Bulwark Takes - The NFL Pretends It’s Above Politics. It Never Was. (w/ Seth Wickersham)

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

Tim Miller sits down with ESPN’s Seth Wickersham to talk football, politics, and Seth’s new book, American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback. They get into how the NFL became a culture-war stage, the league’s bizarre “socialist” structure, owners who change politics to suit their stadium deals, why evaluating quarterbacks is still a coin flip, the Manning dynasty, race and the rise of black quarterbacks, and the chaos inside college football’s coaching carousel. Get 40% off access to Calm’s entire library at https://Calm.com/BULWARKTAKES Buy American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback: https://www.amazon.com/American-Kings-Quarterback-Seth-Wickersham/dp/1368099181

Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the Bull War. Happy Thanksgiving. We've got, it's Thanksgiving. So we're going to do a little football in politics content. And I've got Seth Wickersham of ESPN with me. He's got a new book out called American Kings, a biography of the quarterback. We're going to get into that. There's some quarterback politics over that, believe it or not. And Seth, I appreciate you doing it. This is kind of a No Kings podcast. We're going to do American King's book for you. I love it. And like, yeah, it's been an interesting time to have a book with that. title it's been an interesting year to have it but um you know fortunately everything's turned out okay um well for the book yes we'll see how things turn out for the rest of us um so i want to get into the book but first we'll just do a little bit of uh you know football and and politics and where these things intersect i guess just first like what's what's it like for you being a foot that's you always got to be working on thanksgiving like do you are you just like away from family yeah it's You know, not every year, but it's a lot of that.

I think that, like, one of the most interesting kind of turns that football has taken, especially the past 10 years or so, but even moving more, you know, is, you know, to own holidays. And so that leads long days for a lot of people who, you know, end up covering things that are directly tied to the games or even adjacent to the games. But, you know, that's okay. That's just kind of how it goes. But it's been an interesting twist. what used to be reserved for like the NBA and other you know the NBA all-star game like the NFL is just moving into those territories pretty ambitiously and ruthlessly where are you at on this question of like you know mixing the politics and football and turkey and all together and jumbling it all up is that just like part of american life now because that's another thing that I feel like has gone on hyperdrive lately versus the old days I mean I think it's all mixed I think that like you know when people you know tiptoe around politics you

you know, that's exactly what they're doing is they're tiptoeing around it. And it's always easy to step on it if you want to. Um, you know, it's been an interesting time. I mean, I think that like, you know, my job is to write profiles about interesting people and investigate the NFL about certain topics and issues. And, you know, at times, um, you know, politics, especially President Trump have overlapped with those things. And those have been really, really fascinating times to cover. Yeah, one of those times, I just kind of the, the overlap of all this has been kind of interesting. In a way, NFL has been a kind of microcosm of the political vibe shift in the country from what to write. And I was thinking, you know, you go back to during COVID

and after the Black Lives Matter protests that you have like end racism in the end zones, which I want to end racism, but I found that kind of silly to my, to my some level. It's like, it says the end zone paint really going to do anything on this it felt a little bit like you know not not really a substantive effort to end racism but you know it's on the helmets too and then you had that and and now like four years later you know we were having flyovers for charlie kirk and kind of like very over the top honorifics for him and and you know trump going to the games and you know and like as somebody who's been covering that you know does that say to you that like the NFL team owners are like showing their true colors now does it say to you that like

these guys are going to jump on whatever the hot fad is of the moment and you know if the next fad is Bernie and aOC they'll pretend like socialists like what do you think is happening well they are socialists in one very important regard and that's the NFL because it's run incredibly like a socialist organization where you know really you have some of the most ruthless capitalists you know that our country's produced who adhere to a very socialistic structure. And so that, of course, is very interesting. But, you know, I think that, like, one thing I've learned covering the NFL for a couple decades now is that it's never proactive necessarily about these items. I think that, like, it's for better or for worse. It's usually reactionary. And I think that, like,

