The Party is Over for Gronk & Luck

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Chris Bruce Harton. I'm here with my man
Rob Parker, and we have another great show coming your way.
Will the early retirements of Andrew Luck and Rob Gronkowski
be a watership moment for the NFL? Is an eighteen
game season actually a good thing for the NFL? And
how serious should we take the ideal of Carly Lloyd
kicking field goals in the NFL? Plus interviews with Bleacher Reports,

(00:25):
NFL columnists Mike Freeman, Analytics Guru Warren Sharp and Washington Boats,
NFL scribe Jerry Brewer, a lot of football talk and
you'll love it. So let's get to it. The trash
Talking Tuesday edition of the Acable podcast is coming your
way right now. Thanks for listening to The Odd Couple Podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday from seven

(00:47):
pm to ten pm Eastern for to seven pm Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for The
Odd Couple at Fox Sports Radio dot com or stream
us Hive every Day or the iHeartRadio app by searching
f s R. This party you're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Ah, yeah,

(01:26):
it is The Eye Couple. I'm Chris Brussard alongside my
partner Rob Parker, and we are coming to you live
from the Geico Fox Sports Radio studios. Fifteen minutes could
save you fifteen percent more on your car insurance. Visit
Geico dot com for a free rate quote. It is
great to be here with you every day, but especially

(01:46):
on Tuesdays because Rob, yes, it's always trash talking Tuesday.
That's right. In the third hour of the show. You
can call in and trash anyone or anything in the
world of sports. So get your takes ready and come correct.
Rod Parker. How are you doing today? I am doing great.

(02:08):
What a day, Chris. And you know what, I got
so much energy left even with the last three hours
for this program. But I did Undisputed the Herd taught
at USC Baseball podcasts in the in the Park of
which drops tomorrow, and now I'm ready to go and
do and duke it out with you for the next

(02:30):
three hours. So great busy days. Yes, you are very busy.
I'm not even gonna tell you what I did. Yeah,
you chilled out the last You didn't do anything because
you ain't doing first things first this week? No, I
did it last week. I doing Friday. Did you even
get did you even get up to today or to
get out of bed early. I worked out, got my

(02:52):
work out in. You know, I do a little shadow boxing, wow,
and hit the weights, push ups, you know, several different weights.
I just remember, your arms are too short to box
with God. Okay, I remember, thank you, referend Park. That's
one of my favorites. That's one of my favorites. But
I've had a good day, a fun day, and like
you said, we're ready to duke it out for the

(03:12):
next three hours. We got Mike Freeman. Both you and
I know him well. He was a former colleague of
mine at the New York He's one of the best
in cover in the NFL. Yes, and Mike. For people
who don't know Mike, at one point worked at the
Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Washington Posts,
I don't think you can get any bigger than that.

(03:33):
Those are the big three word, all three of them. Yes, Yeah,
he definitely does a great job, and so it'll be
exciting to get him on. He works with Bleacher Report.
Now he'll join us in less than thirty minutes. Rob Mont.
She introduced the crews right, we'll get into it. Let's
welcome into our couple of crew wouldn't be able to
do this fine radio program without him. Rob G of
course as our producer, USC Chris and for Alex today,

(03:56):
he's our engineer. Ralph Irvin is our update guy. He's
at the update desk. He'll keep us updated throughout the program.
And we got a new intern. Yesterday we had Sam
and now we have Gus. Gus is from Chris, Upstate
New York. What school did he go to, Rob G.
He goes to Indiana, but he's from upstate New York

(04:17):
outside Binghamton. So he has a Parker jacket that he
wore into LA and we told him that he doesn't
need it out here, so we'll get a Parker Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, No,
you don't know that out here, No, not at all.
So they were enough full effect all on the other
side of the glass on this trash talking Tuesday. Chris,
let's kick some outh, let's do it all right. Last week, Rob,

(04:41):
the NFL world went into a tizzy when it was
announced that Rob Gronkowski would make a big announcement this week, right,
you know, obviously a lot of people were expecting him
to come back, you know, to the Patriots and joint
time Brady again for another run to the super Bowl Instead.
His announcement, his big announcement today was that he is

(05:05):
going to promote players being able to use CBD. That's
cannabis medicinal cannabiscaine relief a minute. A lot of X
players are I mean a lot of them. I know
a lot of NBA players getting into that business. Well
because because it's it's a big market. But a lot

(05:26):
of people in this country's smoke. I have never smoked,
Chris ever, Uh, it doesn't appeal to me, but a
lot of people smoke. I guess I'm with you. I've
never smoked a cigarette in college. I did try. Did
you have to join? A few times? I try. I
think I did it wrong because all it did was
burn my throat. So you didn't do it right, right,
you know? Yeah? I mean I did get I guess

(05:49):
a little bit of a high, but it burned my throat.
I'm a fifty five year old black man. I've never
done I've never even put weed to my mouth. I'm
just so black man, it makes it. Uh No, I'm
just an't that qualified. But hold because I'm wrong. People
were assumed when we were coming up. It was called pot, right,

(06:10):
and it was more prevalent among at least where I
remember white guys. Oh no, don't a smoking pot right.
I wasn't this huge. I went to a white college,
so I'm saying, yeah, we both did. And I mean
I even just high school, junior high I remember kids,
white kids smoking pot and you know they're not that.
There weren't black kids that did what they called reefer

(06:32):
back then, but it was more prevalent among white in
my experience, I'm not and actually surveys dude show now
it's pretty much even. But um, yeah, but I never
I never did it. But it's not because I wanted
to be a goody good I just didn't. It didn't
appeal to me, like I've never smoked a cigarette. I
was just never interested in that. Never. Yeah, it's uh,

(06:54):
it's getting pretty big obviously now. And and that was
what Gronk wanted to announce, But of course people were
interested in what he had to say about football. With
Andrew Luck stepping down at age twenty nine, as Gronk did,
he was twenty nine when he stepped down. Here's what
Gronk had to say. I want to be clear to
my fans. I needed to recover. I was not in

(07:15):
a good place. Football was bringing me down and I
didn't like it, and I was losing that joy in life,
like the joy. I'm sorry right now, but oh Dan,
let me. I really was, and I was fighting through it.
Did you cause that? If did you see? I saw it?

(07:37):
He was. He was about to cry. He was on
verge of tears. And it just tells you how painful
it was. Let me just say this. I know where
you're gonna go, and I'm just gonna say something real brief,
and then you you go where you want to go,
and I'll respond. You know, I didn't play football at
the highest level obviously. I didn't even play in college.

(07:58):
I played through high school. I loved football is my
favorite sport, more so than basketball. Oh yeah, And I
thought about even walking on I was recruited, you know,
small school's Division three to play football, but I thought
about walking on Division one. That's how much I loved it,
like Syracuse or something like that. But the older I got,

(08:20):
the more painful it became. I'm just talking about high
school football. And I was a running back early in
my high school career and by the last two three games,
two games of the season. I was basically ready for
it to be over as much as I loved it,
because it was just painful. And then and you know,

(08:42):
I became a receiver, and it was just like, if
I could, I would have played football in college at
Division three, if I could have just played in the games,
but I didn't want to practice. Is what ate you up?
And you're just you know, it's painful. And again that's
at high school level. So imagine these guys they went

(09:04):
through big time Division one football, then they're in the NFL.
I get what Gronk was saying. I mean, it is painful.
These guys are straight up modern day gladiators. And somebody
who really hasn't played at that level, or maybe never
played football at any level, it's hard to understand just
how tough and physically grinding that sport. Is no doubt

(09:28):
about it. But just to hear a guy who had
so much success. This is not a guy who played
on some bad team. Chris got his butt kicked. You know,
lost a lot of games. He played at a high level.
They won a lot of champions you know, they won championships,
And this guy said football brought me down. Did you
hear it? Rob G? Can we play that one more time?

(09:50):
He said that football brought him down. Here we go, listen.
I want to be clear to my fans. I needed
to recover. I was not in a good place. Football
was bringing me down and I didn't like it. And
I was losing that joy in life, like the joy.

(10:12):
I'm sorry right now, but let me I really was
and I was fighting through it. He was losing the
joy in life. But when you're in pain, right you
wake up in the morning and you're physically in pain.
That's not even the talking about just whatever head trauma
you might suffer, but just the physical your legs, your arms.

(10:34):
He talked about he pulled a quad I think in
the Super Bowl, and he was crying at night in
the bed after they went the super Bowl because he's
in pain. So I get it. Well, go ahead, because
I'm gonna say this. Let me. Let me just go
because I know you. Look, I don't think this means
that there's going to be a trend of guys retiring.

(10:58):
There's not. There's this two guys and they're both injured. Now, guys,
if they're physically banged up and Yeah, they could get
out there and play, but they're really banged up and
in pain. Then guys are gonna step down, and that's fine.
It's actually probably what they should do. Especially the money
in football now is so big that you can make

(11:20):
you know, millions, and then you can you don't have
to play a full But that's ten fifty. But you're
making the argument on why this trend is probably no.
I'm about to tell you the truth because for every
Rob Grindkowski, there's a Jason Witten. Jason Witten's coming back.
Jason Witten played sixteen years, fifteen years, and now he's

(11:44):
coming back. Jason Wage thirty seven to play. What do
you think played till he was forty two? Tom Brady,
it's forty two and going strong. Woofs to play at
least three more years. It's different. Individual. I'm telling you
you're gonna have more twenty now. You never had a
twenty nine year really. Jim Brown, well, but he wasn't
making any money. That's why he quit. But that's why

(12:08):
Barry Sanders is another Vin Johnson. I mean, I'm just
saying like this isn't This is a few guys and
there's always been a few guys. I think, I think
you're missing the boat. I think guys make more money now.
I don't think guys are going to allow themselves to
put up with the pain, have their bodies beat up,
not be able to play with their kids, or have

(12:29):
to suffer. And I'm telling you you'll see more of
it when guys realize. And this is what normally happens
when you see big guys. It's like the Lebron thing.
I always say this. He didn't started, Chris, and I'm
talking about when they started resting players. He didn't start it.
So I'm not blaming it on him because that was Popovitch, Okay,
But when when they started seeing a player of Lebron's

(12:51):
caliber taking time off during the season, they said, if
Lebron can do, you follow the leader. If Lebron can
do it, then it must not be the worst thing
in the world. And I'm a good player as wall
star player. Other guys followed his lead. They're now gonna
look at something different. What I'm saying, I'm telling you
they're gonna look a job. They're gonna look and say,

(13:13):
a twenty nine year old guy with sixty million dollars
on the table on Andrew Luck. But he still could
have worked through with Chris. No, he's still could have.
I'm not saying you might not see where if you
were pointing to a Patrick Willis or somebody like that
who was healthy, then I give it to you. But
guys who are healthy aren't. And Groc he can say

(13:36):
he feels fine now. Groc was always banged up. He
missed twenty nine games over his last seven years. And
I can point to a Larry Fitzgerald. Why is Larry
Fitzgerald still playing? Has nothing? He's a durable team. No,
he's very smart. You know his dad. His dad as
a sportswriter. Larry Fitzgerald's very intelligent. He's got a lot
of other interests, but he loves football, you know it, Robert.

(14:00):
Every field of endeavor are those are, including sportswriting. There
are people that love it and wouldn't do it for free.
And they're also and they like it. They're also because
they get the money, they're gonna step away. It's the
same thing in pros. But they're also those people who
just don't identify with anything else, and that's why they
hang around the press box till let's seventy five, even

(14:22):
though they don't work for anybody. All I'm saying is
I think that these things, when you start to hear this,
people will reevaluate and wonder. We've already seen a drop
in kids playing football people with the CTE. You're going
to start to see where people are gonna say, you
know what, I made enough money, I'm good. I don't

(14:44):
want to put my and and they might not be
in a condition. And I'll give you that, Chris, that
Andrew Luck is in which is more diet or even
but they might say to themselves, I don't want to
get to that place. This is not I don't feel
it the same way that I used to, and I
don't want to be I don't want to I'd rather
get out early than too late. And I think you'll

(15:05):
see more of it. That's that's all we'll see. I mean,
like I said, I think Andrew Luck is a different
and and and so it's grounk. They're different to me
because their bodies were banged up and some people and
this look those two rewarriors, we know it. Two of
the best you know in the league at their position,
and big and strong guys, but different people's bodies. Some

(15:27):
of it's genetic. You know, you can some people's body.
Everybody's body can't go through an eighty two game NBA season.
Everybody's body can't go through multiple years of sixteen game
NFL seasons, and somebody, some guys can a Chris Carter,
a Jerry Rice, a Tim Brown. We for every guy
like Gronk or Andrew Luck, we can get a guy

(15:50):
who's either playing now or retired to come on and
say I love it. I think the more. Damien Woody today,
our former colleague, he was like, I'll play eighteen game games.
I love it. I mean there are guys that you
love it more than others, and guys that whose bodies,
whose physical makeup can take it whereas other guys can.

