June 23, 2020 • 38 mins
The Cowboys should want Dak on a shorter deal
NASCAR pivoted instead of being rigid and it was great to see
Jamal Adams just wants to win and he can't with the Jets
This shortened MLB season will be great
There are only four top schools in college football
The Patriots and Julian Edelman were Tom Brady reliant
Guest: Stanford Routt, former NFL DB
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Be
sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to
three eastern nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and FS one. Find your local station for The Herd
at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live
every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd is
the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox
Sports Radio. Ah, here we go on a Tuesday. We
(00:27):
are live in Los Angeles, and this is the Herd.
Wherever you may be and however you may be listening.
We're on iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Danny
Canal This hour, Dan Fouts Last next hour. Great to
have you in Tuesday. Joey Taylor, how are you. I'm
(00:49):
getting good? How are you? I am good. I got
home yesterday, I worked out, went to the grocery store,
and I watched yellow Stone. I watched I watched the
Big TV Day yesterday. You know, wife's not around right
now for a few days, so I just sat and
watched television all night long. I never do that. There's
no sports, so I just I watched NASCAR, then I
watched Yellowstone. It's a great TV night, buy myself eating
(01:09):
cereal watching television. It was great, what's your cereal? Oh?
I buy all this grainy crap that's supposed to be
good for you. Really yeah, nothing fun, It's just all nonsense.
I buy a different one every week. I don't believe
in healthy cereal. Come on at the sugary stuff. My
mom maybe eat raisin brand. My late mother was really
into that whole brand raisin brand thing. So I was
in the bathroom every fifteen minutes as a kid. But
(01:31):
I guess I was healthy. So there you go. I
speaking of healthy a franchise. Let's start with us, the
Dallas Cowboys. So the Cowboys are apparently stunned that Dak
Prescott doesn't want a five year contract. Dak Prescott wants
a four year contract. Truth is, you rather have a
three year contract. So in life, this is basically how
it works in business sports. Everything doesn't matter what business
you're in. You can be in tech, you can be
(01:51):
in Wall Street. The more talented you are, the shorter
contract you want, because that allows you to hit the
market again so people can bid on you. The NFL
is obviously different because unlike a tech guy or a
Wall Street woman, you get tackled in football, So it
depends on your health. If you're sturdy, Dak, Russell Wilson,
(02:16):
by all means, take a shorter contract, hit the market
if you've had a few injuries. Carson Wentz, Aaron Rodgers,
Deshaun Watson, Jimmy Garoppolo. I would argue take the extra
year of guaranteed salary. But let's talk Dak right here. Dak,
if nothing else is sturdy. He didn't get hurt in college,
(02:36):
he doesn't get hurt in the NFL. He gets banged around,
he's good. My question is, so I get Dak wanting
fewer years. Dak right now is like, I'll take fewer years.
I want to hit the market again. And I've said
this for years and years about quarterbacks in the NFL.
It's brutal. They get trapped. Lebron never gets trapped. Anthony
Davis doesn't get trapped. NFL quarterbacks get trapped. My question
is why would the Dallas Cowboys want five years? And
(03:00):
that's nothing against Dak, but let me throw out a
scenario to you. And I think about this all the time.
Anytime I've gotten into a business. The one thing I'm
always concerned about is getting trapped in a bad business.
Do I have an escape clause? Can I get out
of it? So I'm gonna set up a scenario for Dallas.
Maybe it's a worst case scenario, but it's not meteor
(03:22):
hitting the Earth. Three things. Let's say they happen over
the next three or four years. Number One, Carson Wentz
remains really, really, really good. I'd say that's like nine.
Number two is Daniel Jones, good rookie year, just keeps
getting better, yet yourself a real quarterback. And then Dwayne
Haskins doesn't work and Washington's bad, and they get a
(03:47):
really good quarterback next year in the draft, of which
we think there are minimum two, potentially three to four
great quarterbacks. Oh so Philadelphia have a first round quarterback,
in New York's have a first round quarterback, Washington would
have a first round quarterback, and I got a fourth
round quarterback, and I potentially have the fourth most talent
and quarterback in the division. Let me that's called being trapped.
(04:08):
Let me read to you how the fourth best quarterback
in the division did last year. Cincinnati, last Jacksonville, last Chargers.
Philip was bad last year last Detroit Stafford got hurt last,
Arizona last, Carolina, Kyle Allen most of the year last
That's what happens when you have the fourth best quarterback
(04:28):
in a division. This is not a shot at Dak.
I understand he's durable and he thinks, hey, I want
to hit the market. My question with Dallas is there's
a very real scenario that Wentz is already better, maintains
that Daniel Jones looked pretty darn good to me and
keeps getting better, and Washington is bad and gets one
(04:50):
of the top quarterbacks. There's very few teams next this
year in the NFL I think have a chance to
be really bad. Cincinnati New York Giants could be. You
gotta wait and see if Joe Judge can coach, and
Washington if the Dwayne Haskins thing goes sideways, those could
potentially be five and eleven, four and twelve teams. I'll
wait on Arizona. I think they have a little bit
of a life offensively, So to me, I don't understand
(05:12):
Dallas wanting to get locked in for five years. The
other thing is college football now and this has been
like a four to five year like trend is giving
us unbelievable college quarterbacks. Like unbelievable college quarterbacks, there has
never been a conveyor belt of talented twenty one year
old guys coming out of the league. Do you want
(05:32):
to get do you want to get into a relationship
where you have with a guy that is kind of
Kirk Cousins. So I get dak wanting a shorter contract.
I do not get the Dallas Cowboys demanding a longer contract.
Let me shift to this. One of the things you
are noticing in America, and we talked about this, I
think Joy and I talked about this multiple times for
(05:54):
the next ten years and beyond. It's a bad place
for rigid people. It's just bad. He gotta be willing
to change, and America is changing fast. I'll give you
an example. Twelve years ago, a Barack Obama was running
for president and he was going up against Hillary Clinton.
Remember that, now, those are liberals. Those are liberal, crazy
(06:18):
liberal people. They were both against gay marriage and the
legalization of pot. As liberals. Today, you look at that
and think, oh my god, you could not be a
Democrat and run and be either one of those. That's
how America has changed in twelve years pivoting, being able
(06:40):
to pivot, and I've said I'm not into this. Go
back to Twitter. This guy said something nine years ago.
If you're demanding growth, that don't demand perfection. People make mistakes.
Was Obama today? If you had that approach on gay marriage.
A lot of people would just call anybody that said
that a bigot. I don't think he's that. Look at
his resume, look at his life. People change. We can't
(07:02):
demand growth and perfection life perfection. But yesterday NASCAR, which
over the last fifteen twenty years has gotten old, stale, rigid, rigid,
and I gotta be honest, as a West Coast guy,
it feels intolerant to me. You got to give them credit.
They have pivoted fast. Yesterday may have been the greatest
(07:28):
day NASCAR has had in over a decade. If you
did not watch pre race, Bubba Wallace supported standing with Bubba,
all the racers. It was incredible emotional. Jimmy Johnson, one
of the all time greats, Apparently, after the noose was
(07:48):
found in the garage of Bubba Watson, sent a text
and emailed everybody, I'm going to stand next to him
at the anthem. Everybody signed up the race itself. Bubba
led for a while, was really good, and the ending
was nuts. That is how you pivot. NASCAR's been old
(08:09):
and regional, the Confederate Flag. It just been. And by
the way, the audience now is like sixty years old,
is like the medium viewer. It's not good for advertising,
it's not good for where we're going. But yesterday, the
pre race, the race, the finish. Yesterday, NASCAR honestly felt
more like Nike than car racing. That's how you pivot.
(08:35):
Now we could sit here, I could sit here in
front of the microphone and go, yeah, it just last
week you were into the Confederate Flag and you've shown intolerant.
If you're asking for growth, let's not demand historic perfection.
NASCAR grew yesterday. It was cool, It felt young, it
(08:58):
felt tolerant, it felt exciting. Here was Bubba after the
sport is changing the deal that happened yesterday. Sorry, I'm
not wearing my mask, but I wanted to show whoever
it was, You're not gonna take away my smile and
I'm gonna keep on going. All in all, we won today.
