
unless you're in a no huddle situation.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I think he was talking about shifts, so in other words,
like if we were to shift and then they were
to change, they were to signal to change coverage or
change you know what they were doing with the front.
That's why they were trying to motion and shift to
see if they could get them to give a hand
signal to change a check or change a call.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I mean maybe, and that's probably the case, but yeah,
I mean going back to you know, pre I guess
it'd be pre two thousand and eight because spy Kate
was two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
That could be a different show. But yeah, So when
I was a pro scout, like.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I'm on the road doing advances and you know I'm
there to acquire information.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You know, I don't want to call you know, stealing.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Signals, but you know you're doing it legally with your eyes,
with binoculars, with pen and paper. And it was funny
because NFL defensive coordinators they were notorious for not changing
their signals, not using multiple signalers on the sidelines. You
don't know who's live and who's a dummy. And they
never blocked their signals. So the coordinator to walk out
to the white of the sideline if they're going to
(03:29):
run over Saw, you know saw Sam and will blitz
covered to it.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
It would literally be over Saw too.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
It was like.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
You're not even trying.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Ever the old road Runner dynamite where he's going like this,
both backers are blitzing like it was not hard. But okay,
but you mentioned Howard Mudd. So I go off to
San Diego to scout the Chargers and way Phillips was
the defensive coordinator and Wade was on the sidelines with
this strength coach. Next to him, and they're both signaling,
(04:03):
and I couldn't tell who was live who was the dummies.
So I came back with with nothing. Because you can't
get you try and guess the signals, you're screwed. Yeah,
so I come back with nothing. Howard Mudd just blew
up at me. But you know he only yelled at
those who you loved. But I didn't want to guess,
and so we had nothing. But you know, it's not
hard to conceal these signals, but we have to least try.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
But yeah, I mean, if you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Shift a motion and you look for hands signals, I mean, yeah,
that's been going on pribly since the forties and fifties.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So for the for the real quick book, just for
the the uh, the execution of something like this, right,
So I would I saw our pro guys doing the
same stuff when I was in Baltimore. But then my
question is, then, is that is that something that then
gets transferred to the coaching staff. Does I go direct
to player? What's the what's the channel of information? Yeah,
it would, it would go to the coaching staff first.
Like with us, it was, you know, the offensive line
(04:52):
coach was so good at it.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
He did a wait before I was even there, when
he was back with the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
But yeah, we would go back.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I would log in every down distance, instant yard line,
and I would just put the signal on there, and
then I'd.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Go down to Howard's office and I'd.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Have to kind of act out the signals so we
could actually see what everything was.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So I'd act him out in front of Howard.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Howard would take that information and then Howard, you know,
on game day, Howard was staying in a certain spot
on the sideline. He'd watch that defensive coordinator and you're
not going to get every single play, but you know,
if you can get certainly if you can get a
blitz that was big, or at.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Least get the coverage. But the blitz was the big thing.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
And he'd look right down at the defensive coordinator and
if he saw something, he would tell Tom Moore on
the headset and then you know, we went no huddle,
so you can then you can send into the quarterback
and the way you go. But everybody did it. Then
I did it legally did it with your eyes and
pen and pencil, and you go back and you log it.
Now videotaping. That's a whole different that that's not right,
and that's illegal obviously by the NFL standards and in college,
(05:51):
but it just doesn't happen much anymore because of the
player to coach communications system.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
So two things.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
One, Tom knows this because when I went to Buffalo
in the nineties, like they were at the look the
frontier of the no huddle movement. Yeah, part of the
advantages of going fast is you forced the defense to
play vanilla and so very early in the game, whatever
they were in, they stayed in. Yes, down the line.
When I play defense, what we were doing is funny,
(06:20):
right Because Tom is talking about stealing the signals. One
of the things that defensive players were taught to do
is a signal the check. So when I look at
the tape, I know that everyone got the information. So
if it was something where they moved formation and we
changed the cover three and everyone padded their head, well,
it doesn't take a brain surgeon to be able to
(06:41):
figure out, Hey, every time we move they pat their heads,
what's the coverage that they go to?
