October 24, 2018 • 46 mins
It's the Best of the Odd Couple with Chris Broussard and Rob Parker! Chris and Rob use Dodgers manager Dave Roberts' 7th inning gaffe in Game 1 of the World Series where he pulled flamethrower Pedro Baez in favor of a lefty-righty matchup as further proof that analytics are ruining sports as we know them. And, former All-Pro defensive end and FS1 personality Marcellus Wiley joins the guys in-studio to discuss his upbringing in Compton, the flaws in the NFL's collective bargaining agreement, why Chris Paul's barking might rub some folks in the NBA the wrong way, and much more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of the Odd Couple podcasts.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday from seven
pm to ten pm Eastern four to seven Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for the Odd
Couple at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
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(00:22):
You're listening to the best of the Odd Couple with
Chris Russo and Rod Harker. And let's get to the
World Series. Obviously, that's the biggest story going on right
now in sports. And Rob, I watched that game last night, Yes,
I know you did too. And what I saw was
(00:42):
it the seventh inning Pedro Bias had thrown gas It's
straight heat, Yes, Mos down two Red Sox batters with
his high fastballs that they went chasing. And then Dave Roberts, Oh,
(01:04):
I'm sorry, did I say that? Is it even? But?
Is it even? On? Dave Roberts He was looking at
his little analytics book. I don't know if he got,
you know, a call from on high whatever, whether it
was the front office, whether it was Dave Roberts, whether
it was both of him. He made an analytical move
(01:25):
and removed bias from the game put in Alex Wood
because he wanted the lefty righty matchup, and the rest
is history. The Red Sox hit a home run run
home run to put the game, and at that time
it was what five to four right right, and that
(01:47):
jet score to run the move with the move close
that the game is in then is a bloop and
a blast. You would win that game. You could easily
win that game. And that just you know what. I
get the analytics I do. I don't want to sound
like I'm a dinosaur and I don't understand some of
the matchups. Crest, I get it, but sometimes you gotta
have a gut a field. Somebody's pitching well, even though
(02:09):
it's lefty righting all that other stuff the guy has
was throwing gas. He was pitching well. Sometimes Jeff to
have an eye test and say, I know I should
go with the left handed pitcher here, but you know
what he's throwing so well, I'm gonna stick with him.
I don't want anybody else on the mount but Bayas
because he's pitching well enough to be able to make
(02:30):
it happen and get that final out. And it didn't happen.
That's exactly right, and none other than Alex Rodriguez agrees
with you and me. I'm clavergasted by that move. And look,
we always talk about a point guard. In order to
be good, you have to see the floor. A manager
has to do the same thing. What metric are they
previewed that you take out bias who's dominating faces two hitters,
(02:53):
strikes them both out. It didn't make any sense scripted baseball.
That's not working October. It could work during the season
script at baseball. This is why a Rod is on
ESPN and Fox Sports one and doing nobody unprecedented. Okay,
people could hate on him all he wants unprecedented, Chris,
(03:16):
you've been we both worked for both networks. Right, he's nobody,
He's terrific, and he's not afraid to say the move
made no sense. He could be friendly with Dave Roberts
or what everyone do, and they don't want to hurt
Dave roberts feelings or whatever. That is a real analyst
right there who called it the way season Oh question,
(03:36):
he was right on the money. I don't know if
anybody was watching to say A Rod is as real
as it comes. There. It didn't make sense there is
no way ten years ago, maybe even six years ago,
that a picture who he's looking that good, dominating, dominating,
(03:57):
You take him out? Why because some analytics told you?
And I'm getting tired of it, Rob, And I'm like you,
I understand the place of analytics. You're never going to
just completely say you don't need numbers, discount the science
and so on and so forth. But analytics is a
(04:19):
piece of the puzzle. It is not the whole puzzle
in the and it's not just baseball, it's the NBA.
Sam Hinkey tried to run the Philadelphia seventy six ers
based entirely on analytics, and where they give they were horrible.
Now I know you can say, oh, well, they got
Ben Premans and they got let's see exactly, let's see
(04:42):
how well that works out. Those are two guys that
look like they'll be stars. But remember they also drafted Nerlands, nowell,
where's he? And jalil Oka for two they had They
ended up so many times in the lottery that they
finally got lucky and got two guys who look like
they could play, two guys who've been hurt too. So
I don't want analytics. You should have an analytics department,
(05:06):
but your baseball operations or your basketball operations should not
be run entirely based on analytics. I'm getting sick of
it eight seven, seven ninety nine on Fox eight seven
seven nine nine six sixty three sixty nine. Give us
a call. Do you like this analytics stuff? Do you
think it's gone too far? Rob? I'm sorry, I don't know.
(05:29):
I don't know if it's gonna offend anybody. But it's
revenge of the nerds. It is. It's a bunch of
nerdy dudes out of anything about sport. And sorry, it's
playing it at any level. You don't have to be
a pro. We didn't play pro. You know, we didn't
play big time. Some feel there are analytics guys I
(05:49):
believe that can't watch a game and tell you what's happened. No,
from from knowledge. They can just tell you about the numbers.
And it is revenge of the nerds. The guys that
never got pick to play on the playground, and they
were upset and they were maybe unfortunately they were bullied.
I don't justify that they were, you know whatever. They
(06:09):
weren't the popular kids, the cool kids, the end crowd,
like the jocks. But now they're they've taken over sports
and they like it. And it's gone too far, no
doubt about it. And as for all the billy bean
you know, they give them so much props on all that.
Can you tell me the championship that the Oakland Age
one with billy beans running that analytic stuff? No zero?
(06:33):
And so everybody, Oh, well, you guys are dinosaurs. You're
living in the past, and you know you gotta have
the right matchups. RBIs don't matter, winds don't matter. They
got all these different things that I'll tell you. Oh no,
walks and run scored, matters don't matter, strikeouts don't matter.
They got all this other stuff, and it's been killing.
(06:54):
It's been killing baseball. It's killing the game because I'm
telling I don't recognize the game anymore. Rob g Our,
producer just said. Dave Roberts, obviously the manager for the
Dodgers Jess used the phrase on the MLB network. Trust
the process. Stop Stop. He's a hinky disciple like that.
(07:14):
But here's all these guys, and then it's the other one.
If you don't want to play ball their way, they
won't look at all. The older managers who they got
rid of. Remember we went they all John Farrell want
to win a championship with the Red Sox. They got
Dusty Baker's out of a job. Joe Girardi's out of
a job. Uh, we just saw, um, Mike Sosher's out
(07:35):
of a job. And Buck show Walters out of a job.
And who's the Mets manager? I just uh just this year, no,
two years ago, just got fired. Uh, I just forgot
his name. But but they another one, another older guy
who they got rid of. Um. And this is where
we are now. They don't want those guys anymore. They
want these young guys. They want to be able to
(07:57):
hand you there. Uh. And that's why they're not paying
these man No, they don't want to pay them. They
don't believe the manager has anything to do with it.
It's so bad here. Analytics led to what we saw
last night, or an over emphasis when the analytics because
again I'm not saying it doesn't have its place, but
it led to what we saw last night with newon
(08:18):
yas taking, taking Alex Wood deep and ending Game one
for the chances for the Dodgers. It led to the
Houston Rockets missing twenty seven straight three pointers in the
Playoffs Championship Conference Finals against the gold State Worris. How
can you shore because they believe you should only shoot
(08:41):
a three pointer or something in the pain. And let
me say this for all the analytics analytics heads out
there who are getting upset with Rod Parker and me
in terms of the NBA, they love the Golden State Warriors.
They say, the Golden State Warriors are the team that
you know, revolutionized basketball. And that's true. With the three
point shooting and all that. The Golden State Warriors don't
(09:03):
shoot too many three pointers. Last year they were around
twenty fifth in the league the pointers attempted. They were
first in three point percentage. But they want aunt right
in the amount. Kevin Durant is a mid range killer.
Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and Draymond Green and Durant,
they all get backdoor layouts. They get tons of backdoor layouts,
(09:27):
off cuts. They don't over extend themselves just to shoot
the three pointers. People should learn from that. Their balance
against who els is balanced. The Boston Red Sox right
right now probably the best team in baseball. They don't
they use analytics, but they don't go They don't. Yeah,
they don't go overboard. We've seen We've seen them make
moves that go against analytics that have worked out for them.
(09:48):
You know what I mean? Well, against the Yankees that
series rock Hole, they play him in. He gets this
for the cycle, for the cycle, in the in the playoffs.
And Cherry Collins is the manager I was taking off
of the mats. He another one older guy. All these
older guys, they're done. They don't want those guys anymore
if you're not willing to take their information from upstairs.
(10:09):
And when the when the Astros won the World Series
last year, Chris aj Hingston manager didn't make out the
lineup at all. The lineup was handed to him from upstairs.
Can you imagine one of these old guys doing that?
Never would happen, to believe. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Odd Couple with Chris Broussard and Rob
Parker weekdays at seven pm Eastern, four pm Pacific on
(10:31):
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app. I want
to just say that, dude, I know who y'all talking about.
Would I say, Dad, we gonna give his government Marcellus widely?
Let me let me give the Rundown. Y'all know him
a before. I know he likes hearing this too. I
ain't mad that he means all right, former all pro
defensive end obviously in the NFL, and now host of
(10:55):
Speak for Yourself on FS one, and an author with
a new book that Jess came out yesterday. Make sure
you pick it up. It's in stores now called The
book is called Never Shut Up. Let's welcome in our man,
Marcellis wildly man. It's great to have you in students.
Oh man, I love you guys. You know that, and
it is great to hear it, just because I remember
(11:16):
the days when there was nothing to say after the name.
You remember that, and now we got Marcellis Echo, Echo Chris, Chris,
you left out one thing, Okay, come on, he's an
ivy league graduated from Colombia. Don't go back. He saved
that for you. That's all he did that, you know, hey,
ivy leaguer. That leaguer also graduated from Yeah, yeah he did.
(11:40):
I wish he repped us a little more. Had come
on to Columbia, graduated from Columbia undergrad respect. But like
those other two schools are the ones you hear more
I know you don't hear Colombia as much. Nah. He
didn't have a great experience there, so I get it.
But you know, but that just makes it bigger for us. Baby.
