February 14, 2020 • 50 mins
In this episode, Middlekauff gives his thoughts on Mel Tucker jumping ship from Colorado to Michigan State, why it's just another example of the Pac-12 being a "Power 5" conference in name only, why he agrees with former Texans GM Rick Smith that NFL teams should be spending more resources developing draft prospects instead of just evaluating them, and why the dead cap hit for a vet QB like Matt Stafford - and other big names - will prevent teams from trading them. He also answers listener questions in Middlekauff's Mailbag. Follow John on twitter @JohnMiddlekauff and go to theherdnow.com to find the latest content. Subscribe now!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Get right to the romance and find the way to
wow this Valentine's with one hundred Flowers dot com. From
classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate covered berries, gourmet
treats and more. Surprise your Valentine with one hundred flowers
dot com right now. Get the eighteen stem enchanted rose
metally for thirty nine ninety nine, or upgrade to twenty
(00:21):
four red roses for ten dollars more. Go to one
hundred flowers dot com slash tune in. That's one eight
hundred flowers dot com. Slash tune in. What is going on? Everybody?
(00:43):
It's me job little Coop in the three and Out podcast.
I don't know why I'm talking so weird. I guess
I'm just excited. How to slam like a diat mountain
dew about an hour ago, and I'm I got the
caffeine flowing through my body. Can't wait. I broke down
every XFL game and I'm gonna prepare us for this weekend.
I'm totally kidding. I would never do that in a
(01:05):
million years. But actually there's some interesting stuff going on.
Mel Tucker, I'm gonna start with that. Mel Tucker going
to Michigan State and the amount of money, the reflection
of what it meant to the PAC twelve. There was
a really really good article on Rick Smith, the former
Houston Texans GM on the Athletic by Dan Pompey, who
(01:26):
can just write a hell of an article. It was
a really powerful article. But there was something specific in
there that stood out to me from a scouting perspective.
And I remember when I worked in the league, like
Lewis Riddick, you used to talk about it all the time,
how teams just did a poor job of this, and
it's just it's he was dead on with something. We'll
dive into that. And then you know that there have
(01:48):
been two famous players that I've seen by like a
local guy in their market, kind of go viral on
my Twitter timeline. One of them was Khalil Mack and
the other was Matt Staff that they were going to
get traded. And I think there's something we need to
discuss while talking about trades in the NFL. And while
we see them a lot more last year we saw
(02:10):
Odell Beckham trade, which I think kind of falls under
this category, but we see a lot more at the
trade deadline. There are certain trades that are just impossible,
factoring in financial situations and this thing that they call
a dead cap, meaning the money that even if you
get cut the guy or trade the guy, that you
still incore incur as a franchise. So we just need
(02:32):
to pump the brakes because I love a good trade,
a potential trade as much as anybody. And I retweeted
that Matt Stafford was going to get traded last night
at about ten o'clock while I was laying in bed.
But then I realized, like John, you just you need
to pump the brakes a little bit. And then of
course we'll go into my dms on Instagram. It's how
we interact with you guys at John Middlecoff is my
(02:55):
Instagram Twitter, but my dms on Instagram are wide open.
Asked me anything and we'll get you a question here
on the pot. And want one more thing I have.
I'm sure a lot of you guys listen to this
podcast on Collin's feed. I also have my own feed
just three and out John Middlecoff. You can type it
into iTunes and find it. One thing I'd like you
(03:16):
to do if you like the show. Seems like a
lot of you guys do get a lot of positive dms.
Leave a review on my specific handle, the three and
out John Middlecoff. It has a little microphone and my name.
If you're not already subscribed, it goes on both. If
you want to, you can just subscribe these shows go
(03:36):
to that feed and to Collins feed. But just go
on there and leave a review. That would be greatly appreciated.
But let's start with mel Tucker, Colorado and Michigan State
because it's kind of been the big football story of
the week, beside the cheat and Astros, which is a
baseball story. But I'd be down to talk a lot
(03:57):
of smack about them, but I've done that enough on Twitter.
Melt Tucker after he was hired, I think in December
of two thousand, What's what are we two twenty so
he might have been hired right at the end of
twenty eighteen, or he was a Colorado one season and
he just left to Michigan State this week. And I
(04:19):
want to start with just a quick exercise. If we
started five businesses from scratch, an it's gonna be hypothetical
in an industry where they could succeed where there was,
you know, more than more than enough quantity of people
to consume whatever product they were doing, and they weren't
going to fail. And we just let them all go
(04:40):
for ten years, the five businesses, and we checked back
in ten years, I think it'd be pretty clear the
hierarchy of those five businesses. More than likely one, probably
two of them would be highly successful. And this is
for this exercise. Let's just assume high end business, you
(05:00):
can make a lot of money. One or two of
them would be crushing it. The other two would be
somewhere in the middle. They'd be surviving, and one would
be a train wreck, one would be a disaster. Just
the way the world works, you know. It's it's just
a fact. When I was growing up, all five major conferences,
now they were aligned a little differently, but the PAC ten,
(05:23):
the Big Twelve, the Big Ten, the ACC, and the SEC.
And I was born in the mid eighties, so by
the time I started watching football early nineties, mid nineties,
late nineties, you just turn on the TV and there'd
be good games all over the country and you just
on any given year, Oregon could be compete for the
National championship, Texas could, Michigan could Ohio State, could Alabama, Georgia,
(05:48):
Florida like the same several teams, but it was it
felt relatively equal. Just you had your two or three
top teams in each conference and they were all kind
of competing. That's no longer the case. We have two
programs of the Power five that are on a completely
different level financially than the other three. And really Oklahoma
(06:08):
in the Big twelve and Clemson in the a SEC
helped make those two conferences somewhat outliers because they're both
in shambles. But those two conferences dominate like an SEC
or a Big ten school when it comes to money,
when it comes to funds, and when it comes to winning.
Then you got the PAC twelve. And Dan Wetzel wrote
a good article this week. Stop we need to stop
(06:29):
using the term power five. It's really like Power two Oklahoma, Clemson,
and then the PAC twelve is basically it's actually much
closer right now to the Mountain West than it is
to the Big ten or the SEC. Because when mel
Tucker took the job, and I'm not going to go
into some moral high horse story about keeping the job,
(06:51):
he did make a comment about there's no transfer portal
in the real world, which is a stupid comment because
there literally is. I mean, the great part about America,
you literally can quit any job at any moment. You
can do whatever you want to do. I can't speak
for every country, though I do know a good amount
of countries. Like ask the NBA about China. You're not
just allowed to do whatever you want in America. I
(07:13):
could just stop podcasting tomorrow and just go work at
insurance or go work at a restaurant. I do whatever
I want, so can you. Now we might not choose to,
but we have those options, so he can say whatever
he wants. The players, a player can't just leave a program.
They can transfer, but they have to sit out a year.
We all know that. I'm not going to go into
some huge deep dive into that. I think Jay billis
(07:35):
is of the world have that market corner. But he
got a salary doubled, and he got his coaching salary
is coaching pool for his assistance doubled. And he also
is not from the West Coast. He's from the Midwest An.
He had coached to Michigan State. So I get it, Like,
you don't love a guy being a one and done
from a Power five, again allegedly a Power five, but
(07:56):
I think it shows you because all I've heard from
the Pac twelve people Colorado was being fiscally responsible. I
don't think you can be fiscally responsible with your football coach.
You could be fiscally responsible with the swimming team, with
the men's baseball team, but when it comes when it
comes to football, there is no expense that the SEC
(08:19):
or the Big Ten spares on their football programs. They
cut corners with the other programs, but when it comes
to football, and at most programs men's basketball, they pay
for every bill, every stinking bill in the athletic program.
Without those programs, you couldn't function because every other program's
(08:41):
in the red. And one issue I think we're having
out here on the West Coast, our school presidents are
consumed with everything butt football, the Olympic sports academics and
I'm not anti academics, but do you notice this and
there have been studies and they talk about it all
the time on the broadcast. You win at football, it's
(09:01):
such a national televised and so many people are watching it,
your enrollment goes up. Your competition to get into the
programs increase, and I think Cal and UCLA would say, well, yeah,
we don't need that to get and they're right, they don't. Well,
the problem is the money that the athletic program is
generating because they're not putting in the resources into the
football program, which is why these coaches. We've had two
(09:25):
coaches in the PAC twelve. And I say we because
I'm a PAC twelve fan, but I feel like I'm
the only guy in island beating the drum that this
is something's got to change because this is not working.
Michigan State just came in in the blink of a night,
doubled the guy's salary, doubled the guy's assistant pool, and
the dude left a PAC twelve job. It'd be one
thing if he was at Colorado State or Fresno State
and be like, yeah, I get it. He was at Colorado,
(09:48):
which produces pros. A couple of years ago, they won
the PAC twelfth South. They went into the Pack twel like,
it's a pretty good job. But when they're only paying
two point seven million dollars in Michigan State's gonna pay
him six million dollars, It's like, I get it, But
my question is why can't Colorado pay the six million
dollars you went on a coaching search. You believe in
this guy. That's the costs of doing business in the industry.
(10:09):
The problem is the PAC twelve isn't generating the money.
They don't have the ability to just snap their fingers
and write a huge check, where the SEC and the
Big ten do it all the time. Because in there's
conferences when another school comes after their coaches, whether they're
in love with their coach. Listen, most coaches aren't Nick Saban.
We understand that. But if you got Dan Mullins and
you really like them, then all of a sudden, Penn
(10:30):
State calls you gotta give him a race. It's costs
of doing business, and I feel like the PAC twelve
is operating like a mom and pop shop. We gotta
be fiscally responsible. Well, when the mom and pop shop
moves in to whatever building they're moving into to run
their business, the rent check matters of them, how much
you're going to charge them in rent. When Google or
(10:50):
Salesforce or Facebook moves into a building, they cut a
year's worth of rent. They don't care. And right now
the SEC and the Big ten they don't care when
it comes to football. There is no check. They won't
cut and in fairness like the ACC Florida State did
it with Willie Taggart, the the Big Twelve, They've done
it to Texas before. There are programs that will do
(11:13):
it out here. It's like, oh, we can't afford to
go the extra two million a year. What is two
million a year extra for a football coach if you
believed in the guy, which you clearly did because you
went on a natural search after having the same coach
for six years, and you already paid them. Now. I'm
not even some mil Tucker fan, even though everyone that
I text with in the NFL, people that have been
around them, really like them a lot. They think highly
(11:36):
of the guy. But my issue is the Pac twelve
if we keep going at this rate, because clearly they
are not making anywhere near the money of those two
conferences because they have this television deal that no one
can see. Their football programs are not winning enough. They're
not going to you know, they're not going to the
college football Playoffs. I think they've been there once in
(11:58):
the last five years. They're even in basketball like the SEC.
