October 23, 2024 • 44 mins
Peter starts the podcast with his thoughts on the New England Patriots' awful start to the 2024 season and why Bill Belichick's omnipresent media presence makes it all the more magnified. Then, filmmaker Neil Zender joins the podcast to discuss his new film, "The Duke: The Giant Life of Wellington Mara." Described by Michael Strahan as "The Forrest Gump" of NFL history, Mara lived a football life that can't be matched. Peter and Neil nerd out on the "The Duke," and discuss one of the most important people in sports history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Season with Peter Scheger is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, Everybody, Welcome to
another episode of the Season with Peter Schrager. I'm Peter Schrager.
(00:28):
I host Good Morning Football on the NFL Network Monday
to Friday, and I am an insider on Fox on
Sundays on a show called Fox NFL Kickoff that airs
at eleven am Eastern every week on Sundays. Saturday night,
I had a big one. Saturday night was a team
(00:50):
dinner for Fox NFL Kickoff, and Saturday night we went
to a spot called Craigs in Los Angeles, which is
a Hollywood hot spot. It's one of those places where
there's Papa Rotzi waiting when you enter and leave the restaurant.
I put on my best T shirt and my best
ratty old pair of jeans and my Vans or whatever
(01:13):
sneakers I brought this week, and I said, Okay, cool
Hollywood nightspot. I'm gonna get all gussied up because they're
going to take photos of me when I walk in.
They did not take photos of me when I walked in,
but we get to the table and the crew is
Charles Woodson, Julian Edelman, Michael Vick, Carissa Thompson, our star producer,
(01:35):
Jeremy Manel, and then Danny Ammendola, who is currently on
Dancing with the Stars and is an absolute stud and
a heart throb. The table next to us. The night
before they play in a crucial game six, and it
was early enough we had a six o'clock reservation. Pete Alonzo,
(01:55):
first basement from the Mets, is hanging at the table
next to us. The table next to him is one
of my favorite actors and comedians of all time, David Spade,
who was hanging at the restaurant and then in the
back with security and he walked out and signed a
few autographs.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
To this thing.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Was Nick Cannon, who was also in the spot. So
all these people are on the spot, and at some point,
with all the buzz in the air of this great table,
we started talking about Belichick and Amondola and Edelman have
their stories, but more than anything, these guys swear by
(02:35):
the Patriots way and that this is how it's done,
and this is how you win championships, and the Patriots
this and the Patriots that, And if I were to
get my fellow Fox colleagues Gronk and of course Tom
Brady at the table. I'm sure they wouldn't even want
to hear from Michael Vick or Charles Woodson, and they
certainly want wouldn't want to hear from me. And as
(02:56):
we've got all this Patriots talk and how Bill would
say this, and Bill would always in the room talk about,
you know, whatever we're watching on film couldn't compete with
Foxborough high and laughing. They're chuckling it up. I come
away from that thinking, gosh, I could have sworn like
Gronk at one point said he wasn't happy and he's
so excited to leave. And then I was like, was
there drama with a mondola at the end? There with Bell?
(03:19):
Doesn't matter in time, there is such a fondness for
Bill Belichick. Fast forward to Sunday morning, mere hours after
our electric dinner and oh, by the way, as we left,
I swear to god, a guy with a camera and
a video camera was videotaping Charles Woodson and said, Charles,
(03:40):
what do you think of Brady as an owner? And
Woodson said, well, the ink hasn't even dried yet. Everyone laughed,
and I swear to God. Someone with a camera came
up to me and yelled to me, are you famous?
And I said nope. And I got an SUV with
Charles Woodson and just had to let that one sit
in there for a while. But Mira Howard is. After that,
the Patriots go out and Drake May's got his first
(04:01):
big start, and you know or whatever his game is,
he's the starter, and they're down uh ten nothing, they're
up ten to nothing, and they give the game away.
And I see online, I see Bill Simmons' tweet, and
I see everyone's tweeting that, like this is a poorly
coach team whatever. And then Gerard Mayo, the first year
coach who was appointed by Robert Kraft, had this to
(04:21):
say about his squad.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Look a disappointing game. Disappointing game. We came out, we
started fast. What I would say is we're a soft
football team across the board. We talk about what makes
a tough football team. That's being able to run the ball,
that's being able to stop the run, and that's being
able to cover kicks, and we did none of those today.
They controlled the ball for most of the day. You know,
their run game average over four and a half yards
to carry our run game. Not sure what the average was,
(04:46):
but it wasn't good. Look back to the drawing board.
I mean, we can't sit here and pout. We just
we just got to put a game together.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
The word that was used that is a trigger in
football circles was a four letter word that starts with
the letter S soft. Mayo has not been a great coach.
Seven weeks through the season. The team does not look prepared.
There look undisciplined at points. There's penalties all over the field.
(05:16):
And when you call a team soft, you are questioning manhood,
you are questioning work ethic, and you are questioning a
person's toughness. So we can leave it at that, or
you can compound this by having the former head coach
of the team, with six Super Bowl rings to his
(05:41):
name and with all of the respect and history in
the world, with the franchise doing a media tour. The
following day, Bill Belichick goes on the Pat McAfee show,
and instead of just saying hey, that's their team, best
of luck will go, he was asked about Mayo's comments,
(06:01):
and he said the following quote, it's a lot of
the same players hurt for those guys because to call
them soft, well, they're not soft. They were the best
team in the league last year against the run. The
Patriots led the league last year in rushing, defensive yards
and defense per yards per carry. They were number one
in the league, and this year they're way down in
the twenties. It's a lot of the same guys too.
(06:23):
They resigned Jennings, they re signed, Tavy, they re signed
and obviously Dugger, Marcus Jones and Gonzalez have been healthy
all year, which they were not. They were on ir
last year at different points. And you got Godshaw and
Keon Clark and Mapu and Gonzales. Those are three rookies
from last year. So it's a lot of the same players.
I feel bad for the defensive players on that one.
(06:46):
Those guys are all tough players. End quote. Then there
was a video that surfaced of Robert Kraft being discussed
about his initiative off the field on anti Semitism and
anti h which is a great cause, and he gets
(07:08):
meant a question about the Patriots, and instead of saying
there was a mutual parting of the ways to Charlemagne,
the God and the Breakfast Club, he basically said, yeah,
we had to say goodbye to Belichick, and it was
because of X Y Z. And well, when it was
presented back in January, it wasn't we had to say
(07:29):
goodbye to Belichick. It was there's going to be a
mutual parting of the ways. And then Kraft had an
interview with Taylor Rooks before the Jets game a few
weeks back, and he said that he had his eye
on Mayo for years. There's a lot going on when
you talk about the Belichick Craft Patriots relationship and the
fact that this team didn't interview Mike Vrabel, the fact
(07:52):
that there was no full hiring interview process and it
was basically handed to Gerrod Mayo. It always struck me
as curious. And now the fact that Belichick is on
no less than seven different media outlets per I'm serious, seven,
I can count them out. He's on McAfee, which he's
great with pat and he's really loosened up and he
(08:13):
was taking shots all over and that's what we want
from him. But then he also does this podcast I
See with Matt Patricia and Mike Lombardi, and he's also
on Inside the NFL. And then I also saw him
on a podcast with Tom Brady and Jim Gray, and
then I also saw him stuff doing stuff for the
thirty third Team. Then I also saw him doing stuff
(08:34):
for Underdog Fantasy, where he's in a commercial and it's
like off a cell phone camera and he's like, hi
on Bill Belichick for Underdog Fantasy. I'm like, he's everywhere.
So if you put Belichick everywhere, and then you add
in the Manning cast for a half every single Monday
night that those guys are on, it's a lot of
places for Belichick to voice his opinion. And now that
(08:57):
the Patriots have hit this rough point and it's real rough,
I find it fascinating the dynamic of him. And every
time he opens his mouth, well, New England want to listen,
so it makes it only harder on girod Mayo. The
end of the story has not yet been written, but gosh,
things have not been this way in New England for many,
many years. Even Bill Simmons tweeted out, and he's kind
(09:18):
of the voice of the Patriots fan. This is as
bad as the Rod rust era, which is like a
dark period for Patriots fans. But as I do this monologue,
the post Belichick era. It is so interesting because instead
of laying low, instead of consulting with his son at
the University of Washington where he's the defensive coordinator, Belichick's everywhere.
(09:39):
And if he's gonna be critical, that's gonna carry weight.
And if he's gonna be critical of the Patriots, well
that goes a long long way. Those players, for as
hard as he was on them, for as tough as
he was on him, those players love the results, and
he never called them soft publicly, and they certainly certainly
(10:00):
respect what he has to say. Can Gerard Mayo earn
that respect? Can he ever earn that faith and that
respect and that trust that Belichick had. It's an uphill battle.
It doesn't help when Belichick is talking on it less
than twenty four hours later. That's my monologue, and we've
got a lot of sports history in that build up there,
(10:21):
because we talk about Rod Russ and Edelman and Amandola
right through to Belichick. Now, it doesn't even scratch the
surface for what we have coming up. Different kind of guests,
and yet one of my favorite podcast conversations we've had
Neil Zender, a filmmaker who just did this beautiful film
on the life and career of Wellington Mara. He and
(10:42):
I sat down. I think you're really going to enjoy this,
Neil Zender. After this, I am so excited to see
the film that has been put together by NFL Films
that ties into the Giants one hundredth year as a franchise,
(11:03):
but also tells the story of a true through football life.
The film itself is called The Duke The Giant Life
of Wellington Mara. It premieres on the NFL Network Friday
night at eight pm and it will definitely exist in
other platforms thereafter. But I think Wellington Mara is one
(11:23):
of the most interesting men in all of sports history
and certainly one of the bedrocks of the NFL. And
to discuss this film, which I've caught early glimpses of
and seems incredible, I'm bringing on the filmmaker as a
producer of NFL films. He's also incredibly incredibly talented at
what he does. Mister Neil Zender, Welcome to the season
(11:44):
with Peter Schrager.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oh great to be with you, Peter. Thanks a lot, Neil.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I am a Giants fan from when I was a child.
