NFL Journalist & Author Rick Gosselin Joins Wayne & Matt

Rick Gosselin is an NFL journalist and the author of The Team History Forgot: The 1960s Kansas City Chiefs. He joins the podcast to talk NFL past and present, drawing on decades of reporting and perspective.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The AFL was more exciting. The NFL was a ground
and pound league. The Packers and i plowned look for
thirteen executive years. The NFL's leading rusher was a full
back and a half back a full back. This was
a pound of league, and the AFL was a throw
it and the Chiefs tried to win running it. And
for two years they were a competitive running football. They
became a great team when they got Len Dawson in

(00:22):
nineteen sixty two, because he was a magician. He was
great ball, you know, ball fakes and things and play
action pass. They had such a big offensive line. The
defensive players couldn't see Dawston. They couldn't see the backs,
and that made it special.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
This is the Larravian La Pey Podcast, a production of
iHeartRadio Podcasts with host Swayne Larvie, the voice of the
Green Bay Packers, and Matt Lapey, the voice of Wisconsin
Badgers football and men's basketball. The Lravian La Peye Podcast
is presented by Pottawatamie Casino Hotel. Your win is waiting.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Hi everybody, I'm Wayne Lavie and I'm Matt lape Welcome
to the Lara Vila Pay podcast presented by Potawadabe Casino Hotel.
Coming up on this episode, we welcome NFL journalist Rick Guislin,
the author of The Team History for God, the nineteen
sixties Kansas City Chiefs plus the Badgers, Well winning's becoming

(01:22):
habit forming for them at Camp Randall Stadium. The Packers
and Lions are getting set for a traditional Turkey Day rivalry,
and we'll dive into all of it. Coming up next
on the Lara Vie La Pey Podcast, we welcome in
Rick Gisland, NFL Hall of Fame journalist with the Dallas
Morning News over the years and today has authored an
outstanding new book entitled The Well The Team History for

(01:46):
God the nineteen sixties Kansas City Chiefs, and I tell
you what, if you're a Chiefs fan of certain vintage,
and even if you're not, if you're an AFL fan
or an NFL fan, doesn't matter. This is a great
book to pick up between now and Christmas. Rick, great
to see as always, you and I talked about this

(02:06):
book before it was actually published. Before it came out
this fall. I was intrigued by what you were. You
talked to many of the people I got to know
in our time in Kansas City, who were part of
the great Chiefs teams of the sixties. This book literally
was forty years in the making for you, wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yeah. I got to Kansas City in seventy seven, and
I was always intrigued with Super Bowl, the first Super Bowl,
first AFL NFL championship game growing up in Detroit. I
was in my teen years then. Remember wat's a game
of black and white TV. And obviously I was an
NFL fan, a Packers fan in that game, and you know,
I knew the Lombardi lore and all I knew about

(02:46):
the AFL is that they were inferior, and I thought, God,
it'd be pretty embarrassing for the Packers to lose that game.
So that game always intrigued me. So I got to
I get to Kansas City and all the people are
still there, Lamar Lynn Dawson, Otis, Taylor Buckbyham. So I
started just talking to all these people about that game
and about those Chiefs. I saved all the interviews and

(03:10):
I thought this'd be a pretty good book. I ever
decided to write it, and twenty twenty three I decided
to write it, and then in the nineteen nineties. When
I went to Dallas and became the NFL columnist, I
met and talked to a lot of the old Packers.
I talked to Jerry Kramer and Jim Taylor and Dave Robinson,

(03:30):
Willie Davis, Willie Wood about that game.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
That gave me.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
A more balanced look at that game. I put it
all together. I called the University of Nebraska Press the
day after the Chiefs won their third Super Bowl on
Andy Reid offered him the book, and they said, your
timing is impeccable. So can't just kn't just came on,
I've ever won. It's doing law on Amazon.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
I'm thinking of the characters. I mean, the famous story
up here obviously was Max McGee the night before and
his rendezvous he ends up playing. But it's not like
the Chiefs were without characters, because when I knew you
were running the spurred book, well, the first I mean Len
Dawson is an easy guy to think of Hank Stram,
but the Hammer, Fred Williamson, I mean, a character maybe

(04:18):
worthy of his own book.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
There is a separate chapter on the Hammers. I have
about seven or eight chapters on separate players. There's one
on Len Dawson and Bobby Bell, Johnny Robinson, Willie lanieron
Stener Rude the Hammer. He was quite the character. And
that's a very interesting chapter. The most interesting chapter was

(04:42):
Bobby Bell. Here's a guy who played six man football
as a quarterback, playing six man football in North Carolina,
and of course back then, you weren't going to play
college football in the South. Minnesota saw a tape of
an all star game and offered Bell sight unseen scholarship.

(05:03):
He flies to Minnesota and first time he's ever played
with white players, and he goes on to win the
Outland Trophy four years and he's just a great, great player.
Chiefs took him, drafted him, and the Vikings took him
with a second und draft. Everybody assumed he would stay

(05:23):
in Minnesota. The Vikings wouldn't give him a guarantee contract.
Kansas City would. So here's another interestor Bobby Bell's picked
for the College All Star Game, the sixty three College
All Star Game, and Autogram's a coach and he's watching
Bobby Bell block and play defensive tackle and he said,

(05:46):
the guy can't play. He called Hanks Stram and said,
you got a bust. He can't play a toll. Bell
go down to that side of the field with the linebackers.
Work with the linebackers. Told Dave Robinson the same thing.
Dave Robinson was a tight end at Penn State or
eighty nine. He was wearing a tight end number. He

(06:08):
told him, go work with linebackers. The first game those
two players ever started a linebacker was at college Allstar Game.
They beat the Packers, and now both guys are in
the Hall of Fame as linebackers. The other note about Bell,
he he goes to Kansas City and he's a rookie,

(06:30):
and back then you had to work two jobs. You know,
you got game game checks during the season. But there
was nothing coming in Ino those six months. So he
went over to GM and applied for a job in
HR and he got it. And he told me that
the Chiefs were his second job. He worked for GM
for thirteen years, concurrent with his crew at the Chiefs,

(06:52):
and if they practiced in the morning, he'd go work
in the afternoon. They practicing in the afternoon, he'd work
in the morning. But he was working full.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Time for GM.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Twice they offered him promotions to Detroit, and twice he
turned them down. And then GM head cords up to
trace what what is he doing? Mean, guys, we much
gone down to meet him, and guy comes off, Oh
you're that Bobby. Though he was offered one more transfer
to Fremont in California later his careering, Bobby said, I'm

(07:22):
not gonna play for the Raiders, but he passed down
with two.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
So the bell thing was was green chapter. I enjoyed
that one.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
So Wayne Michaeh Parsons doesn't have a morning job that
he does to take care of before he reports to
the facility.

Speaker 3 (07:36):
Yeah, boy, it wouldn't it be a neat story if
he did? What about that?