Let me ask you this quickly about Columbia because my daughters,
(12:02):
one of my daughters is at penn Ones at Michigan,
and they lived at Columbia, right, And I'm not I'm
just both y'all went there. You were grad the right
school for me. The reputation that they got from people
they knew they went there was that like this is
where fund goes to die. What they said Colombia, they
said that our universe of Chicago, which we visited to,
(12:22):
and they said that about Columbia because my daughter's at
penn and they you know, they all the schools don't
have that rep that you heard rap. I lived it
all right, So it's true. I tell you. It's economic based,
and it's because Columbia is a smaller campus. It's a
quad um only of what ten blocks maybe at that
(12:44):
small town, uptown, small student population. So what happens is
you get so comfortable within those borders and as soon
as you step out, two things hit you. One, how
eclectic it is people from all over the world. Melton
Pot you love it, and then the cast You're like,
wait a minute, I'm in college. I don't have any
money in New York, dude. I used to go to
(13:05):
the City Bank on the corner, and thank god because
it was next to a Columbia campus, you could withdraw
ten dollars because if they would have said twenty minimum,
I would have never got my money out. I only
had like eighteen thirty five every year, you know what
I mean. So Columbia because of location, I think sometimes
scares people. Wait, therefore your fund stays on campus. Then
(13:26):
you start to say, man, the same thing. You know.
What else is cool is the restaurant they used to
eat at on Seinfeld is on the corner a Broadway
and like one thirteen. It's really called Tom's, but they
called it Monks on the show. But that's the exact Dinah.
It was when Seinfeld was huge probably, oh yeah, big time. Man,
(13:47):
it was great. I mean not only Seinfeld was huge,
the East coast, West Coast Beef was huge. Yeah. And
I'm from Compton, LA. And I'm in New York and
snooping them is crushing the buildings and I'm like, I'm
not from LA right now, but I am. And then
I go to LA and they're like, yo, you in
New York were biggieing on them guys. And Lauren Hill
(14:07):
went to our school and we used to Oh, man,
it was an amazing dollars show. So I saw Dave
Chappelle's first comedy show ever for a dollar run. DMC
came through Onyx, Lords of the Underground. Huge acts would
come through Columbia because it's New York City had right
for one dollar. Man, I saw so many great acts
at the time. Tell us about the book, what made
(14:29):
you write it? And really, I mean, obviously we want
people to read it, but just give us a little
taste of what we get if we bought the book
and read it. Yeah. I think five years ago a
publisher came to me and said, hey, your story is amazing.
We want to tell it to the masses. But I
thought that they were coming in a way that it
was going to be a third and goal Super Bowl
(14:49):
glory typical football book. Didn't want to write that, man,
I don't want to talk the typical experience. But then
that kind of parlayed into what it actually is, which
is a memoir to inspire um. I was born in
a place where the stats and the circumstances told you
wouldn't make it. And I was a guy who at
a young age put the cape on, said I'm responsible
(15:11):
for not only myself but my family, and it's time
to get up out the hood. And so I used
my only two tools I had in my belt, which
was my athletic success and my academic eagerness, and I
just said, I'm always gonna be this balancing that to
get out the hood. Then I got to Columbia, so
all the naysayers in the hood was like, Wow, this
dude went to an ivy league school. We didn't even
think he was gonna make it out the hood. And
(15:32):
then I'm at Columbia, and they shifted all of a sudden.
They said, You're not gonna make it to the NFL
to the worst school ever for football because Columbia lost.
What twenty did you think, like when you went to Columbia.
Were you thinking I'm gonna get a great education and
be you know whatever, or were you really thinking I'm
(15:54):
going to the NFL through Columbia. Yeah? Man, great question,
because I had to be responded with my decision. I
wasn't the typical seventeen year old saying I'm going to
the football factory. I was recruited to football factory. Yeah,
but I couldn't go there because too many of those
guys came back to the hood. Too many of those
guys didn't make it in the real world. They had
(16:14):
great careers and then you look up they're either broke
or going through the same adversity that they did before
they even made it to the league. So I had
to make a responsible choice, and that was to give
me the best safety net possible based on my decision.
So I had to play the long game. I couldn't
play the four years and Rose Bowl game. I had
to play when I'm done playing football, if it's in
(16:37):
four years or if it's in a decade of playing pro.
I got to open up doors with my resume, and
I couldn't go to a factory for that. And you
know what, when you go to schools like Columbia, there's
so many people we just were talking, who you know
are in these spots, you know, in these big corporate
and they do open doors. Well, oh, you went to Columbia.
(16:59):
Columbia I mean, it just changes things for you once
you once you graduate from absolutely man, you're presumed intelligent.
I mean, I don't even have to tell you by GPA.
I'm having these casual conversations with people on the airplane,
walking down the street, and you know, we all know
how it goes when it comes to perceptions and stereotypes,
big black Compton football player, Man, that door's damn they're closed.
(17:22):
And when you say when you're graduating changes man high
brows hit the top of their head right, Columbia and
everything else shifts and then all of sudden we're having
different conversations about more meaningful things. So that's why I
had to go to see you. What did you study him? Like?
If you hadn't gotten to the NFL, what would you
be doing? You know now you're a broadcast obviously, but
did you major in communications and want to do not
(17:46):
at all? Right, I was going to be a school
teacher at most a dean. I love the Fork in
the Road kid still to this day. Uh. In part
why I wrote the Book of Inspiration is for that kid,
because I was one of those kids. I was one
of those kids that had the gunshots go right by me.
I was one of those kids that had the families
in the gang and all that stuff was hitting me
(18:08):
at home. I was one of those kids that it
could have went right or it could have went wrong.
And I want to always grab that kid and say,
do the right things, play the long game, persevere through this,
and more importantly, never shut up. Like the title of
my book, Your Essence, my world kept telling me who
I was, and I was like, nah, I'm something else.
And I was around people who had low ambition. We
(18:31):
all know about the drugs, the gangs, the poverty and
competent in South Central but no one talks about the
low ambition people not living out their fullest desires. They're
going to jobs, not careers, and their spirit is getting
dimmer by the day. That's why cats be living on
the edge. When I grew up, like I'll just be
in a grocery store, somebody snapped and I'm like, why
(18:52):
is everybody on this emotional edge? Is because they're not
living there fulfilled life. So I just had to get
out of that. Remember it was it Hollywood Shuffle was
the movie? Do you remember that movie? And the grandmother?
The whole way they were, they were they were trying
to be movie producers, right, Yeah, and the grandmother she
kept saying the same thing over there. You know, there's
work at the post remember, And that was the whole line.
(19:15):
But that's how a lot of people think. What are
you talking about. You're trying to be a movie producer.
You better go down to the post office and get
a job, and then you live these miserable lives. And
I'm not knocking anybody as a postman. No, but you
know what I'm saying, because you don't dream first, you
don't go out that There's all I always used to say,
there's always work at the post office. The other way around,
you go and dream big, you can't and if you
(19:36):
can't make that thing, there's always that other job. You
know why. It's crazy that you said that. Okay, So
I grew up and everybody in my family, I'm not
talking about my mother and father. Everyone like company, you know,
just utility jobs. Guess where my mother worked, well, post
that rust when my dad worked. Wow, see what I'm saying.
So when you say that, I don't know what I mean. No,
(19:58):
And I take it the right way. I was a
youngster who realized that my mom and Dad never dreamed
of the reality that they're living. And that's okay, but
it's time for me to start dreaming. And I put
all this on my back, and like I said, I
had to be responsible with my choices. Do you you know?
I grew up in the Midwest, and all I knew
about Compton was what I heard from NWA, right, So
(20:20):
I had this view, especially on this show right now,
and I'm here, you know, I had this view of
what Compton was like. And then over the course of
my life, I've met im I know probably eight people
from Compton, uh not even including you, that I know
(20:41):
personally that are all doing well, like journalists, photographers, doctors.
Does I know like you you mentioned some of it
gunshots going by your stuff? But does Compton get somewhat
of a bad rap? Is it as bad as people perceive,
you know, outside of Compton or else out of California maybe?
(21:02):
Or are there kind of two competence or you know,
tell me about it? Yeah? All right, So first, it
depends on when you were born and when you were
raised in competence. So I'm preing in WA. I'm born
in nineteen seventy four, So when I'm going through my
rearing years. It's the eighties, early eighties given in wa
to material that they're going to write about in the
late eighties, right, So gang violence, the drugs, all the
(21:26):
poverty wasn't glamorized. It wasn't storybook. It was just whoa,
this is the reality and it's hell. So crips and
bloods were really crips and bloods. I'm talking about borders,
Like if you cross that street, you literally thought I
may get killed if I wear this Jordan sweatsuit, I
(21:48):
literally are gonna get jacked at minimum or get killed.
I didn't wear red ever, because I was like, I
am not getting smoked over some hat and it's craziness.
So then in w Hits and all of a sudden,
now you're like, people think it's cool, some people think
it's fashionable. Some people think it's a old it like
intimate reporting, and I'm like, no, that was reality, and
(22:11):
its shifted. It got harder in some respects, and it
got easier in some respects because now the fakers who
thought it was cool kind of diluted it. And it
was all right for me because it made it more peaceful,
it felt like. But the point of it is growing
up in Compton. The best way I could say it
is you're in a race and there are some monster
(22:32):
behind you called just issues, drugs, gangs, poverty, whatever it is,
and it's gonna eat those who can't outrun it. But
those who do survive that race and outrun it. Oh man,
we ready for the world. You're already, good man. It's
just an inspiring story when you just talk about it,
because a lot of people grew up that same way,
(22:53):
and you could take a path. You know, there's a
there's a path that you could either go that way.
It's very easy. Most people give in because given in
is the easiest route, right. No, you don't expect anything
from me. My parents didn't do anything, you know what
I mean. You're can make all the excuses in the world.
My brother didn't turn out, so I should fall in
that same pattern. And a lot of people aren't willing
(23:14):
to fight, and you gotta fight for really what you
want in your beliefs. The other thing like that, like that,
like this is what I want. I don't care what
came before me. I don't care what other people are doing.
