Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - CMC's New Deal, Irregular Seasons & 'Tompa Brady' with Howard Stern

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Christian McCaffrey is now the highest-paid running back in the NFL, Major League Baseball is pitching bright ideas on salvaging a regular season and Tom Brady drops a few gems on Howard Stern. CMC: (1:26) 2020 season: (17:15) Tom Brady: (30:23) 'Move the Line' Betting Segment: (43:44) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

literally like one side was like i would say like an orange oh and then the other side was normal and i was like something's wrong here from the athletic i'm jeff schwartz christian mccaffrey gets a huge contract major league baseball is charting a new course for the NFL. And Tom Brady gets honest with Howard Stern. It's Tuesday, April 14th. And this is Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you hope. Everyone is getting along just fine during the stay-at-home orders, the quarantines.

I know Gabe and I, our appearance, we sent each other photos yesterday, is getting very clownish, hair everywhere, big old beards. But this is what we're doing right now. Gabe, how you doing, buddy? I'm all right. I just took a shower, so I got the hair kind of back in check by the end of the day. Yeah, we'll be out to here, I think.

But you know what? I don't like this toolbox that the video people might be able to see because it just proves that I have these puny, narrow shoulders and you're a full-sized, full-grown man. But as audio, nobody could know the difference. Maybe I look just like you. Yeah. I mean, the audio version, the voices might not match up with the bodies, but that's why we have the video now. So we can see that the NFL player and Gabe, but I appreciate you wearing an athletic branded t-shirt that's very on brand at least i could do yeah um jeff i want to start with christian mccaffrey because he is obviously the best player in the nfl that

is not debatable and he is about to get paid the highest running back money of anyone in the league very deservedly cmc signed a four-year, $64 million contract extension. This is because people knew how good he was and figured, let's lock it in and build around this guy. Let's pay him before we even need to. With all that's going on in the world, the one thing to be sure of was Christian McCaffrey is worth lots and lots of money. Even though he'd be the highest paid back in the NFL this year, it's still probably a bargain. But I know that you are the running back hater of all NFL commentators. You have slander to share. So please try to tell me this isn't the biggest win of the offseason.

I do have lots of slander to share. Think about this. I'm a former offensive lineman. I love running backs. I played with Adrian Peterson, Jamal Charles, and here in Carolina with D'Angelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart. But the game has changed and running backs are no longer as valuable as they once were. Really, and the value is the word I'm talking about. Value. So value of paying a running back so much money like they are for

McCaffrey is not worth it when you look at how you're building your roster. Having a running back on your team that's good is important, but not if you're paying them all this money. Let's look at McCaffrey closer. When the Panthers have been good in his first three seasons, they were good when Cam Noon was the quarterback. Not when Christian McCaffrey was good or not good, right? He's an accessory to the offense.

He is not valuable toward them winning football games. Gabe, everyone says, well, wait, well, wait, wait. He's a receiving back. He catches the ball. So Gabe, I looked it up. He's had 15 games in his career with 10 plus targets. They've lost 14 of those games, 14 of them. Even last season, he had two games where he had over 100 yards receiving. They lost both those games where he had over 100 yards receiving. They lost both those games and scored three points and six points. My point is that these are empty stats. They sound great, but if we look at a quarterback and say,

hey, look, a lot of their yardage comes in the fourth quarter when they're down three touchdowns. We laugh at that quarterback. You can't pay that guy, but here he's a dual threat running back and therefore he deserves all this money. These deals do not work out. Gurley, Elliott, Le'Veon Bell, David Johnson. The list goes on and on of paying running backs.

They never hold their value. I don't get why teams do this, especially in my last point about this too. Well, I'm sure I'll have something to say after you talk. But David Tepper has preached an analytics approach to building his team. That's been one thing that he has talked about and one reason why Ron Rivera and David Tepper at the end kind of broke up, right? Ron Rivera is an old school guy,

doesn't really rely so much on analytics. David Tepper wants him. This is the anti-analytics approach to sign a running back to a long-term contract. It makes no sense whatsoever from a field perspective. If you want to say, look, Gabe, I'm going to sign CMC because he's a great role model. He works his butt off.

He's a terrific talent and he's good for our franchise. I get all that, but that doesn't lead to win. So you're paying a guy to market your program. Fine, I don't think that's a great way to build your roster. Yeah, okay. They're not looking to market anyone or they would have kept the most marketable guy available right now, Cam Newton.

This is not about marketing. this is about good football and obviously you know more about how this game is played but i think you're biased here by everything you just explained with this value point i think you're not seeing the forest through the trees if i framed it this way jeff i can get the second best wide receiver in the league, and then my wide receiver will actually be on the field 95% of the time, score 15 touchdowns rushing the ball, and probably chip in another 1,200 or 1,300 yards on the ground while being the second best receiver in the league. I'm getting that. Oh, and I don't have to pay him receiver money. Oh, and he's 24. Oh, and I don't have to pay him receiver money.