The pre race steal. The pre race steal was probably
(09:22):
one of the hardest things I've ever had to witness
in my life. From all the supporters, from drivers, from
crew members, everybody here, the badass fan base, Thank you
guys for coming out here. This is truly incredible and
I'm proud to be a part of this sport. It
was just great. By the way, for the people who
(09:42):
threatened to boycott Nike for Kaepernick, the ten percent that leave,
if it's that for the ten fifteen percent NASCAR Confederate Flag,
I'm out bye. If the NFL ratings dip because players
put a knee bye, then it's up to the league's Nike, NASCAR,
(10:03):
NFL and the company's aligned with them to market and
seek younger people. I mean, they always say. I remember
growing up with the guy Jack Welch, I think was
his name. He was a legendary CEO. He ran NBC
for years, and he said, you know, you got to
fire five percent of your company every year. And people thought, oh,
maybe you'd have to fire five percent of your fans
(10:24):
every year. Maybe that's where we're at. But I thought
yesterday was a great, great American business story, how to
pivot to the new world. And by the way, it's
all good. It's all fun. I don't even have sports,
and I love my job. I've had to pivot in
(10:44):
the last four months be a sports talk show host
with no sports. It's all good. We're getting through it.
Join I fist pump every day. Another show, cross our fingers,
A league comes back. Good day for NASCAR. Great pivot.
Be sure to catch live editions under her weekdays in
noon Easter nine Empacifist. So, Jamal Adams is this all
world safety for the New York Jets, And now he's
(11:06):
really stepped it up. He wants out. He's demanding a trade. Yesterday,
He's on social media and it was not a subtle
message to co safety Marcus May, who's very good, not
as good as Adams are very good. He said, brother,
just keep being you show the world you're the best
free safety in the game. You deserve everything coming your way.
I'm a miss balling with you. Most believe that, all right, So,
(11:27):
and by the way, Ian Rappaport reports today that Jamal
Adams has a list of eight teams he wants to
play for. He would not demand an extension with those teams,
So what is he telling you? He just wants to
play for a winner? This is now Jalen Ramsey of
the Jags. It's the same situation. Think about Jalen Ramsey
(11:47):
and think about Jamal Adams. Both great Southern Football stars,
five stars Southern football college guys, both great defensive backs,
both high draft picks, both were immediately great in the NFL.
Both are huge personalities, and they're both stars. I mean
they feel look sound like stars. And the Jags and
(12:09):
the Jets have a lot in common. Offenses that never
get it right, bad o lines, very little firepower. Anytime
you have success, it's brief. Constantly picking high in the draft.
Both oh is kind of trying to find the next
quarterback and think the guy they have is the guy.
Jalen Ramsey and Jamal Adams, it's the same guy. It's
(12:32):
the same situation. Jalen Ramsey was like, it's not about
the money. I just want to play for a winner.
I'm a winner, and that's what Jamal Adams is saying.
I'm a winner have been my whole life. One big
in high school, one big in college. Not interested in
this mess And what makes it difficult for Joe Douglas,
the young and smart general manager of the Jets. I
really think he's bright. Here's the problem. He not only
(12:55):
has to figure out the money thing with Jamal Adams,
He's got to convinced him Adams, Hey we are we
are winners. Okay, Well, Belichick's the best football coach in America.
He's still in the division. Buffalo is a playoff team.
I think they got better during the draft and Stefon Diggs.
They're absolutely better than the Jets. And I like what
(13:16):
I see in Miami. Jamal Adams isn't dumb. He plays
those teams twice a year. They get crushed every time
they've played the Patriots. He sees what Buffalo is doing
as a playoff team. Josh Allen thing's working. He sees
Miami and what they did down the stretch five and four.
So Joe Douglas has to convince him the money thing,
(13:36):
and hey, we're winners. You know, when I got out
of college, when Joy gets out of college, we get
to choose where we go. Athletes don't and increasingly with
social media, winning players don't want to hang around losers.
One more Herd. The Herd streams twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app Search Herd
to listen live or on demand whenever you like. Well,
(13:59):
it looks like we'll have a baseball season. Baseball has
targeted the owners and the commissioners a sixty game season
that will start around July twenty fourth, a week before
the NBA. So as of this morning, it looks like
we'll have soccer MLS July eighth, will have baseball July
twenty fourth, will have the NBA July thirtieth. So here's
(14:24):
what worries me about all the sports, but specifically baseball
players are going to get COVID. I'm comfortable having a
league with young athletes getting COVID. I am I've looked
at all the data. Therapeutics better than they've been. Everybody
(14:44):
will get tested frequently. Zero to twenty eight year old
professional athletes are the single safest group. Baseball is going
to manage this. It's just like how we manage every
crisis in America. We don't solve mental health. Forty seven
thousand Americans commit suicide annually. We don't solve it. We
(15:07):
manage it the best we can. How will baseball manage it?
Will there be media panic every time somebody gets COVID.
You cannot have baseball without contact, it's ridiculous. I mean,
even when they deliver a pizza to my door through DoorDash,
somebody grabbed the bag, something got touched. But we've discovered
(15:29):
that's not really how you get COVID nineteen. So my
first question, my first concern is players are going to
get in these separate cities contact, They're gonna get COVID.
How do we deal with that. I am comfortable with
professional leagues and college athletes getting it and getting through
it most or asymptomatic statistically, so I am I'm not
(15:53):
sure how media is going to be, and the media
dictates a lot of what these leagues do. They don't
want to get bad press, this tyranny of the mob.
How can you do this to athletes? That's my first concern.
Here's the upside for baseball. I've always said, I wrote
this in the books I've written. Baseball's problem is not
length of game. College football and NFL football, the games
(16:16):
are longer than they've ever been. The ratings are up.
The problem in Major League Baseball is not television ratings.
It doesn't matter. These networks are desperate for sports. It
doesn't matter if your ratings are up or down, You're
gonna get paid by somebody. Hockey gets paid a lot.
Hockey's ratings have been irrelevant forever. Hockey still gets paid.
They get paid in Canada, they get paid by our networks. Hell,
(16:37):
NBC buys the English Premier League. We'll buy anything. Urgency
is back in baseball. This is the best part of it.
What hurts baseball is there's one hundred and sixty two games.
Nothing matters until the fall. We are going to get
for the first time in my life, and certainly the
first time in this phone era, where we get everything urgently.
(17:00):
You're gonna see a three game series over the weekend
at Dodger Stadium Yankee Stadium, and it's gonna matter like
who wins they split the first two games, who wins Sunday.
Sixty games means you go in a five game losing streak,
you're in trouble. You go on a seven game losing streak,
season's over. That's never mattered before. So I think the
(17:22):
thing I worry about is how is the media, which
I don't really trust on their coverage of COVID to
nineteen to handle it. When players get COVID, they're twenty
four year old shortstops in the best shape of anybody
in his age group. We have all sorts of therapeutics,
the testings better, you have medical professionals. I'm comfortable with
this happening because I know it's going to happen, and
(17:42):
we manage it. I've said from the very beginning with COVID,
it's just another health crisis. I'm fifty five. I've seen
a zillion of him in my life. You just deal
with it. I mean, good God. We had last year,
we had five hundred kids die of the flu. Last
year in America, five hundred and fifty kids zero to seventeen.
Los Angeles has forty million people. We've had nobody die
of COVID. I feel looking at all the data points
(18:03):
and the metrics on this, I feel comfortable having a
baseball league with some guys getting COVID. I do. And
the second thing though, I think it's great for baseball.
If the urgency is back, you will literally have to
watch every game if you're really a baseball fan, like
every game's gonna matter. Sixty games is twenty percent less
than the NBA, So I'm excited for it. I think
(18:24):
July is going to be great. I probably should have
taken more vacation time in June, but I think we're here.
I think we're ready to go. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Easter nine
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the
iHeart Radio app. I think you know, people know I
like college football, right. I'm more of an NFL guy
than a college guy, because I think the college game
has gotten kind of regional. But Alabama and Ohio State
(18:48):
announced last week late they were gonna play. And this
is really important because in terms of let's just talk
about teams that can win the national championship, there's really
only two tiers in college football, and I leave out
a lot of really good programs Wisconsin, Washington, Virginia Tech,
Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Iowa, I think twenty twenty going on.
They're not national championship programs. There's four programs in America
(19:13):
that are just different Bama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and SC
and let me explain. Forget the fact that all of
one national titles with three different head coaches, but if
every college football program in America had their best coach ever,
these four would dominate the sport. It doesn't matter who
coaches LSU and Georgia. If Alabama's got Saban, they dominate
(19:37):
the conference. It doesn't matter who coaches Texas. Mac Brown
was at Texas for a long time, fifteen years. You
know how many times he won the Big twelve twice.