This is what I want. Yeah, I had a grandmother
who raised me in the church, and regardless of your
religious beliefs, if you have them or not, one thing
that really stuck with me is something she's always reading
the Bible to me, and she's like, the gates to
(23:35):
Heaven are narrow and few come between. And when I
heard that, I was thinking more in my life circumstances,
that means most things, people are going to be sheep
and they're going to fail in terms of could they
live out a greater being, greater existence. So I started
to realize that when I felt lonely, maybe I was
(23:56):
on the right path, especially in those circumstances and in
that environment. So when I start thinking about success, as
they say, it's always crowded at the bottom of the
ladder because everybody's trying to come up right, right, But
when when you get to the top, like a pyramid,
it ain't that much room at the top of the pyramid, right.
So I started to climb and realize people were falling
(24:16):
off and people were just not doing the same things
and effort and achievement, And that actually was encouraging to
me because I'm like, I'm going to rarefied air if
I'm the only brother here, if I'm the only athlete here,
so I just kept using that as my fuel. The
other thing I was gonna say, even going up in
your neighbor but now this happened to me when I
was going and I grew up in the middle class neighborhood.
(24:37):
We had own home and all that. It wasn't Jamaica Queens.
It was nice. Okay, I just so, and you know,
I'm gonna cut you out because I got tired. I
got to Columbia around brothers and others, and it's weird
when you're from the hood. It's almost like stick a
chest out. I survived, but I was like, you stick
your chest out. Your mom and dad prepare for you
(24:57):
and gave you something you've always clowns some on you
born on third base, my son right now born on
third base, right, And I'm damned if be mad at that.
You better go score. I forgot trying to get there.
And I was gonna say. The thing that I always
admired about some of my friends was they knew early
on that I wanted to have this career. I always
(25:17):
wanted to be a sportswriter from nine years old, all
this stuff, and they used to go out I just
wanted if this happened to you, where they would be
going out and maybe getting into some stuff that they
shouldn't be getting into, they would not let me go.
They would go like these were real friends. They would
go like, we're going here, and Rob, you're not coming. Yeah.
Did you have friends like that who looked out and
tried not to get you, knowing that maybe you had
(25:40):
a future and they didn't want to mess it up. Yeah? Man,
I was blessed to have like layers of that. So
I had the friends who were like, you ain't about
this life, Wiley, and you know what, you seem like
you're gonna make it out of this, so go ahead
and do that. But then I also had another level
of protection, which is my uncle's. Now, no one raises
their hands to be born into some gangster ass family, right,
I say, I want to thug uncles. When I had them,
(26:02):
you know, and two of them got murdered, one of
them committed suicide just from real, real gang life activity.
And I was growing up just thinking that's my uncle.
And then you look back at pictures, you look back
at moments, you're like, oh, he was really just you
didn't know at that time they were out deep they
not at all. Man. Now I look back at pictures,
are like, oh he wore blue and everything he got
(26:24):
curling rolls and stuff like stuff. Gang stood out. But
I didn't know that it was just my uncle Tyrone.
So then if that didn't work, which usually that was it.
My sister, who was two years older than me, always
a great ahead of me, always ready to throw them hands,
throw them things, warned everybody, don't you ever touch my brother,
because I was her little teddy bear, and she was
(26:47):
the enforcer everywhere I went. So it wasn't just my
name in terms of my family alliances. It wasn't just
because I had that potential. My sister had my sister
sin dudes to the hospital in elementary school and I
told her not to do it, but she would just
tear or do the bit on anybody. Be sure to
(27:08):
catch live editions of The Odd Couple with Chris Brussar
then Rob Parker weekdays at seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific.
Now we want to get into obviously some football and
some basketball, which you're a big Clippers fans know it, um,
But football right now, I want to ask you this
about the Oakland Raiders. There was a story to Day
(27:30):
and Athletic about players. Seven veteran players were quoted, most anonymously,
but one, Lee Smith, was actually on the record. But
they're concerned, Like basically, it looks like John Gruten's lost
the locker room and guys are concerned. Lee Smith's concerned
that guys are gonna just, you know, give up on
the season. You still got eleven or ten games left, right,
(27:52):
What is it like? What do you think it's like
for these guys to be in the locker room where
the coaches apparently heears to be all about the future
and getting draft picks. Anybody could be traded at any
moment this season. You're not gonna win, like you know,
you're you're basically out of the playoffs already. It seems like,
(28:13):
what is it like when you got such a long
way to go in as such a grueling sport, when
you're in that situation, Yeah, so defeating you got to
think about what's happening and the impact it has on
a locker room. The oldest locker room in the NFL
as well, because that's veteran Layton. So when you talk
about a veteran locker room, typically you think about when now,
(28:33):
but this is just the opposite. They're talking about, Hey,
we're gonna demo this team and then rebuild it once
we get to Vegas clean slate. So here's the thing
that's going on. If you're a veteran on this team,
you feel like there's a glass ceiling in terms of
your power. You feel like in your flex you can't
go there because everyone's expendable, including you. Good players. John
(28:54):
Gruden walked in there and said, what's the tip. Give
me the list of the top five players we got
on our squad, and he said, okay, let me get
rid of them. At least three of them dudes, right,
Markuet King, Khalil Mack, and now we see Amari Cooper.
So Derek Carr gotta be shaking in his boots every
time he hears criticism. And then look at the youngsters
(29:14):
on his team, who you think, Oh, they feel good
because you know what, this team is old. He's getting
rid of all these older veterans. No, no, no, because
if we cut the big dogs, guess what, you little
pups are way more expendable than them. You haven't proven
a damn thing in this league, so you look at
this situation. It's kind of damning all around. You und
(29:34):
agree with what he's doing. No, not at all. There's
never been a situation in the NFL. I think that's
just turnkey. Every coach gotta come in there and do
what coach. You gotta go get something out of a player.
You gotta manage certain situations and personalities. You gotta do
your job. He walked in here and saw a roster
that won twelve games just two years ago. And look,
(29:56):
they underachieved last year and obviously a little hangover effect
from no Derek Carr to playoff the year before. But
to demo this team, you should have been able to
work with what you got and still be competitive. And
don't you think part of it too, is that some
of the players have an issue with him not being
held accountable. When you give a coach a ten year,
hundred million dollars contract, he's untouchable. Nobody should ever, everybody
(30:22):
should have to, you know, play or work to keep
their spot, do you know what I mean? And I
think that that's come back to bite them. They thought
it was great, Oh, we gotta lock him up, And
I get it. He gave up a TV job and
all this, But I think that contract has actually hurt
the Raiders. Yeah, you think about it, man, our calendars
are not in sync. You got ten years and guarantees
(30:44):
and I got the next play and no guarantee. We're
not in the same boat. We're not pulling it in
the same direction. Coach. And look, most coaches understand in
the NFL today, you're expendable as well. Mid season, early season. Hey,
we lose a few games, the owners tapping at you,
and he gives you that kiss of death. Oh, his
job is safe. You know what that means. The next
(31:05):
week we're gonna fire him. So every other coach thirty one,
let me stop. Thirty other coaches could Belichick like, you
ain't firing me tomorrow. But you know, but everybody else
is dealing with a different situation and the fires held
to their feet. But you look at this situation ten years.
But I think what no one is talking about is
(31:26):
this is coming from upstairs. A cash poor team like
the Raiders is saying, clean house, get us under this cap.
We'll they have thirty two players next year under two
million dollars in salary cap. Ye, what the hell does that?
Whisper to you or yelled to you that we ain't
trying to win right now, right, it's all about Vegas. Robin.
I have talked extensively on the show about the piss
(31:50):
poor job we feel that the NFL Players Association has done.
If any athletes basketball, baseball ball deserve guarante contracts, I
think it's the NFL athletes and Marcella's even if it's
just a three year, a real contract. They give out
a lot of volting contracts. Hey you got an eight
year deal, but it's only the guarantee money is really
(32:12):
your only right because most of the time they let
you go and you never collect them. Yeah, that's the
only Yeah, that's the only thing. I would disagree that
they're doing a poor job. I would say this, You
got to think about any negotiation you're in in your
quiet moments, quiet hours, think about the other side of
the table, because they got to win too, or it's
not really a true negotiation. Somebody just got beat up
(32:35):
and the owners are sitting there sent you guys are
walking liabilities, human risk factors that no one's trying to ensure,
let alone me trying to ensure. So it's not about
motivation it's about you're gonna get hurt and you're gonna
miss games, and I don't give it that who you
are is going to happen. So I think they've done
(32:55):
a great job of closing that gap between NBA and
Major League Baseball. By doing this, you get a Kirk Cousins. Okay,
you could get a five year, one hundred and twenty
million dollar monopoly contract, or you could get three years
eighty four. That's the contract I'm talking about your point.
So I think that's happening much. Do you think because
we've talked about how we feel, like like we've talked
(33:18):
about Levian Bell and we disagreed on him hold nowaday
or whatever. Think that's all he has to do, but
not a hold out because he didn't have a contract
sign but he's essentially because he's gonna have to sign
it in a few weeks. But the point is, I've said, look,
they got to change the CBA, and the only way
they probably can do that when it's up in twenty
(33:38):
twenty is to strike. Is that realist? Because football players,
you only got a short window, you probably want to
get that money. Is it really talk to us as
a football player, is it realistic that dudes will sit out,
maybe give up a season to get guaranteed deals, maybe
for other people down the road versus themselves. Hell no,
(34:00):
you haven't read my book fully yet. But we just
talked about when I came through and you think I'm
gonna get there and they got that money in front
of me, and I'm gonna say, nah, you know what,
let me say, stay poor a little. But this is
any difference though, And I hear you, I hear you.
But all you have to do is looking up at
the way Major League Baseball takes care of its players.
