June 19, 2024 • 32 mins
Tom Brady stops by to discuss his transition to the broadcasting booth. Does he have nerves, how will he handle mistakes, what's his mindset? Colin and Tom also discuss wide receivers and offensive lines and how the best teams and quarterbacks handle the supporting cast that makes the magic happen.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio in
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Speaker 2 (00:22):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, the man needs no introduction. He is now at Fox.
You're gonna see a lot of him. His process has changed.
Tom Brady, seven time Super Bowl champ, five time MVP.
It's great to finally see in person. Same here I've
I know I ended up on one of your documentaries
saying stuff that I regret now.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Now that we're teammates.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now we are teammates, I apologize for everything. Tom. Let
me start with this. You're a process guy, and my
wife and I talk about this. She's a project woman.
I'm a processed guy. She likes big projects, and I
think to myself, you were the ultimate process guy, like
Saban Belichick. You like yours people, and then the process
goes Yeah, did you wake a couple week after and
(01:04):
think maybe I should play golf? Like was losing the process?
Has it been a challenge.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I think anytime you transition into something new, there's a
bit of a challenge because you're so programmed and wired
to do things a certain way. As an athlete, there's
so much physical prep that goes along with your life.
Even an offseason, I was always thinking about was I prepared?
If there was a game on Sunday, could I play?
And I would think about that in April, in May
and June and July, and I would watch other great athletes.
(01:35):
Floyd Mayweather comes to mind, like he always seemed ready
to go. Someone called him, say, hey, you got a
fight on Saturday. He'd be like cool, And I think
that's how I always physically train my body. Mentally, it
was a little bit different because there was old game
plan element to the process of preparing for the games.
So I think the biggest challenge for me is I
just the structure is very different now in my life
(01:55):
because you don't have the routine. But I actually believe
that the broadcasting at Fox this year for the first time,
will give me a lot more structure like I'm used to,
and I really actually will look forward to that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So you were in the booth this weekend, UFL championship,
so it's kind of your first taste of doing it.
You've also been probably a half dozen times that I'm
aware of, been practicing upstairs. So I want you to
take me from the first time you put on a
headset upstairs, Yeah, until the UFL game and your last
you may have practiced today. When you watch the tapes,
(02:28):
do you notice the difference with you?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, I would say yes, And I also think there's
still so much more room for improvement. And I just
it's almost like when I was a player, I never
felt like I did things the right way. There were
games where I'd go in afterward and think, God, I'm
the worst quarterback in the NFL, Like, why would they
even want me to play quarterback for this team? And
I'm sure I'm going to feel that way here at Fox,
where I finish a game and I go, God, I
(02:51):
didn't even give them what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
And it's a.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Very challenging thing in your own mind. I asked a
few people, how do you know that you did a
good job? And I think, for me so much, this
is going to come down to the preparation and did
I feel like I was prepared that I feel like
our crew was prepared that I give them the best
over the course of the week so that we could
give ourselves the best opportunity to be successful for the fans,
because really the game is to show. We're there to
(03:15):
add our take on it in our analysis, but it's
also did we feel like we added to the broadcast?
And from my standpoint, I'm going to work as hard
as I can in the process of it, as you
talked about earlier, to make sure that I do deliver,
because I don't want to let anyone down. I don't
want to let the people with Fox are down, and
I certainly don't want to watch let the great NFL
fans down either.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, both quarterback and broadcaster takes the ability to compartmentalize
and then quickly pull things and put them in a
game or so. It's very similar is that when you
went into a football game, there were things that you practiced,
waited to see that may not happen until the fourth quarter,
and then you have to take that film, study fourth
quarter loud crowd can't hear and implement it. That's what
(03:59):
broadcasting is said this before time. I think what you're
doing is the hardest thing in sports. Two hundred times
for eight seconds. Be smart. Yeah, and if you have one,
if I kick it all the time, people are just
used to it, you're not to do pretty good. I'm
fun done. Fine. Are there nerves for Tom Brady? You
haven't had nerves forever?
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Your?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I always had nerves because it's a performance. When you
go out there on the field and you would feel
like you put a lot into it. There was probably
anxiousness and there were nerves because you the outcomes weren't
guaranteed for any of us.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You'd go into a.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Game, you'd feel like, oh, we got a great advantage
this week. They got a few of their guys out.
We're playing at home. This is exactly the game we want.
Next thing, you know, it's middle of the third quarter
and it's a dogfight. So it's you never really know
how sports are going to go, which was why we
all tune in. We tune in because the outcomes are
very unexpected, which if they're unexpected, there's a chance of
winning and losing. And because of that, there's anxiety and
there's nerves going into every single one of those games.
(04:52):
So the only way that I knew how to combat
the nerves and the anxiousness of the game was to prepare.
So I was someone that got really, really good at
my preparation. Over the course of my career, I got
really efficient with my time, especially as you added a
lot of the things to your life like children. You know,
that's a big addition. So it's how can I prepare
(05:14):
knowing that I have other things going in my life
and I really want to be efficient with my time
to make sure the time I am spending preparing is
really worth it. I'm working on the things that are
actually going to add to the broadcast rather than I'm
just working on things to work on them that will
actually never come up.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'll throw a theory at you, and I've used you
as an example on this show on Matt Stafford. Offensive
lines matter. I believe offensive line play has deteriorated due
to the CBA. They practice less. I think it's the
most cohesive unit in The're practicing less outside of the Lions.
I'm not sure there's a great O line in the
league right now. Their feels to me very powerful. What
(05:52):
worries me. I saw this with Russell first year in Denver.
I saw it with Aaron first year with the Jets.
The reason I think you succeed and Stafford did and
Kirk Cousins will because older quarterbacks are a bit more
reliant on guard center guard protection.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
It's very important.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
In Tampa. You got Tristan Wurf's yep, you were very
good guard center guard, sure, and you got very comfortable quickly.
That's what I worry about the Jets is that two
things are converging Tom. One they've got all new offensive linemen,
and two many are older, and older offensive linemen don't
play in the preseason anymore. I don't worry about Aaron,
(06:31):
but to take me through that, you went through it
with Tampa where you had to movie when you wanted grown.
It may have been for blocking as much as catching. Sure.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Yeah, there's so many nuances to the success of an offense.
I don't think you can ever make a bad O
line good. And over the course of my career, I
always I believe I played with the best offensive line
coach in the history of the NFL, and Dante Scarnecia.
And regardless of who we drafted free agents, we got
free agents in the draft, free agents, in free NFL
(07:01):
free agency, veteran free agency.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
We always piece.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Together a unit that played really well together, and all
of them may not have been Pro bowlers, but as
a unit, they played as well as any team in
the league. And that was tough challenge for every D
line you would play. You'd go, Okay, I know they're
gonna block us. Well, I know Brady's the ball is
gonna come out quick. I know they're gonna have good plans.
When we play man coverage, they're gonna have man beaters.