Speaker 1 (07:42):
I own that chieation, my second job, my part time
Joe sicking job.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
You know, I didn't know the story about him and
Dave Robinson in that sixty three All Star Game where
they did beat the Lombardi Packers. I didn't know that
they both were kind of into that linebacker group and
you know, just just like get out of here, go
do something with the lock backers. And here, you know,

(08:09):
years later they're both in the NFL Hall of Fame.
And right now he wore that tight end number his
whole career, the eighty nine. That he got yes, he
did eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, and that's why that's where it all started from.
And they are they won that they all start has
won that game. And there's a chapter in the book
about that game. And Dave Robinson he was he's sitting
in the in the meeting room with the Packers looking
at the game film and now there's there comes up

(08:40):
a play where it's a sweep. He throws I think
Ron Kramer out of the way and he tackles Taylor
and he's filmed pretty good about it. And during the
film breakdown, Lombardi is all over Kramer and says, look
at that guy, that rookie over there, he's probably not
even gonna make his team Robinson. Robinson looked at Williood.

(09:04):
Willywood says, I think that means don't buy a house.
So there are a lot of good Packer nuggets in
this book as well as the thing. But here's the thing.
The Chiefs were in the game in the second second quarter.
They had two seventy plus yard drives and they're down

(09:25):
fourteen ten and a half, and they're thinking we're going
to pull off the greatest upset in the upset in history.
They get the second half kickoff again, they're driving, they're
at midfield looking to go in to take the lead,
and then Dawson throws the pick and Williewood runs back
to two. It's now a two score game. Kancity's running
game is out of it, and it got out of
hand at that point.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Stand everick, because as fans, though certainly Packer fans, know
that the pressure was all on green Bay. Vince Lobarti
was hearing it from everybody in the league. You cannot
lose this game. What was the Chiefs mentality going in?
Did you get a sense in talking to those guys
that they fully believed that they could beat Green Bay?

Speaker 1 (10:06):
They felt they could play with the Packers. And the
Packers had told me they had never seen that team
as big as Kansas City. That offensive line was you,
Jim Tyre and Dave Hill, and that concerned them that
I think that in one of the chapters is called
a fear of the unknown, and that was the Packers concern.
They didn't know. There was no game tape that they

(10:28):
can look at, and you can't watch a Chief's Boston
Patriots game and try to equate that with how the
Packers are going to play them, So they really didn't know.
But the Chiefs felt they had a chance. You know,
they felt we need to play a perfect game, not
turn the ball over. But they felt they could blame
and after the game they felt they could have beaten them.

(10:50):
They said, we'd love to play them again tomorrow. We
love to play on best two out of three. You know,
they felt that they were there with the Packers. But
the Chiefs made the one mistake and again, let you
let the Packers get up on you like that you're
not coming back, and that's when got ugly. But they
felt they could play with the Packers. I don't know

(11:11):
if there was a belief going in that they were
going to win the game, but there was a belief
at halftime they were gonna win.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Very interesting, you know, the Chiefs were like probably a
year or two away literally from winning it all. That
team was pretty ongoing in that Packers team was pretty established.
Let me ask you this, Rick, because I think that
all of us who followed and I was a kid
like you, and I followed the NFL, not the AFL.

(11:40):
I think there was people underestimated the caliber of talent
in the AFL, in the nineteen sixties. Now, you mentioned
in the book and you pointed out that, hey, when
that first Super Bowl happened, the AFL was all of
seven years old. Think about that going up against an
NFL that was I don't know, coming up on fifty
years or whatever. But any rate, the point is the

(12:03):
Packers two wins over the Chiefs and the Raiders, two
of the flagship teams of the AFL, did that kind
of delay though, you know, the respect that that conference,
that conference, that league really deserved.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, that's why the Poults were like eighteen point favorites
over the Jets. And again they had the Chiefs for instance,
they could play offensively with the Packers, but their defense
they didn't have. They had four on four free agents
on defense. You're not going to beat that Packer offense
with four free agents on defense. And in the three

(12:41):
years as they were building it, they patched the holes
on the defense. You had Curly Kolp, you had Lanier
and Lynch, you had Jim Kearney and the secondary Jim
Marcellis defensively, and they had a real issue in that game.
I talked about in the book. Their right end was
Chuck Hurston and he was a two hundred and forty
pounds guy who's playing against Bob Skronsky two seventy and

(13:05):
Hurston had to fluor something and he lost weight. He
played that game at like two o five. Now you
know it's Bobscribe two o'hw and you watched the touchdowns
were over the left side, and that altered what the
Chiefs could do. Because of Hurston. E. J. Hollub was

(13:25):
now more of a blitzer and because he was blitzing
to fill that void, Johnny Robinson have cad to come
up and play closer to the line where Hollib was
and that left McGee one oh one with Willie Mitchell.
If Johnny Robinson had been back where he normally years,
then McGee is not running as free as he was.

(13:46):
But they they caught Mitchell three times, were at one
on one with McGee.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
The AFL, I'm sorry, Rick, so the AFLs you righte.
It was known as the passing League, right everybody's going
to chuck it over and over again. The Chiefs were
a little bit of an outlier though with that philosophically,
is that true?

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah? Yeah, Hank.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Hank was a big ten guy. He was gonna run
a football, and everybody else was going to throw it,
and that's the chief The AFL was more exciting. The
NFL was a ground and pound league. The Packers and
i plowned it. Look for thirteen executive years, the NFL's
leading rusher was a full back and a half back
a full back. This was a pounded league, and the

(14:27):
AFL was to throw it, and the Chiefs tried to
win running it. And for two years they were a
competitive running football. They became a great team when they
got Len Dawson in nineteen sixty two because he was
a magician. He was great ball, you know, ball fakes
and things and play action pass and they had such
a big offensive line. The defensive players couldn't see Dawson.

(14:48):
They couldn't see the backs, and that made it special.
But it's all about the quarterback position. Hank had drafted
or had recruited Dawson at Purdue, so he knew of
Dawson and was the fifth overall pick of his draft,
one pick ahead of Jim Brown. He goes to the
Steelers spends three years. That year. Bobby Buddy Parker picks

(15:11):
up Bobby Lane doesn't play with the Steelers. He goes
to the Browns, spends two years there, doesn't play Astro's release.
He's released. Stram calls him up and bring him on
down and that's wow. And that's when they started throwing
the ball move. They had one game against the Raiders,
and Hank was great at this. Hank Hank developed a

(15:31):
game plan to beat you, to beat the opponent. So
they're playing the Raiders of sixty eight. It was their
only loss, Oakland's thirteen to one, and Hank knew that
George Atkinson and Dave Grace with great cover guys, but
not very good tackles. So in that game, the Chiefs
threw three passes, completed two, and ran sixty times for

(15:55):
two hundred and seventy yards in one game. And I
think that's also what got what caught the Chiefs against
the Packers. What the Chiefs did against the Packers. They've
saw how great in coverage those three linebackers were. In
those drops you had to throw there, they're all tall,
you had to throw over their heads. So Hank besides,

(16:16):
won't make them play, So they schemed in the first
half to throw the ball to the running backs, move
the linebackers to make them play and had great success
with it. And Phil Benston asked, what's going on? So, well,
you know, they got five guys the he's what Benson says,
what are they do when we blitz? They said, well,

(16:38):
we haven't blitzed yet, so Banks says that have changed.
First time they passed were blitzing. So the first pass
to the second half, Dawson drops back, all three linebackers come,
Dawson's smothered interception going that way, and because they thought
they could continue throwing to the running backs, and the
Packers adjusted and that was the game.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
How do wanna be Hotel Casino? Your win is waiting.
We're talking with Rick Goslin, the author of the book
The Team History Forgot the nineteen sixties Kansas City Chiefs. Rick,
you know, for a long time when you and I
were in Kansas City, that team each year would get

(17:22):
grow bigger and bigger. The one that especially that evolved
into the Super Bowl champion would get bigger and bigger
and bigger as the Chiefs had went through their long
sojourn through the desert of despair. But you know when
I looked at that team and the personalities on it,
that first Super Bowl you could tell that they had

(17:43):
the basics, they had the foundation laid to be really good.
What personalities like Hank Stram. Did you get a chance
to talk to him about all of this?