Do you notice if you fall college basketball. Do you
see the SEC Like Auburn's got Bruce Pearl, They're like
a top ten program. Georgia went out and paid five
million dollars to Tom Crean. When you win at football
and your conference wins at football, it trickles down. The
other thing we love hanging our hat on out on
the West Coast, Well, we dominate the Olympic sports, swimming, soccer,
(12:23):
you know, uh, lacrosse. Well, what do you think Alabama's
going to do in five years when they go? You
know what, we wouldn't mind being good at women's soccer
and men's swimming too. Well, who's got the best coach? Oh? UCLA? Well,
how much do they pay the swimming coach at Ucay? Like, oh,
they pay him one hundred and ten grand. How much
does it cost do you live in You say, like
a lot? How about we give him two hundred and
(12:43):
seventy five thousand dollars because we have an unlimited budget.
They're not pinching pennies on the most important support and asset,
and that's football. And it constantly happens in the Pac
twelve where it's like, oh, we can't afford to pay
him that that's always the answer, which if it was
soccer or lass or men's baseball, I'd okay because someone
(13:04):
I tweeted, I went on this tweet rant, Someone's like,
that doesn't sound like a good way to do business
if you're not being physically responsible. Yeah, to non revenue
generating you know, entities. But if it's your football program, which,
like I said, literally pays for every bill and every
coach and every pair of shoes and every basketball on campus,
(13:25):
you better double down on that area. And I think
the PAC twelve right now is somewhat lost and understanding
the power and the importance of football. Now. There are
elements that in the PAC twelve that don't parallel the SEC.
There's a passion level down there that is unique. It's
basically the NFL light and even the Big Ten. I
(13:48):
also think of benefit that those two conferences have is
their prime programs are in tiny little towns, right so
that matters. Gainesville, Starkville, Tuscaloose is a bigger town. Baton Rouge.
Its place in the middle of nowhere. I've been to
Penn State. It's it's like the tiny little town. I've
never been to Ann Harbor, but it ain't you know
(14:09):
Detroit never been to Columbus, that that might be a
little bit of a bigger town. But think of some
of our big programs out west to San Francisco, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Seattle,
at Los Angeles. You know, it sounds good in theory,
but it actually hurts. And because it's so spread out,
(14:32):
those are pro towns. That's what that's what makes Oregon
somewhat unique. And you could argue over the last twenty
years they've been the most balanced when it comes to
winning at football and winning at basketball. And they're also
lucky Phil Knight went to school there and finances them
like it's the SEC or the Big Ten. But I
was embarrassed by mil Tucker leaving in the sense that
everyone tried to justify it, well, they were being fiscally responsible. No,
(14:55):
let's just call let's call spade a spade. They don't
have the money, they can't hang with the Big ten.
And that's as big of a red flag as you
can you can get. Because it's only twenty twenty. Well,
what's it going to look like in five or ten
more years? As these the media and the dollars that
are flowing in for television rights are growing exponentially. Well,
(15:16):
they're only going to keep doubling down on the big
ten in the SEC because of the efforts and the
resources they're pouring into their own programs. So I don't
really know what to say Beside the PAC twelve might
be screwed big picture, something doesn't dramatically change soon. Get
right to the romance and find the way to wow
this Valentine's with one to hundred flowers dot com. From
classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate covered berries, gourmet
(15:39):
treats and more. Surprise your Valentine with one hundred flowers
dot com right now. Get the eighteen stem enchanted rose
metally for thirty nine ninety nine, or upgrade to twenty
four red roses for ten dollars more. Go to one
hundred flowers dot com slash tune in. That's one eight
hundred flowers dot com. Slash tune in. What grows in
(16:01):
the forest trees, shure no. What else grows in the forest?
Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our family bonds
grow too, because when we disconnect from this and connect
with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is
closer than you think. Find a forest near you and
(16:22):
start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org brought to
you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council.
What grows in the forest, trees, shure No. What else
grows in the forest. Our imagination, our sense of wonder,
and our family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect
from this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other.
(16:48):
The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot
org brought to you by the United States Forest Service
and the AD Council. Okay, let's dive into something. Rick Smith,
the former Houston Texans general manager, said in an article
(17:10):
if you subscribe to The Athletic. It was written by
Dan Pompey. It was really good. It was really good,
But he said something that really stood out to me.
We spend so much time. This is about the scouting process,
the college scouting process. We spend so much time, resources, energy,
attention on draft evaluation. We have huge dozers on these players,
(17:34):
where they're from, how they learn, personal lives, social skill
set scores, their history, everything after the draft, all that
information about the player we learned doesn't get integrated into
his onboarding. I think that's a mistake. You can onboard
players and utilize all that information to put a plan
(17:57):
together that gives them a chance, to give them a
better chance. It's to be a better man, better member
of the organization, and a better football player. There is
a holistic approach to player development that we are missing,
and onboarding is just like integrating them in right. Usually
when you're hired out of college, there's just a process.
(18:20):
A lot of people are hired to companies that they
intern with their senior year in football. While you play
football in college, and then you're playing football in the
pros where the football is relatively similar. Life dramatically changes
and a huge curveball in pro sports, unlike the real
world most of us. I mean, hell, my job out
of college was twenty five thousand dollars with the Philadelphia Eagles.
(18:43):
Hopefully yours was a lot higher than that. You know
a lot of people sixty seventy eighty, maybe now hundred,
depending on where you're working. You get decent money, super
smart guys. Maybe you guys are making one hundred and fifty.
I don't know. I made nothing, But the reality is
if you're taking a guy in the first couple rounds
of the NFL draft, you were paying him millions of dollars.
If I take you in the middle of the first round.
(19:05):
I'm John middlecoff Bit, a linebacker from Alabama, and I
get drafted to the Minnesota Vikings. They just get fifteen
million dollars guaranteed when I sign it. Well, do you
notice why for a long period of time the Alabama
guys that there was this notion like Alabama guys just
don't transition well in the NFL because there is not
(19:25):
an hour at Alabama three sixty five during the season
and during the off season that you are not accounted for.
The only time you may have a little wig wiggle
room is class. And if they're not super on you
because you've proven that you can make it to class,
they don't do class checks. And you could if you're smart,
(19:45):
you can sleep in and not go. But other than that,
when it comes to your homework, when it comes to
your tests, when it comes to your meals, when it
comes to your sleeping, when it comes to practice, they're
on your twenty four seven, three sixty five. In pro football,
even if you're a rookie. Once training camp ends and
the season starts, you get to live just like all
the you know, Larry Fitzgerald gets to live. Show up
(20:08):
on Wednesday, but you get Tuesday off. If you win,
you get Monday off. By Thursday or Friday, the days
are a little shorter. You got a lot of free
time on your hand. Imagine having a ton of free
time and a ton of money. Not an ideal combination.
John Baxter, who was the Special Team's coach when I
was at Fressens State, used to say, the worst thing
(20:28):
in life is a young guy in discretionary income, a
lot of it, because you're just gonna make poor decisions.
I am just now in my mid thirties and I've I've,
you know, every year over the last ten years, have
made more and more money. I'm kind of learning and
how to manage my money, put some away, pay the bills,
(20:49):
what I can, spend what I can't. It takes a
long period of time to figure that out. And I
think what Rick smiths saying, and I remember Lewis Riddick
used to save this all the time. You spend all
this information like you're getting ready for the prospect that
you're going to draft, and then you finally do well.
Most humans are not Peyton Manning or Tom Brady that
they can just operate and do everything without having their handheld. Well,
(21:12):
some guys need help. Where do I live? What do
I do with my free time? What do I do
with all this money? How do I balance? You know,
my mom's gonna come stay with me, or my grandpa
or my cousin. Where do I get a car? I'm
just talking basic stuff that can overwhelm people. And I
think a lot of times in the NFL coaches and
it's just focused on what do we gotta do to win?
(21:34):
What do we gotta do to win? What do we
gotta do to win? Now, I'm not a big believer
in holding your hand, but if I'm going to invest
twenty million dollars, I have the tenth pick in the draft.
Let's just I'm gonna pick a number. I think it's
give or take somewhere around there. I better just based
on the financial resources I'm them giving to this individual.
And clearly, if I'm gonna draft him at ten, what
(21:54):
I think of him, I should probably hold his hand
for a couple of years, or attempt to until he
proves you know what, and maybe by the first three
or four months you realize this guy's got it figured out.
He's a high level guy. A lot of humans, even
mature humans, are going to be overwhelmed. And I think
a lot of times you just depend well, the vets
will take care of him. And I'm not saying the
(22:15):
vets don't take care of them, but there is just
an element. And this is the difference between I think
pro and definitely college, but even college, what the money
coaches are making, they approach him now more like pro football.
There used to be a big connection with your position coach,
and there still is in certain instances where you're pretty
(22:35):
close to that guy and he can help you out.
He can be somewhat of a mentor, and I think
that often gets lost in the NFL, and definitely from
the scouting side, once the draft ends, all the scouts
just kind of move on. You just start with the
next crop instead. Well, if I was the area scout
and I knew the guy that we drafted in the
third round, again, if you draft a guy in the
(22:56):
third round, you still probably give him a signing bonus
like four or five hundred thousand dollars still a lot
of money. You clearly liked him because you invested a
top I don't know, eighty pick in the guy, and
this guy might have a learning disability whatever. I mean,
any piece of information that you accumulated that you knew
before the draft, and then it kind of just gets
forgotten and the dudes just expected like, why can't this
(23:16):
guy cover the slot? Well, I don't know, he's overwhelmed
in life right now. There's a lot going on. It
can be really overwhelming. And you know me, if you
listen to this podcast, I'm not some I'm not a
big excuse guy, but I do think there are specific
things that you learn about a guy when you're scouting
from the program, like, hey, this guy, like coaches tell
(23:38):
you this. You know, this guy's not great at learning
on the board. He's better at learning on the field,
and then he's not good in the meeting room. But
I'm telling you, when the game starts, he's able to
take all the information. And then by the middle of
training camp you're getting an email from your general manager
like why can't this guy figure out what to do
in meetings? Because we knew going into it, And I
think Rick Smith is dead on. I think the programs
(23:59):
that do it right the information and I'm talking the
specific information about the human being, not the football, because
the football always gets figured out, because that's what you're
putting all your emphasis on. I'm talking about the person
and I'm talking about learning disabilities. I'm just talking about things,
not even learning disabilities. Just this guy. I'm trying to
(24:21):
even think of an example. But people need help, and
people there's a ton of pressure that comes along with
rookie players that not everyone is equipped to handle it.