(07:26):
I know when we get in the reddera, they're gonna
challenge us. They're gonna have some different schemes in there
in the run game that we're gonna prepare for. We
put a lot of pressure on the defense all the
time to do things the right way as opposed to
the five the offensive linemen having a draft first round pick,
first round pick, first round pick to put together a
great O line.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So so much of great on line play.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
It's a great on line coach, and I think we
could talk about there's not a lot of great on
line coaches anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, No, Jimmy Johnson has said for years, Yeah, there's
about six good ones on the planet at any one time.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Absolutely, and there's probably about six eight good quarterbacks on
the planet, and there's about six sixt eight good head coaches,
and there's about six to eight good defensive coordinators. So
to try to get all the things right, which is
why the NFL is so competitive in my mind, because
there's so many challenges to keeping people together.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Because when you.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Have a good old line and everyone says, oh, this
is the first ranked or second rank or third ranked
offensive line, well, in free agency, all the teams come in,
they pick those guys out of that team and say, right, well,
we were gonna bring you from the Patriots to the Bengals,
We're imnave from the Patriots to the Chargers because they
knew that our guys were developed really well. Also, so
we would lose a lot of offensive line and you'd
have to replace them, and you'd have to develop them.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And I think one of the pet peeves I have.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
One of the great things I would say in my
experience with the Patriots was every player was coached, even
if you were on the practice squad, even if the
scout team offense was out there. Dante Scarneki was coaching
the scout team offensive line as if it was the
starting offensive line, and I think a lot of coaches
coached Hey, I'll just coach the starter, maybe a few backups,
as opposed to I'm gonna coach every single position. So
(08:56):
when people go down, we're gonna fill those guys in
and they're gonna they're going to just step in and
play a great role for us because they're going to
know all the calls, they're going to know the timing,
they're going to know the precision, they're going to know
exactly what we want to do on every play. So
that was the development part, and I think, yeah, the
CBA changed a lot. There's less practice time. I don't
necessarily love that. There's a lot of areas of say
(09:17):
the techniques and fundamentals, which because you don't have the
time tackling, run after catch, you know, special teams has
basically been eliminated from the NFL with a lot of
the rules, So that saves some time, but you know,
you lose the kicking game parts of the kicking game.
So I think there's a lot of because we don't
have as much time on task, there's a lot of
less time for us to develop the techniques and fundamentals
(09:40):
that these players need to be successful. So they go
to the outside. They look for coaches in the offseason
to develop some of those things. Some of it works.
It may work as an individual, but at the same time,
football as a team sport. So I would see quarterbacks
throwing the receivers that weren't their receivers. Well, that's fine.
It might be good for you, but it's not good
for let's say the team.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
That's right, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You know I. But before I get into some other stuff,
I'm going to be a little bit of a fan
on my last question, but I want to ask you this.
I have another theory is that this is subconscious and
you were able in a better spot to handle this.
But I have been arguing for years that number one
receivers there's a duality to it. They're great, Randy Moss
is great, but subconsciously, even a great quarterback will feel
(10:20):
to some degree he's indebted to get him the ball always.
And I thought when Dak Prescott broke into the league,
he was better without the great des Bryant the pressure left.
Sometimes receivers are are verbal, and i'd stuff on Diggs.
I would take on any team, but he's verbal. Brandon
Ayucu is verbal on his social and I want you
(10:40):
to go to that is I have argued now justin
Jefferson to me is too good not to sign Sure.
But I have always had this feeling and if you
could subconsciously when Randy was there, he rewarded you. But
was there a feeling sometimes where's Randy? I want to
make sure Randy's happy.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Sure always felt like you had to do something to
get them the ball, and if they hadn't touched the
ball in practice, I'd make sure, Oh god, you know, hey,
I got to get so and so ball because I
want him to keep running hard and I want him
to be ready for when the ball does come. And
you know, you see it a lot in NFL games.
Been practicing a lot of these games. I want to
see the best players touch the ball early so they
(11:19):
can break a sweat, they can get into the flow
of the game.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
And good coaches do that.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
When you script plays at the beginning of the game,
you're saying, Okay, you're the Niners coach. I'm going to
make sure McCaffrey touches it either first or second in
the game. I want to make sure Deebo Samuel touches
it first or second.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Of the game.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I'm going to throw it to him quick somehow. I
know the ball is going to be in his hands
so he can do something with it. I want to
get him into the flow, so we would always try
to script so that everybody would feel like they were
in the flow of the game. The last thing you
want is your number one receiver to go two and
a half quarters into a game and not see a
ball to get one target, because he's going to get discouraged.
He's got to go out there. He's got to break
(11:53):
the huddle. He's got to run out twenty five yards
to his alignment. He's got to run down the field
as fast as he can try to get open. He's
got to run back to the huddle. It's a lot
of effort that he's putting into not getting the ball. Now,
when you can reward that guy early in the game
and fair, Okay, where's he at? How do I get
him the ball? And there's certain guys that are really
easy to get the ball too. Certainly the guys that
line up closer to the ball, the tight ends and
(12:13):
the slot receivers, there's way more route options for them.
It's way easier to get them the ball because they
can go to basically every part of the field. Whereas
that perimeter receiver, he's got the sideline to deal with.
He really can't break out. If he breaks out, he's
got five or six yards to deal with. A receiver
at the tight end position or in the slot when
he breaks out, he's got eighteen yards to deal with,
so you have much more space to get him actually
(12:35):
the ball. So you know, it wasn't hard to get
Welker the ball. It wasn't hard to get Edelman the ball,
wasn't hard to get Gronkowski the ball. It was hard
to get a perimeter receiver of the ball. If they
decide that they want to take a perimeter receiver out
of the game, you just roll the coverage to him,
you play cover two, You jam him at the line
of scrimmage with someone over the top, and.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It's very, very difficult to get that guy the ball.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
But that also gives up a lot of other things,
and you've got to be able to take advantage of
those things. And that number one receiver has to understand, Okay,
they're making concerted effort to take me away. Therefore, my
other teammates have to produce when they're playing these coverages.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
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Speaker 3 (13:16):
Hey it's me Rob Parker.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Check out my weekly MLB podcast, Inside the Parker for
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(13:41):
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Speaker 1 (13:46):
Sean McVay years ago did something that it was kind
of a Maverick move, come a Baller move. He said,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna play my veteran stars
one snap in preseason, and people are like, whoa, whoaa, yeah,
you're not going to be ready. They want eight and
no to start the season. And now people look at
it and go, yeah, kind of, I don't want anybody hurt.
Now there is a line here, because you're gonna want
(14:08):
a couple series of snaps like, I get it, you
don't want to go cold. Yeah, but it is interesting
that I believe, and you have touched on this, that
the NFL is the shield and corporate and a lot
of these coaches there's a dogma and a rigidity and
they just don't want to change stuff, and it's hard
to flip the telescope. And I think coaches struggle allowing
(14:32):
quarterbacks like you and Breeze, it's your offense, go to
the line and call what you see. I think coach,
I think quarterbacks can be over coached at the line
of scrimmage, not at practice. Sure, you have touched on
the fact that you don't think quarterbacks are developing that
sort of pre sense snap. Is some of it the
(14:54):
rigidity of coaching, Yeah, Okay, so it is.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah, and the ability to develop that player, to give
him the tools so that when he gets to the
line of scrimmage and he sees blitz. Okay, if they're
blitzing me, these are the two protections I can use
when they blitz. These are the two or three routes
that I can signal to my receivers that can beat
the blitz or vice versa. We have we're anticipating blitz,
so we call a play that's going to protect and nope,
(15:19):
they're actually playing a very safe zone. I want to
make sure I can get all my players out into
the route and I can change the call, the protection
and the routes that everybody can get into the defense.
So what are you trying to do? You're trying to
give the quarterback to really be a field general quarterback.
You got the last swipe at the pencil. The defense
can call their play, they're going to line up. Offense
(15:43):
calls a play in the huddle, they walk the line scrimmage.
Defense calls a play, they adjust to the formation, offense
is lined up in, they have their call set. It
was always my job to say, well, I know what
my play is. Now I look at the defense, Okay,
I think I know what they're in. Does what I
have call? Is it going to work? And that was
my judgment and they would have to live and die
with my judgment the entire team. Now, I developed the
(16:05):
trust within the team, my teammates in the organization to say, Tom,
we want you to have that.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
We trust you.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
To have that final swipe at that pencil, but we're
not going to snap the ball into Let's say there's
a safety blitzing off the right side and I got
to run right at the right side, and I know
that nobody can block him. I'm not going to snap
the ball and run it into the strong safety blitzing
and tackle our running back four yards in the backfield.