Speaker 1 (17:55):
Yeah, yeah, he was flight the character.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, they talked.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
At one time, the Broncos wanted to trade Cookie Gilchris,
and both the Chiefs and the Raiders were on it
and the Bills. GM was saying, I've said the Bills
we're trying to trade them, and the Bills Jets, I
can't trade you because you know if I traded you
and we're having trouble beating, like, I'll never live it down.

(18:21):
So the Raiders and Chiefs going back and forth. So
one time one of the Raider people called Hags, Hey, uh,
mister Davis says he'll back off on Gil Chris if
you will, And he said okay, And Hank says, well,
I don't know if he will or not, but let's
see what kind of man he is. So he the
Chief the Bills. After the Raiders pulled out the Bills

(18:43):
called Chiefs, we're gonna give you Cookie ass Now we
don't want to Cookie. We're moving on. So that they
ended up had traded the Broncos. But he got a
lot of respect for El Davis because of that, because
he was a man of his word. He was he
said he wouldn't go after him, and he didn't go
after him out. Yeah, Hank was a piece of work.
He's he was quite the You know that Super Bowl

(19:06):
One or Super Bowl Full was first time a coach
had every biked down the sidelines and those that thing
lives on decades later, and you had to get the
right personality to do that, and Hank was the guy
that did that. He was he was quite the character,
and he was he was a great coach. He was
a great coach, and he finally got in the Hall
of Fame. I talked about metioned earlier how the AFL

(19:27):
didn't get respect and to this day they don't get
their respect. In the nineteen sixties NFL First Team All Decade,
there were twenty three players, twenty two of them have
BUS in the Hall of Fame. There are twenty two
players on the AFL First Team All Decade. Only ten
have BUS and three of them got in his seniors.

(19:50):
All six of the Packers on the first Team All
Decade are in the Hall of Fame. Only two of
the six Chiefs that were on that AFL All Decade
team are in the Hall of Fame. Just to this day,
that league hasn't got respect that it really deserves.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
Who gave Angstram the nickname the mentor?

Speaker 1 (20:10):
The other nickname was Dapper? A lot of the Dapper
and that that came out of the can't see lockerhom
I can't remember. I never got I didn't talk to
enough people to find that out. But yeah, I mentioned
both the mentor in the game.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
But he was he was both. He was born.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
I'll tell you an it. Going back to Super Bowl four,
of course, the Vikings were two Testown favorites. The Chiefs
played the Vikings in the preseason in sixty eight in Minnesota,
and the Chiefs won the game thirteen to seven, and
they left realizing we are bigger, stronger, faster, younger, and

(20:48):
deeper than the Vikings. They knew they were going to
win Super Bowl four. And in the second quarter, when
standry Rude met his third field will put on nine
to nothing, the talking to sidelines is this game over.
They're not going to score runs. So that wasn't the
in the Chiefs mind. That wasn't the upset that America
saw with the Vikings. I favored my favorite chapter of

(21:11):
the book, the Chicago Bears. The Chiefs were embarrassed and
humiliated and angered by their performance in that Super Bowl.
It was in their mind it wasn't a thirty five
to ten game interception with Gibway. And then they're listening
to Lombardy about the Chiefs can't play with best teams NFL.
So now in sixty seven, for the first time that

(21:34):
NFL AFL exhibition games, they sent the Chicago Bears to
Kansas City, first time the Chiefs had seen an NFL
team since the Super Bowl. The Bears come in think
it's going to be an exhibition game, not Hank, they
were mid season ready. Chiefs won sixty six to twenty four,

(21:56):
and the only reason the score was that low they
missed a two point trying last minute to two antidotes.
Third cord to the Chiefs are in the forties and
Bukus tells lan Dawson, you better stop scoring. You gotta
kill that horse, because they had a horse that would

(22:17):
trotter on the field after touch that you got to
kill that horse.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
And the other one.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Now it's it's late in the third cord of the
Chiefs are and they get in the upper fifties and
Chris Burpert's running back from the hullo. Richie Petovo says, hey, Chris,
when you guys got to call off the dogs urphorsis
not today, Richie? Not today? After the Super Bowl, After
that Super Bowl loss, Hank went eight and two against

(22:42):
the NFL.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
Oh wow, you mentioned miking him up and people will forever.
I think they still have the T shirt sixty five
toss power trap, right, the most famous play. Is it
fair to is it not an exaggeration or is it
an exaggeration to say that that game with him being
wired did so much for the continued growth of the game.
It was already on an upward trajectory by that time.

(23:05):
But just wiring a coach in the biggest game of
the year, which he won, which was maybe not in
the cheese locker room but the outside world was probably
considered an upset. But just for the growth of the sport,
is it too much to say that that went a
long way in helping it grow the way it did?

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, I think a big part was NFL films. The
NFL films took you to the sideline took you to
the field. And again that was an NFL films idea
to make up Hank and the NFL films. You remember
what'sing the the NFL. This is the NFL all the
great highlight films they did. But to get that was

(23:45):
the sables. They wanted to mike up somebody, and Hank
was the most willing. Most coaches wanted. No park at Hank,
give me the mic and a few a few shekels
and a mic roll, We'll do it.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
You know. It's interesting because they got Lombardi in nineteen
sixty seven on that rant in Minnesota where the Packers
are playing bad and easy, railing at people and you
know what the hell's going on out there, you know,
But it was all He wasn't miked up. It was,
you know, a microphone near the proceedings. But yeah, I

(24:21):
just as you were talking about this, Rick, I couldn't
help but think, well, what if they miked up Bud Grant,
we wouldn't be talking about this forty fifty years later.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
First off, Bud, I don't think Bud Brant would do it.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
He would have done it. No, most I think.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Part part of the reason you do it is because
you're selling the AFL. The NFL didn't need to sell itself.
The AFL did. I got another chapter on the merger itself,
and the only person I quoted is Zelle Davis. I
got to know Hell pretty well and had a number
of sip doowns with him. He didn't want to merge,
and there are a lot of players that did not

(24:57):
want that merger. The owners wanted the merger, but the players,
they felt. Davis philt, we can beat the NFL, we
can take them down. You know, they got that big
TV contract from NBC in sixty four that that basically
gave him the money to sign Joe Namath and they
were now getting Mike Garrett won the Heist and Trophy.