Even guys that end up do it like doing it.
It can be really, really difficult, and I would imagine
programs like New England. Clearly New England. I think Seattle
(24:45):
does a good job of it. I think the forty
nine ers now with Kyle Shanahan are doing all the
winning teams, the Eagles, the Chiefs. When you look at
losing teams and you see these players that are just
like fighting for themselves young guys, It's like, come on,
this has to be a group effort year and all
the information and all the work you do in the
scouting process just needs to start getting factored in more.
(25:08):
I mean, these teams are are wasting all the resources
that they spend for the twelve months or maybe let's
say the nine months you use getting ready for this
player and then ultimately picking them, and then you just
end up disregarding it by the time the guy gets
in your building. It just doesn't make any sense, Okay.
Like like you guys, I'm not any different. I'm a
(25:28):
sucker for a good trade rumor. It's probably why I
got into the business. It's why I wanted to work
in the NFL. I love transactions, Love drafts, love draft day, trades,
love free agency, love trades, love it all. I mean,
that's why we all. It's the cool part about sports,
you know, transactions, adding players to your team. This is
(25:53):
the type of time of year with free agency right
around the corner where we're reading a lot about this
guy might be released. We've talked about cap cuts. The
guy that I saw the other day since the since
the Early Week podcast was DeVante Freeman. I immediately text
couple of my buddies in the league and they go, yeah,
he's he's not He's a shell of himself. He's slower now.
(26:15):
But you're gonna see a ton of names like that.
But you're also gonna see some you know, pretty famous
guys like last year, the big is Odell Beckham gonna
get traded. A couple of years ago, Khalil Mack got traded.
Now that was you know, in training camp. But still
we've seen some pretty big trades the last couple of years.
So I do take When I see a headline that
says Matt Stafford is on the block, I retweet immediately
(26:39):
because I'm like, WHOA, I don't even think about him,
like that's sweet. And then I realized, God, you gotta
take a deep breatch on. What I do now is
I Google and I go to spot track. It's where
you can look at a player's contract in basketball. When
I give Steph Curry five years, two hundred million, I
(27:01):
do stagger the money a little bit, like a year
to year. He makes a little more every year, but
basically it's thirty five, thirty eight, thirty seven, forty one,
forty two whatever to add up to two hundred million.
Clay Thompson, same deal, and it's all It's just spread
out throughout the deal. There is no signing bonus. Just
his first year he makes thirty five million. By the
second year, He's made sixty five million. It just keeps
(27:23):
adding up. It's not the way it works in baseball.
Same thing. I think they have changed baseball a little bit,
like some guys do the escrow account where they get
money later on. That's kind of been a new thing.
But still for the most part, your money's your money.
In football, that's not the case, right. We see all
the time, like breaking news, this is gonna happen when
free agency starts. Trying to think of a player. Let's
(27:46):
go Amari Cooper. Amari Cooper has signed a five year,
hundred million dollar deal twenty million dollars a season. We're like, damn,
Amari got paid the Colts. The Cowboys's we all like, damn,
give him his bag. And then it comes out, well, actually,
(28:06):
he did sign a five hundred million dollars deal on paper,
but there's only forty seven point seven million dollars of
the guaranteed. She's like, oh, so he basically signed a
two and a half year, forty seven million dollars deal.
Because the way football works is the true guaranteed money
you make. Like Matt Stafford's total guarantees were ninety two
(28:29):
million dollars, so you take that ninety two million dollars
and you pro rate it at I don't know the
exact like formula over the life of the deal, and
it's usually more upfront the true guaranteed, like his true
guarantee at signing was like sixty million dollars, So in
his first year of that deal, his dead cap if
(28:49):
they were to cut him, would have been seventy five
million dollars. It's a lot of money, so you're not
going to cut a guy when it would cost seventy
five million dollars on your cap. But in two thousand twenty,
as of right now, Matt Stafford's dead cap meant if
they cut him or traded him, meaning the bonus money
that has got amortized over the deal, would be thirty
(29:12):
two million dollars. Well, the salary cap is two hundred
million dollars, so think about it. Thirty million dollars of
two hundred it'd be fifteen percent. It'd be like sixteen
percent of the salary cap. You wouldn't trade a guy
to not play on your team, to be sixteen percent
of your salary cap to play for someone else. It
doesn't make any sense. It's actually cheaper to keep him
(29:34):
his cap hit, so if he's on the team, there's
no such thing as deadcap because he's on your team.
But his actual cap hit if he's on the team
is twenty one million dollars, so you actually save over
basically eleven million dollars. But just keeping him around, and
anytime that you see a big, big name like this,
just go to the internet google his contract. I use
(29:54):
spot track, spot r ac dot com and you can
just look at the numbers. Now when guys, it's why
Derek Carr keeps coming up because they can get out
of Derek Carr for like four million dollars. Once you
get under you know, six seven million dollars. When the
salary caps two hundred million dollars, it's nothing. Once you
get under five million dollars a dead cap. Think about
(30:16):
the salary caps two hundred million dollars. So you're talking
like two and a half percent. You can stomach that,
but when you're talking to thirty two million dollars. And
I know on Thursday, Matt Stafford, the GM of the Lions,
came out and was adamant, like it wasn't one of
those like PR stunts. It was like, this is insane,
and you know what he's I believe him because it
makes no sense. That was part of the reason the
(30:37):
New York Giants last year got nailed and got kind
of took a lot of shit because I'm typing in
O'Dell to the to the website right now, because last year,
I think O'Dell's dead cap money was I got him
right here. So O'Dell's dead cap money was nineteen million
(30:58):
dollars last year. Excuse me, Yeah, nineteen million dollars. That
was on the Cleveland Brown or the New York Giant
salary cap. Actually, it might have been hired in that.
This might not be right because I remember reading it
was higher in that think about that they they paid
a guy it was good to just not be on
their team. It really didn't make any sense if you're
(31:19):
going to sign a human to a big deal, and
in football, I'd say anything over thirty million dollars guaranteed
is pretty big because once you get to thirty year,
immediately talking about two years, you're talking the first and
second years. You can't trade them or cut them without
taking a huge penalty on your own cap. So this year,
when the free agency comes around, any guy's getting thirty plus,
(31:43):
and obviously the good players get forty fifty sixty. The
quarterbacks get now one hundred, one hundred and twenty one
hundred ten. You're stuck with those guys for a while.
And the good thing about the NFL, you really only
do deals with four or five of those guys a team. Right.
In basketball, every guy's on a guaranteed deal. Same with baseball.
But in baseball, like that Mookie Bets trade that just happened,
(32:04):
you can do weird things, right the Boston Red Sox
eight half the contract and traded David Price. In football,
I can't eat my dead cap. The dead CAP's the
dead cap. I can eat maybe some of the cap
hit and the money, but I can't eat the dead cap.
That that number is set. So whenever you see these
names get thrown around, it's not gonna stop. It's going
(32:25):
to continue because that's just the world we live in now.
On social media. Just do a double checking because I
know I need to, because I'm like, oh, that's Stafford
is not going anywhere. Get right to the romance and
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Go to one hundred flowers dot com slash tune in.
That's one eight hundred flowers dot com slash tune in.
And we're live here outside the Perez family home, just
(33:09):
waiting for them. And there they go, almost on time.
This morning, Mom is coming off the front door strong
with a double arm kid carry. Looks like Dad has
the bags. Daughter is bringing up the rear. Oh but
the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers and toys are everywhere. Ooh,
but Mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle
(33:30):
for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks
to be about nine or ten, has secured herself in
the booster seat. Dad zips the bag clothes and they're off. Ah,
but looks like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is
still on the roof of the car and there it
goes Oh, that's a shame that mug was a fam favorite.
(33:50):
Don't sweat the small stuff, just nail the big stuff,
like making sure your kids are buckle correctly in the
right seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more at NHTSA
dot gov. Slash the Right Seat visits NHSA dot gov.
Snice the Right Seat, brought to you by NITZA and
the AD Council. If I could be you and you
could be me for just one hour, if you could
(34:10):
find a way to get inside each other's mind, qualcom
Mile in my Shoes. Welcome Mile in my shoes. Shoes.
We've all felt left out, and for some that feeling
lasts more than a moment. We can change that. Learn
how it belonging begins with us dot org. Brought to
you by the AD Council. Welcome out in the Shoes. Okay,
(34:37):
let's slide into some DMS. Favorite NFL pod me too.
Please don't change the thing. I won't. I'm a Chiefs
die hard and season ticket holder. This past month is
easily my favorite sports moment stretch of my life. I
have to say I don't blame you. I know you
say you're out of the fan business, but What are
your favorite game you've seen to or been favorite sports
(34:59):
moment in your life. Yeah, I mean I'm still a fan.
I got a lot of joy after watching coach Reid win.
I got a lot of joy after watching the forty
nine Ers win the NFC Championship game. Say, my favorite
pure moment pretty special in ninety four is a ten
year old get kid when the Niners won the won
the Super Bowl, Steve Young, get the monkey off my back.
(35:21):
Twenty ten when the San Fransco Giants won the World Series.
That was freaking awesome, especially because I was living in
Philly and the Giants played the Phillies in the NLCS
and Cody Ross took Roy Halliday, who was unhittable. Literally,
I don't think he gave up a hit in the
In his first series, he threw a no hitter and
Cody Ross had two home runs off him in that series.
(35:42):
That was Badassuh yeah, those will probably be the the top.
I mean, I was a big Niners Giants fan growing
up basketball. I kind of bounced around. I was always
a big UCLA basketball fan. They haven't been good in
a while, but you know, I've always kind of been
(36:03):
a horror as a fan, I just root for specific
players that I like and kind of latch. I've always
been like that, specific coaches that I like. But growing up,
I mean, the Niners and the San Francco Giants were massive.
I mean they were they were my life. And then
as I got in football, I mean, I just it's
just not the same. It's just not I mean, when
you get to know these people, it just changes, you know.
