3 Guys Before The Game - Pro Football Talk Founder Mike Florio (Episode 642) - 3 Guys Before The Game

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
It is showtime in the Big City. Hi, everybody, welcome
in our summer series continues. And have I ever said
this before? Well, we got a Dandy for you. I mean,
first time I've said that. First, I got a Dandy.
We got a Dandy. He's back. It's his annual appearance.
It's kind of like those actors that go and do
summer stock like they appear. They just show up in

(00:30):
the summer. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk dot Com
is our special guest. This is gonna be fun. We
haven't even as you know, no pre show notes, no
pre show meetings, no nothing. It's gonna be good.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
You missed the meeting we had them, Brad.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I think I missed last year. Was I here last year?
I think we weren't able to line it up last year.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
I thought you were here for something last year.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
You I don't know, may have I don't know. It's always,
it's just it's I mean, it's just great to have
you with us. It's great to be here. You're you've changed.
I mean the first time you came, you had no
security people. Wait a minute, now, three security guys. Bobby is,
Tommy and Luig is The podcast Okay, is everything okay?

(01:13):
Is everything fine? Yeah, you're wondering about sponsors.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm wondering you did. I mean you usually do a
like a five minute read before we even start interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
You bring that up. Free Guys is brought to us
by Jan Dill's Attorneys at Law. They won't take no
for an answer. By Comac's Business Systems, keeping West Virginia's
business data safe, secure and fishing for twenty five years.
By Gomart. Get a Gomart rewards card and immediately begins
saving on your food and fuel. Go to gomart dot
com for details. By Lou Wendell Marine Sales in Saint

(01:41):
albans Well. They sell family fun. Visit Lou Wendell Marine
Sales dot Com. By Tutors Biscuit World, Start your day
the Homemade way.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
What were you saying? A wait to excuse me, you
got any sponsors on that TV show?

Speaker 1 (01:54):
You?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
No, I just don't know why we're still on the air, right.
Let me tell you not to be specific. Yeah, go
ahead for one sponsor and alienate the others. But I
love me some Tutors Biscuits.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Oh yeah, I mean it's hard not to the question
we often have on this show is at your height
of hunger? Could you eat too?

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh yeah, I've eaten too before bang bang bang bang
after the others not to in one day to consecutive.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
We used to stop there after church years ago when
I actually went to church. That's a different discussion.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
That up there. We're talking wheeling and we're talking home in.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Bridgeport, and there's been a tutors over by or inside
the go mart there.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
You go inside, we call that, we call that a
wonderful marriage. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
And also there was pizza place in there too. I
don't know if it's still there. Gino's Pizza used to.
I don't know if it's still there. We don't live
on that side of town.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Any sure, video rental.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
But but we would. We would go to church and
we'd get the tutor's biscuits and then come home and yeah,
I would. I've been known to you to them, what's
your egg and bacon? No cheese, know anything else? I'm
good with egg and bacon on the biscuits.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
And I'm with you on that.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, cheese, he'd be good with the three guys biscuit
where you don't know if you're getting cheese or not.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
We're trying to get it. We're trying to get an
item named after us. There, they still don't have that done.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Efforting.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
So how are you good?

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Better than good? Good? Is the perfunctory answer. I was
surprised socially acceptable to just say I'm good because nobody
really cares. Haven't you noticed that when you ask somebody
how are you? You just say it because that's the
social convention. Nobody really cares.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Wait, wait, except I mean, if you're just transacting, okay,
you might say I'm good, I'm well. But if you
if you have you might say how are you doing?
You might say I've had some some things and you go, okay,
well tell me.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
So how much time do we have?

Speaker 4 (03:55):
I don't know that we want to We want goods.
Like I didn't wanted to tell me what was wrong,
I'll do respect.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
How how often I was surprised you were in a
WV shirt? How often do you you crack a WV
emblem shirt?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
My wardrobe approach when I'm at home, right, we were
talking earlier about this football night in America. I basically
wear what's in the dressing room when I show up
to get ready for the show, and whatever's there that's it.
At home, I have one rule, the closest and the cleanest,
so you know, if it's right there, and if I

(04:33):
can tell quick nasal inspection, if it's yea, if it's
fresh from the laundry, then you're in. That's today's But
I had to do something WV.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well, we appreciate it. No, no, I just we appreciate it.
And you've always been I mean you've always been up front. Yeah.
Your fandom of West Virginia to me is like extremely real.
You don't have fanaticism in you. You like them, you

(05:05):
enjoy them, but at the same time, you keep it very,
very real.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's the only thing we truly have. I remember, and
this may be one of the reasons why I never
became a Steelers fan, even though I grew up in Wheeling,
sixty miles from Pittsburgh. And when I discovered the NFL
on December twenty three, nineteen seventy two, the Immaculate Reception
Game and realized this is a pretty big deal, I
resisted the Steelers. And I think one of the reasons

(05:31):
I resisted the Steelers is I was aware of the
whole West Virginia pit thing, Like why do we love
the Steelers. If we hate Pitt, that makes no sense
to me. West Virginia is the only uniquely West Virginia
thing that we have. Otherwise, gloming onto whatever is geographically convenient.
If you're in the southern part of the state, what
are the Bengals fans down there? I think there's Bengals
fans down there, and you've got the Washington fans and

(05:53):
the fan handles. So yeah, I I never felt compelled
by NFL geography because we don't have team. This is
all we have. And if you're gonna live here, if
you're from here, sure I don't. I don't know why
anybody wouldn't be. I remember arguing with people in Wheeling
in December of nineteen eighty eight, Wheeling residents who were

(06:13):
all in Notre Dame oh yes, and advanced to the festival,
and I was pissed. Sure, it's like Notre Dames won
their championships. Not Dame is always gonna be Notre Dame.
This is our this is our chance, this may be
our only shot. Like, you got to set that aside.
You're a West Virginian, you got to set that aside.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, And they're all highest state fans up there too.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, well it's easy. I mean I was born in Ohio.
I mean it'd be easy to say, oh yeah, Ohio state.
But you know, you are a product of where you
grew up and where you've lived most of your life,
and for me, that's here.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah. The Wheeling area geographically, when it comes to fandom,
I think is the most Oh what's the word. It's
this cosmopolitan thing, like you said, because of the heavy
Catholic faith in the Wheeling area, that Notre Dame thing
is huge for them, huge for them, and some people
just don't vacillate from that.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah, I think you're right now. I look, I had
twelve years of Catholic school and yeah, still there's a
point where that ends.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, you're out, you're out mountaineer stuff. Okay, you're in
your current you're in your sabbatical from your daily show
that you do.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
And that's and it's funny because I can always spot
the people who have no idea what I do. When
after the super.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Bowl they ask you what you do?

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Oh, oh, you got some time off, Now what are
you gonna do for the next six months? It's like, well,
how long do you have. Yeah, so yeah. We shut
down our daily show during the slow part of the
NFL calendar middle of June to the end of July,
and I still do. Like before I left, I did

(07:48):
our separate podcast it's called PFTPM. I did forty five
minutes solo, went over some of the news the day,
because it's always news, answered some questions. I'll do that
every day, but it's it's looser. It's more casual about
the clock in. W't have to wear up breaks, I
don't have anybody to throw to. I just talk as
long as I want to talk. When I'm done, I'm done,
and then we have fresh video we can put on
the website. I mean, that's the only reason I do it.

(08:09):
I want to have fresh video content that can be
connected to the stories that we have on the website,
because every story on the website now has a video,
And if I didn't do anything for six weeks, we'd
be running the same damn videos from mid June in
late July. So I need to do it. It's just
I don't have to get up at six, I'm not
tied to the show. I can get a little more sleep.

(08:30):
I just have a it's a looser feel, but it's
still NonStop, especially because I load up the six weeks
with all the stuff I don't have time to do
from the end of July until you know the middle
part of June.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
It's to me, I love your evolution. Like you just said, Yeah,
I just went and did a podcast, did it by myself,
went forty five minutes. Like I remember when you didn't
do any spoken word whatsoever. So think about it. Now
you host hours, hundreds and thousands of hours a year,
but that's not where you had any base training whatsoever.

(09:10):
You were We've documented well on this show. Your your
educational background, engineering law, and then it was writing. And
now just like dude, I mean, you ever put in
as that hobby can certainly attest to this. Doing two
hours doing forty five minutes by yourself, that's big boy.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
But it's like anything else, the more you do it,
the easier it can stand. And for me, the gateway
was being the call in guest on a show. First
place every day was WGR five fifty in Buffalo. I
would do something every week back in two thousand, right
after I stumbled into the business. And one thing I noticed,
because I was practicing a low at the time. When

(09:53):
you practice law, you have to get up and speak
extemporaneously in front of a judge, and you have different
settings where you have to be on and you have
to make sense. And one thing I learned is the
more I did that radio, the better it made me
when it was time to do the real job, because
you're just talking and there's no net and there's no

(10:14):
do over when it's live radio. So you do that
over and over and over again, and then you get
to a point where you're in the other chair and
you do that over and over and over again, and
you get to a point where you could talk about
anything for any amount of time, Like the Corey Booker
twenty five hour filibuster. I could do that. If I
had a catheter, I could do that, and a diaper,

(10:35):
I could do that. I could talk about anything for
twenty five hours because you just have an idea and
you just go and it's just stream of consciousness. But
you've learned how and you know this, any of you
guys you're doing speaking for a living. You learn how
to use your voice as an instrument. You learn how
to articulate your thoughts in a semi cogent way, and

(10:55):
you just go.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
But but but you gotta have you gotta have content.
You can't just talk. So what you do, you're I
think you're diminishing.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
He's diminishing, diminish.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
The significance of what you're doing, because if you don't
have content, you're just a guy talking.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
But the content comes from the research. Well, and there's
no research. It's constant. What's the next story? What's the
next story? That's my workflow. I sit down at my desk,
I get my keyboard. What's the next story, what's going
on in the NFL? What information do I have? And
I haven't disseminated yet. I keep a running list of
all the stories I want to get to. Okay, I
got one done? What's next? And I never have any

(11:32):
prep for any show other than Sunday Night Football. Sunda
Night Football is different. But the weekday show, you just
talk about the stuff you've been writing about because if
your clued into what the top stories are in the
NFL at the website. Good job swallowing that you on,
By the way, that was very impressive.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
What do you do?