I could say that openly. My dad raised me as
a Giants fan. Of course, my allegiance with teams has
waned a little bit as I become a journalist and
I cover all thirty two. But Wellington Mara's place in
NFL history is perhaps more important than any other figure
(12:10):
from the early days to where the NFL went. A
visionary but also an incredible life lived. This project, I
have to imagine, was in the works for years, but
when the Giants announced they were celebrating the hundred year,
there had to be some impetus to let's really tell
the story of this man. Can you tell us the
genesis of doing a film on Wellington Mahra, whose life
(12:33):
will get into throughout this podcast.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Well, one of the great mysteries to us is why
has there never been a film made about Wellington Marhra,
who was such an immensely important historical figure. You know,
there's a great quote by Winston Churchill where somebody said
to him at one point, how do you think history
is going to treat you? And Winston Churchill said, It's
(12:57):
going to treat me great, because I'm going to be
the one who's going to write it. And he wrote
book after book after book and put his own spin
on history and why he was so important in that.
And Wellington Mara almost unlike just about every other great
historical figure in regular history of football history, never did that.
He never beat his chest, he never said look at me,
(13:17):
He never said, look at all the important things that
I've done. And for that reason, nobody has ever made
a film about Wellington Marrow or really told you how
important he is to the NFL and the football and
everything else, and everybody just sort of thought with the
Giants turning one hundred, it was about time that somebody
did it. And it's really amazing because when Wellington Marraw
(13:41):
was born, the National Football League did not exist, and
football was not a big thing, and over the course
of his lifetime and when he died, it was the
biggest cultural thing in sports in our country. And he's
sort of like Forrest Gump, like you look at almost
every major thing that happened that made the NFL into
(14:01):
the thing that we all know in love and is
such a big part of our lives. And the person
that did it, I mean, why is the duke written
on the NFL football? The Duke's written in the NFL football,
Because that was his nickname. And he was the person
who went and negotiated the contract with Wilson to make
the footballs and was the first person did that for
(14:23):
the league. And George Hollis said, man, Wellington's doing such
a smash bang up job. Let's just let's just put
his name on the ball. And that's what they did,
and their story after story after story like that about
just sort of the you know, formation and creation of
the NFL that he was there like whatever. Lin Manuel
Miranda says, he was in the room where it happened,
and a lot of times he was the person in
(14:45):
the room making it happen. But he cared more about
the result than taking the credit for it. And that's why,
unfortunately he has not really gotten the credit he deserves
for everything that he's done for all of us.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I consider myself a historian, and I think one of
the great books in NFL Lare is a I don't
know the title of. Michael McCambridge did the story of
Lamar Hunt, and it was like, let's go deep on
Lamar Hunt and what he did for the AFL, but
also what Lamar Hunt did for sports as a whole.
And it's this incredible gift to an individual who had
(15:23):
never written his own book. In this case, though Wellington
Mara has this incredible portion of his life and we'll
get into it where he wrote letters. He wrote letters
because he was at war and he was serving in
World War Two. Now, look, he wasn't drafted. He didn't
go there as an eighteen year old. He went when
(15:44):
he was twenty five years old and was already a
key figure of the NFL's New York Giants and decided
it was his duty to go overseas, enlisted himself and
then has this treasure trove of letters where he's writing
letters back home about being under siege and searching for
men at sea. Like the fact that you have this
military portion of his life when he could have just coasted.
(16:06):
I think that is a measure of a man. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So so sort of what happened is everybody knew that
he was in the war, in World War two, but
he never talked about it. And after he died, his
daughter Susan was cleaning out the attic and just found
a shoe box full of letters and they were all
his letters from the war to his parents and to
his brother, A lot of them are you know. He
(16:33):
was in the USS Randolph in the Pacific, and the
USS Randolph was a very it was one of the
first aircraft carriers. It was a very important carrier to
the entire island hopping strategy that Halsey used to win
the war in the Pacific in World War two. So
like Wellington Marra was there at ewo Jima, Wellington Mara
was there at Oaklandawa on an aircraft carry. He was
(16:54):
a radar operator. And to understand what he did, we
have Phil McConkie, you know, who was at the Naval Academy.
He sort of went through some of the letters like
people have seen before, the letters to do with like
he'd write home about football and we just saw this
playing whatever on an island, like he'd be great, Like
let's get him after the war. But we focused more
on the actual war, like film acconki went through for
us some of the actual war combat stuff, because like
(17:17):
a lot of people in World War Two, he didn't
talk about what he went through. And he was basically
what you know nowadays in the military they would call
a drone ranger. He would sit there on the radar
and look at the dots, and he would tell the
pilots where the Japanese pilots were, and he would send
them in to go shoot him down. And you can,
you know tell from the letters he describes it like
(17:39):
I directed the pilot to go to this exact spot,
and they rendezvous there and they shot down a plane,
and I personally feel like I killed a man, which
you know, in the World War two generation, nobody sort
of talked about that stuff. But it also had I
think real profound implications for his relationships with other people.
(18:02):
You know, he was a great friend all his life
with Tom, and spoken or unspoken part of that bond
with Tom Landry was Tom Landry was a you know,
World War two Flying Fortress B seventeen pilot who saw
twenty nine missions over Europe, and Wellington Mara saw all
this action the Pacific, and you know, they would have
(18:23):
dinner every night for the giants and the cowboys would
play each other and act like they were all great
and then try to kill each other. Yeah, you know
the next day. But the relationship sort of transcended the football,
which I think is you know, hard in today's NFL
for people to to really do. But back you know
when you're Bill Parcells calls him a patriarch, when you're
(18:44):
a patriarch, like, the NFL is not this big, wasn't
this big giant thing to Wellington Marra. It was just people.
It was just people that he knew and had relationships with,
and everything was personal.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's it's there's these letters. I you know, I've
done the work. I've I've listened to John Mara, who's
the current owner, and of course the mayor family has
read some of these letters. One of them is like,
you know, dear Jack, he's writing home. He's like, dear Jack,
He's like, we might not this might not be good.
We might not make it tomorrow. But if you hear
from me and the Japanese don't see me, we're gonna
(19:21):
be all right. But if they do, this is a
you know, this is where we're at and it will
not be good for us. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
They have these letters of him the night before a
major attack like this is they have that, And this
is a guy who then in the same letter is
talking about the NFL draft because he's writing home about
he's doing work on the draft and I've I've got
(19:43):
my lists, like he was still contributing to the football team.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And how many people want you to know that they
were the first to do something like the draft went
on for five or six years. He was the first
person that said, like we all do when we play
fantasy football, you know what, I'm gonna have a cheat sheet.
I'm gonna have a list and he typed it out.
I'm gonna have a list of the top prospects one
(20:08):
to two hundred and fifty and he typed that whole
thing out and then he went to the draft and
nobody else had it in nineteen thirty nine, and he
was like, golly, you know, this will be a better
event if if everybody else knows what they're doing instead
of just me. So we make copies and they put
up and they shared. He shared his cheat sheets with everybody,
and you had these, you know, other owners who know
what they were doing. They were just picking off Wellington
(20:29):
Mara's cheat sheets for years at the NFL draft because
they did. They couldn't see what it could be, but
he could, you know. Or he's one of the first
people to shoot game film. He got a sixteen millimeter
film camera for Christmas and whatever, nineteen thirty five or
nineteen thirty six. He's like, you know what, I'm not
just gonna make movies in my buddies, like in my family, Like,
(20:50):
let me shoot some football games and give it to
Steve On and let him let him break it down
as a coach. Can that help him?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
The early stuff, I mean, NFL Films has incredible archives,
but like, do you guys have footage of Ray Flaherty
and mel Hine, Like, do you have that stuff?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
We don't have. I Mean, the interesting thing is we
don't have a lot of that. Our stuff really starts
in the you know, full on in the sixties, and
then we have a decent amount of stuff in the
in the forties and the fifties, but it's usually just
a top camera that's far away. One of the things
that we found in the course of doing the research
for this was, you know, the giants were able to
dig up all these film cans that in a lot
of cases were filmed that Wellington Mara himself and shot.
(21:28):
So believable, So we have ground footage that Wellington Mara
shot at the Polo Grounds in the late twenties, early thirties,
like on that one roll of film that he shot
is more ground footage than we have from that entire
era up until this time period. Like our our our
shooters like looked at it and they could not believe
like how rock Steady was and there wasn't any shake,
(21:49):
and he like with the camera they was shooting on
like he could have shot for NFL films, Like he's
he's a very good. Any thing in this documentary is
you know, we've got we've got a home movie. So
there's Wellington Mara with Vince Lombardi vacationing in Hawaii. You know,
there's Wellington Mara in Vince Lombardi and he's recording their
golf swing so they can figure out, you know, why
they're handicaps nine instead of three.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And that's when Lombardy was coaching for the Giants, or
after he'd already left and gone to the Packers.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
That's that's when he's with the Packers. But I mean,
it's just it's just like if you were to ice
i mean, Wellington Marror, if you were to isolate any
of the one single thing that he did, like the
fifty things that he'd done, just isolate one of them,
you'd say that's a Hall of Fame football football life.
I mean, like he's the like he went to college
and was a classmate at Fordham with Vince Lombardi. And
(22:39):
so he went to Jim Lee Howell when they hired
the head coach and said, I really we're gonna hire
you as the head coach, but I really really really
think you should hire Vince Lambardi's your offensive coordinator, and
I really really think this defensive back of ours, Tom Landry,
should should be in charge of the defense. And so
what's Jim Lee Howell gonna say? You know, multiple times,
Vince Lombardi went to Wellington Mahra and said, like I'm
(23:00):
fed up. I'm not going to get a head coach,
like I want to quit. I'm going to go coach
in college. I can be a head coach in college somewhere.