(16:12):
I think that there will be because of all that
people see and all the more the more knowledge we
have and all the other things. I just think that
there's a better chance that you're gonna start seeing more
players bow out earlier. That's all I'm saying. It's gonna
we say say you're not gonna be able to feel
the team. But I'm just telling you, I think that
that's going to be the case. All right, What do

(16:33):
you guys think? Eight seven seven ninety nine on Fox
eight seven seven, nine, nine, six sixty three sixty nine
are the early retirements of Andrew Luck and Rob Gronkowski
the start of a trend in the NFL. We will
continue the conversation with you next. It's The Odd Couple
Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions of
The Odd Couple with Chris Broussard and Rob Parker week

(16:56):
days at seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific on Fox
Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app. It is the
I Couple. I'm Chris Brussar, he is Rob Parker, and
we brought to you by True Car. When it comes
to selling or trading in your car, you need to
make good choices, and with True Car, you gotta star
on your roster. So when you're ready to sell or
trade in your car, check out True Car. True Cash

(17:18):
offer not available in all areas. All right, Rob, Let's
open it up to the callers. Eight seven seven ninety
nine on Fox? Is Gronkowski and Andrew Luck? Are they
emblematic of a trend that's about to start where you
see guys in their primes still young, stepping away from

(17:40):
the game. All right, let's start with Matt and Omaha.
You're on the odd couple of Fox Sports Radio. Matt,
what's up, hey, guys. So I don't think we're quite
there yet for that trend, but I think it's really
really close. I think, you know, the NFL is a business,
and the players it's just as much of a business
to them. But I think of all that gay and
keep money that they're getting, and they're gonna understand that

(18:02):
they'll play a couple of years. They've got that guaranteed.
They can just write it out, sail it out, and
skill from there. And I think with the zikul Ellie
what he's doing, you know, he's understanding that too, and
he's going to hold out and protected his body until
he gets that point and get the money that he
needs or once. But more and more guys are seeing
what's going on. This concern of their health and their

(18:23):
bodies and their minds has never been more prevalent than
ever before than now, and people are actually speaking out
about it. So we're almost there on that trend, not quite,
but just about Okay, Matt, Yeah, I hear you, And
I think that years ago people would have been the
idea that you would quit and walk away. But the
money has made it different so well. And also when

(18:45):
you get that money, like you said, what if you
if you make fifty million, Now, yeah, you could make
another hundred million if you stay, but fifty millions enough right,
you know, for you to be able to retire and
you know, live a nice, comfortable life the rest of
your day. So yeah, that can certainly make it. Whether
it's concerned about the physicality, whether it's just you know,

(19:07):
I don't love it. I like it. I did it
for a living, and it got my family out of
poverty or whatever. You know, I was able to take
care of my mom. Now I'm good. I want to say,
whatever the reason, the money does give guys or more
options than they used to, have no doubt about it.
Braxton and Kansas, you're on the odd couple of Fox
Sports Radio. What you got, Hey, I'm just saying, I

(19:29):
don't really think, you know, Ronk and Andrew Loves. I
don't think it's really gonna start a trend. I mean,
you got players like Big Bend. You know, he had
years where he was banged up. He's still playing in
his thirties. He got Matt Stafford a little younger. He
seems to be banged up all the time, but he's
still playing. I think it's like a rare exception. You know.
I don't think it's gonna start a trend or anything.
Because you got like top name, high paid quarterbacks like yeah,

(19:52):
Matt Stafford, Aaron Rodgers has been beat up, they still
go at it. I don't think it's gonna be a trend.
I think players will get banged up in just tell
themselves head part of the job. And I'm sticking with it,
all right. Yeah, we just all have to wait and see.
I'm with the caller, but you know, we don't know.
Rob will have to wait and see. As we said, Yeah,

(20:12):
I just think that there's a chance only because of Chris.
Before the money wasn't this large, And it does make
a difference when you look back and go, do I
want to go through this? You know what I mean?
Do I know you? I don't. I don't have to.
I have fifty million dollars in the bank. I don't
have to put myself through this. How about Vince in Chicago?
You're in the odd couple of Fox Sports Radio. What's up, Vince?

(20:34):
It was good TV was good, Big Rob, are you
what's happening? All right? Man, I'm gonna get a little
ahead on trash talking Tuesday and call out Rob for
this take on guys retired early becoming a trend. Oh, Rob,
I got two words. No way, that's four words, but
take wow. Just like more guys are knowledgeable about the game, now,

(20:57):
more teams are knowledgeable, and they're gonna learn from this
Andrew Luck situation. They're gonna learn, Hey, we gotta protect
our guy. Let's get him an old line. Let's make
them slide. Also, there's too many guys wanting to play football,
too many guys for it to make it a difference
or a trend. I'm with Chris. I'm this one. Score
one for him. Rob, you're dead Ron, cue the music.

(21:19):
All right, we'll just wait and see. We'll wait and
see down the little attitude. Right, that's all good? All right?
Max and Georgia are you on the odd couple of
flock sports radio? What's up? Max? Oh? You got him?
Chris always always a pleasure. What's up? Hear me? Yes? Yep? Um?
So for me, it's the uh, the thing that's not

(21:41):
being focused on enough is the opioids and the anti
inflammatory epidemic. It's a national epidemic. But we'll talk about
sports only. Um, the athletes don't have an alternative. Do
you think that, I mean, you brought that up. I'm
I'm curious. Does that have something to do with this
in your opinion? Yes? Me, because when you think about it,

(22:01):
like what Rob said Gronkowski in this discussion, he was
almost crying. I think more than that, it was about
you can make enough money in your life, no doubt, guys.
But whether or not you can live long enough to
actually enjoy that money's a different story. And with those drugs,
you may not even live to be fifty. And if
you do, you're living a daily struggle of taking those pills.

(22:21):
Those pills are almost just as worse as as dying.
So that the CBD is the alternative. And I think
Rob is a clear example. If you look at him now,
he's talking about it. He's health, he's feeling better. Sure
it helps not playing football, no doubt, But that CDD
is that that natural way to help your body. And
what's worse about it is these companies have known about

(22:42):
this for years, but they're worried about their bottom line.
I don't want to get too political, but that's just
my opinion. You're talking about the players taking these drugs
just to you know, like so they can get out there,
just so that they can play right. Yeah. And the
other thing too is even when he said it almost
broke up, it's real quick. He was saying how football

(23:03):
was bringing him down and he didn't had no joy
in life. I thought that was just interesting, do you
know what I mean? There was no joy of winning
Super Bowls? You got money. He was the life of
the party, was the frat boy. You know. Well, you
know a lot of people put up front. Oh, I know,
you know, but I think I think that was related
to the pain. You know, if you're constantly in pain,

(23:24):
it's gonna be hard to have some joy. Our NFL
executives were shocked by Andrew lux sudden retirement because they
were never really paying attention. Bleacher Report NFL columnists Mike
Freeman will explain next. But first, Fox Sports Radio has
the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all
of our shows at foxsports Radio dot com and within

(23:45):
the iHeart Radio app. Search f SR to listen live.
Thank you, Ralph, it is the I couple coming to
you live from the Geico Fox Sports radio studios. It's
easy to say fifteen percent of more on your car
and shootings with Geico. Go to Geico dot com or
call eight hundred nine for seven a ut Oh. The
only hard part figuring out which way is easier. We're
gonna bring in a former colleague of mine and Rob

(24:08):
knows him as well as knowing him for a long time.
We worked together the New York Times. He's the NFL
columnist for Bleacher Report, has been covering the NFL in
tremendous fashion for two decades plus. I believe Mike Freeman, Mike,
my happening brother. Wait, we got two Lettings on the
radios like this is like this is like Montana and Brady. Oh,

(24:38):
I don't even I didn't even know they allowed you
brothers to be on the radio. We're breaking, man, But
before we go, and it happens in Trump's America too,
rights right, But before we get there, we appreciate the
com words. We said it before you came on the air.
You know, you do a great job covering the league.

(24:59):
And Chris and I we already said you worked for
the Big Three before they were the Big Three in
the NBA, with the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, in
the New York Times. So you're a guy we admire
and respect. So we're glad to have you on our
radio show. Thank you. I appreciate that, and back at
you guys. You guys have always been terrific, really good
at the jobs and always been very kind to me,

(25:22):
so to appreciate it. So thank you well, Mike. I
read your colum. I don't know if he came out
today or yesterday about Andrew luck great story, you said. Executives,
you know, you were talking about their reaction to it,
do you. Rob and I were just talking about this.
I don't think this is necessarily the beginning of a
trend of guys retiring in their primes. Where do you

(25:45):
does think it is because they have money? Yeah, I
don't think it is. I think Andrew Luckles was in
a He's just in a very unique position because he
he had one hundred million dollars in his pocket, so
he could he could afford to walk away. And that's
the big thing. Some guys that play don't don't have

(26:06):
that kind of money. Not everyone in the league is
a quarterback that makes it kind of money that you
guys know that. So he had a lot of comfort
that he could fall back on. And also I think
football was very important to him, but it wasn't everything
to him. He just had it. I think he had
to me, what is a proper perspective's For him? Life

(26:26):
was more important being able to pick up your kid
in ten years, not forgetting where you put your car
keys in ten years. Your brain is okay, your body
is okay. And he thought more about that and I
got I mean, I don't know about you guys. I
can't fault somebody for that. It's just to me, that's
I think that's a proper perspective. And it's very different

(26:50):
because in the NFL and in football you are taught
to not have that perspective. It's the opposite. It's your
whole These guys, their whole career here from the time
they start playing when they were ten years old to
now was always football, first team, first life later. And
he has had that conditioning. And he flipped on his

(27:13):
head and went and decided to retire. And I know
people think that he won't. He may come back. I
don't think he's coming back. I don't either. I don't
see that. But Mike, the reason I think that this
could be is people do follow that. You know, they
look at a guy and I get it, he's got
quarterback money, but still with the CTE and all the

(27:33):
other issues going on. I think guys, now, if they
can make some money, you know, make up some good money,
and can look at themselves and say, where do I
want to be? Do I want to drop dead at
fifty five? I do I want to get up and
be in pain and be addicted to pills to make
me feel okay to live? Or do I want to
get out? I think people are gonna start looking at

(27:56):
being trying to get out sooner than later. That's all
I'm saying, all right now, that yeah, that I definitely
agree with sooner than later, Yeah, because you're already starting
to see some of that. You knew over the past
like five years you've seen maybe going back even like
ten years, you've seen guys take that approach. But the

(28:16):
number of guys that have retired when we would call
early is very small. And but I do think that
you right about the head trauma stuff, and just overall,
I mean, I don't think I know you guys know this.
You talk to players, you've been around the NFL. I
don't know if people fully understand what the sport does

(28:36):
of their bodies, of these guys. It's it's crazy. I mean,
I remember the first time I went on the sideline.
I heard the noises. It's like this, like car crashes, right.
I mean, it's crazy and people don't get it, and
people don't fully understand what it does. And the fact
that they these guys, some of these guys play just
five years, let alone ten or eight or twelve is

(28:59):
amazing thing to me. So I think Rob, you got
a point. I think people are gonna say, players are
gonna say, um, maybe if I got enough money, maybe
if I can takeure of my family, maybe I step
out a year or two early. I think that's fair.
It's the I couple were joined by NFL columnist Mike
Freeman of The Bleacher Report. Uh, Mike, what what our

