8-12-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Yes, a few more days out here at Broncos Park,
ending for us anyway this Thursday, which will build all
the way to joint practice against the Arizona Cardinals. I
cannot wait. Happy to be back here, and I have
a few questions that lead to today. Hearing some of

(00:28):
the talk yesterday, seeing some of the reaction from the
game over the weekend, the questions very simple to me.
It's a matter of trust, and I will admit that
the Broncos trust trust factor over the last few years
has been less than maybe some other teams in town.
Like you trust that the Abs are going to do

(00:49):
things well enough to be at a competitive level. You
trust that the Nuggets are gonna do that, or at
least you should have. You know, there was a question
of trust when they first made the GM switching, hired
the tan of John Wallis and Ben Tenzon. Then shortly
after the criticisms came, it seemed that they had everybody's

(01:11):
trust again. Uh. It's a matter of trust for the
Broncos though, too, and the question is do you trust them?
You know? I saw an article over the UH from
yesterday that was discussing the idea that bo Nicks could
potentially be a mac Jones type. Now, the people who

(01:33):
really dislike the Denver Broncos, the Nick Rights of the world,
they're one of the first ones to try and come
out and say something like this, waiting for some sort
of failure. But I'll say this, the reasons for it
are that he checked down a lot last year, and

(01:54):
his completion percentage over the average quarterback from X distance
was a little bit less than this, And I just
try and factor in that the guy was a rookie
last year. Nothing was going to be perfect. He was
not going to make the right read every time, He's
not going to make the perfect throw every time. He
was going to have struggles. But all I asked last

(02:15):
year from Bownicks was something very simple. Can you show
the flashes required out of a rookie QB to establish
belief moving forward. That's really the main thrust of what
last year was for me was exactly that. It was.

(02:37):
It doesn't need to be perfect, but can you make
a few plays that make you go That's where the
franchise quarterback lives because if you have those, then you
build on that, and then it's on the responsibility of
your front office and head coach to get the rest
of that out of them. That's how this stuff works.

(03:01):
So with bo, he had a really good statistical season
last year. I actually think the stats for bow Knicks
were more than the actual playout of him. I think
that he was somebody that, uh it. There's some guys

(03:22):
that just box score wise, they just do better than others,
and some guys have great games and they don't look
great in the box score, you know, like Jokic is
a I mean, Yokic is the best player in the world,
so I don't want to use him as an example,
but there can be games in which Jokic plays really

(03:42):
bad and then you look at the final the stat
tally in the box score afterwards, you're like, uh, he
had twenty nine thirteen and nine, but you can tell
for his standard, it wasn't a good game. Bon Knicks
I think had a few of those where the numbers
maybe out did what the performance was and it kind

(04:03):
of skewed it. But the bottom line is he had
this great statistical season in year one, and I actually
think that those numbers might take at least the passing
touchdown total might take maybe a little bit of a
step back. This year, and that won't be a terrible
thing because you hope that other things come up to
elevate the rest, like an actual running game, for one.

(04:30):
But there's a lot of questions about him after this
first preseason game, and I think it all stems to
a word that's trust. If you are doubting anything about
bow after the first preseason game, because yeah, he missed
a read on the free blitzer that resulted in the safety.
He threw it a little bit low to Courtland Sutton
on a high point ball. He didn't make a good

(04:53):
throat at JK Dobbins whon evading pressure against his body. Like, okay, fine,
all that stuff can be true. But if you find
doubt at all in this, it's because you were doubting
heading into it. And I'm just a guy that wasn't.
I'm not doubting Bonnicks. I'm not doubting this team. I'm
not doubting Sean Payton. Like everything about what they're building

(05:19):
feels right, everything about how they're trying to stack the
most positives in the areas you need them most. It's
all smart. Like they're building a football team in the
way that when you look at contenders over the last

(05:39):
especially recent years, they've all done the same thing, you know,
and some of this has been tried and true since
the sixties in the NFL. But it's building up front
on both sides of the football. It's finding a quarterback
that you believe is the franchise guy, and it's kind
of building out from there. And they've done that. Like,