(36:26):
It's hard to explain some people, you know, when I
try to tell them, I don't think they quite get it. Obviously,
when I got into this, just sports in general, when
I started doing it stuff in college, it was my
life and my passion. But it's just it's rare that
you just are able to keep it. Like I still
get a lot of joy out of watching games my
rooting interest. Now I just gamble a lot. But yeah, then,
(36:50):
I mean the ninety four so young, they're probably there
were some forty nine or moments when I was like
in high school, the Terrell Owens, the game where he
had the game winning catch against the Pack, that would
have been like ninety nine. There are some playoff games
in the early two thousands, but then by the time
like I got to Fresno State probably in the late
two thousands. It was just I thought about it a
(37:10):
little differently, so Baseball was probably one. Baseball really is
like I'm still a big Giants fan. That's the one
team that I'm still I don't know. I know a
couple of people in the sport, but it's just still
kind of pure to me from a fan standpoint, and
that's why I'm I'm so pissed off right now. I
gotta watch Gabe Kapler I refuse and the Dodgers are
really good. Now, I'll say this, I still hate some
(37:34):
teams that I hated growing up. I hate the Lakers.
Though I'm not ahead of Lebron hater, but I hate
the Lakers. I root for them to lose. I hate
the Houston Rockets route for them to lose. I don't
really hate the Dodgers. Is there a college team I hate?
I'm not a big Ohio State guy, but I know
a couple of people that went to Ohiose State and
I like them. So it's like, what am I hating this?
Because they're sweet? But I can I can understand. I mean,
(37:58):
when you when you're number one one team wins a
championship and for the Chiefs, I don't know how old
you are, but if you're thirty or forty, I mean,
that's a long time, you know, it's hello's a long
time just to get to the championship game. So that's
that's a cool moment. You know, you never forget that.
I'm gonna skip that question. Is there a scenario that
(38:21):
you can see the Colts signing a quarterback in free
agency and trading Jacoby Brissette back to the Patriots. Well,
the scenario would be Tom leaving them, landing Philip Rivers
and the Patriots needing a quarterback. So right there, Tom leaves,
Rivers goes to the Indie, Jacoby goes back to the
(38:42):
New England. There's your scenario. I have a hard time
seeing them trading him though, because his cap number, his
dead CAP's pretty big. I think in a perfect world,
they signed Philip Rivers and they keep Jacoby as the backup.
Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it'll play
out a different way, but that's kind of the way
I envision it. International listener here all the way from Portsmouth, UK, Portsmouth, UK,
(39:07):
just wonder your take on a possible franchise move to London.
Should we get excited by the Jags playing back to
back games here this year is a step toward them moving.
If not the Jags, which other team could be in
the frame for a move. I think it is the Jags,
and I think it's borderline inevitable once you go back
to back games. My guests uneducated. I don't know anyone
(39:31):
in the league office. I follow Shod Cohn's kid on Twitter.
He follows me, but I've DMed a couple of times,
never dms me back, so it's not like we're friends.
I would again completely no inside air information. I'd go
over under five years, and I'd put it right about
it five years. The Jaguars are in London, the Jacksonville
(39:52):
the Jacksonville markets too small. Clearly they already have their
kind of toes over there. They've got to be making money.
I think the league ultimately he wants to go international.
That's the team. You're not gonna move Tampa. The Glaziers
have too much cash. You're not gonna move the Atlanta Falcons.
You'd have to You'd have to be a team on
the eastern seaboard. I guess Buffalo maybe but it seems
(40:14):
like things are going pretty well there New England. No Giants,
no Jets, no Phillies, no Redskins No. So it's just
it's gotta be the Jags. Am I missing a team
in Florida? The Dolphins? No, So it's it's the Jags
are bust. I don't even think there's another option. Hey, John,
love the show, keep up the awesome content. Appreciate it.
My question is do you think the Broncos should stay
(40:36):
with Drew Lock or do you think they will try
to trade up for one of the top quarterbacks in
the draft. They just draft Drew Lock in the second
round and he looked pretty good to end of the season.
I think one million percent. You roll with Drew Lock,
and you see what he's got this year. He's a
starting quarterback. Your defense should be good. Your Pat you
know you got what's his name, Bradley Chubb coming back
with Vaughan, I would imagine the defense is even better.
(40:57):
Another year under Fangio, you have Pat Shermer. I think
you're equipped to be a really good team, really good strong.
Let me let me roll that back. I think you
equipped to be a good team. You went to seven
to nine this year after a terrible start, what was it?
One and five? One and six? Why can't you be?
Nine and seven compete for a wildcard? Nine and seven
(41:17):
made the wild card this year. Ten and six divisions
not very good. Who's gonna Chargers quarterback? If Brady doesn't come,
might be Herbert? So that they might not be good.
I mean they have a lot of talent. Cheaster good
the Raiders. Who knows why why couldn't you finish second
that division and go nine to seven? Make the playoffs.
Look through your children's eyes to see the true magic
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(41:41):
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Is this fascinating world? Find a forest near you and
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Adoption of teams from foster care is a topic not
enough people know about, and we're here to change that.
I'm April Dinuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption,
presented by adopt Us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling,
(42:47):
real life adoption stories told by the families that live them,
with commentary from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org,
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Us Kids, brought to you by the US Department of
Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families and
the Accouncil's A Long Question here. Love the show. Long
(43:09):
Question incoming I see. Feel free to stop reading once
you get to the gist of what I'm asking. I've
always been curious about how Scouts, Gems and front offices
evaluate the relative value of draft picks. How many third
round picks is a first round pick worth? If you
could hypothetically give up a first a mid first round
pick to get two second rounders and two third rounders,
(43:32):
wouldn't that be more value for your team since instead
of getting one guy who of one of your top
twenty players, you are getting four guys who you have
in the fifty to one hundred players. I get what
you're saying. There's a thing that has been around since
Jimmy Johnson that has been updated in twenty twenty. It's
(43:52):
been updated every year, but now most teams have an
updated chart. They put a number value on every pick.
So let's just start hypothetically the number one overall pick
is worth ten thousand points, and then it starts working
this way down until the next pick's worth you know,
ninety seven hundred, and then you know ninety five hundred,
(44:14):
and then and then eventually starts dropping off big. It
goes from like once you get from pick like twelve
to fifteen, you go, you know, it drops off dramatically.
So you have to add up If I'm getting two
second round picks, do they add up to the value
and that's kind of how most teams operate. Now, there
is a tax. If you want my one or two
(44:34):
overall pick, you got to overpay for it, right because
I know you want a quarterback. To me, if you
want the tenth pick to get a tackle, and you
have a late first rounder and a mid second rounder,
and it's give or take the value, and I like
the value, I'll do it. But if I have the
number one overall pick and you want to and you
have the eighth pick and you can meet the value,
(44:56):
I'll give you the eighth pick, I'll give you my
second round pick, and i'll give you next year first
round pick. Well, let's say have the number one overall
pick and I like Joe Burrow, but I don't need
a quarterback. But I have multiple teams bidding for it.
Even if the offer that you first gave me two
ones and a two. What if I go, you know what,
I'm gonna need more because I'll just trade them to
someone else I have a better offer on the table.
(45:18):
Or hell, I'll just stay here and take Chase Young
You it's it's real estate. It's it's a oceanfront property.
There's only so much real estate there and there's only
so many quarterbacks in every draft, and especially when I
know that you like a quarterback. So I think there's
a leverage game when you when you factor in quarterbacks,
when you factor in just a corner or a wide receiver,
(45:40):
you just have to equal the number, assuming that team
wants to trade. And I think a lot of the
good teams that don't need quarterbacks are always open to
trading for you know, if I have the thirteenth pick
and you'll offer me two twos and next year's one,
you know a smart team will do that right again
(46:00):
if the value is good. And I have a bunch
of highly rated guys in the top fifty five of
the draft. So I think it's also determined on what
players are in a given draft, like every draft is
not the same. This draft, from just the naked eye,
I watch a lot of I watch an unhealthy amount
of college football, and from my friends in the NFL,
is a really good draft. Feels like there's gonna be
(46:22):
a really talented like top seventy five. So the difference
between in this draft pick thirty and pick forty eight
eight might not be that dramatic For a lot of teams,
they go, yeah, we'll get a starter at either spot,
so we might as well trade back and get extra picks.
But if the draft was shitty and you're like, well,
you know, this is not a great top fifty players.
(46:45):
There's like seventeen good players and there's a dramatic drop
off and most of the guys were just guys, then
you probably wouldn't be as likely to do that. So
I think it's I think it's very dependent on the
crop of guys on an individual year. Like the number
one pick is not always the same. There's a sweet
core back in a draft, it changes it. If there's not,
it doesn't like last year having a top two pick
(47:05):
was a big deal. It's Kyler Murray and Nick Bosa.
Then it was like, then who do you take? You know,
Quinnin Williams one year wonder, then Cleveland Ferrell. Then I
like Devin White, but it's just some unknown and that
last year was a good draft. But it felt like
Kyler Murray was a star and he wont offensive Rookie
of the Year, which we could argue, but he's clearly
pretty good. And Nick Bosa, listen, I was wrong. I
(47:28):
tried to I was just too negative. But it's clear.
I mean, he's a superstar. So that was the draft.
I mean, the one year that Solomon Thomas went third,
it was Miles Garrett went one, who's by far the
best player in the draft. Then it went mister Bisky
Solomon Thomas. So on that given year, it was like,
you know, some years it's like Alden Smith and JJ
Watt are going ten eleven and Odell Beckham and you know,
(47:50):
you just every draft is kind of unique, and that's
the key to knowing the draft value is factoring in
the chart, but with the players and how you value
them kind of on a year to year basis. That's
why it gets pretty complicated. It's also why having experience
in drafts and knowing the league and knowing the next
crop of guys coming out is really important. You can't
(48:11):
live in the moment, even though sometimes on draft night
it's hard not to live in the moment. You spend
all this time, I've seeing it firsthand. You work all spring,
You then work summary evaluating the guy's junior tape or
sophomore tape. Then you work all fall evaluating the actual tape.
Then you go through the combine and the pro days
and the workouts, and then all of a sudden you
(48:33):
get there and it's hard to go, well, let's just
push this back another year. You're like, hell, I've been
I've been cooking all night. I want to eat right,
I mean, you're just you're ready to sit down for dinner.
And sometimes it's it's hard to put the fork down.
But the smart teams have the discipline that you could
argue the smart people in life have discipline. That's why
I'm gonna go eat some ice cream now that I'm
done recording. Appreciate everyone listening. See you guys next week. Audios.
(48:56):
Have a great freaking weekend, and and yeah, enjoy wherever
you are. Might be cold, it might be Sonny who knows,
But enjoy the weekend. Is someone you love in a
(49:27):
relationship with, Somebody who tells the same joke over and over.