(25:18):
The Chiefs got him. Uh, they are now getting to
a point whether you know they're the guys they were
signing were not afterthoughts. They were getting some of the
biggest Sampston college football and they really wanted to and
they were playing a more exciting brand of football. They
were throwing the ball. And their TV numbers are growing.
Because I remember growing up, I've watched the you know,
the Lions game or whatever, the NFL game is that

(25:38):
at that four o'clock start, and that AFL game is
always the second game. It was always Sonny San Diego
and Sonny Oakland and Sunny Denver, you know in Sunny Texas,
and they they played an exciting a brand of football.
They had the money, and the owners wanted to merger,
but the players Daviston, you know.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Rick, and having talked to you over the years, and
of so, I can't wait to read that chapter in
the book. But in the end, when you look at
it from the lens, we're looking at it now. And
maybe they didn't realize it at the time, but the
NFL needed that merger more than the AFL, especially with
the bidding war that was going on for players at
that time. Yeah, what happened.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
The Giants signed Pete Goblack away from the Bills. That
was first time an AFL player defected, and Davis had
just been named commission He sai, okay, you're going to
have our players. We're going after years, and he signed
a bunch of name NFL players I think Ditko's one
of the Roman Gabriel John Brody to future contracts. Their

(26:40):
contracts spired in nineteen sixty six and they were all
going to the AFL in nineteen sixty seven, and you
start losing quarterbacks like that to the other league. The
Chief Davis philt he had the NFL on the run,
and that thing was cut A short time later after
that we got those players signed.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Rick, I'm hearing you talk about how you got to
know Al Davis and the the access Then I mean
when did that? When did that fade? I mean, I
guess Jerry Jones is available Jim for most folks you
want to talk to him. But when did When did
the access players, coaches, GM's club presidents. Where did that

(27:21):
all start to change?

Speaker 1 (27:23):
I think with the success of Parcels and then later
Belichick and you get that the one voice. We want
one voice speaking to the organization. You know, Wayne remembers
as I was when I was covering the Chiefs and
they were terrible. I had open access. I used to
walk down the coaching corridor to the head coach's office,
go in while he's watching film, pour himself a cup

(27:43):
of coffee, walk out. I could PLoP down with any
assistant coach in his little officer watch film where you
shoot the breeze with him. I can go into training.
I'd open access everywhere in the building. You know, there
was one newspaper town. There wasn't talk radio, there wasn't ESPN.
You know, they wanted all the media covers they get
for as bad as that football team wants. But I

(28:04):
think when, when, especially when Parcells started winning it that
they became, they became, they start shutting things down. And
I thought, and I've told and you read and a
number of edible coaches, why do you prevent your assistant
coaches from talking? I says, I could go to an
assistant coach with a story idea and you could tell me, well,

(28:27):
that's pretty stupid, so I wouldn't write it. I mean,
you you can control what's being said if if you're
allowed to speak. But now there are a lot of
people writing things that they don't know what they're talking about.
But it's getting out there because there's no already control
of being able to talk to players and coaches. I
hate I could not a functioned as an NFL beat

(28:50):
guide in today's world. I mean I had access. I
I knew everybody for one, you know, all my draft stuff.
I was talking to all thirty two teams. But if
they say you can't. You can't talk to anybody, you know.
I used to go when I was doing the NFL.
I used to travel every weekend the best game of
the week and I always stay over today and I'd

(29:10):
sit on and talk to the head coach the GM
and you know one of the star players, you know,
a Bret for Harbor of Peyton Manny or Steve Young,
something like that. I don't know that that's possible in
today's NFL. And it just again, I think Parcels and Belichick,
their success changed everything.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah, I think that, Rick, and I also think the
NFL getting as big as it did. For example, I
got to Green Bay in nineteen ninety nine and there
was this little you remember the old office, a little
pill box in the north end zone of an office.
And you would walk in the front door, go straight

(29:51):
up the stairs and walk into Bob Harlan's office and say, Bob,
how you doing, And he would drop whatever he's doing
and visit with you, sit down, talk with you, you
could do, meet with got to know assistant coaches really well,
and that type of thing. Today everything is orchestrated today.
There isn't public relations in the NFL. It's called corporate communications,

(30:12):
meaning that everything, all the exposure you get, for the
most part, unless you really sweet talk the quote unquote
head of communications, everything you get. I think you would
be very frustrated, Rick in that everything you get is
in a press conference. And there is no greater waste
of time for any journalist, for a play by play guy,

(30:32):
for an analyst than those moments at listening to the
coach try to tell you as little as he can,
and the assistants even worse. So you don't get the
inside today that we used to get in the forty
years ago. You just don't. It's unfortunate. I think it's
a combination, like you said, of what Parcels and you

(30:53):
know Belichick did and they were cut from the same cloth,
and the corporate explosion of the NFL, and these are
billion dollar entities now and you just can't walk in
the front door and go upstairs and talk to the
president of the team anymore.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
I think the other issue is just the volume of media,
the explosion of talk radio and podcasts. You know, there
are just so many more media now, and I'm not
sure how educated a lot of the media is. You know,
when you're you're dealing with big guy. He's better on
the team every day, you know since since July. You know,
you develop relationships, but so many people now are showing

(31:31):
with locker just holding microphoss, not asking questions and just
there's it's and now they're doing you know that when
I last did it in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, either
doing player in news on cell phones. You know, you're
talking to radio station, interrupting your interview so the guy
can go on on the radio on a cell phone.

(31:51):
It's it's chaos. It's again they want the one voice,
corporate pr and then just the influx of media. It's
made it very very difficult rule to get a true story.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Really good points. And that's why this book, The Team,
the History forgot the nineteen sixties Kansas City Chiefs. You
had access that we don't get today to these teams.
Nobody gets access to the Kansas City Chiefs like you
got with these guys over the course of the last
fifty years now.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
And again these interviews were thirty and forty years ago.
I mean, I've still got the tapes the Little America.
I had to find a cassette player that could play
the Little cassettes, and I also had to find an
adapter that could transcribe, or that could I could pull
my interviews off of three and a half inch floppy
You can't. You can't get those. I put them all

(32:42):
right right back in nineteen the early nineteen nineties, and
they came out those three and a half in floppies.
I put a drive the teen History Forgotten, and I
put all the interviews there and I kept that in
my foul cabot. When I sided whe the book, I
pulled it out and there they were Willie Davis and
Lynn Dawson, Notice Taylor and.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Jim Taylor.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
But Jim Taylor gave her herb Batterley was a college
teammate of Fred Arbanas. He gave Super Bowl tickets to
our banners for his family for that game for Super
Bowl one.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
A lot of those guys, you know, especially in the
Big Ten. I'll tell you all thing about this book.
I think the reason that AFL caught on caught on quickly.
And I talked about how Lamar Hunt founded the team,
founded the league. Here's a guy who's from Texas. He
played at smy A. Two players name to the hundredth
Anniversary team Randon Durian Forest Grade. He's looking at all

(33:41):
these great players from Texas, Bobby Lane and Kyle Road
and Sammy Baugh. He's saying, why do all the great
players Texas have to go up into the Midwest and
Northeast to play pro football? That was a tight little
fraternity up there. And then those two teams in the
West coast. So when Lamar founds the league, he goes

(34:03):
to Boston never had a team. Minnesota was an original
franchise that they balked on him before two teams in Texas.
He goes to Denver. He made his vision, made pro
football a national sport. He forced the NFL when they expanded.