And Wellington mayor said, don't don't quit. Don't quit, like
don't like you talked about quitting multiple times, Vincent. One
of the things that's you know, the documentary goes into
great length is Vince Lombardi showed up. But he came
from Army and he coached for Red Blaket Army and
Army had a system where unlike anybody else, they would
(23:20):
take polaroid photographs of the formations before the snaps. And
Lombardi's like, I said, I like to do this. Can
we do this with the giants? There was no opperass.
I said, well, I'll just I'll do it. I'll take
the pictures. So you had the owner of the team
with the polaroid camera sitting up in the press box
taking polaroid pictures before every snap. At the end of
the series, he'd take all the photos, wrap them up
(23:41):
into a sock, sticks in either rocks or you know,
a cleat in the sock and throw it from the
upper deck down onto the field and Barty pick it up.
We even go through it and go show Frank Gifford
and Charlie Connelly what was going on. And Wellington Mara
like love to do that because he had a role
and he was helping the team and he didn't need
any intention for doing it or anything else. But like
(24:02):
that's where you know you see her old coaches with
the surface tablet today, That's where it started because Wellington
Mara and Vince Lombardi did that because they wanted to
figure out a way for the Giants to beat the
Cleveland Rounds.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
All right, so Big Picture Dad is the owner of
the Giants. He's born, he's working for the team in
a bunch of different roles, ball boy, all the stuff,
goes and has a big role to a team, then
goes into war, then comes back eventually takes over the team.
I'm watching the trailer for your film, which I cannot
wait to see, and you've got contributions from Parcels, from Strahan,
(24:46):
who calls him Forrest Gump. You've got contributions from Ernie A. Corsi,
and then I see Roger Goodell as well. So if
you're taking the Forrest Gump analogy, he literally touches every
era of the NFL up until his death.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
So we sort of did instead of just being chronologically
and starting at the beginning of his life and ending
at the end of his life, we sort of focused
on all the different things he did that made the
NFL great. And there's a different giant who shows you
that and shows you aside of them that they got
to see. So one of the really cool things was,
you know, when we started researching this, we looked at
(25:21):
the footage from Wellington Mayra's funeral and Michael Strahan walks
out and he's like species, He's like, well, I knew
he was our owner, and I knew he was a
great guy, like I loved him, but I didn't know
all the things he did for the NFL. So we
called up Michael Strand and said, you want to go
talk to Rodger Goodell and he'll tell you all the stuff.
That was like, yes, let's go, let's do it. You
know Eli Manning, you know who Earning of course he
traded for. He sort of does a deep dive into
(25:44):
i mean the draft stuff. And like Wellington Marra was
one of the pioneers of scouting the NFL. He was
considered the you know, Bill Pollion of the nineteen thirties.
Wellington Mayra is the person who built the fifties, the
fifties giants like his scouting system, and he selected all
of those all those players that Eli Manning sort of
goes through all his personnel stuff and how he created
(26:07):
how teams prepare for the draft and all that stuff.
You know. We had Phil Simms who sort of took
us to Wellington Marrow, by our account, went to over
a thousand games in person a thousand Giants games in person,
all the home games, all the road games, and so
he lived so long, like he had three homes. Most
of us like the stadiums the stadium for like our
entire life, and then we're whatever we feel when they
(26:28):
switched to a new stadium after like thirty years. Well, yeah,
he was at the Polo Grounds, and he was at
Yankee Stadium, and he was at Giants Day. He was
getting ready for met life at the point when his
life when he died, like she had all these different
if So Phil Sims went to every one of his stadiums.
Cool it sort of went and showed you what it
was like when he was there. Like when they were
in the Polo Grounds, it was below the water table,
(26:49):
so that it was constantly swampy and muddy and rained
all the time, like and football was starting. They didn't
know what they were doing. So his dad, Tim Merrit
at one point, Wellington Mary's father, he bought rain insurance
so that they would get a rebate if fans didn't
show up and buy tickets because there was so much rain,
and like they always had, they had to start after
(27:09):
the baseball Giant season was over, so they were always
like starting their home season in like late October. And
then Wellington Mara said, like they never got to What
they discovered was they could never collect the insurance. Possy said,
when you get an eighth of an inch of rain,
they would get the rain. They still could collect the
insurance company was still used a lot of it. So
(27:31):
and then we had Tiki Barber, who was probably the
coolest thing. He sort of talked about the relationships that
Wellington Mara had with with all the players. It's incredible.
The thing is relationship with Lawrence Taylor and the things
he did for Lawrence Taylor and Taylor was like mash
you could ever have. Like He's just Wellington Area is
the greatest guy ever knew. Like he's he backed me
up in every situation, even when he should. He was
(27:53):
always like there for me. Phil Simms tells this incredible.
You know a lot of people remember how when Phil
Simms left the Giants, like that was right when the
salary cap was coming in. He's one of the first
salary cap caps. And you know we think of Wellington
Marra as not being emotional, Well, he reacted emotionally behind
the closed doors when that was a press.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Conference because I was a kid. I remember that press conference.
Sim's in a sweater sitting up there, and it was like,
where's he gonna go. He's gonna go to the Arizona Cardinals.
And if I'm not mistaken, that was it for Phil Simms.
Did he'd play anywhere else?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
No, he basically was kind of he signed with the Browns,
but then he was heard, so he just ended up
not playing. But I mean, like Phil Simms is like
Wellington Mara was gonna like fire everyone. He was like
completely out of control upset because Phil Simms, you know,
like he believed players should be giants for life, and
he sort of even if they left, they were still
(28:46):
they were still giants for life.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You mentioned LT, and I mean I have heard so
many stories over the years, some of them from LT.
I am ced the Giants one hundred year event along
with Bob Papa back in June, and LT was backstage
telling stories. And I mean Wellington Mahra not only put
up with a lot of LT stuff off the field,
(29:09):
and you know, obviously we know LT lived it fast
when he was a player, but also they would like
golf together and they would spend holidays together, and like Wellington,
Marra took lt And as more than just you know,
a top pick who was one of the greatest defensive
players of all time. He loved him for all his
warts and bruises and played it with him in a
(29:32):
professional but also personal way.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
It's incredible. And you know, Tiki Barber and you know
Jeremy Shockey were incredibly close to him, and it was
it's amazing for somebody who's eighty years old to be
able to really connect with somebody who's twenty two years old.
If that was something he was able to do. Like
if you look at his life, right, he started out
(29:57):
and he's nine years old and he's sitting on the
bench in the polo grounds next to Jim Thorpe and
Red Grange or whatever, and like they're like gods to
him and here and then he got to the point where, hey,
they're the same age as I am, and they're like
peers and contemporaries. And then he got to the point
where like, okay, this is the fifties giants, and I'm
sort of like a father figure and elect Frank Gifford
(30:18):
and Sam and then he's a grandfather and you know,
then he's a patriarch, and he went through all these
sort of different stages of life in his relationships with
with the players, and it's pretty you know, I mean,
I think it's amazing. Is like because the NFL was
such a small and insignificant thing. You know, his dad
(30:40):
gave him and his brother Jack operational control of the
Giants in like nineteen thirty. Yeah, so like picture being
you know, thirty years old, fifteen, sixteen years old and
you're in charge, Like you're in charge of an NFL team.
Like he got to do that. Everything that we'd all
dream of doing, he like got to do that. And
the amazing part is like he could handle it, Like
(31:00):
how many people could you know, he could actually handle it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
And then still says, I'm gonna enlist and go to
war because that's my duty to my country. Like here's
a silver spoon. I've got this amazing thing. And it's
like no, no, no, no, no, Like my priorities are still intact.
I'm just incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And that was also they tried to like, hey, we
could send you, no I want to we can send you here.
We say it, no, I want to go past. Yeah,
which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I love the book, the GM and it's about a
course in that year and they really do chronicle the
two thousand and seven Giants, how it all comes to
be and in that book. And I haven't seen your
doc in full yet, I've only seen clips. The trainer,
Ronnie Barnes is by Wellington's side every day in the hospital.
I still tear up thinking about it. Like the team trainer,
(31:45):
an African American man who the owner hired before that
was done and is now by his bedside as he's
passing away, Like do you capture any of that stuff?
In the film?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
We talk about the end of his life. Ronnie Barnes
is in the film and Rynane Barnes talks a lot
about his relationships with people and how he treated people
and what his philosophy you know, in life was. You know,
it's also worth uh, you know, worth pointing out when
you look at Willington Mara. You know, everybody says, you know,
how did the NFL get integrated? You know, how does
(32:18):
that story get told in history? Well, hey, the Los
Angeles Rams did it with Kenny Washington. Would Washington? Well,
the thing is the Rams did it because the Los
Angeles Coliseum says as a condition for you to get
a lease at the coliseum and move from Cleveland to
Los Angeles, you have to integrate your team. We're not
going to have to segregated team playing in our team.
(32:40):
So like they sort of did it with a lot
of pressure to do it. When Paul Brown integrated the
Cleveland Browns and brought in Bill Willison, Mary Whatley, they
were in the you know, Arrival League, the AFC, they
were not in the NFL. You know, when Wellington Mara
picks up emlind Toell, like he picked them up because
(33:00):
I want emland to know to play for my team
to help them win, like you know, like so that
that that's really a milestone that doesn't get talked about enough.