(06:00):
here's the thing. Everybody is going to be ultra focused
on bow Knicks, and I think ultimately this team's success
or failure will kind of come down to how he plays.
You are not going to be given any breaks here.
The schedule I think is way tougher than most thought
it was at the beginning of the season. Now, these

(06:20):
can always kind of change on a whim middle of
the year. Teams you think are good end up being bad.
Teams you think you're bad end up being good. But
the way to build this is all going to center
around bow Nicks and his play, and I honestly think
the way that they're built makes it much easier for

(06:41):
him because it doesn't have to be the bow Nicks
show to win. A lot of teams are built that way.
The Cincinnati Bengals are built Joe Burrow. You have to
win us the football game every week without exception. Joe
Burrow is not allowed to have a bad game and win.
It's almost impossible for him because he can't rely on
his defense, and it's all gonna come down to is

(07:01):
he gonna score thirty points this week or not. But
there are teams that are built like that. It's funny
the Chargers used to be. They used to be all
about Justin Herbert. If you don't play well, then we
don't win. And that's why a lot of people would
put losses on Justin Herbert, I think unfairly early in
his career. It's like their defense gives up thirty five points,

(07:25):
he scores thirty four, and it's like, well, why didn't
you get that final drive. It's like, dude, how much
more do you want this guy to do? And now
look what Jim Harbaugh did this second he took over
in Los Angeles. He made that offense so dumb down
and so much easier that they won a great amount

(07:46):
of football games with his worst statistical season in the NFL.
Why Because Jim Harbaugh is smart. Because he does that everywhere.
It's one of the reasons why I have questions about
what JJ McCarthy's gonna look like in the league. I go,
when you're under that guy, he's just going to make
you look better no matter what. When you were sitting

(08:10):
underneath a Jim Harbaugh, it's like, we are gonna run
the ball forty times and I'm gonna need you to
make about ten throws a game. We'll throw the ball
more than ten times, but I'm gonna need about ten throws.
And he did that. So I don't think that this
is going to be uh, some sort of bo Nicks

(08:31):
is gonna have to carry the load stuff here. He
just can't. In my estimation, you just can't mess it up.
You got a defense that is too good, you got
a running game that is hopefully way more improved than
it was last year. And when you have that, you
aren't putting the bulk of that responsibility on the quarterback,
which is a smart thing because none of us know

(08:53):
at this point in his career if you can handle
something like that, and to be honest, not a lot
of guys can in year two. But I don't think
if if there's a freak out from anybody after Week
one of the preseason, when you know that Sean Payton
isn't trying to show anybody a damn thing, and he's
not drawing up anything elaborate offensively. It's just kind of

(09:16):
like make the offense go. I really think that was
more about he was getting a feel for all this
running backs in Week one again, fully admit Boenix bade
a couple of bad throws. So what do you trust
that they will be ready by week one? And I've
been given no indication since Sean Payton took over that

(09:37):
they won't be. No. You can point to Week one
last year and it's like, was that being unprepared or
was that rookie quarterback playing his first game on the
road in a pretty tough environment. You know, it wasn't
Week one under Hackett. It wasn't counting down the play clock.

(10:00):
It wasn't forty seconds on the clock, let's let it
tick down for like a sixty five yard field goal
to try and win. It wasn't that. But I've been
mentioning this all offseason, like the Broncos have jumped into
a trust category to me, which is not quite where
the Abs and and the Nuggets are, but on the

(10:22):
same sort of in the same ballpark. I think the
people in charge here the things that you need most,
the tenants to good football organizations, they have it all.
They have an owner that seems to be doing the
right things. They have a GMO I think is one
of the tops in the league. They have one of

(10:42):
the best head coaches in the league. And now they
have at least a quarterback that's at minimum okay, Like
even if you're still doubting him, he's at least all right.
I tell you right now, if you take if you
put Bonix out there, there's a bunch of teams in
this league that we give up their quarterback for Boenix
right now. So once you have all of those tenets,