(34:25):
They go to New Orleans and they go to Dallas.
He forced the NFL to open its size and make
it that because it was all up in the Northeast
corridor and in the Midwest. And that's the best thing
I think Lamar did. He made the sport a national one.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
Want to go back.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
I should have followed up on this a few months ago.
Rick Auld, you mentioned that the AFL that the All
Decade Team isn't as represented as it could be in
the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Is there a glimmer
of hope that that could change, And is there a
name or two that you might push more than the
rest at least to get that start.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Well, I'm on the committee, and I think the committee's
gotten so young.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
They haven't they don't know. They didn't see the AFL
players like Wayne and I did. And it's getting tougher
and tougher. Last year there were three senior players up,
Maxi Bond, Jim Tyre, Stirling Sharp. We voted the one
player who played in the nineteen nineties that all the
voters had seen. It's going to be tough, I think

(35:30):
for players with fifties, sixties, seventies and even the eighties
to get in now because the committeees, with the demise
of newspapers, the committed, the committee's gotten so young, and
you know, you look around. Tom Sestak would have been
a Pro Bowl player in the NFL, a defensive tackled
with the Bills, the chiefs Now Jim Tyre was the

(35:53):
best defensive line in the AFL. He'll never get in
for Robby's reasons. But I think I think two guys
that had been over low from that era where one packer,
one chief, Fred Arbannis, Ron Krame. I think Ron Kramer
should have been in a Hall of Fame, and I
think Fred Arbannis should have been in the Hall of Fame.

(36:14):
But the committee's gotten so young, and it's they become
more statistics driven. They don't realize it was a different
game in the sixties than it was in the eighties.
It was a different game in the eighties and it
wasn't the twenty tents. And it's just it's tough because
the committee loves now loves stats, and those great players
didn't have the stats. You know, Del Schafter in the

(36:39):
for the Giants in the nineteen sixties, he's he averaged
twenty twenty one catch for game, was five time first
team All bro You're a five time first team All Pro.
I mean, I think there's only two have been the
whole senior pool. I mean he deserved He's never been considered,
never been talked talked about her. It's just that that's
one of the philosopher process. I think they should cycle
on more names to the rule. And I also think

(37:01):
that in the Senior committee that you should pick your nominee,
and I don't think the nominee should have to be
voted on by the committee, because you're gonna ask forty
nine people, most of them who've never seen this player.
If the senior in baseball, the baseball they picked their
seniors and those guys are automatically in. I think the
football should do that same way because I think again,
Maxie Bond, who I presented last year, he went to

(37:25):
nine Pro Bowls in the nineteen sixty decade, just the
one decade. Now, he went to more Pro Bowls than
the three all decade linebacker did combined. And last year
was the first year he was discussed. People had never
seen MAXI bahm, they know Maxie bad and now he
may be lost forever because he didn't get enough votes

(37:45):
to get get in there. It's going to be tough
for any of the old Packers of the AFL guys.
There's just it's a shame, but that's reality. The committee's
gotten so young. When I talk the sixty Packers, seventy Steelers,
even eighty four nine ers, I'm speaking a foreign language.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
Yeah, it was not easy to get Jerry Kramer, the
great Packers guard, into the Hall of Fame? Was it?
You know?

Speaker 1 (38:10):
I thought, as a matter of fact, I made the
presentation to Jerry I thought, I thought he was the
best player, not in the Hall of Fame, in the
senior pool, not in the Hall of Fame. And the
point I made with him is, you know, during that
there was a like a thirteen year period where we
put it a one guard, wasn't they were just snubbing
Jerry Carry. There's stubbing all guards and here's a guy

(38:34):
who picked as the best guard in the first half
century of football. That alone should qualify, you know. They
talked about you know, maybe the book, you know, tacked
off a lot on the sports right as back then
we're voters. I don't know. All I know is he's
he was the best player of day and now he's in,
so it wrong has been right The second best player,
Naddy and I thought it was Johnny Robinson and that's

(38:56):
been righted. He's in the Hall of Fame. But yeah,
it's it's it's tough. It's tough as a scene. Ye
it just again, I wish we didn't have to have
the committee vote and the senior canidate just put them
in like baseball.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah, no, it's fair.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
That's I think Hall of Fames in every sport, even
locally here with stuff. It's the same thing. There's such
a recency bias. If someone's up been on the committee
since twenty ten, you get a gold watch.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
You know.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
It's just this, it's what it's. It's the it's the
fight that I guess you keep fighting. It working again?
Where rick best way to uh to get for folk
folks to get their hands on this book the team
that history for the nineteen sixties Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
You can go do on the Nebraska Press dot com.
That's the publisher and that's probably the quickest way. And
also it's available on Amazon. Were not sure right here?

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Perfect? There you go.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
It's a fire huddle. When did that start? And why
did they stop it?

Speaker 1 (39:55):
That was That was lond Dawson. That was that was Hank.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
That was Hank.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah, and that's that's the picture. I wanted uncover that book,
the quarter Huddle, And you made notice I got Andy
Reid wrote the forward for me.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Nice, that's awesome. No. I read the forward and I
read your your start of the book too, when you
were talking about you and your buddy playing against your
older brother and his buddy and you guys were the
NFL team and they were the a f L team
and they won every time. And then I made you
an NFL fan, And that's why you wrote it rooted

(40:28):
for the Packers of the first two Super Bowls.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Look, I cheered AFL or the NFL all the first
fource of bulls.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
I was.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
I was a dying world NFL guy.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Yeah you know, Ricky, you grew up in gross Point.
Was it gross Point, Michigan pum Park? Yeah, gross Point Park?
The Thanksgiving Day game which will be played in a
day or so. Well, what did it mean to you
growing up? How big a deal was that for for
local in that area? Well, first off, we couldn't get

(41:00):
it on TV. Oh that's right, blackout, blackout what you could.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Put tenfoil on your antenna and get to get the
signal out of Lansic.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
So I, but.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
It's the one football that stands out, one football game
that stands out board any other, that sixty two game
as a Lion fan beating the best Lombardi team. So
I found it interesting. The Detroit Lions put out a
note on Twitter or x last week that Aiden Hutchson

(41:34):
set a franchise record with six quarterback hits. I felt
compelled to comment, I said, didn't the seven sacks by
Barts or by Roger Brown in Thanksgiving sixty count as
quarterback hits?

Speaker 4 (41:51):
No?

Speaker 1 (41:51):
It wasn't. It wasn't officially a statistic. And so I says,
I says you, the franchise is ninety five years old.
You're not going to count the first six years of
the franchise or first seven years the franchise. The man
had seven sacks?

Speaker 3 (42:05):
How can that be.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Your reference for quarterback hits?

Speaker 3 (42:09):
And there's and there's video evidence.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
NFL Films has the video evidence of.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Amazing. That's great, that's awesome. It's good to talk with
you as always looking forward to getting the hard copy
of the book because I wanted my library after I
read it. And I can't thank you enough for taking
time out with this good luck with that book. It's
a great piece of work, it really is.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
By the way, I'll be worseed you got Thanksgiving?