And Emlontonelle was you know also from the moment he
was on the Giants like he was you know, he
was a giantings an assistant coach, like he was a
giant for life and a really really really important part
(33:22):
of the of the franchise, you know. And that's the
type of person that Willington Marrow was in a time
when not everybody thought like that.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Who are the other owners of that generation? Obviously that
we know the families, But who are some of the
lead voices and of course if you want to go
to Burt Bell and whoever else in the NFL side,
but like who are the who are the voices that
really were of great influence during that era?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So you know, really in the in the in the
forties and the fifties and the early sixties. You're talking
about Burt Bell, you're talking as the commissioner who used
to own the Philadelphia Eagles. You're talking about George Hollis,
You're talking about George Preston Marshall in Washington in Washington,
and Dan Reeves in Los Angeles. Those were the people
(34:05):
that were really you know, the larger gree Paul Brown
really spoke for the Cleveland Browns even though like.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
He's yeah, that is that is that group. I know
we always talk about what do they call the afl ones,
the the fullish club, Like are the NFL owners Are
they worth a closer look? As you were doing your
research and putting this dock together, Like you know, we
got all these different you know, look back at time,
like the way that the NFL came together and those
(34:32):
voices working together to launch this thing, is that worth
another look.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Well part we get into part of that. Like one
of the most significant things that well, it was sort
of a two step thing, but one of the most
significant things that Wellington Mara did, Like he you know,
you talk about the letters, he kept detailed records. He
has notes from NFL league meetings. Like one of the
things we saw that was really cool was he showed
the profit and loss of the NFL teams in nineteen
(34:57):
fifty six, and team with the biggest profit, Detroit, made
like one hundred and twelve thousand dollars. Some teams are
losing thirty thousand dollars, so nobody's making any money. In
nineteen fifty six, Burt Bell the commission He's running the
league out of his house in Narborth, Pennsylvania. That's where
the league office was located. Was you know, he had
an office in Philadelphia. He never really went there and
it was a little tiny office. And when Burt Bell
(35:17):
dies in nineteen fifty nine and they need a new commissioner,
nobody can agree who on who it should be. George
Preston Marshall is very adamant that the league office needs
to move from Philadelphia to New York because that's where
the wire services are, That's where the television networks are,
That's where the advertisers are. If the NFL is going
to become a league where teams make more than one
(35:38):
hundred and twelve thousand dollars as a team an entire year,
they need to be in New York. Well, all the
people they want to hire they don't want to move
to New York, so they have to find someone else,
and they go through twenty three ballots. Allen Tamira is
the person who says, I think we should pick Pete
Roselle now Pete Rosell at that time, and the role
was Pete Roselle was. Pete Rosell was the general manager
(35:59):
of the Los Angeles Rams, and his claim to fame
was when he'd taken over the Rams, they were a
team that have played the championship game, and now they
were like a were a three were in team. He
had traded. He done the equivalent of what was the
herschel Walker trade of his year. He traded for a
running back named Allie Matts and it was incredible, but
he traded nine players for him. Wow, And and the
Rams were just getting worse and worse and worse, but
he was a very very good marketer, you know. But
(36:23):
Wellington Mara said, let's go with Pete rosel and pushed
him through. And then something that everybody had always wanted
to do but nobody had been able to get it done,
was how can we have a national TV contract instead
of each team making their own individual team contracts? Interesting,
and Tamara said, I'll do it, and I'll help you
(36:45):
do it, Pete rosel and I'll propose it and I'll
share them running equally. Let's do revenue sharing, you know,
because the whole problem contract right, green Bays making twenty
thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars on a TV contract and
and you know New York's making four hundred thousand. Wellington
Mara said, let's just do one big contract that Pete
(37:06):
Roselle negotiates and will spread all the money equally. And
if he hadn't done that, there'd be no Green Bay
and there'd be no Kansas City, and there would only
you know, yeah, the NFL would be like Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
But because Wallington Mara and the biggest market with the
most valuable team, said I'll share revenue just like he
shared his cheat sheet at the draft because it was
for the good of the league, you know, then everybody
else sort of had to, you know, had to get
in line and do it, whether they wanted to or not.
And that's really economically, that's the foundation of all of
(37:36):
the NFL's success is Wolling Tamera's willingness to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
A couple of years ago, I'm flipping through my channels
and I love documentaries, and I ended up watching like
a two hour documentary on John Kazell, the actor who
is only in five movies. All five movies were nominated
for Best Picture or one Best Picture. And he eventually
he's in The Godfather obviously he's Frado. Eventually passes away
(38:02):
at forty two, and then you know, thirty years later
they make a documentary about it, and and I came
away thinking like, wow, what a gift to his family.
This is how I feel about this. Wellington Marra has
been dead for you know, close to twenty years now,
and yet there hadn't been the love letter to Wellington
Marra and what he had done put on film yet.
Have you heard from John Mahra, Have you heard from
(38:23):
the Mara family about this gift. You've just provided their
family for legacies and for generations to come.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think they're I think they're happy with it. But
you know, I think the thing everybody wants is for
football fans to be able to sort of see all
the things that he did that maybe don't realize it.
And and also just I think, you know, Wellington Marra
sort of put his whatever personality or identity into the Giants,
(38:48):
and it's in so many places in the league that
maybe we all don't realize. And then I was when
I first moved to the East Coast. You know, I
joined a fantasy football league and I'll never forget there
was a there was, you know, a rabid, foaming at
the mouth Eagles fan who would go berserk every week
and they're playing the Cowboys. But in fantasy football, so well,
I see myself as a Wellington Merrick that fantasy football
(39:14):
I was just like, really, I was really taken by
the fact that this is an easy maner Giants, but
in his mind the owner was supposed to be was
Wellington Mara. I love he would find people like that
in every NFL city, you know, who instinctively understood that
(39:35):
Wellington Mara you know, represented in the fact that it
was always the team above himself. I think that actually
meant a heck of a heck of a lot to people,
even though you know, maybe everybody hasn't always said that
really loudly.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I have a heck of a lot of things to
say about some of the current owners and some of
their behavior, but I guess it's better off, considering we
all work for the NFL, to just leave it at that.
Wellington Mara was always a gentleman. We'll just say that
you didn't see him doing a lot of media. You
didn't see him out there it see the story being
about him. If anything, he was in the background. And
there's such a gift that you have put this together
(40:11):
with your team at NFL Films real quick as we wrap.
When can we see it now? I know you got
an unlucky draw here with the Yankees playing the Dodgers
Friday night. That said, as is always the case of
these NFL films, films, they live on forever and you're
going to discover it. But where can we see it first?
And then where will it live from that point on.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
It's going to premiere on NFL Network at eight pm.
On Friday, October twenty fifth, and then the Giants are
going to be showing the heck out of it and
NFL Network will be showing it quite frequently.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Can't wait, Neil, what a gift you've put together. I'm
so excited that this is that finally coming out. I've
been hearing about it for months and this was a
really cool conversation. I think our podcast we talked to
a lot of coaches in gms, but a true NFL
fan appreciates Wellington Mara, and a true NFL fan is
going to listen to this conversation and then go watch
(41:02):
the film. Appreciate your time, man. Congratulations, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Oh that's great, thanks a lot. Peter really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
All right. I love talking to Neil. I mean, this
is that's deep cut football stuff, and it's what I
want this podcast to be. And we could do a
reactionary podcast to DeAndre Hopkins being traded, but two days
later that dies. I think you learned something on this podcast, Aaron,
did you have any idea about the Forrest Gump of football,
mister Wellington Mara.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
Not just the Forrest Gump of football, but the Alexander
Hamilton of football being in the room where it happens.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, no, I love that so interesting and you know,
you go look on YouTube and I don't want to
seal with shine from the documentary, but it's called like
the Chronicles of Wellington Mara and it's basically John Marra
just reading the war letters that were being sent that
he discovered in a shoe box after his father's death.
I mean, can I get chills think about it? And
(42:03):
it's like they're he's in the heart of battle here
elk naw and he's in you know, ew Gimi is
in all these major battles and didn't have to be
enlisted himself and was like, I'm gonna go fight for
our country. That stuff's the most notable stuff and of
a different time.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
I'm gonna be in the like the deep, like the
depths of the war. And also I'm going to have
my draft. Guy, I'm going to be building out what
the cheat sheet is. I love the story about him.
He made the original cheat sheet and then just gave
it to everyone.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Let's be better, Yeah, yeah, let's let's share this very cool.
Neil Zender is the filmmaker. It's NFL Films it comes
out Friday. I referenced it in the interview. If you're
a New York sports fan, you're probably watching the Yankees.
But that's okay, because this thing will be all over
the place. Each week we are presented by Uber Eats
(42:55):
and I do a segment called the Season with Peter
Schrigger Delivering Results presented by Uber Eats, where we give
out an award for someone who delivered results, and this
week I want to give it to Keon Coleman, the
rookie wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. They went and
acquired Amari Cooper and everyone was wondering, Okay, what's Cooper
gonna do? Well. Cooper played fine, he had a touchdown,
(43:16):
but Keon Coleman led all wide receivers in receiving yards
as a rookie. That's one hundred and twenty five receiving
yards and a big win against Tennessee as they look
towards a huge Week eight matchup against the Seahawks. On Fox,
Keon Coleman, second round pick out of Florida State, led
all receivers in football and receiving yards this week with
one hundred and twenty five. He's the first rookie to
(43:38):
do that since Jamar Chase did it in his twenty
twenty one season. In Week seven and Week seventeen, Keon
Coleman a great SoundBite, a great young man and a
great player that was delivering results. Presented by Uber Eats,
where you can get the best deals on game day
food all season long. It' see official on demand delivery
partner of the NFL. Go ahead and order now. We
(44:01):
got a great slate of games, but try to find
some time to watch that documentary. The Duke is what
it's called, and it's the Giant Life of Wellington Mara.