(11:04):
you're going to be a team that's sort of in
the conversation for not just the playoffs, but once you
get there, it's more than that. Does that start this
year hopefully, And Sean Payton certainly seems to think so. Now.
He is not someone that's going to overdo the praise
if it's if you're not worthy of it. We've seen

(11:27):
that happen for guys on this team over and over again,
where they have like great games or a great series
of practices, or a great training camp, and like, wow,
what do you think about this guy? Coach Payden, and he's, yeah,
he's doing all right. He's got to do this better
and this better and this better. It's just how he's wired.
He doesn't give a fusive praise unless it's absolutely something

(11:48):
that he fervently believes in. And we talked to Jeff
Lake well two weeks ago. He was the first one
to say it. I go, what's the main theme of
this camp? I go, every sort has a theme to it.
It's about quarterback battles, it's about positional battles, it's about
what the first round pick looks like. And I go,
this draft or this camp doesn't really have a lot

(12:09):
of that, and heus, I'll tell you what the theme is.
The head coach thinks the team is good, which hasn't
happened here in a minute. And then he comes out
the other day and he goes, there's a handful of
teams that I've coached that I think had a shout
out a championship, and this is another one. So when
you think about it that way, it's just a matter

(12:32):
of trust in me. I trust this team right now.
Training camp coverage and Altitude Sports Radio is powered by
Robin's Law, the official injury law firm partner of Broncos Country.
So a lot more to get to today again, We're
here today, tomorrow and then Thursday's our final day out
of training camp, which will be joint practice between the Cardinals.

(12:52):
But a lot more to get to today. Stick around
back out here Broncos Park powered by Common Spirit, another
day of Broncos Camp. Again. The trust and what do

(13:16):
you think do you trust in the future of the organization? Well,
I was trying to find the exact article and I
finally found it from ESPN Seth Walder where he had
more of a cold water take on where the Broncos
are going to be. Here's what he said, and it

(13:36):
revolves strictly around Bonnicks. So this is a future NFL
power rankings that he offered up. So it's like, where
do you see this team being a few years down
the road. And it was projection for all thirty two teams,
their roster, their coaches, their quarterbacks, trying to figure out

(13:59):
who's still going to be there who's not. So the
Broncos were seventh seventh in the NFL on this list.
He said, a reason for hope the Broncos look like
they have a solid quarterback in bon Nicks and arguably
the NFL's best offensive and defensive line led by star

(14:19):
cornerback PS two. What he turned around for Sean Payton
and general manager George Payton. That was from Ben Solak.
Reason for concern this from Lewis Ridick, a guy that
I like and respect. Do the running backs have the
ability to provide the physical, rugged presence that is needed
in December and January when the run game becomes a focus.

(14:42):
Combination of Dobbins Harvey estimate has to improve on the
Broncos one point sixty three yards after first contact. That
was twenty fifth in the league last year. If this
group gets going, Denver can challenge Kansas City for the
AFC West title. That's Lewis Ridick. But here's the pulled prediction.
This is where seth Wald comes in. Bullet prediction is
Knicks will lose his starting job during the twenty twenty

(15:05):
seventh season, which will be his last as a Bronco.
He said, there's optimism around him, I know, but there's
a reason to be skeptical in the long term. As
a rookie. His rushing led him to be decent efficiency wise,
but he ranked twenty eighth in completion percentage over expectation
and twenty second in yards per drop back despite playing
behind a top tier offensive line. The roster around him

(15:28):
is great now, but it won't always be. So this
seems to be the main thrust for anybody who is
a bow Knicks doubter is he's checked down that he
takes the easy throw. And I will admit at times,

(15:49):
especially early last year, he did. But if you don't
think that bow Nicks improved as the season went on
and was playing at a pretty damn high level towards
the end of the year last year, ye, then you
and me weren't watching the same thing. Was there any
time last year that I considered bow Knicks to be

(16:10):
a top ten quarterback in the league? No? Not last year.
There was a time near the middle of the season
where I thought he was going to be competing with
Jayden Daniels for offensive Rookie of the Year because Jaden
Daniels he kind of, uh, I guess, was more average