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh, this means three. And that is part of it.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Because defensive coordinators were so scared of the communication not
being relayed to the players that they had us confirmed
the signs as much as they talked about the opposite guy. Still,
that a lot of it is on the defensive coaches
not trusting that their players could verbally communicate or know
what they were supposed to do without someone basically double
(07:14):
checking the work.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, and just change the signal every now and then. Yeah,
this doesn't have to be covered three for seventeen weeks.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, Well, I think they've gotten a little bit a
little bit better at it. And like you said, once
you have that speaker in your headset for the quarterback
eliminated a lot a lot of that stuff. I want
to get in some team building stuff, Tom, And this
is where you know, having someone who's built playoff rosters
a bunch of them during your time we were you know,
we're looking at all.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
These injuries at the quarterback position so far this year.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
We've seen a bunch including high profile guys like Joe
Burrow and Lamar Jackson just got nicked up and Rock
Perty's been hurt and on and on and on and on,
And I think that the uh, the common refrain you
here is well, how the heck do we not invest
more money in the backup quarterback. There's a supply ish you,
then there's also the cost. But how did you guys
when you were scrimmaging that in terms of placing the value?
(08:05):
Because I know the old stories. I've heard Tom Moore
from from his from his mouth what his thoughts were
on the backup quarterback behind Peyton, But just the teams
that you've that you've run, what was your philosophy on
that investment and what was the way you want about it?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Well?
Speaker 1 (08:17):
I know it was when I was with the Colts
when Peyton Manning was there and Bill Point was the GM,
and then when I went the Chargers. For a long
time we had Philip Rivers. It was hard to get
veteran backup quarterbacks that had talent to come because they
knew they were never going to play. But certainly as
a GM, you look at your cap and your cash
and you have all these things that you want to
(08:38):
work on, and if you have a franchise quarterback, you'd
like to use money in other places and not at
the backup quarterback spot. But in reality it's one of
the most important spots you have to budget for it,
and I think I mean last year, I think more
than half the starting quarterbacks went out with an injury
and miss games.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's a lot. And I think as as.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Quarterbacks become more mobile as they play longer into their careers,
which means that injury high risk, the higher odds of
getting injured. Certainly how offensive line is played. You have
to invest in a backup quarterback, whether it's in free agency,
whether it's in a draft, maybe drafting a quarterback higher
than usually would when you already have one. But it's
something you have to budget for. It's kind of like
(09:16):
it's kind of paying for insurance. The more you're paying premiums,
the more coverage you're going to get. And what you
don't want to do is have a playoff caliber team,
lose your starting quarterback and here season's done. But like
you said, the supply is also the problem because there
aren't sixty four qualities starting and quality high backup quarterbacks,
So you got to try and find them in their heart.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
You know, tom So like playing upon that is one
thing to acquire a backup quarterback, it's another thing to
have him getting ready. So I always hear started quarterbacks
talk about they want to dominate.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
They want to have all.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
The rest because that's how they get ready with If
there are one hundred reps in practice, how do you
allocate reps to the backup to get him ready? And
how do you develop the young quarterback if they don't
get enough reps?
Speaker 4 (10:00):
Like, how do you manage both of those? How do
you serve both of those interests?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, Unfortunately, a lot of that development is in the
offseason because you're right, just a lot of starting quarterbacks
they want every snap in the regular season and it's
hard to not give it to them. You only have
so much time on the practice field. I mean most teams,
you know, we're out out there for three or four hours.
We're out there for two hours, two hours and fifteen minutes.
You only have so many snaps. And you know Philip
Rivers he wants every snap. You know Peyton Manning wants
(10:24):
every snap. So for the backup quarterback, that's why preparation
football intelligence is so huge because a lot of your
development is going to have to be without the ball
in your hands.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
It's have to be in the meeting.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Room, knowing the playbook, getting mental reps at practice because
you're also a lot of times you're running the scout team,
which you needs to get some physical work where you're
not getting the same mental works, you're not running the
same offense. So a lot goes into that position, and
a lot is very important. You know, your quarterback coach coordinator,
but certa of your quarterback coach, because that's really his
job is to develop your number two quarterback and your
(10:56):
number three if you have a nice, young developmental quarterback.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
And no doubt the famous line, by the way I
referenced earlier, which was when Tom Moore was asked, at
one point in time, why you know, why don't you
give your backup quarterback any reps? Peyton gets all the
reps every single week. You don't give the backup any reps.