That is our show for this week.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Some great games ahead, Enjoy them till next week on
behalf of Peter Schrager on behalf of Jason English and
the entire iHeart team as well as the NFL network.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Folks, Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with
some great stuff. The Season with Peter Schrager is a
production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
(44:44):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
you get your podcasts.
The Season with Peter Scheger is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, Everybody, Welcome to
another episode of the Season with Peter Schrager. I'm Peter Schrager.
(00:28):
I host Good Morning Football on the NFL Network Monday
to Friday, and I am an insider on Fox on
Sundays on a show called Fox NFL Kickoff that airs
at eleven am Eastern every week on Sundays. Saturday night,
I had a big one. Saturday night was a team
(00:50):
dinner for Fox NFL Kickoff, and Saturday night we went
to a spot called Craigs in Los Angeles, which is
a Hollywood hot spot. It's one of those places where
there's Papa Rotzi waiting when you enter and leave the restaurant.
I put on my best T shirt and my best
ratty old pair of jeans and my Vans or whatever
(01:13):
sneakers I brought this week, and I said, Okay, cool
Hollywood nightspot. I'm gonna get all gussied up because they're
going to take photos of me when I walk in.
They did not take photos of me when I walked in,
but we get to the table and the crew is
Charles Woodson, Julian Edelman, Michael Vick, Carissa Thompson, our star producer,
(01:35):
Jeremy Manel, and then Danny Ammendola, who is currently on
Dancing with the Stars and is an absolute stud and
a heart throb. The table next to us. The night
before they play in a crucial game six, and it
was early enough we had a six o'clock reservation. Pete Alonzo,
(01:55):
first basement from the Mets, is hanging at the table
next to us. The table next to him is one
of my favorite actors and comedians of all time, David Spade,
who was hanging at the restaurant and then in the
back with security and he walked out and signed a
few autographs.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
To this thing.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Was Nick Cannon, who was also in the spot. So
all these people are on the spot, and at some point,
with all the buzz in the air of this great table,
we started talking about Belichick and Amondola and Edelman have
their stories, but more than anything, these guys swear by
(02:35):
the Patriots way and that this is how it's done,
and this is how you win championships, and the Patriots
this and the Patriots that, And if I were to
get my fellow Fox colleagues Gronk and of course Tom
Brady at the table. I'm sure they wouldn't even want
to hear from Michael Vick or Charles Woodson, and they
certainly want wouldn't want to hear from me. And as
(02:56):
we've got all this Patriots talk and how Bill would
say this, and Bill would always in the room talk about,
you know, whatever we're watching on film couldn't compete with
Foxborough high and laughing. They're chuckling it up. I come
away from that thinking, gosh, I could have sworn like
Gronk at one point said he wasn't happy and he's
so excited to leave. And then I was like, was
there drama with a mondola at the end? There with Bell?
(03:19):
Doesn't matter in time, there is such a fondness for
Bill Belichick. Fast forward to Sunday morning, mere hours after
our electric dinner and oh, by the way, as we left,
I swear to god, a guy with a camera and
a video camera was videotaping Charles Woodson and said, Charles,
(03:40):
what do you think of Brady as an owner? And
Woodson said, well, the ink hasn't even dried yet. Everyone laughed,
and I swear to God. Someone with a camera came
up to me and yelled to me, are you famous?
And I said nope. And I got an SUV with
Charles Woodson and just had to let that one sit
in there for a while. But Mira Howard is. After that,
the Patriots go out and Drake May's got his first
(04:01):
big start, and you know or whatever his game is,
he's the starter, and they're down uh ten nothing, they're
up ten to nothing, and they give the game away.
And I see online, I see Bill Simmons' tweet, and
I see everyone's tweeting that, like this is a poorly
coach team whatever. And then Gerard Mayo, the first year
coach who was appointed by Robert Kraft, had this to
(04:21):
say about his squad.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Look a disappointing game. Disappointing game. We came out, we
started fast. What I would say is we're a soft
football team across the board. We talk about what makes
a tough football team. That's being able to run the ball,
that's being able to stop the run, and that's being
able to cover kicks, and we did none of those today.
They controlled the ball for most of the day. You know,
their run game average over four and a half yards
to carry our run game. Not sure what the average was,
(04:46):
but it wasn't good. Look back to the drawing board.
I mean, we can't sit here and pout. We just
we just got to put a game together.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
The word that was used that is a trigger in
football circles was a four letter word that starts with
the letter S soft. Mayo has not been a great coach.
Seven weeks through the season. The team does not look prepared.
There look undisciplined at points. There's penalties all over the field.
(05:16):
And when you call a team soft, you are questioning manhood,
you are questioning work ethic, and you are questioning a
person's toughness. So we can leave it at that, or
you can compound this by having the former head coach
of the team, with six Super Bowl rings to his
(05:41):
name and with all of the respect and history in
the world, with the franchise doing a media tour. The
following day, Bill Belichick goes on the Pat McAfee show,
and instead of just saying hey, that's their team, best
of luck will go, he was asked about Mayo's comments,
(06:01):
and he said the following quote, it's a lot of
the same players hurt for those guys because to call
them soft, well, they're not soft. They were the best
team in the league last year against the run. The
Patriots led the league last year in rushing, defensive yards
and defense per yards per carry. They were number one
in the league, and this year they're way down in
the twenties. It's a lot of the same guys too.
(06:23):
They resigned Jennings, they re signed, Tavy, they re signed
and obviously Dugger, Marcus Jones and Gonzalez have been healthy
all year, which they were not. They were on ir
last year at different points. And you got Godshaw and
Keon Clark and Mapu and Gonzales. Those are three rookies
from last year. So it's a lot of the same players.
I feel bad for the defensive players on that one.
(06:46):
Those guys are all tough players. End quote. Then there
was a video that surfaced of Robert Kraft being discussed
about his initiative off the field on anti Semitism and
anti h which is a great cause, and he gets
(07:08):
meant a question about the Patriots, and instead of saying
there was a mutual parting of the ways to Charlemagne,
the God and the Breakfast Club, he basically said, yeah,
we had to say goodbye to Belichick, and it was
because of X Y Z. And well, when it was
presented back in January, it wasn't we had to say
(07:29):
goodbye to Belichick. It was there's going to be a
mutual parting of the ways. And then Kraft had an
interview with Taylor Rooks before the Jets game a few
weeks back, and he said that he had his eye
on Mayo for years. There's a lot going on when
you talk about the Belichick Craft Patriots relationship and the
fact that this team didn't interview Mike Vrabel, the fact
(07:52):
that there was no full hiring interview process and it
was basically handed to Gerrod Mayo. It always struck me
as curious. And now the fact that Belichick is on
no less than seven different media outlets per I'm serious, seven,
I can count them out. He's on McAfee, which he's
great with pat and he's really loosened up and he
(08:13):
was taking shots all over and that's what we want
from him. But then he also does this podcast I
See with Matt Patricia and Mike Lombardi, and he's also
on Inside the NFL. And then I also saw him
on a podcast with Tom Brady and Jim Gray, and
then I also saw him stuff doing stuff for the
thirty third Team. Then I also saw him doing stuff
(08:34):
for Underdog Fantasy, where he's in a commercial and it's
like off a cell phone camera and he's like, hi
on Bill Belichick for Underdog Fantasy. I'm like, he's everywhere.
So if you put Belichick everywhere, and then you add
in the Manning cast for a half every single Monday
night that those guys are on, it's a lot of
places for Belichick to voice his opinion. And now that
(08:57):
the Patriots have hit this rough point and it's real rough,
I find it fascinating the dynamic of him. And every
time he opens his mouth, well, New England want to listen,
so it makes it only harder on girod Mayo. The
end of the story has not yet been written, but gosh,
things have not been this way in New England for many,
many years. Even Bill Simmons tweeted out, and he's kind
(09:18):
of the voice of the Patriots fan. This is as
bad as the Rod rust era, which is like a
dark period for Patriots fans. But as I do this monologue,
the post Belichick era. It is so interesting because instead
of laying low, instead of consulting with his son at
the University of Washington where he's the defensive coordinator, Belichick's everywhere.
(09:39):
And if he's gonna be critical, that's gonna carry weight.
And if he's gonna be critical of the Patriots, well
that goes a long long way. Those players, for as
hard as he was on them, for as tough as
he was on him, those players love the results, and
he never called them soft publicly, and they certainly certainly
(10:00):
respect what he has to say. Can Gerard Mayo earn
that respect? Can he ever earn that faith and that
respect and that trust that Belichick had. It's an uphill battle.
It doesn't help when Belichick is talking on it less
than twenty four hours later. That's my monologue, and we've
got a lot of sports history in that build up there,
(10:21):
because we talk about Rod Russ and Edelman and Amandola
right through to Belichick. Now, it doesn't even scratch the
surface for what we have coming up. Different kind of guests,
and yet one of my favorite podcast conversations we've had
Neil Zender, a filmmaker who just did this beautiful film
on the life and career of Wellington Mara. He and
(10:42):
I sat down. I think you're really going to enjoy this,
Neil Zender. After this, I am so excited to see
the film that has been put together by NFL Films
that ties into the Giants one hundredth year as a franchise,
(11:03):
but also tells the story of a true through football life.
The film itself is called The Duke The Giant Life
of Wellington Mara. It premieres on the NFL Network Friday
night at eight pm and it will definitely exist in
other platforms thereafter. But I think Wellington Mara is one
(11:23):
of the most interesting men in all of sports history
and certainly one of the bedrocks of the NFL. And
to discuss this film, which I've caught early glimpses of
and seems incredible, I'm bringing on the filmmaker as a
producer of NFL films. He's also incredibly incredibly talented at
what he does. Mister Neil Zender, Welcome to the season
(11:44):
with Peter Schrager.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Oh great to be with you, Peter. Thanks a lot, Neil.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
I am a Giants fan from when I was a child.