(16:31):
towards the middle of the season, and that's where bow
Nick started to hit his stride. And he thought if
this continued, then this was gonna be a real conversation. Now.
Jayden Daniels eventually just never stopped losing or never stopped
winning football games. He was just winning every single week.
He was leading his team to the playoffs, and that
eventually the NFC Championship game, it became obvious that he
was deserving of that award. But there was a minute

(16:53):
there in the middle of the season where you thought
maybe Bo Nicks, after a rough start which Jayden Daniels
didn't have, could eventually overtake him. But do you think
that this is all he is? You know, there have
been guys that have had good years that I have
been skeptical about. There's two that right off the bat.
One of them is the comparison that a lot of

(17:14):
these bow Knicks, people who who don't think he's gonna
be all that great, they make the comparison to Mac
Jones immediately and say, this is what Mac Jones did.
If you guys, remember Tom Brady leaves, he goes to Tampa,
they draft Mac Jones, he starts, he does a lot
of checkdown stuff. It's relied a lot more on like
the defense playing well and him not making mistakes, they

(17:35):
end up making the playoffs and they get bounced immediately,
and then mac Jones was just never good again after that.
So that's what they're trying to cling to, is that, well,
the look of how they had success the year previous
was very similar. Check down, checkdown, occasional big play for
a touchdown, rely on your defense and do the rest
for you. I can actually understand why he'd make the comparison,

(17:59):
but I'm telling you right now, it didn't look the same.
Mac Jones didn't possess a special quality to him. Bo
Nicks has it. Bo Nicks is already I think one
of the better quarterbacks in the NFL is feet, which
is a big thing. I mean, there's the obvious ones

(18:20):
like your Lamar Jackson, Jaden Daniels, Josh Allen types, and
then there's a tier after that that I think that
Bo Nicks is in. And we've seen the firsthand his
ability to take off and outrun people for twenty or
thirty yards. He did it all the time. He almost
did it too much, and I think part of that
was not having a running game of your own to

(18:41):
really kind of establish and keep the defense on his
heels like one of the things I'm most excited about.
I went back and watched you know, we'll get to RJ.
Harvey in a bit, but I went back and looked
at all of RJ. Harvey's rushes and he made about
I don't know how many carries he had total. I
forget it was like six or seven something like that.

(19:02):
On three of them, there were people waiting for him
in the backfield, and he still found a way to
get positive yardage. One of them he ran like eight
yards for a first down. Now, that was him bouncing
into the outside and just beating him with speed. But
the fact that you have that in the backfield is
something you've never had before. But Mac Jones is like
the first guy they're gonna bring up when it comes
to that. The second one that I thought of, and

(19:24):
I'm still on this is brock Party. And everybody made
fun of me because they're like, you're so wrong about
brock Party and blah blah blah, Like brock Party possesses
he's an accurate guy, but I just didn't see anything
that was stupefyingly special about him. Here remind me a
lot of Jimmy g Actually, where it's like he's he's good,

(19:48):
and I think that's where it ends. And when you're
good and you're getting paid in Arby's coupons because you
were the last pick in the draft, and you can
do that for four years, you can surround him with
his as much talent as you could humanly imagine. The
second that he needs to get two hundred and fifty
million dollars, which he did this season, and bye bye

(20:09):
Dema Samuel, and bye by Drake Greenlaw, and bye bye
Hufonga and bye by a whole bunch of different guys
in that team that were the I think the glue
that kind of held it together. You're admitting this guy
has to carry us. Can he do that? Not to
be fair, I don't know that answer about Bownecks yet,
but I know as a rookie it gave me a
lot of indications that he's capable, that he could be

(20:32):
that guy. And even if he's not, if he is
in this sort of Brock party, what I would put
Brock party in the ball of well, then you got
a nice little four year window here to try and
make something happen before it comes time to pay somebody.