It's through, it's through giving. You gotta give to get
(34:21):
and until people NFL players understand that. And it can't
always be about you. I always tell people all time
when when you were tired. You know, if you know
many games you have to play in the major league
to be eligible for a pension one day on a
major league roster, you don't have to play No. Eight
ten years to be eligible. Yeah, same thing. You get
a pension, you get lifetime healthcare. Those are things worth
(34:45):
fighting for. And you just saw with the Hall of
Famers talking about that they don't get healthcare and all
these guys are hurting and whatnot. And then you have
a league that's going around bragging about how much money
it makes your union and I say, you, I know
you're not in any more. I was a player for
what Your union also made an agreement about the CTE
(35:06):
where the NFL is gonna you know, they came to
an agreement with the league concussion lawsuit and the judge, No,
not in the history of legal uh, judges who have
these agreements said oh no, even though both sides agree
to it, said I will not sign this because it's
too long. You never see that a judge. Usually if
(35:27):
two sides come to an agreement, a judge is just
gonna rubber stamping. He looked at the money and was like,
how could the union agree to this? It's not enough. Yeah,
that's that's kind of how we feel. Yeah, yeah, well
one baseball and football is not analogous. Um, we're talking
about guaranteed contracts and then talking about how come you
guys don't fight the same when one has a guaranteed
(35:49):
climate and one doesn't. So in a guaranteed climate, if
I signed for six years or just say eighty million
in baseball, I'm getting my six years eighty million, and
I know that, so I I'm in with a different armor.
I come in with different weapons versus a football player.
Whereas the median salary, the average salary, everything's lower. But
here's the real example of why football is in a
(36:10):
different position. Baseball's heritage and their union all the best
union in the country. Well yeah, and also and also
the oldest. Let's just when we're talking generational wealth. The
beauty of generational wealth is the accumulation of interest. So
all of a sudden, third generation Johnny at Columbia is
not going to act the same as first generation Marcellist.
(36:31):
And I'm the NFL is almost first generation Marcellist, where
it's like, you're asking me to do things that in
my sacrifice, I don't even have anything in my nest
egg to even talk about sacrificing. So it's a blind
conversation to a football union and they're fighting. What goes
underreported is the health benefits and the billion dollars that
(36:53):
they added to it in twenty eleven. Not many people
walking around the street is hearing that. All we're hearing
is everyone's broke down and crippled, and no one said
up them. Um, I think the union is doing a
good job, not a perfect job. But if you're gonna ask,
and we're gonna base this union based on are you
getting guaranteed contracts with the players. If you're not happy
with a Kirk Cousins contract and more improvements on that,
(37:15):
you're never gonna see a fully guaranteed contract in arts.
But I'll say this too, and and oftentimes the only
reason that you have free agency in this country is
Kurt Flood with Saint Louis Cornels gave up his career,
he went to court, you know what I mean. It
costs him, but that's the only way you get things changed.
And sometimes you that's that's that's one guy. But what
(37:36):
I'm saying is getting all these players together. You can't
tell me that if you really are together and you're
right with the with the baseball players, they have a
war chest, yeah, they they have money ready, yeah, And
this is what has to happen. You have to save
enough money up to that when that moment comes, and
then it comes to Marcellus who has to pay his
mortgage and then not have any money the union page.
(37:58):
That's what happens in baseball. They walk out, they pay
your bills. Yeah, exactly. You know you're gonna different animal.
I wish. I wish because I agree with where Rob
is saying, and I wish the players would be able
to get this wardest to get what I think that
I don't know. I used to be in a players
(38:19):
in Hawaii and at the time I think we were
saying our ward chest was like three hundred million, like
that was just set aside for legal fees if necessary. Right,
there are thirty two owners and let's just say average
worth net worth is two billion, that's sixty four billion.
And if they want to set aside just ten percent,
(38:39):
that's six point four billion. Right, And you go on
the court and you know what before there's innocence and
guilt is wealth. It's the rich man wins. Right. You're
going to court where somebody was say he would lawyer
you to death. That's that's a feudal fight. I think
they're doing a tremendous job at closing the gap. I
grew up in the world where my dad was talking
about if you big and you fast and you're strong,
(39:01):
be the heavyweight champ in the world. Be Muhammad Ali
in the seventies. Right then that transition to, you know what,
be in the NBA because that's where you want to be.
And there's still the NBA, but now football is closing
the gap. Like we see Aaron Rodgers off for one
hundred and seventy million, y'all, Like, let's just be one
hundred with this. Like football is now in a place
where you're like, you make some good money, only a
(39:22):
few players, and then the NBA you got Wait a minute,
wait a minute. Let's look at the Lakers roster right now.
Because I used to do this in the media, because
I used to laugh. I'd be like, yo, you make
media cast is making more than half the Lakers, Like, yeah,
we got Lebron, we got but Alonzo. But then you
start looking at the bottom of that roster casting they're
making hundreds of thousands of dollars and it ain't Lebron money.
(39:43):
Lebron makes more in a game than some of those
casts make. Well, the minimum in the NBA is about
five hundred. Yeah, it's a lot of but you got
a guy, an average guy like a Tim Hardaway, mean
better than average Tim Hardaway Junior guaranteed seventy one seventy
two million dollars. Oh, now we have a different versation,
and you know you don't get so. No one raises
(40:03):
their hand to be a football player first, No one
push your hand down. Say you're not playing basketball. I'll
tell you like in high school, everybody want to play basketball.
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports
Radio dot com and within the iHeart Radio app. Search
f SR to listen live. All right, marcellis widely joining
(40:25):
the I couple in studio. Marcellis obviously an all pro
former NFL player. Talk to us about how you know
a lot of former players have criticized the rules changes
and they're not letting you hid and this and that.
And I'm with those players. I think that it's a
dangerous sport. Let's accept it. Try to make it safe
as you can, but understand it's gonna be dangerous no
(40:49):
matter what we do unless you make it flag football.
Where do you stand on? Man? You and the old
players just wrong? Man, y'all sound you gonna do? Y'all
sound like hip hop is dead? Now I can't stand
you it is. You know what do you know? What's fun?
You know? Yall know you ain't in the mumble rapp
either I am you know we amum wrapping the eighties
and nineties, jj fad tell me what they say at
the end of that song summer no no never never, Yeah,
(41:10):
that was it said what they were talking. Come on,
dost effects go bus kicking bus ing it? Okay, don't
that ain't That was one group? You know what I
name two nam But do you want me to keep
going nikes? Which? Come on? But here's the hip hop. Look,
(41:30):
we always hold on to our error. That's who we
are as human beings. We and we only remember highlights
of our error. We don't We don't remember the low lights.
We don't remember the average. We only remember the top.
And it's funny. Now every players coming out the league
so soft, the league so soft. Here's the thing. Here's
what the league has realized. Our business model has to
(41:50):
reflect our audience. What is our audience Fantasy football players
and people who just want to come in here and
see high scoring offenses and points. Super Bowl forty one
thirty three despite a top four defense in Philadelphia winning it,
they gave up thirty three points. So here's the NFL. Now,
let's protect our investment quarterbacks first foremost, and I respect
(42:11):
the fool because t O was in here yesterday he
said I'd be upset if I was in the league
if I'm another position, because they want to put that
the quarterbacks, but what about the rest of us. Look,
it's been an evolution of football from day one. Look
if this NFL soft, what do you call the NFL
that came right after they were smoking cigarettes and head slapping,
because you know what, them old dudes were saying, Oh
(42:33):
y'all soft, y'all can't take the head slap. So then
they moved to you can't cut block, and then it
moved to you know what on special teams, no more
weds blocking, no more two on ones like and now
we're at you can't touch him at the five yards
and you can't slam the quarterback, sack the quarterback like
he's your son. That's fine with me, you know why,
because if I d DDT you destroy you, land you
(42:54):
on your neck, or if I just lay you on
the blanket, guess what I get one sack? Guess what
we get the yard that's behind the line of scrimmage.
The messaging in football, Steve Atwater, Ronnie lot my finger
fell off, but I'm still bawling. Look, that's not for
the civilized. Here's the audience of the NFL. Also, it's
second generation athletes like me who are sitting there, like
(43:16):
Drew Brees and his kids. Hey man, y'all better clean
that thing up or I don't need my kids out there.
Why because they don't need to be. Football is gonna
go where boxing went one and two. Soccer moms. Soccer
moms sitting there saying CTE what we're not having it.
We're not having it now. So if you don't clean
that thing up, guess what, you're gonna lose the next generation.
But some of the things, some of the helmet to
(43:38):
helmet hits, this was my problem, and they not calling
it like that. Make sure we get to basketball and
we don't have a lot of time. But yeah, I
don't want to Yeah, yeah, just quick. I was just
saying some of the helmet to helmet hits I thought
were all a little bit always. Okay, that's all I'm saying.
Let's get on, Chris Paul, give us the Chris Paul.
You got to take people of bashing them now because
(43:58):
of the fighting, what went on, and now everybody's saying
he's not a bad good teammate, he's a bad guy.
All these wolf tickets out there, all these chumps out there,
and that was all my homeboys that are chumping too, Baby,
big baby Davids, my neighbor. What's up, boy, I know,
tweeted Ryan Hollands. My dog. You know what it is.
Chris Paul's a barker. You know who else is a barker?
(44:20):
Kobe Bryant, but the k ah. So I'm in practice,
I'm at the baseline. You're barking, you barking, you barking.
It's time for me to bark back. Or wait a minute,
that's a five time champion barking at me. Let me
swallow my pride. But then when I hear you Chris
Paul doing the same exact thing, you know why I
don't receive it the same way because it ain't work
for you fully, bro. So if it ain't worked for
(44:40):
you fully, why are you over there imitating somebody who
has done that. If you're not a Don Dodo with hardware,
we know you get graded differently. I'm a broadcaster that
I'm going to say the same thing. Whether it's me
ten year player, all pro no Super Bowl championships, or
if I were drafted to New England instead of Buffalo,
I would have won too championship before Frenzy. All of
(45:02):
a sudden, it means something different, It impacts different. That's
a Super Bowl champions saying what marcellis said, completely different complexion. Marcellers,
did Lebron James come here to win championships so to
be the next Meryl Street? Which one both and ain't
nothing wrong with that. That's what the Lakers are. Lakers
have never been just singular and focused. Sacking that movie,
(45:26):
stop and rapping and all that kindle. It's bigger than
Nino Brown. Stop blaming the players. The owner of the Lakers,
doctor Jerry Buss, the pH D physicists, came to the
organization and said, we bring in showtime. You know what
that means. Went on, The court went off, the court, forum,
club opens, actors, celebrities, sidelines, cheerleaders first time in the NBA.