I'd say, Okay, if the strong safety's coming on the
right and we got to play to the right, what
do you want me to do. You want me to
run to the left, you want me to check to
(16:32):
a pass. Those are the options. That's how I would
think about the game. There was always a reason why
I did something. If he was blitzing off the left
and I wanted to run the right, great, let's snap
the ball.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Everything was intentional.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, there wasn't a time I would hope that I
would have never snapped the ball into a bad defense.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Now did I?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Of course I did, because sometimes the defenses wanted to
disguise a lot of things they didn't want to show me. Okay,
Brady likes to get a great pre snap read. Let's
really mess with him. Let's, you know, kind of toggle
the safe. He's back and forth, and we're going to
make it challenging for him to really decipher Buffalo. When
I played Buffalo, they wouldn't move until after the ball
was snapped. So if the safety was coming down on
the left, we're on the right. They were going to
(17:10):
do it after the snap all the time, and they
would just play in this little shell defense. Ballby snapped
in here they go, they rotate because every defense has
strengths and weaknesses to it.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
My job as a quarterback was always.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
To delineate where the strengths and weaknesses were and was
the play that I had called was it able to
take advantage of the weaknesses of the defense. And if
it couldn't, then I was supposed to get to a
play that would. And I think that's part of the
development that I had as a player, was they gave
me the tools to be able to do that, and
they gave me the trust over a period of time
(17:41):
that I was ultimately going to make the right decision
for the team.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Intentional is sometimes confused for intensity. Knowing and reading the
temperature in the room is important. And there's a story
about John Wooden, the late legendary coach, and he was
very strict, you know, the pyramid of success yea. And
he felt his team before a championship game was tight,
and so we made the decision. He said, all we're
(18:06):
doing is dunking at practice today and everybody was having fun,
and he sensed the temperature in the room. My team
is tight. We gotta have a fun practice. You had
what I would view as a highly efficient, don't mess
around head coach. Were there times.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
That's a polite way to say that, yes.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I'm trying to be very difficult, good job. I would
think you would have to provide the question I'm gonna ask.
Were there times, because of Bill's manner that you felt
on a Saturday night when you go into that meeting
were way too tight? I got a light in this
room up a little.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I think the answer would be no. And I think
that's where Bill was actually so great, and no one
saw him in those moments like we did. And Saturday night,
we were so prepared and so focused. We were the
opposite of tight. Really, we were always relaxed because we
had the answers to the tech.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I knew that.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I went through the call sheet, and let's say we
had one hundred and fifty calls on the call sheet.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
There was a meeting.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
At a squad meeting eight o'clock, I would meet with
the quarterbacks starting at six thirty in the offense corner.
We go through every single play on the call sheet,
and we do exactly what we did. Okay, this is
a play, this is the run. What's the one thing
that could mess this run up?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
A safety blitz off the right side. Okay, great, what
do you want to do if that happens. So I'd
walk to the line of scrimmage that that call was made,
I'd break the head.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
I'd look at the line scrimge.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I'd say, okay, the only problem I have on this
play is if the safety is blitzing off the right side,
and then I would just look for it. Oh, and
he only did it, let's say five percent of the time.
So most coaches would just say, I just run the
play whatever if they get lucky and call it at
the same time, one for them. And that's not how
I played, because that one play could mean everything.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
So I would say, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
If it's a five percent chance it could happen, what
should I do if it happened?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
So we're all on the same page.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
So I would tell the line Okay, if this guy's
blitz is what I'm doing, I'm gonna check to this
play called wolf for a called beatle or called python,
whatever we wanted to call it.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
This is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Or I'm gonna check to a screen, Liz, I'm going
to change the protection and go to Greto or great.
So there was all these different code words what we
had that we can get them so quickly, because it's
hard to do when they're seventy thousand fans, you know,
it's hard to do with to communicate to everybody in
ten seconds to go from one play to another play.
But that's what the continuity allowed us to do over
a long period of time. That's what the same coordinator,
(20:21):
the similar core group of players could do, the same
offensive line coach. Oh yeah, we did that two years ago. Yeah,
I like that solution at work. Great, that allowed us
to win the game. Great, we gained confidence in it.
So that continuity that we had with all of us
allowed us to succeed in those little small percentage chances
that they did something or made a call that could
beat what we were doing. And I think so much
that's that's what the beautiful part about the sport is
(20:43):
that's the chess game in football. It's not checkers. It's
not soccer where everything's reaction. It's not hockey, it's not basketball.
They're all set pieces. They all there's a play. And
when I looked at the real field generals when I
played growing up with, well that was John Elway, Dan Reno.
Then that you got to the Peyton Mannings and and
Drew Brees and Philip Rivers.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Like that's all we tried to do.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
We tried to say what's the defense doing and how
can we beat the defense on every single play? And
then we'd come out of the game. That's how we
would judge ourselves. Did I make the right call?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
There?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Not always?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Did I make the right throw? Did I snap the
ball into a defense that that play would actually work?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
This will be really dorky, but I always thought you
had a you were the best cold weather thrower because
of your torque i'd ever seen. Yeah, didn't you had
the best arm. You're the best cold weather thrower. And
you made a throw. This is so darky Chicago Bears
Soldier Field. Yeah, down the left sideline.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
The Dion branch, And I was.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Like, does everybody understand what it's like to throw in Chicago.
It was terrible.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Yeah, we actually called a draw play on there and
I was like, I'm not throwing a draw here. There
was only like eleven seconds left in the half and
I was like, no, no, these guys can't move out there.
And there was a play called toga two goes. One
was up the sideline. The safety major right, couldn't move
off the hash. I kind of looked them inside. I
had time because they were pretty tired on defense, and
just fired it up the sideline the deon we scored
it touched on right before.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Halftime, windy, cold, snow.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
It was horrible, but it was perfect.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
That's the throw of your life. I always think people
just don't get the disadvantage a lot of quarterbacks. Foxborough, Yeah,
was not a great quarterback setting October twentieth on.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
And I give that credit again to the coaches. We
practiced in the bad weather every single day, and so
it was we.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Just got so used to it.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I just expected ten to fifteen mile in our wins
every time I took the field. I went to domes
and I was like, it's like this all the time,
And when you look at like Dome stats and Dome
quarterbacks different. There's probably a three or four three to
five completion percentage advantage for the dome quarterback question.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
The yards per attempt is going to go up. It's
just cleaner football.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
It's like shooting a basketball and the wind for shooting basketball,
you know, at one of the great arenas here. And
remember but we were an outdoor sport, so we were
going to play in Buffalo, we were going to play
off New England. We're going to play in the Metallands
every those are three outdoor stadiums in the Northeast. Then
you had the other teams you knew you play. So
Bill would just make sure we got out there and
(23:05):
played in any condition. I knew exactly what I had
to wear in every single climate that we were going
to play. I knew I wasn't I didn't have too
much on, I didn't have not enough on. I was
always had the right amount of handwarmers in my muff
just because if it was really cold, I didn't want
to have six hand warmers and I want to had
one or two if unless it was really cold, then
(23:25):
I want to have four or five. So I just
knew every degree of temperature, what I needed to wear
for my sleeves, how early I needed to ge out
and prepare Again, that continuity allowed me to do a
lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
It's like institutional knowledge. Yeah, you could literally pull stuff.
Edelman's told me that, He's like, it's amazing when you
have the same coaches and the same sort of it is.
It's like almost military sure, when you have the same
corporate leaders.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
And I like to think of it if it's a
football field, every team's starting at their own one yard line,
and a lot of times the Patriots we felt like
we were starting at the third yard line because we
had continuity. Now we weren't starting on their side of
the field. We had a long way to go. But
because the continuity, that was really so much of our
success as time went on, and it didn't always have
to be the players. A lot was the players. We
(24:13):
had a lot of great culture drivers of our team.