Speaker 3 (11:54):
He's still swallow?

Speaker 1 (11:55):
I didn't. I'm just messing.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
But but but anyway, I lost my train of thought,
which I never do.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's easy to do just what you're doing. It's easier
just regurgitating what you've been working.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
There's nothing to prep. It's all the stuff you've been
thinking about writing about talks about.

Speaker 4 (12:11):
You, just a lot of you want to write versus
talk though still.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
It doesn't matter now when you talk and you're on
all the time and you have to watch what you're
saying all the time. And a podcast, a true podcast
without a video component. Of course, they all have a
video component now because you can monetize the video component.
But a true podcast is easier.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
Well, somebody get on.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
That one down right now.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
When the camera, when there's a camera always on you, like,
you know, you have to you have to make facial
expressions that go with what you're saying, and you have
to you know, not you know, stick your finger in
your ear, up your nose or whatever, clean out your
teeth in the middle of the thing. So that adds
a different element to it. But that concept of being
on NonStop and you know this, you get used to
it after a few and it's even if you don't

(13:00):
feel like doing it today. Once the light goes on
off you go. It's easier to just sit and type
and move on to the next story. That's easy. That's nothing.
I could do that in my sleep. Like I would
never stop doing what I do because what else would
I do? Like I come to my office, I sit down,
I turn on the TV. Well, I'm gonna sit there

(13:21):
and just watch the TV. No, it's a boom but
boom and and next story, but next story. And you
just after twenty five years, it's like breathing.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Are you writing in the barn? Is that where you write?

Speaker 3 (13:31):
No, I go to the barn to write fiction. I
do all of my work in my office.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
At my house.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
You know, I'm like, I still I still think you're
soft pedaling your accomplishment and what you do because you
still got to show up, you still got to read,
you still got to research, you still got to report,
and you still got to write. I mean, so I
understand it feels like breathing to you. But there's a
lot that goes in to be able to do it
that way.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Sure, sometimes it makes you late, for I'm scheduled, that's true.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Hot stars supposed to be the certain a phone call
I could not I'm sorry, I am sorry to.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Be somewhere and you don't show up.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
I mean, maybe we're just different because in you know,
I spent years writing a daily commentary and doing to
our show, and I was obsessed with preparation, and when
I was writing, it felt like sometimes that like I
was like great writers or artists. I was like laying blocks.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
You know.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
It didn't it was not always easy. And if I
came up with a good line like once a week,
I thought that's a good one. Lots of times it's
just like it's a struggle.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
So here's what I would say. He's like a finishing carpenter.
You're more of a framer.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, I'm doing the studs.

Speaker 1 (14:38):
You're just you're just bringing to the two You're, you're, you're,
you're butting the wood together. Like, but he's kind of
like into the detail work.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
I think when you get to the point where and
I try to do an estimate from time to time,
twenty five million words written in twenty five years. I
don't know, it's an ungodly amount. I'm surprised my fingers
and my wrists are still properly functional. A couple of
weeks ago, I was starting to feel something in my
like my thumb and my wrist, and it went away.
But it's like, this is gonna be a problem because

(15:04):
I've never had this. I can't do my work if
I can't. But through that repetition, every day, NonStop, not
you know, over and over and over again, for weeks
and months and years, you get to a point where
I never ever ever have writer's block in anything. I

(15:25):
just sit down and I go And it might be
the product of a hyperactive brain, but at the same time,
it allows me to create, uh, you know, I guess
an amount of content that would seem objectively unfathomable, but
for me, it's just it's like breathing. And that's the
product of years and years and years of doing.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
Do you ever just stop, though and do nothing? One
or two? Do you ever read for your own enjoyment?

Speaker 3 (15:53):
I never stop and do nothing. And I don't know
if I've ever told you the story before. You know,
you get to do this so many times you forget
how many stories you've told, which means if you've forgotten them,
there's a chance, like you lose your wife. Does your
wife ever say, does your wife ever say? You know,
I don't want to wear this again. I don't remember
if I wore this joy whisky. Well, if you don't remember,
how's anybody else can remember? Like if I don't remember

(16:16):
telling you the story, then you probably forget it too.
But but deep seated psychological injury Slash Boost ten years old,
playing grade school football at Saint Michael's in Wheeling, West Virginia. Okay,
I was lazy, didn't want to work, didn't want to run,

(16:36):
wanted to stand around.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
You had a husky body build, husky.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Very husky, husky that was the word. Though they had
We had our own clothes. So if you stood around,
and if the coach noticed you standing around. Back in
those days, it was socially acceptable to put a foot
into someone's ass. I'm not saying I condone it. I'm
not saying we should spin the clock back to those days, right,

(16:59):
But I will tell you from having a foot placed
in my ass a sufficient number of times.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
It took a few, multiple took a few. It wasn't one.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
But at one point after that foot hit my ass,
something in my brain said, you're never standing still ever
again in your life.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Do you remember whose foot that was? What was his name?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Bill?

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Book Bill book kicked you in the ass kick.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Me in the ass enough times that it it caused
something in me to wig ward your brain apparently, and
I that's where it is. I still think about that
now life. No, thank you, No matter what is going on,
I can't. I can't just and my wife's the same
way too, So we we both influenced.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Jack.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
You got to accomplish something every day. You gotta be
doing something all the time. Now we will a few
nights a week. We haven't in a while though, it's
been a busy couple of weeks. You know, you shut
down for a couple of hours and find something to
watch on TV. But nowadays the process of finding something
to watch on TV is as much work like you spend.
If you have two hours budgeted to watch a show,

(18:02):
you spend an hour trying to figure out and then
it's a negotiation which one do you want? Which one
do I want? And are you really going to watch
this or are you just?

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Like?

Speaker 3 (18:11):
I don't want you to pretend you care, and I
don't want to pretend I care. Like, let's find something
we really want to watch. But anyway, that's the only
time that I truly shut it down. But even then,
I mean, we're all we've all been, we've all been
corrupted and rewired by the device.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
That you can read as much as I read some Yeah,
I read some fiction.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
I read some fiction, I read some nonfiction. I've got
like three books going right now. I need to let's think,
you've got to finish one and get to the other one.
And I like to do one at a time. I
don't like having different threads of books because they get
forgotten very easily, but I like to do that. I
just it has to be good. I hate reading a

(18:49):
book that is boring, and I work that into my
approach to what I write, because I think the biggest
obligation for anyone who writes is to write something that
holds the attention of the reader. And I hate when
I'm twenty percent of the way through a book and
I'm saying, where the hell is this going and why
am I reading it? And then you feel compelled to finish. Finish.

(19:10):
Spent you spent the eight ninety nine for the book,
so you got to get your money's worth. And there
was one that that it took me like four months
to finally finish it. When I finally finished, It's like,
what the hell did I just read?

Speaker 1 (19:22):
It was supposed to be a.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Good book, Like all these people say it's a great book.
It's like, what am I missing?

Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah? Did you? Will you read the House Settlement?

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Now?

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Wait, you won't read the House Settlement.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
I'll pick up what I need from after others read it,
because I it college stuff isn't directly in our Why.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
I get Will you read the Collective Bargaining Agreement? You
know the CBA.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
I know how to find what I need in the CBA.
I know how to navigate it. I like I I
use it at least two or three times a week.
Pulled up. Oh that's what I'm looking for. That close
and I'll learn something new. I learned something last week
that I didn't know about the process for re entering
the Shamar Stewart, the Bengals defensive end. There's an impasse

(20:04):
between him and the team about a very obscure, esoteric
contractual term. But both sides are dug in what are
his options? When I went to the CBA, found the
provision and it's like, oh, you can go, And I
think this could happen at some point and the biggest
story from a traffic standpoint that we ever had on
PFT was posted the Friday night of the draft, when
Shadur Sanders slipped through round two into round three. And

(20:29):
I'd been thinking, when you consider that all of these
rules that the NCAA has put in place, they are
all anti trust violations. All of the independent businesses came together.
All of the universities are independent businesses, is the easiest
way to explain it. They're all independent businesses and they
come together under this phony umbrella of the NCAAA to
make these rules that allow all of them to say, sorry,
we'd love to pay you, but we can't. It's an

(20:49):
NCAA rule. It's a collective action by the universities to
come together and suppress the labor market. So every rule
is potentially anti trust violation. So the rule that if
I declare for the draft and I don't like where
I was drafted, I haven't signed a contract. I can't
go back to school. Why can't I go back? Why
can't I go back? I haven't signed a contract, right,

(21:10):
why can't I go back? So we put out there
this idea that at some point should her Sanders has
to say, I can just go back at Colorado, or
I could go somewhere else, go play at North Carolina
with Bill Belichick and get his seal of approval. Maybe
I'll get drafted a lot higher next year. That was
our biggest story ever. So anyway, that was one of
the things I looked into with Shamar Stewart. If you
do that after you've been drafted, if you go back

(21:31):
to school, that team still holds your rights until the
moment you re enter. Until you come back, they still
hold your rights through that same draft. It will be
as if they drafted you, let's say round five the Browns.
If he had gone back to Colorado next year, it
would have been as if the Browns had taken him
in round five. So the team doesn't lose the rights.

(21:52):
The only way the team loses the rights is if
the player sits out the entire year and does nothing.
Then that player re enters the draft the next year.
So that's an example of I need to know something,
I know where to find it. I found it, and
I learned something I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, hey, get into his short story and tell the story.
Excuse me, would you get it?