(29:21):
executives saying? Because I Rob and I were talking yesterday
and we were looking at Ryan Grigson, the former GM
of Yeah, he didn't put it. You know, you know
how pressured and how often Andrew luck was sacked. I
think he was hit more than any quarterback in the league.
When Grigson was the gm um our executives looking at
that and kind of talking about the coach just didn't

(29:44):
protect their you know, franchise quarterback. And you look at
Kyler Murray, you look at Cam Newton. I mean it
maybe it's pretty late for Cam, but our team's going
to take a different approach because of what happened to
Andrew Luck. Percent on Griggson and what people think. They
just the thing I've heard a lot is one of

(30:06):
the reasons why Andrew Luck retired early because the Colts
screwed him. They just did. They did. They just didn't
protect him early in his career. He was absolutely just
blasted play after play all the time. And if you
look at a lot of the successful quarterbacks, I mean,
Brady's a little different, but he's still instructed. Once the

(30:28):
Patriots saw that Brady was the guy, they did everything
to protect him. They drafted tons of linemen, they put
weapons around him, and you know, you see what happens.
That's sort of a basic thing. And the Colts, what
the Colts did, the mistake they made. I see you
mentioned Cam Newton. That's a good example I've seen some
of that there with the mistake the Colts made was

(30:52):
every time Andrew Luck got hit and hit hard, he
got back up. So they thought, all right, well, you
know he's surviving all of this, we're gonna do go elsewhere,
you know what I mean, you kind of looked exactly exactly.
So they took his health for granted, they didn't build,

(31:13):
they didn't build with the interior, the line, they didn't
build the line, they didn't build anything to protect him.
And I think this is what you see. Now you
see the new management, and now you see the new gym.
They got a really good guard who is terrific. They're
building the interior and now I mean, he's gone so
well and it's not going to help him, but they
started if they realized we got to protect this guy.

(31:35):
And I think in moving forward, look, teams always want
to do that. That's I mean, obviously they want to
protect the quarterback, but they I think moving forward is
going to be an urgency. There's a real sense is
that this is a cautionary tale that well, this happened
all the time. No, but this is a cautionary tale
for if you don't protect your guy, you can This

(31:55):
is what can happen and Cam Newton isn't is a
good example. I think the passes are better now at it.
They're better trying to protect him. They've taken some of
the pressure off of him. With McCaffrey, they're doing that,
but early on they were the same way and Cam
Newton got blasted old time too. Hey, Mike, Will's gonna
be careful. We only have like about a minute or so,
but I do want you to chime in on the

(32:16):
Cowboys situation. Who's gonna blink? Is it gonna be Jerry
or Ezekiel Elliott? I mean, he did speak today yesterday
and kind of said, hey, I want to be a Cowboy,
But Emma Smith played in Arizona for a couple of
years too, so we kind of threw that out there.
He let the way he slide that he slid that in.
That was good. That was good. Who's gonna blink? I don't.

(32:39):
I mean, I'm honest, honestly, I don't know. And a
lot of it depends on how long we'll zeke. If
zeke miss is the first game, if this holdout goes
into the first game of the season, and the cow
you know, and Pollard his backup gets you know, one
hundred and twenty two touches, the Cowboys win, the pressure
goes to Zeke. Jerry will be like, I'm all right, fine,
I'm not gonna do anything. It all depends on if

(33:00):
Zeke comes back for the for the opener and how
Polar does then. Because the part of this that you
can sort of look back on with history, it's with
Emma Smith's first two games and missed the first two games.
Jerry blinked right because they went they went too right,
they went on and two they went over too. So

(33:21):
if something like that happens, you'll see Jerry bring Zeke in. Um.
But I think this Zeke seems pretty determined. He and
Melvin Gordon's holding out, Melvin Gordon's holding out in San
Diego seemed very determined, and ze cut to me ze
Gordon does not have a point. Zeke has a point. Yeah, Yeah,
I think so too. Zeke is really talented and they

(33:42):
built the entire offense around him. So he's got a point,
and I think he's gonna try and make it. And
I think this is gonna this could go on for
a little bit. He's Mike Freeman NFL columnists for Bleacher Report. Mike,
great time, thank you a very good everybody's good. Yeah right,

(34:02):
we're good good good. Well, we'll be reading you and
we'll get you on when the season starts. Thank you, guys,
I appreciate it. Thanks all right, brother. Yea, the war
of words rages on between two NFL superstars, and we'll
tell you all about it. Next is The Eye Couple
of Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Odd Couple with Chris Brussar and Rob Parker

(34:24):
weekdays at seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific on Fox
Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app man USC. Chris
is all over the place with the music. Yea, what
is this? Uh? How do I describe this? It's a
remix remix of a video game music? All right, I

(34:50):
know I haven't figured out a vibe yet. I'll get there,
all right. It is the Eye Couple. Chris Brusar Rob
Parker were brought to you by Lowe's Pros. Do it
right to say five percent more every day by shopping
at Lows in store online, say five percent on eligible
purchases just by using your Low's business credit account. Do
it right for less. Start with lows subject to credit

(35:11):
approval cannot be combined with other credit offers exclusions to
apply see store for details. Is in the United States
of America only. All right, Rob, We're gonna stick with
the NFL. And we know that last year one of
the bigger feuds in the league was two guys on
the same team, Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown, and that

(35:33):
their feuding actually led to Antonio Brown sitting out the
Week seventeen game, which was a must win for Pittsburgh.
Win and they had a chance to make the playoffs
lose and they were definitely out. They didn't make it anyway,
but they did win. They won that game, I believe.
But that was huge that Brown did not show up

(35:54):
for that game. One of the reasons he didn't was
because Ben had criticis eyes him earlier in the year
about running a pass pattern incorrectly, so to speak, instead
of taking responsibility for a bad throw being through Antonio

(36:15):
Brown under the bus on the radio. And here's what
Ben said recently about it to a shelf too. For you,
what did you learn from that whole experience of calling
out a b in particular, Yeah, I wish I would
have done it because obviously we saw what happened, and
obviously it ruined a friendship. They just got caught up
in the emotion to hear the battle. But the other

(36:36):
person I challenged that game was James Washington. And I
know people made a big deal about that, but James
Washington texted me, called me and talked to me in
person and thanking me for that. And so the outside
world was killing me for it. He thanked me, and
that's all that really mattered. Why do you think Ab
was not able to handle it the same way you

(36:56):
got to ask him? I'm not sure I got a
lot to say about this, Rob. First, let's tell you
what Anthony Antonio Brown did. He tweeted to no surprise,
he's always tweeting. Here's what he tweeted at Ben, never
Friends just had to get my ends. I don't know
if he was just trying to rhyme or what, but
Never Friends just had to get my ends and shut

(37:19):
up and Freddy and you know, of course, meaning my
money and money and means right right. Here's the thing, Rob,
and I hate when people do this. Ben kind of
kind of apologized, But then when you go in and
you say, but you know what. I criticized James Washington too,

(37:43):
and he that's like when people if I ever do something,
say something wrong about you, Rob or you know whatever,
I do something wrong and I apologize. Here's what I'm
not gonna do. I'm not gonna say to you if
I offended you, right, I'm sorry. Can you know that's

(38:06):
like that's saying I didn't do anything wrong, but if
you were offended, if you somehow were offended, like it's
almost blaming you exactly. I hate when people do if
I offended anybody, I'm sorry, right, sorry, sorry, right, and
you know that you offended people. But in this case,
I get where A B is just like stop already,

(38:28):
what just stop talking about him? Do you know what
I mean? He's gone, Chris. It was a bad breakup
as far as teammates go, and I could just see
where it's just like stop, be quiet, please, just can
we just move forward? Do you think that's what AB's doing? No,
I'm not mad at him for what he's said, But
do you really think his logic is let's just move on, Ben,

(38:52):
let's just let bygones be bygones. I don't think so.
I think Ab loves this junk and I think he
was taking another shot, which is fine, right, but I
don't think it was like, hey, why are you talking
about me? But he still could have if he wanted
to taking it to the m degree, you know what
I mean, could have went further is what I'm saying,

(39:12):
and really started another war and brought up something else
and talked about the other guy he was saying saying,
you know what I mean, he could have brought that
into the mix of that guy thought you were a
jerk too, and I talked to him or whatever it was,
you know what I mean, like they could have been
more and and he did delete the tweet and just said,
come on, man, shut up. And did he deleted Uh

(39:33):
Antonio deleted his tweet? Yeah, he did. He just deleted it.
They just the one. He just the one that's one
we talked about. Yeah. Wow, that's what I'm saying. That'steresting.
That's why I think that he meant it just shut up.
I want to move on. Well, but here's this is
where I did Finn been who I don't think he's
a great leader, and you know, he's in the wrong
as well as Antonio. But he was asked the question,

(39:56):
and you and I know look he's asked the questions.
Don't have any question, all right to see I Couple
of Fox Sports Radio two hours left, Keeper Locked. 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. Yes, indeed we are the I Couple.

(40:20):
I am Chris, he is Robbed. You can follow us
on social media. I'm at Chris Underscore Bruce Hard on
Twitter and Chris Bruce R sixty six on Instagram. Robbie's
at Rob Parker F s one on both Instagram and Twitter.
And we're coming you live from the Geico Fox Sports
Radio Studios. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent more
on your car insurance. Visit Geico dot com for a

(40:43):
free rate quote. Another great hour headed your way. We
got Jerry Brewer of the Washington Post. Does a great
job as a columnist. He's very good, Jerry, Yes, he's
very good. Does a great job there. So he he
has actually one that I think tends to agree with you, Rob.
That of the Andrew Luck retirement could be, you know,

(41:04):
the start of something at the start of a trend.
So we'll get to talk to him about that. But
you and I are gonna go at it, and I
think we actually may agree on this. We'll see. But
a big story in the NFL has been the owner's
insistence on any time the collective bargaining agreement comes up,

(41:26):
and we know they're gonna they're they're in talks now,
they're trying to, you know, avoid work stoppage in a
couple of years. Anytime it comes up, the owners seem
to bring up that they want an eighteen games season.
Now the players do want a bigger chunk, a bigger
piece of the pie. NFL players get about forty seven

(41:49):
percent of the league's revenue, which I think is too low.
And Christ you need to understand too, there are certain
things that the players don't get and I think that's
where when you look at that number, so well, that
sounds fair forty seven percent, don't you think they should
get at least fifty at least? But also the luxury suites, Chris,

(42:10):
the highest seats aren't included in that package. Concession and
parking not including that definitely, because I know they're always well,
I just know from the NBA covering their lockouts. That
is always a battle and that what is going to be,
you know, and why that almost working with different books,
That's what I'm saying, you know, like the player don't

(42:31):
saying this is all basketball related income. The owners are
saying no, and it's almost like they're hiding jump right,
That's what I'm saying, Like that, why are the suits
the highest priced tickets on the world right that you
can't get a piece of I mean that the every
everything that's revenue should be included everything. But here's the deal.
So the owners are like, look, we're not even really

(42:54):
trying to this is cording the sources. Uh Dan Graziano
of ESPN wrote this. They're like, we're not even trying
to hear about giving you, you know, a bigger piece
of the pie unless you're ready to discuss eighteen games.
And my point is this, In fact, I'm gonna read
this quote by Arthur Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons,

(43:17):
before to use Skipps were what does he say? Unleash unleash?
All right, here's Arthur Blank. He told this to Von McClure.
You probably know Von Good writer company NFL now of
course we all Here is what Arthur Blank said in
terms of expanding the length of the season, whether it

(43:39):
be with additional playoff games or regular season games, and
whether it would be to seventeen or eighteen. I certainly
would be in favor of an expansion, probably initially to
seventeen games to see how that works, then have eighteen.
But and the butt is the biggest caveat here. Blank says,

(44:00):
if we do that, we have to make sure that
our first priority, which is players safety in health, is
being kept in the forefront of that discussion. How Chris
doesn't make fit. I mean, well, stop it. They don't
go together. Eighteen games, adding two regular season games or

(44:22):
one playoff game does not mesh with player safety in
no way, shape or form. They talked about, well, you
could add players, you could add guys on the practice squad.
That defeats the purpose for the players, because if you're
add players, they're taking some of my money, right, so

(44:44):
don't It's like saying, yeah, I'm i'm I'm having an
affair with it. I want to have an affair with
a guy's wife, but I really want to make sure
his feelings aren't hurt. Why what they're mutually exclusive. You're
not talking about my marriage, are you? No? No, But
you know what I'm saying, like, eighteen games is putting

(45:07):
the players in greater danger. And you just saw one
of the best players in the NFL, was one of
the best quarterback prospects we've ever seen, retire because his
body is beat up at the greatest at twenty nine,
one of the greatest tight ends we've ever seen, retire

(45:28):
because his body is banged up. And now you want
to play two more games. Your first priority is not
the player's health and safety. Your first priority is money. Period.
I can't say it any better than you just said it.
I'm with you here. We're gonna be in lockstep because

(45:48):
they don't go together. They have no Christ. The only
the only reason they want eighteen games is they can
charge the network more money. You know, preseason games a
local TV, right, there's no money there. People don't even
want to go to a preseason game. Chris When when
when I when the barbershop in Detroit that season tickets

(46:09):
we couldn't give away to the preseason games. Seriously, they're horrible.
It really just as a waste. And I get it. Uh,
they want to make more money, and they should understand
that you're only putting people at risk. Remember the NFL
used to be twelve games, Chris. It used to be twelve,

(46:31):
and then it went to fourteen, fourteen and then sixteen.
It used to be twelve. That's all it were. It is.
It is utterly ridiculous. And you said it. This is
greed in the high grade. And for all the listeners
out there, remember this. Remember this. We are talking about billionaires. Billionaires.

