June 19, 2024 • 40 mins
After winning another NBA championship the Celtics broke a tie with the Lakers for most titles in league history, Colin explains why this is so impressive for Boston considering some of the advantages Los Angeles has. He believes Caitlin Clark is the best player in the history of the WNBA in terms of business even if she's a not a great player on the court yet. Plus, 7-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady joins the show in studio to talk about his transition into broadcasting for Fox Sports.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern nine am to
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Here we go. It is a Wednesday, Tom Brady later
in the show, Wednesday Live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd.
Wherever you may be and however you may be listening.
Thanks for making us part of your day. The coffee
tastes a little better today. That's what happens when you
watch Stanley Cup final action. I'm telling you jmack connor
(00:48):
McDavid pulled me in last night, not saying I'm leading
with it, but it was riveting hockey action. I don't
know the blue line from the blue Man group, I
mean hockey ut wow, I'm Frescolvin. Yeah, God, come in.
You got to commit to the art form that's the
American sports. So there's a lot of different things to
(01:09):
talk about today. You know, people kind of poke fun
at Magic Johnson's Twitter account because he's really good at
stating the obvious as if it's a revelation. But whatever.
He did have a tweet yesterday the former Laker Great,
and he said, I hate that the Celtics officially have
more championships than us. Now, well, actually a lot more.
(01:31):
The Boston Celtics have eighteen and the Los Angeles Lakers
have only twelve. But what really makes it most impressive
is that the Lakers have twelve. I'm not going to
count the five in Minneapolis. You know, I don't count
George Miken. Okay, the Lakers have had three of the
(01:55):
top four or five centers of her Wilt Kareem Shack.
The Lakers have had the best point guard ever, Magic Johnson,
a revelation six eight and a half point guard. They had
past his prime or late prime, Lebron James arguably the
greatest player not to mention the logo, Kobe Bryant, you know,
James Worthy, Anthony Davis. They've had ten twelve all time
(02:19):
great players, Elgin Baylor, warm winter weather in a sport
that's always been about culture and entertainment too. They're in
Los Angeles. The entertainment capital of North America. They have
a destination advantage over Boston, and it's a star driven
(02:39):
city and the NBA has always been star driven and
player driven. Now the Celtics have had Bill Russell and
John Havelchek, Bob Coosey, I'm not doubting, Larry Bird, Paul Pierce, kg,
Kevin McHale. They've had some stars too, though not Lakers stars.
But there's not a lot to do when it's twenty
one degrees in the winter in Boston. It's a provincial
(03:01):
town more than a big city. It's mostly famous for
stuff in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, if you want
to be honest about their history. And yet there is
no reason the Celtics should be this good. I mean
really well, why it's not like players in the Winner say,
get me to one of the coldest cities, one of
(03:23):
the most geographically isolated cities. No, not really. And yet
brain power, red Arbach, the Danny Ainge trades and now
Brad Stevens has been the difference. That's been the difference.
In fact, if you were to guess there was an
Eastern city that should be great, it should be the
(03:43):
new York Knicks. Madison Square Garden is called the basketball
mecca again, a star fame, Broadway driven town. It's a bigger, cooler,
richer city, Rucker Park, basketball history tram But yet it's
the Celtics, I mean Los Angeles. Even the coaches are
(04:06):
stars here, Harbaugh, McVeigh, Lincoln Riley stars like LA Stars
seek La, Matt Stafford, Lebron James. They had a lot options,
Shoeo Tawny had a lot of options. They choose Los Angeles,
(04:27):
and they have usually chosen the Lakers over the Celtics
if they're a free agent. But the difference between eighteen
championships and twelve is even greater because it looks like
Boston because of the way they're built. They still maintain
most of their top picks. Next five years has eighteen
(04:47):
and you would not be surprised if they rattled off
with this group two or three more in the next
five or six years. And the Lakers appear to be
miles away from winning another one that in sports. Even
in the artistic, stylistic, flashy NBA smart Trump's Sizzle, the
(05:13):
Celtics have been, on average a much smarter basketball operation.
Now Jerry West pat Riley Phil Jackson were involved. It
didn't feel that way. But like the Dallas Cowboys, those
guys all leave the parcels. Jimmy Johnson leaves and they
(05:34):
are as we've found in Los Angeles with the Lakers,
very very hard to replace. As the Lakers will be
announcing a new basketball coach this week, what is that
the seventh in thirteen years? Smart wins So. I saw
(05:54):
this this morning Sportiko published you NBA team evaluations. How
much your WNBA team's worth?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Not much?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
If you want to see the Caitlin Clark effect here.
It is bad team, small market and they are worth
more the Indiana Fever, than the Los Angeles Sparks, the Dallas, Atlanta,
Washington teams, and almost equal to a team in Chicago.
(06:28):
This is a bad team in a small market. I
feel like I'm watching a little bit like when Tiger
Woods a little bit came to the PGA tour. Suddenly
within a year two or three, all the purses, all
the golf purses started to explode. It lifted all boats.
But the difference is Bryce Harper to baseball, Tiger Woods
(06:52):
to golf. Let's say Connor McGregor to the UFC. They
did not save those sports. Golf was making money, Baseball's
always made a ton of money. Dana White and UFC
were making money. It did, however, illuminate those sports to
a greater level. More people watched, more people were interested.