Somebody who has the audacity to starfish the bed. Now,
be honest, is that somebody you look me Andy's nose.
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(00:21):
four red roses for ten dollars more. Go to one
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hundred flowers dot com. Slash tune in. What is going on? Everybody?
(00:43):
It's me job little Coop in the three and Out podcast.
I don't know why I'm talking so weird. I guess
I'm just excited. How to slam like a diat mountain
dew about an hour ago, and I'm I got the
caffeine flowing through my body. Can't wait. I broke down
every XFL game and I'm gonna prepare us for this weekend.
I'm totally kidding. I would never do that in a
(01:05):
million years. But actually there's some interesting stuff going on.
Mel Tucker, I'm gonna start with that. Mel Tucker going
to Michigan State and the amount of money, the reflection
of what it meant to the PAC twelve. There was
a really really good article on Rick Smith, the former
Houston Texans GM on the Athletic by Dan Pompey, who
(01:26):
can just write a hell of an article. It was
a really powerful article. But there was something specific in
there that stood out to me from a scouting perspective.
And I remember when I worked in the league, like
Lewis Riddick, you used to talk about it all the time,
how teams just did a poor job of this, and
it's just it's he was dead on with something. We'll
dive into that. And then you know that there have
(01:48):
been two famous players that I've seen by like a
local guy in their market, kind of go viral on
my Twitter timeline. One of them was Khalil Mack and
the other was Matt Staff that they were going to
get traded. And I think there's something we need to
discuss while talking about trades in the NFL. And while
we see them a lot more last year we saw
(02:10):
Odell Beckham trade, which I think kind of falls under
this category, but we see a lot more at the
trade deadline. There are certain trades that are just impossible,
factoring in financial situations and this thing that they call
a dead cap, meaning the money that even if you
get cut the guy or trade the guy, that you
still incore incur as a franchise. So we just need
(02:32):
to pump the brakes because I love a good trade,
a potential trade as much as anybody. And I retweeted
that Matt Stafford was going to get traded last night
at about ten o'clock while I was laying in bed.
But then I realized, like John, you just you need
to pump the brakes a little bit. And then of
course we'll go into my dms on Instagram. It's how
we interact with you guys at John Middlecoff is my
(02:55):
Instagram Twitter, but my dms on Instagram are wide open.
Asked me anything and we'll get you a question here
on the pot. And want one more thing I have.
I'm sure a lot of you guys listen to this
podcast on Collin's feed. I also have my own feed
just three and out John Middlecoff. You can type it
into iTunes and find it. One thing I'd like you
(03:16):
to do if you like the show. Seems like a
lot of you guys do get a lot of positive dms.
Leave a review on my specific handle, the three and
out John Middlecoff. It has a little microphone and my name.
If you're not already subscribed, it goes on both. If
you want to, you can just subscribe these shows go
(03:36):
to that feed and to Collins feed. But just go
on there and leave a review. That would be greatly appreciated.
But let's start with mel Tucker, Colorado and Michigan State
because it's kind of been the big football story of
the week, beside the cheat and Astros, which is a
baseball story. But I'd be down to talk a lot
(03:57):
of smack about them, but I've done that enough on Twitter.
Melt Tucker after he was hired, I think in December
of two thousand, What's what are we two twenty so
he might have been hired right at the end of
twenty eighteen, or he was a Colorado one season and
he just left to Michigan State this week. And I
(04:19):
want to start with just a quick exercise. If we
started five businesses from scratch, an it's gonna be hypothetical
in an industry where they could succeed where there was,
you know, more than more than enough quantity of people
to consume whatever product they were doing, and they weren't
going to fail. And we just let them all go
(04:40):
for ten years, the five businesses, and we checked back
in ten years, I think it'd be pretty clear the
hierarchy of those five businesses. More than likely one, probably
two of them would be highly successful. And this is
for this exercise. Let's just assume high end business, you
(05:00):
can make a lot of money. One or two of
them would be crushing it. The other two would be
somewhere in the middle. They'd be surviving, and one would
be a train wreck, one would be a disaster. Just
the way the world works, you know. It's it's just
a fact. When I was growing up, all five major conferences,
now they were aligned a little differently, but the PAC ten,
(05:23):
the Big Twelve, the Big Ten, the ACC, and the SEC.
And I was born in the mid eighties, so by
the time I started watching football early nineties, mid nineties,
late nineties, you just turn on the TV and there'd
be good games all over the country and you just
on any given year, Oregon could be compete for the
National championship, Texas could, Michigan could Ohio State, could Alabama, Georgia,
(05:48):
Florida like the same several teams, but it was it
felt relatively equal. Just you had your two or three
top teams in each conference and they were all kind
of competing. That's no longer the case. We have two
programs of the Power five that are on a completely
different level financially than the other three. And really Oklahoma
(06:08):
in the Big twelve and Clemson in the a SEC
helped make those two conferences somewhat outliers because they're both
in shambles. But those two conferences dominate like an SEC
or a Big ten school when it comes to money,
when it comes to funds, and when it comes to winning.
Then you got the PAC twelve. And Dan Wetzel wrote
a good article this week. Stop we need to stop
(06:29):
using the term power five. It's really like Power two Oklahoma, Clemson,
and then the PAC twelve is basically it's actually much
closer right now to the Mountain West than it is
to the Big ten or the SEC. Because when mel
Tucker took the job, and I'm not going to go
into some moral high horse story about keeping the job,
(06:51):
he did make a comment about there's no transfer portal
in the real world, which is a stupid comment because
there literally is. I mean, the great part about America,
you literally can quit any job at any moment. You
can do whatever you want to do. I can't speak
for every country, though I do know a good amount
of countries. Like ask the NBA about China. You're not
just allowed to do whatever you want in America. I
(07:13):
could just stop podcasting tomorrow and just go work at
insurance or go work at a restaurant. I do whatever
I want, so can you. Now we might not choose to,
but we have those options, so he can say whatever
he wants. The players, a player can't just leave a program.
They can transfer, but they have to sit out a year.
We all know that. I'm not going to go into
some huge deep dive into that. I think Jay billis
(07:35):
is of the world have that market corner. But he
got a salary doubled, and he got his coaching salary
is coaching pool for his assistance doubled. And he also
is not from the West Coast. He's from the Midwest An.
He had coached to Michigan State. So I get it, Like,
you don't love a guy being a one and done
from a Power five, again allegedly a Power five, but
(07:56):
I think it shows you because all I've heard from
the Pac twelve people Colorado was being fiscally responsible. I
don't think you can be fiscally responsible with your football coach.
You could be fiscally responsible with the swimming team, with
the men's baseball team, but when it comes when it
comes to football, there is no expense that the SEC
(08:19):
or the Big Ten spares on their football programs. They
cut corners with the other programs, but when it comes
to football, and at most programs men's basketball, they pay
for every bill, every stinking bill in the athletic program.
Without those programs, you couldn't function because every other program's
(08:41):
in the red. And one issue I think we're having
out here on the West Coast, our school presidents are
consumed with everything butt football, the Olympic sports academics and
I'm not anti academics, but do you notice this and
there have been studies and they talk about it all
the time on the broadcast. You win at football, it's
(09:01):
such a national televised and so many people are watching it,
your enrollment goes up. Your competition to get into the
programs increase, and I think Cal and UCLA would say, well, yeah,
we don't need that to get and they're right, they don't. Well,
the problem is the money that the athletic program is
generating because they're not putting in the resources into the
football program, which is why these coaches. We've had two
(09:25):
coaches in the PAC twelve. And I say we because
I'm a PAC twelve fan, but I feel like I'm
the only guy in island beating the drum that this
is something's got to change because this is not working.
Michigan State just came in in the blink of a night,
doubled the guy's salary, doubled the guy's assistant pool, and
the dude left a PAC twelve job. It'd be one
thing if he was at Colorado State or Fresno State
and be like, yeah, I get it. He was at Colorado,
(09:48):
which produces pros. A couple of years ago, they won
the PAC twelfth South. They went into the Pack twel like,
it's a pretty good job. But when they're only paying
two point seven million dollars in Michigan State's gonna pay
him six million dollars, It's like, I get it, But
my question is why can't Colorado pay the six million
dollars you went on a coaching search. You believe in
this guy. That's the costs of doing business in the industry.
(10:09):
The problem is the PAC twelve isn't generating the money.
They don't have the ability to just snap their fingers
and write a huge check, where the SEC and the
Big ten do it all the time. Because in there's
conferences when another school comes after their coaches, whether they're
in love with their coach. Listen, most coaches aren't Nick Saban.
We understand that. But if you got Dan Mullins and
you really like them, then all of a sudden, Penn
(10:30):
State calls you gotta give him a race. It's costs
of doing business, and I feel like the PAC twelve
is operating like a mom and pop shop. We gotta
be fiscally responsible. Well, when the mom and pop shop
moves in to whatever building they're moving into to run
their business, the rent check matters of them, how much
you're going to charge them in rent. When Google or
(10:50):
Salesforce or Facebook moves into a building, they cut a
year's worth of rent. They don't care. And right now
the SEC and the Big ten they don't care when
it comes to football. There is no check. They won't
cut and in fairness like the ACC Florida State did
it with Willie Taggart, the the Big Twelve, They've done
it to Texas before. There are programs that will do
(11:13):
it out here. It's like, oh, we can't afford to
go the extra two million a year. What is two
million a year extra for a football coach if you
believed in the guy, which you clearly did because you
went on a natural search after having the same coach
for six years, and you already paid them. Now. I'm
not even some mil Tucker fan, even though everyone that
I text with in the NFL, people that have been
around them, really like them a lot. They think highly
(11:36):
of the guy. But my issue is the Pac twelve
if we keep going at this rate, because clearly they
are not making anywhere near the money of those two
conferences because they have this television deal that no one
can see. Their football programs are not winning enough. They're
not going to you know, they're not going to the
college football Playoffs. I think they've been there once in
(11:58):
the last five years. They're even in basketball like the SEC.
Do you notice if you fall college basketball. Do you
see the SEC Like Auburn's got Bruce Pearl, They're like
a top ten program. Georgia went out and paid five
million dollars to Tom Crean. When you win at football
and your conference wins at football, it trickles down. The
other thing we love hanging our hat on out on
the West Coast, Well, we dominate the Olympic sports, swimming, soccer,
(12:23):
you know, uh, lacrosse. Well, what do you think Alabama's
going to do in five years when they go? You
know what, we wouldn't mind being good at women's soccer
and men's swimming too. Well, who's got the best coach? Oh? UCLA? Well,
how much do they pay the swimming coach at Ucay? Like, oh,
they pay him one hundred and ten grand. How much
does it cost do you live in You say, like
a lot? How about we give him two hundred and
(12:43):
seventy five thousand dollars because we have an unlimited budget.