you know, I covered in depth with my colleague Don Van Nata when President Trump, came after the kneelers in 2017. And that really threw the league and the ownership, which had really kind of enjoyed a status that was almost like above the political fray. It really threw them into a lot of debate. You know, there was a lot of sharp elbows thrown. There was a lot of hard feelings. And there was a lot of discussion that really lasted over the course of a month about how to

handle this particular issue. And, you know, it brought out some interesting colors in people. Like when we reported that Bob McNair, the owner of the Texan, said, you know, we can't have the inmates running the prison, which is, you know, of all the pieces of reporting that I've that I've had over the years. I mean, that was one of them that we reported on that really transcended the sports world. You know, I think like what we're seeing now is the league trying to do its thing, trying to remain above the fray. But obviously, when moments call for it to intersect with the president, you know, they do it and they do it, you know, pretty respectfully. You know, but we'll see, you know, how that goes. I think that, like, Trump really hasn't, you know, concerned himself too much with the NFL.

Obviously, he was really critical of the kickoff rule, which the special teams coach for the Kansas City Chiefs ended up saying this week, you know, had some pretty pointed comments about that. My colleague's Don Van Nuptu. I missed that. Was he pro? Was he on the Trump side of it or on the other side? To paraphrase, he said the president has no idea what he's looking at. But, you know, my colleague's Don Van Nata and Adam Schefter reported that, you know, Trump wants the new Washington Commander Stadium to be named after him. But, you know, and then there was the bad bunny stuff that kind of came up and disappeared. So I think that like, you know, I'm loath to like say that the NFL has like some sort of

sophisticated plan about how to deal with the president who can be, you know, let's just say atypical and impulsive at times in terms of who he picks to comment about. But, you know, so far, it seems like it's worked. For the league. Yeah. I mean, you do see it. Like, and the owners are malleable. I mean, look, I worked with Woody Johnson for a while, the Jets owner, who was a Bush guy that who got went all in with Trump, like, you know, which I saw no signs of besides him being a Republican. He had nothing nice to say about Trump. He had nothing nice to say about Trump, let's just say, when me and him were hanging out during the campaign. And you see Harris, the Redskins owner who had been a Democratic donor, who was, you know, at the

MBS ball, I guess, because, you know, he's part of the deal with the new stadium, need Trump. So, like, a lot of this stuff is just transactionalism, I think, from a lot of these owners more than ideology. Yes, and that encapsulates NFL owners better than anything. Yeah, right. Like, transactional, over ideological, ideological, that's it. I just want to highlight your point about the NFL. being socialist. It is such a true point.

And as a kind of former Republican and somebody that's on the free market, I'm like always on this against the owners. And I feel like it's because I recognize this. It's kind of like a bad, well, some might say all types of socialism are bad. But in this case, this is a particularly bad type of socialism because you get like all the benefits of it without any of the

responsibilities like to the community. I guess for years, the Nuggets and Avalanche is not out of your sports league. Like did not, their games weren't on TV in Denver. And because they're in some pissing match with the TV networks, the Comcast. And I was like, this is insane. I was like, you have, you guys have an obligation to the city.

Like, you get this. This is not a free market. Like, you're not in a, you're not in a free market. Like, they're only 30 teams. You get gifted one of them. You get these huge profits on the back end. You need to have an obligation to give it back to the city and not just to do you know, like these, whatever,

have a couple of charity functions with the boys and girls club and call it good. Like, you have a bigger obligation than that. And it does feel like a lot of times the owners don't, don't feel that way. Well, or they feel like they've done enough. I mean, again, it's like owners are kind of, NFL owners are kind of a strange and fascinating breed. Like, in one sense, like, if you look at the votes that they take on issues concerning the league, not political votes, but like, you know, whether to change replay or whatever it might be,