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Did you say? Read the Jan Dill's attorneys at law commercial.
Is that what you said I did? Would you please
do that? Mike's a former practicing attorney and a darn
good one of that was most of your stuff employment law. Yes,
that's what I thought. Well, Jen doesn't do that. Jen
Dill's Attorneys at Law. They specialize in both the Social
Security disability benefits and military disability benefits. If you are

(22:32):
someone that you know has those types of needs, then
go to the people to do it every single day,
those that are trained, especially in the social security space.
Did you know eighty eight percent of Social Security disability
benefit claims are rejected on the first attempt.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
I did not know that.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
That's why Jen Dill's Attorneys at Law says, go to
them first and you will have a much much better
chance of getting what you want to hear, So, social
Security disability benefits and military disability benefits. Jendl's Attorneys at Law,
we believe in a great deal of hydration on this program.
I've been worried about those guys down there for a while.
Comac's Business Systems now has these water machines, hot water,

(23:10):
cold water, and ice cubes along with their fine line
of other business equipment. They've got their stuff in fifty
five of our fifty five counties. You can visit. Visit
COMAXWV dot com, COMAXWV dot com. Tell them, Hey, I'm thirsty.
I need a water machine, either hot or cold. They
got it for you at COMAXWV.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Do you get one hundred phone lines too if you want?
Can't you?

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Oh, you could get a one thousand cold, thousand phone lines.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
As a kidney stone survivor, I will say hydration is
very important.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
I didn't know you had those. Just one hurt.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
It was awfully hit me in Connecticut on a Saturday
night in advance of a full workday at NBC, and
I knew a day or two in advance something wasn't right,
but I didn't know what it was. And it was
about three thirty am Saturday night. Woke up and I

(24:02):
I got up and I started walking around.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
It's like to put a muscle, like pull a muscle
in yeah, like how do flexers?

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Like?

Speaker 3 (24:12):
What did I do? And I started walking around the
hotel room and it's like it's not getting any better,
and just like all of a sudden, it was excruciating.
And while you're in that state of pain that you've
never before experienced in your life. You have to figure
out what do I do?

Speaker 2 (24:32):
What do you call?

Speaker 3 (24:32):
I'm alone?

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Where do I go?

Speaker 3 (24:36):
And I refuse to be ambulance guy. Maybe in ten years,
but for now, I'm not going to be ambulance guy.
I'm not going to be nine to one one guy
for something like that. I'll find a way. So it
was get an uber, middle of the night, find a hospital.
And I walked in and I was sweating profusely, and
they stopped me at the desk and they wanted to

(24:57):
get my information. It's like, I'm can we do this later.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I'm dying.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
I'm dying. I'm dying. And one of the security guards
recognized me and they were like, get he's fine, take
care of it, cover it, and and it was they couldn't,
you know, because one of the first things is they
think you're having a heart attacks. So they slap on
the Yeah, I was so sweaty they wouldn't stick.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Oh that's a lot of wetness.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
It was bad. It was bad. And they gave me
morphine that didn't work. They gave me tour it all.
That's the pain reliever of choice for the NFL. Play.
I know why that works.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Take it out there a little bit.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
It passed through the spot. There's one spot where it
causes the most discomfort as the kidney empties into the
euro They showed me it passed. I made it. I
made it to work work the next day. I was
three hours latter. Is perfectly fine. It was like it
never even happened. It was so weird. It was such
an intense, awful experience. Three hours letters I can never happen.

(25:57):
So and I hope it never happens again. I would
not wish. I seriously would not wish that on anyone.
And my sister in law says it hurts worse than childbirth.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
That's what they say. So so just think about that
once again. The NFL saved your ass. That security guy
wouldn't know who you are, you said, they're trying to get.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
I wouldn't have been alone in a hotel room in Connecticut.
But that's right.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
That helped to ken this year.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Is the NFL as healthy as it's ever been?

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yes? But could it be healthier? Could it do better?
They're so obsessed with expanding internationally. I feel like there's
still meat on the bone domestically, every year when the
Super Bowl ratings come out. This year it was one
hundred and thirty three million, Right, what the hell are

(26:48):
the other two hundred and fifty million people in the
country doing during those four hours? You're getting one out
of three people watching the Super Bowl. So I feel
like they could do more to capture more Americans who
aren't paying attention. But they want, I think, to get
that virus, that thing that made us all love football.

(27:08):
You introduce that to other cultures. Flag football is a
big part of that now. Because it's one thing to
have a local tackle football eleven on eleven league with
all the equipment in some foreign country. It's another thing
to have flag football. Flag football is easy. Flag football
is the closest thing to basically basketball, and it becomes

(27:29):
something that's easy to participate in soccer. You just give
me a ball, give me a ball, and we'll kick
it around. Give me a ball and we'll throw it around.
And I think that that is part of this longer
term obsession, and I really do think it's an obsession
by the NFL to take the product they currently have
and get more people hooked on it around the world.
But yeah, they had a goal They've had a goal
for years now of twenty five billion in annual revenue

(27:51):
by twenty twenty seven, and they're on track to hit it.
And it's amazing. When they first set it, I said
it's never going to happen, and then they're on track
to get there.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
It's amazing. You think where it was.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
I remember in the seventies because I was as much,
if not more, of a baseball fan in the early seventies,
really love the Pirates. Would sit there, you know, the
bowl of frosted flakes, reading the box scores every day,
trying to figure out what they meant. You go through
that realization when you were a kid and you start
figuring out what the columns mean and what eer means
and all this different stuff, and that to me was

(28:26):
as exciting, and it lasted longer football. Does you know
it's one day a week. Back then it was Sunday
and Monday night. Two windows on Sunday afternoon and Monday night.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
That was it.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Every once in a while they do a Thursday night
game because they were trying to avoid competing, had to
help with the World Series. Now they just laugh in
the World Series. But back then baseball was clearly number one.
Football was down there with basketball and hockey, and you know,
football kind of emmerges number two. But I think the
the public at large, the average person would have been

(28:54):
stunned by the idea that the NFL is going to
overtake baseball. And the NFL overtook it and left it
in the dust, you know, Mike, Mike.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
One of the I think maybe one of the similar
moments of that was I was a big fan of
the old AFL and watched a lot of which played
on Saturday a lot, and there was interest in that.
And I mean the NFL was forced to merge because
the AFL was getting in popularity and Jonama science with
the Jets. To me, that was a seminal moment of
expanding interest nationwide in NFL. Agree.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
I agree with you completely, And in hindsight, the fact
that the NFL would even do that merger shows you
how seriously the NFL perceived that threat that they were
going to get overtaken by the AFL if they didn't
find a solution and come together. And that's really what
helped the NFL explode. Between TV the nineteen fifty eight
championship game, where I think It burst onto the American

(29:44):
consciousness with the overtime game between the Colts and the Giants,
and then the merger that changed everything, and that just
and NFL films too. NFL films was the prime vehicle
for indoctrinating America's youth. There was no Madden. You got
to see a couple of games a week if you
were lucky. It was the Harry Kallus John Fascenda slow
motion that that created a mythology, and it put the

(30:08):
NFL on a pedestal. People people said to me, well,
you hate the NFL. Why do you hate the NFL? Say,
I don't hate the NFL. I love the NFL. I
I love the NFL enough to say, here's what they're
doing wrong, here's where they're falling short, here's where they
need to improve. And I'm just trying to get them
to live up to the standard that they convinced me
they occupy. Based upon all that stuff from the NFL

(30:29):
films products of the early seventies.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
That's a wonderful point because everyone relates to story, right,
we all go to story, and that's what NFL films was.
That was story, and that's how we grew up listening
to those stories right.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
And they did a great job of taking what would
otherwise seem mundane, yes, and finding some thread. Steve Sable
was excellent at that. Ed Sable the founder. They did
a great job. Ed Sables in the Hall of Fame
and he deserves. That's about the real hall of fame,
not the separate awards that aren't really you don't get bust,
you just get your name on a plaque. He's got
a bust in the Hall of Fame for what he

(31:03):
did with NFL films.

Speaker 4 (31:04):
So, speaking of stories, how long will we have Hard
Knocks type programming? I can't imagine anybody else wants to
be on camera divulging that stuff. Yes, it has been
I think great programming over the years, talking about bringing
people on board, But now it seems like why would you?
I mean, I know they're forced to to an extent,
why would you agree to.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
Do that now?

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Now they're forced to? The Bills didn't want to do
it this year. They have to do it when it's
the preseason Hard Knocks. There's a formula that's gotten looser.
It's it's easier now the pool of teams. Every year
they can get the tap on the shoulder you're doing.
It is bigger than ever before. And they do the
n season hard knocks now where they take all four
teams from one division. They did it with the AFC
North last year, they're doing I can't remember they're doing

(31:46):
this year. They're doing the NFC East this year. I
think it's the NFC East this year. But they're taking
all four teams and you have no say, you have
no choice in that. The only thing where they give
you an option is for the offseason hard knocks that
the Giants did last year year, and no one is
ever going to agree to do it because the Giants.

(32:06):
That was like the biggest unforced error in the history
of NFL broadcasting that the Giants laid out there. They're
thinking with Saquon Barkley, their internal deliberations where you have
one of the guys in the room like are are
you sure? Are we sure that this is really the
right thing to do to let this guy go? And
it just created fodder for criticizing the Giants all you're long,

(32:29):
and they couldn't find anybody to do it this year.
They were going to do North Carolina Bill Belichick first year.
There is hard knocks until that fell through that No
NFL team will touch that.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Fascinating stuff.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
But they're going to keep doing it because it's it's
just number one, it's revenue, and number two, it just
keeps it's it's just it's everywhere. Now, it's everywhere. Every
team has their own in house media production the content,
and that's what makes it hard to compete. People have
so many different options from websites and podcasts and shows

(33:02):
and and but there's an endless appetite for it. Even
in June. There's an endless appetite for it.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, each visit here, we've talked more and more, spent
more and more time on your writing away from Pro
Football Talk dot com. Well, let's just hand those over please.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
I expect to written report, double spaced, watch the margins.
I want good penmanship, cursive.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
If I did it like I was in school, I'd
have to get first the cliff Notes version and then
go from there. Let me see how you autograph this.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
That's what I did.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
I did.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
I just did. I. I couldn't think of anything good
and I didn't want to.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
I thought you were going to put the word we described.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
No, I didn't do that. I can't do that because
I never know who's going to see it. You may
have some you know, grandchild. At some point it says, hey, pap, Paul,
what's this word?