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Yeah, I bet you. But are you still rooting for
the Lions?

Speaker 4 (42:41):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Actually, I guess so many friends on so many teams
that just after fifty years ago in the NFL, I
know everybody. I'm a fan of good football.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
All right, you go, I hope we get a good
football game that day.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, I'm subsisted.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yeah, I appreciate it. Guys, Thank you very much, Thank
youre Rick V.

Speaker 4 (42:57):
Larabee. Lapay Podcast is presented by me because Casino Hotel.
Your win is waiting. Fun time of year, Packers' Lions
coming up, Thanksgiving Day, the Battle for the Acts, Wisconsin
Minnesota Saturday up in Minneapolis and Wayne. Since we last talked,
the Badgers have two wins against top twenty five teams.

(43:18):
They had a little drystell there, but what a way
in what has been a grinding, very difficult season for
these guys to be able to win their last two
home games. You know, the field rush is fun for
the kids. Hopefully that'll you know, next year. Maybe you
save it for the big, big games, but in the meantime,
you have some fun, which they did. Good for them

(43:41):
as hard as they're playing in a season that's been
a real tough one for Matt. You know, for those
who haven't seen the Badgers up close on a regular basis,
what's made the difference for them with these two wins
over nationally ranked teams, and especially the win over Illinois
that had to feel special for a lot of withs
consin fans Illinois coach by former great head coach for Wisconsin.

(44:04):
I thought he did a great job, Brett bildemo what
he was here, and he's doing a bang up job
down at Illinois. That's a big win over Illinois, regardless
of the personalities involved. Oh absolutely, yeah. And Brett's a
friend and he's always going to be a friend. And
then I wish them all the best this week and
in their bowl game. And you're right, he's he's done
some terrific work done and down in Champagne. This Wisconsin

(44:26):
defense way and has really been getting after it. They've
had five sacks in each of the last three games.
It's some young guys who were playing really well, but
it's also some seniors as they're getting close to the
finish line of their college careers and you know, it'd
be easy if you let it to just kind of
tap out, and they're not doing that. Yes, some guys
who I think are probably getting on the radar of

(44:49):
some NFL scouts with the way they're playing, like Darryl Peterson.
He had three sacks in the game on Saturday against
Illinois two and a half sacks the week before. I mean,
he's been playing extremely well. Offensively, they're doing enough. They
were actually in the Illinois game they had they've been
sorely lacking in explosive plays and they had a big

(45:11):
one on an eighty four yard touchdown.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
Run from derry On Dupree.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
They're not throwing it much, but Carter Smith, the quarterback
who's demonstrated in ability to run the ball, still more
to prove throwing it, but he was efficient. He was
nine of eleven, a little more than the two for
three from the from what Rick was talking about in
the AFL days with the Texans slash Kansas City Chiefs.

(45:38):
But they've just the thing that's been impressive is that
they have played with with tremendous tenacity that quite frankly,
we didn't see last year. Now they were maybe out
of gas a year ago. They had some guys undersize,
they didn't have the depth, particularly on the defensive side
of the ball. This year they have more of it.
They're getting pressure on quarterbacks, they're getting tackles for loss,

(46:01):
and offensively, you know, baby steps as they might be,
they're they're doing doing a better job there. So it's
it's it's something waying that It's encouraging to see the
rosters going to look quite a bit different next year
because you do have a lot of guys who are
at the end of their college careers, and then with
the portal and all of that, who knows what's going

(46:21):
to happen, But I think they're you know, the word
culture gets thrown around so much, but I think that
is starting to be established here the way these guys
have gone out and played in a in a season
where they know they're going to have more losses than wins,
but they're still out there leaving everything that they have
to give on the field.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Yeah, and you know, Matt as you were mentioning the
seniors that are going to be heading off hopefully the
bigger and better things if they choose in football or elsewhere.
But the senior factor, I think, but also the culture
they're trying to build in that program. I feel good
for coach Pickle, who's come under so much pressure. You

(47:04):
have told me off the air, he's a great guy
and you really want to see him succeed and if
he you know, I think it kind of verifies what
Chris McIntosh, the athletic director, said and took he stepped
out before they started winning these games and said, Luke
Pickle's coming back next year. We're going to support him better.

(47:24):
But I think all of this, what we're seeing is
it's real hard, folks. I don't care if you've been
in sports or not. It's real hard. Once a team
has had kind of its season taken away, everybody goes
in looking for the postseason. And when you're out of it,
how do you play then? What's your character level? And
this team has shown some character to play hard, as

(47:45):
you just pointed out, even though they're not going to
be rewarded with a Bowl game.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
Yeah, it has been. It says a lot about those kids.
It says a lot about, you know, the way Luke
and his staff are coaching them, and the guys who've
been around. It says a lot about the kind of
the other character of the players that Paul Christ and
that staff brought in too. You know, guys like Aaron
Witt and a Ben Barton, Darryl Peterson, Ricardo Hallman, and

(48:12):
so on and so forth. Guys on the offensive side
of the ball like a Riley Malman and a Vinnie Anthony.
Riley is an offensive lineman and Vinnie, a wide receiver
who's had limited chances this year because of all the
the you know, the shortcomings of the passing game, but
he still does all the other things and I think
with his athletic ability, he's going to get a look.
He's going to have a chance to play in the NFL.

(48:34):
So those are the things I think that are very encouraging.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
And you're right.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
I mean, you know, Chris McIntosh put himself out there
and you kind of knew what the public response was
going to be when the announcement was made that Luke
was was going to come back. You know, I think
when you get somebody like a Ted Kellner, who's been
a major donor to two athletics, He's been a major
donor to a lot of things in the state of
Wisconsin and is one of many reasons why the Bucks

(49:02):
are still in Milwaukee. I mean, he's done so much
beyond helping the football programer helping athletics. But when you know,
when he kind of had his own media tour, Jim Poulsine,
the State joeneral sports columnist, had had to sit down
with Ted here in the last couple of weeks, Ted
did some that did some radio on ESPN Wisconsin a

(49:24):
week or so ago.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
And you know Ted is uh.

Speaker 4 (49:27):
You know, Ted's a very loyal guy, but you don't
get his wealth by just being a fanboy.

Speaker 3 (49:33):
You know.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
I think he's a smart guy. So you know, so
if you're Luke Fickle and you hear that trust coming
from someone like him and others to be sure, you know,
maybe it allows you to exhale a little bit and
maybe the team did as well. It's like, okay, this
is you know, our coach is going to be our
coach here the rest of this season and on endto
next so so let's go. So a lot of credit

(49:55):
to them, the leadership within the players in the locker room,
the leadership at the time. Obviously with the staff, they
know they have work to do. I mean this, you know,
rushing the field was fun and I'm not against that,
but hopefully the next time that happens, it's after a
big win and you're much higher in the standings. So

(50:16):
I would like to think that what has transpired these
last two home games. If you're a player who's going
to remain on the team moving forward, you look at
this as a preview of coming attractions.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
You continue to.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
Play the way you've been playing, and you bring in
better talent, have better luck with health. It'd be nice
to go through a season without your fourth quarterback, your
fourth center, and at times your fourth running back and
among other things. But you get it back to where
you expect it to be. The one thing, too, Wayne,
it's easy to It's easy to forget as a fan

(50:50):
or even some of those in the media. Wisconsin, there's
a history of ups and downs. There was the brilliance
of the three Big Ten Championships, the Rose Bowl wins
under Barry Alvarez, but there was also a roller coaster,
and you know, Paul christ had at a great level
of success. They fell short in the Big Ten Championship games.