you know, almost all of the votes end up being like, like, you know, 31 to one with, you know, the Bengals abstaining. They're almost always, like, we think about these guys as being kind of kings of their own castle and very independent thinkers when, in fact, like, group think where usually prevails over league initiatives. It's very odd. It's very rare that they end up, you know, that these votes are actually really, really close. And, you know, knowing a lot of owners, I think that, like, when it comes to the community

aspect, there's some of them that take it, you know, so, so. seriously that it's like, you know, part of who they are as an owner. And then I think there's others who feel like that no matter what they do, no matter how much money they spend, you know, it's never enough and they're easy targets and they get kind of turned off by it all. And so, you know, sometimes I can see both sides of it. But, you know, generally speaking, you know, like you said, I mean, the owners are more transactional than anything else. in every way. There's a good community-minded owners, just not the Kronky family.

Okay, the book, I want to get to, I guess give us the big pitch for the book. Then I have a couple things I want to talk about. Well, you know, so it actually kind of was rooted in a little bit of politics. Like, I remember seeing photos, you know, when you'd see presidents together. And I know that this seems really foreign to some of your younger listeners. But, you know, like President Bush 43, when Obama was being inaugurated, it had every president over. And you know, you look at them sitting around a table and it's like they know something specific about each other's life, even if they don't discuss it because they've

shared this kind of very unique experience and being a little bit of a high school quarterback as I was. I try not to come off like the the Uncle Rico of Anchorage, Alaska. But being a little bit of a high school quarterback as I was, I realize that like there's something different about this job. It is different than anything else in really global sports and that you have to wear all of these different hats and so many hopes are kind of ascribed to it. And it's not a job you play. It's, you know, you don't play quarterback. You are one. And so it takes over the identity of these guys. And I really wanted to take a look at like what it's like to do it in high school, now and throughout history, college and now and throughout history, the NFL now and throughout history. And then

finally, like what it's like to be retired and kind of having hardwired yourself to survive a certain winnowing and ringer and live with that the rest of your life. I mean, those are the things that kind of fascinated me with it. Yeah, I do wonder, the quarterback thing, the best example, I think, of how it is different and how it's a specialized knowledge that some of us who are in the outside are trying to understand and translate as the Mannings. And obviously, these guys are really in my face living in uptown New Orleans. But at some level, like, you know, and Peyton, like for me, I have familiar.

I've pretty good familiarity with all of them being a non-sports person. I mean, Peyton played for the Broncos, is my team. Eli was the roommate, or not roommate, next-door neighbor of my best friend at Ole Miss. And I now live in Nautennails, so I see them all around. And like, none of them are physical specimens. You know, I like, none of them look like, oh, you know, it's not like you get it when you see them. And you see some people, like, think of the, like, you see Aaron Gordon on the street. You know, like, that dude is an athlete.

I remember saying, like, some of the Broncos. guys Carl Mecklenburg. I got the side, you know, walking around town, it's like, that dude has legs that are like tree trunks. It's like, none of the mannings look like physical specimens, particularly, Arch, not, not, you know, any different. And now, you know, you have this three-generation thing happening. We're now Arches going into Texas, and he seems to kind of figure things out after a rough start. And now Peyton's kid is 14 years old or whatever, and I'm already seeing clips of him going around. And it's like, that, the fact that this family has some secret sauce leads you to think that it's some there's something there that's more than just

like raw physical talent totally and i think that like is it nature or nurture like that's the most interesting question and i think that like there's a lot of mystery to it but it just it isn't a coincidence that this is the hardest thing to do in sports and that one family has seemed to to do it at a level that you know few individuals can do to say nothing of a collective and you know i wrote about Arch, I spent a lot of time with Arch and his high school when he was at Isidore Newman his last year. And I wanted to write about his recruitment. Because first of all, like, his recruitment was the most intense of any player in history, definitely since, you know, the social media age. And so I wanted to like get into this and all the

symbolic value that it, um, that it displayed, but also just like try to use him as a window to show the Manning family and to try to get out, like, why these guys are so good at this thing that is so difficult. And I think you're right. Like, you know, look, they're blessed with some genes, clearly. But, like, you know, like Peyton Manning is, is lucky in the sense that he's 6'5. But, you know, everything else, you know, I think that like there was an aspect of being obsessed and seeing where it could take it. But in the same sense, like, there is some sort of natural ability. Like, you have to be able to throw naturally at a certain level to play that well in the NFL, as Archie and Peyton and Eli did. And that to me was so fascinating about