Speaker 1 (33:51):
It starts with f father of mine and Son of mine,
currently available on Amazon, among other places, where you find.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Only Amazon by the books. The print edition is on
Amazon for I Believe fourteen ninety nine. I decided only
the second time of my life that i'd made a
New Year's resolution that I followed January one of this year.
I made the e books for both of those and
on our way home ninety nine cents. I want to
promote reading. You mentioned cliff notes. I hated reading as
a kid because they made us do it. You have

(34:21):
to read this book. I don't want to read this book.
You have to read this book and write I don't
want to the fact that you're telling me I have
to do it makes me not want to do it.
And I've read so many I'm really restraining myself here.
I don't know if this is I don't know what
your rating is for your book. Okay, so I'm glad.
I'm glad that I restrained myself because I work with
Chris Simms and let me tell you, he is the master,

(34:43):
and he will just drop an F bam without warning.
Now I usually you can feel like, you know, Mount
Vesuvius is starting to rumble a little bit. He just
lets it fly. It's like dude live on Peacock. He
just lets it fly. He does, and that is funny
because oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you're telling on yourself
you never watched the show, because he does it every

(35:03):
day pretty much, at least once at once a week,
i'd say. But our show is reaired on Sky, the
UK equivalent of ESPN, and we have a huge following
there because there are so many unsatisfied NFL fans that
don't have content, and they love our show and they
love our sensibility. And I'll hear back from viewers on

(35:24):
Sky when they fail to hit the button and the
F bomb gets through.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah that's a word. That's definitely a word. Hey.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
My position is life is rated R and everybody talks
that way at some point or another. And if you
act the people who act like they don't are the
ones who are letting it go as soon as they
get home. Over and over again. There's no way, there's
no way. It's just part of And I've seen studies
where two things. Two things. Number one it is a

(35:56):
great stress reliever, right, seen that, And number two, it
is a sign of advanced intelligence. Excuse me, it's a
lot of advanced intelligence if you use it smartly.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Okay, okay, but if but if you use it smartly,
but you will see and hear people who cannot people
who are in prominent positions, who can't go a sentence
without using it, right, and then it loses its offense exactly,
But a well placed has impact exactly.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Okay, yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
So why don't you take your.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
So this is a fascinating topic. So you've written a
short story and it's gathering and garnering interest already.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Here's what happened. I'll tell you that. I'll tell you
how I got here, because I've been doing this five
years now. It all started during the pandemic. When I
got to this point of the calendar and we got
post draft. They had no off season programs that year.
Things really got slow and nobody was going anywhere, Nobody
was doing anything. I had an idea that became father

(37:07):
of mine. It was sparked by a dream that I
had about my dad and my dad we've talked before,
was a bookie and wheeling. And I started just pulling
threads of that idea from you know, and dreams. No
dream ever makes sense, but there were at least some
sensible parts of it. And I sat down one night
and I started going so fast forward through two agents.

(37:30):
The agent that I hired last year shares my vision,
shares my confidence that I may be onto something with this,
and has some really good ideas, and he's pushing me
more toward the realm of film. And I've I've written
some screenplays just kind of it's it's easier than writing

(37:51):
a novel. It's it is, it is. It's all dialogue,
it's all dialogue driven. It's I'm sure, I'm just I'm
a story. I'm telling a story. He's telling a story.
So one thing that obviously, you can't begin to develop
a movie if you don't have an idea, and you know,
kind of like a friendly challenge like let's see him

(38:13):
and they call him log lines. The log line is
the the encapsulation, it's the premise of the movie. Let's
see how many can come up with. So I started
coming up with them, and I suggested one to him
and he said, I kind of like that. I'll tell
you what don't don't. Don't write it as a novel.
Write is a short story?

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Well?

Speaker 1 (38:30):
Why?

Speaker 3 (38:30):
Why is a short story?

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Well?

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Right now? And you know he's got his finger on
the pulse of the industry and the trends. A short
story is the vehicle to get the attention to the studios.
And I don't know whether it's because you know, ten
thousand words is easy to read the ninety thousand, but
so I did and I didn't you know, I wrote

(38:52):
it in like three weeks back in March April time frame,
and I wrote it and I read through it and yeah,
I like it is I like it. Send it to
him and he's like, damn, this is good. I think
I hete that. I think I'm gonna send it out,
all right, send it out. And I'm so used to
rejection in this space. You're like, you'll never survive in

(39:13):
any creative field if you don't develop a very thick,
hard shell where you just expect that you're gonna hear no,
you expect that the answer is going to be not
a fit, not for us. It's so subjective and so
I'm like, yeah, okay, fine, I've been there, done that.
I'll wait for the rejection emails, like I'll go ahead
send it out. And this was he started sending out

(39:36):
two weeks ago. He called me last Tuesday night. And
I know it's a big deal when he calls me
because usually just Emoch I think called me last Tuesday night.
It's like, hey, I think we got something here. And
we've got three major studios, Major major, Major, the one
to meet. So first meetings Friday, next one's early next week,
third ones after that, we'll see where it goes and

(39:58):
we'll see who else. You see what else wants to
come to the table.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
So this is awesome.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
The title of the story is The Summons, and Mike,
I think this gets into also your writing because I
read it. I just want to read the first two
paragraphs because you write in very short, simple sentences, a
lot of dialogue.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
He said, I.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Always get nervous. This is what it says. I always
get nervous on the first day of trial, even when
it's a slam dunk, no brainer, thirteen minute deliberation.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
It was worse than.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Usual this time. I wasn't sure why. I read those
sentences and I said, I'm in you know now you
hooked me in those first two sentences, first couple of sentences.
So my question to you is, you say, you sit
down and you write, did you just bang you just
bang that out? Or do you have to come back
and revisit that because the first lines are critically import

(40:47):
cooking and hooking a reader.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
In this case, that was the first thing that came out.
Usually that first line, that first chapter. Okay, I'm working
on finishing up a novel that hopefully will be available
in August called Big Shield that is a football gambling
mob thing. And I just rewrote chapter one. Yeah, it's
like chapter one doesn't work. Chapter one doesn't work. I

(41:09):
just rewrote it because you're right that, especially in a
longer piece, that's get to it. Sure, sure, shorty, you
gotta get to it. But yeah, that's a rare that's
a rare example of when I went back, I kept that.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Because the ending of your work before you start it. No,
you don't.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Really.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
What I'll do is for a novel, because usually they're
between eighty and ninety thousand words, I'll do the first
forty thousand words wherever the spirit takes me, and then
after I'm halfway through, I'll figure out where I'm going
from there, and I'll realize that I have just kind
of coincidentally put enough things into the first half, little pieces,

(41:50):
little things, little straight comments that can be used in
the back half. But for this one, and the premise
is pretty simple. There's a man on trial for murder.
His defense is temporary insanity by reason of demonic possession,
and as the trial proceeds, the prosecutor realizes the defense

(42:14):
may have merit, and the way that I pitched it
to my agent was defendant temporar insanity by reason of
demonic possession. Mayhem ensues, so I had to figure out
what the mayhem was going to be and how it
was all going to wrap up. So I knew kind
of where. I knew that at some point it was
going to go off the rails and it was gonna
get crazy and there's gonna be all sorts of stuff happening,

(42:35):
but I didn't know what. I didn't know how, And
that's part of the process. You just have to trust
that as you go through it, one word at a time,
it will all eventually make sense, and if it doesn't,
you just rewrite it.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
I would.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
If it doesn't, then you rewrite it again.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Those two guys already wrote read it.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
I knew you wouldn't have read it. And I know
you're you say you are taking these with you to
the beach. There is no way you're going to read these.
You will be killing the mosquitoes with these before you're
reading them. Actually they would be. You could do some damage.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Here's the deal, dude.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
Hey, you know what, growing up, if my mom would
have had this thing, it would have been it would
have been part of the arsenal.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
I've got six to seven hours a day under an umbrella.
I'm reading both of those.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
We're aware of where you're going and what you're doing.
We also know that you don't read.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Is there going to read books? Is there a foam
involved in his demonic possession? Does he foam at all?

Speaker 2 (43:21):
He's got to read that.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
You're gonna read what I think you did, not to
not to booster Ego anymore that you're sitting here, but
you know I'm a fan of.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
I'm right to take it. I'm glad that did you.
If I'm going to leave the house.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
I'm gonna talk about you while you're like, you're not here.
Did you realize going into that that it was a
short story or did you think it was an excerpt
of a book that was coming.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
I thought, well, just because I got a heads up
from Tony it was a short story.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
It's a short story. I'm extremely disspointed.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
He came in.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
Here's what I think you did well. Because I'm a
fan of legal thrillers. That's when I sit down to read.
I like those type of books. I think you did
a great job of taking something that could have really
hokey with the demonics okay, demonic possession okay, and made
it like I'm reading that going. I'll tell you that's
that's as believable as demonic Possession can get in my

(44:11):
mind for something that could have I think gone off
the hoky trail.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
I thought that was make a cartoon.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
It was not a cartoon.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
It was really like it's done.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
I read a lot in that genre, and I'm reading
that going. I'm in if this is a full book.
I'm reading that was really interesting.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
How you did that well, and I appreciate that because
you never know when you're writing it, you never know
how it's gonna I always write from the perspective of
and it's the same thing that brought me into my
primary job. Like I try to create what I would
want to consume, and I try to always keep that Barama,
or would I think this was interesting if I'm the one,

(44:46):
you know, I said earlier, like it's taken me months
to read a book because it's like what, I don't
get it? What is this? It's not interesting, nothing's happening,
it's boring, it's meandering. I try to always remember that
and be cognitive, and I try to only create. Whether
it's at the website, whether it's a short story, whether
it's a novel, whether it's screenplay, it's got to be
something that I would say, oh man, yeah, I'm I'm in.