When I think later in my career, Devin mccordy and
Patrick Chung and.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Steph Gilmour and James White, and a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Of the guys up front and offensive line early in
my career was Bruski and Rabel and McGinnis and Larry Izzo,
and there were so many great players I played like
I see a lot of them last week. And we
had so much fun just reflecting on all the time
that we spent together because those were some of the
most joyous moments we had in our life. There was
there was such a freedom to go out and just
play the game that we loved, and it was just
(24:42):
a magical time in all our lives and I to
you try to recreate that in other places, but it's
very difficult because everyone does something a little bit differently,
and we just had a really unique culture there at
the right time.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
What percentage when he comes on this show, what percentage
of Edelman stories are true?
Speaker 4 (24:57):
They're mostly true, often embellished. Sure, So that's you know,
that's part of Julian and Julians. Julian's actually become a
great storyteller. And you know, kind of I think he's
approaching media a lot like he approached the NFL, and
you think he's gotten really good at it. He's gonna,
he's he's no one's gonna outwork Julian. Julian's gonna Julian's
(25:18):
always gonna put the time in he's gonna try to
suck up all the information he can from people to
try to use it. And he's got a great personality
and he always did as he played too. He was
someone that was Julian got tight, but then he had
this volatility between me and very tight and rigid and
then very relaxed and loose. So yeah, we send some
of those. We've seen the loose part at the Fox outings.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, No, he's one of my things.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
A lot of my friends can attest to that that
are here today.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Hey, I'm late, I got bosses looking at me.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, don't get in trouble. I don't want to get
in trouble either.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I'm already am. You'll be fine. I'm in trouble more often.
Great seeing you.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Thanks, great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
All right, Tom Brady, take a break. Herd Line.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Next, be sure to catch live editions of The Herd
weekdays and noon Easter nine Empacific.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Back without further ado, Jay Mack with the news.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
This is the Herd Line News.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
All right.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
So Aaron Rodgers and the Jets, we got to talk
about him. A very exciting season ahead. Obviously, Rodgers hasn't
taken a snap since Week one of last year, when
he suffered the achilles injury.
Speaker 7 (26:21):
His former Packers teammate David Bochdiari.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Says the Jets will quote for sure make the playoffs
this year, and that's not wise to bet against the
four time MVP.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Colin.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
You just tried to say they were a seven or
eight win team earlier. Yeah, Bock is saying they for
sure make the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Well, David is Aaron's closest friend in the sport, I believe,
and I wish him the very best. But the AFC's loaded,
all the quarterbacks are healthy, Miami's a better offensive team,
Buffalo's got the better roster, So third place feels good
to me. I do think they'll vie for the playoffs
until the very end, but I like to remind everybody
(27:00):
how difficult the schedule is. Late at Miami at Jacksonville.
Rams are going to be good at Buffalo Miami again.
Even the Seattle game is sneaky. They get some breaks early,
but that is a sight. They get well slow down
on the brakes. Yes, they get Tennessee and New England early.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
They're probably gonna be seven and one cone Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Boy games San Francisco and Buffalo Texans home Jets always
please you don't think they can lose against the Texans
and at Arizona.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
Maybe that can put them to seven and two. Arizona,
stop it next up.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
The Commanders made a lot of changes this offseason, the
biggest of which was bringing in Dan Quinn as a
new head coach and drafting Jaden Daniels. Quinn has praised
his rookie QB already and continued that in a recent
media appearance.
Speaker 8 (27:52):
I think I said it recently, Jim, and I think
this sums it up right. He has the humility and
kind of the hunger of the young player. You know,
I got a lot to prove, I still got a
lot to learn. But he also kind of has the
swagger and calmness of a veteran player. So I think
those fifty plus starts from ASU and lsu at seems
(28:12):
to come about. You see him on the field, in
the huddle, that's that's where he's at his best.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, he's gonna work. He's gonna look a little like
Lamar Jackson, maybe a little better early in the pocket,
not quite as fast.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
As he's going to look like a two time MVP.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No, he's going to look very quickly, very quickly, you're
going to see a little bit of a prototype Lamar.
He'll be better in the pocket early than Lamar was
because he'd he's just sat in the pocket more less
reliant and running. But he'll run a little bit like Lamar.
I won't be as dynamic, but I think his comp
Lamar is a pretty interesting comp. I think the kid's
really good. He's a little slight. I wish he was
(28:45):
ten pounds heavier, but he's he's tall, he's smart, he's humble,
he's a worker. We're paying all this attention to Caleb
Williams Jaden Daniels to me, is going to be and
I told you I think they're going to make the playoffs.
I think they're going to be the surprise team in
the league.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
That's bold.
Speaker 7 (29:00):
Remember last year Bryce Young looks super small in the
pocket with the big helmet.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, this kid six three, he's a tolerance, yes, but
look at how thin he is he is. Then there's
no question. Lamar Jackson first year in the league, my
take was he looked skinny and then Lamar, remember the
next two years put on weight, so Jamee's gonna put
on some weight, but he's not gonna put on twenty pounds.
That's not who he is, all right.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Final story, There was a lot of outrage when the
US Women's Olympic basketball roster was announced and Caitlin Clark
got snubbed. Well, Kevin Durant was recently asked about the
snub and he believes it was justified. Kad said, I
think there's proper steps you have to take in our
world to be considered an Olympian.
Speaker 7 (29:37):
Right now, there's better candidates out there.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I don't I don't think that's a bad take. I
think Kevin, that's a terrible take. No, well, no, that's
that's that's what a basketball purist believes is true, and
Kevin's a basketball purist.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Proper steps like the nineteen eighties, Hey, you got to
start your your journalism career in Tampa then go to
Vegas and it's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
There are steps life. You have to get licensed to
be a lot of things, to be an attorney.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
You know, Jayal Clark has a license to shoot, and
she's had a best rookie seasons in WNBA history.
Speaker 7 (30:11):
Did you see the ratings for the game.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
Oh, there's against Chicago, highest rate of WNBA game in
twenty three years.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, well would she She got me to a television,
so she's she's they better playing angel Rees again this weekend.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Yeah, so if you were doing the show next week,
you'd probably open with Kaylen Clark Monday.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Again. I don't have a problem with it. I think
I think she has a magnetic quality. I think Tiger
had it. I think Bryce Harbor has had it. A
show Hayo Tani. If I'm walking by a TV and
show Hayo Tani's up, I stop and watch. There's just
she's got a magnetic quality. Sometimes that's the best player.
Sometimes it's a player. No, some people just have, you know,
(30:48):
to just they just draw people in for whatever reasons.
They could be on air TV personalities, they can be quarterbacks,
they can be coaches.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
I mean, you know, it's it's uh, it just seems
very archaic. When you've got a star line and she's
a star. Let's be real.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Hey, by the way, Fever, they're currently in the playoffs.
They got a game tonight against the Washington somebody's I'll
check out the score.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I'll Washington mystics. Let's let's let's give the league its
proper respecting So sorry, I didn't know the Los Angeles Sparks.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
I know the Sparks. Yeah, I went to a sparse game.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
They have names Chicago Sky.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
Maybe you and Brady could go to a game together.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Tom's busy, he is he Yeah, I don't encroach on
my guests. Their guests. We love having them and then
they believe and I don't encroach on that. You want
to hang out, have beers.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Where Brady looked taller than I thought six four, I
think he looked bigger than six four would be a
post player on my MENSI.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, I'm sure he's got time for it.
Speaker 8 (31:47):
J Mack with the news, Well, that's the news, and
thanks for stopping by the herd Line News.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I want to think Tom and the bosses upstairs for
getting him on the show today. He's you know, It's
what's interesting with Tom is that for his status and career,
he's very normal. You can have just like regular guy conversations,
and I think that's a part of it. By the way,
Peyton Manning's the same way. You can just have like
(32:15):
there's something great about sports that cuts through all the nonsense.
You can just be normal. See you tomorrow.
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio in
noon to three Eastern nine am to noone Pacific. Find
your local station for The Herd at Fox Sports Radio
dot com, or stream us live every day on the
iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, the man needs no introduction. He is now at Fox.