Arch because he was kind of the reciprocant of all of this knowledge accumulated over decades, almost like bionically built in that regard. Yeah. I mean, Peyton won his last Super Bowl at the Broncos like a noodle arm. He had a dead arm. He was basically like me. Like, what do you think talking to all these guys what do they say what is the intangible aspect of it the other thing that is interesting is like at some level you know

Caleb Williams Arch like people saw early on that they were going to be elite but like when you get really down into the details and look at how many just misses there are in the NFL draft or like how bad you would think that like with all of the attention all the resources all the money

all the analysis that goes into this you could like look at a 21 year old and say that guy's going to be good in the NFL. And it's still kind of 50-50, it feels like, even with the first and second round picks. So what are the people who are experts of it? What do they say, why is that? What is the intangible element of it? I mean, NFL teams know more about the quarterbacks that they look at drafting than the American public knows about presidential candidates, which is insane. But it's true. I mean, they have more information than anybody else could ever need for a job interview and yet

they're wrong. I mean, you could walk into a draft room, look at 10 quarterbacks and pick one, and your success rate would be as good as just about anyone ever who's done this. And so, like, why is that the case? I think that, like, there's a couple of things. Number one is

that, like, the college game is kind of played differently than the NFL in the sense that, like, the hash marks, the little lines in the middle of the field are differently spaced. So because of that, there are some really smart coaches who can create windows that are open in college that aren't open in the NFL. So in a real way, you can't like, it juices statistics. Like, you're a Denver fan.

I mean, you're used to looking at the Rockies and wondering, like, you know, how good are these players? Because the altitude makes the hitters look better than they might be and the pitchers look worse. Like college is the same sort of thing where it's like great inflation only for quarterbacks when it comes to statistics. And then so when they get to the NFL, you simply don't know whether they can make the throws into the windows that you need to in the NFL.

And then I think the other thing is like context matters. And we don't like to think about that. Like we like to think that a quarterback, like a great center, you know, can kind of scotch tape over everything and make everyone look better. But like going to bad teams is a problem. And it ruins a lot of players that could be really good. I look at when I wrote about Caleb Williams in the book, a lot of this news has gotten out. But like it was about him and his dad and how they were.

weighing, blowing up the draft like John and Jack Elway did and like Archie and Eli Manning did because they didn't want to go to a team that had a horrible track record for offensive play and developing and drafting quarterbacks. And, you know,

so a lot of the arc with him gets into that question of like the fact that like even though we don't want to admit it, you know, luck matters, employment matters and context matters when we're evaluating quarterback. Borg takes a sponsor by com. There's a lot out there telling us how to be better. Be better parent, better partner,

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mannings that kind of weren't in a lot of ways and yet still like he just does so much better when i when i'm growing up with shanahan than like than previously with dan reeves is more of a defensive-minded guys like that stuff does does matter totally and like i think that like look i grew up some of my life in boulder and i was a huge broncos fan you know during that time And like, you know, we use the term, and this is like even applicable in politics, you know, it's like, but you know, the system quarterback idea, which is like it's about the infrastructure more than it's the player. And it's kind of a backhanded compliment when like every quarterback is a system quarterback. Look at John Elway statistics under Dan Reeves and under Wade Phillips and Mike Shanahan. It's obviously there's a system component to it all. And so I think like, you know, again, this doesn't lead us any closer to, you know, knowing how. you know, what that magic bullet is for drafting and developing quarterbacks. If I knew what it was, I would have flown down to New Orleans on my private jet, done this podcast in person and then flown home.