Oh, and he's 24. Oh, and by the way, when you claim, oh, I picked 15 games where he did this, this, and this, and he lost 14 of them. No crap. Pick any game that the Panthers have played in the last two years. It's probably a loss. That's why they don't have the coach anymore. They win or lose based off of Cam Newton being healthy.

They do not win or lose based off of Christian McCaffrey having a lot of yards in a game. It's not valuable towards winning. It doesn't help them win. The goal of any team is to build a team to win football games, not to reward people with a lot of stats. That's not the way it works. And look, I'm fine. I love guys getting paid. So that's a terrible argument. Don't bring that here.

And I know you're not doing that. But people say, well, you're anti-guys getting paid. No, I'm not. Good. Get paid. But if I was running a team, I wouldn't pay this guy. And I get your point about being a dual threat. Fine. But again, it's not helping them win games. They're going to be good or not this year, the Panthers are, if Teddy Bridgewater is good or not. Not if Christian McCaffrey is good, if Teddy Bridgewater is good. If Teddy Bridgewater is good, the Panthers will be good. McCaffrey is okay and Bridgewater is good. Guess what?

The Panthers are going to be good. If McCaffrey's outstanding and Bridgewater is just blah, the Panthers are going to be blah. You come and go as your quarterback goes, not your running back. And here's the number one reason why things have changed. I'll tell you it right now. Here's some football actual nerdy reason why things are changing in the'll tell you it right now. Here's some football, actual nerdy reason why things are changing

in the NFL right now. Okay. When I came in the NFL 2008 and up until probably about seven years ago, you used to just line up and run the football, okay? And there's a thing

called a box count. So a box count is how many defenders are in the box. So let's say that you have a run play and you have six defenders in the box, that called a box count. So a box count is how many defenders are in the box. So let's say that you have a run play and you have six defenders in the box. That's the box count. Six guys in the box.

Seven defenders, seven guys, right? Okay, the box count. And it used to be where you would just run the football. You'd call a run play and you'd run the ball. And if you had seven blockers, it didn't matter how many they had in the box. If they had eight or nine, you'd just run the football. You'd run it anyways.

We're going to make that guy miss is what they said. Okay. So when you make the extra guy miss, you need a running back who has supreme talent to make the extra guy miss. Okay. The run game was never really set up with, in my opinion, a strategic approach on the best way to get yards. Now, with the NFL that's spread out with formations and there's so much reliant on the best way to get yards. Now, with the NFL that's spread out with formations,

and there's so much reliant on the passing game, the run game actually benefits because teams only run the ball under good box counts. So you have six blockers, let's say, six defenders. If you add a seventh defender in the box, guess what? We're going to throw an RPO, or we're going to check the play. And also, when you do have, when you really, as offense is spread out, the running lanes get wider, right? Not as many fullbacks and tight ends and two tight ends and a fullback and two tight ends. Those formations are out of the NFL now. And so everyone's not packed in the box anymore.

Everything's spread out. So the running lanes become bigger and you have a hat on a hat, it's called. So six blockers for six defenders. so box counts are easier to run into therefore you don't need that high level talent guy that first round draft pick at running back to get yards anymore they're manufactured by the formation by the scheme and that's why you can have seventh round draft picks on drafted guys winning super bowls and that's why you can have these guys that come in the third or fourth round and help your team out right away.

It's because there's a strategic approach now to running the football when they're really, and there was strategery involved, I'm not sure it's a word, but not to the level that it was now. And that's what I think is the big difference why we're seeing these lower talented players be able to succeed and run games. Okay. There's so much to unpack there. The George Bush from SNL strategery is not even part of it. We're going to leave that one alone. Okay. You mentioned

Teddy Bridgewater. Then you mentioned a couple other things I really, really want to get into here. So we got a new quarterback who came from New Orleans, who just mastered the Sean Payton offense. You've got a new coach who came from the big 12, who all I was told for months was the most genius coach that the NFL was ever going to see in Matt Rule. And hidden underneath both those headlines is something that I think is the most important factor, which is their new offensive coordinator, Joe Brady, the young boy genius from LSU, whose offense just changed football again. Okay. Put all that together. And what I'm seeing from the research that I have done is, oh, wait a second. They are going to spread the ball, the field out. They are going to disguise their routes. They are going to use running backs as receivers,

not just out of the backfield, but push them out wide and have them run slot routes. They are going to use RPO. This is going to be an innovative offense. And just the same way you explained to me, it's no longer that you need a guy who can make a guy miss. Now you might need a guy who can run a tight route, understand more dimensions of an offense, be more versatile. Oh, what do you know? The most versatile player we've seen since LaDainian Tomlinson is 24 and on this team for four years. How is this not? Because you can find that guy in the third round

and spend your $16 million a year on a cornerback or a defensive end. Like you don't need to spend the money on a guy. You can go find the third round to do the job. So go get a second one of these guys in the third round. Go get them then. Show me the other one. Right. Go get them.

And then give the $16 million a year to a cornerback who can help your team. They just let one walk. Like, you don't. We just had a Super Bowl, by the way, where the two leading rushers on each team were undrafted for agents. Like, if that's not the biggest example of how you don't need an elite talent at that position to win the Super Bowl, the goal every year is to win the Super Bowl, right?