They're not pinching pennies on the most important support and asset,
and that's football. And it constantly happens in the Pac
twelve where it's like, oh, we can't afford to pay
him that that's always the answer, which if it was
soccer or lass or men's baseball, I'd okay because someone
(13:04):
I tweeted, I went on this tweet rant, Someone's like,
that doesn't sound like a good way to do business
if you're not being physically responsible. Yeah, to non revenue
generating you know, entities. But if it's your football program, which,
like I said, literally pays for every bill and every
coach and every pair of shoes and every basketball on campus,
(13:25):
you better double down on that area. And I think
the PAC twelve right now is somewhat lost and understanding
the power and the importance of football. Now. There are
elements that in the PAC twelve that don't parallel the SEC.
There's a passion level down there that is unique. It's
basically the NFL light and even the Big Ten. I
(13:48):
also think of benefit that those two conferences have is
their prime programs are in tiny little towns, right so
that matters. Gainesville, Starkville, Tuscaloose is a bigger town. Baton Rouge.
Its place in the middle of nowhere. I've been to
Penn State. It's it's like the tiny little town. I've
never been to Ann Harbor, but it ain't you know
(14:09):
Detroit never been to Columbus, that that might be a
little bit of a bigger town. But think of some
of our big programs out west to San Francisco, Palo Alto, Berkeley, Seattle,
at Los Angeles. You know, it sounds good in theory,
but it actually hurts. And because it's so spread out,
(14:32):
those are pro towns. That's what that's what makes Oregon
somewhat unique. And you could argue over the last twenty
years they've been the most balanced when it comes to
winning at football and winning at basketball. And they're also
lucky Phil Knight went to school there and finances them
like it's the SEC or the Big Ten. But I
was embarrassed by mil Tucker leaving in the sense that
everyone tried to justify it, well, they were being fiscally responsible. No,
(14:55):
let's just call let's call spade a spade. They don't
have the money, they can't hang with the Big ten.
And that's as big of a red flag as you
can you can get. Because it's only twenty twenty. Well,
what's it going to look like in five or ten
more years? As these the media and the dollars that
are flowing in for television rights are growing exponentially. Well,
(15:16):
they're only going to keep doubling down on the big
ten in the SEC because of the efforts and the
resources they're pouring into their own programs. So I don't
really know what to say Beside the PAC twelve might
be screwed big picture, something doesn't dramatically change soon. Get
right to the romance and find the way to wow
this Valentine's with one to hundred flowers dot com. From
classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate covered berries, gourmet
(15:39):
treats and more. Surprise your Valentine with one hundred flowers
dot com right now. Get the eighteen stem enchanted rose
metally for thirty nine ninety nine, or upgrade to twenty
four red roses for ten dollars more. Go to one
hundred flowers dot com slash tune in. That's one eight
hundred flowers dot com. Slash tune in. What grows in
(16:01):
the forest trees, shure no. What else grows in the forest?
Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our family bonds
grow too, because when we disconnect from this and connect
with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is
closer than you think. Find a forest near you and
(16:22):
start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org brought to
you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council.
What grows in the forest, trees, shure No. What else
grows in the forest. Our imagination, our sense of wonder,
and our family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect
from this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other.
(16:48):
The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest
near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot
org brought to you by the United States Forest Service
and the AD Council. Okay, let's dive into something. Rick Smith,
the former Houston Texans general manager, said in an article
(17:10):
if you subscribe to The Athletic. It was written by
Dan Pompey. It was really good. It was really good,
But he said something that really stood out to me.
We spend so much time. This is about the scouting process,
the college scouting process. We spend so much time, resources, energy,
attention on draft evaluation. We have huge dozers on these players,
(17:34):
where they're from, how they learn, personal lives, social skill
set scores, their history, everything after the draft, all that
information about the player we learned doesn't get integrated into
his onboarding. I think that's a mistake. You can onboard
players and utilize all that information to put a plan
(17:57):
together that gives them a chance, to give them a
better chance. It's to be a better man, better member
of the organization, and a better football player. There is
a holistic approach to player development that we are missing,
and onboarding is just like integrating them in right. Usually
when you're hired out of college, there's just a process.
(18:20):
A lot of people are hired to companies that they
intern with their senior year in football. While you play
football in college, and then you're playing football in the
pros where the football is relatively similar. Life dramatically changes
and a huge curveball in pro sports, unlike the real
world most of us. I mean, hell, my job out
of college was twenty five thousand dollars with the Philadelphia Eagles.
(18:43):
Hopefully yours was a lot higher than that. You know
a lot of people sixty seventy eighty, maybe now hundred,
depending on where you're working. You get decent money, super
smart guys. Maybe you guys are making one hundred and fifty.
I don't know. I made nothing, But the reality is
if you're taking a guy in the first couple rounds
of the NFL draft, you were paying him millions of dollars.
If I take you in the middle of the first round.
(19:05):
I'm John middlecoff Bit, a linebacker from Alabama, and I
get drafted to the Minnesota Vikings. They just get fifteen
million dollars guaranteed when I sign it. Well, do you
notice why for a long period of time the Alabama
guys that there was this notion like Alabama guys just
don't transition well in the NFL because there is not
(19:25):
an hour at Alabama three sixty five during the season
and during the off season that you are not accounted for.
The only time you may have a little wig wiggle
room is class. And if they're not super on you
because you've proven that you can make it to class,
they don't do class checks. And you could if you're smart,
(19:45):
you can sleep in and not go. But other than that,
when it comes to your homework, when it comes to
your tests, when it comes to your meals, when it
comes to your sleeping, when it comes to practice, they're
on your twenty four seven, three sixty five. In pro football,
even if you're a rookie. Once training camp ends and
the season starts, you get to live just like all
the you know, Larry Fitzgerald gets to live. Show up
(20:08):
on Wednesday, but you get Tuesday off. If you win,
you get Monday off. By Thursday or Friday, the days
are a little shorter. You got a lot of free
time on your hand. Imagine having a ton of free
time and a ton of money. Not an ideal combination.
John Baxter, who was the Special Team's coach when I
was at Fressens State, used to say, the worst thing
(20:28):
in life is a young guy in discretionary income, a
lot of it, because you're just gonna make poor decisions.
I am just now in my mid thirties and I've I've,
you know, every year over the last ten years, have
made more and more money. I'm kind of learning and
how to manage my money, put some away, pay the bills,
(20:49):
what I can, spend what I can't. It takes a
long period of time to figure that out. And I
think what Rick smiths saying, and I remember Lewis Riddick
used to save this all the time. You spend all
this information like you're getting ready for the prospect that
you're going to draft, and then you finally do well.
Most humans are not Peyton Manning or Tom Brady that
they can just operate and do everything without having their handheld. Well,
(21:12):
some guys need help. Where do I live? What do
I do with my free time? What do I do
with all this money? How do I balance? You know,
my mom's gonna come stay with me, or my grandpa
or my cousin. Where do I get a car? I'm
just talking basic stuff that can overwhelm people. And I
think a lot of times in the NFL coaches and
it's just focused on what do we gotta do to win?
(21:34):
What do we gotta do to win? What do we
gotta do to win? Now, I'm not a big believer
in holding your hand, but if I'm going to invest
twenty million dollars, I have the tenth pick in the draft.
Let's just I'm gonna pick a number. I think it's
give or take somewhere around there. I better just based
on the financial resources I'm them giving to this individual.
And clearly, if I'm gonna draft him at ten, what
(21:54):
I think of him, I should probably hold his hand
for a couple of years, or attempt to until he
proves you know what, and maybe by the first three
or four months you realize this guy's got it figured out.
He's a high level guy. A lot of humans, even
mature humans, are going to be overwhelmed. And I think
a lot of times you just depend well, the vets
will take care of him. And I'm not saying the
(22:15):
vets don't take care of them, but there is just
an element. And this is the difference between I think
pro and definitely college, but even college, what the money
coaches are making, they approach him now more like pro football.
There used to be a big connection with your position coach,
and there still is in certain instances where you're pretty
(22:35):
close to that guy and he can help you out.
He can be somewhat of a mentor, and I think
that often gets lost in the NFL, and definitely from
the scouting side, once the draft ends, all the scouts
just kind of move on. You just start with the
next crop instead. Well, if I was the area scout
and I knew the guy that we drafted in the
third round, again, if you draft a guy in the
(22:56):
third round, you still probably give him a signing bonus
like four or five hundred thousand dollars still a lot
of money. You clearly liked him because you invested a
top I don't know, eighty pick in the guy, and
this guy might have a learning disability whatever. I mean,
any piece of information that you accumulated that you knew
before the draft, and then it kind of just gets
forgotten and the dudes just expected like, why can't this
(23:16):
guy cover the slot? Well, I don't know, he's overwhelmed
in life right now. There's a lot going on. It
can be really overwhelming. And you know me, if you
listen to this podcast, I'm not some I'm not a
big excuse guy, but I do think there are specific
things that you learn about a guy when you're scouting
from the program, like, hey, this guy, like coaches tell
(23:38):
you this. You know, this guy's not great at learning
on the board. He's better at learning on the field,
and then he's not good in the meeting room. But
I'm telling you, when the game starts, he's able to
take all the information. And then by the middle of
training camp you're getting an email from your general manager
like why can't this guy figure out what to do
in meetings? Because we knew going into it, And I
think Rick Smith is dead on. I think the programs
(23:59):
that do it right the information and I'm talking the
specific information about the human being, not the football, because
the football always gets figured out, because that's what you're
putting all your emphasis on. I'm talking about the person
and I'm talking about learning disabilities. I'm just talking about things,
not even learning disabilities. Just this guy. I'm trying to
(24:21):
even think of an example. But people need help, and
people there's a ton of pressure that comes along with
rookie players that not everyone is equipped to handle it.
Even guys that end up do it like doing it.
It can be really, really difficult, and I would imagine
programs like New England. Clearly New England. I think Seattle
(24:45):
does a good job of it. I think the forty
nine ers now with Kyle Shanahan are doing all the
winning teams, the Eagles, the Chiefs. When you look at
losing teams and you see these players that are just
like fighting for themselves young guys, It's like, come on,
this has to be a group effort year and all
the information and all the work you do in the
scouting process just needs to start getting factored in more.