But, you know, I think that like all of those factors matter a lot more than we think they do. What other just kind of back to the quarterback stuff and the cultural political element that we were talking about at the beginning. You know, when I was growing up, shoot, up to not that long ago, like black quarterbacks were really slandered. And it was like in this context. The American, like the quarterback position, it takes something special. It's like physical, but it's also cerebral. And there's intangibles.

And you have to be able to have the intangibles to do well. And there's a, you know, just like a common slander in sports talk radio. And in the ether, like black guys could not do that as well. It's like one of the last, maybe the last sports role where that was really the case. There are other places in society. I can shoot. You still hear that. and some of the discourse from folks on the Magorite about various things,

having black pilots or whatever. But what, like, what was the evolution of that? Were there any, like, key inflection points? And kind of, where do you think? Is that totally gone from the public perception? Do you think at this point? I mean, I think it's mostly gone among NFL decision makers. I can't speak for, like, all fans.

But I think that, like, it's interesting because, I mean, the NFL and the draft process was one of the few places where that kind of discourse was still allowed. which, you know, was really kind of embarrassing to think about, but like, that's where a lot of that stuff came from. There was one moment that I think is really important, and I wrote about this in the book, and it actually happened in Louisiana. There was this great quarterback at Grambling named James Shack Harris, and he was there in the late 60s. So he's coming out for the 1968 draft, and he's seriously considering, you know, not playing professional football because he doesn't think he'll get a chance to play quarterback, and what's the point?

And he meets with Eddie Robinson, who's the head coach at Grambling, brilliant man, very influential coach, one of the all-time, you know, college grades. And Eddie tells him, like, you know, if you don't do this, you know, you're going to be making it more difficult for people who come along later. But if you do do it, you also can't blame the system because you know what that is going in. So you've just got to be better than all of this. And so Shaq goes, he got drafted by the Buffalo Bills. Their starter was Jack Camp at the time. And he still didn't know if he wanted to go. Like they were going to put him in the YMCA,

whereas the rest of the quarterbacks were in a team hotel for training camp. And he goes to a park and he blindfolded himself. And he, the big throw that the NFL wanted to see college quarterbacks make was the deep out. So he picked a tree that was about 20 yards down. field and he blindfolded himself. And he was like, I'm going to throw it this tree. And if I hit it, I think I'm ready. If not, you know, maybe not. So he blindfolds himself. He throws and he doesn't hear anything. So he lifts up the blindfold and he sees the ball past the tree. So he says, well, maybe two out of the three here. But he goes and gets the ball. He drops back again. He

blindfolds himself. He throws. And, you know, as he's telling me this story, the hair on my arm is standing up because I'm so, I'm just, I couldn't believe, you know, how much. much was at stake here. He hit the tree and he feels like, you know, I'm ready. And he goes in the NFL and it wasn't like a like a direct path to success, but he ended up having some really good years. And he really, more than anyone, helped open the door for Doug Williams and Warren Moon and these trendsetters like Randall Cunningham, who came later, Vince Evans. And even people like Patrick Mahomes talk about Shaq Harris as one of those guys that history is mostly forgotten, but was one of the most pivotal quarterbacks when it came to, you know,

introducing the idea that black athletes could play quarterback at elite levels. Yeah. And definitely Mahomes has sort of, I think, incinerated any concerns at this point or Lamar Jackson and the folks we see in the NFL now. Jaden Daniels, my boy, Jayden Daniels at LSU. Unfortunately, we talked about a system. Give him a good system for the offense, but the worst defense in the history of LSU

which cost him what he deserved, which is a chance to be in the playoffs. Well, I guess that's a good transition to how we're going to fix that. So LSU doesn't do that for our next great quarterback. We're without a coach. Politics is getting involved in that right now. As the governor, Jeff Landry, keeps interfering in the coaching search. And he's trying to recruit Lane Kiffin,

who's the Ole Miss coach. that is in the middle of the season here, which is ongoing. Which is, just a little quick aside, I know you're more of an NFL man, but the way the NCAA is doing this is so stupid. Is there any way they can fix this? I like the idea that no other league has this, where you have this stuff happening in the middle of the year, they should just make a rule.