I could say that openly. My dad raised me as
a Giants fan. Of course, my allegiance with teams has
waned a little bit as I become a journalist and
I cover all thirty two. But Wellington Mara's place in
NFL history is perhaps more important than any other figure
(12:10):
from the early days to where the NFL went. A
visionary but also an incredible life lived. This project, I
have to imagine, was in the works for years, but
when the Giants announced they were celebrating the hundred year,
there had to be some impetus to let's really tell
the story of this man. Can you tell us the
genesis of doing a film on Wellington Mahra, whose life
(12:33):
will get into throughout this podcast.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Well, one of the great mysteries to us is why
has there never been a film made about Wellington Marhra,
who was such an immensely important historical figure. You know,
there's a great quote by Winston Churchill where somebody said
to him at one point, how do you think history
is going to treat you? And Winston Churchill said, It's
(12:57):
going to treat me great, because I'm going to be
the one who's going to write it. And he wrote
book after book after book and put his own spin
on history and why he was so important in that.
And Wellington Mara almost unlike just about every other great
historical figure in regular history of football history, never did that.
He never beat his chest, he never said look at me,
(13:17):
He never said, look at all the important things that
I've done. And for that reason, nobody has ever made
a film about Wellington Marrow or really told you how
important he is to the NFL and the football and
everything else, and everybody just sort of thought with the
Giants turning one hundred, it was about time that somebody
did it. And it's really amazing because when Wellington Marraw
(13:41):
was born, the National Football League did not exist, and
football was not a big thing, and over the course
of his lifetime and when he died, it was the
biggest cultural thing in sports in our country. And he's
sort of like Forrest Gump, like you look at almost
every major thing that happened that made the NFL into
(14:01):
the thing that we all know in love and is
such a big part of our lives. And the person
that did it, I mean, why is the duke written
on the NFL football? The Duke's written in the NFL football,
Because that was his nickname. And he was the person
who went and negotiated the contract with Wilson to make
the footballs and was the first person did that for
(14:23):
the league. And George Hollis said, man, Wellington's doing such
a smash bang up job. Let's just let's just put
his name on the ball. And that's what they did,
and their story after story after story like that about
just sort of the you know, formation and creation of
the NFL that he was there like whatever. Lin Manuel
Miranda says, he was in the room where it happened,
and a lot of times he was the person in
(14:45):
the room making it happen. But he cared more about
the result than taking the credit for it. And that's why,
unfortunately he has not really gotten the credit he deserves
for everything that he's done for all of us.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I consider myself a historian, and I think one of
the great books in NFL Lare is a I don't
know the title of. Michael McCambridge did the story of
Lamar Hunt, and it was like, let's go deep on
Lamar Hunt and what he did for the AFL, but
also what Lamar Hunt did for sports as a whole.
And it's this incredible gift to an individual who had
(15:23):
never written his own book. In this case, though Wellington
Mara has this incredible portion of his life and we'll
get into it where he wrote letters. He wrote letters
because he was at war and he was serving in
World War Two. Now, look, he wasn't drafted. He didn't
go there as an eighteen year old. He went when
(15:44):
he was twenty five years old and was already a
key figure of the NFL's New York Giants and decided
it was his duty to go overseas, enlisted himself and
then has this treasure trove of letters where he's writing
letters back home about being under siege and searching for
men at sea. Like the fact that you have this
military portion of his life when he could have just coasted.
(16:06):
I think that is a measure of a man. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So so sort of what happened is everybody knew that
he was in the war, in World War two, but
he never talked about it. And after he died, his
daughter Susan was cleaning out the attic and just found
a shoe box full of letters and they were all
his letters from the war to his parents and to
his brother, A lot of them are you know. He
(16:33):
was in the USS Randolph in the Pacific, and the
USS Randolph was a very it was one of the
first aircraft carriers. It was a very important carrier to
the entire island hopping strategy that Halsey used to win
the war in the Pacific in World War two. So
like Wellington Marra was there at ewo Jima, Wellington Mara
was there at Oaklandawa on an aircraft carry. He was
(16:54):
a radar operator. And to understand what he did, we
have Phil McConkie, you know, who was at the Naval Academy.
He sort of went through some of the letters like
people have seen before, the letters to do with like
he'd write home about football and we just saw this
playing whatever on an island, like he'd be great, Like
let's get him after the war. But we focused more
on the actual war, like film acconki went through for
us some of the actual war combat stuff, because like
(17:17):
a lot of people in World War Two, he didn't
talk about what he went through. And he was basically
what you know nowadays in the military they would call
a drone ranger. He would sit there on the radar
and look at the dots, and he would tell the
pilots where the Japanese pilots were, and he would send
them in to go shoot him down. And you can,
you know tell from the letters he describes it like
(17:39):
I directed the pilot to go to this exact spot,
and they rendezvous there and they shot down a plane,
and I personally feel like I killed a man, which
you know, in the World War two generation, nobody sort
of talked about that stuff. But it also had I
think real profound implications for his relationships with other people.
(18:02):
You know, he was a great friend all his life
with Tom, and spoken or unspoken part of that bond
with Tom Landry was Tom Landry was a you know,
World War two Flying Fortress B seventeen pilot who saw
twenty nine missions over Europe, and Wellington Mara saw all
this action the Pacific, and you know, they would have
(18:23):
dinner every night for the giants and the cowboys would
play each other and act like they were all great
and then try to kill each other. Yeah, you know
the next day. But the relationship sort of transcended the football,
which I think is you know, hard in today's NFL
for people to to really do. But back you know
when you're Bill Parcells calls him a patriarch, when you're
(18:44):
a patriarch, like, the NFL is not this big, wasn't
this big giant thing to Wellington Marra. It was just people.
It was just people that he knew and had relationships with,
and everything was personal.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's it's there's these letters. I you know, I've
done the work. I've I've listened to John Mara, who's
the current owner, and of course the mayor family has
read some of these letters. One of them is like,
you know, dear Jack, he's writing home. He's like, dear Jack,
He's like, we might not this might not be good.
We might not make it tomorrow. But if you hear
from me and the Japanese don't see me, we're gonna
(19:21):
be all right. But if they do, this is a
you know, this is where we're at and it will
not be good for us. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
They have these letters of him the night before a
major attack like this is they have that, And this
is a guy who then in the same letter is
talking about the NFL draft because he's writing home about
he's doing work on the draft and I've I've got
(19:43):
my lists, like he was still contributing to the football team.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And how many people want you to know that they
were the first to do something like the draft went
on for five or six years. He was the first
person that said, like we all do when we play
fantasy football, you know what, I'm gonna have a cheat sheet.
I'm gonna have a list and he typed it out.
I'm gonna have a list of the top prospects one
(20:08):
to two hundred and fifty and he typed that whole
thing out and then he went to the draft and
nobody else had it in nineteen thirty nine, and he
was like, golly, you know, this will be a better
event if if everybody else knows what they're doing instead
of just me. So we make copies and they put
up and they shared. He shared his cheat sheets with everybody,
and you had these, you know, other owners who know
what they were doing. They were just picking off Wellington
(20:29):
Mara's cheat sheets for years at the NFL draft because
they did. They couldn't see what it could be, but
he could, you know. Or he's one of the first
people to shoot game film. He got a sixteen millimeter
film camera for Christmas and whatever, nineteen thirty five or
nineteen thirty six. He's like, you know what, I'm not
just gonna make movies in my buddies, like in my family, Like,
(20:50):
let me shoot some football games and give it to
Steve On and let him let him break it down
as a coach. Can that help him?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
The early stuff, I mean, NFL Films has incredible archives,
but like, do you guys have footage of Ray Flaherty
and mel Hine, Like, do you have that stuff?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
We don't have. I Mean, the interesting thing is we
don't have a lot of that. Our stuff really starts
in the you know, full on in the sixties, and
then we have a decent amount of stuff in the
in the forties and the fifties, but it's usually just
a top camera that's far away. One of the things
that we found in the course of doing the research
for this was, you know, the giants were able to
dig up all these film cans that in a lot
of cases were filmed that Wellington Mara himself and shot.
(21:28):
So believable, So we have ground footage that Wellington Mara
shot at the Polo Grounds in the late twenties, early thirties,
like on that one roll of film that he shot
is more ground footage than we have from that entire
era up until this time period. Like our our our
shooters like looked at it and they could not believe
like how rock Steady was and there wasn't any shake,
(21:49):
and he like with the camera they was shooting on
like he could have shot for NFL films, Like he's
he's a very good. Any thing in this documentary is
you know, we've got we've got a home movie. So
there's Wellington Mara with Vince Lombardi vacationing in Hawaii. You know,
there's Wellington Mara in Vince Lombardi and he's recording their
golf swing so they can figure out, you know, why
they're handicaps nine instead of three.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And that's when Lombardy was coaching for the Giants, or
after he'd already left and gone to the Packers.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
That's that's when he's with the Packers. But I mean,
it's just it's just like if you were to ice
i mean, Wellington Marror, if you were to isolate any
of the one single thing that he did, like the
fifty things that he'd done, just isolate one of them,
you'd say that's a Hall of Fame football football life.
I mean, like he's the like he went to college
and was a classmate at Fordham with Vince Lombardi. And
(22:39):
so he went to Jim Lee Howell when they hired
the head coach and said, I really we're gonna hire
you as the head coach, but I really really really
think you should hire Vince Lambardi's your offensive coordinator, and
I really really think this defensive back of ours, Tom Landry,
should should be in charge of the defense. And so
what's Jim Lee Howell gonna say? You know, multiple times,
Vince Lombardi went to Wellington Mahra and said, like I'm
(23:00):
fed up. I'm not going to get a head coach,
like I want to quit. I'm going to go coach
in college. I can be a head coach in college somewhere.