(46:57):
They don't need a dime from the NFL. Right, That's
why they always win the work stoppages because they're wealthy
and the players are written and the player Right, there's
a big difference between the two. They made their money elsewhere,
and the owning in the NFL team is a hobby.

(47:18):
It's about pride, it's about bragging, bragging rights. They don't
need the money. So why in the world are they
pushing for eighteen games? I get it. They want to
cut the preseason by two games, then cut it, then
cut just cut it and play two preseason and then
play sixteen games. And you know what, do it that way.

(47:41):
I'm with you. I just think this is ridiculous. And
the players Union better, not give in. They're better not
for the betterment of them, They're just they're watching their
own players rode down and retiring and and saying that
that their bodies and where they are in life. I mean,
what you should stop to say, maybe the body's not
we're pushing it at sixteen games, Chris. We're putting them

(48:03):
now now the preseason. They don't even want to play them.
They don't want to playing. Only scrubs play. I shouldn't
call them scrubs, but you know what I mean. Yeah,
the relatively speaking, stars aren't playing, and they don't want
them to waste their time and energy in a game
that doesn't matter, potentially getting hurt, not letting you practice hard. Right,
you hardly can hit in practice. The starters don't play

(48:26):
in the preseason games for the most part, And now
you want to add two more regular season games. Adding
two more regular season games will take away the benefit
of not hitting in practice. It'll take away the benefit
of not playing in the preseason because you're adding two

(48:46):
more games of wear and tear and beat down in
your body. Here's the other thing, Rob. One of the
worst things in professional sports is when star players are
critical players. Are injured in the playoffs or for the playoffs, right,
I mean, we hated that Kevin Durant wasn't in the
playoffs last year. We would rather than be a full strain.

(49:08):
Right when Klay Thompson went down, it was like, come on,
and this is this is terrible. That's terrible for sports
leagues and you are risking further injury. There's a greater
chance of an Aaron Rodgers, of a Tom Brady, of
a Cam Newton or whoever it is, missing playoff games

(49:30):
if you extend the regular season to eighteen. This is unbelievable.
I mean, you never want to excuse greed, but if
these guys were already filthy rich, filthy wealthy, you know
what I mean, Like, if they weren't just swimming in money,
maybe you could excuse it. But that's that's all this is.

(49:54):
It's a straight up money grab. There's no reason the
league makes eleven billion. Is that not enough? And Chris,
the only reason that they want more games is to
be able to charge their networks for two more games.
That's all. That's what it is. It's nothing else. Fans
on clamor, I haven't heard one fans say they wished
they were more games, and and and you know what, everybody, Oh,

(50:16):
they can't get enough football. Didn't we just see that
football league just go out? You know, I don't even
remember the name of it now, the Alliance of Football
or American Football whatever. Hell no, people don't know you stop.
They want their RNFL. They want it the way it is.
They want to take a break when the season's over, Chris,
and then be able to yearn for it. They don't

(50:38):
want It's like it's like I always say, you love
ice cream until you start working at the ice cream factory. Right,
did all of a sudden you don't want it? I'm
even with you. And look, it wouldn't be the worst
thing in the world to me, But I like it
the way it is. I do. You don't need even
another playoff game. I'm you know what they're talking about
adding an extra team to I don't know about you

(50:59):
to play else have been great. I'm good with the PRIs.
I mean, like I said, it wouldn't kill me if
they had added a team in each conference. But you
don't need to. You don't need to, Like you said,
it's been great. You already have seasons when the wild card,
a team to win ten and six wins the Super Bowl.
Do you want the seventh seed maybe winning the Super Bowl?

(51:21):
You know so, I don't. It's fine way it is.
This is greed on the part of the owners, and
I'm with you. But the players they want money and
they may. I wouldn't be surprised if they gave in,
but I hope, like you that they can show some
fortitude and hold out because this is not good for them.

(51:41):
Well you know already that league, that union I can't trust,
and I think they're the worst union it is for
any I mean, they're just the worst there, there's no
denying it. They've been bent over so many times over
the barrel and taking advantage off. They just have been
They have power, Chris, together, they do, but they're not prepared.
They're not ready for a battle. The only reason why

(52:03):
the Baseball Union is the strongest. They have award chest
filled with money. That's what you need, Chris, in order
to take on the billionaires. Yeah, I agree with you,
and I hope they're ready to fight. I doubt they're
ready to fight. And I look, I get it. The
average guy plays three four and a half years, right
and you're not making that guy who's playing three or

(52:24):
four years not making a ton of money. So I
get it, so he don't want to give up any
of it. But still, but this, don't go to eighteen games.
Do not. It is not good for you. We're gonna
see more injuries, We're gonna see more big names out
of the playoffs, and the fans, unless they disagree, we're
gonna as always give them a chance to weigh in.
Rob But I'm telling you you fans need to make

(52:47):
your voices heard. You don't want eighteen, maybe they want eighteen.
People do love football, we all love football. I'm just
saying my thing is you're gonna have some playoffs where
you don't have your stars available because more guys are
gonna get hurt in the regular season. And I don't.
I would rather not. I'd rather have stars and less games.

(53:07):
I'm with you, I'd rather have and I don't. I'm
not advocating this, but I'd rather have fourteen games if
the stars were gonna be healthy, then sixteen when they're
not healthy and we know there's always a chance of
getting hurt in game run compared to game eighteen. I
get it, But the more times you're out there, the
more chances you open yourself up that you could get injured.
That's just five, no doubt about it. Where do you

(53:30):
guys stand? Eight seven seven. I'm curious on this one
where I think some people may want more games. And
we had Mike Freeman on from Bleacher Report and I
said it before him, but he said it, he reiterated it.
People don't understand the brutality of this game. Rob. I
know you've been on sidelines obviously. I've covered mainly NBA.

(53:53):
A couple of years ago, when I was still at
the other network, they took us to a football game
and we got to stand on the sidelines. It was
the Jets and the Bears. It was a Monday night
game and that was my first time on an NFL
sideline during the game. And again I played football in

(54:14):
high school. Loved it. I was about that. The speed,
it was scary. Television television destroy no question, it sanitizes it.
Even in the warm ups watching the defensive backs, how
big and fast the players were, how cut up the

(54:37):
defensive backs were. The obviously not huge, but the speed
in which they were moving in their drills, and then
to see the big guys and the kickoffs. The kickoff
looked like war and you hear the hits. I mean it,
like Mike Freeman said, it's like a bunch of car crashes.
And so to add on eighteen games is darn near

(55:02):
cruel and unusual punishment. So let's see what the fans
think our NFL owners being hypocrites when they say they
care about players safety while also pushing for more games.
We will continue the conversation with you. Next, it's The
Eye Couple Chris and Rob Fox Sports Radio. Be sure
to catch live editions of The Odd Couple with Chris
Broussard and Rob Parker week days at seven pm Eastern,

(55:25):
four pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Man U sc Chris just feeling his oats. I am,
who is that skill? It? Crystal method? I have no idea.
All right, rock on out, Rock on True Car. When
it comes to selling or trading in your car, you

(55:46):
need to make good choices, and with Truecar, you gotta
star in your roster. So when you're ready to sell
or trade in your car, check out Truecar. True cash
offer not available in all areas. All right, let's see
what the listeners think, Rob, we're both intrigued to see what.
I don't know how. I don't know how this is
gonna go. But we'll see y'all eight seven, seven ninety

(56:06):
nine on Fox. Let's get to it all right? Well
in Atlanta, you're on the odd couple of Fox Sports Radio.
What's up? Will? What's happening? Man? How y'all doing good? Great? Listen?
A couple of years ago, I'll be real quick. A
couple of years ago, I sort of moved myself from
football because of cousin Kaepernick. I stopped watching it. And
what that allowed me to do was sort of examine
the sport and examine the situation. I noticed that, like

(56:29):
the contracts not guaranteed, the sport is brutal. These is
the biggest, strongest, fastest, fastest athletes on the planet running
full speed at each other. Yes, and it's very dangerous,
and the owners are just greedy. So there is too
much of a a good thing, and I'm not I
just I don't have the stomach for it anymore. I
feel like I'm participating in something that's just wrong. Have

(56:53):
you wrong? Gone back to it? Boycotting? What I told
myself was when this situation was resolved, I would come back.
So so once he settled with them, I tried to
come back, and I tried to watch it, and I
honestly don't have to stomping for it. I feel like
I'm in a glad aid of stadium and I'm Benn
kill kill kill, like we were like, we know the
sports brutal, we know about CTE and it's just too much.

(57:17):
Eighteen games, just too much. And somebody did Mark Smith fleep?
Stand up? Take up for your players. Yes, your job,
it's too much, no doubt, No good call though you
know this Rob. The players may be telling him, Hey, look,
if it's gonna need more money, if it's gonna get
us this or that, then we'll go for it. Wow. No,
they gotta stay in their ground, no doubt about a

(57:38):
Craig in Los Angeles. You're on the odd couple Fox
Sports Radio. What's up, Craig? What's going on? Guys? Thanks
for taking the call. Just wanted to pick your guys'
brain and see what you thought. If the NFL wanted
to go to eighteen games, what if they removed the
Thursday night games, which players hate anyways, gives them a
little bit more time to practice and heal up and

(57:59):
then go to an eighteen game season. Well, if they
went to eighteen, which we have to acknowledge as a possibility,
I don't think they get rid of the Thursday game.
But what I would say is you need to add
a second bye week so you already every team already
gets won bye week. I want to see them add
a second bye week during the season, and they probably

(58:20):
would like it because they you know, it extends the season.
Like you said, Rob, what you're gonna say, We're gonna
be playing in the March. I was gonna send the
super Bowl in March, and you're gonna be looking at
think about it two more week, although I guess they
would take away two preseason games, so it might not
extend it. But I think you gotta give them something,
and I think an extra bye week. I'd love for

(58:42):
him to get rid of Thursday. Look, I always look
forward to Thursday night football. It's great to have those games,
but it's really not fair to the players. It's really
not fair. So I think a second bye week's probably
more realistic. And we're on the air on Thursday nights,
so it's hard, yes, but all right, Let's go to

(59:03):
Jason in California. Jason, you're on the odd couple Fox
Sports Radio. What's happening, Hey, guys, thanks for a second
my call. I appreciate that. I listen to you guys
show every day on my way home from work. We appreciate.
So I'm a totally against the eighteen game schedule. For one,
I'm with you, guys, it's the contradiction of the terms.
You can't have player safety and more games. But I