(45:49):
More importantly, watch my entourage. And if y'all know doctor Buss,
y'all know what that entourage looked like. It looked like, hey,
we got more going on than just basket, all right,
but he gotta win on the court want Marcellus, great
time man. We want you show on one check Out
Speak for your Samily Itself or Fox Sports one and
go buy the book Never Shut Up. It's in bookstores now. Marcellus,
(46:12):
Willy the Eye Couple, Fox Sports Radio, make sure you
go and pick this up. Man, Great job. Love
Thanks for listening to the best of the Odd Couple podcasts.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday from seven
pm to ten pm Eastern four to seven Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for the Odd
Couple at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching fs R.
(00:22):
You're listening to the best of the Odd Couple with
Chris Russo and Rod Harker. And let's get to the
World Series. Obviously, that's the biggest story going on right
now in sports. And Rob, I watched that game last night, Yes,
I know you did too. And what I saw was
(00:42):
it the seventh inning Pedro Bias had thrown gas It's
straight heat, Yes, Mos down two Red Sox batters with
his high fastballs that they went chasing. And then Dave Roberts, Oh,
(01:04):
I'm sorry, did I say that? Is it even? But?
Is it even? On? Dave Roberts He was looking at
his little analytics book. I don't know if he got,
you know, a call from on high whatever, whether it
was the front office, whether it was Dave Roberts, whether
it was both of him. He made an analytical move
(01:25):
and removed bias from the game put in Alex Wood
because he wanted the lefty righty matchup, and the rest
is history. The Red Sox hit a home run run
home run to put the game, and at that time
it was what five to four right right, and that
(01:47):
jet score to run the move with the move close
that the game is in then is a bloop and
a blast. You would win that game. You could easily
win that game. And that just you know what. I
get the analytics I do. I don't want to sound
like I'm a dinosaur and I don't understand some of
the matchups. Crest, I get it, but sometimes you gotta
have a gut a field. Somebody's pitching well, even though
(02:09):
it's lefty righting all that other stuff the guy has
was throwing gas. He was pitching well. Sometimes Jeff to
have an eye test and say, I know I should
go with the left handed pitcher here, but you know
what he's throwing so well, I'm gonna stick with him.
I don't want anybody else on the mount but Bayas
because he's pitching well enough to be able to make
(02:30):
it happen and get that final out. And it didn't happen.
That's exactly right, and none other than Alex Rodriguez agrees
with you and me. I'm clavergasted by that move. And look,
we always talk about a point guard. In order to
be good, you have to see the floor. A manager
has to do the same thing. What metric are they
previewed that you take out bias who's dominating faces two hitters,
(02:53):
strikes them both out. It didn't make any sense scripted baseball.
That's not working October. It could work during the season
script at baseball. This is why a Rod is on
ESPN and Fox Sports one and doing nobody unprecedented. Okay,
people could hate on him all he wants unprecedented, Chris,
(03:16):
you've been we both worked for both networks. Right, he's nobody,
He's terrific, and he's not afraid to say the move
made no sense. He could be friendly with Dave Roberts
or what everyone do, and they don't want to hurt
Dave roberts feelings or whatever. That is a real analyst
right there who called it the way season Oh question,
(03:36):
he was right on the money. I don't know if
anybody was watching to say A Rod is as real
as it comes. There. It didn't make sense there is
no way ten years ago, maybe even six years ago,
that a picture who he's looking that good, dominating, dominating,
(03:57):
You take him out? Why because some analytics told you?
And I'm getting tired of it, Rob, And I'm like you,
I understand the place of analytics. You're never going to
just completely say you don't need numbers, discount the science
and so on and so forth. But analytics is a
(04:19):
piece of the puzzle. It is not the whole puzzle
in the and it's not just baseball, it's the NBA.
Sam Hinkey tried to run the Philadelphia seventy six ers
based entirely on analytics, and where they give they were horrible.
Now I know you can say, oh, well, they got
Ben Premans and they got let's see exactly, let's see
(04:42):
how well that works out. Those are two guys that
look like they'll be stars. But remember they also drafted Nerlands, nowell,
where's he? And jalil Oka for two they had They
ended up so many times in the lottery that they
finally got lucky and got two guys who look like
they could play, two guys who've been hurt too. So
I don't want analytics. You should have an analytics department,
(05:06):
but your baseball operations or your basketball operations should not
be run entirely based on analytics. I'm getting sick of
it eight seven, seven ninety nine on Fox eight seven
seven nine nine six sixty three sixty nine. Give us
a call. Do you like this analytics stuff? Do you
think it's gone too far? Rob? I'm sorry, I don't know.
(05:29):
I don't know if it's gonna offend anybody. But it's
revenge of the nerds. It is. It's a bunch of
nerdy dudes out of anything about sport. And sorry, it's
playing it at any level. You don't have to be
a pro. We didn't play pro. You know, we didn't
play big time. Some feel there are analytics guys I
(05:49):
believe that can't watch a game and tell you what's happened. No,
from from knowledge. They can just tell you about the numbers.
And it is revenge of the nerds. The guys that
never got pick to play on the playground, and they
were upset and they were maybe unfortunately they were bullied.
I don't justify that they were, you know whatever. They
(06:09):
weren't the popular kids, the cool kids, the end crowd,
like the jocks. But now they're they've taken over sports
and they like it. And it's gone too far, no
doubt about it. And as for all the billy bean
you know, they give them so much props on all that.
Can you tell me the championship that the Oakland Age
one with billy beans running that analytic stuff? No zero?
(06:33):
And so everybody, Oh, well, you guys are dinosaurs. You're
living in the past, and you know you gotta have
the right matchups. RBIs don't matter, winds don't matter. They
got all these different things that I'll tell you. Oh no,
walks and run scored, matters don't matter, strikeouts don't matter.
They got all this other stuff, and it's been killing.
(06:54):
It's been killing baseball. It's killing the game because I'm
telling I don't recognize the game anymore. Rob g Our,
producer just said. Dave Roberts, obviously the manager for the
Dodgers Jess used the phrase on the MLB network. Trust
the process. Stop Stop. He's a hinky disciple like that.
(07:14):
But here's all these guys, and then it's the other one.
If you don't want to play ball their way, they
won't look at all. The older managers who they got
rid of. Remember we went they all John Farrell want
to win a championship with the Red Sox. They got
Dusty Baker's out of a job. Joe Girardi's out of
a job. Uh, we just saw, um, Mike Sosher's out
(07:35):
of a job. And Buck show Walters out of a job.
And who's the Mets manager? I just uh just this year, no,
two years ago, just got fired. Uh, I just forgot
his name. But but they another one, another older guy
who they got rid of. Um. And this is where
we are now. They don't want those guys anymore. They
want these young guys. They want to be able to
(07:57):
hand you there. Uh. And that's why they're not paying
these man No, they don't want to pay them. They
don't believe the manager has anything to do with it.
It's so bad here. Analytics led to what we saw
last night, or an over emphasis when the analytics because
again I'm not saying it doesn't have its place, but
it led to what we saw last night with newon
(08:18):
yas taking, taking Alex Wood deep and ending Game one
for the chances for the Dodgers. It led to the
Houston Rockets missing twenty seven straight three pointers in the
Playoffs Championship Conference Finals against the gold State Worris. How
can you shore because they believe you should only shoot
(08:41):
a three pointer or something in the pain. And let
me say this for all the analytics analytics heads out
there who are getting upset with Rod Parker and me
in terms of the NBA, they love the Golden State Warriors.
They say, the Golden State Warriors are the team that
you know, revolutionized basketball. And that's true. With the three
point shooting and all that. The Golden State Warriors don't
(09:03):
shoot too many three pointers. Last year they were around
twenty fifth in the league the pointers attempted. They were
first in three point percentage. But they want aunt right
in the amount. Kevin Durant is a mid range killer.
Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and Draymond Green and Durant,
they all get backdoor layouts. They get tons of backdoor layouts,
(09:27):
off cuts. They don't over extend themselves just to shoot
the three pointers. People should learn from that. Their balance
against who els is balanced. The Boston Red Sox right
right now probably the best team in baseball. They don't
they use analytics, but they don't go They don't. Yeah,
they don't go overboard. We've seen We've seen them make
moves that go against analytics that have worked out for them.
(09:48):
You know what I mean? Well, against the Yankees that
series rock Hole, they play him in. He gets this
for the cycle, for the cycle, in the in the playoffs.
And Cherry Collins is the manager I was taking off
of the mats. He another one older guy. All these
older guys, they're done. They don't want those guys anymore
if you're not willing to take their information from upstairs.
(10:09):
And when the when the Astros won the World Series
last year, Chris aj Hingston manager didn't make out the
lineup at all. The lineup was handed to him from upstairs.
Can you imagine one of these old guys doing that?
Never would happen, to believe. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Odd Couple with Chris Broussard and Rob
Parker weekdays at seven pm Eastern, four pm Pacific on
(10:31):
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app. I want
to just say that, dude, I know who y'all talking about.
Would I say, Dad, we gonna give his government Marcellus widely?
Let me let me give the Rundown. Y'all know him
a before. I know he likes hearing this too. I
ain't mad that he means all right, former all pro
defensive end obviously in the NFL, and now host of
(10:55):
Speak for Yourself on FS one, and an author with
a new book that Jess came out yesterday. Make sure
you pick it up. It's in stores now called The
book is called Never Shut Up. Let's welcome in our man,
Marcellis wildly man. It's great to have you in students.
Oh man, I love you guys. You know that, and
it is great to hear it, just because I remember
(11:16):
the days when there was nothing to say after the name.
You remember that, and now we got Marcellis Echo, Echo Chris, Chris,
you left out one thing, Okay, come on, he's an
ivy league graduated from Colombia. Don't go back. He saved
that for you. That's all he did that, you know, hey,
ivy leaguer. That leaguer also graduated from Yeah, yeah he did.
(11:40):
I wish he repped us a little more. Had come
on to Columbia, graduated from Columbia undergrad respect. But like
those other two schools are the ones you hear more
I know you don't hear Colombia as much. Nah. He
didn't have a great experience there, so I get it.
But you know, but that just makes it bigger for us. Baby.