(07:14):
But the WNBA, since its inception in nineteen ninety six,
I think ninety seven was the first year they played,
they've lost big money every year. The losses aren't as
sizable last year in the previous seven or eight years,
but they were like ten million dollars losing money. In fact,
so much so that in twenty eighteen teams moved to
(07:37):
smaller arenas. In a city of ten million people, New York,
the Liberty were averaging seventeen hundred people a game. The
WNBA Finals this past year got seven hundred thousand viewers,
about half of what the newly formed UFL Championship game got.
(08:01):
Caitlin Clark, to some degree, is saving the WNBA. This
is not Connor McGregor. The UFC was ascending and profitable.
This is not Bryce Harper to baseball. Teams in baseball
are and remain flush with cash. This wasn't exactly Tiger
Woods to golf. You still had legendary tournaments like the
(08:24):
US Open, the British Open, the Masters, that people watch
and coveted. That's not so with the WNBA. It is
an incredibly harsh truth. This league was in some trouble.
They weren't making money, they were downsized and arenas. Nobody's
watching the final. And it has been totally subsidized, not
(08:47):
sort of, kind of remotely, totally subsidized by the NBA.
But that's okay, That is okay. Lots of businesses have
to be subsid Lots of businesses need a catalyst to
take them from nonprofit to big profit. But never forget this.
(09:10):
This is the Caitlyn Clark effect. She may not be
good enough to be on the Olympic team, but she
is easily the greatest player without even playing half a season.
She is the greatest player for business in the history
of the league. And it's not close. These valuations all
(09:33):
throw it out there, will be worth three times this much. Okay,
so right now, the Indian Fever's worth ninety million and
they've been around for years. These will triple, These will triple.
Within twenty four months, the evaluations of these teams will triple.
(09:56):
The LAS Vegas as is will be worse somewhere in
the three hundred. Think I'm crazy. It's amazing what Beckham
and Messi did to the MLS. They got that big
Apple TV contract. It's amazing what a star can do.
It's okay that it was subsidized by the WNB. It's
okay that it wasn't a big profit center. A lot
(10:19):
of companies need a catalyst. Well, let's not kid ourselves here.
Caitlin Clark is easily the greatest player in that league's
history in terms of business. And the only reason these
lights are on in this studio is not sports, it's business.
J Mac, we have quite a show today. Tom Brady
will be stopping by in a couple of hours. Did
(10:41):
you see the story where Justin Fields is struggling a
little in Pittsburgh?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Oh yeah, so terrible to see that Justin Fields struggling
in a defensive situation in Pittsburgh with Mike Tomlin as
the head coach. We'll see no quarterbacks have been able
to succeed there since Big Ben.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well even big Ben in his latter years. It was
that's fair to say. It wasn't as good as you know.
They didn't have any big wins as last several years
against no big playoff wins, no better rough go. Well,
it's a defensive culture. It's why Green Bay dos quarterbacks. Well,
it could be Mike Hongren, Mike McCarthy, Matt Lafleur. It's
an offensive culture. Packer fans don't like that their defense
(11:18):
usually underachieves, but they're on the right side of the
ball going forward.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
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Speaker 3 (11:31):
Hey, it's me Rob Parker.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Check out my weekly MLB podcast, Inside the Parker for
twenty two minutes of piping hot baseball talk featuring the
biggest names and newsmakers in the sport. Whether you believe
in analytics or the eye 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
(11:57):
Parker on the iHeartRadio app or where wherever you get
your podcast.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So I thought this was interesting, and we'll go to
Pittsburgh less than one hour from now. Talk to Mark Coboli,
who wrote this story this morning that Justin Fields, the
former electric, often dynamic quarterback for the Chicago Bears who
was moved for only a six round pick to be
the backup in Pittsburgh, has struggled early and Russell Wilson,
(12:25):
as we predicted, has completely separated. First quarterback first team
QB one snaps has been accurate. It's according to Koboli,
and we'll go to him live in an hour. It's
not terribly close. That's what we thought. And here's the
thing with Justin Fields, it's a cautionary tale. Got to
learn from your mistakes right in life. Is that you
(12:48):
can see him peel off a forty yard run once
a game or make a big time throw down the field.
You see the gifts, but quarterback is the only position
in a mayor and sports that much of the greatness
you can't see Brady Breeze, Peyton Manning, pre snap movement,
(13:08):
audibling in the yards and out of trouble. That accounts
for about thirty to forty percent of this game. The
ability for a quarterback to feel the game and see
the game. This has been my knock on Justin Fields
and Trevor Wilson, both athletic both move well, both good arms.
I don't think they can see the field. I think
(13:30):
people are open. Highlights and tape have shown it and
they can't see it. By the way, not a huge
Rock Purty fan, but both Kyle Shanahan and Sam Dartle
when he was a Niner, both had publicly said Brock
Purdy at the line of scrimmage, pre snap and post snap,
(13:53):
really sees the field, really gets himself in the yards
and out of trouble. That is a big chunk of
this league. So athleticable ability can really be fools go
because you can see it all and Justin Fields is
an unbelievable athlete. Yet he was over the last three
(14:14):
seasons the most sacked quarterback in the NFL. He couldn't
audible out of sacks. And you say, oh, it's the
offensive line. Did you know last year by the end
of the year, PFF ranked the Bears offensive line above
the Niners. I watched the games. It was better, and
it was in the same class as the Kansas City Chiefs.