(59:25):
compared to the UFC. When the UFC first started getting
really big, it was a once a month pay per view,
and you you you yearned for it. You wanted to
see it because they had the best fighters and they
were fighting once a month. And now it's every single
week there's a UFC fight. I don't even watch it anymore.
The talent pool is drowned down. If you increase the games,

(59:48):
you have more injuries. The talent pool get drowned down,
and then the quality of the games is gonna suffer.
I'd rather have less games and better stars and better
quality of games. Bulls eye being goal. That's one of
the NFL's advantages, and I get it. The nature of
the sport. You couldn't play eighty two or sixty two.
But that's one of their advantages. Every game is meaningful,

(01:00:14):
Every game means something. It's once a week, it's a
big game. You could build up to it. It's it's
like you say, Chris, once a week compared to it,
and I bought. I just said the analogy of the
ice cream and it's true. The thing with how about
college basketball? Right? So I used to I mean, I
still like it, but you don't watch it. And I
used to watch dozens of games on every day. There's

(01:00:36):
way too many games. You just can't watch them all. Uh,
Chris and Missouri, you're on the odd couple of Fox
Sports Radio. What's up, Chris? Hey, good evening. Welcome to
my wonderful idea. I'm going to propose here. I don't
think you guys are by the way, yes, i'm a

(01:00:57):
I'm all for the eighteen game schedule. I would have
follish the preseason. I would build in a third bye.
I would have a second and third bye week, so
that way each team gets if you make the playoffs,
you would essentially get a third bye week before the
playoffs starts. Every every team, every team that makes the

(01:01:17):
playoffs are getting extra bye week. Nobody's gonna like that,
that week off where there's no football. Ye, that what
you're proposing, because like that two weeks where anywhere would
be killing you. No, we don't go through it because
the third teams played their first the bye weeks. There's
always other teams playing, right, there's games what they call

(01:01:40):
wild card weekend, right, Well, well he's talking about I'm
talking about during the regular season when one division is off,
there are other teams playing, so you don't miss football,
have something, you know, But during the playoffs, like you say,
it's wild card weekend, so you don't miss We only
miss a week between all this champ championship from the

(01:02:00):
Super Bowl exactly. So no, people wouldn't like that the
third bye week. I mean the idea of three during
the regular season, that's not bad, but no, not during
the playoff, not before the playoffs. The early retirements of
Andrew Luck and Rob Gronkowski proved the NFL teams underwritten
my pharmers, truck fire insurance exchanges and affiliates products unavlable

(01:02:22):
in every state. What is the cost of continuing to
play in the NFL? Let's get into it with Chris,
Bruce Hard, Rob Parker, and my guy from our tirement Orlando.
That's Jerry Brewer. Thank you, Ralph. It is the I
Couple Company live from the Geico Fox Sports Radio studios.
It's easy to say fifteen percent them more on your
car inshoots with Geico. Go to Geico dot com or
call eight hundred and nine four seven Auto. The only

(01:02:43):
hard part is figuring out which way is easier. We
both saw our next guest Rob a few weeks ago
at nabj absolutely in Miami. Was great to see him.
He's Jerry Brewer and I do Washington Post. And I
don't want to say this because we just had Mike
Freeman on and we went on and on about him
and Chris and I've been in the business for a
long time. We knew a lot of these guys, and

(01:03:04):
Jerry brew is another one who's an outstanding columnist, a
great guy. And we're thrilled, Jerry to have you on
our show. Thanks for having me. I also can add
I'm more handsome than Mike Freeman. There you go. You
know that's not saying that's right, that's easy. No, but

(01:03:24):
it's great to have you on, Jerry. You wrote a
great column after the Andrew Luck retirement. Now, Rob and
I have kind of been discussing this. I don't think
this is the beginning of a trend of you know,
guys retiring at a young age in their prime. Robbed us,
and it seemed like from the column that you think

(01:03:46):
that's a good possibility too. Yeah. I think the ground
is moving, but it's just moving so slowly. I mean,
you think about Andrew Luck in conjunction with Ron Robert Kowski,
with Levin Johnston, with a couple of others, and you
start to say, Okay, well, it's gonna take like a

(01:04:08):
dozen of these guys to do this in a two
or three year span. So we're not at that point.
But I do believe that this is an era of
enlightenment for football players about what the effects of playing
this sport are, you know, especially with their brain. And
then also just you know, they see some of the
old veteran players sixty seventy years old and how they move.

(01:04:32):
When you couple that with the fact that they're making
so much more money now, I think more guys are
just gonna say, look, my body has had it. I'm
gonna go ahead and retire. See, Jerry, I'm with you
on that because of and everybody doesn't make Andrew Luck money.
So I get that. And then I didn't come from
the wealthy family like him, and he's banked all this money.

(01:04:53):
But I do believe, because the money's bigger, that people
have an option once they bank some money, and my
point to they'll get out sooner than later. Do you
know it might It might be a couple of years
sooner than you probably would have because you don't want
to put yourself in jeopardy. Yeah, I would agree with you.
I mean, I don't think we're just going to see

(01:05:14):
this mass exodus of players. But I do think of
the the average star who might think, Okay, I'm gonna
play for twelve years. You might say, all right, I'll
do this for eight or nine. Jerry, are you hearing
this from players or is this just kind of your
own theory? This is my take, you know, based on

(01:05:35):
years and years of conversations of interacting with players, I
think that there are way more players than people realize
who think about this. But there's a difference between thinking
about it and taking that bold step of going ahead
and ending that a lot of it is this is
all they've known since they were seven, eight, nineteen years old.

(01:05:57):
And even if Tom Brady, that we think is an
ancient quit tomorrow, he's still what forty two years old
and has a tremendous amount of life to leave of
And a lot of guys just don't know what they're
going to do after football. So they're as scared as
they are about the effects, they're even more afraid of

(01:06:17):
what comes next. Uh. The other part is now the
owners are talking about, you know, with this whole new
CBA that's coming up in a couple of years, but
they want more games. Does that make Does that make
sense when we're seeing what we're seeing with guys and

(01:06:37):
with CT that you put them in harm's way more
the other union going to be able to fight them off.
We know the union is not that strong, Jerry, But
what are the players going to stand up against having
more games? I think the players are. It's gonna have
to take something extraordinarily sweet for them to want to
go to eighteen games. And you'd have to figure out,

(01:07:01):
you know, what that would mean for the preseason, what
that would mean for offseason workouts and all of that.
I guess there's a way that you could cram it
in and make it work. But just from a quality
of game standpoint, you know, anyone who watches the NFL,
even if you just love it, sixteen games in a
long season, that the season will be a lot off

(01:07:23):
it where, you know, twelve or fourteen like it used
to be. We all understand that from a revenue standpoint,
especially TV revenue, adding more games is the easiest way.
But I wrote a column recently just thrown out some
my ideas about how you could package the game differently,
and maybe that would be attractive to television executives. Just

(01:07:47):
do some special things, mix it up, be more creative
that way, instead of the answer always being let's go
ask the pairs to play more games. Anecdotally, you know,
it's interesting how eighteen games creeps back into the news
cycle on the same week that Andrew luck quit. Right,
we just saw grunk you know, practically climb talking about

(01:08:11):
the end of his career. No question, we were saying
the exact same thing, like, look, you saw one of
the greatest quarterback prospects we've ever seen at twenty because
his body's banged up, and now you're talking about more
more games. So we are joined by Jerry Brewer of
the Washington Post. Jerry, I know you spend a lot
of time also up in Seattle. Uh. That division is

(01:08:34):
going to be uh, you know, I think it's gonna
be a great race this year. Obviously you have the
Rams in the NFC West. Uh, you got Seattle, and
you know, if Garoppolo is what a lot of people
think is, then could be in that hunt. How do
you see that division playing out? A lot of people
think the Rams could could fall off a bit this year.

(01:08:58):
I do think that the Rams are coming back dirt.
It's just a matter of how much from a talent
st endpoint, and just the explosiveness of their offense. When
everyone is healthy and right, it's hard for anybody in
the league to compete with them. However, the novelty and
the surprise of what seaming they is doing is off.

(01:09:19):
I'm I think having that film for really three quarters
of the NFC Title Game and the entire Super Bowl,
what they were unable to do offensively, it gives teams
more of a roadmap on how to defend them. The
real question becomes five Gurley and five Gurley is a
twelve hundred back and he can play fourteen or fifteen games,

(01:09:42):
they're going to be just fine. But if he does
have any issues where he misses four or five or
six games, that's going to be really tough for Jared Goff.
I don't think he's at that level and we can
carry them, even the numbers with they have looked so
good Seattle in Seattle's sort of your typical solid continuer.

(01:10:05):
Maybe with some left they can be a little better,
but that kind of seem like they're seilings right around
ten or eleven games games and you know, you're wondering,
what are the niners. I personally think that the Arizona
Cardinals could be a disaster in that division. Does not
know how to coach right. And Kyler Murray, I mean,

(01:10:29):
it's not gonna be like Russell Wilson's rookie year. I'll
say that, well we were talking about that. I mean, look,
I put a lot of Rob and I both put
a lot of the blame for Andrew lux retirement on
Ryan Grigson didn't put an offensive line in front of
him for several years, and you could be looking at
a similar situation with Kyler Murray. That air raid offense

(01:10:51):
doesn't protect the quarterback as it is. He's tiny. I mean,
how do you think you think that he could be
in some serious danger this season? Yeah? I think you know,
the one good thing about the way that operates is, uh,
you know, they do get rid of the ball quickly. UM.
I think Kyler Murray was about five point four yards

(01:11:14):
per pass attempt in the preseason. Uh. That'll probably go
up in the regular season. If it doesn't, he's in
a lot of trouble. But I don't think it's going
to be. I think he's gonna really struggle to make
the big plays down the field like he wants to,
because I think a lot of it's gonna be you know,
you show him heat and he's just gonna have to
hit uh, you know, his quick escape. Uh. And it's

(01:11:36):
gonna be a lot of four yard games, um, and
just just games where he's thirty one. But he threw
for a hundred and seventy yards and it just wasn't
particularly explosive. That's the kind of year that I think
is gonna have. Yeah. All right, all right, Jerry Brewer,
great stuff, man, We appreciate you coming on. We'll get

(01:11:59):
your j Washington Post. We will definitely have you back on.
All right, all right, brother, someone in sports Jess gave
all of his home fans a big middle fing at
Farmer's Insurance. We know there's a crucial difference between a
kick drum pedal and your car's accelerator pedal. Because at

(01:12:20):
Farmers we've seen and covered it. We are farmers under written.
My Farmers took fire Insurance exchanges and affiliates products unavailable
every state. Be sure to catch live editions of The
Odd Couple with Chris Brussard and Rob Parker weekdays at
seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio

(01:12:42):
and the iHeartRadio app. You tuned into The I Couple
Chris Brussard and Rob Parker on this trash talking that's right,
just about an hour from now you will get a chance.
It's the vent. You can rip anyone, anything, any team.