(20:54):
Texas says. I felt the same about Stafford, thought he
was overrated until I discovered just how atrocious Detroit was
after watching Lions games. Stafford was somebody that should I
He caught a lot of grief because they would always
tout his record and his record against winning teams and

(21:16):
blah blah blah. And I'm just like, you have to
factor in who the guy plays for, number one. But
if you didn't see a Stafford deep ball and think
that that wasn't something special that not a lot of
people possessed, then you just weren't trying that hard. You know.
Bo Nicks actually proved a lot of people wrong last year,
and then he was capable of making a throw like that,

(21:40):
which I didn't know. I didn't know if he had
that in him until he actually started doing it about
midway through the year. I mean, we all remember, I
think it's the highlight of the season is probably the
ninety some yard touchdown to Marvin Mims, whereas fifty sixty
yards right on the money, Marvin Mims takes it the
rest of the way. Knowing he's capable of it is

(22:01):
one thing, but doing it more consistently, and that's what
I'm hoping to see this year. Is that all right?
In year one you wanted to kind of dumb things down,
make sure that he understood the playbook. He was a
veteran guy walking in as far as a lot of
college experience, so you had a little leg up in
that category. But now another year in the same system,

(22:22):
which god, it's been forever since you have that a
guy just having the same thing year over year at
that position to learn from. Not to mention a roster
turnover rate that is incredibly low or incredibly high, I
should say, in which you're keeping most of your roster

(22:43):
from last year, which also builds consistency in chemistry the
highest in the league. You should be able to get
them some things rolling in the places you did change.
It feels like you got an instant upgrade at those
trade green Law is an instant up upgrade. Hufonga is

(23:04):
an instant upgrade. Ingram upgrade the backfield. It took me
like two practices to be like, all right, these both
Dobbins and RJ. Harvey bring a different level of speed
and burst than we've seen here in years now. All
of those guys I mentioned isn't actually going to work.

(23:25):
Can all those guys stay healthy, Like, yeah, all those
questions are still going to exist, but as far as
pure talent, it's taken a step up at the places
that you were weakest. And that's why I went back
and I looked at some of these Harvey runs from
that first game, because they gave him a good chunk
of work early in that game, and each time it

(23:46):
felt like he was gonna get wrapped up in the
backfield and found ways to get positive yardage. And that's
one of the things that I think was missing. Like
they had a couple of runs last year that you
thought were okay, but the hole's not always going to
be perfect. Sometimes you just gotta find a way to
make a play happen. And he's somebody that I think,

(24:07):
with his speed, is capable of doing that. Like you
didn't have and this stuff matters. A home run threat
from the backfield. Last year it didn't exist. There was
not a single guy when they got the football in
their hands that you thought was gonna take it to
the house. Everybody kind of pretends like Jaliel was that guy.

(24:29):
He wasn't. Jalil's longest run was like twenty one yards.
I'm talking about somebody found open space and will run
past you on the way to the end zone. I
think Harvey possesses that ability and he can do it
from at least the indications that I saw in that
first game, just the tiniest sliver that maybe he needs

(24:51):
to make up on his own. So three h three five,
four nine two five shot Mazda text line, one price,
one person hour. So the APE Pole Top twenty five
came out, and here is what the main sort of

(25:14):
challengers in the Big twelve look like. So I always
like when this stuff comes out preseason, and these I
fully acknowledge these mean nothing. It's not as if the
AP Top twenty five preseason to the end of the season.
It's always funny to go back and take a look,

(25:37):
take a look where people had them early in the
year as opposed to where they finished. But I will
tell you that a lot of these teams that you
find on here are at least gonna be decent. They're
gonna be challenges if you have them on the schedule.
And so looking at this, the Big Twelve this year

(25:58):
has four teams that are ranked in the AP Top
twenty five preseason. It is Arizona State they're at number eleven,
Kansas State is at number seventeen, Iowa State is number
twenty two, and Texas Tech is number twenty three. So
you have four now compared to a lot of other conferences.

(26:21):
It's not a ton at least the ones that you
want to be competing with, your big twelves, your secs,
your conferences like that. Now the ACC has three, but
they have Clemson at four, they have Miami at ten,
they have SMU at sixteen. You see a giant split

(26:42):
between what those conferences are and what the Big ten
in the SEC is working with. Cause the Big ten
has the number two team in Penn State, the number
three team in Ohio State, the number seventeam in Oregon,
twelve in Illinois, fourteen in Michigan, and then twenty in Indiana.