And Wellington mayor said, don't don't quit. Don't quit, like
don't like you talked about quitting multiple times, Vincent. One
of the things that's you know, the documentary goes into
great length is Vince Lombardi showed up. But he came
from Army and he coached for Red Blaket Army and
Army had a system where unlike anybody else, they would
(23:20):
take polaroid photographs of the formations before the snaps. And
Lombardi's like, I said, I like to do this. Can
we do this with the giants? There was no opperass.
I said, well, I'll just I'll do it. I'll take
the pictures. So you had the owner of the team
with the polaroid camera sitting up in the press box
taking polaroid pictures before every snap. At the end of
the series, he'd take all the photos, wrap them up
(23:41):
into a sock, sticks in either rocks or you know,
a cleat in the sock and throw it from the
upper deck down onto the field and Barty pick it up.
We even go through it and go show Frank Gifford
and Charlie Connelly what was going on. And Wellington Mara
like love to do that because he had a role
and he was helping the team and he didn't need
any intention for doing it or anything else. But like
(24:02):
that's where you know you see her old coaches with
the surface tablet today, That's where it started because Wellington
Mara and Vince Lombardi did that because they wanted to
figure out a way for the Giants to beat the
Cleveland Rounds.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
All right, so Big Picture Dad is the owner of
the Giants. He's born, he's working for the team in
a bunch of different roles, ball boy, all the stuff,
goes and has a big role to a team, then
goes into war, then comes back eventually takes over the team.
I'm watching the trailer for your film, which I cannot
wait to see, and you've got contributions from Parcels, from Strahan,
(24:46):
who calls him Forrest Gump. You've got contributions from Ernie A. Corsi,
and then I see Roger Goodell as well. So if
you're taking the Forrest Gump analogy, he literally touches every
era of the NFL up until his death.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
So we sort of did instead of just being chronologically
and starting at the beginning of his life and ending
at the end of his life, we sort of focused
on all the different things he did that made the
NFL great. And there's a different giant who shows you
that and shows you aside of them that they got
to see. So one of the really cool things was,
you know, when we started researching this, we looked at
(25:21):
the footage from Wellington Mayra's funeral and Michael Strahan walks
out and he's like species, He's like, well, I knew
he was our owner, and I knew he was a
great guy, like I loved him, but I didn't know
all the things he did for the NFL. So we
called up Michael Strand and said, you want to go
talk to Rodger Goodell and he'll tell you all the stuff.
That was like, yes, let's go, let's do it. You
know Eli Manning, you know who Earning of course he
traded for. He sort of does a deep dive into
(25:44):
i mean the draft stuff. And like Wellington Marra was
one of the pioneers of scouting the NFL. He was
considered the you know, Bill Pollion of the nineteen thirties.
Wellington Mayra is the person who built the fifties, the
fifties giants like his scouting system, and he selected all
of those all those players that Eli Manning sort of
goes through all his personnel stuff and how he created
(26:07):
how teams prepare for the draft and all that stuff.
You know. We had Phil Simms who sort of took
us to Wellington Marrow, by our account, went to over
a thousand games in person a thousand Giants games in person,
all the home games, all the road games, and so
he lived so long, like he had three homes. Most
of us like the stadiums the stadium for like our
entire life, and then we're whatever we feel when they
(26:28):
switched to a new stadium after like thirty years. Well, yeah,
he was at the Polo Grounds, and he was at
Yankee Stadium, and he was at Giants Day. He was
getting ready for met life at the point when his
life when he died, like she had all these different
if So Phil Sims went to every one of his stadiums.
Cool it sort of went and showed you what it
was like when he was there. Like when they were
in the Polo Grounds, it was below the water table,
(26:49):
so that it was constantly swampy and muddy and rained
all the time, like and football was starting. They didn't
know what they were doing. So his dad, Tim Merrit
at one point, Wellington Mary's father, he bought rain insurance
so that they would get a rebate if fans didn't
show up and buy tickets because there was so much rain,
and like they always had, they had to start after
(27:09):
the baseball Giant season was over, so they were always
like starting their home season in like late October. And
then Wellington Mara said, like they never got to What
they discovered was they could never collect the insurance. Possy said,
when you get an eighth of an inch of rain,
they would get the rain. They still could collect the
insurance company was still used a lot of it. So
(27:31):
and then we had Tiki Barber, who was probably the
coolest thing. He sort of talked about the relationships that
Wellington Mara had with with all the players. It's incredible.
The thing is relationship with Lawrence Taylor and the things
he did for Lawrence Taylor and Taylor was like mash
you could ever have. Like He's just Wellington Area is
the greatest guy ever knew. Like he's he backed me
up in every situation, even when he should. He was
(27:53):
always like there for me. Phil Simms tells this incredible.
You know a lot of people remember how when Phil
Simms left the Giants, like that was right when the
salary cap was coming in. He's one of the first
salary cap caps. And you know we think of Wellington
Marra as not being emotional, Well, he reacted emotionally behind
the closed doors when that was a press.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Conference because I was a kid. I remember that press conference.
Sim's in a sweater sitting up there, and it was like,
where's he gonna go. He's gonna go to the Arizona Cardinals.
And if I'm not mistaken, that was it for Phil Simms.
Did he'd play anywhere else?
Speaker 2 (28:25):
No, he basically was kind of he signed with the Browns,
but then he was heard, so he just ended up
not playing. But I mean, like Phil Simms is like
Wellington Mara was gonna like fire everyone. He was like
completely out of control upset because Phil Simms, you know,
like he believed players should be giants for life, and
he sort of even if they left, they were still
(28:46):
they were still giants for life.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
You mentioned LT, and I mean I have heard so
many stories over the years, some of them from LT.
I am ced the Giants one hundred year event along
with Bob Papa back in June, and LT was backstage
telling stories. And I mean Wellington Mahra not only put
up with a lot of LT stuff off the field,
(29:09):
and you know, obviously we know LT lived it fast
when he was a player, but also they would like
golf together and they would spend holidays together, and like Wellington,
Marra took lt And as more than just you know,
a top pick who was one of the greatest defensive
players of all time. He loved him for all his
warts and bruises and played it with him in a
(29:32):
professional but also personal way.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
It's incredible. And you know, Tiki Barber and you know
Jeremy Shockey were incredibly close to him, and it was
it's amazing for somebody who's eighty years old to be
able to really connect with somebody who's twenty two years old.
If that was something he was able to do. Like
if you look at his life, right, he started out
(29:57):
and he's nine years old and he's sitting on the
bench in the polo grounds next to Jim Thorpe and
Red Grange or whatever, and like they're like gods to
him and here and then he got to the point where, hey,
they're the same age as I am, and they're like
peers and contemporaries. And then he got to the point
where like, okay, this is the fifties giants, and I'm
sort of like a father figure and elect Frank Gifford
(30:18):
and Sam and then he's a grandfather and you know,
then he's a patriarch, and he went through all these
sort of different stages of life in his relationships with
with the players, and it's pretty you know, I mean,
I think it's amazing. Is like because the NFL was
such a small and insignificant thing. You know, his dad
(30:40):
gave him and his brother Jack operational control of the
Giants in like nineteen thirty. Yeah, so like picture being
you know, thirty years old, fifteen, sixteen years old and
you're in charge, Like you're in charge of an NFL team.
Like he got to do that. Everything that we'd all
dream of doing, he like got to do that. And
the amazing part is like he could handle it, Like
(31:00):
how many people could you know, he could actually handle it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
And then still says, I'm gonna enlist and go to
war because that's my duty to my country. Like here's
a silver spoon. I've got this amazing thing. And it's
like no, no, no, no, no, Like my priorities are still intact.
I'm just incredible.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
And that was also they tried to like, hey, we
could send you, no I want to we can send you here.
We say it, no, I want to go past. Yeah,
which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
I love the book, the GM and it's about a
course in that year and they really do chronicle the
two thousand and seven Giants, how it all comes to
be and in that book. And I haven't seen your
doc in full yet, I've only seen clips. The trainer,
Ronnie Barnes is by Wellington's side every day in the hospital.
I still tear up thinking about it. Like the team trainer,
(31:45):
an African American man who the owner hired before that
was done and is now by his bedside as he's
passing away, Like do you capture any of that stuff?
In the film?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
We talk about the end of his life. Ronnie Barnes
is in the film and Rynane Barnes talks a lot
about his relationships with people and how he treated people
and what his philosophy you know, in life was. You know,
it's also worth uh, you know, worth pointing out when
you look at Willington Mara. You know, everybody says, you know,
how did the NFL get integrated? You know, how does
(32:18):
that story get told in history? Well, hey, the Los
Angeles Rams did it with Kenny Washington. Would Washington? Well,
the thing is the Rams did it because the Los
Angeles Coliseum says as a condition for you to get
a lease at the coliseum and move from Cleveland to
Los Angeles, you have to integrate your team. We're not
going to have to segregated team playing in our team.
(32:40):
So like they sort of did it with a lot
of pressure to do it. When Paul Brown integrated the
Cleveland Browns and brought in Bill Willison, Mary Whatley, they
were in the you know, Arrival League, the AFC, they
were not in the NFL. You know, when Wellington Mara
picks up emlind Toell, like he picked them up because
(33:00):
I want emland to know to play for my team
to help them win, like you know, like so that
that that's really a milestone that doesn't get talked about enough.