Bob Stops won it ten times. Oklahoma's the better football program.
If Oklahoma's got their best coach ever and Texas has theirs,
Oklahoma wins the conference. Doesn't matter who's coaching Michigan. If
(20:00):
Ohio State's got an Urban Meyer or a Woody Hayes,
they win the conference. They dominate the conference going forward.
They're just more of a recruiting power. Same with USC.
They've been down for like eight years. If USC's got
their best coaches ever, John McKay or Pete Carroll, it
doesn't matter how good Oregon or Washington or uclare, they
dominate the conference. There's only four of those that's it,
(20:24):
and now two are playing. There's twelve other programs that
are clearly, in my opinion, capable of winning the national
championship if they get the right coachs the right quarterback. Clemson,
Florida State, Miami from the ACC, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU
from the SEC, Michigan, Penn State, Big ten, Texas, Big twelve,
Notre Dame's independent in Oregon. And let me explain that now,
(20:46):
Oregon is really a story about Phil Knight twenty years
ago deciding I'm gonna make it a national program. Uniform
stadium facilities. Oregon's got the best facilities in the Western States.
They're a national program. They recruit LA, they recruit Texas,
they can recruit Utah, they recruit South. Oregon can win
a national championship. They got into the game a few
(21:06):
years ago. Now these twelve. If the previous four Bama,
Ohio State, Oklahoma, and USC have their guy, the best
coach in the history of the program, those teams aren't
winning national titles because they got to get through those four.
But these are all capable of it. Now. People say,
what about Clemson, What about Clemson, No, no no, no, no,
slowdown Clemson clemsons in a conference with Florida State and Miami.
(21:30):
If Florida State had Bobby Bowden in his prime right
now and Miami at Jimmy Johnson and his prime against
dab O Sweeney Clemson's not making the playoff. Brother, They're
not getting through those guys because Florida State and Miami,
especially at Dade Broward County, had way better players that
went into the NFL and were stars. Right now, Clemson's
(21:51):
beating up on a dreadful acc with the two other
powers are terrible. That doesn't mean Clemson's not a good program.
But Clemson in the last five years has finished top
five in the AP Poll. If you take away the
last five years, the only other time they did it
was in nineteen eighty one. This is like recency bias.
(22:14):
Clemson is rolling now, They're going to roll again this year.
I think they'll be very, very good for the foreseeable future.
But a Florida State in Miami got their act together.
Those are better all time programs. Hate to break it,
do you. So there's only sixteen teams to me, and
I've left out some really good programs. TCU is a
great program, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, Stanford, Washington, South Carolina,
(22:37):
Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech. I'm not saying they're not good programs.
Boise State BYU, I'm not denying that, but I am
saying there's the Big Four that if they have their
best coach ever, they dominate the sport. And I've seen
it in my entire life. I'm not some twenty eight
year old blogger. I've been watching this thing for forty years.
And then there's twelve beneath them. Again. Now people can
(22:58):
argue the big are people have as Clemson, that's just
recency bias. The other argument is with Notre Dame's won
three national titles with three different coaches. The world's changed
from their academic difficulty, to their remoteness, to the fact
that I don't count programs that want a lot of
their national championships when people took trains the games. As Miami,
(23:22):
They've won four national titles with four different coaches. But
as Joy can tell you, it's a totally transitional program,
like coaches take the job, want to win, and get
the hell out and go to the NFL. It's a
Miami's eight. It has no fan base. Remember years ago
when they played Nebraska in the Rose Bowl and nine
people showed up for Miami and one hundred and eight
thousand showed up for Nebraska. It's not a traditional program.
(23:42):
It's a vagabond program. It's transitional, it's fun, it's wild.
I miss the Miami Hurricanes, but it's the four big dogs,
the twelve under them. And the good news now is
two of the big dogs, Ohio State and Bama are playing.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noon Easter nine am Pacific. If you look at
organizations like the Chicago Bulls, it's an average franchise. Michael
(24:06):
Jordan comes in, makes it great, and we think the
Bulls are winners. No, Michael was a winner. You take
out Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson, the Bulls are a
below five hundred franchise. That's what they are. That's what
I grew up with. You take the New England Patriots
pre Tom Brady. In the history of the franchise, they'd
(24:27):
only won double digit games eight times. It was a
mediocre franchise. Nobody cared about New England. Bad uniforms, cold,
bad stadium. Even in the Northeast. The Steelers were better,
The Eagles were more relevant, The Giants were better. They
weren't even that interest Washington for years with Joe Gibbs
way better. He cared about New England. So I don't
(24:50):
buy into this thing that like Jordan leaves the Bulls
and everybody goes man, they're so dysfunctional. No they're not.
The Bulls are what they always were pre Jordan and
post Jordan is the same team mess. New England post
Tom Brady never going to be the same. So when
you hear a lot of this, I cannot wait to
prove we did not need Tom Brady. I roll. Julian
(25:13):
Edelman is all kinds of pumped up to prove the
Patriot doubters wrong. According to reports direct quote, he hates excuses.
He's not just a product to Brady. Okay, I would
like to deliver some facts here. Julian Edelman has never
made a Pro Bowl. He led the NFL and drops
(25:35):
last year. Three seasons total in his career where he
didn't miss games to injuries, and he has thirty six
career touchdowns. Randy Moss had over half that in one
year with Brady. Julian Edelman is not even Wes Welker.
Wes Welker was a Pro bowler five times All Pro once,
(25:56):
five thousand yard seasons and outside of one year one
year New England, he got hurt. That's about it. New England.
You gotta get you gotta get used to something. You're
the Bulls. You're the bulls pre Jordan and the Bulls
post Jordan. Yeah, that's what New England is. Bill Belichick
didn't win in Cleveland. He wasn't winning in New England.
(26:19):
It Brady is the franchise. Jordan is the franchise. Now
there are franchises. That's not true. The Lakers were good
and before Kobe and Shack Hell, they were good before
Magic Johnson. I mean the Boston Celtics were good before
Larry Bird. Oklahoma football was good before Lincoln Riley. Okay,
Kentucky basketball, Kansas basketball, They've got a lot of winners,
(26:42):
North Carolina basketball, they got a lot of winning coaches.
The Bulls are Jordan and dysfunction. New England losing and
Brady Julian Edelman out to prove critics wrong, irrelevant, simply
his legacy frankly is Brady and pretty good super Bowls
as it. He was good in Super Bowls, good postseason
(27:03):
receiver and Brady. But they're not getting to the postseason
this year. One more herd. The Herd streams twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio
app Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever
you'd like. NFL season got a bunch of different stories today.
Player empowerment is happening. It's happening over all sports. And
the reality is players now make thirty five million dollars
a year. And so you know, if you're a GM,
(27:25):
if you're an owner, you got to get comfortable with it.
You know, players are pushing back in baseball. This is
just what's happening now. There's so much money in sports,
there's more demands of the player's time. They have more
power than ever. So the reality is guys like Dak Prescott,
I want to show a contract, I want to hit
the market. Let's bring in Stanford Route eight NFL seasons
via the Coward Global Satellite Network. So let's start with
(27:47):
Jamal Adams Stanford. Jamal's like, I want to trade. I
want to adda here, and a lot of people can say, whoa, whoa,
whoa whoa? What we saw Jalen Ramsey do it. We
got Jamal Adams doing it. Is this the reality of
what players are now. If I'm a winner and you're
a losing franchise, I'm not sitting around having you ruined
my career. Yeah, if you'd ask me this question about
(28:07):
four or five years ago, I would have told you
no way, no how, because that just was not the
complexity of the league at the time. But now, when
you see what Jalen Ramsey did last year, when you
see what Micca Fitzpatrick did getting out of Miami going
to Pittsburgh having a Pro Bowl season, that's the new
norm in today's NFL. Is players now have a bigger platform,
they have a bigger voice, so they're gonna make sure
(28:28):
that they actually are the architect and the author of
their story. If they are on a losing team and
they get drafted high in the first round, when they
come out, they're gonna make sure that they go to
a team that is winning, that is committed to winning,
and a team that is not anemic to it like
you see teams like the Jets or the Dolphins or
the Browns. And as similarly with Dak Prescott, Dak says,
(28:51):
I want four years Cowboys five to you? Is that
moral player empowerment? I remember back in two thousand and nine,
a former teammate of mine actually started that trend with
not the awesome while signing that three year contract for
a large sum, and I noticed that a lot of
players started to take note then. So when you look
at Dak Prescott, he's looking at Jared Golf, He's looking
(29:12):
at Carson Wins, two players that were drafting number one,
number two overall in his draft class. So he just
simply wants to make sure that he's paid, he's compensated
the same level that they are. And also because Dad
already being towards his late twenties, he wants to make
sure that he can hit the market again in his
early thirties because the growing sentiment right now in the
NFL is that quarterbacks do not hit their prime until
(29:35):
they are thirty plus, So he wants to make sure
that he's able to cash in at that same time
because the salary cap is just growing and just the
marketing is growing for all these players, especially the quarterback position.