He goes, look, we all know if Peyton Manning gets hurt,
we're screwed. Why would you want to practice being screwed?
That was that was like one of the lines on
(11:20):
there of like, hey, this the whole thing is over.
This guy goes down like there's no save in it.
You know, this is there's one of one when it
comes to him, which gives me the next thing, Tom,
You've had a chance to build teams around a veteran quarterback,
you've also had a chance to build teams around a
young quarterback. What what goes into the thought process of
how you surround those two guys and how is it different.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
It's definitely different, just based on honestly, number one, how
much money they're banking. So obviously, if you have a
veteran quarterback on a big contract, your team's being made
up a little bit different. It's gonna have to be younger,
it's going to have to have more not rookie players,
but players are rookie contracts. But and then at offense,
like I just felt like, if you have a franchise quarterback,
whether he's a younger world or he needs to have
(12:02):
people around him, he needs to have weapons. That's the
way the culture built and that's why the charges are
building it right now. You got to have an offensive line,
you gotta have weapons to throw to, and sometimes that
may take away some talent on defense, which means you've
got to have like.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
A top flight defensive coordinator.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But I think with a lot of these younger quarterbacks
that we're seeing right now, the franchise quarterbacks, it's so
important to either have a tight end that you know
can work the middle of the field, separate and get open.
Or you know a young or veteran receiver that you
know as a top flight route runner and he's going
to be where he's supposed to be when he's supposed
to be there one of the time. Kind of the
way Keenan Allen has been for Justin Herbert to have
(12:43):
that security blanket for a young quarterback that you're building
with that he knows. I think this is where I
can go on third and eight. And then as your
quarterback gets older, like I said, your team has to change.
When we're with the Chargers, we knew even before we
signed Justin Herbert to the big contract a year or
two before we knew were start transitioning our team to
a little bit younger in certain areas. That's just the
(13:03):
way you're going to have to do it. As you
pay your quarterback, so you're how you build it is
going to have to change depending on how much you're
paying your quarterback.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
And that's where everybody goes about it.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
You know, Tom, it's funny when you talk about the
team building process around the quarterback and those things I
want to ask you about when you make the decision
to pay the quarterback, the young quarterback, and people kind
of get into year four and you're making that decision
whether they pick up the option in those things in
your mind, how many games does it take to make
a decision on a young quarterback, because I've heard Bill
(13:34):
Brian Bilick we talk about thirty to thirty two games.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
And then when you make that.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Decision, how uneasy is it to commit to it when
you may not have seen just enough to make that
final decision.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
That's a great question. I think it's more subjective. I mean,
I could be flipping and say, justin Herbert's first drive
against the Kansas City Chiefs, at that point did I mean,
you can laugh about what we didn't know at that point,
but it was certainly a great start.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
You know, that's a good question. I think, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do rely on a lot of on a lot of
data to help us make decisions, but there is some
of it that you get to a certain point of
a young quarterbacks career you just know like, hey, this
is a guy, this is a guy we know we
can win with. This is the guy who want to
build around. How long does that take? I mean, quite honestly,
with with Justin Herbert is probably after the first year,
which isn't a lot of playtime, but you can see
because you know you're around these guys every day. A
(14:30):
big part of the guy you're an invest in is
how is he one day through Saturday in the building?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
What type of leader is he? What's his character?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Like?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
What's his football intelligence? Like?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like you you scout all that and you evaluate it
in the draft process, but until you really have them
every single day, you don't really know.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
So you get a full year with a player, you
get a pretty.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Good feel for them off the field as far as
you know what what they bring to the team, because
they're gonna be the face of your franchise. And then
once you decide in your head like hey, this is
the guy, that's when you have to start adjusting how
you how you build a roster. You can't wait to
once you sign him with the big contract. Now say
all right, we have.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
To you know, we have to.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Now you know, with our salary cap, we're going to
have to let some some older veterans go, and you know,
have some more rookie contracts. So you got to start
that at least two years beforehand, So the quicker, you know,
the better, but obviously the larger body of work makes
you make the right decision. But I think at the
quarterback spot, you kind of know it when you see it,
and you know with him, you certainly did.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I was ready to just uh just walk down the
down the road and just tell the Spans fan you
go ahead and pay him after after he gave in.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
That first drive against Kansas City, didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
We didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I was trying to still trying to figure out how
you got on the field that money. And I were
sitting there calling the game going justin Herberts, and we
didn't know what had happened with Torod Taylor, so we
were we were trying to see it on the go.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I really see it. I was.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I was on the phone with the bench fingure like
what happened to Tarrod Taylor? Yeah, you know, everything happens
so quickly, and then with he had going on, you know,
as as a general manager, like you're you know, you're
concerned about your players, want to make sure he's ok.