(27:03):
That's what they got. The SEC is littered with the
number one team, Texas, number five, Georgia, number eight, Bama
number nine, LSU fifteen, Florida thirteen, South Carolina eighteen, Oklahoma nineteen,
Texas A and m twenty one, Oh Miz. Like they're everywhere.
You don't. But this is like I was trying to

(27:26):
explain this when see you join the Big twelve that
they have I think a great advantage in one thing,
and I honestly cannot wait because how far away are
we from that first game? Is that next week? Is

(27:46):
that Week zero of college football? Is it next week
or the week after that? Yeah? It's what is today?
Today's twelve? Yeah, it's next Saturday. Like, we're right around
the corner from this. But there is a huge advantage
that see, you possesses in being in this position, especially

(28:09):
with the idea of automatic bids, and you win your conference,
you're typically going to be in like you aren't dealing
with the same gauntlet as the other teams. Now there's
a balance to this. The SEC and the Big Ten
see this as a disadvantage towards them. It's why they're

(28:29):
complaining about, like, well, we should get more automatic bids
than what other conference is getting. It's like, dude, you do,
you absolutely do, because when those teams lose in their conferences,
it's not nearly as punitive as it is for anybody else. Like,
think about this for a second. Is it easier to

(28:51):
go undefeated in a conference that's not the Big Ten
of the SEC? Yeah, it's probably easier. It's definitely easier.
But the second that you lose, people look at you differently.
And I'll give you an example. If Colorado State goes
twelve to zero, they're probably making the College Football Playoff,

(29:13):
But if CSU goes ten and two, they got no shot.
That's the difference. Is that your afforded mistakes because the
conferences you play in, and I think the Big Twelve
is in this perfect sort of sweet spot where it's
a little bit of both. They don't get as much

(29:35):
leeway un losses as other teams do in the Big
Ten in the SEC, but they get a little bit.
They get more than the other teams. They get more
than the Mountain West does.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
It.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Must give you an example. Arizona State won last year,
they won the conference and made the College Football Playoff
by finishing the season. Was it eleven and two? I
think it was eleven and two for them last year?

(30:13):
Two losses still got in the dance. You're fine, and
you did that in a conference that you could win.
When you were eleven and ten and two at the
end of the season before the Big Twelve championship game,
you're afforded two losses still with a shot at an
automatic bid. It's just not gonna happen in most other conferences.
And so if you're see you you were in a

(30:34):
prime position to take full advantage of that. And I
can't wait to see what Dion's going to have in
store without some of his without some of the guys
that have been part of the package for the last
four years, without having Shador and Travis Hunter hanging on
both arms walking in to fulsome hand in hand. How

(30:58):
are you going to do this now when you were
kind of like on your own. This is just the
guys that you recruited, the guys that you got out
of the transfer portal, and what you can put on
the field. But I do think that they got a
shot because they did last year. It's just a matter
of can you improve in the areas. It's kind of
like the Broncos conversation. They were a pretty good team

(31:18):
last year. They could be a really good team if
they improve on the weaknesses that they had. Cus very simple.
Can you get better on defense one? And can you
find a running game. It's the same thing as what
the Broncos are facing. They find a running game, then
that offense is going to be hammon at a super
high level, it's gonna be tough to beat. If not,

(31:40):
if you're going back to we're gonna throw the ball
fifty times a game and hope we get you know,
thirty rushing yards by the end of the week. You're
probably gonna have some struggles. But I think they're in
a pretty prime position to compete with the conference they're
in because it's tough, but not insurmountably tough. So we're

(32:02):
out here at Broncos Park powered by Common Spirit. Another
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BACKUS and Shanker Studios. Their passion is justice Back after this,
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(32:24):
powered by ROBO's Law, the official injury law firm, partner
of Broncos Country. I just saw something that is so
hilariously NBA. Then I I was gonna wait until we
had the audio. I mean, Jesse, I'm gonna send it
to you now. I don't need you don't need to
play it now, but I want it for later. So