Who knows what the salary or just the economy of
the position is going to be in about four or
five years. So Dad, I'm definitely all for him because
(29:56):
he just simply is following the trend that the Aaron Rodgers,
the Russell will Sins of the world have already started.
I've been critical at Cam Newton through the years. I
think he's been a better celebrity than a quarterback. I
think he's had one great year. He's never had back
to back winning seasons, which is pretty remarkable for somebody
that's considered an elite quarterback, which is why I don't
consider an elite quarterback. I think he's being minus C
plus and I think at times he's distracted. But I
(30:18):
do think with COVID nineteen, with shortened camps, we're gonna
have quarterbacks get you know COVID nineteen, there's gonna be
more injuries. I think he'll find a spot. But are
you surprised? The market is small and he's still not
on a team yet. I'm not necessarily surprised because given
when Carolina decided to let him go, it was a
(30:40):
game of musical chairs. So you see Philip Rivers signing
with the Indianapolis Colts, you see Tom Brady going to
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you see Teddy Bridgewater going to
the Carolina Panthers. So it's not surprising because when you
look at a Cam Newton, he's taken a decline ever
since the Super Bowl. I'm sorry the MVP season in
which they went to the Super Bowl back in twenty fifteen.
He's all he had three seasons of sixty sixty percent
(31:03):
completion or above passing. In today's game, it's all about
precision passing, it's all about quick game. It's all about
getting the body of your hands very quickly spread offense,
things like that. So Cam Newton has taken a decline
over the last couple of years. That's number one, number
two when you factor in Cam Newton is a superstar.
He's a polarizing figure figuratively and literally, and that's gonna
(31:28):
be very difficult for a guy who was a JUCO
national champion, who was a college Ncuba national champion. Number
one overall pick, has been starting ever since he got
drafted to the Carolina Panthers, been in the league nine years,
a former NFL MVP. It's gonna be very difficult for
him to accept a backup role in this league. And
I think the teams are very cognizant of that, and
(31:50):
they're probably a little skittish of actually having someone that
polarizing being the most famous person on the team. Albeit
he's a backup voting a cutboard in a headset every
Sunday afternoon. So this will be a year in which
we have a chance to see Joe Burrow, Toua, and
Justin Herbert all start at some point in the year,
(32:11):
and I think Burrow probably starts Week one. Go back
to your playing days when you faced a rookie quarterback.
What were the tricks that you couldn't get away with
with a breeze or you know a veteran quarterback. What
are the tricks a guy like you, a high end
defensive back used on rookie quarterbacks. Oh wow. One that
(32:34):
comes to mind was Sam Bradford back in twenty ten.
It was we played he was with the Saint Louis
Rams at the time. Try to try me on a
nine route and I intercepted it early four quarter We
wanted to win in the game. And the thing is
that with most young quarterbacks in this league, you gotta
find a way to trick them, disguise things like that
because they have not been around, they have not been
(32:55):
able to see everything that Drew Brees, Tom Brady, guys
like that have been accustomed to for so many years.
So I think that's the main thing. The main component
is pressure them and also confuse them, disguise your coverages,
throwing a few exotic blitzes, and most of the time,
and unless it's like an Andrew Luck type of rookie,
most of the time they're going to struggle because they
(33:18):
simply have not seen that type of complex defense at
the collegiate level. You were a world class track guy.
You ran if I recall four two seven forty, it
was the fastest man. Yes, you're a speed guy. So
and I've said this with joy. When I see pictures
of receivers, corners and quarterbacks, I think to myself, you
can stay in shape right now. But I'm thinking about
(33:40):
like units like offensive line, and I think to myself,
special teams could get really choppy this year. With your
background and track and field, would the time offee beneficial?
How good of shape could you kept yourself in not
being in the facility or do you think this is
a year where everybody's a little out of shape, everybody's
(34:03):
gonna get dinged up? How would you have handled it
with your track background, with no OTAs and potentially an
abridged camp. Oh. I was actually just having a conversation
with one of my friends who actually plays in the
league still right now. Just the other day and he
was telling me that stand, everybody's going to be out
of shape when they come back, And I'm not sure
where I come out on that, because, giving my track background,
(34:26):
I think that for right now, with it being the
quarantine and this pandemic and everyone now having to work
out on their own, I think that with my knowledge
of the sport things like that, I would still be
able to maintain a certain level of shape. But preparing
for the game of football, the only way that you
can truly get in football shape is to actually go
(34:49):
through football practice, football games, whether it's a scrimmage, whether
it's something like that. In training camp, that's the only
true way to match that level of intensity and that
level of soreness that you're gonna have the day after
practice going to the next that's the only way that
you're gonna be able to attain that and match that.
In the NFL, it's actually going through Stanford route joining us.
(35:10):
Would you be comfortable going to camp knowing you could
catch COVID? What it bother you? I'm a germaphobe and
I'm OCD. I'll tell you that right now. Coming so
It would definitely be an uphill battle. But I love
this game. I've always loved it ever since I was
a kid, So I would find a way to navigate
through this tough time to still be able to play
(35:31):
this game that I know and love so well. But
I definitely do want to know the parameters. I want
to know the precautionary measures that Roger Goodell and the
league is going to have in place whenever the players
come back for training camp. You look, you look good,
you look happy. So you're handling the COVID thing. Fine,
What are you doing right now? Where are you staying well?
How are you doing? How's your family doing? Oh, everybody's
(35:51):
doing good. We're just quarantine and making sure that we
are all just trying to stay away from this virus.
Like I said, I'm a germaphobe. I'm OCD a lot
of people in my emiliof so I think that's where
I get it from. And just trying to stay positive,
stay healthy. I've up to my juicing, so I'm doing
my best to try to be as healthy as I can.
Whenever I go work out, I make sure to have
on layers. That way, I'm actually sweating even more because
(36:14):
I've heard that heat is actually something that is deterrent
for COVID nineteen. Not sure how true that is, but
that's just the things that I've been hearing. So yeah,
I'm definitely in good spirits right now, just doing this
thing whenever I can, to broadcasting, making sure that I'm
staying up on top of that. So all in all,
everything is going well. I hope you the same college. Yeah,
one more question. I was thinking about, So the Raiders
(36:36):
are going from Oakland to Vegas, and that fans, you know,
fans don't care. But let's say I've got two kids
in school and my wife has a social network, and
all of a sudden, I got to move to a
new city. We looked up a number about a month ago,
and teams that move are never good the first year.
It's a mess. So I look, and I was in
(36:56):
Vegas this weekend. I flew by the stadium and I
drove by the stadium, and I'm thinking the idea that
i'd have everybody on that team has to move their
entire family to Vegas. It's probably good for Vegas home
sales with all these pro athletes. What was when you
got when you went from Oakland, Houston, Kansas City. Take
my audience into being a pro athlete. Hey, guys, we've
(37:18):
all got to move. How is it ever disruptive to
your game? Luckily, whenever I moved from Oakland to Kansas City,
that was during the off season, so I had a
chance to go ahead and acclimate myself, so that wasn't
as big of a hurdle. But whenever you're actually moving
a team from one place to the next, now it's
(37:39):
only one stayed over California to Nevada. I mean I could,
good lord, I could imagine how it was when Saint
Louis moved to Los Angeles the Rams. It is something
that definitely takes a lot of support from your family, teammates,
things like that, because you're going from one city to
the next, you're going from one team to the next.
You've got to actually learn a different culture, maybe from
one that you've backed have been accustomed to. So it
(38:01):
definitely has some growing pains. But I think that if
you have the right people around you, that's going to
actually lessen the effect of those growing pains actually transferring
over to the field into your body of work. Stanford
Route eight, NFL seasons. Good seeing you look healthy and happy.