(14:36):
The difference is Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purty audible out
of sacks. This is what I've said with Justin Fields
and Zach Wilson. I can see the talent, you can
see why they're drafted high first round. Both have live arms,
both moved really well. I mean even the report this
week in Denver, Zack Wilson has the best arm, not
(14:57):
bow Nicks, Zack Wilson easily the lively arm. But so
much of playing quarterback is what you don't see, and
that's where Russell is going to have an advantage over
Justin Fields.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noone Easter, not a em Pacific.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, the man needs no introduction. He is now at Fox.
You're going to 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.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Same here.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I know I ended up on one of your documentaries
saying stuff that I regret now.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Now that we're teammates.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
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 your process people, and the process
goes Yeah, did you wake up a week after and
(15:56):
think maybe I should play golf? Like was losing the process?
Has it been a challenge?
Speaker 6 (16:04):
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.
(16:27):
Floyd Mayweather comes to mind, like he always seemed ready
to go. If 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 or preparing for the games.
So I think the biggest challenge for me is I
just the structure is very different now in my life
(16:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
That 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, do you notice
(17:21):
the difference with you?
Speaker 6 (17:22):
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,
(17:42):
I didn't even give them what they wanted. And it's
a very challenging thing in your own mind. I have
asked a few people, how do you know that you
did a good job.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And I think for me, so much of this is
going to come down to.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
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
the show. We're there to add our take on it
in our analysis, but it's also did we feel like
(18:14):
we added to the broadcast? And from my standpoint, I'm
going to work as hard as I can 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 (18:28):
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
(18:50):
broadcasting is. I've said this before, Tom, 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 you I kick it all the time.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
People are just used to it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
You're not to do pretty good.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I'm fun done.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Fine?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Are there nerves for Tom Brady? You haven't had nerves forever?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Right? Your I always had nerves because it's a performance.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
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. You'd go into
a 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
(19:32):
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.
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
(19:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
You know, that's a big addition.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
So it's how can I prepare knowing that I have
other things going on 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 (20:21):
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 there 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
(20:43):
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 succeeded in Stafford did and
Kirk Cousins will because older quarterbacks are a bit more
reliant on guard center guard protection.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
It's very important.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
One they've got all new offensive linemen and two many
are older. An older offensive linemen don't play in the
preseason anymore.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, I don't worry about Aaron, But to.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Take me through that, you went through it with Tampa,
where you had to move it when you wanted grownk
It may have been for blocking as much as catching.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Sure.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
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
(21:53):
free agency, veteran free agency.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
We always pieced.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
Together a unit that played really well to get other
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
(22:17):
have man beaters. I know when we get into Redder,
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, so.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
So much of great on line play.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
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 (22:43):
Yeah, No, Jimmy Johnson has said for years. Yeah, there's
about six good ones on the planet at any one time.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
Absolutely, And there's probably about six eight good quarterbacks on
the planet. And there's probably about six six to 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 (23:04):
Because when you.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
Have a good old line and everyone says, oh, this
is the first rank 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 gonna be 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 (23:26):
And I think one of the pet peeves I have.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
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.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
And I think a lot.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Of coaches coach, hey, I'll just coach the starter, maybe
a few backups, as opposed to I'm gonna coach every
single position. So when people go down, we're gonna fill
those guys in and they're gonna they're gonna just step
in and play a great role for us because they're
gonna know all the calls. They're gonna know the timing,
they're gonna know the precision, they're gonna know exactly what
we want to do on every play. So that was
the development part, and I think, yeah, the CBA changed
(24:04):
a lot. There's less practice time. I don't necessarily love that.
There's a lot of areas of say 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.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Parts of the kicking game so I.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
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 that these
players need to be successful. So they go to the
outside and they look for coaches in the offseason to
develop some of those things.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Some of it works.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
It may work as an individual, but at the same time,
football as a team sport. So I would see quarterbacks
throwing to 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 1 (24:48):
That's right, you know, you know I 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, Yeah,
is that this is subconscious and you were able in
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
(25:10):
great quarterback will feel 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 Brian the pressure left. Sometimes receivers are verbal, yah,
and I'd stuff on Diggs. I would take on any team,
but he's verbal. Brandon Ayucu is verbal on his social Sure,
(25:32):
and I want you 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?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I want to make sure Randy's happy?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (25:51):
Yeah, you 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. O God, you know, hey,
I got to get so and so ball because I
want him to keep on and 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.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Been practicing a lot of these games.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
I want to see the best players touch the ball
early so they can break a sweat, they can get
into the flow of the game. And good coaches do
that 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 in the game. 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
(26:29):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
He's got to run back to the huddle. It's a
lot of effort.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
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?
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 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
(27:15):
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 to 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 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
(27:36):
receiver out of the game, you just roll the.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Coverage to him. You can play cover two.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
You jam him at the line of scrimmage with someone
over the top, and it's very, very difficult to get
that guy the ball. But that also gives up a
lot of the 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 1 (27:59):
Sean McVay years ago did something that it was kind
of a Maverick move, kind of 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, whoa, 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
(28:21):
a couple series of snaps. Like, I get it, you
don't want to go cold. 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 quarterbacks
(28:45):
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
precense snap. Is some of it the rigidity of coaching, Yeah, okay,
(29:08):
so it is.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
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 gonna protect and nope,
(29:31):
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. You know,
the defense can call their play. They're gonna line up.