You're gonna see a lot of him. His process has changed.
Tom Brady, seven time Super Bowl champ, five time MVP.
It's great to finally see in person. Same here I've
I know I ended up on one of your documentaries
saying stuff that I regret now.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Now that we're teammates.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Now we are teammates, I apologize for everything. Tom. Let
me start with this. You're a process guy, and my
wife and I talk about this. She's a project woman.
I'm a processed guy. She likes big projects, and I
think to myself, you were the ultimate process guy, like
Saban Belichick. You like yours people, and then the process
goes Yeah, did you wake a couple week after and
(01:04):
think maybe I should play golf? Like was losing the process?
Has it been a challenge.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
I think anytime you transition into something new, there's a
bit of a challenge because you're so programmed and wired
to do things a certain way. As an athlete, there's
so much physical prep that goes along with your life.
Even an offseason, I was always thinking about was I prepared?
If there was a game on Sunday, could I play?
And I would think about that in April, in May
and June and July, and I would watch other great athletes.
(01:35):
Floyd Mayweather comes to mind, like he always seemed ready
to go. Someone called him, say, hey, you got a
fight on Saturday. He'd be like cool, And I think
that's how I always physically train my body. Mentally, it
was a little bit different because there was old game
plan element to the process of preparing for the games.
So I think the biggest challenge for me is I
just the structure is very different now in my life
(01:55):
because you don't have the routine. But I actually believe
that the broadcasting at Fox this year for the first time,
will give me a lot more structure like I'm used to,
and I really actually will look forward to that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So you were in the booth this weekend, UFL championship,
so it's kind of your first taste of doing it.
You've also been probably a half dozen times that I'm
aware of, been practicing upstairs. So I want you to
take me from the first time you put on a
headset upstairs, Yeah, until the UFL game and your last
you may have practiced today. When you watch the tapes,
(02:28):
do you notice the difference with you?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, I would say yes, And I also think there's
still so much more room for improvement. And I just
it's almost like when I was a player, I never
felt like I did things the right way. There were
games where I'd go in afterward and think, God, I'm
the worst quarterback in the NFL, Like, why would they
even want me to play quarterback for this team? And
I'm sure I'm going to feel that way here at Fox,
where I finish a game and I go, God, I
(02:51):
didn't even give them what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
And it's a.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Very challenging thing in your own mind. I asked a
few people, how do you know that you did a
good job? And I think, for me so much, this
is going to come down to the preparation and did
I feel like I was prepared that I feel like
our crew was prepared that I give them the best
over the course of the week so that we could
give ourselves the best opportunity to be successful for the fans,
because really the game is to show. We're there to
(03:15):
add our take on it in our analysis, but it's
also did we feel like we added to the broadcast?
And from my standpoint, I'm going to work as hard
as I can in the process of it, as you
talked about earlier, to make sure that I do deliver,
because I don't want to let anyone down. I don't
want to let the people with Fox are down, and
I certainly don't want to watch let the great NFL
fans down either.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Well, both quarterback and broadcaster takes the ability to compartmentalize
and then quickly pull things and put them in a
game or so. It's very similar is that when you
went into a football game, there were things that you practiced,
waited to see that may not happen until the fourth quarter,
and then you have to take that film, study fourth
quarter loud crowd can't hear and implement it. That's what
(03:59):
broadcasting is said this before time. I think what you're
doing is the hardest thing in sports. Two hundred times
for eight seconds. Be smart. Yeah, and if you have one,
if I kick it all the time, people are just
used to it, you're not to do pretty good. I'm
fun done. Fine. Are there nerves for Tom Brady? You
haven't had nerves forever?
Speaker 5 (04:17):
Right?
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Your?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I always had nerves because it's a performance. When you
go out there on the field and you would feel
like you put a lot into it. There was probably
anxiousness and there were nerves because you the outcomes weren't
guaranteed for any of us.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You'd go into a.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Game, you'd feel like, oh, we got a great advantage
this week. They got a few of their guys out.
We're playing at home. This is exactly the game we want.
Next thing, you know, it's middle of the third quarter
and it's a dogfight. So it's you never really know
how sports are going to go, which was why we
all tune in. We tune in because the outcomes are
very unexpected, which if they're unexpected, there's a chance of
winning and losing. And because of that, there's anxiety and
there's nerves going into every single one of those games.
(04:52):
So the only way that I knew how to combat
the nerves and the anxiousness of the game was to prepare.
So I was someone that got really, really good at
my preparation. Over the course of my career, I got
really efficient with my time, especially as you added a
lot of the things to your life like children. You know,
that's a big addition. So it's how can I prepare
(05:14):
knowing that I have other things going in my life
and I really want to be efficient with my time
to make sure the time I am spending preparing is
really worth it. I'm working on the things that are
actually going to add to the broadcast rather than I'm
just working on things to work on them that will
actually never come up.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
I'll throw a theory at you, and I've used you
as an example on this show on Matt Stafford. Offensive
lines matter. I believe offensive line play has deteriorated due
to the CBA. They practice less. I think it's the
most cohesive unit in The're practicing less outside of the Lions.
I'm not sure there's a great O line in the
league right now. Their feels to me very powerful. What
(05:52):
worries me. I saw this with Russell first year in Denver.
I saw it with Aaron first year with the Jets.
The reason I think you succeed and Stafford did and
Kirk Cousins will because older quarterbacks are a bit more
reliant on guard center guard protection.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
It's very important.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
In Tampa. You got Tristan Wurf's yep, you were very
good guard center guard, sure, and you got very comfortable quickly.
That's what I worry about the Jets is that two
things are converging Tom. One they've got all new offensive linemen,
and two many are older, and older offensive linemen don't
play in the preseason anymore. I don't worry about Aaron,
(06:31):
but to take me through that, you went through it
with Tampa where you had to movie when you wanted grown.
It may have been for blocking as much as catching. Sure.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Yeah, there's so many nuances to the success of an offense.
I don't think you can ever make a bad O
line good. And over the course of my career, I
always I believe I played with the best offensive line
coach in the history of the NFL, and Dante Scarnecia.
And regardless of who we drafted free agents, we got
free agents in the draft, free agents, in free NFL
(07:01):
free agency, veteran free agency.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
We always piece.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Together a unit that played really well together, and all
of them may not have been Pro bowlers, but as
a unit, they played as well as any team in
the league. And that was tough challenge for every D
line you would play. You'd go, Okay, I know they're
gonna block us. Well, I know Brady's the ball is
gonna come out quick. I know they're gonna have good plans.
When we play man coverage, they're gonna have man beaters.
(07:26):
I know when we get in the reddera, they're gonna
challenge us. They're gonna have some different schemes in there
in the run game that we're gonna prepare for. We
put a lot of pressure on the defense all the
time to do things the right way as opposed to
the five the offensive linemen having a draft first round pick,
first round pick, first round pick to put together a
great O line.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
So so much of great on line play.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
It's a great on line coach, and I think we
could talk about there's not a lot of great on
line coaches anymore.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, No, Jimmy Johnson has said for years, Yeah, there's
about six good ones on the planet at any one time.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Absolutely, and there's probably about six eight good quarterbacks on
the planet, and there's about six sixt eight good head coaches,
and there's about six to eight good defensive coordinators. So
to try to get all the things right, which is
why the NFL is so competitive in my mind, because
there's so many challenges to keeping people together.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Because when you.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Have a good old line and everyone says, oh, this
is the first ranked or second rank or third ranked
offensive line, well, in free agency, all the teams come in,
they pick those guys out of that team and say, right, well,
we were gonna bring you from the Patriots to the Bengals,
We're imnave from the Patriots to the Chargers because they
knew that our guys were developed really well. Also, so
we would lose a lot of offensive line and you'd
have to replace them, and you'd have to develop them.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And I think one of the pet peeves I have.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
One of the great things I would say in my
experience with the Patriots was every player was coached, even
if you were on the practice squad, even if the
scout team offense was out there. Dante Scarneki was coaching
the scout team offensive line as if it was the
starting offensive line, and I think a lot of coaches
coached Hey, I'll just coach the starter, maybe a few backups,
as opposed to I'm gonna coach every single position. So
(08:56):
when people go down, we're gonna fill those guys in
and they're gonna they're going to just step in and
play a great role for us because they're going to
know all the calls, they're going to know the timing,
they're going to know the precision, they're going to know
exactly what we want to do on every play. So
that was the development part, and I think, yeah, the
CBA changed a lot. There's less practice time. I don't
necessarily love that. There's a lot of areas of say
(09:17):
the techniques and fundamentals, which because you don't have the
time tackling, run after catch, you know, special teams has
basically been eliminated from the NFL with a lot of
the rules, So that saves some time, but you know,
you lose the kicking game parts of the kicking game.