So the recruiting and the coaching changes and all this stuff happens after the season's over. Like, what is the, why are we doing it? I mean, I think that like to do that, you would have to like, you know, admit that, you know, look, I think that what we've seen in college sports the past four years or so is that, like, a lot of the facades that were up there for the longest time, that this is amateur sports, that this isn't professional, that these are true student athletes, all of these things have all kind of come crumbling down. I think the final one would be, you know, admitting that this is professional sports and that, you know, they need to be governed by a set of rules that are uniform across the country. And the college sports used to kind of have an association like that.

I think it disbanded, I want to say in 1997, if I remember right, but they used to have something like that. And now I think you see calls for that again because, you know, look, there's a lot of things to love about college sports. There's a lot of things to really be disgusted by it. But I think that like one of the biggest ones is the fact that you can recruit players and actively be taking another job. during the season while those guys have real careers and real futures and real livelihoods based

on you. I think that like that is really abhorrent. Yeah. And that's like really where we are right now. And that's why this stuff is so, it's so stupid. And it's like, and I feel bad for the Ole Miss folks that are like, well, they're in the middle of this great season and their coach, Lynn is like, coach the season. But and yet, I kind of understand Lane's perspective a little bit. And some of the old Miss people were mad at them and saying, like, why would you abandon us at this time? But it's like, because of the way this dumb system is set up, all the other good jobs are going to be decided by the time the season is over. And so, and they've just really set up a really dumb way of doing it. But my hot gossip out there that does relate to your business is that Lane is not only considering Florida and LSU and leaving Ole Miss 4, but he's interested in following Jackson Dart to the Giants.

So do you want to break any news or reporting? on the link I have no I have none on that but like you know we won't know until mid-January for that because the NFL does have a uniform process for that but like look I just think like yeah oldness is having its best season in decades maybe ever and you know in the middle of it you've got his family going to visit places and like you know look if your dad is up for a job it's not unreasonable to go look at the city if it's going to uproop the entire family or if it's going to have consequences down the road but it's like why is this happening in the middle of the season that he's pledged, you know, his total, you know, undivided commitment to and gotten

a bunch of really good players to buy into that also. To me, like, that's the part where it's really, you know, frankly, disgusting. Yeah, that's tough. All right. Well, are you working on anything else? We got any, um, uh, any profiles you got coming off, any investigations? No, I, I wish I could. As you know, you know, you can't tease investigations. But I think I've got some good stuff that, you know, fans, you know, in sports and beyond sports, we'll really enjoy reading about a year ago. Well, it was about a year ago, January, my tranquil, you know, colleague, Don Van Nata. We co-write a lot of stories together, but we did that big story about Dan Snyder and how disgusted and turned off he was by the commander's success.

And that was a lot of fun because, you know, those stories are just great because they transcend the sports world and, you know, that hopefully we'll have a couple more, you know, stories that You know, it's not about Washington or about Snyder, but hopefully we have some stories that do that soon. Well, Washington sports fans are thankful for any aid in comfort so it's provided on the transfer to the new owner over there. Now that the political world at least has a football team that they can unite around.

Not that good this year, but the trajectory is good. Thanks to Jaden Daniels and thanks to getting rid of Dan Snyder. Seth Lerger-Schum, thanks so much for doing this. folks looking for a break from politics but you know some themes some overlap you can go check out the book american kings um it's out now it's at your bookstore you can go get it a little something to read over the holidays and uh we'll be seeing you next time you come through town all right man thanks man appreciate it