(29:54):
Offense calls a play in 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
(30:15):
with my judgment the entire team. Now, I developed the
trust within the team, my teammates in the organization to say, Tom,
we want you to have that.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
We trust you.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
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
(30:44):
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. Everything was intentional. Yeah, there wasn't a time
I would hope that I would have never snapped the
ball into a bad defense.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Now did I?
Speaker 6 (31:02):
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 safeties 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.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
They were going to do it after.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
The snap all the time, and they would just play
in this little shell defense. Ball be snapped in, here
they go, They rotate because every defense has strengths and
weaknesses to it.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
My job as a quarterback was always.
Speaker 6 (31:33):
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
(31:53):
that I was ultimately going to make the right decision
for the team.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Intentional is sometimes can 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, and he
felt his team before a championship game was tight, and
so he made the decision. He said, all we're doing
(32:19):
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 (32:35):
That's a polite way to say that.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yes, I'm trying to be very difficult.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Good job.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I would think you would have to provide the question
I'm going to ask, were there times, because of Bill's
manner that you felt on a Saturday night when you
go into that meeting way too tight? I got a
light in this room up a little.
Speaker 6 (32:55):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We were the opposite of tight.
Speaker 6 (33:08):
Really, we were always relaxed because we had the answers
to the test.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I knew that.
Speaker 6 (33:13):
I went through the call sheet, and let's say we
had one hundred and fifty calls on the call sheet.
There was a meeting at a squad meeting eight o'clock.
I would meet with the quarterbacks starting at six thirty
in the offense corner. We'd 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 1 (33:30):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (33:30):
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 call, that call
was made, I'd break the hood.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I'd look at the line scrimge.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Look for it. Oh and he only did it, let's
say five percent of the time.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
So most coaches would just say, I just run the
play whatever if they get lucky and call at the
same time one for them. And that's not how I played,
because that one play could mean everything. So I would say, no, no, no, no.
If it's a five percent chance it could happen, what
should I do if it happened.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
So we're all on the same page.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
So I would tell the line, Okay, if this guy's
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. This is what I'm gonna do,
or I'm gonna check to a screen Liz rip, I'm
gonna change the protection and go to greto or grape.
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,
(34:22):
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,
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 allows us
to win the game.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Great. We gained confidence in it.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
So that continuity that we had with all of us
allowed us to succeed. And 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.
That's the chess game in football. It's not checkers. It's
not soccer where everything's reaction, not hockey, not basketball.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
They're all set pieces, they're all they all there's a play.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
And when I looked at the real field generals when
I played growing up with where that was John Elway,
Dan Reno. Then you got to the Peyton Mannings and
Drew Brees and Philip rivers Like, that's all we tried
to do. 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 there?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Not always? Did I make the right throw?
Speaker 6 (35:25):
Did I snap the ball into a defense that that
play would actually work?
Speaker 1 (35:30):
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 me 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 down the left side line the Dion branch,
and I was like, does everybody understand what it's like
to throw in Chicago? It was terrible.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
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 of Dion. We scored
a touchdown right before halftime.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Windy, cold, snow.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It was horrible, but it was perfect.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's the throw of your life. I always think people
just don't get the disadvantage a lot of quarterbacks.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Foxborough, Yeah, was.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Not a great quarterback setting October twentieth.
Speaker 6 (36:28):
On and I give that credit again to the coaches.
We practiced in the bad weather every single day, and so.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
It was we just got so used to it.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Question, the yards per attempt is going to go up.
It's just cleaner football.
Speaker 6 (36:56):
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 were going to play in the Metallands,
every those three outdoor stadiums in the Northeast.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Then you had the other teams you knew.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
You play, so Bill would just make sure we got
out there and 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
(37:34):
didn't want to have six hand warmers and I want
to had one or two.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
If unless it was really cold, then I want to
have four or five.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Again, that continuity allowed me to do a lot of
different things.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
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 3 (38:04):
And I like to think of it if it's a
football field.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
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 thirty yard line because we had continuity.
Now we weren't starting on our 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
had a lot of great culture drivers of our team.
(38:27):
When I think later in my career, Devin mccordy and
Patrick Chung and Steph Gilmour and James White, and a
lot of the guys up front and offensive lineage 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.
(38:49):
There was there was such a freedom to go out
and just play the game that we loved, and it
was just a magical time in all our lives. And
I try 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 (39:04):
What percentage when he comes on this show, what percentage
of Edelman stories are true?
Speaker 6 (39:09):
They're they're They're mostly true, often embellished. 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
(39:30):
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 is 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 1 (39:51):
Quite a bit Yeah, no, he's one of my things.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
A lot of my friends can attest to that that
are here today.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Hey, I'm late. I got bosses looking at me.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, don't get in trouble. I don't want to get
in trouble either.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I'm hardy am. You'll be fine. I'm in trouble more often.