(45:09):
I'm in. I can suspend disbelief for this, I can.
I can invest my time.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
You you.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
You have a ton of dialogue. You rely a lot
on dialogue.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
I love dialogue, dialogue to reveal character dialogue today you
can you can do so much through dialogue. I hate
when you get to the chapter in the book, the
perfunctory description of the person from top of head to
you know, to pinky toe, Like you don't need to
do all that in a paragraph. All that stuff can
come through over the course of tell them the story

(45:41):
through dialogue, among other things.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
And again the it's a short story, so you're you
add texture. You don't have a lot of time to
add texture, right, but you do.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
And like.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
This to me was a small thing, but it stood
out to me. Let me find it here. The courthouse
wasn't far from home, because it's the day of the trial.
The courthouse wasn't far from home. I could have walked.
I often say I will, but uh, but never do.
I had a good I had a good excuse this time.
This guy was turning dark fast. That has a whole

(46:18):
ominous ring to it that goes back to the very beginning,
Like you got this weird bad feeling about this and
just that little thing, which again you're relying so much
on dialogue, but there's this little bit in there that
adds to the texture and the foreboding of what's ahead.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Yeah, and I appreciate that. And that's all intentional. And
the one time that you know, I actually paid attention
to these classes, like I picked up I think it
was high school, because I never took anything English related
or literature related. But you know the messages and the
meanings and the things that are embedded in there, and

(46:54):
it makes it enjoyable to reread it or to rewatch
a movie. The best movies to me are the one
when you get to the end, the first thing you
want to do is watch it again. And the best
books are the ones where when you get to the end,
like where did I miss this?

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Oh, I think I know where this was? And so
you just sprinkle in and you only have eleven thousand
words to work with in a short story, and I
went over the target. The targets ten thousand, but I forget,
what the hell, I'll take a liberty and make an
eleven thousand.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
But yeah, you've got to do what you can with
what you have to work How this may be one
of those questions at like asking Jordan how you play basketball? Though?
How do you?

Speaker 1 (47:28):
How do you get?

Speaker 4 (47:29):
That's a great compare why, because how do you drop
those things in without really having an outline of where
you're headed?

Speaker 3 (47:36):
How does a general idea where you're going? You know,
I mean I knew where it was going, so I
knew that I wanted to create this idea that some
bad stuff's going to happen to this guy today. Yeah, so,
and and I don't know whether that may have been.
I'm sure that was in there from the beginning too,
because I knew as I sat down to do it
where this was all going to lead.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
By the way, it's dark.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Oh yeah, that's the idea.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
It's really dark.

Speaker 3 (48:03):
Well, and my agent had been and has been, like,
the one thing he's trying to get me to do
is come up with a legal series where it's the
same character in this adventure, this adventure, that adventure. And
that was the thing he said after he said when
I read, he said, this is the voice that I
want to see in a longer form series of legal thrillers.

(48:25):
And and what I'd like to and I've kind of
been roughing out different ideas. I'd like to do a
book of short stories that are just kind of like
combination of legal procedural and the Twilight Zone, where there's
something weird that happens in every case. But apparently short
story compilations don't sell, so I'm only going to waste
my time on things that I think are gonna sell.

(48:46):
But this idea of a legal rill series yea.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
By the way, and if they do make like a
movie out of this, I mean, you might need extras that.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
To be you do that, I'm gonna drive a hard Barkin.
I mean, I got I'm still learning how this business works.
This is the first time I've ever had leverage. But
you got three different companies. Like at a certain point
you're dictating the terms.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Can we okay? So with that being said, thank you.
Can we do? Can we do a verbal agreement? And
I know as an attorney what it pays. We don't
need it like a union, so we don't need money.
If if this does go on and it does become
a thieat and there.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
You'll be jurors.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yes, it doesn't have to be a jerk. We just
like to be extras in some capacity, whether that's in
the jury.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
Jersey just stop. We'll take the jury.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yes, we'll take the we've read the story, We'll take
the role.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
The room.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
Okay, how about in the gallery. But even then, even then,
everybody participates, participates.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
When you do watch this become a movie, what you'll
notice in the background when they show somebody outdoor scenes
is there will be a go mart in the background.
And that if you have if you have the app,
you'll go like, well, wait a second, you can get
two hundred bonus rewards points now on airheads, Mentos, Snickers,

(50:08):
m and MS, Monster Energy uts, potato chips, and flank
steak barbecue stuff. That's four hundred and fifty on those
bad boys. So get your go Maart app and begin
saving immediately on your food and your fuel. Plus all
you gotta do is play a video game. You get
twenty cents off a gallon gas, which is really super good. Also,
it's peak boating season at lou Wendlow Marine Sales. The

(50:32):
selection that they have anything to do from boats to
the G three John boats to the literally to the pontoons,
from avalon or all the other accouterments. She knows that, Mike,
I do know if you know this or not, but
heavy accouterments in the boating world. You got anchors, you
got life preservers, you got rafts. I mean, you got

(50:53):
those little things you got to put on the side
of the boat so when you come into the dock
you don't bang it and scratch the whole thing up.
A lot of stuff and go to lou Wendel Marine Sales.
That happened to be the premiere. Pontoon boat dealer in
the state of West Virginia have been business for forty years.
Lou Wendelmarine Sales dot Com. That's lou Wendel Marine Sales
dot Com. You vote all, you vote it all. What
do you mean by that?

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Because if I fell in, I would probably DROWNE.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
Can you work a lou Wndow marine boat into the.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Movie if there's a Pontoon in any of your future movies,
we'd like to get a lou Wendell ponttoon boat in.
Work on that. Yeah, Aaron Rodgers to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
What was your takeaway over the length of the courtship
and how do you think it will work?

Speaker 3 (51:34):
I believe that the courtship was protracted by design. Really,
I think that when he visited them. And just imagine
this set the scene. It's the Friday of the NCAA tournament. Yeah,
first Friday, all day long, games are going on a
little bit of a window for the NFL teams. You're working,

(51:57):
you're multitasking, watching some tape for the draft, but you
got all the games on Friday's gonna be to do it. Thursday,
We're gonna do it Friday. Best two sports days of
the year, NonStop waterwhall action. Oh, Aaron Rodgers is visiting today.
Change of plans, no basketball games, We're gonna spend the
day with Aaron Rodgers. That's the day he went that
first Friday the NCAA Men's Tournament, And I joked with

(52:18):
somebody I know up there about us, like, geez, yeah,
I mean, can you come a different day, like maybe
Monday when there's not basketball games all day long? So
I think the day he was there for more than
six hours, there was an understanding as to what was
going to happen. He had some issues in his personal
life that needed to resolve, and anytime anyone has that

(52:38):
fully respect that. I also think, and someone who knows
him but didn't know any specifics about this, but knows
him well suggested to me a few weeks ago that
he's made a calculation here. He's less of a distraction
if he's not signed at all and not showing up
for offseason voluntary workouts, and if he's under contract and

(52:59):
he's not sure up, Because if you're under contract and
you're not showing up even though it's voluntary, you're gonna
have people like me saying, what are you doing? Why
aren't you committed? You're on the team, and you're not
gonna be there. You're gonna have players questioned about it
constantly any time they're available to the media. He becomes
a much bigger presence hovering over the team if he's
under contract. He still was, and I think it created

(53:19):
a lot of consternation for fans who believe that it
is beneath the Steelers to behave this way. First, they
give Dk metcalf a market level contract that they've never
ever ever, in the fifty two years I've been following
the Steelers, they've never given a stranger to the team
a market level contract. Ever, they give up a second
round pick and thirty million a year on a five

(53:41):
year deal. Thirty five million a year in new money
puts him like third or fourth among all receivers. He's
never played down for them before. Between that and the
metaphor I used was, it's the guy who you know,
bends the knee and holds the box and pops it open,
and he's waiting, and he's waiting, and he's waiting, and

(54:02):
he's committed to stay there until he gets an answer,
and that's what the Steelers were from the perspective of
their fans, and I think it upset a lot of
their fans, and I think there are fans that are
skeptical about Aaron Rodgers. Cam Hayward put it best early on.
You either want to be a Steeler or you don't,
and I think it just rubbed a lot of Steelers
fans the wrong way. And he's gonna have to He's
gonna have to find a way to undo some of
that now. Throwing four touchdown passes against the Jets Week one,

(54:25):
that will go a long way toward doing it. It
puts more pressure on him though that right out of
the gates. Think about the pressure that's on it. He's
got to prove the Steelers right and the Jets wrong,
because the Jets could have had him and he wanted
to stay and they said no, thank you. So in
one foul swoop, he's either going to, you know, hit
both or fail both. And we know what will happen

(54:47):
that one game. Even though there's sixteen after that, that
one game becomes the biggest thing you can imagine, and
there's going to be so much of an overreaction that
first game and I wish that game wasn't at one
o'clock Eastern. I wish that, not that, not that Baltimore
Buffalo is a bad game for Sunday night, But the
NFL has said Mike North, who does the scheduling, he
said that if they had known that Aaron Rodgers was
going to Pittsburgh, that would not have been a one

(55:09):
o'clock game.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
Are they better off though? The Steelers yes, by having him.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
Well, look at what they've had since Ben Roethlisberger retired,
and even Roethlisberger's last year. I believe they didn't want
him to come back his last year. I believe that
they made him a financial offer they thought was high
enough that it wasn't as sign of disrespect, but low
enough that he wouldn't take it, and I think they
were surprised when he took it. So they had that