Let me ask you this quickly about Columbia because my daughters,
(12:02):
one of my daughters is at penn Ones at Michigan,
and they lived at Columbia, right, And I'm not I'm
just both y'all went there. You were grad the right
school for me. The reputation that they got from people
they knew they went there was that like this is
where fund goes to die. What they said Colombia, they
said that our universe of Chicago, which we visited to,
(12:22):
and they said that about Columbia because my daughter's at
penn and they you know, they all the schools don't
have that rep that you heard rap. I lived it
all right, So it's true. I tell you. It's economic based,
and it's because Columbia is a smaller campus. It's a
quad um only of what ten blocks maybe at that
(12:44):
small town, uptown, small student population. So what happens is
you get so comfortable within those borders and as soon
as you step out, two things hit you. One, how
eclectic it is people from all over the world. Melton
Pot you love it, and then the cast You're like,
wait a minute, I'm in college. I don't have any
money in New York, dude. I used to go to
(13:05):
the City Bank on the corner, and thank god because
it was next to a Columbia campus, you could withdraw
ten dollars because if they would have said twenty minimum,
I would have never got my money out. I only
had like eighteen thirty five every year, you know what
I mean. So Columbia because of location, I think sometimes
scares people. Wait, therefore your fund stays on campus. Then
(13:26):
you start to say, man, the same thing. You know.
What else is cool is the restaurant they used to
eat at on Seinfeld is on the corner a Broadway
and like one thirteen. It's really called Tom's, but they
called it Monks on the show. But that's the exact Dinah.
It was when Seinfeld was huge probably, oh yeah, big time. Man,
(13:47):
it was great. I mean not only Seinfeld was huge,
the East coast, West Coast Beef was huge. Yeah. And
I'm from Compton, LA. And I'm in New York and
snooping them is crushing the buildings and I'm like, I'm
not from LA right now, but I am. And then
I go to LA and they're like, yo, you in
New York were biggieing on them guys. And Lauren Hill
(14:07):
went to our school and we used to Oh, man,
it was an amazing dollars show. So I saw Dave
Chappelle's first comedy show ever for a dollar run. DMC
came through Onyx, Lords of the Underground. Huge acts would
come through Columbia because it's New York City had right
for one dollar. Man, I saw so many great acts
at the time. Tell us about the book, what made
(14:29):
you write it? And really, I mean, obviously we want
people to read it, but just give us a little
taste of what we get if we bought the book
and read it. Yeah. I think five years ago a
publisher came to me and said, hey, your story is amazing.
We want to tell it to the masses. But I
thought that they were coming in a way that it
was going to be a third and goal Super Bowl
(14:49):
glory typical football book. Didn't want to write that, man,
I don't want to talk the typical experience. But then
that kind of parlayed into what it actually is, which
is a memoir to inspire um. I was born in
a place where the stats and the circumstances told you
wouldn't make it. And I was a guy who at
a young age put the cape on, said I'm responsible
(15:11):
for not only myself but my family, and it's time
to get up out the hood. And so I used
my only two tools I had in my belt, which
was my athletic success and my academic eagerness, and I
just said, I'm always gonna be this balancing that to
get out the hood. Then I got to Columbia, so
all the naysayers in the hood was like, Wow, this
dude went to an ivy league school. We didn't even
think he was gonna make it out the hood. And
(15:32):
then I'm at Columbia, and they shifted all of a sudden.
They said, You're not gonna make it to the NFL
to the worst school ever for football because Columbia lost.
What twenty did you think, like when you went to Columbia.
Were you thinking I'm gonna get a great education and
be you know whatever, or were you really thinking I'm
(15:54):
going to the NFL through Columbia. Yeah? Man, great question,
because I had to be responded with my decision. I
wasn't the typical seventeen year old saying I'm going to
the football factory. I was recruited to football factory. Yeah,
but I couldn't go there because too many of those
guys came back to the hood. Too many of those
guys didn't make it in the real world. They had
(16:14):
great careers and then you look up they're either broke
or going through the same adversity that they did before
they even made it to the league. So I had
to make a responsible choice, and that was to give
me the best safety net possible based on my decision.
So I had to play the long game. I couldn't
play the four years and Rose Bowl game. I had
to play when I'm done playing football, if it's in
(16:37):
four years or if it's in a decade of playing pro.
I got to open up doors with my resume, and
I couldn't go to a factory for that. And you
know what, when you go to schools like Columbia, there's
so many people we just were talking, who you know
are in these spots, you know, in these big corporate
and they do open doors. Well, oh, you went to Columbia.
(16:59):
Columbia I mean, it just changes things for you once
you once you graduate from absolutely man, you're presumed intelligent.
I mean, I don't even have to tell you by GPA.
I'm having these casual conversations with people on the airplane,
walking down the street, and you know, we all know
how it goes when it comes to perceptions and stereotypes,
big black Compton football player, Man, that door's damn they're closed.
(17:22):
And when you say when you're graduating changes man high
brows hit the top of their head right, Columbia and
everything else shifts and then all of sudden we're having
different conversations about more meaningful things. So that's why I
had to go to see you. What did you study him? Like?
If you hadn't gotten to the NFL, what would you
be doing? You know now you're a broadcast obviously, but
did you major in communications and want to do not
(17:46):
at all? Right, I was going to be a school
teacher at most a dean. I love the Fork in
the Road kid still to this day. Uh. In part
why I wrote the Book of Inspiration is for that kid,
because I was one of those kids. I was one
of those kids that had the gunshots go right by me.
I was one of those kids that had the families
in the gang and all that stuff was hitting me
(18:08):
at home. I was one of those kids that it
could have went right or it could have went wrong.
And I want to always grab that kid and say,
do the right things, play the long game, persevere through this,
and more importantly, never shut up. Like the title of
my book, Your Essence, my world kept telling me who
I was, and I was like, nah, I'm something else.
And I was around people who had low ambition. We
(18:31):
all know about the drugs, the gangs, the poverty and
competent in South Central but no one talks about the
low ambition people not living out their fullest desires. They're
going to jobs, not careers, and their spirit is getting
dimmer by the day. That's why cats be living on
the edge. When I grew up, like I'll just be
in a grocery store, somebody snapped and I'm like, why
(18:52):
is everybody on this emotional edge? Is because they're not
living there fulfilled life. So I just had to get
out of that. Remember it was it Hollywood Shuffle was
the movie? Do you remember that movie? And the grandmother?
The whole way they were, they were they were trying
to be movie producers, right, Yeah, and the grandmother she
kept saying the same thing over there. You know, there's
work at the post remember, And that was the whole line.
(19:15):
But that's how a lot of people think. What are
you talking about. You're trying to be a movie producer.
You better go down to the post office and get
a job, and then you live these miserable lives. And
I'm not knocking anybody as a postman. No, but you
know what I'm saying, because you don't dream first, you
don't go out that There's all I always used to say,
there's always work at the post office. The other way around,
you go and dream big, you can't and if you
(19:36):
can't make that thing, there's always that other job. You
know why. It's crazy that you said that. Okay, So
I grew up and everybody in my family, I'm not
talking about my mother and father. Everyone like company, you know,
just utility jobs. Guess where my mother worked, well, post
that rust when my dad worked. Wow, see what I'm saying.
So when you say that, I don't know what I mean. No,
(19:58):
And I take it the right way. I was a
youngster who realized that my mom and Dad never dreamed
of the reality that they're living. And that's okay, but
it's time for me to start dreaming. And I put
all this on my back, and like I said, I
had to be responsible with my choices. Do you you know?
I grew up in the Midwest, and all I knew
about Compton was what I heard from NWA, right, So
(20:20):
I had this view, especially on this show right now,
and I'm here, you know, I had this view of
what Compton was like. And then over the course of
my life, I've met im I know probably eight people
from Compton, uh not even including you, that I know
(20:41):
personally that are all doing well, like journalists, photographers, doctors.
Does I know like you you mentioned some of it
gunshots going by your stuff? But does Compton get somewhat
of a bad rap? Is it as bad as people perceive,
you know, outside of Compton or else out of California maybe?
(21:02):
Or are there kind of two competence or you know,
tell me about it? Yeah? All right, So first, it
depends on when you were born and when you were
raised in competence. So I'm preing in WA. I'm born
in nineteen seventy four, So when I'm going through my
rearing years. It's the eighties, early eighties given in wa
to material that they're going to write about in the
late eighties, right, So gang violence, the drugs, all the
(21:26):
poverty wasn't glamorized. It wasn't storybook. It was just whoa,
this is the reality and it's hell. So crips and
bloods were really crips and bloods. I'm talking about borders,
Like if you cross that street, you literally thought I
may get killed if I wear this Jordan sweatsuit, I
(21:48):
literally are gonna get jacked at minimum or get killed.
I didn't wear red ever, because I was like, I
am not getting smoked over some hat and it's craziness.
So then in w Hits and all of a sudden,
now you're like, people think it's cool, some people think
it's fashionable. Some people think it's a old it like
intimate reporting, and I'm like, no, that was reality, and
(22:11):
its shifted. It got harder in some respects, and it
got easier in some respects because now the fakers who
thought it was cool kind of diluted it. And it
was all right for me because it made it more peaceful,
it felt like. But the point of it is growing
up in Compton. The best way I could say it
is you're in a race and there are some monster
(22:32):
behind you called just issues, drugs, gangs, poverty, whatever it is,
and it's gonna eat those who can't outrun it. But
those who do survive that race and outrun it. Oh man,
we ready for the world. You're already, good man. It's
just an inspiring story when you just talk about it,
because a lot of people grew up that same way,
(22:53):
and you could take a path. You know, there's a
there's a path that you could either go that way.
It's very easy. Most people give in because given in
is the easiest route, right. No, you don't expect anything
from me. My parents didn't do anything, you know what
I mean. You're can make all the excuses in the world.
My brother didn't turn out, so I should fall in
that same pattern. And a lot of people aren't willing
(23:14):
to fight, and you gotta fight for really what you
want in your beliefs. The other thing like that, like that,
like this is what I want. I don't care what
came before me. I don't care what other people are doing.
This is what I want. Yeah, I had a grandmother
who raised me in the church, and regardless of your
religious beliefs, if you have them or not, one thing
that really stuck with me is something she's always reading
the Bible to me, and she's like, the gates to
(23:35):
Heaven are narrow and few come between. And when I
heard that, I was thinking more in my life circumstances,
that means most things, people are going to be sheep
and they're going to fail in terms of could they
live out a greater being, greater existence. So I started
to realize that when I felt lonely, maybe I was
(23:56):
on the right path, especially in those circumstances and in
that environment. So when I start thinking about success, as
they say, it's always crowded at the bottom of the
ladder because everybody's trying to come up right, right, But
when when you get to the top, like a pyramid,
it ain't that much room at the top of the pyramid, right.