Great seeing you.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Thanks, great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
All right, Tom Brady take a break herd line new
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern nine am to
noon 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 (00:20):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Here we go. It is a Wednesday, Tom Brady later
in the show, Wednesday Live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd.
Wherever you may be and however you may be listening.
Thanks for making us part of your day. The coffee
tastes a little better today. That's what happens when you
watch Stanley Cup final action. I'm telling you jmack connor
(00:48):
McDavid pulled me in last night, not saying I'm leading
with it, but it was riveting hockey action. I don't
know the blue line from the blue Man group, I
mean hockey ut wow, I'm Frescolvin. Yeah, God, come in.
You got to commit to the art form that's the
American sports. So there's a lot of different things to
(01:09):
talk about today. You know, people kind of poke fun
at Magic Johnson's Twitter account because he's really good at
stating the obvious as if it's a revelation. But whatever.
He did have a tweet yesterday the former Laker Great,
and he said, I hate that the Celtics officially have
more championships than us. Now, well, actually a lot more.
(01:31):
The Boston Celtics have eighteen and the Los Angeles Lakers
have only twelve. But what really makes it most impressive
is that the Lakers have twelve. I'm not going to
count the five in Minneapolis. You know, I don't count
George Miken. Okay, the Lakers have had three of the
(01:55):
top four or five centers of her Wilt Kareem Shack.
The Lakers have had the best point guard ever, Magic Johnson,
a revelation six eight and a half point guard. They had
past his prime or late prime, Lebron James arguably the
greatest player not to mention the logo, Kobe Bryant, you know,
James Worthy, Anthony Davis. They've had ten twelve all time
(02:19):
great players, Elgin Baylor, warm winter weather in a sport
that's always been about culture and entertainment too. They're in
Los Angeles. The entertainment capital of North America. They have
a destination advantage over Boston, and it's a star driven
(02:39):
city and the NBA has always been star driven and
player driven. Now the Celtics have had Bill Russell and
John Havelchek, Bob Coosey, I'm not doubting, Larry Bird, Paul Pierce, kg,
Kevin McHale. They've had some stars too, though not Lakers stars.
But there's not a lot to do when it's twenty
one degrees in the winter in Boston. It's a provincial
(03:01):
town more than a big city. It's mostly famous for
stuff in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, if you want
to be honest about their history. And yet there is
no reason the Celtics should be this good. I mean
really well, why it's not like players in the Winner say,
get me to one of the coldest cities, one of
(03:23):
the most geographically isolated cities. No, not really. And yet
brain power, red Arbach, the Danny Ainge trades and now
Brad Stevens has been the difference. That's been the difference.
In fact, if you were to guess there was an
Eastern city that should be great, it should be the
(03:43):
new York Knicks. Madison Square Garden is called the basketball
mecca again, a star fame, Broadway driven town. It's a bigger, cooler,
richer city, Rucker Park, basketball history tram But yet it's
the Celtics, I mean Los Angeles. Even the coaches are
(04:06):
stars here, Harbaugh, McVeigh, Lincoln Riley stars like LA Stars
seek La, Matt Stafford, Lebron James. They had a lot options,
Shoeo Tawny had a lot of options. They choose Los Angeles,
(04:27):
and they have usually chosen the Lakers over the Celtics
if they're a free agent. But the difference between eighteen
championships and twelve is even greater because it looks like
Boston because of the way they're built. They still maintain
most of their top picks. Next five years has eighteen
(04:47):
and you would not be surprised if they rattled off
with this group two or three more in the next
five or six years. And the Lakers appear to be
miles away from winning another one that in sports. Even
in the artistic, stylistic, flashy NBA smart Trump's Sizzle, the
(05:13):
Celtics have been, on average a much smarter basketball operation.
Now Jerry West pat Riley Phil Jackson were involved. It
didn't feel that way. But like the Dallas Cowboys, those
guys all leave the parcels. Jimmy Johnson leaves and they
(05:34):
are as we've found in Los Angeles with the Lakers,
very very hard to replace. As the Lakers will be
announcing a new basketball coach this week, what is that
the seventh in thirteen years? Smart wins So. I saw
(05:54):
this this morning Sportiko published you NBA team evaluations. How
much your WNBA team's worth?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Not much?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
If you want to see the Caitlin Clark effect here.
It is bad team, small market and they are worth
more the Indiana Fever, than the Los Angeles Sparks, the Dallas, Atlanta,
Washington teams, and almost equal to a team in Chicago.
(06:28):
This is a bad team in a small market. I
feel like I'm watching a little bit like when Tiger
Woods a little bit came to the PGA tour. Suddenly
within a year two or three, all the purses, all
the golf purses started to explode. It lifted all boats.
But the difference is Bryce Harper to baseball, Tiger Woods
(06:52):
to golf. Let's say Connor McGregor to the UFC. They
did not save those sports. Golf was making money, Baseball's
always made a ton of money. Dana White and UFC
were making money. It did, however, illuminate those sports to
a greater level. More people watched, more people were interested.
(07:14):
But the WNBA, since its inception in nineteen ninety six,
I think ninety seven was the first year they played,
they've lost big money every year. The losses aren't as
sizable last year in the previous seven or eight years,
but they were like ten million dollars losing money. In fact,
so much so that in twenty eighteen teams moved to
(07:37):
smaller arenas. In a city of ten million people, New York,
the Liberty were averaging seventeen hundred people a game. The
WNBA Finals this past year got seven hundred thousand viewers,
about half of what the newly formed UFL Championship game got.