So I think there's a lot of because we don't
have as much time on task, there's a lot of
less time for us to develop the techniques and fundamentals
(09:40):
that these players need to be successful. So they go
to the outside. They look for coaches in the offseason
to develop some of those things. Some of it works.
It may work as an individual, but at the same time,
football as a team sport. So I would see quarterbacks
throwing the receivers that weren't their receivers. Well, that's fine.
It might be good for you, but it's not good
for let's say the team.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
That's right, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
You know I. But before I get into some other stuff,
I'm going to be a little bit of a fan
on my last question, but I want to ask you this.
I have another theory is that this is subconscious and
you were able in a better spot to handle this.
But I have been arguing for years that number one
receivers there's a duality to it. They're great, Randy Moss
is great, but subconsciously, even a great quarterback will feel
(10:20):
to some degree he's indebted to get him the ball always.
And I thought when Dak Prescott broke into the league,
he was better without the great des Bryant the pressure left.
Sometimes receivers are are verbal, and i'd stuff on Diggs.
I would take on any team, but he's verbal. Brandon
Ayucu is verbal on his social and I want you
(10:40):
to go to that is I have argued now justin
Jefferson to me is too good not to sign Sure.
But I have always had this feeling and if you
could subconsciously when Randy was there, he rewarded you. But
was there a feeling sometimes where's Randy? I want to
make sure Randy's happy.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Sure always felt like you had to do something to
get them the ball, and if they hadn't touched the
ball in practice, I'd make sure, Oh god, you know, hey,
I got to get so and so ball because I
want him to keep running hard and I want him
to be ready for when the ball does come. And
you know, you see it a lot in NFL games.
Been practicing a lot of these games. I want to
see the best players touch the ball early so they
(11:19):
can break a sweat, they can get into the flow
of the game.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
And good coaches do that.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
When you script plays at the beginning of the game,
you're saying, Okay, you're the Niners coach. I'm going to
make sure McCaffrey touches it either first or second in
the game. I want to make sure Deebo Samuel touches
it first or second.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Of the game.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I'm going to throw it to him quick somehow. I
know the ball is going to be in his hands
so he can do something with it. I want to
get him into the flow, so we would always try
to script so that everybody would feel like they were
in the flow of the game. The last thing you
want is your number one receiver to go two and
a half quarters into a game and not see a
ball to get one target, because he's going to get discouraged.
He's got to go out there. He's got to break
(11:53):
the huddle. He's got to run out twenty five yards
to his alignment. He's got to run down the field
as fast as he can try to get open. He's
got to run back to the huddle. It's a lot
of effort that he's putting into not getting the ball. Now,
when you can reward that guy early in the game
and fair, Okay, where's he at? How do I get
him the ball? And there's certain guys that are really
easy to get the ball too. Certainly the guys that
line up closer to the ball, the tight ends and
(12:13):
the slot receivers, there's way more route options for them.
It's way easier to get them the ball because they
can go to basically every part of the field. Whereas
that perimeter receiver, he's got the sideline to deal with.
He really can't break out. If he breaks out, he's
got five or six yards to deal with. A receiver
at the tight end position or in the slot when
he breaks out, he's got eighteen yards to deal with,
so you have much more space to get him actually
(12:35):
the ball. So you know, it wasn't hard to get
Welker the ball. It wasn't hard to get Edelman the ball,
wasn't hard to get Gronkowski the ball. It was hard
to get a perimeter receiver of the ball. If they
decide that they want to take a perimeter receiver out
of the game, you just roll the coverage to him,
you play cover two, You jam him at the line
of scrimmage with someone over the top, and.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It's very, very difficult to get that guy the ball.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
But that also gives up a lot of other things,
and you've got to be able to take advantage of
those things. And that number one receiver has to understand, Okay,
they're making concerted effort to take me away. Therefore, my
other teammates have to produce when they're playing these coverages.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and Noone Easter nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Hey it's me Rob Parker.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Check out my weekly MLB podcast, Inside the Parker for
twenty two minutes of piping hot baseball talk featuring the
biggest names of newsmakers in the sport. Whether you believe
in analytics or the I test, We've got all the
bases covered. New episodes drop every Thursday, so do yourself
a favor and listen to Inside the Parker with Rob
(13:41):
Parker on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Sean McVay years ago did something that it was kind
of a Maverick move, come a Baller move. He said,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna play my veteran stars
one snap in preseason, and people are like, whoa, whoaa, yeah,
you're not going to be ready. They want eight and
no to start the season. And now people look at
it and go, yeah, kind of, I don't want anybody hurt.
Now there is a line here, because you're gonna want
(14:08):
a couple series of snaps like, I get it, you
don't want to go cold. Yeah, but it is interesting
that I believe, and you have touched on this, that
the NFL is the shield and corporate and a lot
of these coaches there's a dogma and a rigidity and
they just don't want to change stuff, and it's hard
to flip the telescope. And I think coaches struggle allowing
(14:32):
quarterbacks like you and Breeze, it's your offense, go to
the line and call what you see. I think coach,
I think quarterbacks can be over coached at the line
of scrimmage, not at practice. Sure, you have touched on
the fact that you don't think quarterbacks are developing that
sort of pre sense snap. Is some of it the
(14:54):
rigidity of coaching, Yeah, Okay, so it is.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Yeah, and the ability to develop that player, to give
him the tools so that when he gets to the
line of scrimmage and he sees blitz. Okay, if they're
blitzing me, these are the two protections I can use
when they blitz. These are the two or three routes
that I can signal to my receivers that can beat
the blitz or vice versa. We have we're anticipating blitz,
so we call a play that's going to protect and nope,
(15:19):
they're actually playing a very safe zone. I want to
make sure I can get all my players out into
the route and I can change the call, the protection
and the routes that everybody can get into the defense.
So what are you trying to do? You're trying to
give the quarterback to really be a field general quarterback.
You got the last swipe at the pencil. The defense
can call their play, they're going to line up. Offense
(15:43):
calls a play in the huddle, they walk the line scrimmage.
Defense calls a play, they adjust to the formation, offense
is lined up in, they have their call set. It
was always my job to say, well, I know what
my play is. Now I look at the defense, Okay,
I think I know what they're in. Does what I
have call? Is it going to work? And that was
my judgment and they would have to live and die
with my judgment the entire team. Now, I developed the
(16:05):
trust within the team, my teammates in the organization to say, Tom,
we want you to have that.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
We trust you.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
To have that final swipe at that pencil, but we're
not going to snap the ball into Let's say there's
a safety blitzing off the right side and I got
to run right at the right side, and I know
that nobody can block him. I'm not going to snap
the ball and run it into the strong safety blitzing
and tackle our running back four yards in the backfield.