(55:33):
one extra year with Ben Roethlisberger they didn't expect and
it was okay. It wasn't great. Twenty twenty was his
last really good year. But then you got Kenny Pickett
in twenty two, and it started with Mitch Drew Bisky
and then went to Picket that that didn't work out.
Twenty three with Picket that didn't work out, twenty four
with Justin Fields, and then Russell Wilson that didn't work out.
And now Mason ruff who was three and zero late

(55:53):
in the regular season when they soft benched Kenny Pickett,
he had an ankle injury and he was healed, and
it's like, that's fine, We're good. Yeah, you're not healed.
We'll sick with Mason Rudolf, and Mason Roff was respectable
in a playoff loss to the Bills. Still, Mason Rudolf
and Aaron Rodgers are in two different galaxies, and they're
much better off with Aaron Rodgers. They will be better

(56:15):
with Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
But I'd defer to you. I defer to you. I
would just wonder whether, I mean, when was the last
time Rogers had the kinds of season that Steeler fans
would expect from their starting quarterback. And at number one
and number two the Steelers, this all feels very anti
steelersh to me.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yes, everything about this offseason right it speaks to a
desperation that I believe the organization has to win a
playoff game. It's been nine years as of this year,
their last postseason win was the division rounding Kansas City
twenty sixteen season early January twenty seventeen. Remember the game
was supposed to be at one o'clock, there was an
ice storm. It ended up being a night game on

(56:57):
NBC that evening. That's the last time the Steelers won
a playoff game, and that sparked the drafting of Patrick
Mahomes by the Chiefs because they realized Alex Smith is
only going to take us so far. So desperation manifests
itself in a bunch of different ways. For the Chiefs,
it was we got to go get Patrick Mahomes. For
the Steelers, it's we got to get Aaron Rodgers. And
I think the next move is we got to get

(57:19):
ourselves in position to get a young quarterback who we
don't whiff on. They whiffed on Kenny Pickett. They loved him,
they knew him. He just doesn't have the objective skills.
There's nothing he does that's special. Rogers what he does
and all the accounts that you hear about Rogers over
the years, he throws the ball in a way that
creates a sound that people haven't heard before. There's a velocity,

(57:40):
there's an intensity, there's just something about it, and it's
flick of the wrists. He doesn't have to put his
full body into it, which would be harder for him
to do it forty one. When you have the arm
that he has, you can be dramatically better than what
they're used to. He may not be Ben Roethlisberger in
his prime, but you don't have to be to be
better than what the Steelers have had post Roethlisberger. That's
the kid.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
And they wanted nothing to do with Russell Wilson.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
They were willing to keep justin Fields at the right number.
But he got twenty million a year, which used to
be like top of the market for an NFL quarterback.
Now twenty millions nothing. But that's fair because the teams
are making a hell of a lot more than they
were when twenty million a year was a lot for
a quarterback. But this is going to be an upgrade
for them if he stays healthy. If it all clicks,
you know that you've just got these There are things

(58:25):
about Aaron Rodgers that could create issues with teammates, but
I look at Mike Tomlin, who has managed to keep
far more difficult players in line. I think Tomlin knows
how to get Aaron Rodgers to say and do whatever
he needs to say and do to make it work.

(58:45):
I think they're committed to making it work this year,
and if they don't win a playoff game this year,
and I think that's the litmus test. If they win
a playoff game, it's a success. If they don't want
a playoff game, why'd you do all this same result
we've had every year for you know, however long now
we can't win a playoff game nine years, so that
I think that's the key, and I think they will
be better. I just don't know whether they want a
playoff game. Look at the competition in the conference. I

(59:07):
don't know who they want a playoff game.

Speaker 4 (59:09):
Is that an impetus to change Tomlin and move on
from him if there's no playoff win this year.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
I was talking to somebody about that recently who isn't
with the team but has close ties to the team,
And the guy that I said that to started laughing.
He said, they're never getting rid of Tomlin because they
know that Tomlin has gone a long way toward making
a mediocre roster competitive over the years. They're players across
the board. I mean, they've got some great players TJ. Watt,

(59:36):
They've had Cam Hayward, They've had some high end talent,
but they haven't had the collective level of skill that
other teams have, and they still find a way to
the right side of five hundred. And that's Tomlin. And
I still think, even after the past couple of years
where it seems like the criticism of Tomlin has intensified,
I still think if Tomlin would get fired, there would

(59:57):
be teams lining.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
In fact, teams that otherwise would be happy with the
coach they have would fire that coach if they thought
they could.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Get tom I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:00:06):
If hypothetical here, if you walked into a tutor's biscuit
world and there's two cash registers, counter heir counter hair
casters to casters. Here, you walk in, Roger Goodell walks in,
there's no one else in the tutor's biscuit. What is
the conversation between the two of you?

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Which biscuit are you getting?

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
How are you I'm fine? How you doing I'm good?

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
No, I think we would we would have a nice
little conversation it was just the two of us. I've
I've spent time with him before I mean, I I
think at some level, I'd like to think even though
they're they're no, I understand nobody likes being criticized. Nobody
likes being called out. Everybody would prefer being praised. Like
this is a lot more enjoyable today having you guys
say good things about my fiction than if you were

(01:00:56):
telling me how bad it is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
But I think I think they understand that I spend,
and have spent for almost a quarter century now, most
of my waking hours promoting their product and causing people
to engage with their product. And I have emails that
I could compile and send to them from hundreds of

(01:01:20):
people who will tell us that they follow and enjoy
football more because they watch PFT live and they feel
invested in the game more because they enjoy the conversations.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
We have about it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
It helps them understand it more, especially the UK people,
that they are even more interested. So I'd like to
think at some level, you know, I don't want I
don't want a fruit basket. I don't want you know,
I don't want booze, I don't want bread. At some point,
it would just be nice to hear thank you once

(01:01:56):
in a while from them, and I don't know that
that's ever going to happen. They're very inclined to if
there's something I say they don't like, complain to NBC
about it. And NBC, to their credit, and I've told
you guys this before, NBC has always had my back
and always supported me, and they'll from time to time
tell me just so I'm aware. I think a lot
of times they don't even bother to tell me because

(01:02:17):
they don't want it to affect me. But you know,
I think that at some level he understands, even though
I can be a thorn in his side and a
pain in his ass, that that there is a net
positive that comes from what we do. So so you know,
i'd let him buy my biscuit if he wanted to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
That'd be nice.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Well, right now, at Tutors, what they're doing is they're
having a contest. You're giving away one hundred dollars each week,
and all you have to do is go vote on
what you would like to see them sell in their
merch this coming fall. Just go to vote tutors merch
dot com. That's vote Tutors merch dot com and you
just say, hey, I like that hat I like this shirt.
Like to see you guys sell this, sell that, and

(01:02:58):
you put yourself into the contesting. Each week they give
away one hundred dollars in Tutor gift cards, which would
buy Goodell and Florio a lot of Tutor's biscuits.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
I got an idea that someone can steal and submit
make a biscuit hat like the cheesehead.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
It is a good idea.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Tutor's biscuit hit whereto the w games. Let me ask
you this. You mentioned the UK couple against the Rain.
You mentioned the UK a couple of times. Let's say
the book thing goes and you have continued success with
the book, why don't you go overseas and just kind
of have a live live thing meet Mike, do a
meet and greet over in the UK. We have bad

(01:03:36):
for a kid from Wheeling.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
We've been talking about that for a few years now
when the schedule came out and the Vikings have consecutive games,
because I ended up becoming a Vikings fan as a kid,
and I still and I'm open about that because I
think you're capable of doing this job objectively while also
acknowledging that there's a team that you rooted for as
a kid. I'm at the point now where I really
don't care. My son is far more invested than I am,

(01:03:59):
and I have to hear it all the time, which
is fine. I'm glad he's all in, although I feel
bad for him because you know he'll state at times,
why did you have to pick that? Sorry? But they
play the Steelers October five and the Browns October twelve,
first game in Ireland, second game in London, and we
talked about maybe trying to do it. Then the problem

(01:04:19):
is I'd want to do it with Chris Simms, and
he works college football as well now, so he wouldn't
be able to leave. Then it's something we'd have to
do in the off season. But we're going to do it.
We are going to do it. We're going to go
over there for a week and we're going to do
the tour of the UK and have events, and like
when we have events here, there will be people there

(01:04:40):
from the UK who are there for the Super Bowl
or whatever, because you usually do something super Bowl week.
We did something at the Casino in Las Vegas. We
did something at what's the place? How do I forget that?
Pad O'Brien's in New Orleans out in the courtyard the
home of the Hurricane. We did something there this year
and people from people from the UK, the UK comps

(01:05:01):
your UK is all in.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Why we had the same thing. Recently I went to
the motocross event there at high Point over in Mount Morris,
Hoppy Race. Well, he rode, he rode, and he had
his own shirt on. It was really nice and he
did that and people were thrilled. He also led the
entire group on Friday as the event was opening in
the National or in the Pledge of Allegiance. Wow, he

(01:05:25):
did the Pledge of Allegiance. It was very well.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
We had a great event there at motocross and Tony
and I learned a lot about motocross, which has its
own identity and a tremendous following of it doesn't get
a lot. I think NBC is in on motocross.

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
But senergy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Therefore it has a huge following and there's big money,
especially for the top people.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
They had an event at Mount Morris, but the big,
the big, the peacock thing they did the they were
at Akrocher hinz Field.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Oh yeah, they do that, they do all this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
It's amazing what they do. To transform. They with the
hills and the.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Yeah, they got they got two brothers we interviewed while
we were there. One made approximately every one made ten
million a year. The other one made six million years. Wow,
that's not bad.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Wow, they just tell you that they just.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
No, no, no, no, no. We got that. We had
to do some circuitous tertiary route.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Speaking of getting information, and obviously would not ask you
to reveal your sources. But are your best sources? Are
they agents? Are they assistant coaches? Are they people in
the organization? Are they within the league? Who are your
best sources? And I realize you probably use all, but
what are your best?