(08:01):
Caitlin Clark, to some degree, is saving the WNBA. This
is not Connor McGregor. The UFC was ascending and profitable.
This is not Bryce Harper to baseball. Teams in baseball
are and remain flush with cash. This wasn't exactly Tiger
Woods to golf. You still had legendary tournaments like the
(08:24):
US Open, the British Open, the Masters, that people watch
and coveted. That's not so with the WNBA. It is
an incredibly harsh truth. This league was in some trouble.
They weren't making money, they were downsized and arenas. Nobody's
watching the final. And it has been totally subsidized, not
(08:47):
sort of, kind of remotely, totally subsidized by the NBA.
But that's okay, That is okay. Lots of businesses have
to be subsid Lots of businesses need a catalyst to
take them from nonprofit to big profit. But never forget this.
(09:10):
This is the Caitlyn Clark effect. She may not be
good enough to be on the Olympic team, but she
is easily the greatest player without even playing half a season.
She is the greatest player for business in the history
of the league. And it's not close. These valuations all
(09:33):
throw it out there, will be worth three times this much. Okay,
so right now, the Indian Fever's worth ninety million and
they've been around for years. These will triple, These will triple.
Within twenty four months, the evaluations of these teams will triple.
(09:56):
The LAS Vegas as is will be worse somewhere in
the three hundred. Think I'm crazy. It's amazing what Beckham
and Messi did to the MLS. They got that big
Apple TV contract. It's amazing what a star can do.
It's okay that it was subsidized by the WNB. It's
okay that it wasn't a big profit center. A lot
(10:19):
of companies need a catalyst. Well, let's not kid ourselves here.
Caitlin Clark is easily the greatest player in that league's
history in terms of business. And the only reason these
lights are on in this studio is not sports, it's business.
J Mac, we have quite a show today. Tom Brady
will be stopping by in a couple of hours. Did
(10:41):
you see the story where Justin Fields is struggling a
little in Pittsburgh?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Oh yeah, so terrible to see that Justin Fields struggling
in a defensive situation in Pittsburgh with Mike Tomlin as
the head coach. We'll see no quarterbacks have been able
to succeed there since Big Ben.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well even big Ben in his latter years. It was
that's fair to say. It wasn't as good as you know.
They didn't have any big wins as last several years
against no big playoff wins, no better rough go. Well,
it's a defensive culture. It's why Green Bay dos quarterbacks. Well,
it could be Mike Hongren, Mike McCarthy, Matt Lafleur. It's
an offensive culture. Packer fans don't like that their defense
(11:18):
usually underachieves, but they're on the right side of the
ball going forward.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
in noon eastern nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Hey, it's me Rob Parker.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Check out my weekly MLB podcast, Inside the Parker for
twenty two minutes of piping hot baseball talk featuring the
biggest names and newsmakers in the sport. Whether you believe
in analytics or the eye 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
(11:57):
Parker on the iHeartRadio app or where wherever you get
your podcast.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So I thought this was interesting, and we'll go to
Pittsburgh less than one hour from now. Talk to Mark Coboli,
who wrote this story this morning that Justin Fields, the
former electric, often dynamic quarterback for the Chicago Bears who
was moved for only a six round pick to be
the backup in Pittsburgh, has struggled early and Russell Wilson,
(12:25):
as we predicted, has completely separated. First quarterback first team
QB one snaps has been accurate. It's according to Koboli,
and we'll go to him live in an hour. It's
not terribly close. That's what we thought. And here's the
thing with Justin Fields, it's a cautionary tale. Got to
learn from your mistakes right in life. Is that you
(12:48):
can see him peel off a forty yard run once
a game or make a big time throw down the field.
You see the gifts, but quarterback is the only position
in a mayor and sports that much of the greatness
you can't see Brady Breeze, Peyton Manning, pre snap movement,
(13:08):
audibling in the yards and out of trouble. That accounts
for about thirty to forty percent of this game. The
ability for a quarterback to feel the game and see
the game. This has been my knock on Justin Fields
and Trevor Wilson, both athletic both move well, both good arms.
I don't think they can see the field. I think
(13:30):
people are open. Highlights and tape have shown it and
they can't see it. By the way, not a huge
Rock Purty fan, but both Kyle Shanahan and Sam Dartle
when he was a Niner, both had publicly said Brock
Purdy at the line of scrimmage, pre snap and post snap,
(13:53):
really sees the field, really gets himself in the yards
and out of trouble. That is a big chunk of
this league. So athleticable ability can really be fools go
because you can see it all and Justin Fields is
an unbelievable athlete. Yet he was over the last three
(14:14):
seasons the most sacked quarterback in the NFL. He couldn't
audible out of sacks. And you say, oh, it's the
offensive line. Did you know last year by the end
of the year, PFF ranked the Bears offensive line above
the Niners. I watched the games. It was better, and
it was in the same class as the Kansas City Chiefs.