So I started to climb and realize people were falling
(24:16):
off and people were just not doing the same things
and effort and achievement, And that actually was encouraging to
me because I'm like, I'm going to rarefied air if
I'm the only brother here, if I'm the only athlete here,
so I just kept using that as my fuel. The
other thing I was gonna say, even going up in
your neighbor but now this happened to me when I
was going and I grew up in the middle class neighborhood.
(24:37):
We had own home and all that. It wasn't Jamaica Queens.
It was nice. Okay, I just so, and you know,
I'm gonna cut you out because I got tired. I
got to Columbia around brothers and others, and it's weird
when you're from the hood. It's almost like stick a
chest out. I survived, but I was like, you stick
your chest out. Your mom and dad prepare for you
(24:57):
and gave you something you've always clowns some on you
born on third base, my son right now born on
third base, right, And I'm damned if be mad at that.
You better go score. I forgot trying to get there.
And I was gonna say. The thing that I always
admired about some of my friends was they knew early
on that I wanted to have this career. I always
(25:17):
wanted to be a sportswriter from nine years old, all
this stuff, and they used to go out I just
wanted if this happened to you, where they would be
going out and maybe getting into some stuff that they
shouldn't be getting into, they would not let me go.
They would go like these were real friends. They would
go like, we're going here, and Rob, you're not coming. Yeah.
Did you have friends like that who looked out and
tried not to get you, knowing that maybe you had
(25:40):
a future and they didn't want to mess it up. Yeah? Man,
I was blessed to have like layers of that. So
I had the friends who were like, you ain't about
this life, Wiley, and you know what, you seem like
you're gonna make it out of this, so go ahead
and do that. But then I also had another level
of protection, which is my uncle's. Now, no one raises
their hands to be born into some gangster ass family, right,
I say, I want to thug uncles. When I had them,
(26:02):
you know, and two of them got murdered, one of
them committed suicide just from real, real gang life activity.
And I was growing up just thinking that's my uncle.
And then you look back at pictures, you look back
at moments, you're like, oh, he was really just you
didn't know at that time they were out deep they
not at all. Man. Now I look back at pictures,
are like, oh he wore blue and everything he got
(26:24):
curling rolls and stuff like stuff. Gang stood out. But
I didn't know that it was just my uncle Tyrone.
So then if that didn't work, which usually that was it.
My sister, who was two years older than me, always
a great ahead of me, always ready to throw them hands,
throw them things, warned everybody, don't you ever touch my brother,
because I was her little teddy bear, and she was
(26:47):
the enforcer everywhere I went. So it wasn't just my
name in terms of my family alliances. It wasn't just
because I had that potential. My sister had my sister
sin dudes to the hospital in elementary school and I
told her not to do it, but she would just
tear or do the bit on anybody. Be sure to
(27:08):
catch live editions of The Odd Couple with Chris Brussar
then Rob Parker weekdays at seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific.
Now we want to get into obviously some football and
some basketball, which you're a big Clippers fans know it, um,
But football right now, I want to ask you this
about the Oakland Raiders. There was a story to Day
(27:30):
and Athletic about players. Seven veteran players were quoted, most anonymously,
but one, Lee Smith, was actually on the record. But
they're concerned, Like basically, it looks like John Gruten's lost
the locker room and guys are concerned. Lee Smith's concerned
that guys are gonna just, you know, give up on
the season. You still got eleven or ten games left, right,
(27:52):
What is it like? What do you think it's like
for these guys to be in the locker room where
the coaches apparently heears to be all about the future
and getting draft picks. Anybody could be traded at any
moment this season. You're not gonna win, like you know,
you're you're basically out of the playoffs already. It seems like,
(28:13):
what is it like when you got such a long
way to go in as such a grueling sport, when
you're in that situation, Yeah, so defeating you got to
think about what's happening and the impact it has on
a locker room. The oldest locker room in the NFL
as well, because that's veteran Layton. So when you talk
about a veteran locker room, typically you think about when now,
(28:33):
but this is just the opposite. They're talking about, Hey,
we're gonna demo this team and then rebuild it once
we get to Vegas clean slate. So here's the thing
that's going on. If you're a veteran on this team,
you feel like there's a glass ceiling in terms of
your power. You feel like in your flex you can't
go there because everyone's expendable, including you. Good players. John
(28:54):
Gruden walked in there and said, what's the tip. Give
me the list of the top five players we got
on our squad, and he said, okay, let me get
rid of them. At least three of them dudes, right,
Markuet King, Khalil Mack, and now we see Amari Cooper.
So Derek Carr gotta be shaking in his boots every
time he hears criticism. And then look at the youngsters
(29:14):
on his team, who you think, Oh, they feel good
because you know what, this team is old. He's getting
rid of all these older veterans. No, no, no, because
if we cut the big dogs, guess what, you little
pups are way more expendable than them. You haven't proven
a damn thing in this league, so you look at
this situation. It's kind of damning all around. You und
(29:34):
agree with what he's doing. No, not at all. There's
never been a situation in the NFL. I think that's
just turnkey. Every coach gotta come in there and do
what coach. You gotta go get something out of a player.
You gotta manage certain situations and personalities. You gotta do
your job. He walked in here and saw a roster
that won twelve games just two years ago. And look,
(29:56):
they underachieved last year and obviously a little hangover effect
from no Derek Carr to playoff the year before. But
to demo this team, you should have been able to
work with what you got and still be competitive. And
don't you think part of it too, is that some
of the players have an issue with him not being
held accountable. When you give a coach a ten year,
hundred million dollars contract, he's untouchable. Nobody should ever, everybody
(30:22):
should have to, you know, play or work to keep
their spot, do you know what I mean? And I
think that that's come back to bite them. They thought
it was great, Oh, we gotta lock him up, And
I get it. He gave up a TV job and
all this, But I think that contract has actually hurt
the Raiders. Yeah, you think about it, man, our calendars
are not in sync. You got ten years and guarantees
(30:44):
and I got the next play and no guarantee. We're
not in the same boat. We're not pulling it in
the same direction. Coach. And look, most coaches understand in
the NFL today, you're expendable as well. Mid season, early season. Hey,
we lose a few games, the owners tapping at you,
and he gives you that kiss of death. Oh, his
job is safe. You know what that means. The next
(31:05):
week we're gonna fire him. So every other coach thirty one,
let me stop. Thirty other coaches could Belichick like, you
ain't firing me tomorrow. But you know, but everybody else
is dealing with a different situation and the fires held
to their feet. But you look at this situation ten years.
But I think what no one is talking about is
(31:26):
this is coming from upstairs. A cash poor team like
the Raiders is saying, clean house, get us under this cap.
We'll they have thirty two players next year under two
million dollars in salary cap. Ye, what the hell does that?
Whisper to you or yelled to you that we ain't
trying to win right now, right, it's all about Vegas. Robin.
I have talked extensively on the show about the piss
(31:50):
poor job we feel that the NFL Players Association has done.
If any athletes basketball, baseball ball deserve guarante contracts, I
think it's the NFL athletes and Marcella's even if it's
just a three year, a real contract. They give out
a lot of volting contracts. Hey you got an eight
year deal, but it's only the guarantee money is really
(32:12):
your only right because most of the time they let
you go and you never collect them. Yeah, that's the
only Yeah, that's the only thing. I would disagree that
they're doing a poor job. I would say this, You
got to think about any negotiation you're in in your
quiet moments, quiet hours, think about the other side of
the table, because they got to win too, or it's
not really a true negotiation. Somebody just got beat up
(32:35):
and the owners are sitting there sent you guys are
walking liabilities, human risk factors that no one's trying to ensure,
let alone me trying to ensure. So it's not about
motivation it's about you're gonna get hurt and you're gonna
miss games, and I don't give it that who you
are is going to happen. So I think they've done
(32:55):
a great job of closing that gap between NBA and
Major League Baseball. By doing this, you get a Kirk Cousins. Okay,
you could get a five year, one hundred and twenty
million dollar monopoly contract, or you could get three years
eighty four. That's the contract I'm talking about your point.
So I think that's happening much. Do you think because
we've talked about how we feel, like like we've talked
(33:18):
about Levian Bell and we disagreed on him hold nowaday
or whatever. Think that's all he has to do, but
not a hold out because he didn't have a contract
sign but he's essentially because he's gonna have to sign
it in a few weeks. But the point is, I've said, look,
they got to change the CBA, and the only way
they probably can do that when it's up in twenty
(33:38):
twenty is to strike. Is that realist? Because football players,
you only got a short window, you probably want to
get that money. Is it really talk to us as
a football player, is it realistic that dudes will sit out,
maybe give up a season to get guaranteed deals, maybe
for other people down the road versus themselves. Hell no,
(34:00):
you haven't read my book fully yet. But we just
talked about when I came through and you think I'm
gonna get there and they got that money in front
of me, and I'm gonna say, nah, you know what,
let me say, stay poor a little. But this is
any difference though, And I hear you, I hear you.
But all you have to do is looking up at
the way Major League Baseball takes care of its players.
It's through, it's through giving. You gotta give to get
(34:21):
and until people NFL players understand that. And it can't
always be about you. I always tell people all time
when when you were tired. You know, if you know
many games you have to play in the major league
to be eligible for a pension one day on a
major league roster, you don't have to play No. Eight
ten years to be eligible. Yeah, same thing. You get
a pension, you get lifetime healthcare. Those are things worth
(34:45):
fighting for. And you just saw with the Hall of
Famers talking about that they don't get healthcare and all
these guys are hurting and whatnot. And then you have
a league that's going around bragging about how much money
it makes your union and I say, you, I know
you're not in any more. I was a player for
what Your union also made an agreement about the CTE
(35:06):
where the NFL is gonna you know, they came to
an agreement with the league concussion lawsuit and the judge, No,
not in the history of legal uh, judges who have
these agreements said oh no, even though both sides agree
to it, said I will not sign this because it's
too long. You never see that a judge. Usually if
(35:27):
two sides come to an agreement, a judge is just
gonna rubber stamping. He looked at the money and was like,
how could the union agree to this? It's not enough. Yeah,
that's that's kind of how we feel. Yeah, yeah, well
one baseball and football is not analogous. Um, we're talking
about guaranteed contracts and then talking about how come you
guys don't fight the same when one has a guaranteed
(35:49):
climate and one doesn't. So in a guaranteed climate, if
I signed for six years or just say eighty million
in baseball, I'm getting my six years eighty million, and
I know that, so I I'm in with a different armor.