(25:08):
I mean, these teams are are wasting all the resources
that they spend for the twelve months or maybe let's
say the nine months you use getting ready for this
player and then ultimately picking them, and then you just
end up disregarding it by the time the guy gets
in your building. It just doesn't make any sense, Okay.
Like like you guys, I'm not any different. I'm a
(25:28):
sucker for a good trade rumor. It's probably why I
got into the business. It's why I wanted to work
in the NFL. I love transactions, Love drafts, love draft day, trades,
love free agency, love trades, love it all. I mean,
that's why we all. It's the cool part about sports,
you know, transactions, adding players to your team. This is
(25:53):
the type of time of year with free agency right
around the corner where we're reading a lot about this
guy might be released. We've talked about cap cuts. The
guy that I saw the other day since the since
the Early Week podcast was DeVante Freeman. I immediately text
couple of my buddies in the league and they go, yeah,
he's he's not He's a shell of himself. He's slower now.
(26:15):
But you're gonna see a ton of names like that.
But you're also gonna see some you know, pretty famous
guys like last year, the big is Odell Beckham gonna
get traded. A couple of years ago, Khalil Mack got traded.
Now that was you know, in training camp. But still
we've seen some pretty big trades the last couple of years.
So I do take When I see a headline that
says Matt Stafford is on the block, I retweet immediately
(26:39):
because I'm like, WHOA, I don't even think about him,
like that's sweet. And then I realized, God, you gotta
take a deep breatch on. What I do now is
I Google and I go to spot track. It's where
you can look at a player's contract in basketball. When
I give Steph Curry five years, two hundred million, I
(27:01):
do stagger the money a little bit, like a year
to year. He makes a little more every year, but
basically it's thirty five, thirty eight, thirty seven, forty one,
forty two whatever to add up to two hundred million.
Clay Thompson, same deal, and it's all It's just spread
out throughout the deal. There is no signing bonus. Just
his first year he makes thirty five million. By the
second year, He's made sixty five million. It just keeps
(27:23):
adding up. It's not the way it works in baseball.
Same thing. I think they have changed baseball a little bit,
like some guys do the escrow account where they get
money later on. That's kind of been a new thing.
But still for the most part, your money's your money.
In football, that's not the case, right. We see all
the time, like breaking news, this is gonna happen when
free agency starts. Trying to think of a player. Let's
(27:46):
go Amari Cooper. Amari Cooper has signed a five year,
hundred million dollar deal twenty million dollars a season. We're like, damn,
Amari got paid the Colts. The Cowboys's we all like, damn,
give him his bag. And then it comes out, well, actually,
(28:06):
he did sign a five hundred million dollars deal on paper,
but there's only forty seven point seven million dollars of
the guaranteed. She's like, oh, so he basically signed a
two and a half year, forty seven million dollars deal.
Because the way football works is the true guaranteed money
you make. Like Matt Stafford's total guarantees were ninety two
(28:29):
million dollars, so you take that ninety two million dollars
and you pro rate it at I don't know the
exact like formula over the life of the deal, and
it's usually more upfront the true guaranteed, like his true
guarantee at signing was like sixty million dollars, So in
his first year of that deal, his dead cap if
(28:49):
they were to cut him, would have been seventy five
million dollars. It's a lot of money, so you're not
going to cut a guy when it would cost seventy
five million dollars on your cap. But in two thousand twenty,
as of right now, Matt Stafford's dead cap meant if
they cut him or traded him, meaning the bonus money
that has got amortized over the deal, would be thirty
(29:12):
two million dollars. Well, the salary cap is two hundred
million dollars, so think about it. Thirty million dollars of
two hundred it'd be fifteen percent. It'd be like sixteen
percent of the salary cap. You wouldn't trade a guy
to not play on your team, to be sixteen percent
of your salary cap to play for someone else. It
doesn't make any sense. It's actually cheaper to keep him
(29:34):
his cap hit, so if he's on the team, there's
no such thing as deadcap because he's on your team.
But his actual cap hit if he's on the team
is twenty one million dollars, so you actually save over
basically eleven million dollars. But just keeping him around, and
anytime that you see a big, big name like this,
just go to the internet google his contract. I use
(29:54):
spot track, spot r ac dot com and you can
just look at the numbers. Now when guys, it's why
Derek Carr keeps coming up because they can get out
of Derek Carr for like four million dollars. Once you
get under you know, six seven million dollars. When the
salary caps two hundred million dollars, it's nothing. Once you
get under five million dollars a dead cap. Think about
(30:16):
the salary caps two hundred million dollars. So you're talking
like two and a half percent. You can stomach that,
but when you're talking to thirty two million dollars. And
I know on Thursday, Matt Stafford, the GM of the Lions,
came out and was adamant, like it wasn't one of
those like PR stunts. It was like, this is insane,
and you know what he's I believe him because it
makes no sense. That was part of the reason the
(30:37):
New York Giants last year got nailed and got kind
of took a lot of shit because I'm typing in
O'Dell to the to the website right now, because last year,
I think O'Dell's dead cap money was I got him
right here. So O'Dell's dead cap money was nineteen million
(30:58):
dollars last year. Excuse me, Yeah, nineteen million dollars. That
was on the Cleveland Brown or the New York Giant
salary cap. Actually, it might have been hired in that.
This might not be right because I remember reading it
was higher in that think about that they they paid
a guy it was good to just not be on
their team. It really didn't make any sense if you're
(31:19):
going to sign a human to a big deal, and
in football, I'd say anything over thirty million dollars guaranteed
is pretty big because once you get to thirty year,
immediately talking about two years, you're talking the first and
second years. You can't trade them or cut them without
taking a huge penalty on your own cap. So this year,
when the free agency comes around, any guy's getting thirty plus,
(31:43):
and obviously the good players get forty fifty sixty. The
quarterbacks get now one hundred, one hundred and twenty one
hundred ten. You're stuck with those guys for a while.
And the good thing about the NFL, you really only
do deals with four or five of those guys a team. Right.
In basketball, every guy's on a guaranteed deal. Same with baseball.
But in baseball, like that Mookie Bets trade that just happened,
(32:04):
you can do weird things, right the Boston Red Sox
eight half the contract and traded David Price. In football,
I can't eat my dead cap. The dead CAP's the
dead cap. I can eat maybe some of the cap
hit and the money, but I can't eat the dead cap.
That that number is set. So whenever you see these
names get thrown around, it's not gonna stop. It's going
(32:25):
to continue because that's just the world we live in now.
On social media. Just do a double checking because I
know I need to, because I'm like, oh, that's Stafford
is not going anywhere. Get right to the romance and
find the way to wow this Valentine's with one hundred
flowers dot com from Classic roses and bouquets to decadent
chocolate covered berries, gourmet treats and more. Surprise your Valentine
(32:48):
with one hundred flowers dot com right now. Get the
eighteen stem enchanted rose metally for thirty nine nine nine,
or upgrade to twenty four red roses for ten dollars more.
Go to one hundred flowers dot com slash tune in.
That's one eight hundred flowers dot com slash tune in.
And we're live here outside the Perez family home, just
(33:09):
waiting for them. And there they go, almost on time.
This morning, Mom is coming off the front door strong
with a double arm kid carry. Looks like Dad has
the bags. Daughter is bringing up the rear. Oh but
the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers and toys are everywhere. Ooh,
but Mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle
(33:30):
for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks
to be about nine or ten, has secured herself in
the booster seat. Dad zips the bag clothes and they're off. Ah,
but looks like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is
still on the roof of the car and there it
goes Oh, that's a shame that mug was a fam favorite.
(33:50):
Don't sweat the small stuff, just nail the big stuff,
like making sure your kids are buckle correctly in the
right seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more at NHTSA
dot gov. Slash the Right Seat visits NHSA dot gov.
Snice the Right Seat, brought to you by NITZA and
the AD Council. If I could be you and you
could be me for just one hour, if you could
(34:10):
find a way to get inside each other's mind, qualcom
Mile in my Shoes. Welcome Mile in my shoes. Shoes.
We've all felt left out, and for some that feeling
lasts more than a moment. We can change that. Learn
how it belonging begins with us dot org. Brought to
you by the AD Council. Welcome out in the Shoes. Okay,
(34:37):
let's slide into some DMS. Favorite NFL pod me too.
Please don't change the thing. I won't. I'm a Chiefs
die hard and season ticket holder. This past month is
easily my favorite sports moment stretch of my life. I
have to say I don't blame you. I know you
say you're out of the fan business, but What are
your favorite game you've seen to or been favorite sports
(34:59):
moment in your life. Yeah, I mean I'm still a fan.
I got a lot of joy after watching coach Reid win.
I got a lot of joy after watching the forty
nine Ers win the NFC Championship game. Say, my favorite
pure moment pretty special in ninety four is a ten
year old get kid when the Niners won the won
the Super Bowl, Steve Young, get the monkey off my back.
(35:21):
Twenty ten when the San Fransco Giants won the World Series.
That was freaking awesome, especially because I was living in
Philly and the Giants played the Phillies in the NLCS
and Cody Ross took Roy Halliday, who was unhittable. Literally,
I don't think he gave up a hit in the
In his first series, he threw a no hitter and
Cody Ross had two home runs off him in that series.
(35:42):
That was Badassuh yeah, those will probably be the the top.
I mean, I was a big Niners Giants fan growing
up basketball. I kind of bounced around. I was always
a big UCLA basketball fan. They haven't been good in
a while, but you know, I've always kind of been
(36:03):
a horror as a fan, I just root for specific
players that I like and kind of latch. I've always
been like that, specific coaches that I like. But growing up,
I mean, the Niners and the San Francco Giants were massive.
I mean they were they were my life. And then
as I got in football, I mean, I just it's
just not the same. It's just not I mean, when
you get to know these people, it just changes, you know.
(36:26):
It's hard to explain some people, you know, when I
try to tell them, I don't think they quite get it. Obviously,
when I got into this, just sports in general, when
I started doing it stuff in college, it was my
life and my passion. But it's just it's rare that
you just are able to keep it. Like I still
get a lot of joy out of watching games my
rooting interest. Now I just gamble a lot. But yeah, then,
(36:50):
I mean the ninety four so young, they're probably there
were some forty nine or moments when I was like
in high school, the Terrell Owens, the game where he
had the game winning catch against the Pack, that would
have been like ninety nine. There are some playoff games
in the early two thousands, but then by the time
like I got to Fresno State probably in the late
two thousands. It was just I thought about it a
(37:10):
little differently, so Baseball was probably one. Baseball really is
like I'm still a big Giants fan. That's the one
team that I'm still I don't know. I know a
couple of people in the sport, but it's just still
kind of pure to me from a fan standpoint, and
that's why I'm I'm so pissed off right now. I
gotta watch Gabe Kapler I refuse and the Dodgers are
really good. Now, I'll say this, I still hate some
(37:34):
teams that I hated growing up. I hate the Lakers.