(14:36):
The difference is Patrick Mahomes and Brock Purty audible out
of sacks. This is what I've said with Justin Fields
and Zach Wilson. I can see the talent, you can
see why they're drafted high first round. Both have live arms,
both moved really well. I mean even the report this
week in Denver, Zack Wilson has the best arm, not
(14:57):
bow Nicks, Zack Wilson easily the lively arm. But so
much of playing quarterback is what you don't see, and
that's where Russell is going to have an advantage over
Justin Fields.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noone Easter, not a em Pacific.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, the man needs no introduction. He is now at Fox.
You're going to 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.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Same here.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I know I ended up on one of your documentaries
saying stuff that I regret now.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Now that we're teammates.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
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 your process people, and the process
goes Yeah, did you wake up a week after and
(15:56):
think maybe I should play golf? Like was losing the process?
Has it been a challenge?
Speaker 6 (16:04):
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.
(16:27):
Floyd Mayweather comes to mind, like he always seemed ready
to go. If 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 or preparing for the games.
So I think the biggest challenge for me is I
just the structure is very different now in my life
(16:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
That 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, do you notice
(17:21):
the difference with you?
Speaker 6 (17:22):
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,
(17:42):
I didn't even give them what they wanted. And it's
a very challenging thing in your own mind. I have
asked a few people, how do you know that you
did a good job.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And I think for me, so much of this is
going to come down to.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
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
the show. We're there to add our take on it
in our analysis, but it's also did we feel like
(18:14):
we added to the broadcast? And from my standpoint, I'm
going to work as hard as I can 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 (18:28):
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
(18:50):
broadcasting is. I've said this before, Tom, 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 you I kick it all the time.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
People are just used to it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
You're not to do pretty good.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I'm fun done.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Fine?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Are there nerves for Tom Brady? You haven't had nerves forever?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Right? Your I always had nerves because it's a performance.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
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. You'd go into
a 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
(19:32):
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.
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
(19:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
You know, that's a big addition.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
So it's how can I prepare knowing that I have
other things going on 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 (20:21):
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 there 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
(20:43):
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 succeeded in Stafford did and
Kirk Cousins will because older quarterbacks are a bit more
reliant on guard center guard protection.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
It's very important.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
One they've got all new offensive linemen and two many
are older. An older offensive linemen don't play in the
preseason anymore.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, I don't worry about Aaron, But to.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Take me through that, you went through it with Tampa,
where you had to move it when you wanted grownk
It may have been for blocking as much as catching.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Sure.
Speaker 6 (21:31):
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
(21:53):
free agency, veteran free agency.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
We always pieced.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
Together a unit that played really well to get other
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
(22:17):
have man beaters. I know when we get into Redder,
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, so.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
So much of great on line play.
Speaker 6 (22:38):
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 (22:43):
Yeah, No, Jimmy Johnson has said for years. Yeah, there's
about six good ones on the planet at any one time.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
Absolutely, And there's probably about six eight good quarterbacks on
the planet. And there's probably about six six to 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 (23:04):
Because when you.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
Have a good old line and everyone says, oh, this
is the first rank 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 gonna be 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 (23:26):
And I think one of the pet peeves I have.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
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.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
And I think a lot.
Speaker 6 (23:42):
Of coaches coach, hey, I'll just coach the starter, maybe
a few backups, as opposed to I'm gonna coach every
single position. So when people go down, we're gonna fill
those guys in and they're gonna they're gonna just step
in and play a great role for us because they're
gonna know all the calls. They're gonna know the timing,
they're gonna know the precision, they're gonna know exactly what
we want to do on every play. So that was
the development part, and I think, yeah, the CBA changed
(24:04):
a lot. There's less practice time. I don't necessarily love that.
There's a lot of areas of say 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.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Parts of the kicking game so I.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
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 that these
players need to be successful. So they go to the
outside and they look for coaches in the offseason to
develop some of those things.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Some of it works.
Speaker 6 (24:38):
It may work as an individual, but at the same time,
football as a team sport. So I would see quarterbacks
throwing to 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 1 (24:48):
That's right, you know, you know I 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, Yeah,
is that this is subconscious and you were able in
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
(25:10):
great quarterback will feel 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 Brian the pressure left. Sometimes receivers are verbal, yah,
and I'd stuff on Diggs. I would take on any team,
but he's verbal. Brandon Ayucu is verbal on his social Sure,
(25:32):
and I want you 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?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I want to make sure Randy's happy?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (25:51):
Yeah, you 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. O God, you know, hey,
I got to get so and so ball because I
want him to keep on and 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.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Been practicing a lot of these games.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
I want to see the best players touch the ball
early so they can break a sweat, they can get
into the flow of the game. And good coaches do
that 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 in the game. 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
(26:29):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
He's got to run back to the huddle. It's a
lot of effort.
Speaker 6 (26:53):
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?
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 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
(27:15):
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 to 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 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
(27:36):
receiver out of the game, you just roll the.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Coverage to him. You can play cover two.
Speaker 6 (27:40):
You jam him at the line of scrimmage with someone
over the top, and it's very, very difficult to get
that guy the ball. But that also gives up a
lot of the 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 1 (27:59):
Sean McVay years ago did something that it was kind
of a Maverick move, kind of 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, whoa, 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
(28:21):
a couple series of snaps. Like, I get it, you
don't want to go cold. 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 quarterbacks
(28:45):
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
precense snap. Is some of it the rigidity of coaching, Yeah, okay,
(29:08):
so it is.