I come in with different weapons versus a football player.
Whereas the median salary, the average salary, everything's lower. But
here's the real example of why football is in a
(36:10):
different position. Baseball's heritage and their union all the best
union in the country. Well yeah, and also and also
the oldest. Let's just when we're talking generational wealth. The
beauty of generational wealth is the accumulation of interest. So
all of a sudden, third generation Johnny at Columbia is
not going to act the same as first generation Marcellist.
(36:31):
And I'm the NFL is almost first generation Marcellist, where
it's like, you're asking me to do things that in
my sacrifice, I don't even have anything in my nest
egg to even talk about sacrificing. So it's a blind
conversation to a football union and they're fighting. What goes
underreported is the health benefits and the billion dollars that
(36:53):
they added to it in twenty eleven. Not many people
walking around the street is hearing that. All we're hearing
is everyone's broke down and crippled, and no one said
up them. Um, I think the union is doing a
good job, not a perfect job. But if you're gonna ask,
and we're gonna base this union based on are you
getting guaranteed contracts with the players. If you're not happy
with a Kirk Cousins contract and more improvements on that,
(37:15):
you're never gonna see a fully guaranteed contract in arts.
But I'll say this too, and and oftentimes the only
reason that you have free agency in this country is
Kurt Flood with Saint Louis Cornels gave up his career,
he went to court, you know what I mean. It
costs him, but that's the only way you get things changed.
And sometimes you that's that's that's one guy. But what
(37:36):
I'm saying is getting all these players together. You can't
tell me that if you really are together and you're
right with the with the baseball players, they have a
war chest, yeah, they they have money ready, yeah, And
this is what has to happen. You have to save
enough money up to that when that moment comes, and
then it comes to Marcellus who has to pay his
mortgage and then not have any money the union page.
(37:58):
That's what happens in baseball. They walk out, they pay
your bills. Yeah, exactly. You know you're gonna different animal.
I wish. I wish because I agree with where Rob
is saying, and I wish the players would be able
to get this wardest to get what I think that
I don't know. I used to be in a players
(38:19):
in Hawaii and at the time I think we were
saying our ward chest was like three hundred million, like
that was just set aside for legal fees if necessary. Right,
there are thirty two owners and let's just say average
worth net worth is two billion, that's sixty four billion.
And if they want to set aside just ten percent,
(38:39):
that's six point four billion. Right, And you go on
the court and you know what before there's innocence and
guilt is wealth. It's the rich man wins. Right. You're
going to court where somebody was say he would lawyer
you to death. That's that's a feudal fight. I think
they're doing a tremendous job at closing the gap. I
grew up in the world where my dad was talking
about if you big and you fast and you're strong,
(39:01):
be the heavyweight champ in the world. Be Muhammad Ali
in the seventies. Right then that transition to, you know what,
be in the NBA because that's where you want to be.
And there's still the NBA, but now football is closing
the gap. Like we see Aaron Rodgers off for one
hundred and seventy million, y'all, Like, let's just be one
hundred with this. Like football is now in a place
where you're like, you make some good money, only a
(39:22):
few players, and then the NBA you got Wait a minute,
wait a minute. Let's look at the Lakers roster right now.
Because I used to do this in the media, because
I used to laugh. I'd be like, yo, you make
media cast is making more than half the Lakers, Like, yeah,
we got Lebron, we got but Alonzo. But then you
start looking at the bottom of that roster casting they're
making hundreds of thousands of dollars and it ain't Lebron money.
(39:43):
Lebron makes more in a game than some of those
casts make. Well, the minimum in the NBA is about
five hundred. Yeah, it's a lot of but you got
a guy, an average guy like a Tim Hardaway, mean
better than average Tim Hardaway Junior guaranteed seventy one seventy
two million dollars. Oh, now we have a different versation,
and you know you don't get so. No one raises
(40:03):
their hand to be a football player first, No one
push your hand down. Say you're not playing basketball. I'll
tell you like in high school, everybody want to play basketball.
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports
Radio dot com and within the iHeart Radio app. Search
f SR to listen live. All right, marcellis widely joining
(40:25):
the I couple in studio. Marcellis obviously an all pro
former NFL player. Talk to us about how you know
a lot of former players have criticized the rules changes
and they're not letting you hid and this and that.
And I'm with those players. I think that it's a
dangerous sport. Let's accept it. Try to make it safe
as you can, but understand it's gonna be dangerous no
(40:49):
matter what we do unless you make it flag football.
Where do you stand on? Man? You and the old
players just wrong? Man, y'all sound you gonna do? Y'all
sound like hip hop is dead? Now I can't stand
you it is. You know what do you know? What's fun?
You know? Yall know you ain't in the mumble rapp
either I am you know we amum wrapping the eighties
and nineties, jj fad tell me what they say at
the end of that song summer no no never never, Yeah,
(41:10):
that was it said what they were talking. Come on,
dost effects go bus kicking bus ing it? Okay, don't
that ain't That was one group? You know what I
name two nam But do you want me to keep
going nikes? Which? Come on? But here's the hip hop. Look,
(41:30):
we always hold on to our error. That's who we
are as human beings. We and we only remember highlights
of our error. We don't We don't remember the low lights.
We don't remember the average. We only remember the top.
And it's funny. Now every players coming out the league
so soft, the league so soft. Here's the thing. Here's
what the league has realized. Our business model has to
(41:50):
reflect our audience. What is our audience Fantasy football players
and people who just want to come in here and
see high scoring offenses and points. Super Bowl forty one
thirty three despite a top four defense in Philadelphia winning it,
they gave up thirty three points. So here's the NFL. Now,
let's protect our investment quarterbacks first foremost, and I respect
(42:11):
the fool because t O was in here yesterday he
said I'd be upset if I was in the league
if I'm another position, because they want to put that
the quarterbacks, but what about the rest of us. Look,
it's been an evolution of football from day one. Look
if this NFL soft, what do you call the NFL
that came right after they were smoking cigarettes and head slapping,
because you know what, them old dudes were saying, Oh
(42:33):
y'all soft, y'all can't take the head slap. So then
they moved to you can't cut block, and then it
moved to you know what on special teams, no more
weds blocking, no more two on ones like and now
we're at you can't touch him at the five yards
and you can't slam the quarterback, sack the quarterback like
he's your son. That's fine with me, you know why,
because if I d DDT you destroy you, land you
(42:54):
on your neck, or if I just lay you on
the blanket, guess what I get one sack? Guess what
we get the yard that's behind the line of scrimmage.
The messaging in football, Steve Atwater, Ronnie lot my finger
fell off, but I'm still bawling. Look, that's not for
the civilized. Here's the audience of the NFL. Also, it's
second generation athletes like me who are sitting there, like
(43:16):
Drew Brees and his kids. Hey man, y'all better clean
that thing up or I don't need my kids out there.
Why because they don't need to be. Football is gonna
go where boxing went one and two. Soccer moms. Soccer
moms sitting there saying CTE what we're not having it.
We're not having it now. So if you don't clean
that thing up, guess what, you're gonna lose the next generation.
But some of the things, some of the helmet to
(43:38):
helmet hits, this was my problem, and they not calling
it like that. Make sure we get to basketball and
we don't have a lot of time. But yeah, I
don't want to Yeah, yeah, just quick. I was just
saying some of the helmet to helmet hits I thought
were all a little bit always. Okay, that's all I'm saying.
Let's get on, Chris Paul, give us the Chris Paul.
You got to take people of bashing them now because
(43:58):
of the fighting, what went on, and now everybody's saying
he's not a bad good teammate, he's a bad guy.
All these wolf tickets out there, all these chumps out there,
and that was all my homeboys that are chumping too, Baby,
big baby Davids, my neighbor. What's up, boy, I know,
tweeted Ryan Hollands. My dog. You know what it is.
Chris Paul's a barker. You know who else is a barker?
(44:20):
Kobe Bryant, but the k ah. So I'm in practice,
I'm at the baseline. You're barking, you barking, you barking.
It's time for me to bark back. Or wait a minute,
that's a five time champion barking at me. Let me
swallow my pride. But then when I hear you Chris
Paul doing the same exact thing, you know why I
don't receive it the same way because it ain't work
for you fully, bro. So if it ain't worked for
(44:40):
you fully, why are you over there imitating somebody who
has done that. If you're not a Don Dodo with hardware,
we know you get graded differently. I'm a broadcaster that
I'm going to say the same thing. Whether it's me
ten year player, all pro no Super Bowl championships, or
if I were drafted to New England instead of Buffalo,
I would have won too championship before Frenzy. All of
(45:02):
a sudden, it means something different, It impacts different. That's
a Super Bowl champions saying what marcellis said, completely different complexion. Marcellers,
did Lebron James come here to win championships so to
be the next Meryl Street? Which one both and ain't
nothing wrong with that. That's what the Lakers are. Lakers
have never been just singular and focused. Sacking that movie,
(45:26):
stop and rapping and all that kindle. It's bigger than
Nino Brown. Stop blaming the players. The owner of the Lakers,
doctor Jerry Buss, the pH D physicists, came to the
organization and said, we bring in showtime. You know what
that means. Went on, The court went off, the court, forum,
club opens, actors, celebrities, sidelines, cheerleaders first time in the NBA.
(45:49):
More importantly, watch my entourage. And if y'all know doctor Buss,
y'all know what that entourage looked like. It looked like, hey,
we got more going on than just basket, all right,
but he gotta win on the court want Marcellus, great
time man. We want you show on one check Out
Speak for your Samily Itself or Fox Sports one and
go buy the book Never Shut Up. It's in bookstores now. Marcellus,
(46:12):
Willy the Eye Couple, Fox Sports Radio, make sure you
go and pick this up. Man, Great job. Love
Hosts And Creators
kelvin washington
Rob Parker
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