Good senior buddy,
Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Be
sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to
three eastern nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and FS one. Find your local station for The Herd
at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live
every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd is
the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowherd on Fox
Sports Radio. Ah, here we go on a Tuesday. We
(00:27):
are live in Los Angeles, and this is the Herd.
Wherever you may be and however you may be listening.
We're on iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Danny
Canal This hour, Dan Fouts Last next hour. Great to
have you in Tuesday. Joey Taylor, how are you. I'm
(00:49):
getting good? How are you? I am good. I got
home yesterday, I worked out, went to the grocery store,
and I watched yellow Stone. I watched I watched the
Big TV Day yesterday. You know, wife's not around right
now for a few days, so I just sat and
watched television all night long. I never do that. There's
no sports, so I just I watched NASCAR, then I
watched Yellowstone. It's a great TV night, buy myself eating
(01:09):
cereal watching television. It was great, what's your cereal? Oh?
I buy all this grainy crap that's supposed to be
good for you. Really yeah, nothing fun, It's just all nonsense.
I buy a different one every week. I don't believe
in healthy cereal. Come on at the sugary stuff. My
mom maybe eat raisin brand. My late mother was really
into that whole brand raisin brand thing. So I was
in the bathroom every fifteen minutes as a kid. But
(01:31):
I guess I was healthy. So there you go. I
speaking of healthy a franchise. Let's start with us, the
Dallas Cowboys. So the Cowboys are apparently stunned that Dak
Prescott doesn't want a five year contract. Dak Prescott wants
a four year contract. Truth is, you rather have a
three year contract. So in life, this is basically how
it works in business sports. Everything doesn't matter what business
you're in. You can be in tech, you can be
(01:51):
in Wall Street. The more talented you are, the shorter
contract you want, because that allows you to hit the
market again so people can bid on you. The NFL
is obviously different because unlike a tech guy or a
Wall Street woman, you get tackled in football, So it
depends on your health. If you're sturdy, Dak, Russell Wilson,
(02:16):
by all means, take a shorter contract, hit the market
if you've had a few injuries. Carson Wentz, Aaron Rodgers,
Deshaun Watson, Jimmy Garoppolo. I would argue take the extra
year of guaranteed salary. But let's talk Dak right here. Dak,
if nothing else is sturdy. He didn't get hurt in college,
(02:36):
he doesn't get hurt in the NFL. He gets banged around,
he's good. My question is, so I get Dak wanting
fewer years. Dak right now is like, I'll take fewer years.
I want to hit the market again. And I've said
this for years and years about quarterbacks in the NFL.
It's brutal. They get trapped. Lebron never gets trapped. Anthony
Davis doesn't get trapped. NFL quarterbacks get trapped. My question
is why would the Dallas Cowboys want five years? And
(03:00):
that's nothing against Dak, but let me throw out a
scenario to you. And I think about this all the time.
Anytime I've gotten into a business. The one thing I'm
always concerned about is getting trapped in a bad business.
Do I have an escape clause? Can I get out
of it? So I'm gonna set up a scenario for Dallas.
Maybe it's a worst case scenario, but it's not meteor
(03:22):
hitting the Earth. Three things. Let's say they happen over
the next three or four years. Number One, Carson Wentz
remains really, really, really good. I'd say that's like nine.
Number two is Daniel Jones, good rookie year, just keeps
getting better, yet yourself a real quarterback. And then Dwayne
Haskins doesn't work and Washington's bad, and they get a
(03:47):
really good quarterback next year in the draft, of which
we think there are minimum two, potentially three to four
great quarterbacks. Oh so Philadelphia have a first round quarterback,
in New York's have a first round quarterback, Washington would
have a first round quarterback, and I got a fourth
round quarterback, and I potentially have the fourth most talent
and quarterback in the division. Let me that's called being trapped.
(04:08):
Let me read to you how the fourth best quarterback
in the division did last year. Cincinnati, last Jacksonville, last Chargers.
Philip was bad last year last Detroit Stafford got hurt last,
Arizona last, Carolina, Kyle Allen most of the year last
That's what happens when you have the fourth best quarterback
(04:28):
in a division. This is not a shot at Dak.
I understand he's durable and he thinks, hey, I want
to hit the market. My question with Dallas is there's
a very real scenario that Wentz is already better, maintains
that Daniel Jones looked pretty darn good to me and
keeps getting better, and Washington is bad and gets one
(04:50):
of the top quarterbacks. There's very few teams next this
year in the NFL I think have a chance to
be really bad. Cincinnati New York Giants could be. You
gotta wait and see if Joe Judge can coach, and
Washington if the Dwayne Haskins thing goes sideways, those could
potentially be five and eleven, four and twelve teams. I'll
wait on Arizona. I think they have a little bit
of a life offensively, So to me, I don't understand
(05:12):
Dallas wanting to get locked in for five years. The
other thing is college football now and this has been
like a four to five year like trend is giving
us unbelievable college quarterbacks. Like unbelievable college quarterbacks, there has
never been a conveyor belt of talented twenty one year
old guys coming out of the league. Do you want
(05:32):
to get do you want to get into a relationship
where you have with a guy that is kind of
Kirk Cousins. So I get dak wanting a shorter contract.
I do not get the Dallas Cowboys demanding a longer contract.
Let me shift to this. One of the things you
are noticing in America, and we talked about this, I
think Joy and I talked about this multiple times for
(05:54):
the next ten years and beyond. It's a bad place
for rigid people. It's just bad. He gotta be willing
to change, and America is changing fast. I'll give you
an example. Twelve years ago, a Barack Obama was running
for president and he was going up against Hillary Clinton.
Remember that, now, those are liberals. Those are liberal, crazy
(06:18):
liberal people. They were both against gay marriage and the
legalization of pot. As liberals. Today, you look at that
and think, oh my god, you could not be a
Democrat and run and be either one of those. That's
how America has changed in twelve years pivoting, being able
(06:40):
to pivot, and I've said I'm not into this. Go
back to Twitter. This guy said something nine years ago.
If you're demanding growth, that don't demand perfection. People make mistakes.
Was Obama today? If you had that approach on gay marriage.
A lot of people would just call anybody that said
that a bigot. I don't think he's that. Look at
his resume, look at his life. People change. We can't
(07:02):
demand growth and perfection life perfection. But yesterday NASCAR, which
over the last fifteen twenty years has gotten old, stale, rigid, rigid,
and I gotta be honest, as a West Coast guy,
it feels intolerant to me. You got to give them credit.
They have pivoted fast. Yesterday may have been the greatest
(07:28):
day NASCAR has had in over a decade. If you
did not watch pre race, Bubba Wallace supported standing with Bubba,
all the racers. It was incredible emotional. Jimmy Johnson, one
of the all time greats, Apparently, after the noose was
(07:48):
found in the garage of Bubba Watson, sent a text
and emailed everybody, I'm going to stand next to him
at the anthem. Everybody signed up the race itself. Bubba
led for a while, was really good, and the ending
was nuts. That is how you pivot. NASCAR's been old
(08:09):
and regional, the Confederate Flag. It just been. And by
the way, the audience now is like sixty years old,
is like the medium viewer. It's not good for advertising,
it's not good for where we're going. But yesterday, the
pre race, the race, the finish. Yesterday, NASCAR honestly felt
more like Nike than car racing. That's how you pivot.
(08:35):
Now we could sit here, I could sit here in
front of the microphone and go, yeah, it just last
week you were into the Confederate Flag and you've shown intolerant.
If you're asking for growth, let's not demand historic perfection.
NASCAR grew yesterday. It was cool, It felt young, it
(08:58):
felt tolerant, it felt exciting. Here was Bubba after the
sport is changing the deal that happened yesterday. Sorry, I'm
not wearing my mask, but I wanted to show whoever
it was, You're not gonna take away my smile and
I'm gonna keep on going. All in all, we won today.