(51:10):
Brett's teams fell short in the Rose Bowl, but there
were a lot of ups with those guys as well.
But there's always a little bit of a roller coaster
there that's easy to forget, and it just demonstrates how
hard it is to win. I mean, Barri's last six
years it was kind of bumpy in Big Ten play,
but he is rightfully and most deservedly a first ballot

(51:31):
College Football Hall of Famers. So it is hard. It's
hard to win here, so when it happens, you hope
that everybody appreciates it a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
I get it.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
The bar is high, expectations are high. But if some
of the blue blugs like Florida State, Florida and others
can struggle, that's an indication that everybody is vulnerable. Now
we'll see if they can go about continuing to take
the steps here to fix it really quick. I want
to ask you about the BANDG basketball.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
You guys went out to Salt Lake and lost, uh
to BYU. What does that mean? Where are the Badgers?
Where do you project them going into the Big ten
play eventually?

Speaker 4 (52:13):
Yeah, they got They got hit between the eyes in
that game. They played four of those by games bu
white games here in Madison. Took care of their business
and went out there and played a BYU team that
is top ten and played that way. Wisconsin missed some
early shots, not just outside, but missed some chippies and
you know, maybe didn't move the ball the way that

(52:33):
they normally moved the ball. They were they were slow
on closeouts defensively, and a team like BYU.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Is gonna carve you up. And that was what happens.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
So now they've got the Thanksgiving Day game against Providence
and then either TCU or the Raginny National champs of
Florida on Friday. So, as Greg Guard mentioned, Wayne, going
going into this long road trip.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
They were gonna they were gonna learn quite a bit.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
About themselves, and so you have to challenge yourself. They
have more of that coming up Northwestern Marquette a week
from Saturday, so you know, in this next week and
a half or so, they're gonna really get a gauge
of where they are and where they believe they have
to get better.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
All Right, the Packers, and we're taping this on Tuesday
play Thursday morning, actually early afternoon in Detroit of the
most traditional Thanksgiving Day matchups against the Lions. I'll tell
you the only thing I learned from the Vikings game,
and I knew it going in. But for anyone who's
listening to us and just doesn't understand how one position

(53:35):
on a roster of fifty three men, of eleven men
on the field at one time, how one position can
make such a difference, all you had to do was
watch the Minnesota Vikings this year, and they are Larry
mccaern's Sunday morning. Said to me when I got into
the Boothy, say, you know, I think Minnesota's better than
they were a year ago. And they had done a

(53:57):
lot of work on the offensive and defensive line. They
had fortified those areas. They won fourteen games last year
and this year they're struggling. They're under five hundred. Why. Well,
that one position. They've got a quarterback in JJ McCarthy,
who I know you saw in the college game. I
think he's very talented. Watching a lot of tape on
him getting ready for the game last Sunday. He can

(54:19):
make the throws. He's learning touch, but he's learning. And
he's a rookie quarterback who did not play his rookie year,
true rookie year at all due to injury. And I've
got to tell you something, they got a little bit
of pressure on him. When that game got the two
score game, the Packers unleashed their pass rush and McCarthy
was no match for it. And he's got great skilled

(54:42):
people around him. They've got arguably the best skilled positions
in the game today. But that quarterback position, you could
be better, and the Vikings might be better in the
Packers overall on roster. Okay, they might have more talent,
I don't know. Maybe they do, but they don't have
have a better quarterback than the Packers have and that

(55:03):
made all the difference in the world. And that game
wasn't even close in Green Bay against the Vikings. But
I didn't learn anything about it because the Vikings, really
their quarterback was not competitive that day. He did not
have the kind of day they had hoped he would.
But it's a lot because he is performing as a rookie.

(55:25):
He's not ready to play. He has to play. They
have no alternative tenth pick in the draft. They're playing
him ahead of his time, even with a great quarterbacks
coach like Kevin O'Connell. But the difference is last year
Sam Darnold, who's now, by the way, still tearing it
up in Seattle, he was their quarterback last year. They
won fourteen games. They elected to allow him to leave.

(55:46):
They also had Daniel Jones in their building last year
and they allowed him to leave for Indianapolis. He's playing
at an MVP level right now for the Colts, so
they cast their lot with this young quarterback. I think
he's got a chance to be good, but The biggest
challenge for Kevin O'Connell is not winning games this year.

(56:07):
It's not breaking that quarterback.

Speaker 4 (56:09):
Yeah, that's the thing that's interesting Wayne. To me, from
the outside looking in, it just seems like an organizational misstep.
I mean we I think we sat after the first
game and we were both singing the praises of JJ
McCarthy because of what you just said a moment ago.
He is talent, he's in essence of red shirt frushman.
He's hurt last year, you know, and it gets hurt
in the preseason, doesn't play at all. It's such a

(56:31):
fascinating decision that they made, given the talent that they
have on that team, and given the you know now
now now now now mentality that we have about everything,
maybe in life, but particularly in sports, that with that
kind of talent around him, that they would have a
rookie quarterback who may in a couple three years be

(56:52):
really really good, but when you're trying to win games now,
it was interesting that there wasn't another veteran, you know,
they didn't they were going to move on from the
two from a year ago. There's somebody I don't know,
that guy down in Atlanta who was in Minnesota before,
Like somebody could have been, some veterans could have been
a better fit and given that team a better chance

(57:15):
to be successful.

Speaker 3 (57:16):
Mat Aaron Rodgers was begging to go to Minnesota, begging,
my goodness, what a difference he would make in that team.
They'd be right up there with the best in the
league because their skilled position players are second to none
running backs, wide receivers, tight end, and their defense is outstanding.
You've got two great coaches, and O'Connell on the offensive

(57:37):
side and Flora's on the defensive side, and one position.
Boys and girls, let me tell you something. You cannot
underscore the importance of quarterback in pro football enough. You
just can't. And that's the example I would use to
show everybody. So yeah, good catch.