(01:13:05):
Andrew love the Colts fans, myself, Rob Parker, whoever you
want to rip in trash talk. It's about an hour
from now, the third hour of the show. But first
we this this might uh be a candidate for trash talk, Rob,
What in the world is the pac twelve thinking they
are thinking about playing nine am football games nine am,

(01:13:32):
so that on the East Coast it's a noon start, right,
They want to get exposure for East Coast people. And
I talked to Ralph earlier. He came in and read
me to riot Act and said that the coaches wanted
Chris for what for recruiting, that they want to be
able to have the kids all over the country see

(01:13:53):
the games rather than bring Ralph is in the just
his theory. No, this is what he said. So you've
talked to some coaches, yeah where where I worked at
UCLA for five years and work closely with the football team,
And I can tell you that coaches lament the late
starts because they don't get seen by And you're talking
about the seven pm starts, which ten pm East correct, Okay,

(01:14:15):
And and basically they're at a disadvantage when that twelve
o'clock Eastern time slot is off the table. I get that,
But you don't have to play. You don't have to
start at seven pm Pacific time or nine am. How
about starting at noon Pacific it's three o'clock in the East,
because they'll be on an afternoon and they want they

(01:14:35):
want to spread their games out, just like the Big
ten does, just like the SEC does. Yeah, but the
only problem is because you're not in the East Coast,
you have to adapt. But you don't need to put
your fans Ralph. I mean, do you want to go?
I have to get up at seven. As I told you,
Rob fans in southern California would rather go to a
nine o'clock game at the Rose Bowl in September. They

(01:14:56):
would go to a new game. Was because it's one
hundred and t freeze on the field there. That's why. No,
that that you know what Ralph brought Ralph in. I've
been there when it was one twenty five on the field.
This is UCLA making excuse football team. I'm serious, I'm sorry.
What was your football teams wants it to No, but

(01:15:20):
Oregon is not hurting. They're prominent. You said the patchwelve
coaches are on the record say, Ralph, you'll get your chance. Relax.
This is an excuse if and I'm just talking about UCLA.
They used to be a powerhouse. Now they're an afterthought.
For the most part, UCLA doesn't matter in this This

(01:15:42):
actually is more about Oregon, Stanford, and sc the schools
that don't get you brought up recruiting. No, but the
point not those teams are doing brought up recruiting. No, you,
recruiting is part of it. It's also a part about
getting the viewers from the people that vote and put
the PAC twelve in a place of prominence or a

(01:16:03):
place of second. So you're telling me that they don't,
and I'm never well, but wait a minute, Christian, hold on,
hold on, This is my only problem with that. Are
we talking about the is it? Is it a popular

(01:16:23):
vote by fans watching games or easy at college football
writers and broadcasters and people cover the sport. Those are
the people vote, so that that has nothing to do
with whether whether the game is on at noon or
nine am. I'm expecting that the people cover college football. No,
if Andrew Luck should have won the Heisman or no,

(01:16:44):
somebody else should, don't don't put it on the bush.
If you produce that, you'll get vote. Why did Reggie
Bush win? Then putting on your rose colored glasses of
the media that will actually watch West Coast games at
a rush win you're making because USC was the most
dominant program in the country at the time, didn't matter

(01:17:06):
what they gave, right didn't matter. Did they play at
nine am? Right? That the time Fantasyland? And you keep
going kicking facts, Ralph, you're making excuses, but I'm telling
you in programs, I'm making excuses about what. What am
I making excuse? It was recruiting now is that they
don't didn't win a right, right, they do get exposed

(01:17:27):
everybody if they can play. People know it Oregon when
they had those great teams under Chip Kelly, everybody knew.
Thank you? What about that? That's what Chip Kelly got
a big job in the NFL, right because people knew
it exactly? Thank you? Rob? All right? Yeah, okay, you
just make up your excuses. You you have not enjoyed
the hot seat. We beating some people. This is an

(01:17:51):
imprompt though impromptu hot seat it was, and Rob, Rob,
Ralph got got treated like the rest of hell. You
know what I'm going. I'm gonna go in there and
pour some barbecue sauce on his butt. Ralph, you you
entered the dungeon, baby, you gotta be ready. Be sure

(01:18:13):
to catch live editions of The Odd Couple with Chris
Brussard and Rob Parker weekdays at seven pm Eastern four
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app.
It is the odd couple. I am Chris, he is Rob.
We're coming to you live from the guy cooed Fox
Sports Radio Studios. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent

(01:18:35):
of more on your car insurance visit guy called dot
com for a free rate. Quote. We've got Warren Sharp.
Warren Sharp, not Warren Sap, Warren Shoo. Earlier, when I
looked at all, I said, wow, we got Warren Sap
on the show. That's great. Wow, Hey, Rob, ge get
on that. I'd love to have Warren Sap on the show.

(01:18:55):
We could get him. But you're right. I kind of
glanced at it too, and it I mean, I knew
it was Warren Sharp from looking at it earlier, but
it did initially just hit me like that. But Warren Sharp,
he does a great job with sharp football analysis, one
of those really analytical guys. So it'd be good to
ask him some analytic questions. But he'll be joining us

(01:19:15):
at the bottom of the hours then. Of course, Rob,
it is a trash talking Tuesday. Your chance takes ready,
that's right, Your chance to trash anyone anything in the
world of sports will give you the high sign when
it's time to call in and line up and be ready.
And you know, Chris, we tell everybody come hard and

(01:19:37):
strong and have a take and give it to us.
That's right, We're here for you, all right. So Gronk
Rob Gronkowski had a big announcement today. A lot of
people thought initially it was gonna be that he was
coming back to the Patriots. Far from that. It was
actually that he is going to promote CDB. It was him,

(01:20:00):
but like everybody, I mean, that's it. Well, and I
don't know all the ins and outs, but this is
medicinal cannabas. Correct me if I'm wrong, Rob g medicinal
which doesn't have the I don't know what they call it,
but there's an element that gets you high, and that's
not in the medicinal cannabas might not get high. And

(01:20:22):
there's some thht or well first, like that's THHC at
number two. I'm offended that you guys would assume that
as the minority on one, why not on this shows
in the country, didn't not on this show? On this show,
I am the affirmative action high. For you to say
something like that is offensive. Well, let it be. No,

(01:20:44):
you're going Hi, You're gonna call Lilian. Oh but no,
so you know about it though obviously you you corrected me,
so so go ahead stereotyper No, you know EBD or.
What they're doing is just taking out the THHC and
the THHD is supposedly the part that gets you high,
so they take that part out of it and just

(01:21:05):
use the uh, the positive I guess effects of Have
you ever had the CDB? I have not, but that
family members to use it for pain management. Well, and
they don't get high. No. I had a massage. My
daughter bought me a massage for Father's Day and the
woman that gave him the massage used She didn't tell
me this till after it, but I would have been

(01:21:26):
fine either way, but she told me afterwards she used
the CDB. Oil. I guess really yeah, and I didn't
notice it felt for time, you know what? After your massage,
then all of a sudden, you wanted to you had
the munchies, right, you want to do some pork rods.
That was actually a pretty good one, not true, but

(01:21:46):
it was pretty good. Wait mate, wait, Manue, we're gonna Ralph,
We're gonna have Ralph one more time on this, because
Ralph's coming in not gonna argue. He's right, all right, Ralph,
you know about the weed and the rubbing weed and
all the other stuff. Will help us out. No, No,
I do a lot of talk with golf product manufacturers
that sort of thing, golf industry stuff. And at the

(01:22:08):
most recent show two weeks ago in Las Vegas, twelve
different booths of products of CBD products, all no THHC.
So it doesn't get you high, but all different things
trying to reach out to recreational golfers for their pains,
their injuries, things that you're supposed to take before workouts,
after workouts, and it's like, uh, it's anything from a

(01:22:29):
cream to like a roll on, you know, like a
deodorant roll on, but you roll it on the area
that's got pain, and it's just most gummy bears, like exactly,
they have I mean everything. So it's it's it's an
amazing I have never seen this in the golf industry
and it exploded in this year. Have you ever tried it?
I have used a little bit of of the bomb,

(01:22:49):
but I mean I'm generally not in pain, so it's
I don't know, you have to you have to have
that that that bad feeling to start with, and if
you don't have it, then it's done really right because
I I didn't recognize any difference, but I'm not generally
walking around in pain. So I'm with you now. Thanks
for the knowledge, my man. Thank you. So anyway, Gronk,
that's what he's doing. That was the big announcement. He's

(01:23:11):
gonna promote it to help players, you know, be pain
free when they're done playing or even during their playing careers.
He certainly seemed in a much better mood, and he
actually talked about how football had him in a bad
mood even though he just won the Super Bowl. Here
he is, I want to be clear to my fans.
I needed to recover. I was not in a good place.

(01:23:35):
Football was bringing me down and I didn't like it,
and I was losing that joy in life, like the joy.
I'm sorry right now, but Dan, let mean I really
was and I was fighting through it. He was about
he was tearing up. I watched it. He was about

(01:23:56):
down all the way. And just to him say those words,
football was bringing him down, Chris that that was hard
to listen to. Yeah, because he had a lot of
success he won, do you know what I mean? Like
maybe if you're on a bad team and you're beat
up and you're like, why am I out here? We think, right,
you know what I mean. But he's had a lot
of days in the sunshine, and we've seen him on

(01:24:17):
the floats. He's a boy at a party, right, he
didn't look like a guy who was going through all that.
But you never know, you said it earlier, You never
know what people are going through at home, right, And
I took it, And again, I agree with everything you
just said, but I took it like he was it
was taking his joy because of the physical pain he

(01:24:38):
was in. Now if and again I'm not belittling, you know,
or minimizing anything he said, but if I'm trying to
think of who's really healthy, I mean obviously Tom Brady,
but you know, if a player who's generally been really
healthy was saying that, let's say an Ezekiel Elliott, you know,
if he said it was just taking my you know

(01:25:00):
what I mean? Because I could associate it with Gronk
with his physical pain, because he missed twenty nine games
over his last seven years, so he always seemed to
be banged up. But if a guy that was healthy
and he felt that way, it would have been even
more stunning. Rode. Oh yeah, I don't even more. I

(01:25:20):
don't disagree with that, but it still was just to
hear a young star, another guy, right, yeah, in his twenties,
not even yet thirty, to bow out because of the
pain and whatnot. And I just think that it will
open up the door for other guys to consider it.
Chris that and I guess my point to you, and

(01:25:41):
the one I'll make is that they will be more
apt if they have some saved, some money, made some
money in their day, more apt to leave sooner than
later than waiting. Well, obviously the money gives them options.
You know that it's different NFL money, right, But I
just think that it is is it's different strokes for

(01:26:02):
different folks in every industry, every field of endeavor. You
have people who love it and they would do it
for free, and you have people that like it, and
then you have people that actually even dislike it and
they're just doing it for the money. And I think
that goes for sports as well, And so for every

(01:26:23):
grounk Or Andrew Luck and granted they were banged up
at Saint Patrick. Willis you know some of these other
guys that stepped away, there are those that will play
football for as long as they want to, as long
as they can. I should say, Jerry Rice, what was
he forty two? He played? Jason Wentton just came back.

(01:26:43):
And here's the thing, Rob, remember that. Granted it was
we didn't know about CT and all this, but remember
there were always rumblings Jim Brown might try to come back.
And he even remember when he raced Frank o'harris and
the forty yard das. Yes, I think he pulled a
hammy like at about twenty yards or what a shocker,
right right? But but that's my point. So I think, well,

(01:27:04):
we have to wait and see, but I don't think
we're about to see the start of a trend. But
speaking of opening doors, I think that was the phrase
you used. Carly Lloyd the soccer player, great soccer player female.
Did you see the video of her kicking a fifty
five yard field goal? Yes, well, apparently a few NFL

(01:27:26):
teams have reached out to her about kicking for them
in a preseason game. I could see it, and she
may actually do it. Correct me, if I'm wrong, Robi kick,
She's not gonna do it. Rob I thought she thought
there was talk she might do it this so she
has a conflict. Yeah, she says she was reportedly considering it,

(01:27:46):
but the fact that it uh is at the same
time as an international friendly she has for soccer, she
kid would probably be the reason why she wouldn't do it.
I would love to see that. Let me just seek Chris.
Here we go, let me Jess say something. And I'm
a man with two daughters. How we got the house
with three women, So I'm not chouving this thick or anything. Oh,
here we go. Would you say, Chris barefoot pregnant? Go

(01:28:09):
ahead and look, this has nothing to do with Carly
Lloyd being a female. You must see Chris get that
dump on. I am telling you, I'm a woman. This
is a gimmick. Teams asking her to kick in a
preseason game is a gimmick. Ratings they want buzz. Here's

(01:28:31):
why it's a gimmick because of anybody that watched that
video of her kicking a fifty five yard field goal.
It was nice. Fine, I mean, I'm not gonna take
that away from her. But if you really look at it.
Anybody that sits here, And I know these football executives
know this, the ones that called her and all that
it come come kick for us, they know this. She

(01:28:55):
was five yards back when she started moving toward kicking
that ball. And if you watch NFL kickers, they are
three yards back all right, because she kept making a
judgment of two yards you can't. It's a big difference.
Watch the NFL kickers when they kick off. They could