The pre race steal. The pre race steal was probably
(09:22):
one of the hardest things I've ever had to witness
in my life. From all the supporters, from drivers, from
crew members, everybody here, the badass fan base, Thank you
guys for coming out here. This is truly incredible and
I'm proud to be a part of this sport. It
was just great. By the way, for the people who
(09:42):
threatened to boycott Nike for Kaepernick, the ten percent that leave,
if it's that for the ten fifteen percent NASCAR Confederate Flag,
I'm out bye. If the NFL ratings dip because players
put a knee bye, then it's up to the league's Nike, NASCAR,
(10:03):
NFL and the company's aligned with them to market and
seek younger people. I mean, they always say. I remember
growing up with the guy Jack Welch, I think was
his name. He was a legendary CEO. He ran NBC
for years, and he said, you know, you got to
fire five percent of your company every year. And people thought, oh,
maybe you'd have to fire five percent of your fans
(10:24):
every year. Maybe that's where we're at. But I thought
yesterday was a great, great American business story, how to
pivot to the new world. And by the way, it's
all good. It's all fun. I don't even have sports,
and I love my job. I've had to pivot in
(10:44):
the last four months be a sports talk show host
with no sports. It's all good. We're getting through it.
Join I fist pump every day. Another show, cross our fingers,
A league comes back. Good day for NASCAR. Great pivot.
Be sure to catch live editions under her weekdays in
noon Easter nine Empacifist. So, Jamal Adams is this all
world safety for the New York Jets, And now he's
(11:06):
really stepped it up. He wants out. He's demanding a trade. Yesterday,
He's on social media and it was not a subtle
message to co safety Marcus May, who's very good, not
as good as Adams are very good. He said, brother,
just keep being you show the world you're the best
free safety in the game. You deserve everything coming your way.
I'm a miss balling with you. Most believe that, all right, So,
(11:27):
and by the way, Ian Rappaport reports today that Jamal
Adams has a list of eight teams he wants to
play for. He would not demand an extension with those teams,
So what is he telling you? He just wants to
play for a winner? This is now Jalen Ramsey of
the Jags. It's the same situation. Think about Jalen Ramsey
(11:47):
and think about Jamal Adams. Both great Southern Football stars,
five stars Southern football college guys, both great defensive backs,
both high draft picks, both were immediately great in the NFL.
Both are huge personalities, and they're both stars. I mean
they feel look sound like stars. And the Jags and
(12:09):
the Jets have a lot in common. Offenses that never
get it right, bad o lines, very little firepower. Anytime
you have success, it's brief. Constantly picking high in the draft.
Both oh is kind of trying to find the next
quarterback and think the guy they have is the guy.
Jalen Ramsey and Jamal Adams, it's the same guy. It's
(12:32):
the same situation. Jalen Ramsey was like, it's not about
the money. I just want to play for a winner.
I'm a winner, and that's what Jamal Adams is saying.
I'm a winner have been my whole life. One big
in high school, one big in college. Not interested in
this mess And what makes it difficult for Joe Douglas,
the young and smart general manager of the Jets. I
really think he's bright. Here's the problem. He not only
(12:55):
has to figure out the money thing with Jamal Adams,
He's got to convinced him Adams, Hey we are we
are winners. Okay, Well, Belichick's the best football coach in America.
He's still in the division. Buffalo is a playoff team.
I think they got better during the draft and Stefon Diggs.
They're absolutely better than the Jets. And I like what
(13:16):
I see in Miami. Jamal Adams isn't dumb. He plays
those teams twice a year. They get crushed every time
they've played the Patriots. He sees what Buffalo is doing
as a playoff team. Josh Allen thing's working. He sees
Miami and what they did down the stretch five and four.
So Joe Douglas has to convince him the money thing,
(13:36):
and hey, we're winners. You know, when I got out
of college, when Joy gets out of college, we get
to choose where we go. Athletes don't and increasingly with
social media, winning players don't want to hang around losers.
One more Herd. The Herd streams twenty four hours a day,
seven days a week within the iHeartRadio app Search Herd
to listen live or on demand whenever you like. Well,
(13:59):
it looks like we'll have a baseball season. Baseball has
targeted the owners and the commissioners a sixty game season
that will start around July twenty fourth, a week before
the NBA. So as of this morning, it looks like
we'll have soccer MLS July eighth, will have baseball July
twenty fourth, will have the NBA July thirtieth. So here's
(14:24):
what worries me about all the sports, but specifically baseball
players are going to get COVID. I'm comfortable having a
league with young athletes getting COVID. I am I've looked
at all the data. Therapeutics better than they've been. Everybody
(14:44):
will get tested frequently. Zero to twenty eight year old
professional athletes are the single safest group. Baseball is going
to manage this. It's just like how we manage every
crisis in America. We don't solve mental health. Forty seven
thousand Americans commit suicide annually. We don't solve it. We
(15:07):
manage it the best we can. How will baseball manage it?
Will there be media panic every time somebody gets COVID.
You cannot have baseball without contact, it's ridiculous. I mean,
even when they deliver a pizza to my door through DoorDash,
somebody grabbed the bag, something got touched. But we've discovered
(15:29):
that's not really how you get COVID nineteen. So my
first question, my first concern is players are going to
get in these separate cities contact, They're gonna get COVID.
How do we deal with that. I am comfortable with
professional leagues and college athletes getting it and getting through
it most or asymptomatic statistically, so I am I'm not
(15:53):
sure how media is going to be, and the media
dictates a lot of what these leagues do. They don't
want to get bad press, this tyranny of the mob.
How can you do this to athletes? That's my first concern.
Here's the upside for baseball. I've always said, I wrote
this in the books I've written. Baseball's problem is not
length of game. College football and NFL football, the games
(16:16):
are longer than they've ever been. The ratings are up.
The problem in Major League Baseball is not television ratings.
It doesn't matter. These networks are desperate for sports. It
doesn't matter if your ratings are up or down, You're
gonna get paid by somebody. Hockey gets paid a lot.
Hockey's ratings have been irrelevant forever. Hockey still gets paid.
They get paid in Canada, they get paid by our networks. Hell,
(16:37):
NBC buys the English Premier League. We'll buy anything. Urgency
is back in baseball. This is the best part of it.
What hurts baseball is there's one hundred and sixty two games.
Nothing matters until the fall. We are going to get
for the first time in my life, and certainly the
first time in this phone era, where we get everything urgently.
(17:00):
You're gonna see a three game series over the weekend
at Dodger Stadium Yankee Stadium, and it's gonna matter like
who wins they split the first two games, who wins Sunday.
Sixty games means you go in a five game losing streak,
you're in trouble. You go on a seven game losing streak,
season's over. That's never mattered before. So I think the
(17:22):
thing I worry about is how is the media, which
I don't really trust on their coverage of COVID to
nineteen to handle it. When players get COVID, they're twenty
four year old shortstops in the best shape of anybody
in his age group. We have all sorts of therapeutics,
the testings better, you have medical professionals. I'm comfortable with
this happening because I know it's going to happen, and
(17:42):
we manage it. I've said from the very beginning with COVID,
it's just another health crisis. I'm fifty five. I've seen
a zillion of him in my life. You just deal
with it. I mean, good God. We had last year,
we had five hundred kids die of the flu. Last
year in America, five hundred and fifty kids zero to seventeen.
Los Angeles has forty million people. We've had nobody die
of COVID. I feel looking at all the data points
(18:03):
and the metrics on this, I feel comfortable having a
baseball league with some guys getting COVID. I do. And
the second thing though, I think it's great for baseball.
If the urgency is back, you will literally have to
watch every game if you're really a baseball fan, like
every game's gonna matter. Sixty games is twenty percent less
than the NBA, So I'm excited for it. I think
(18:24):
July is going to be great. I probably should have
taken more vacation time in June, but I think we're here.
I think we're ready to go. Be sure to catch
live editions of The Herd weekdays in noon Easter nine
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the
iHeart Radio app. I think you know, people know I
like college football, right. I'm more of an NFL guy
than a college guy, because I think the college game
has gotten kind of regional. But Alabama and Ohio State
(18:48):
announced last week late they were gonna play. And this
is really important because in terms of let's just talk
about teams that can win the national championship, there's really
only two tiers in college football, and I leave out
a lot of really good programs Wisconsin, Washington, Virginia Tech,
Georgia Tech, Nebraska, Iowa, I think twenty twenty going on.
They're not national championship programs. There's four programs in America
(19:13):
that are just different Bama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and SC
and let me explain. Forget the fact that all of
one national titles with three different head coaches, but if
every college football program in America had their best coach ever,
these four would dominate the sport. It doesn't matter who
coaches LSU and Georgia. If Alabama's got Saban, they dominate
(19:37):
the conference. It doesn't matter who coaches Texas. Mac Brown
was at Texas for a long time, fifteen years. You
know how many times he won the Big twelve twice.