And Emlontonelle was you know also from the moment he
was on the Giants like he was you know, he
was a giantings an assistant coach, like he was a
giant for life and a really really really important part
(33:22):
of the of the franchise, you know. And that's the
type of person that Willington Marrow was in a time
when not everybody thought like that.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Who are the other owners of that generation? Obviously that
we know the families, But who are some of the
lead voices and of course if you want to go
to Burt Bell and whoever else in the NFL side,
but like who are the who are the voices that
really were of great influence during that era?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
So you know, really in the in the in the
forties and the fifties and the early sixties. You're talking
about Burt Bell, you're talking as the commissioner who used
to own the Philadelphia Eagles. You're talking about George Hollis,
You're talking about George Preston Marshall in Washington in Washington,
and Dan Reeves in Los Angeles. Those were the people
(34:05):
that were really you know, the larger gree Paul Brown
really spoke for the Cleveland Browns even though like.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
He's yeah, that is that is that group. I know
we always talk about what do they call the afl ones,
the the fullish club, Like are the NFL owners Are
they worth a closer look? As you were doing your
research and putting this dock together, Like you know, we
got all these different you know, look back at time,
like the way that the NFL came together and those
(34:32):
voices working together to launch this thing, is that worth
another look.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Well part we get into part of that. Like one
of the most significant things that well, it was sort
of a two step thing, but one of the most
significant things that Wellington Mara did, Like he you know,
you talk about the letters, he kept detailed records. He
has notes from NFL league meetings. Like one of the
things we saw that was really cool was he showed
the profit and loss of the NFL teams in nineteen
(34:57):
fifty six, and team with the biggest profit, Detroit, made
like one hundred and twelve thousand dollars. Some teams are
losing thirty thousand dollars, so nobody's making any money. In
nineteen fifty six, Burt Bell the commission He's running the
league out of his house in Narborth, Pennsylvania. That's where
the league office was located. Was you know, he had
an office in Philadelphia. He never really went there and
it was a little tiny office. And when Burt Bell
(35:17):
dies in nineteen fifty nine and they need a new commissioner,
nobody can agree who on who it should be. George
Preston Marshall is very adamant that the league office needs
to move from Philadelphia to New York because that's where
the wire services are, That's where the television networks are,
That's where the advertisers are. If the NFL is going
to become a league where teams make more than one
(35:38):
hundred and twelve thousand dollars as a team an entire year,
they need to be in New York. Well, all the
people they want to hire they don't want to move
to New York, so they have to find someone else,
and they go through twenty three ballots. Allen Tamira is
the person who says, I think we should pick Pete
Roselle now Pete Rosell at that time, and the role
was Pete Roselle was. Pete Rosell was the general manager
(35:59):
of the Los Angeles Rams, and his claim to fame
was when he'd taken over the Rams, they were a
team that have played the championship game, and now they
were like a were a three were in team. He
had traded. He done the equivalent of what was the
herschel Walker trade of his year. He traded for a
running back named Allie Matts and it was incredible, but
he traded nine players for him. Wow, And and the
Rams were just getting worse and worse and worse, but
he was a very very good marketer, you know. But
(36:23):
Wellington Mara said, let's go with Pete rosel and pushed
him through. And then something that everybody had always wanted
to do but nobody had been able to get it done,
was how can we have a national TV contract instead
of each team making their own individual team contracts? Interesting,
and Tamara said, I'll do it, and I'll help you
(36:45):
do it, Pete rosel and I'll propose it and I'll
share them running equally. Let's do revenue sharing, you know,
because the whole problem contract right, green Bays making twenty
thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars on a TV contract and
and you know New York's making four hundred thousand. Wellington
Mara said, let's just do one big contract that Pete
(37:06):
Roselle negotiates and will spread all the money equally. And
if he hadn't done that, there'd be no Green Bay
and there'd be no Kansas City, and there would only
you know, yeah, the NFL would be like Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
But because Wallington Mara and the biggest market with the
most valuable team, said I'll share revenue just like he
shared his cheat sheet at the draft because it was
for the good of the league, you know, then everybody
else sort of had to, you know, had to get
in line and do it, whether they wanted to or not.
And that's really economically, that's the foundation of all of
(37:36):
the NFL's success is Wolling Tamera's willingness to do that.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
A couple of years ago, I'm flipping through my channels
and I love documentaries, and I ended up watching like
a two hour documentary on John Kazell, the actor who
is only in five movies. All five movies were nominated
for Best Picture or one Best Picture. And he eventually
he's in The Godfather obviously he's Frado. Eventually passes away
(38:02):
at forty two, and then you know, thirty years later
they make a documentary about it, and and I came
away thinking like, wow, what a gift to his family.
This is how I feel about this. Wellington Marra has
been dead for you know, close to twenty years now,
and yet there hadn't been the love letter to Wellington
Marra and what he had done put on film yet.
Have you heard from John Mahra, Have you heard from
(38:23):
the Mara family about this gift. You've just provided their
family for legacies and for generations to come.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I think they're I think they're happy with it. But
you know, I think the thing everybody wants is for
football fans to be able to sort of see all
the things that he did that maybe don't realize it.
And and also just I think, you know, Wellington Marra
sort of put his whatever personality or identity into the Giants,
(38:48):
and it's in so many places in the league that
maybe we all don't realize. And then I was when
I first moved to the East Coast. You know, I
joined a fantasy football league and I'll never forget there
was a there was, you know, a rabid, foaming at
the mouth Eagles fan who would go berserk every week
and they're playing the Cowboys. But in fantasy football, so well,
I see myself as a Wellington Merrick that fantasy football
(39:14):
I was just like, really, I was really taken by
the fact that this is an easy maner Giants, but
in his mind the owner was supposed to be was
Wellington Mara. I love he would find people like that
in every NFL city, you know, who instinctively understood that
(39:35):
Wellington Mara you know, represented in the fact that it
was always the team above himself. I think that actually
meant a heck of a heck of a lot to people,
even though you know, maybe everybody hasn't always said that
really loudly.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I have a heck of a lot of things to
say about some of the current owners and some of
their behavior, but I guess it's better off, considering we
all work for the NFL, to just leave it at that.
Wellington Mara was always a gentleman. We'll just say that
you didn't see him doing a lot of media. You
didn't see him out there it see the story being
about him. If anything, he was in the background. And
there's such a gift that you have put this together
(40:11):
with your team at NFL Films real quick as we wrap.
When can we see it now? I know you got
an unlucky draw here with the Yankees playing the Dodgers
Friday night. That said, as is always the case of
these NFL films, films, they live on forever and you're
going to discover it. But where can we see it first?
And then where will it live from that point on.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
It's going to premiere on NFL Network at eight pm.
On Friday, October twenty fifth, and then the Giants are
going to be showing the heck out of it and
NFL Network will be showing it quite frequently.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Can't wait, Neil, what a gift you've put together. I'm
so excited that this is that finally coming out. I've
been hearing about it for months and this was a
really cool conversation. I think our podcast we talked to
a lot of coaches in gms, but a true NFL
fan appreciates Wellington Mara, and a true NFL fan is
going to listen to this conversation and then go watch
(41:02):
the film. Appreciate your time, man. Congratulations, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Oh that's great, thanks a lot. Peter really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
All right. I love talking to Neil. I mean, this
is that's deep cut football stuff, and it's what I
want this podcast to be. And we could do a
reactionary podcast to DeAndre Hopkins being traded, but two days
later that dies. I think you learned something on this podcast, Aaron,
did you have any idea about the Forrest Gump of football,
mister Wellington Mara.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
Not just the Forrest Gump of football, but the Alexander
Hamilton of football being in the room where it happens.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
Yeah, no, I love that so interesting and you know,
you go look on YouTube and I don't want to
seal with shine from the documentary, but it's called like
the Chronicles of Wellington Mara and it's basically John Marra
just reading the war letters that were being sent that
he discovered in a shoe box after his father's death.
I mean, can I get chills think about it? And
(42:03):
it's like they're he's in the heart of battle here
elk naw and he's in you know, ew Gimi is
in all these major battles and didn't have to be
enlisted himself and was like, I'm gonna go fight for
our country. That stuff's the most notable stuff and of
a different time.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
I'm gonna be in the like the deep, like the
depths of the war. And also I'm going to have
my draft. Guy, I'm going to be building out what
the cheat sheet is. I love the story about him.
He made the original cheat sheet and then just gave
it to everyone.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
Let's be better, Yeah, yeah, let's let's share this very cool.
Neil Zender is the filmmaker. It's NFL Films it comes
out Friday. I referenced it in the interview. If you're
a New York sports fan, you're probably watching the Yankees.
But that's okay, because this thing will be all over
the place. Each week we are presented by Uber Eats
(42:55):
and I do a segment called the Season with Peter
Schrigger Delivering Results presented by Uber Eats, where we give
out an award for someone who delivered results, and this
week I want to give it to Keon Coleman, the
rookie wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. They went and
acquired Amari Cooper and everyone was wondering, Okay, what's Cooper
gonna do? Well. Cooper played fine, he had a touchdown,
(43:16):
but Keon Coleman led all wide receivers in receiving yards
as a rookie. That's one hundred and twenty five receiving
yards and a big win against Tennessee as they look
towards a huge Week eight matchup against the Seahawks. On Fox,
Keon Coleman, second round pick out of Florida State, led
all receivers in football and receiving yards this week with
one hundred and twenty five. He's the first rookie to
(43:38):
do that since Jamar Chase did it in his twenty
twenty one season. In Week seven and Week seventeen, Keon
Coleman a great SoundBite, a great young man and a
great player that was delivering results. Presented by Uber Eats,
where you can get the best deals on game day
food all season long. It' see official on demand delivery
partner of the NFL. Go ahead and order now. We
(44:01):
got a great slate of games, but try to find
some time to watch that documentary. The Duke is what
it's called, and it's the Giant Life of Wellington Mara.
That is our show for this week.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Some great games ahead, Enjoy them till next week on
behalf of Peter Schrager on behalf of Jason English and
the entire iHeart team as well as the NFL network.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Folks, Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with
some great stuff. The Season with Peter Schrager is a
production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
(44:44):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Peter Schrager
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