And then you know, I look up, but I see
justin running into the end zone. That's great, nothing, but
you know that's just you know, part of being a GM,
(16:08):
you're you know, you work on some other things at
the same time the game's going on.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, that's wild man. All right, we're gonna take quick break.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Come back.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
I've got a little factor fiction I want to hit
Tom up on, so we'll do that right after this.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
All right, Tom, I'm gonna hit you.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
On two real quick here, because these are things that
have We've talked about a lot over the years, and
I want to I want to get your opinion as
someone who's run a club Factor fiction here. We always
say that a team takes on the identity of their leaders,
and that whether that's the head coach, ineral manager, quarterback,
however you want to look at it, you buy into
that factor fiction fact.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Hundred percent, and that that's definitely something we talked about.
You know, when you're interviewing head coaches, the identity of
your team is directly reflected in your head coach, especially
the character of your head coach. And to me, the
most important part of team building is having an identity
on both the ball.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
It's hard to get to.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
You can see the teams that have been consistent winners
in this league. You know, when you put the tape
on what you're going to get on both sides of
the ball, even as the players change, because players come
in and out and coaches changed too, But to have
an identity on both sides of the ball is so
important and that comes from that coach.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Then the last one, I'll ask you just quickly, do
you need to And I guess I'll just put it
to you like this, do you need to draft toughness
or can you develop toughness?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Oh boy, I want to say draft you either have
it or you don't in my mind, and if you
had the toughness you had always going all the way
back to Pop Warner to high school to college, and
I'm sure there's some things you can do in your
program at the pro level to maybe make sure you
bring it out of the player. But I'd like to
hear your guys's point in our opinions on that too.
(17:51):
It's to me, either have it or you don't. But
I'd be curious to hear you guys on that one too.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
I would say Tom, like, I believe you have to
have it in you, but I it can be enhanced
with peer pressure. And the reason why I say that
is as someone who went from offense to defense in
Kansas City, when I walked into the building with Marty
Schottenheimer and there was an expectation that everybody had to
do that.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
There's a pressure that you have, like, well, I don't
want to be the weekly.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
And when you have those things, if you're competitive, if
the person is competitive, they can raise it up a notch.
I would never be a trained killer, but I knew
when you're the hood with Dale Carter and James Hasty
and Derek Thomas, like, I can't be the one that
is the weekly because they're gonna look at me.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
So I do believe they have to have it.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
But I think your environment, if it's always talked about
discuss physicality, toughness, how we get after it. I do
believe it becomes an organizational thing and the guys that
come in when they walk through those doors, they know, hey,
this is how we go about doing our business.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I would say from the Baltimore stuff, which was, you know,
probably the toughest team or the team those viewed as
the toughest team in the league that for that period
of time, it was still nine out of ten of
the guys we brought in were tough like they they
came in with that toughness, and then we would have
we would make exceptions one one guy here, one guy there.
And that was the famous Rex line in the UH
(19:13):
in the draft firm, where we say we have enough ants,
we can carry a cockroach. Like you know, it's kind
of like you can make you can have some one
offs of these. But I also think it was because
that culture could could pull that out of you know,
one or two players. You just couldn't bring in a
wave of them and let that group outnumber.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
The tough group.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
But then I go from there to Cleveland and you know,
I was like, we don't have a bus driver here,
We don't have somebody to steer that, so you have
to avoid those players. It made it scouting much harder
when you're a team that doesn't already have that tough identity.