Bob Stops won it ten times. Oklahoma's the better football program.
If Oklahoma's got their best coach ever and Texas has theirs,
Oklahoma wins the conference. Doesn't matter who's coaching Michigan. If
(20:00):
Ohio State's got an Urban Meyer or a Woody Hayes,
they win the conference. They dominate the conference going forward.
They're just more of a recruiting power. Same with USC.
They've been down for like eight years. If USC's got
their best coaches ever, John McKay or Pete Carroll, it
doesn't matter how good Oregon or Washington or uclare, they
dominate the conference. There's only four of those that's it,
(20:24):
and now two are playing. There's twelve other programs that
are clearly, in my opinion, capable of winning the national
championship if they get the right coachs the right quarterback. Clemson,
Florida State, Miami from the ACC, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU
from the SEC, Michigan, Penn State, Big ten, Texas, Big twelve,
Notre Dame's independent in Oregon. And let me explain that now,
(20:46):
Oregon is really a story about Phil Knight twenty years
ago deciding I'm gonna make it a national program. Uniform
stadium facilities. Oregon's got the best facilities in the Western States.
They're a national program. They recruit LA, they recruit Texas,
they can recruit Utah, they recruit South. Oregon can win
a national championship. They got into the game a few
(21:06):
years ago. Now these twelve. If the previous four Bama,
Ohio State, Oklahoma, and USC have their guy, the best
coach in the history of the program, those teams aren't
winning national titles because they got to get through those four.
But these are all capable of it. Now. People say,
what about Clemson, What about Clemson, No, no no, no, no,
slowdown Clemson clemsons in a conference with Florida State and Miami.
(21:30):
If Florida State had Bobby Bowden in his prime right
now and Miami at Jimmy Johnson and his prime against
dab O Sweeney Clemson's not making the playoff. Brother, They're
not getting through those guys because Florida State and Miami,
especially at Dade Broward County, had way better players that
went into the NFL and were stars. Right now, Clemson's
(21:51):
beating up on a dreadful acc with the two other
powers are terrible. That doesn't mean Clemson's not a good program.
But Clemson in the last five years has finished top
five in the AP Poll. If you take away the
last five years, the only other time they did it
was in nineteen eighty one. This is like recency bias.
(22:14):
Clemson is rolling now, They're going to roll again this year.
I think they'll be very, very good for the foreseeable future.
But a Florida State in Miami got their act together.
Those are better all time programs. Hate to break it,
do you. So there's only sixteen teams to me, and
I've left out some really good programs. TCU is a
great program, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Utah, Stanford, Washington, South Carolina,
(22:37):
Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech. I'm not saying they're not good programs.
Boise State BYU, I'm not denying that, but I am
saying there's the Big Four that if they have their
best coach ever, they dominate the sport. And I've seen
it in my entire life. I'm not some twenty eight
year old blogger. I've been watching this thing for forty years.
And then there's twelve beneath them. Again. Now people can
(22:58):
argue the big are people have as Clemson, that's just
recency bias. The other argument is with Notre Dame's won
three national titles with three different coaches. The world's changed
from their academic difficulty, to their remoteness, to the fact
that I don't count programs that want a lot of
their national championships when people took trains the games. As Miami,
(23:22):
They've won four national titles with four different coaches. But
as Joy can tell you, it's a totally transitional program,
like coaches take the job, want to win, and get
the hell out and go to the NFL. It's a
Miami's eight. It has no fan base. Remember years ago
when they played Nebraska in the Rose Bowl and nine
people showed up for Miami and one hundred and eight
thousand showed up for Nebraska. It's not a traditional program.
(23:42):
It's a vagabond program. It's transitional, it's fun, it's wild.
I miss the Miami Hurricanes, but it's the four big dogs,
the twelve under them. And the good news now is
two of the big dogs, Ohio State and Bama are playing.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noon Easter nine am Pacific. If you look at
organizations like the Chicago Bulls, it's an average franchise. Michael
(24:06):
Jordan comes in, makes it great, and we think the
Bulls are winners. No, Michael was a winner. You take
out Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson, the Bulls are a
below five hundred franchise. That's what they are. That's what
I grew up with. You take the New England Patriots
pre Tom Brady. In the history of the franchise, they'd
(24:27):
only won double digit games eight times. It was a
mediocre franchise. Nobody cared about New England. Bad uniforms, cold,
bad stadium. Even in the Northeast. The Steelers were better,
The Eagles were more relevant, The Giants were better. They
weren't even that interest Washington for years with Joe Gibbs
way better. He cared about New England. So I don't
(24:50):
buy into this thing that like Jordan leaves the Bulls
and everybody goes man, they're so dysfunctional. No they're not.
The Bulls are what they always were pre Jordan and
post Jordan is the same team mess. New England post
Tom Brady never going to be the same. So when
you hear a lot of this, I cannot wait to
prove we did not need Tom Brady. I roll. Julian
(25:13):
Edelman is all kinds of pumped up to prove the
Patriot doubters wrong. According to reports direct quote, he hates excuses.
He's not just a product to Brady. Okay, I would
like to deliver some facts here. Julian Edelman has never
made a Pro Bowl. He led the NFL and drops
(25:35):
last year. Three seasons total in his career where he
didn't miss games to injuries, and he has thirty six
career touchdowns. Randy Moss had over half that in one
year with Brady. Julian Edelman is not even Wes Welker.
Wes Welker was a Pro bowler five times All Pro once,
(25:56):
five thousand yard seasons and outside of one year one
year New England, he got hurt. That's about it. New England.
You gotta get you gotta get used to something. You're
the Bulls. You're the bulls pre Jordan and the Bulls
post Jordan. Yeah, that's what New England is. Bill Belichick
didn't win in Cleveland. He wasn't winning in New England.
(26:19):
It Brady is the franchise. Jordan is the franchise. Now
there are franchises. That's not true. The Lakers were good
and before Kobe and Shack Hell, they were good before
Magic Johnson. I mean the Boston Celtics were good before
Larry Bird. Oklahoma football was good before Lincoln Riley. Okay,
Kentucky basketball, Kansas basketball, They've got a lot of winners,
(26:42):
North Carolina basketball, they got a lot of winning coaches.
The Bulls are Jordan and dysfunction. New England losing and
Brady Julian Edelman out to prove critics wrong, irrelevant, simply
his legacy frankly is Brady and pretty good super Bowls
as it. He was good in Super Bowls, good postseason
(27:03):
receiver and Brady. But they're not getting to the postseason
this year. One more herd. The Herd streams twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week within the iHeartRadio
app Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever
you'd like. NFL season got a bunch of different stories today.
Player empowerment is happening. It's happening over all sports. And
the reality is players now make thirty five million dollars
a year. And so you know, if you're a GM,
(27:25):
if you're an owner, you got to get comfortable with it.
You know, players are pushing back in baseball. This is
just what's happening now. There's so much money in sports,
there's more demands of the player's time. They have more
power than ever. So the reality is guys like Dak Prescott,
I want to show a contract, I want to hit
the market. Let's bring in Stanford Route eight NFL seasons
via the Coward Global Satellite Network. So let's start with
(27:47):
Jamal Adams Stanford. Jamal's like, I want to trade. I
want to adda here, and a lot of people can say, whoa, whoa,
whoa whoa? What we saw Jalen Ramsey do it. We
got Jamal Adams doing it. Is this the reality of
what players are now. If I'm a winner and you're
a losing franchise, I'm not sitting around having you ruined
my career. Yeah, if you'd ask me this question about
(28:07):
four or five years ago, I would have told you
no way, no how, because that just was not the
complexity of the league at the time. But now, when
you see what Jalen Ramsey did last year, when you
see what Micca Fitzpatrick did getting out of Miami going
to Pittsburgh having a Pro Bowl season, that's the new
norm in today's NFL. Is players now have a bigger platform,
they have a bigger voice, so they're gonna make sure
(28:28):
that they actually are the architect and the author of
their story. If they are on a losing team and
they get drafted high in the first round, when they
come out, they're gonna make sure that they go to
a team that is winning, that is committed to winning,
and a team that is not anemic to it like
you see teams like the Jets or the Dolphins or
the Browns. And as similarly with Dak Prescott, Dak says,
(28:51):
I want four years Cowboys five to you? Is that
moral player empowerment? I remember back in two thousand and nine,
a former teammate of mine actually started that trend with
not the awesome while signing that three year contract for
a large sum, and I noticed that a lot of
players started to take note then. So when you look
at Dak Prescott, he's looking at Jared Golf, He's looking
(29:12):
at Carson Wins, two players that were drafting number one,
number two overall in his draft class. So he just
simply wants to make sure that he's paid, he's compensated
the same level that they are. And also because Dad
already being towards his late twenties, he wants to make
sure that he can hit the market again in his
early thirties because the growing sentiment right now in the
NFL is that quarterbacks do not hit their prime until
(29:35):
they are thirty plus, So he wants to make sure
that he's able to cash in at that same time
because the salary cap is just growing and just the
marketing is growing for all these players, especially the quarterback position.