Speaker 3 (01:06:36):
Yeah, it's all. And it's more relationship driven. The people
I've known the longest, the people I trust, the people
who I know that what they tell me something.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Can I interrupt? I think these mics and we told you, yeah,
they're a unit. Directionally they're not. They're not the right
microphones for this studio.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
But so it's more driven by I know who I
can believe. I have one per I've known for a
long time, and he thinks it's okay to be you know,
three out of four, this is baseball. You know, Well,
I got I get a bat a thousand, or I'm
gonna look like an idiot, Like why did you use

(01:07:12):
that thing? I told you? I ended up being right.
It's like because I couldn't confirm it, and I'm not
gonna use it just because you tell me, because one
of these days you're going to be wrong. And when
he is wrong, and make sure he knows about it,
because like this is why I can't. I have to
be sure it's right before I do it. And and
so I I just I know the people I can
turn to, and I know, like for different angles and
different stories and different things I'm pursuing, I know who

(01:07:35):
to who to go to. I never like to ask
people with a team about their own team. I just
think that's bad form. And I don't want to put
him in a tough spot. And sometimes I will. It's like, hey,
I got no choice here. I need to know what's
going on, especially when it's you know, NBC driven and
this is what we're trying to put together for Football
Night in America. I'm more willing to say, hey, I
like I need to know are is there going to

(01:07:56):
be a coaching change? I need they expect me to
go on the air and speaking intelligently about this? What
can I say? And I like the people I know
who are in position to give me things. I always
do trust them. But twenty five years I'd like to think.
I like to think, but I may be wrong. I
have a decent barometer of what's true and what's not
true and when I can rely on someone and when

(01:08:16):
I can't. But yeah, I at this point there's too
much to lose and incrementally not enough to gain to
take a swing and a miss on something significant.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Yeah, Well, what's your final takeaway on the incredible draft
story regarding Shador Sanders?

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
Generally speaking, I have an aversion to any of the
reporting about a draft prospect pre draft because it is
a game of multi dimensional chess and a rule of
thumb that I learned from someone years ago that is
one hundred percent true. Teams that really like a guy,

(01:08:57):
And let's focus on round one, top prospect. In round one,
we're picking twentieth. We love this guy. Let's see if
we can get him to fall. How can we get
him to fall? We can start spreading some stuff about
him that will make him fall. And there's a Machiavellian

(01:09:19):
quality to it where we want this guy. It's a
game that we're playing. We want this guy to be
on the board at number twenty. So anytime I see
and we see a proliferation of it prior to the draft,
the anonymous scout, I don't want to hear what the
anonymous scout thinks, says. I need to know who the
anonymous scout is because I'm only believing the anonymous scout

(01:09:39):
if his or her team has no stake, no interest,
no anything in this person. And the flip side is
if a team really doesn't like someone. And Chris Simms
told this story on PFT Live this year when he
spent a year with the Patriots. John Robinson, who would
go on to be the GM of the Titans, was
working in the front office there and he told the

(01:10:02):
low level scouts, Hey, if you're hanging out with your
buddies and this guy's name comes up, talk him up.
We want someone to take him before we pick, because
that's a flip side. If you don't like a guy,
oh he's oh he's awesome, Please let somebody else take
him and push down the board the guys we want.

(01:10:22):
So that made me just concerned that somebody was trashing
shador Sanders in the hopes of getting Shadar Sanders low
in round one. After the fact, when he ends up
all the way in round five and everybody's had multiple
shots at him, it's clear it was something more than just,

(01:10:42):
you know, playing the board and trying to get a
guy at a lower spot. So I started then to
ask people who would be in a position to know
what happened. And then it's different to me because the
game's over, then this is just a let's rebuild this
and figure out why it went the way it did.
My understanding is Shadur Sanders approached the draft process as

(01:11:05):
if he was being recruited, not as if he was
being interviewed. And when you come to the table with
the attitude of you need to be catering to me,
you need to be making me want you, that's far
different from the guys who are all in putting in
the time, showing up for meetings where they've been given
a package of plays ahead of time and expected to
know them, and they get up on the whiteboard and

(01:11:27):
they show what they've mastered. That's what the teams expect,
unless you are an off the charts incredible talent. And
this is where I think his dad's experience hurt him
because his dad was that kind of an alternate recount
and the great Deon Sanders story from nineteen eighty nine
when he went into meet with the giants, and he's
told this story on the record. He went to meet

(01:11:48):
with the giants and they dropped this binder in front
of him that was this lengthy test that they had
every prospect take. And he looked at and he said,
when do you pick? And they said, we picked eighteenth.
I'll be gone by then. I don't have time for this,
and he got up and left. If you're Deon Sanders,
you can do that. If you're you know, everybody else,

(01:12:09):
you can't do that because you're still gonna get taken
in the top five. Think about that nineteen eighty nine draft.
I mean four Hall of Famers in the top five picks,
Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith, not Emitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Derek Thomas,
and Deon Sanders in and Tony Manders was the only
bust in that top five. But yeah, you're still gonna

(01:12:30):
be taken high and you're gonna have a great career
because you just physically, you are so good that they
won't care about that. But for a quarterback position, especially
in today's NFL, where so much time and effort is
put in by the quarterback and you have to be
plugged in and locked in, and you have to be
the guy that sets the tone and shows up early
and stays late and is working and working and working
and mastering the offense and always ahead of the defense

(01:12:51):
and just committed to it, if you show an attitude
of hey, you know, this is a benefit for you,
not for me. I'm you know, I'm gonna go through
the motions here, I'm gonna and I don't know how
bad it was, but someone who was looking for a quarterback,
who had reason to carefully scout all the quarterbacks said
he acted as if he was being recruited and not interviewed. You.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
That makes total sense. Makes it makes me go like, okay,
I get that because that kind of falls in line
with what you had heard.

Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
And now the Browns, I you know, the saying goes,
if you have two quarterbacks, you have none. If you
have five quarterbacks of the Browns, that's where, because what
are they gonna do?

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
That's where That's where quarterbacks going to die.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
Well, and how do you get how do you get
these guys out? They're putting out the idea now that
they may keep four quarterbacks on the fifty three man
roster all the way through the season, which I think
is just aimed at trying to trade one of them.
I think they'd love to trade Kenny Pickett. I think
they'd love to go into the season with Joe Flacco
as the starter, and they work on getting Dylan Gabriel
and Shaudur Sanders ready and one of those two and
maybe both will play at some point this year, and

(01:13:51):
that's the competition to see who becomes the guy over
the long haul.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
But they'll look.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
Their history tells us they'll find a way to screw
it up, because they have over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
One thing they're consistent. Yeah, what do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:14:04):
I'm sorry, I was going to say, how do you
what's your take on rich Rod coming back?

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
Didn't we do this on Sports Life? You did?

Speaker 4 (01:14:12):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:14:12):
An answered?

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Never mind, move on.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
Hey, Hey, I'm wearing the colors right. I'm supportive. At
the end of the day, we got to we've got
to come together and we've got to try to make
it work. Will it work? It's a different era than
it was twenty years ago. Everything is different, and will
he be able to attract, recruit and retain. That's the problem,
retaining the talented players, because now we're in this age

(01:14:38):
where you have a star player who develops. Do you
really think Pat White would have been here four years
in this climate?

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Would have been hard?

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
Do you think Steve Slayton would have been here his
full career in this climate? Do you think the Mage
would have been here in this climate?

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Different?

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
Now, I know that's pre right. Retention. Their retention is
going to become the biggest star player star player. This
is great, He's gone. That's what we have to accept
unless unless And this is such a conflict for me
because I believe that the universities and the NCAAA should
be required to clean up their own mess. Their current

(01:15:16):
mess is the product of years of corruption where they
used anti trust violations. I don't want to get you
in trouble, but I'm speaking my mind. Go well, I mean,
but this is the reality. Because I know there may
be people at WU that don't want to hear this,
but it's years of corruption. They deny. They came together
with a system that not only denied direct payment to
the players, but denied them the opportunity to use their names,

(01:15:39):
their fame to make anything. They couldn't make a dime
for decades payment And now the dam is broken and
they want Congress to save their ass. And my position is, hey,
why why does the federal government need to bail out
college football? You made this mess, you clean it up.
What they don't want to do. We talked about the

(01:16:02):
CBA earlier. They don't want to have a union. They
want to have the benefits of having a union because
for the NFL, the NFL is able to have salary
cap and all the rules that apply to player movement
because they're in what's called a multi employer bargaining unit.
So they get an anti trust exemption that allows them
to make a mass set of rules that covers all

(01:16:23):
thirty two teams, even though they are thirty two independent businesses,
just like the one hundred plus called universities are independent businesses.
But they don't want to have a union. You know
why they don't have a union because they want those
guys not just here everywhere. How much time do they
get off then they're working out all year long, nominal
beat the hell out of them in pads all year long.
The moment you have a union, whoa whoa, whoa ho ho.

(01:16:44):
Wait wait a minute, we got we gotta do something
about these practice rules. You got these guys in full
pads two a days, you've got the You've got them
doing conditioning, voluntary conditioning, not voluntary voluntary conditioning all the time.
They don't get time. There would be so many rules,
work rules that the schools would have to deal with.
It would make it harder, in the opinion of the coach,
it's harder to get my team ready. So they don't

(01:17:07):
want a union because they don't want to lose the
ability to put the thumb on the team and have
them do as much as they want them to.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
They want a hybrid. They want a collective bargaining agreement
with with With a hybrid.