Because if you want to become a tough team, Tom,
you've got to those guys are off your board, Like,
you can't bring those guys into that environment because it's
going to get worse.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, it's a filter.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
You know, if you want to be a fast football team,
don't draft slow players.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Is this in rocket science? If you want to be.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
You want to be a tough football team, don't bring
in guys who either don't love football or like soft.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I mean, yeah, maybe you.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Can improve them a little bit, But Buck, I do
agree with you on that, Like once you have once
you have the tough players, you can still have the culture.
Make sure you're bringing out of them and first being
the weak link. What you don't want to have is
on Monday when they show the clip to everybody in
the room and all of a sudden you're dunking your
head and you're missing a tackle on the perimeter and
(20:22):
everybody sees it.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
You don't want to be that guy.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
Yeah, but you know what, that also speaks to having
a level of accountability in the building. So when we
talk about toughness, I don't think you have a tough
team without having different levels of accountability. That's coach to player,
but also player the player because where he gets tough
and you know Tom, for those old teams in Buffalo,
the worst thing DJ is not having the answer to
(20:46):
a coach, but having to answer to Bruce Smith and
Darryl Talley and those guys. Like having to walk into
those huddles with those players looking at you sideways. That's
when you have had me going. And I will say
that I think is Buffalo. That experience was unusual because
we didn't have pads on much. We didn't do a
whole lot of hitting and contact, but that was a
(21:09):
very physical team, maybe because it was an older team,
but it was a weird environment being young and seeing
that play out, Like we don't have pazz on we
practice him for ninety minutes, and we're a team that's going.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
To force three Super Bowls? How is this possible?
Speaker 4 (21:24):
That's what it was.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Fuck it.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
But can you imagine you're in the huddle with Darryl Tally,
I mean Darryl Tally.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I mean that's one.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Intimidating guy, so you better make every talking behind him.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
That's fantastic. God, those are fun teams, man. Yeah, And
just the Cowboys came along at the wrong time or
they've got a couple of Super Bowls. Tom want to
ask you about two players here, and we kind of
wrapped this one up here in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
But you've drafted two players with.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Unique ability, and I would say over the last ten
to fifteen years, I don't know that we've seen more
than one Derwin James and I don't know that we've
seen more than one Brock Bowers. I know it's early
on Bowers, but when you look at those two players,
what did you see on him on college tape? And
how confident were you that all the incredible stuff they
(22:14):
did at that level was gonna was going to happen
for him at the next level.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well, with with Derwin James, and you probably remember this
his last year at Florida State, they did not have
a good team. I remember going to see Florida State
at Boston College and it just wasn't your normal Florida
State team as far as playing with energy, playing with physicality,
and they had some talent, but just wasn't the same.
But yet he was the guy that just kept showing
(22:38):
up and once we dropped them. Once you get to
know him, you can see why. Like his football character
is second to nine. I've never been around anybody like
him that's such a great teammate leader, smile on his face,
but holds people accountable and holds people accountable the right way.
And then all of his physical attributes of size and speed,
and you know he can play almost any position on
(23:00):
the field and what was nice too in those situations
because uh, you know, Florida State had a bad year.
You have to kind of filter through our scouts where
you know, with Kevin Kelly being the director, like right,
you get very few consensus players. You know, always want
consensus players, but everybody was right down the road, right
down where they need to be with him as far
(23:20):
as a player. And then just the versatility you can
do so much and use so many different ways. And
then brock Bauer is just you know, a little bit
different situation for us. But the Raiders, it's just you know,
we had we didn't have enough talent across the board
and over you know, they had a lot of regime changes,
they'd missed on a lot of first round draft picks,
and I know, going in, I just want to make sure, like,
(23:42):
whoever we take with this first pick, it needs to
have the highest odds of success because we have to
keep we have to start adding some talent to this team.
We can't miss on a player. And obviously we know
we could have used a quarterback at that point. And
we're also looking at it like, you know, do we
have the infrastructure right right now to really support you know,
a franchise quarterback. You know, our offensive line was in flux.