(32:46):
Bradley Beal, who was he was like the King of
Washington when he was playing for the Wizards. He moves
over towards Phoenix. He joins up with Devin Booker and
Kevin Durant. They're trying to get themselves a super team ring,
which is hard to come by. Worked a couple of times,
but doesn't work a whole lot. He did this interview

(33:08):
with a local station after he joins the Clippers KMOV,
and he was asked why join the Clippers, and he said, quote,
because I need a ring, which proves two things that
he is very, very unaware of. Number one is, somehow

(33:32):
after trying the super team thing once and it fails miserably,
he still thinks that's a viable option. Number Two, he
is part of this generation of NBA talents, really talented
players that think if I'm friends with somebody and we
play on the same team, then we win. And three,

(33:59):
he is totally on a where of the history of
the Los Angeles Clippers. I mean, it would be the
equivalent of somebody saying I need a ring. That's why
I signed with the Detroit Lions. That's why I signed
with the Cleveland Browns. Well, they don't have one of those.
They've never had it, They've very rarely been close to it.

(34:21):
And the only reason people talk about them is because
they reside in Los Angeles. Make no mistake, the Clippers
are the Charlotte Hornets, but just with palm trees. But
I still I don't know, like if you need some

(34:43):
sort of who's the lady in the movie Get Out,
Who's got the spoon with the tea that puts you
in the sunken place? You know I'm talking about that lady.
I don't know if you need one of them to
just individually go to these like these Bradley Beal's and
James Harden's and guys like that, to like hypnotize them

(35:03):
out of this way of thinking. But I really really
hope that the younger players don't feel this way, because
all right now that we got it, I mean, let's
go ahead and hear it. Jesse, go ahead, you just
signed with the Clippers. Where are you at in your
NBA journey? I need a ring.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
I need a ring, you know, I want one bad.
And I feel like I got a new life of
rejuvenation for sure, and new hunger. I'm excited about the
opportunity a new city, new environment, but a hungry environment too.
You know, I'm definitely excited about the opportunity to go
to go win spoke volumes that you gave Chris Paul
that number three, what went into.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
That and how you got it there. I don't care
about Chris Paul getting number three. Chris Paul's forty years old.
This generation of players, and I do think this is
changing at least a little bit because we have I
guess just the European guys are kind of like this.

(36:03):
Jokic has no care for a super team. Luca cried
when he found out he's being traded to la If
that tells you anything about how he feels about it.
He loved Dallas so much he didn't want to leave,
he cried. European guys certainly feel different. But maybe this

(36:23):
is just like a lot of kids grow up who
are really good playing an AAU ball, They make friends
with other guys they're friends from AAU ball, end up
being good players, and they're like, well we did that once,
so let's do that again. And it's just he doesn't
translate to success and the way that people want it to.
Now I understand where he's coming from he's now a

(36:43):
older veteran player whose chances at winning are starting to
really drift away, just starting to get pretty close to
out of reach. But there is some sort of disease
in that league that it makes people feel like I'm

(37:07):
getting towards the twilight of my career. I need a ring,
so I'm going to join the other old guys that
are my same age. Like the smart thing to do
is to if you're really concerned about a ring, And
this is part of the problem I think with a
lot of these dudes. They I'll take you back to

(37:29):
another quote from last year Cam Newton was on with
It was one of the morning the Talking Head morning shows.
It was First Take or it was the Skip Bayless
Show when he was still there, and they asked him,
would you trade your MVP for a Super Bowl And

(37:51):
his answer was no. And when he said that, I go,
you know what. I respect that he was honest because
a whole bunch of guys would lie even if they
even if they knew they wouldn't make the trade because
there's cameras on them, and because of the way that
they that people want them to act, they will say,

(38:12):
you know what, I absolutely would give up an MVP
for a Super Bowl, for sure, and they'd lie. And
I said, I respect Cam Newton for not lying, But
I think that's the way a lot of these guys think.
Bradley Beal's best chance to win a ring was not
joining the Clippers as a big time player within the rotation.