I'd say, Okay, if the strong safety's coming on the
right and we got to play to the right, what
do you want me to do. You want me to
run to the left, you want me to check to
(16:32):
a pass. Those are the options. That's how I would
think about the game. There was always a reason why
I did something. If he was blitzing off the left
and I wanted to run the right, great, let's snap
the ball.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Everything was intentional.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, there wasn't a time I would hope that I
would have never snapped the ball into a bad defense.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Now did I?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Of course I did, because sometimes the defenses wanted to
disguise a lot of things they didn't want to show me. Okay,
Brady likes to get a great pre snap read. Let's
really mess with him. Let's, you know, kind of toggle
the safe. He's back and forth, and we're going to
make it challenging for him to really decipher Buffalo. When
I played Buffalo, they wouldn't move until after the ball
was snapped. So if the safety was coming down on
the left, we're on the right. They were going to
(17:10):
do it after the snap all the time, and they
would just play in this little shell defense. Ballby snapped
in here they go, they rotate because every defense has
strengths and weaknesses to it.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
My job as a quarterback was always.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
To delineate where the strengths and weaknesses were and was
the play that I had called was it able to
take advantage of the weaknesses of the defense. And if
it couldn't, then I was supposed to get to a
play that would. And I think that's part of the
development that I had as a player, was they gave
me the tools to be able to do that, and
they gave me the trust over a period of time
(17:41):
that I was ultimately going to make the right decision
for the team.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Intentional is sometimes confused for intensity. Knowing and reading the
temperature in the room is important. And there's a story
about John Wooden, the late legendary coach, and he was
very strict, you know, the pyramid of success yea. And
he felt his team before a championship game was tight,
and so we made the decision. He said, all we're
(18:06):
doing is dunking at practice today and everybody was having fun,
and he sensed the temperature in the room. My team
is tight. We gotta have a fun practice. You had
what I would view as a highly efficient, don't mess
around head coach. Were there times.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
That's a polite way to say that, yes.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I'm trying to be very difficult, good job. I would
think you would have to provide the question I'm gonna ask.
Were there times, because of Bill's manner that you felt
on a Saturday night when you go into that meeting
were way too tight? I got a light in this
room up a little.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
I think the answer would be no. And I think
that's where Bill was actually so great, and no one
saw him in those moments like we did. And Saturday night,
we were so prepared and so focused. We were the
opposite of tight. Really, we were always relaxed because we
had the answers to the tech.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
I knew that.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
I went through the call sheet, and let's say we
had one hundred and fifty calls on the call sheet.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
There was a meeting.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
At a squad meeting eight o'clock, I would meet with
the quarterbacks starting at six thirty in the offense corner.
We go through every single play on the call sheet,
and we do exactly what we did. Okay, this is
a play, this is the run. What's the one thing
that could mess this run up?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
A safety blitz off the right side. Okay, great, what
do you want to do if that happens. So I'd
walk to the line of scrimmage that that call was made,
I'd break the head.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
I'd look at the line scrimge.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I'd say, okay, the only problem I have on this
play is if the safety is blitzing off the right side,
and then I would just look for it. Oh, and
he only did it, let's say five percent of the time.
So most coaches would just say, I just run the
play whatever if they get lucky and call it at
the same time, one for them. And that's not how
I played, because that one play could mean everything.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
So I would say, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
If it's a five percent chance it could happen, what
should I do if it happened?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
So we're all on the same page.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
So I would tell the line Okay, if this guy's
blitz is what I'm doing, I'm gonna check to this
play called wolf for a called beatle or called python,
whatever we wanted to call it.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
This is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
Or I'm gonna check to a screen, Liz, I'm going
to change the protection and go to Greto or great.
So there was all these different code words what we
had that we can get them so quickly, because it's
hard to do when they're seventy thousand fans, you know,
it's hard to do with to communicate to everybody in
ten seconds to go from one play to another play.
But that's what the continuity allowed us to do over
a long period of time. That's what the same coordinator,
(20:21):
the similar core group of players could do, the same
offensive line coach. Oh yeah, we did that two years ago. Yeah,
I like that solution at work. Great, that allowed us
to win the game. Great, we gained confidence in it.
So that continuity that we had with all of us
allowed us to succeed in those little small percentage chances
that they did something or made a call that could
beat what we were doing. And I think so much
that's that's what the beautiful part about the sport is
(20:43):
that's the chess game in football. It's not checkers. It's
not soccer where everything's reaction. It's not hockey, it's not basketball.
They're all set pieces. They all there's a play. And
when I looked at the real field generals when I
played growing up with, well that was John Elway, Dan Reno.
Then that you got to the Peyton Mannings and and
Drew Brees and Philip Rivers.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Like that's all we tried to do.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
We tried to say what's the defense doing and how
can we beat the defense on every single play? And
then we'd come out of the game. That's how we
would judge ourselves. Did I make the right call?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
There?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Not always?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Did I make the right throw? Did I snap the
ball into a defense that that play would actually work?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
This will be really dorky, but I always thought you
had a you were the best cold weather thrower because
of your torque i'd ever seen. Yeah, didn't you had
the best arm. You're the best cold weather thrower. And
you made a throw. This is so darky Chicago Bears
Soldier Field. Yeah, down the left sideline.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
The Dion branch, And I was.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Like, does everybody understand what it's like to throw in Chicago.
It was terrible.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Yeah, we actually called a draw play on there and
I was like, I'm not throwing a draw here. There
was only like eleven seconds left in the half and
I was like, no, no, these guys can't move out there.
And there was a play called toga two goes. One
was up the sideline. The safety major right, couldn't move
off the hash. I kind of looked them inside. I
had time because they were pretty tired on defense, and
just fired it up the sideline the deon we scored
it touched on right before.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Halftime, windy, cold, snow.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
It was horrible, but it was perfect.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
That's the throw of your life. I always think people
just don't get the disadvantage a lot of quarterbacks. Foxborough, Yeah,
was not a great quarterback setting October twentieth on.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
And I give that credit again to the coaches. We
practiced in the bad weather every single day, and so
it was we.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Just got so used to it.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I just expected ten to fifteen mile in our wins
every time I took the field. I went to domes
and I was like, it's like this all the time,
And when you look at like Dome stats and Dome
quarterbacks different. There's probably a three or four three to
five completion percentage advantage for the dome quarterback question.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
The yards per attempt is going to go up. It's
just cleaner football.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
It's like shooting a basketball and the wind for shooting basketball,
you know, at one of the great arenas here. And
remember but we were an outdoor sport, so we were
going to play in Buffalo, we were going to play
off New England. We're going to play in the Metallands
every those are three outdoor stadiums in the Northeast. Then
you had the other teams you knew you play. So
Bill would just make sure we got out there and
(23:05):
played in any condition. I knew exactly what I had
to wear in every single climate that we were going
to play. I knew I wasn't I didn't have too
much on, I didn't have not enough on. I was
always had the right amount of handwarmers in my muff
just because if it was really cold, I didn't want
to have six hand warmers and I want to had
one or two if unless it was really cold, then
(23:25):
I want to have four or five. So I just
knew every degree of temperature, what I needed to wear
for my sleeves, how early I needed to ge out
and prepare Again, that continuity allowed me to do a
lot of different things.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
It's like institutional knowledge. Yeah, you could literally pull stuff.
Edelman's told me that, He's like, it's amazing when you
have the same coaches and the same sort of it is.
It's like almost military sure, when you have the same
corporate leaders.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
And I like to think of it if it's a
football field, every team's starting at their own one yard line,
and a lot of times the Patriots we felt like
we were starting at the third yard line because we
had continuity. Now we weren't starting on their side of
the field. We had a long way to go. But
because the continuity, that was really so much of our
success as time went on, and it didn't always have
to be the players. A lot was the players. We
(24:13):
had a lot of great culture drivers of our team.