Who knows what the salary or just the economy of
the position is going to be in about four or
five years. So Dad, I'm definitely all for him because
(29:56):
he just simply is following the trend that the Aaron Rodgers,
the Russell will Sins of the world have already started.
I've been critical at Cam Newton through the years. I
think he's been a better celebrity than a quarterback. I
think he's had one great year. He's never had back
to back winning seasons, which is pretty remarkable for somebody
that's considered an elite quarterback, which is why I don't
consider an elite quarterback. I think he's being minus C
plus and I think at times he's distracted. But I
(30:18):
do think with COVID nineteen, with shortened camps, we're gonna
have quarterbacks get you know COVID nineteen, there's gonna be
more injuries. I think he'll find a spot. But are
you surprised? The market is small and he's still not
on a team yet. I'm not necessarily surprised because given
when Carolina decided to let him go, it was a
(30:40):
game of musical chairs. So you see Philip Rivers signing
with the Indianapolis Colts, you see Tom Brady going to
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you see Teddy Bridgewater going to
the Carolina Panthers. So it's not surprising because when you
look at a Cam Newton, he's taken a decline ever
since the Super Bowl. I'm sorry the MVP season in
which they went to the Super Bowl back in twenty fifteen.
He's all he had three seasons of sixty sixty percent
(31:03):
completion or above passing. In today's game, it's all about
precision passing, it's all about quick game. It's all about
getting the body of your hands very quickly spread offense,
things like that. So Cam Newton has taken a decline
over the last couple of years. That's number one, number
two when you factor in Cam Newton is a superstar.
He's a polarizing figure figuratively and literally, and that's gonna
(31:28):
be very difficult for a guy who was a JUCO
national champion, who was a college Ncuba national champion. Number
one overall pick, has been starting ever since he got
drafted to the Carolina Panthers, been in the league nine years,
a former NFL MVP. It's gonna be very difficult for
him to accept a backup role in this league. And
I think the teams are very cognizant of that, and
(31:50):
they're probably a little skittish of actually having someone that
polarizing being the most famous person on the team. Albeit
he's a backup voting a cutboard in a headset every
Sunday afternoon. So this will be a year in which
we have a chance to see Joe Burrow, Toua, and
Justin Herbert all start at some point in the year,
(32:11):
and I think Burrow probably starts Week one. Go back
to your playing days when you faced a rookie quarterback.
What were the tricks that you couldn't get away with
with a breeze or you know a veteran quarterback. What
are the tricks a guy like you, a high end
defensive back used on rookie quarterbacks. Oh wow. One that
(32:34):
comes to mind was Sam Bradford back in twenty ten.
It was we played he was with the Saint Louis
Rams at the time. Try to try me on a
nine route and I intercepted it early four quarter We
wanted to win in the game. And the thing is
that with most young quarterbacks in this league, you gotta
find a way to trick them, disguise things like that
because they have not been around, they have not been
(32:55):
able to see everything that Drew Brees, Tom Brady, guys
like that have been accustomed to for so many years.
So I think that's the main thing. The main component
is pressure them and also confuse them, disguise your coverages,
throwing a few exotic blitzes, and most of the time,
and unless it's like an Andrew Luck type of rookie,
most of the time they're going to struggle because they
(33:18):
simply have not seen that type of complex defense at
the collegiate level. You were a world class track guy.
You ran if I recall four two seven forty, it
was the fastest man. Yes, you're a speed guy. So
and I've said this with joy. When I see pictures
of receivers, corners and quarterbacks, I think to myself, you
can stay in shape right now. But I'm thinking about
(33:40):
like units like offensive line, and I think to myself,
special teams could get really choppy this year. With your
background and track and field, would the time offee beneficial?
How good of shape could you kept yourself in not
being in the facility or do you think this is
a year where everybody's a little out of shape, everybody's
(34:03):
gonna get dinged up? How would you have handled it
with your track background, with no OTAs and potentially an
abridged camp. Oh. I was actually just having a conversation
with one of my friends who actually plays in the
league still right now. Just the other day and he
was telling me that stand, everybody's going to be out
of shape when they come back, And I'm not sure
where I come out on that, because, giving my track background,
(34:26):
I think that for right now, with it being the
quarantine and this pandemic and everyone now having to work
out on their own, I think that with my knowledge
of the sport things like that, I would still be
able to maintain a certain level of shape. But preparing
for the game of football, the only way that you
can truly get in football shape is to actually go
(34:49):
through football practice, football games, whether it's a scrimmage, whether
it's something like that. In training camp, that's the only
true way to match that level of intensity and that
level of soreness that you're gonna have the day after
practice going to the next that's the only way that
you're gonna be able to attain that and match that.
In the NFL, it's actually going through Stanford route joining us.
(35:10):
Would you be comfortable going to camp knowing you could
catch COVID? What it bother you? I'm a germaphobe and
I'm OCD. I'll tell you that right now. Coming so
It would definitely be an uphill battle. But I love
this game. I've always loved it ever since I was
a kid, So I would find a way to navigate
through this tough time to still be able to play
(35:31):
this game that I know and love so well. But
I definitely do want to know the parameters. I want
to know the precautionary measures that Roger Goodell and the
league is going to have in place whenever the players
come back for training camp. You look, you look good,
you look happy. So you're handling the COVID thing. Fine,
What are you doing right now? Where are you staying well?
How are you doing? How's your family doing? Oh, everybody's
(35:51):
doing good. We're just quarantine and making sure that we
are all just trying to stay away from this virus.
Like I said, I'm a germaphobe. I'm OCD a lot
of people in my emiliof so I think that's where
I get it from. And just trying to stay positive,
stay healthy. I've up to my juicing, so I'm doing
my best to try to be as healthy as I can.
Whenever I go work out, I make sure to have
on layers. That way, I'm actually sweating even more because
(36:14):
I've heard that heat is actually something that is deterrent
for COVID nineteen. Not sure how true that is, but
that's just the things that I've been hearing. So yeah,
I'm definitely in good spirits right now, just doing this
thing whenever I can, to broadcasting, making sure that I'm
staying up on top of that. So all in all,
everything is going well. I hope you the same college. Yeah,
one more question. I was thinking about, So the Raiders
(36:36):
are going from Oakland to Vegas, and that fans, you know,
fans don't care. But let's say I've got two kids
in school and my wife has a social network, and
all of a sudden, I got to move to a
new city. We looked up a number about a month ago,
and teams that move are never good the first year.
It's a mess. So I look, and I was in
(36:56):
Vegas this weekend. I flew by the stadium and I
drove by the stadium, and I'm thinking the idea that
i'd have everybody on that team has to move their
entire family to Vegas. It's probably good for Vegas home
sales with all these pro athletes. What was when you
got when you went from Oakland, Houston, Kansas City. Take
my audience into being a pro athlete. Hey, guys, we've
(37:18):
all got to move. How is it ever disruptive to
your game? Luckily, whenever I moved from Oakland to Kansas City,
that was during the off season, so I had a
chance to go ahead and acclimate myself, so that wasn't
as big of a hurdle. But whenever you're actually moving
a team from one place to the next, now it's
(37:39):
only one stayed over California to Nevada. I mean I could,
good lord, I could imagine how it was when Saint
Louis moved to Los Angeles the Rams. It is something
that definitely takes a lot of support from your family, teammates,
things like that, because you're going from one city to
the next, you're going from one team to the next.
You've got to actually learn a different culture, maybe from
one that you've backed have been accustomed to. So it
(38:01):
definitely has some growing pains. But I think that if
you have the right people around you, that's going to
actually lessen the effect of those growing pains actually transferring
over to the field into your body of work. Stanford
Route eight, NFL seasons. Good seeing you look healthy and happy.
Good senior buddy,
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.