Speaker 6 (29:08):
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 gonna protect and nope,
(29:31):
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. You know,
the defense can call their play. They're gonna line up.
(29:54):
Offense calls a play in 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
(30:15):
with my judgment the entire team. Now, I developed the
trust within the team, my teammates in the organization to say, Tom,
we want you to have that.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
We trust you.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
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
(30:44):
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. Everything was intentional. Yeah, there wasn't a time
I would hope that I would have never snapped the
ball into a bad defense.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Now did I?
Speaker 6 (31:02):
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 safeties 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.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
They were going to do it after.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
The snap all the time, and they would just play
in this little shell defense. Ball be snapped in, here
they go, They rotate because every defense has strengths and
weaknesses to it.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
My job as a quarterback was always.
Speaker 6 (31:33):
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
(31:53):
that I was ultimately going to make the right decision
for the team.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Intentional is sometimes can 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, and he
felt his team before a championship game was tight, and
so he made the decision. He said, all we're doing
(32:19):
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 (32:35):
That's a polite way to say that.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Yes, I'm trying to be very difficult.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
Good job.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I would think you would have to provide the question
I'm going to ask, were there times, because of Bill's
manner that you felt on a Saturday night when you
go into that meeting way too tight? I got a
light in this room up a little.
Speaker 6 (32:55):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We were the opposite of tight.
Speaker 6 (33:08):
Really, we were always relaxed because we had the answers
to the test.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I knew that.
Speaker 6 (33:13):
I went through the call sheet, and let's say we
had one hundred and fifty calls on the call sheet.
There was a meeting at a squad meeting eight o'clock.
I would meet with the quarterbacks starting at six thirty
in the offense corner. We'd 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 1 (33:30):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (33:30):
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 call, that call
was made, I'd break the hood.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I'd look at the line scrimge.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Look for it. Oh and he only did it, let's
say five percent of the time.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
So most coaches would just say, I just run the
play whatever if they get lucky and call at the
same time one for them. And that's not how I played,
because that one play could mean everything. So I would say, no, no, no, no.
If it's a five percent chance it could happen, what
should I do if it happened.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
So we're all on the same page.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
So I would tell the line, Okay, if this guy's
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. This is what I'm gonna do,
or I'm gonna check to a screen Liz rip, I'm
gonna change the protection and go to greto or grape.
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,
(34:22):
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,
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 allows us
to win the game.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Great. We gained confidence in it.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
So that continuity that we had with all of us
allowed us to succeed. And 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.
That's the chess game in football. It's not checkers. It's
not soccer where everything's reaction, not hockey, not basketball.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
They're all set pieces, they're all they all there's a play.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
And when I looked at the real field generals when
I played growing up with where that was John Elway,
Dan Reno. Then you got to the Peyton Mannings and
Drew Brees and Philip rivers Like, that's all we tried
to do. 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 there?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Not always? Did I make the right throw?
Speaker 6 (35:25):
Did I snap the ball into a defense that that
play would actually work?
Speaker 1 (35:30):
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 me 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 down the left side line the Dion branch,
and I was like, does everybody understand what it's like
to throw in Chicago? It was terrible.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
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 of Dion. We scored
a touchdown right before halftime.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Windy, cold, snow.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It was horrible, but it was perfect.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's the throw of your life. I always think people
just don't get the disadvantage a lot of quarterbacks.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Foxborough, Yeah, was.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Not a great quarterback setting October twentieth.
Speaker 6 (36:28):
On and I give that credit again to the coaches.
We practiced in the bad weather every single day, and so.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
It was we just got so used to it.
Speaker 6 (36:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Question, the yards per attempt is going to go up.
It's just cleaner football.
Speaker 6 (36:56):
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 were going to play in the Metallands,
every those three outdoor stadiums in the Northeast.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Then you had the other teams you knew.
Speaker 6 (37:12):
You play, so Bill would just make sure we got
out there and 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
(37:34):
didn't want to have six hand warmers and I want
to had one or two.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
If unless it was really cold, then I want to
have four or five.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
Again, that continuity allowed me to do a lot of
different things.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
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 3 (38:04):
And I like to think of it if it's a
football field.
Speaker 6 (38:06):
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 thirty yard line because we had continuity.
Now we weren't starting on our 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
had a lot of great culture drivers of our team.
(38:27):
When I think later in my career, Devin mccordy and
Patrick Chung and Steph Gilmour and James White, and a
lot of the guys up front and offensive lineage 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.
(38:49):
There was there was such a freedom to go out
and just play the game that we loved, and it
was just a magical time in all our lives. And
I try 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 (39:04):
What percentage when he comes on this show, what percentage
of Edelman stories are true?
Speaker 6 (39:09):
They're they're They're mostly true, often embellished. 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
(39:30):
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 is 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 1 (39:51):
Quite a bit Yeah, no, he's one of my things.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
A lot of my friends can attest to that that
are here today.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Hey, I'm late. I got bosses looking at me.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
Yeah, don't get in trouble. I don't want to get
in trouble either.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I'm hardy am. You'll be fine. I'm in trouble more often.
Great seeing you.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Thanks, great to be with you guys.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
All right, Tom Brady take a break herd line new
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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