When I think later in my career, Devin mccordy and
Patrick Chung and.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Steph Gilmour and James White, and a lot.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Of the guys up front and offensive line early in
my career was Bruski and Rabel and McGinnis and Larry Izzo,
and there were so many great players I played like
I see a lot of them last week. And we
had so much fun just reflecting on all the time
that we spent together because those were some of the
most joyous moments we had in our life. There was
there was such a freedom to go out and just
play the game that we loved, and it was just
(24:42):
a magical time in all our lives and I to
you try to recreate that in other places, but it's
very difficult because everyone does something a little bit differently,
and we just had a really unique culture there at
the right time.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
What percentage when he comes on this show, what percentage
of Edelman stories are true?
Speaker 4 (24:57):
They're mostly true, often embellished. Sure, So that's you know,
that's part of Julian and Julians. Julian's actually become a
great storyteller. And you know, kind of I think he's
approaching media a lot like he approached the NFL, and
you think he's gotten really good at it. He's gonna,
he's he's no one's gonna outwork Julian. Julian's gonna Julian's
(25:18):
always gonna put the time in he's gonna try to
suck up all the information he can from people to
try to use it. And he's got a great personality
and he always did as he played too. He was
someone that was Julian got tight, but then he had
this volatility between me and very tight and rigid and
then very relaxed and loose. So yeah, we send some
of those. We've seen the loose part at the Fox outings.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Quite a bit.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, No, he's one of my things.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
A lot of my friends can attest to that that
are here today.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Hey, I'm late, I got bosses looking at me.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, don't get in trouble. I don't want to get
in trouble either.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I'm already am. You'll be fine. I'm in trouble more often.
Great seeing you.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Thanks, great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
All right, Tom Brady, take a break. Herd Line.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Next, be sure to catch live editions of The Herd
weekdays and noon Easter nine Empacific.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Back without further ado, Jay Mack with the news.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
This is the Herd Line News.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
All right.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
So Aaron Rodgers and the Jets, we got to talk
about him. A very exciting season ahead. Obviously, Rodgers hasn't
taken a snap since Week one of last year, when
he suffered the achilles injury.
Speaker 7 (26:21):
His former Packers teammate David Bochdiari.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
Says the Jets will quote for sure make the playoffs
this year, and that's not wise to bet against the
four time MVP.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Colin.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
You just tried to say they were a seven or
eight win team earlier. Yeah, Bock is saying they for
sure make the playoffs.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Well, David is Aaron's closest friend in the sport, I believe,
and I wish him the very best. But the AFC's loaded,
all the quarterbacks are healthy, Miami's a better offensive team,
Buffalo's got the better roster, So third place feels good
to me. I do think they'll vie for the playoffs
until the very end, but I like to remind everybody
(27:00):
how difficult the schedule is. Late at Miami at Jacksonville.
Rams are going to be good at Buffalo Miami again.
Even the Seattle game is sneaky. They get some breaks early,
but that is a sight. They get well slow down
on the brakes. Yes, they get Tennessee and New England early.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
They're probably gonna be seven and one cone Oh.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Boy games San Francisco and Buffalo Texans home Jets always
please you don't think they can lose against the Texans
and at Arizona.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
Maybe that can put them to seven and two. Arizona,
stop it next up.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
The Commanders made a lot of changes this offseason, the
biggest of which was bringing in Dan Quinn as a
new head coach and drafting Jaden Daniels. Quinn has praised
his rookie QB already and continued that in a recent
media appearance.
Speaker 8 (27:52):
I think I said it recently, Jim, and I think
this sums it up right. He has the humility and
kind of the hunger of the young player. You know,
I got a lot to prove, I still got a
lot to learn. But he also kind of has the
swagger and calmness of a veteran player. So I think
those fifty plus starts from ASU and lsu at seems
(28:12):
to come about. You see him on the field, in
the huddle, that's that's where he's at his best.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah, he's gonna work. He's gonna look a little like
Lamar Jackson, maybe a little better early in the pocket,
not quite as fast.
Speaker 7 (28:23):
As he's going to look like a two time MVP.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No, he's going to look very quickly, very quickly, you're
going to see a little bit of a prototype Lamar.
He'll be better in the pocket early than Lamar was
because he'd he's just sat in the pocket more less
reliant and running. But he'll run a little bit like Lamar.
I won't be as dynamic, but I think his comp
Lamar is a pretty interesting comp. I think the kid's
really good. He's a little slight. I wish he was
(28:45):
ten pounds heavier, but he's he's tall, he's smart, he's humble,
he's a worker. We're paying all this attention to Caleb
Williams Jaden Daniels to me, is going to be and
I told you I think they're going to make the playoffs.
I think they're going to be the surprise team in
the league.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
That's bold.
Speaker 7 (29:00):
Remember last year Bryce Young looks super small in the
pocket with the big helmet.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, this kid six three, he's a tolerance, yes, but
look at how thin he is he is. Then there's
no question. Lamar Jackson first year in the league, my
take was he looked skinny and then Lamar, remember the
next two years put on weight, so Jamee's gonna put
on some weight, but he's not gonna put on twenty pounds.
That's not who he is, all right.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
Final story, There was a lot of outrage when the
US Women's Olympic basketball roster was announced and Caitlin Clark
got snubbed. Well, Kevin Durant was recently asked about the
snub and he believes it was justified. Kad said, I
think there's proper steps you have to take in our
world to be considered an Olympian.
Speaker 7 (29:37):
Right now, there's better candidates out there.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I don't I don't think that's a bad take. I
think Kevin, that's a terrible take. No, well, no, that's
that's that's what a basketball purist believes is true, and
Kevin's a basketball purist.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Proper steps like the nineteen eighties, Hey, you got to
start your your journalism career in Tampa then go to
Vegas and it's nonsense.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
There are steps life. You have to get licensed to
be a lot of things, to be an attorney.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
You know, Jayal Clark has a license to shoot, and
she's had a best rookie seasons in WNBA history.
Speaker 7 (30:11):
Did you see the ratings for the game.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
Oh, there's against Chicago, highest rate of WNBA game in
twenty three years.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, well would she She got me to a television,
so she's she's they better playing angel Rees again this weekend.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Yeah, so if you were doing the show next week,
you'd probably open with Kaylen Clark Monday.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Again. I don't have a problem with it. I think
I think she has a magnetic quality. I think Tiger
had it. I think Bryce Harbor has had it. A
show Hayo Tani. If I'm walking by a TV and
show Hayo Tani's up, I stop and watch. There's just
she's got a magnetic quality. Sometimes that's the best player.
Sometimes it's a player. No, some people just have, you know,
(30:48):
to just they just draw people in for whatever reasons.
They could be on air TV personalities, they can be quarterbacks,
they can be coaches.
Speaker 7 (30:56):
I mean, you know, it's it's uh, it just seems
very archaic. When you've got a star line and she's
a star. Let's be real.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Hey, by the way, Fever, they're currently in the playoffs.
They got a game tonight against the Washington somebody's I'll
check out the score.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I'll Washington mystics. Let's let's let's give the league its
proper respecting So sorry, I didn't know the Los Angeles Sparks.
Speaker 7 (31:18):
I know the Sparks. Yeah, I went to a sparse game.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
They have names Chicago Sky.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
Maybe you and Brady could go to a game together.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Tom's busy, he is he Yeah, I don't encroach on
my guests. Their guests. We love having them and then
they believe and I don't encroach on that. You want
to hang out, have beers.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Where Brady looked taller than I thought six four, I
think he looked bigger than six four would be a
post player on my MENSI.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, I'm sure he's got time for it.
Speaker 8 (31:47):
J Mack with the news, Well, that's the news, and
thanks for stopping by the herd Line News.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I want to think Tom and the bosses upstairs for
getting him on the show today. He's you know, It's
what's interesting with Tom is that for his status and career,
he's very normal. You can have just like regular guy conversations,
and I think that's a part of it. By the way,
Peyton Manning's the same way. You can just have like
(32:15):
there's something great about sports that cuts through all the nonsense.
You can just be normal. See you tomorrow.
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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