(01:29:16):
get field goals from seventy five eighty yards when they
kick off. Let me finish. Let me finish, because I'm serious.
I'm not. I'm not just not sexist or anything. I'm
just saying the fact that she had a five yard
running start or five yards start kick the field goal
without padding on equipment, on without a pass rush or

(01:29:40):
a rush does not Nobody would think that's going to
correlate to being able to kick a field goal in
a game with rushers any equipment with a three yard start.
Like I said, if you watch kickers on kickoffs, they
can put it through the uprights from the thirty five
to thirty five yards line when they have a several

(01:30:03):
yards back and they have that type of start and
that's what she had and you can't make the adjustment
because the reason they only go from three yards is
because the rushers are coming too quickly. But so that's
my point, like you can't. And if you want to
give a female a shot, a real shot. There's a
female kicker in Division two Adams state. I forgot her name,

(01:30:24):
but give her a shot. If you really want to
give a female and be fair about it's like the
kind of Leeza Rice thing. What was she gonna become
a head coach? Are we talking about that? I mean,
that's what I'm saying. Give a female who really is
in the football, not just a fan, but works in
the game. If you want to give somebody a chance,
do it that way. Don't make it a gimmick. I'm

(01:30:45):
actually standing up for women. Don't take college soccer football.
I mean, so what's the difference, Chris no chrimmis between
soccer and football? And you say, here's my point, though,
is what are you against giving her a shot if
she can't make it, I'm just saying, gimmick if she
gets a block, what if she's good? You know how
many bad NFL kickers there are who the Bears just

(01:31:06):
rust the playoffs ain't the playoffs because the guy couldn't
kick a chip shot when it matter most. I'm saying
she shouldn't go along with the gimmick. Why and she's not.
Why do will be used as a as a gimmick,
as a tool. But what if she's good enough and
she can make it, Chris, then let's see her kick
from a three yard start, then a five yard start

(01:31:27):
Russian before we throw her in there. But why It's
like saying somebody went out there and hit a three pointer. Oh,
let's put him in the NBA. No, but but no,
but that could happen. No, once she gets on the
team and she practiced, you make the team, you don't
be giving a spot. Yes you do, like the No,

(01:31:48):
you have to earn it. They're giving her a trial
to give people tryouts all the time. Because you don't
give her a try out. You saying, once she's on
the team, give her a trial out. What you can
try out? But we didn't see a try We saw
an exhibition that has nothing to do with a football game.
I'm trying to protect her. Don't be used as a
gimmick as a pride, not the only to create buzz

(01:32:10):
do you only match you on Carley side? The only
thing I'll say, throw her out there to the wolves. Yeah,
put her out there. But the only thing is that
she can't have. If she can't have the placeholder using
a oven bit, you know what I mean to hold
of football that will not be allowed to look at you.
And you got the nerve to called me talk about

(01:32:32):
me wanting them barefoot and pregnant. No that No, I'm
I'm all in. I'm all in on giving people opportunities.
If she's no good, you cut her, let her get
a shot at it, Chris, What if she can't make
the field goal? That she get a plot? So we
should just put her on the team. No, I mean
to try out first, and then if she can make

(01:32:52):
a couple and tryouts, give her a chance to kick
in a real game under pressure with the rush. Chris,
Let's put her us this first. Let's practice. So you're
not against her going to practice in the trial, I
was not not she could earn it, but I don't,
I don't, I don't. I think there are other people
that would deserve it before her. But if she could
earn it, then yeah, I'd be all for it. Okay,

(01:33:13):
that's different than listen to what Keenan Allen I wasn't.
It wasn't about her being a woman. It was about
looking at that video and saying, that's got nothing to
do with real football, even just kicking the football. Because
she was he had a giant start that normal kickers
don't get, and they don't get it because there's a
pass rush. Here's what Keenan Allen, the wide receiver said,

(01:33:35):
sounds sweet, you know, and about her kicking for a
team until somebody blocks the kick and all of a
sudden she's on defense. It would be like the stampede
scene in the Lion King movie. I think that that
she do got a boot though. But but you know what,
I'll say this, We how many of the other kickers

(01:33:55):
when they have in that situation, Chris, they get run old,
they look frowned. And no, I saw a kicker who
was that kicker? Was he for the Browns? He drilled
somebody on the kim with the ass But the other
was that? But most of the kickers of a week
and stop it, And no, these guys are studs. These

(01:34:21):
guys were athletes at a certain level, Black athletes at
the pro level, but in high school a lot of
them are actually pretty decent athletes. I don't have a
woman doesn't need to be out there when it gets rough.
I mean there's a reason. You know, there's a there's
a difference. Nah, she don't need to be out there
when he gets rough. You sound like when Billy gen

(01:34:43):
King wanted to play tennis. That's tennis and there's a difference. Nah,
you know that. What was his name, Bobby Riggs? Bobby
he was old Bobby Riggs and Billy jen King didn't
she beat him? She beat him. He was old. Letter.
Get out there with Arthur Ash, Jimmy Connors or some
and get better, and then you would say that you

(01:35:03):
are a better tennis play. Serena said it. Serena says
she couldn't beat any the top ranked man. She knows
that she could beat you. She could stop me. My
cousin that played at Xavier in New Orleans stomped me
at a family reunion. I'm hurting from Yeah, she destroyed
me in front of all the relatives. I did get
one more win than my my other cousin, who's a male. Wow,

(01:35:26):
she'd beat him six h six. Oh, so I felt
good about that? All right? Should the thought of Carly
Lloyd kicking in the NFL be taken seriously? Or is
this just a media gimmick like brus Hard says, We'll
continue the conversation with you. Next is The Ode Couple
of Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Odd Couple with Chris Brussar then Rob Parker

(01:35:48):
week days at seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific. It
is the Odd Couple with some odd music. Can't stop you, see,
Chris Man, you are on the you you you just
feeling yourself right now. Don't get to come in on
Tuesday as much so I want to play what I
got here. Car shopping can be confusing, folks. Terms like dealer, price, list, price,

(01:36:09):
and invoice. True Car shows you what other people pay
for the car you want. That way you can recognize
a good price from a bad one. So when you're
ready to buy a new or even a used car,
do yourself a favor and visit True Car to enjoy
more confident car buying experience. All right, Rob, do you
have anything else to say about this Carli Lloyd? You
really want to the drum for her problem with giving

(01:36:33):
her a shot. If she can do it, fine, If
she can't, she doesn't make the team. I'm with that, Chris.
I'm not trying to say give her something special, but
we've seen so many bad killers. But bringing her into
having her kicks in NFL preseason game be based on
that one little kick we saw on the video. That
would be giving her something special, and it would be

(01:36:56):
a gimmick. It would be putting using her. It would
be Eagles had a guy who was a bartender one
week and they put him on a team, right, didn't
about the movie they made? Yeah, that's a team. That's
a real story. They made the team, but he was
up a good movie. No, I know he was a bartend,
but he had some football experience. She has football, the
little red games that they used to play on Sundays.

(01:37:18):
Didn't you see the movie? What about? Yeah? What about
this dominant? What about the A's? Didn't they get they
get a guy too off the street to Oakland? A's right,
it's happened. No, first of all, getting guys off the
street that played the sport. Has she ever played football? Well,
let me you know what we got Randy and Charlotte.
I think you probably text him so let's let's talk

(01:37:39):
to Randy. I'm sorry, I'm just trying to protect Carly.
All right. She wants to go out to practice and
kick under the real uh conditions that kickers kick under,
and she looks great. I'm all for it. All right,
let's hear what Randy has to say. You're on the
odd couple of Fox Sports Radio. What's up, Randy? How's
it going? Fellas? You know my take on this is
what's gonna happen when the defense breaks down, you know,

(01:38:01):
and now she's in harm's way of having to have
a grown man tackling right. Well, but you wouldn't know
it if you if you were playing, you mean to
tell me you a drive her into the ground, and
would you know it's football? Would you just push her down? No?
If she's out there on getting Randy, all right, you
know that the kickers female? All right, you got her?
What do you do? I would just tell her to

(01:38:23):
lay down, and I won't hit you, and I won't
knock you down. She would probably hit you, That's my point.
Like I wouldn't even want to be around an NFL
player coming at me much less. I mean, I can't
imagine a female how the players when it's time to
lay into her. Randy, what would happen if if the
Panthers had a female kicker and she kicked the game

(01:38:43):
winning and sent you to the super Bowl. You would
be in love with that woman, wouldn't. You're making the
heck of a jump. I would love her to death.
You would love her, But we ain't also be the
player on the defense that had to you know, line up,
you know, square up with knowing you're getting ready to
smash a female into the right rock. Like there's no difference. No,
I'm just saying, I'm all about equal opportunity. If you

(01:39:06):
could do the job, you should get the job. But
it's a football is a heck of a job. I
get the reason we frown on men hitting women because
it's a difference in the sexiest and so football is
a sport where you hit, so we don't want to
see them hitting women. I know with yes, but I

(01:39:26):
have no problem. If she was good enough and she
could make the kicks, I would be okay with I'm
just I'm not saying, like I said, there's a female
playing college football. She's kicking that division to Adam's state.
Now give her a shot because she's kicking under real conditions,
and from what I heard, the only time she missed

(01:39:47):
a kick was one that her hair got in her
way while she was making a kick. No, you may
have hit a new load. That was one of your
worst done from Farmers Insurance knows the difference between a
car hitting your bumper and a clone car hitting your barber.
Sorry about that. Because of Farmers, we've seen them covered.

(01:40:08):
Its under written my Farmers Truck Fire Insurance Exchange cent
affiliates products unavailable in every state. Let's get deep into
that NFL talk as we send it to Chris Brussard,
Rob Parker and Warren Sharp. Thank you, Ralph. It is
the eye couple coming to you live from the Geico
Fox Sports Radio studios. It's easy to say fifteen percent
of more on your car insurers with Geico. Go to

(01:40:28):
Geico dot com or call eight hundred nine four seven Auto.
The only hard party is figuring out which way is easier.
We're pleased to bring in our next guests. He does
a tremendous job with Sharp Football Analysis dot com. That
Sharp Football Analysis dot com. His name is Warren Sharp.
You can follow him on Twitter at sharp football, but

(01:40:49):
he does a tremendous job really deep into the analytics
and wrote a great story post Andrew luck retirement about
how Ryan Griggs and the Gem for several of the
Luck's years there in Indianapolis failed to put an offensive
line in front of Luck and that is the reason

(01:41:10):
he's banged up, and that, of course is what led
to his retirement. So Warren, great to have you on
the show kind of explain the premise of your article
and how you know it really tells the story of
what happened to Andrew Luck. Yeah, first of all, thanks
for having me. Guys, definitely happy to talk to you
about this, and it certainly was going doing the research

(01:41:32):
into this article because I think a lot of us
who watched the Colts and watched Andrew Locke trying to
compete for several years there with Tom Brady in the
NFC Championship games knew that he was sort of playing
with one arm tied behind his back to an extent
because he didn't have a great offensive line in front
of him, and so we always just assumed, you know,
that this is just a feature, not a bug. Like

(01:41:56):
the team was decent, but they didn't have a great
offensive line, and so he just needed, you know, play
here or play there, and they always felt considerably short.
But when you look back in hindsight now retrospectively at
the way Andrew Luck's career unfortunately ended far too quickly,
you can clearly see like a philosophical stepwise approach that

(01:42:18):
Ryan Griggson took to building this team, which intentionally compromised
the protection of Andrew Luck, just believing that it wasn't
going to matter that Andrew Luck was going to be
so good he could deal with the hits and it
wouldn't bother him because of the way that Ryan Griggson
spent his money and built this team. Would you say

(01:42:41):
that the GM kind of got lulled into it because
they were winning and Andrew Luck was able to kind
of survive it even though he was getting banged around
and still putting up good numbers. Do you think that
that's why he probably, well, we're still winning, we're making

(01:43:02):
the playoffs, is not like we're winning three games a year.
You think that's why he took debit and decided to
do what he did. I think I played a role
in it. You know, Unfortunately, when you look at certain
teams and you see their strategies. One thing is clear
pretty much drought most of the free agency era, at