(24:04):
We didn't have any weapons on offense. At defense, we
had some pieces, but not enough. And with Brock Bauers,
I mean, nobody is a Cantonus. There's no guarantees. But
he was about as high as a player as I've
ever seen with how he played the game with the
skill set and then is off the field, his work
ethic is intangible. So you know, to be a great
player in this league, you got to have both. You
(24:25):
got to have the talent level, the speed, the explosion,
the strength, the size, but you got to have the intangibles,
the work ethic, the preparation, the love of the game.
And if you can find those two, and it's easier
said than done. Sometimes we think we found it and
it doesn't happen. But those two guys had it to
the first degree.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
What's funny Tom is having known Derwin since he was sixteen,
seventeen years old.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
I just remember like being around him.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
I coached the team that he was on, and I've
never seen someone so passionate about playing a game. And
he had come back, he was already a Florida State
and he's helping us out at a Nike it and
that passion was just ridiculous. And I want to ask you, like,
when you talk about like the football character, I think
is really important for our listeners to understand, what do
(25:12):
you mean when it comes to football character?
Speaker 4 (25:14):
What exactly are the things that y'all are?
Speaker 5 (25:16):
We talk about more character being a good person, but
when it comes to character related to football, what the
things that define it?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
You know, it's so funny because we talk about football
character all the time, but trying to actually evaluate it,
it's really hard.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
It's so subjective.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
But you know, because we talk about, hey, passion for
the game. Love for the game's easy to say, but
you know, how do you really tell?
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Now?
Speaker 1 (25:39):
With Derwin his style of play, If you watch the tape,
you can kind of see like the passionate plays with,
but then after you meet them it's even more so.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
He was actually pretty easy when you.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Talk about a passion to play, a passion to get
better as a player, because at this, you know, the
college level, a lot of these kids they can produce
because there's so much more talented than the players are
playing against. They're playing against a lot of players who
won't play NFL football. You get to this level, everybody's good,
so you have to keep improving. So you have to
have that we call it what we would call it
drive and desire, a drive and desire to be great
and has to keep improving at this level. So those
(26:13):
are two important things, but you have to but evaluating
that at the college level it's just really hard. And
that's you know, we interview players, and interviews were important,
but to me, they weren't the most important thing. The
most important thing to me was the information. There are scouts,
so we get at the school from the sources they
have that know that player for an extended amount of time,
(26:35):
maybe recruited them and had them for two or three
years in college. And then if our scout had a
good relationship with that source, that was really good, unbiased
as much as you can without an agenda, information who
saw the player on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
That to me was much more important.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
That information was more important to me than a combine
interview that we felt was really was a great combine interview.
It's good that I happened, and that's it's good, you know,
first piece to puzzle. But you can get fooled in
interviews too. In fifteen twenty minutes, we have to bring
a guy in for a day in a thirty visit.
So the information we received from the school, from people
who know the players, they give us the best picture
(27:14):
of the player.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Was the most important part for me.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Yeah, I think that term we've been using too is
care factor, like just having a real, real high care
factor and trying to figure out that information is the
tricky part.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Tom. I think you're.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Almost in these interviews and they're so condensed, and they're
so formatted, and everybody's been so trained almost thought. Even
just when we have guys on conversationally, I think you
learn more asking them about their teammates than you do
ask them about themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
That's a good point.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
And with the interview, certainly at the combine where you
have twenty minutes, you have to be very strategic with
how you want to handle it to try and pull
out some answers. And because again a lot of it's scripted,
a lot of it, you know, a player may be
very guarded is in a room with a lot of
people who doesn't know. I think we have too many
people in the room to really get good to try
and cut it down. But yeah, you gotta be strategic
(28:04):
with how you want to ask the question is just
to get some good information out. And actually it was
just great to ask about their teammates because we can
learn what they think of their teammates and sometimes they're honest,
sometimes they're not. But try and find some untraditional ways
just to get a feel for the personality of the
player was really important.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
It's fantastic, man.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
This has been fun, Tom, so much fun that we're
gonna spread this out to another episode so we can
pick your brain a little bit on some big games
coming up this weekend, so that'll be on tomorrow's episode.
I appreciate everybody hanging with us today. We'll see you
right back here tomorrow on Move the Sticks.
Hosts And Creators
Daniel Jeremiah
Bucky Brooks
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