Speaker 4 (57:56):
By the way, Sorry interrupt, because I always thinking Kirk Cousins.
But of course Aaron Rodgers wanted to go. That seemed
like a logical fit, So good catch.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Yeah, But Kirk would have been fine too, and returning
to Minneapolis, he would have loved to have done that.
Packers and Lions. Did you realize, Matt, these two I
mentioned the most traditional of Thanksgiving meetings. This is the
twenty third meeting on Thanksgiving Day for the Packers and Lions.
It happens to be a big game Detroit. As seven
and four, they've already lost twice as many games as

(58:24):
they did all of last year. Okay, in the regular season,
they missed their window of opportunity last year. We have
talked about this on this show. You miss your window
of opportunity, you go back to the bottom of the
pile and try to find your way up the mountain,
and by the way, you don't take the same path
that's not available to you. So they're kind of struggling
along here. They're not as good as they were a

(58:46):
year ago. They have players, I think they probably have
across the board the best talent in the division. But
they're not playing as well. And why because it's hard
to play the way they did last year as well
as they did years in a row. It's hard to
do that. You can, but it's it's very difficult. So
they're in the thick of it with the Packers, both

(59:07):
of them. Isn't this ironic? Here we are in late November,
right before Thanksgiving, and these two franchises are looking up
at the Chicago Bears how about that turnover. It's like
we all predicted, So are you are you a believer?
Are you a believer? In the Naddy? I had that
on my Bengo card right from the beginning. I had Bengo.

(59:28):
Oh my gosh, it's hard to believe how close we
are to Bengo cards. But that being the entertainment for
the day. But at any rate, it should be an
interesting ball game. The Lions. The Giants just wore them out.
I watched the end of the game, the Packers game,
by the way, against the Vikings. I've never seen an
NFL game finished back quick. We started at noon. We

(59:49):
were done by quarter of the three three. I said
to somebody, did we not have a halftime or whatever you.

Speaker 4 (59:58):
Know or most skate tail? Okay, more time for you
way out there that parking lot.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
So after I got off the air, I watched the
end of that Lions game, and boy, I tell you,
the Giants just wore them out. The Lions defense on
the field for seventy seven plays in that overtime game,
and they gave up over five hundred yards of offense
to Jameis Winston, who did some incredible things. But he
also in the end reverted to the Jamison Winston we

(01:00:23):
all know and love. He did throw a pick. Okay,
as many things as he did touchdown pass, caught a touchdown,
pass through an interception. It wouldn't be Jameis Winston without
the pick at any rate. So you're wondering how much
the Lions have left in the tank. But it's Thanksgiving,
it's a big game. Both teams heading down the stretch
need this game, so it'll be interesting to see how

(01:00:44):
it plays out. Hey, I've got our special feature, folks,
former Badgers playing against the Packers. Brand new feature on
the Larvi Lapay podcast this week. The Detroit Motor City
Kitties have no Wisconsin Badgers on their roster, well, not
even on the practice squad, not even on their fairly

(01:01:04):
long injury list, so we will not be doing another
podcast before the Packers play the Bears a week from Sunday.
But there's an excellent with ex Wisconsin Badger on the
Chicago roster starting outside linebacker TJ. Edwards. Tell us about him, man.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Yeah, you know, coming over there after some time at Philadelphia,
including playing in a Super Bowl a couple of a
few years back with the Eagles, he undrafted. You know,
he and Jack Sanmborg were a good tandem there and
now Sanborn has moved on. But TJ was, I mean,
just a great dude, really good player. You wonder, does
he have this speed? Would it translate, you know, the

(01:01:44):
way he played in college. Would his game translate to
the NFL. Obviously the answer is yes, really smart, Just
one of those guys that you didn't know for sure
what kind of an NFL career he would have, and
now he has carved I'd say it's safe to say
he's carved quite a niche. I mean, you and I
we had Jeff Joniak on the voys of the Bears,

(01:02:05):
I believe last year, and he was raving about him
and just what he was able to do, always around
the football, just a nose for it, loves it, what
he loves the sport, very well coached in his time
at Wisconsin. And it's just the latest example. And there
have been a number of them period through the years
in the NFL, but specifically out of Wisconsin. Yes, they've

(01:02:27):
taken pride in their draft picks. But you don't have
to be You can be that undrafted free agent and
you do the right things and get yourself ready and
have a good training camp and all of that. You
earn your spot and a roster and you make the
most of it. And TJ has done that, and I
think he's try to remember off the top of my head,
I think cashed in and got himself pretty nice contract too.

(01:02:50):
But yeah, he's really really well respected in the league.
So it's been fun to watch his career.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
And you know, Matt, as you were talking, you linebacker,
what is the most important ingredient? Yeah, you have to
run fast. You have to be big enough. I get that.
Instinct instinct separates quarterbacks on the NFL level. And you
also mentioned smarts. You can't be dumb and play linebacker
successfully in the NFL. You could be very athletic and

(01:03:17):
all this other stuff, but instinct and acumen football acumen
at least is what you need. Case in point, this
past weekend against Minnesota, Kway Walker, the Green Bay's outstanding
athletic linebacker leading tackler, couldn't play due to injury. Isaiah
mcduffee got in got the start. Isaiah McDuffie had a

(01:03:39):
heck of a day, almost ten tackles, picked off a
pass that helped turn the game around, and I mean
didn't miss a tackle, was there all day. It reminds
me a lot of TJ. Edwards. Maybe not quite as
talented as TJ. But Isaiah McDuffie just went in there
and all the intangibles that make up good line he has.

(01:04:01):
Does he have the athleticism that some have? No, But boy,
I tell you something, instinct and smarts can make up
for a lot on the NFL level.

Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
And you just never know how a player's going to develop, too,
because I remember talking with TJU. He was recruited pretty
aggressively by PJ. Fleck when Fleck was at Western Michigan.
So he was, you know, considered to be a MAC
level prospects coming out of college. And obviously they have
been in American comege put out a lot of players
in the NFL, but the Roethlisberger dude was pretty good

(01:04:32):
out of Miami University to name one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:04:35):
But and then you know, TJ had to make the
phone call to Flex and I want to go to Wisconsin.
Maybe an uncomfortable moment there in a phone conversation, but
that was like nobody knew for sure, but there was
constant staff. They saw something out out of this guy
and just to see the way he developed and just
somebody it sounds corny to save loves the game, but Wayne,

(01:04:58):
you and I have been around, if it's colleg your
pro some love the sport more than others. They just
you know, and it's yes, you do it to make
make a lot of money for your family and all
of that. But TJ. Edwards always struck me as somebody
who lives to play football and it's served him very well,
and it is serving in Chicago Bears very well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
Ted Thompson, the late Packers GM said that just like
you did very well. He always said that at the draft,
you know, when it was breaking down a prospect, he'd
always ask does he love the game? Because not everybody does.
Some are talented enough to play it, but they don't
love the game. And the best prospects, whether they're drafted
in the first round, fourth round, or come in via

(01:05:40):
free agency, those who love the game eventually will be rewarded.
And it's interesting to see you talk about TJ that way.
That's what my impression of him is watching him as
a player. Well, listen, Matt, happy Thanksgiving. I know you're
going to be working and Dave is going to be working.
But to all your family and to everyone listening, Happy Thanksgiving.

(01:06:03):
Special thanks to our guest, Rick Goslin, author of the
team History Forgot the nineteen sixties Kansas City Chiefs. Our
engineer is Dave McCann. The executive producer for the Lreavian
Play podcast on iHeart is Monica woodcop for Matt, This
is Wayne, will see you next time on the Leravi
La pay podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
The Laravian La Pey podcast is a production of iHeartRadio
Podcasts with hosts Way Larvy and Matt Lapey, with production
engineering by Dave McCann. The Lreavian La Pey podcast is
presented by Potawatamy Casino Hotel. Your win is waiting. Listen
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