(01:43:22):
least in the most recent like ten or so years,
and that's spending a lot in free agency typically is
not a very good bang for your book. You'll see
a couple of times teams will do it here and
they're go a little bit deeper some years, but for
the most part it's not the way to build a
team because you're overspending. When you buy a guy on
the free market like that, you're going to be able

(01:43:45):
to get better deals and better players for less if
you are drafting well and investing your resources in that.
And what Grigson decided to do was he wanted to
help his defense. His defense wasn't very good right, so
what he thought that he could do is fen spend
spend in free agency on his defense. And he actually

(01:44:07):
spent the second most dollars in free agency from two
thirteen through two fifteen, which is like the last three
years of Andrew Lux rookie deal, to try to build
up this defense that was going to ultimately what he
thought make the difference. But we live in a salary
cap era and in a salary cap era. If you're

(01:44:27):
spending a ton on the defensive side of the football
and free agency, you have to spend less on the
offensive side. So he let some good players leave along
that offensive line. And by the time we got to
two and fifteen, the guys that were defending Andrew Luck
were not even realistic players. There were two guys that

(01:44:48):
were undrafted free agents, one of which played basketball in college.
He didn't even play football. He initially tried out to
play football at a tight end position in the NFL.
He didn't make it there, and so the Colts converted
him too offensive line and two other players along that
five man line. So we talked about two two other
players the Colts drafted, Ryan Grigson himself drafted. They never

(01:45:12):
got another contract for another team at all after the
rookie deals expired. They went nowhere. They were not good
enough players. So, I mean, the talent in front of
Luck was terrible, and so yes, I think what he
thought he was going to do is, look, we'll survive
with this line. It'll be sort of makeshift, but Andrew
lux so good he can overcome it. We'll spend a
lot of money on the defense to help improve our

(01:45:34):
defense quickly. But as it turned out, the defense didn't
really improve because it's hard to build a team for
three straight years through free agency on that side of
the ball, you're not going to get players that are
going to play up to the level of the money
that you're spending in free agency. Wow, it's the eye
couple joined by Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis. That
was some great interested insight. Let me ask you this.

(01:45:58):
Let's go to Ezekiel Elliott thing. Ezekiel Elliott is the
best running back in football. But we know how undervalue
now running back seem to be. Um, what do the
analytics say that he's worth or he should be the
highest paid player in the league, Well, in terms of
I mean un back, in terms of being the highest

(01:46:21):
paid running back in the league. Look, his metrics certainly
paint a pretty compelling picture that that's exactly where he
should be paid. But here are the problems. The first
and foremost one is that in the NFL, it is
very difficult to separate out certain players. Like in baseball
it's a little bit easier, it's super easy. In basketball,

(01:46:41):
it's a little bit harder, but you can still do it.
In football, It's very difficult to separate a quarterback from
his play caller. Right those two are linked at the hip,
could join, and it's very difficult to separate out. Like,
if you've got a bad play caller, your quarterback stats
are going to just suffer. If you've got a great
play caller, quarterback might look better than what he is.
It's also very difficult to separate out a running back

(01:47:04):
from his offensive line, because if he has a really
good offensive line blocking for him, the lanes are going
to open up bigger. He's going to look a lot better.
And so those are two of the positions on offense
where they're really reliant upon somebody else. In this case,
Dallas has the most expensive offensive line for two consecutive years.
Jerry has spent a ton of money in draft picks

(01:47:27):
invested in that offensive line and building that up, And
it's very difficult in my opinion to separate out what
would Ezekie Elliott be behind an average offensive line and
what could a backup running back do behind this Dallas
Cowboys offensive line. So, yes, Zeke is very talented and
very skilled, but what is the replacement level that you

(01:47:49):
could get from a backup running back. How close in
production would it come to delivering what Zeke can deliver
behind this line, and that's the key caveat behind this line,
because it may not be worth the amount of money
that Dallas would have to give up in order to
pay him. The sad part I think for the Cowboys
that it relates to this discussion is the reality again

(01:48:12):
we're living in a salary cafe era that for several
years now, the Dallas Cowboys had Dak Prescott on a
rookie deal drafted in the third round, very inexpensive, and
they had Zekiel Elliott in his rookie deal very inexpensive
compared to what they'll ultimately have to pay him. And
they literally did nothing. I mean they did they made

(01:48:34):
no noise in the postseason. They got there once, I guess,
and they lost. But yeah, they beat the Seahawks and
then they lost to the Rams. They probably should have
lost to the Seahawks in all truth, but that was
That's just sad for Dallas to have to deal with
that in the past. But now it's it's difficult. I
can't tell Jerry don't pay Zeke because he really is

(01:48:56):
a great running back, but it is going to hamstring
the rest of the decisions that they're going to make.
Ultimately they might have to pay less along that offensive line,
and then how will Zeke look behind a more mediocre
offensive line is a good question. Hey, we got about
thirty seconds, Warren, can you please tell Chris about how
bad Tom Brady's numbers have been? How to continue to

(01:49:17):
go down? And we saw in the Super Bowl how
awful he was. Well, look, he knows how great Brady
smart man. Let Warren tell you about Tom Brady's statistics
have fallen off slightly, But if you look at the
receiving threats around him, you're really not going to find

(01:49:37):
like significantly above the league level. He's been working with
a great offensive coordinat or any great offense, with a
very good running game. All of those things would help
any quarterback look better. But the good thing about Brady
is he knows how to audible and get into plays,
and he's still got significantly above average arm. It's just
fallen off a little bit from what it was years ago.

(01:49:58):
What was that? What was that? Warren? You say, what
was that? You said? It's falling off, It's falling off
the cliff and Tom Brady's gonna have nine touchdowns this year.
All Right, we go, we gotta go in great stuff. Man,
We'll get you on again. I love the analytic talk. Awesome.
All right man, later, all right, rap, it's time. This
is a trash Talking Tuesday. Get your takes ready. You

(01:50:25):
can rip anyone or anything in the world of sports.
It's far you disgruntled sports fans out there. It's the
Eye Couple Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Odd Couple with Chris Brussard and Rob
Parker weekdays at seven pm Eastern four pm Pacific on

(01:50:46):
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app. At Farmer's Insurance,
we know there's a crucial difference between a kick drum
pedal and your car's accelerator pedal because at Farmers we've
seen and covered it. Were under written my Farmers truck
fire insurance exchanges that affiliates products unavailable every state. You

(01:51:13):
tuned into The Eye Couple, Chris Brussard and Rob Parker,
and it is a trash Talking Tuesday. Your time. The
way in trash talk is now. Don't you what we're
talking about? Me? It's trash Talking Tuesday. It's your teeth. Reggy,

(01:51:36):
I don't know whether to smile. Let's you kick a field,
go man, All right, Rob, let's get to let's do it.
Let's start with Joseph in Indiana. You're on the odd
couple of Fox Sports Radio. Who you trashing? I'm trussing
Ryan Richard and Dave Gentlemen. Those two do not deserve
other reader's head gym. The Colts replaced Bill Poley with

(01:52:00):
Roy Gripson, and who wasted Andrew's career. You have Dave Gittleman,
who doesn't know how to draft anything. He could have
got Josh Rowden for a thing. They should just you
Bill Poean. Those guys will be hired by John Groom
because John is an idiot. Wow, all right. Daniel Jones
looking pretty good, though unbelievable this preseason. James and Louisiana,

(01:52:25):
you're in the odd couple of Fox Sports Radio. Who
are you trash? And James? I'm trash talking everybody who's
been critical of the cults fans. I'm on the other
spectrum because the fact of the matter is, nohing like
this has ever happened in sports history where somebody retires
in front of thousands of people, live when you can
see that guy. That was a row of motion that

(01:52:48):
can only be compared to like a WWE professional wrestling.
When Hulk Coogan came out in front of thirty thousand
people and said, guys, I'm sorry I have to retire
everyone boothed. But they were booing Hulk Hogan. They're booing
the retirement. They're saying, no, Hogan, one more match, we
love you. Why so when you see Andrew Luck going

(01:53:08):
down and you see them and you're saying, boom, no, Andrew,
we love you, one more season, give it to it.
Now that the matter is all these guys would have
done the same thing to their own team. And that's
just a wrap on that whole bill. I got you.
I agree with you. I said that on column today.
We let guys go so I won't require trash talk.

(01:53:29):
That's why you know I'm gonna let it go, all right,
Dave in Kentucky, you're in the odd couple of Fox
Sports Radio who you're trashing. I'm prash for you, man,
this ron say it's over this way to kicker ever
feel the credibility that you ever had? You stolen all
of it out to Wenda, the warmers got no chance
I've ever setting foot on a football seal. They're in

(01:53:51):
a record in ill game. I mean, she does much
kick football in an NFL game? Is I do replace it?
I appreciate it. I guess I got trashed. What about
Jessica in Virginia Beach. You're in the odd couple of

(01:54:11):
fox boards radio, Jessica, who you trashing? I am trash
saying anyone who's this saying Angel Luck for retiring. By
the way, I have missed you, guys, loving guys, love
the show. Thank you, We're back now for a long time.
But this man is twenty nine years old. He's the
same age as me. Now, I don't have bumps and

(01:54:33):
braises like him, and not many people have the same
many bumps and braises as him. So when I hear
people trash talking like, oh yeah, I keep playing, this
isn't mad and where you can just skip over their
freaking injuries and say, I'm gonna keep throwing a fifty
yards or five thousand yards with Angel Luck on the
video game. This isn't video game. This is real life.
This man has injuries. If as a woman in a

(01:54:54):
medical profession, injuries don't always heal they don't always, you know,
they don't always say healthy. You can reaggravate every injury
you can ever get. So if he's having issue since
April with what he's got going on, and I's like,
oh no, keep playing, you can fight through it. No,
I don't want to see someone walk out there with
with a cast all up and down their body, especially

(01:55:16):
with all the injuries he's had freaking punks or lung.
Come on, please, like this man has put his line
down for the Annapolis cult and the fans boom for that. Please,
you need to find another team because you ain't. No
damn fan, I'm with you. That's he? That is he?
What about Mace and San Diego? Oh, you're a couple

(01:55:38):
of fox Boards Radio the NFL's partnership with jay z I,
freaking hateist, narcissist, eaglemaniac whose music is garbage. It sucks
because it consists of elementary school has the hat rhymes
with zero inflection in his voice, and every single song
get the Charlatan has the audacity to call himself the
greatest rapper of all time and also the nerds to

(01:56:00):
say he's the most famous person to wear a Yankee
baseball hat. If Victoria Big was still alive, give me
cleaning toilets and flipping burgers and McDonald's for a living.
Not to mention this man was a big time crack dealer.
Way to go, Roger, What a smart move to partner
up with someone with that type of background and music
with misogynistic lyrics. Your marriage with Beyonce is a complete sham.

(01:56:23):
Every time she kissed you, here to close her eyes
and imagine she's kissing Denzel Washington. If you were broke,
you'd be lucky to get a date with Roseanne Barr
because the phrase a face only a mother can love
does not apply to you. He once said, problems with
a woman eight one. I call bs on that. Clearly
this does not apply to you. The entire world saw

(01:56:43):
the video from the security camera in the elevator showing
you getting beat up by your sister in law. Wow, Hey, hey,
Don in Boston, you got thirty seconds? Who you trashing?
Rob Parker? How are you doing, Chris? How you doing? Yeah?
Just called to tell you that comparing that woman's soccer

(01:57:03):
game to an NFL football game is like comparing Rob
Parker to an unbiased football reporter. Wow. Thanks, DoD for
the call. We appreciate it. You're welcome, guys, thank you
appreciate They came correct today and they would trashing me.
I thought I was a good guy today. No you

(01:57:25):
You thought just because you were defending the woman, you
were gonna get a pass. But you had some little
jabs in there, just a couple. I picked them up
and they picked them up too. But it was good,
all right, I couple, Chris and Rob signing off. Download
the podcast. As always, peace,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

kelvin washington

Rob Parker

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

The Joe Rogan Experience

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Party is Over for Gronk & Luck