(38:37):
The easiest thing he could do would join a team
like just the Nuggets for example, and say I'll come
off the bench and play fifteen minutes a night for you.
That's his easiest way to get there. But they aren't
willing to do all of that to win a ring.
Like sometimes it's not enough just to be a champion.

(38:59):
You have to be the reason why the championship is won.
And a lot of guys that I think are veteran
dudes in the league, they're in the mid thirties that
had their runs of all NBA teams and MVPs and
stuff like that, they just they aren't willing to do that.
They aren't. You know, there's so many you know, Carmelo

(39:21):
back in the day when he went to OKAC and
he laughed and he goes they're trying to say, would
you come off the bench and he's like he was
insulted by it, and it's like, well, no, you're a
guy in your mid thirties whose game is not the
same as it was before, and it's probably better for
the team if you did that, But the fact that
you're so unwilling to shows that your head's not in
the right space. Like, if you want to go out

(39:43):
and play on a decent team with your buddies, the
Clippers seem like a great place to play. You want
to win a championship, not the place, not where you go.
So I don't buy any of that, none of it.
You know, there's a great psycholog in sports when it
comes to winning and how much you're you individually mattered

(40:05):
towards the winning that I'm not even like chastising people
who who want to be a big reason for the winning.
I think a lot of guys take pride in that.
You know, if let's say you're playing I don't know,
you're you're in a slow pitch softball league, but you're

(40:26):
really competitive about it, and you're the guy who's you're
the sub and your team wins, it's probably gonna feel
different than if you're the guy who's batt and clean
up and playing shortstop. I mean, it just is, but
I always go back. There's a couple of really good examples.

(40:46):
I think one of them that is like the best
in this is he would never admit it, but it
would be great if you could put some truth serum
in them and get them to answer this question. When
the Philadelphia Eagle won that first Super Bowl with Doug Peterson,
Carson Wentz was having an MVP season. He breaks his leg,

(41:07):
he's unable to play. During the playoffs, Nick Foles takes over,
has that magical run, they win, and now Nick Foles
has a statue outside that stadium. I always wondered how
much of Carson Wentz was actually hoping they'd lose, because
it makes him look replaceable, And it's a really like

(41:29):
I think it's a really interesting psychological social experiment of
your need to be wanted, but also putting the team
above all else. Like don't get me wrong, I'm sure
he was spraying champagne in the locker room and having
a great time, but he wasn't having as good a

(41:50):
time as some other guys in that locker room. As
most of the other guys in that locker room, you
can almost guarantee it. But I think there's a lot
of that that goes on in the NBA where it's
like winning's not enough. I need to be a reason
for the winning, and it's like, well, I don't think
you're capable of being a main reason anymore. And that's
why I respect the hell out of guys that kind
of know where they're at in their careers. You know.

(42:13):
It's one of the reasons why I think Bruce Brown
is one of the coolest guys ever. Like Bruce Brown
is somebody his entire career has known his role. Bruce
Brown could have made I think more money than the
VET minimum this year somewhere else in the offseason, but
he's like, I loved my situation there. I just went
out and made some money. Now I can be a

(42:34):
pretty key part coming off the bench for a team
that is prime to win a championship, that is going
to be one of the X amount of teams in
the discussion. No, it's something that I think Westbrook has
a hard time with. He's willing to come off the bench,
but when he's on the floor, he's got to be
the guy. Now. Part of that's just his style of play.
And that's why I don't think would fit this year

(42:56):
with the Nuggets, but it did. They almost needed that
last year was somebody coming off the bench. But again,
it's just an interesting way to see how people think.
And there's a need to be wanted by a lot
of guys in the NBA, and they will choose a

(43:17):
worse basketball situation for a better life situation, which is
I get to go play with my buddies. Now, okay,
well everybody on your team is like thirty seven years old. Yeah,
we'll be fine. I don't think it's how it works.
Three oh three, five four nine, two five. You can
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