Though I'm not ahead of Lebron hater, but I hate
the Lakers. I root for them to lose. I hate
the Houston Rockets route for them to lose. I don't
really hate the Dodgers. Is there a college team I hate?
I'm not a big Ohio State guy, but I know
a couple of people that went to Ohiose State and
I like them. So it's like, what am I hating this?
Because they're sweet? But I can I can understand. I mean,
(37:58):
when you when you're number one one team wins a
championship and for the Chiefs, I don't know how old
you are, but if you're thirty or forty, I mean,
that's a long time, you know, it's hello's a long
time just to get to the championship game. So that's
that's a cool moment. You know, you never forget that.
I'm gonna skip that question. Is there a scenario that
(38:21):
you can see the Colts signing a quarterback in free
agency and trading Jacoby Brissette back to the Patriots. Well,
the scenario would be Tom leaving them, landing Philip Rivers
and the Patriots needing a quarterback. So right there, Tom leaves,
Rivers goes to the Indie, Jacoby goes back to the
(38:42):
New England. There's your scenario. I have a hard time
seeing them trading him though, because his cap number, his
dead CAP's pretty big. I think in a perfect world,
they signed Philip Rivers and they keep Jacoby as the backup.
Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it'll play
out a different way, but that's kind of the way
I envision it. International listener here all the way from Portsmouth, UK, Portsmouth, UK,
(39:07):
just wonder your take on a possible franchise move to London.
Should we get excited by the Jags playing back to
back games here this year is a step toward them moving.
If not the Jags, which other team could be in
the frame for a move. I think it is the Jags,
and I think it's borderline inevitable once you go back
to back games. My guests uneducated. I don't know anyone
(39:31):
in the league office. I follow Shod Cohn's kid on Twitter.
He follows me, but I've DMed a couple of times,
never dms me back, so it's not like we're friends.
I would again completely no inside air information. I'd go
over under five years, and I'd put it right about
it five years. The Jaguars are in London, the Jacksonville
(39:52):
the Jacksonville markets too small. Clearly they already have their
kind of toes over there. They've got to be making money.
I think the league ultimately he wants to go international.
That's the team. You're not gonna move Tampa. The Glaziers
have too much cash. You're not gonna move the Atlanta Falcons.
You'd have to You'd have to be a team on
the eastern seaboard. I guess Buffalo maybe but it seems
(40:14):
like things are going pretty well there New England. No Giants,
no Jets, no Phillies, no Redskins No. So it's just
it's gotta be the Jags. Am I missing a team
in Florida? The Dolphins? No, So it's it's the Jags
are bust. I don't even think there's another option. Hey, John,
love the show, keep up the awesome content. Appreciate it.
My question is do you think the Broncos should stay
(40:36):
with Drew Lock or do you think they will try
to trade up for one of the top quarterbacks in
the draft. They just draft Drew Lock in the second
round and he looked pretty good to end of the season.
I think one million percent. You roll with Drew Lock,
and you see what he's got this year. He's a
starting quarterback. Your defense should be good. Your Pat you
know you got what's his name, Bradley Chubb coming back
with Vaughan, I would imagine the defense is even better.
(40:57):
Another year under Fangio, you have Pat Shermer. I think
you're equipped to be a really good team, really good strong.
Let me let me roll that back. I think you
equipped to be a good team. You went to seven
to nine this year after a terrible start, what was it?
One and five? One and six? Why can't you be?
Nine and seven compete for a wildcard? Nine and seven
(41:17):
made the wild card this year. Ten and six divisions
not very good. Who's gonna Chargers quarterback? If Brady doesn't come,
might be Herbert? So that they might not be good.
I mean they have a lot of talent. Cheaster good
the Raiders. Who knows why why couldn't you finish second
that division and go nine to seven? Make the playoffs.
Look through your children's eyes to see the true magic
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could lead to adventure, and they see you. They're fearless. Guide.
Is this fascinating world? Find a forest near you and
start exploring at discovered forest dot Org, brought to you
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Adoption of teams from foster care is a topic not
enough people know about, and we're here to change that.
I'm April Dinuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption,
presented by adopt Us Kids. Each episode brings you compelling,
(42:47):
real life adoption stories told by the families that live them,
with commentary from experts. Visit adopt us Kids dot org,
slash podcast, or subscribe to Navigating Adoption presented by adopt
Us Kids, brought to you by the US Department of
Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families and
the Accouncil's A Long Question here. Love the show. Long
(43:09):
Question incoming I see. Feel free to stop reading once
you get to the gist of what I'm asking. I've
always been curious about how Scouts, Gems and front offices
evaluate the relative value of draft picks. How many third
round picks is a first round pick worth? If you
could hypothetically give up a first a mid first round
pick to get two second rounders and two third rounders,
(43:32):
wouldn't that be more value for your team since instead
of getting one guy who of one of your top
twenty players, you are getting four guys who you have
in the fifty to one hundred players. I get what
you're saying. There's a thing that has been around since
Jimmy Johnson that has been updated in twenty twenty. It's
(43:52):
been updated every year, but now most teams have an
updated chart. They put a number value on every pick.
So let's just start hypothetically the number one overall pick
is worth ten thousand points, and then it starts working
this way down until the next pick's worth you know,
ninety seven hundred, and then you know ninety five hundred,
(44:14):
and then and then eventually starts dropping off big. It
goes from like once you get from pick like twelve
to fifteen, you go, you know, it drops off dramatically.
So you have to add up If I'm getting two
second round picks, do they add up to the value
and that's kind of how most teams operate. Now, there
is a tax. If you want my one or two
(44:34):
overall pick, you got to overpay for it, right because
I know you want a quarterback. To me, if you
want the tenth pick to get a tackle, and you
have a late first rounder and a mid second rounder,
and it's give or take the value, and I like
the value, I'll do it. But if I have the
number one overall pick and you want to and you
have the eighth pick and you can meet the value,
(44:56):
I'll give you the eighth pick, I'll give you my
second round pick, and i'll give you next year first
round pick. Well, let's say have the number one overall
pick and I like Joe Burrow, but I don't need
a quarterback. But I have multiple teams bidding for it.
Even if the offer that you first gave me two
ones and a two. What if I go, you know what,
I'm gonna need more because I'll just trade them to
someone else I have a better offer on the table.
(45:18):
Or hell, I'll just stay here and take Chase Young
You it's it's real estate. It's it's a oceanfront property.
There's only so much real estate there and there's only
so many quarterbacks in every draft, and especially when I
know that you like a quarterback. So I think there's
a leverage game when you when you factor in quarterbacks,
when you factor in just a corner or a wide receiver,
(45:40):
you just have to equal the number, assuming that team
wants to trade. And I think a lot of the
good teams that don't need quarterbacks are always open to
trading for you know, if I have the thirteenth pick
and you'll offer me two twos and next year's one,
you know a smart team will do that right again
(46:00):
if the value is good. And I have a bunch
of highly rated guys in the top fifty five of
the draft. So I think it's also determined on what
players are in a given draft, like every draft is
not the same. This draft, from just the naked eye,
I watch a lot of I watch an unhealthy amount
of college football, and from my friends in the NFL,
is a really good draft. Feels like there's gonna be
(46:22):
a really talented like top seventy five. So the difference
between in this draft pick thirty and pick forty eight
eight might not be that dramatic For a lot of teams,
they go, yeah, we'll get a starter at either spot,
so we might as well trade back and get extra picks.
But if the draft was shitty and you're like, well,
you know, this is not a great top fifty players.
(46:45):
There's like seventeen good players and there's a dramatic drop
off and most of the guys were just guys, then
you probably wouldn't be as likely to do that. So
I think it's I think it's very dependent on the
crop of guys on an individual year. Like the number
one pick is not always the same. There's a sweet
core back in a draft, it changes it. If there's not,
it doesn't like last year having a top two pick
(47:05):
was a big deal. It's Kyler Murray and Nick Bosa.
Then it was like, then who do you take? You know,
Quinnin Williams one year wonder, then Cleveland Ferrell. Then I
like Devin White, but it's just some unknown and that
last year was a good draft. But it felt like
Kyler Murray was a star and he wont offensive Rookie
of the Year, which we could argue, but he's clearly
pretty good. And Nick Bosa, listen, I was wrong. I
(47:28):
tried to I was just too negative. But it's clear.
I mean, he's a superstar. So that was the draft.
I mean, the one year that Solomon Thomas went third,
it was Miles Garrett went one, who's by far the
best player in the draft. Then it went mister Bisky
Solomon Thomas. So on that given year, it was like,
you know, some years it's like Alden Smith and JJ
Watt are going ten eleven and Odell Beckham and you know,
(47:50):
you just every draft is kind of unique, and that's
the key to knowing the draft value is factoring in
the chart, but with the players and how you value
them kind of on a year to year basis. That's
why it gets pretty complicated. It's also why having experience
in drafts and knowing the league and knowing the next
crop of guys coming out is really important. You can't
(48:11):
live in the moment, even though sometimes on draft night
it's hard not to live in the moment. You spend
all this time, I've seeing it firsthand. You work all spring,
You then work summary evaluating the guy's junior tape or
sophomore tape. Then you work all fall evaluating the actual tape.
Then you go through the combine and the pro days
and the workouts, and then all of a sudden you
(48:33):
get there and it's hard to go, well, let's just
push this back another year. You're like, hell, I've been
I've been cooking all night. I want to eat right,
I mean, you're just you're ready to sit down for dinner.
And sometimes it's it's hard to put the fork down.
But the smart teams have the discipline that you could
argue the smart people in life have discipline. That's why
I'm gonna go eat some ice cream now that I'm
done recording. Appreciate everyone listening. See you guys next week. Audios.
(48:56):
Have a great freaking weekend, and and yeah, enjoy wherever
you are. Might be cold, it might be Sonny who knows,
But enjoy the weekend. Is someone you love in a
(49:27):
relationship with, Somebody who tells the same joke over and over.
Somebody who has the audacity to starfish the bed. Now,
be honest, is that somebody you look me Andy's nose.
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Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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