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
They want to be able. They want to be able
to impose rules on the players without having rules imposed
on the schools. And they're hoping that the Congress will
give them that. And Congress might.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
So, but all that said, I I remain optimistic, and
we'll see what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
Hopeful.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
Why are we playing at Ohio University. I was talking
to somebody about that. But how much money is Ohio
University paying?

Speaker 4 (01:17:50):
Because the rates for Ohio us of the world to
come in have gotten so exorbitant and so outrageous that
in order to bring that back down, you've got to
give something back instead of paying that rate for Ohio
only to come here. You throw a game one and
that limits Now you're not just paying exorbitant.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Big is their stadium thirty eight thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
It's gonna be an interesting ticket.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Oh yeah, people will eat those things up. People will
bother their season tickets and just go to the game.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Yeah, my son's already planning. I got him working for
me now. But he's he's he was up in Connecticut
last season, but he's going to be here this year
and he's already planning in the pit game in Ohio University.
And he's got his he's got his list of all
the games he wants to get to.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Does your son tell you that you go too fast?
He's a little bit high strung that you could back
it down a little bit. No, No, he doesn't know,
mind you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
I'm pumping up his inheritance why would I mean, it's
it's a it's a it's a it's a double it's
a double whammy for him. Number one, it's more money
for him, and number two, I'll probably die sooner. Oh jeez,
keep going, Hey, morbid morbid humor is also a sign
of highway. Should have just ended that profanity profanity.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
And uh for you, you're checking a lot of boxes
over there, high intelligence.

Speaker 3 (01:19:03):
No. But but I'm trying to show him because you know,
in this day and age and and there's so much
focus on and criticism of the NEPO baby right right,
and he's very very sensitive to that. And it's like
it's like, dude, like I build a business and I'm

(01:19:24):
gonna die one day and you're gonna have to figure
out what to do with it. That's not nepotism. That's fact.
Like if we had a pizza shop, you'd have to
be ready to run the pizza shop. If we had
dry cleaner, you had to be ready. If I had
you know, a Carla, you gotta be ready to Like
this is a family business, exactly, you gotta be you
gotta be ready to do it. It's not it's not

(01:19:45):
it's not nepotism, it's just reality. And so he's getting there.
He's getting there, and I'm trying to I'm trying to
show him the ropes and trying to instill the same
work ethic in him that you know, he didn't have
a great school foot coach who planted his foot his
ass on a regular basis to create that impetus.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
My son got to start in this business because of you, right, Tony.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:14):
I called as a long time ago.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
I called him. I said, hey, this college sports, just
college sports, football, college football talk dot com. You got
any internships? And goes, yeah, what do you got? I
gave him Ben. He took care of it. John was
a gentleman's name, John Taylor, John Smith, John Taylor, John Taylor.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
That Ben worked lives in West Virginia. Now, oh yes,
he moved to like Clarksburg down here, Glenville.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
That's freaking wild. And so that started Ben. Now Ben's
at CBS Sports.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
Thank you for telling that story about how easy it
is to contact me and get someone an internship.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
I really appreciate you telling that story.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
I thought we were saying something nice about well.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
I appreciate that part of it. What I don't appreciate
in advance chants is that I'll hear from everyone I know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Hey, well here's a good news. Hey, here's a good news.
You don't have college football talk truck. I'm sorry he's gone.
The only thing that lasted was how many people work
at pro football.

Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
We've got four in addition to me and my son.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
So it is just a somebody contacts. You said, well,
I've talked to NBC. There that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
But that's the reality. The NBC does all the hiring.
I get the best of both worlds. They pay us
a fee to license our content, but they provide the staffing,
they pay the employees, they handle all the expenses. I
have one of the rare businesses in the world that
is all revenue and hardly any expense.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Well done, here's what But going back to what you
said earlier, that's a good business model.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
So look, with that deal that he has, he quote
unquote made it right, but his but your passion, Like
you just said, Hey, before I came in today, I
cut podcast, I did this, I did death this week
to keep the content. Like he could have. He could
just go like, I don't care. I'm getting my money
I'm good, but you still have that owner's absolutely burning

(01:22:10):
flame within you to keep that thing going to where
you started it well.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
And ultimately, I know this sounds hokey, but when you're
serving an audience and they expect it, you've got to
be shoveling coal into the into the furnace, the beast,
So you have to keep you have to keep doing it.
And I mentioned earlier the emails I've gotten from people
who enjoy football more because of what they get from

(01:22:38):
our content. I get emails from people and it's hard
for me to even say it because it makes me emotional,
but people who are going through some really tough times
in their life, personal issues, And I'm sure you guys
hear this too, because we become part of their routine
and it is the it is the shelter in the
storm for a couple of hours every morning. And I

(01:23:00):
get those all the time, and I'll send them my
wife and always like, oh, you should send them a book.
It's like, you know, I get my books. Ain't free, Like,
oh you should send them a ball, that's nice, sus.
Just send them a book, Hey, send them a book,
Send them books. Like we're trying I'm trying to make
up to this, like this is a this is supposed
to be a profit center at some.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
Point, Yeah, you're charging ninety nine cents.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
Yeah, but but yeah, you know, I send them a
hard copy and you know. And so it's that part
of it too. Like just yesterday and the day before,
I wasn't able to do the PFTPM podcast, right, and
I mean, hey, hey, what's going on here? I thought
you didn't take any days off? Hey, where's my PFTPM podcast.
So part of it for me now is just you

(01:23:36):
have a relationship with your audience and and you feel
indebted to them. They've helped get me to the point
where I am. Now I owe it to them to
keep going as long as I can.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
Will you ever retire?

Speaker 3 (01:23:48):
No? No, I came to terms. I turned sixty ten
days ago, and at some point in the run up
to that, the epiphany was, I'm never gonna stop doing
what I do. I'm just gonna keep doing it until
I dropped own.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
Italian Italians don't retire.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
What what else?

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
You just retired?

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
What else would I?

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
I mean, I didn't what else would I do?

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
Semi retired? No?

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
I didn't. Why would you say that, well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
Because you made the formal announcement.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
I stopped doing my talk show at night.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
Didn't he do the same thing?

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
Yeah, okay, he's having a horrible time in it. You can't.
I mean, he keeps wandering around the freaking building, brings
to the freaking luncheon. People say, you don't have an
office here, go away. It's sad to see it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:31):
I just know so many people have jobs that they hate,
and I had jobs that I didn't hate, practicing law,
but man, it was stressful and it was you know,
you're fighting with people all the time. You're constantly worried, like,
am I gonna say the wrong thing at the wrong time?
And it's somebody else's interest not I move on to
the next case. For this person, this is their only

(01:24:51):
shot at the justice system. This is the only experience
with Are they gonna have a good experience? Bad experience?
Am I gonna? Am I gonna carry the day? Am
I gonna screw it? Like? That's just where on you.
And to have a job that doesn't feel like work,
that is only stressful on those eighteen days of the
NFL regular season Sunday when I'm expected to synthesize ten

(01:25:14):
games of football into the sound bites and the hits
in Football Night in America. I mean that's stressfulcause there's
a lot that goes into that, and and it's a
you know, it's it's it's a it's a high wire
with no net, it's and and so other than that,
every day is a good day. So what else would
I do?

Speaker 1 (01:25:32):
Here? You go? Hop there's your answer. I don't know why.
I don't know why you had to retire. Florio is
not retiring. I'm not retiring. Brad's and I am.

Speaker 2 (01:25:44):
I'm semi retired.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
Okay, that's what you want to say. It is sure
been a good visit.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
Yeah, you're here.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
It's been a good visit of it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:53):
As my god, we've been we're doing this a long time.
I just looked at the clock. I haven't looked at
the cal It's been a great conversation because it's the first.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
Time I've looked at the clock. Buck twenty six, that's
pretty long. Do you take a lot of hate on
your message boards and stuff like that? You still get
people take shots at you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:07):
We used to have comments on the website and we
got rid of them. A couple of years ago. It's
just so it's so hard to police it. And then
you get people who get indignant, oh oh, what about
my First Amendment rights. It's like, I'm not required to
give you a platform to spew your hate. They'll do
it somewhere else, right exactly. And I remember when we

(01:26:30):
first had comments. My wife is like, do you see
what they say about you? And and I tell her
it's fine. That passion that they have to call me
bad names is the passion that brings them to the
website every day. So we dealt with it for a
long time, and then it just got to the point
where it was just it was just too much. You know,
the discourse took a turn that I wasn't comfortable with.

(01:26:52):
So if you want to call me, yeah, whatever you
want to call me, do it on social media, and
they do it. I if that's worse that I got
to deal with. You know, when you practice law and
you're litigating, half the people you deal with in theory
love you, and the other half the people you do
with hate you. Right, so I can deal with fifty percent.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
I'm load.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
Yeah, I'm WITHO. We like you.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
We're one hundred percent here.

Speaker 1 (01:27:18):
We're Mike Florio fans give it up. Three guys before
the game. Brought to us by Jan Dill's Attorneys at Law.
They won't take no for an answer. By Comac's Business System,
keeping West Virginia's business data safe, secure and efficient for
twenty five years. By Gomark. Get a Gomart rewards card
and immediately begins saving on food and fuel. Go to
gomart dot com for details or just download the app.

(01:27:41):
By lou Wendell Marine at sales in Saint Albans. They well,
they sell family fun. Visit lou Wendelmarine at sales dot com.
And by Tutor's Biscuit World. Start your day the Mike
Florio way with a Tutor's Biscuit. He'll get two. He
takes two.

Speaker 3 (01:27:56):
Soon to be in a movie near you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:58):
Year. Yeah, enjoy that. Enjoy that bread.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
Oh, I can't wait. I'll probably start on it on.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
The We're out. Thanks for being with us. Thanks to
producer Jake C. Y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:28:11):
H

All Episodes

3 Guys Before The Game - Pro Football Talk Founder Mike Florio (Episode 642)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.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;}3 Guys Before The Game - Pro Football Talk Founder Mike Florio (Episode 642)