Do we agree that's the goal? Look at the Patriots the year before, running back by committee. The Eagles the year before that, running back by committee. The Patriots the year before that, running back by committee. And then I think it was the Broncos the year before that. I don't think it was running back by committee CJ Anderson who just like showed up like it's just you you don't need to have that elite level talent at that position to win a Super Bowl you just don't and teams keep getting suckered into the argument you're making

which is yes Christian McCaffrey is uber talented I'm not disagreeing with you there but the idea that you need to have this guy make so much money to win the Super Bowl doesn't work that way in the NFL anymore. All right. Well, try to explain that to anyone who played fantasy last year. That's the problem. Bingo. That's the problem.

Well, okay. Except that a lot of us pay pretty close attention to the stats he puts up. And when you drill into the stats a little bit, what doesn't square with everything you're telling me, and well, luckily we don't have to care about wins and losses in fantasy football. We just care that he plays through 16 weeks, which he did. What I don't get based on everything you're telling me, and I'm listening to you, man.

Like I might argue with you, but I do ultimately absorb almost everything you're saying as fact and I'm listening to you, man. Like I might argue with you, but I do ultimately absorb almost everything you're saying as fact. I hope our audience does the same. They'll get in your mentions and challenge you a little, but when you back it up, you're usually right.

Here's what I don't get. Why is he on the field 95% of the time if you can get a third round and do his job almost as well? Why is he so much a part of their offense? That's a problem. He shouldn't be so much a part of their offense. He should be much less of their offense.

He should be 70% of their offense, 65% of their offense. That's the issue right there is that he's way too much of their offense. Again, it's not leading to productive offense. His best games last year when they scored no points. You need a guy who is not part of your offense for that many snaps of the game. He's going to wear down, first of all. But also, we see now that the passing offense is so important in the NFL. You're going to pass the ball, and that has to be a big part of your offense.

So, no, he should not be part of their offense as much as he is, and that's a fault of maybe the lack of talent they have on their team or Cam Newton being hurt and having to use him more than you'd like to use him. But that's too much production for him. Well, do you want to do you want to address this sort of theory I have that adding Rule and Brady from LSU is maybe going to be like the greatest thing that ever happened to Christian McCaffrey because I don't I don't I mean look he's the first running back in NFL history to have 2,500 yards receiving and rushing at the end of his third season I don't know what's going to help him even more than this. Again, the offense is going to be

good or not based off of Teddy Bridgewater. And if Christian McCaffrey is part of that offense, obviously it has a chance, but so will the tight end and the wide receivers and the play calling. It only comes and goes if Bridgewater is good or not. And I don't think the running back has that much value to bridge water on the offense all right well i mean it certainly seemed to me if i was teddy bridgewater i'd be pretty damn pleased that that guy was going to be the guy behind me kind of worrying linebackers and eating up a lot of defensive uh schemes because i'm only an average quarterback if i'm teddy bridgewater and now all of a sudden I'm expected to be a franchise quarterback. I got a new offense to learn.

At least I know I have a safety valve in Christian McCaffrey who also can run between tackles. I don't know how I could be any happier. Here's one last point for you. Everyone points to Derrick Henry for the Titans this year. We talked about this on the podcast way back in January. And they played Bill Belichick, right? We agree, the greatest defensive mind, one of them ever.

In that game, they had a choice to defend Derrick Henry or Ryan Tannehill. Derrick Henry led the league in rushing, and Bill Belichick chose to defend the pass. Two eye safeties. We're not going to let Ryan Tannehill beat us. And they did. They only scored 14 points, did the Titans on offense. It tells you right there

how defensive coaches feel about running backs versus the pass game. Did they win that game? They scored 14 points on offense. But you just threw a whole bunch of they lost the game at me. So did they win that game

that you're talking about? They didn't win that game because their offense won the game. They won that game. Oh. So the genius game plan that you just described that ignores the running back lost. A lot of 14 points on defense. That's a great game.

You have 14 points on defense. If you are a fan of the Jets or the UC Trojans, if your team allows 14 points in a game, do you expect to win that game? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Generally. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. I just want to make sure. Perfect. Okay. All right. your team allows 14 points in a game do you expect to win that game yeah yeah i do generally yeah okay i just want to make sure perfect okay all right i just didn't know that the foundation of your argument against christian mccaffrey was it didn't lead to wins but your your closing argument was going to be my closing argument is that defensive minds don't your argument was that this is going to open up they're gonna have to put more guys on mccaffrey that's what you said about the new offense they're not going to do

that i'm telling you bill belichick didn't put any extra guys on derrick henry he did not care about derrick henry and it worked they only had 14 points well derrick henry on his best day looks to me a lot like the guy you mentioned who you used to block for who played the old-fashioned way adrian peterson derrick henry looks like a guy who you go, okay, seven on seven, like, fine. Derrick will find a way to make him miss a little bit. That's a different type of player. Christian McCaffrey isn't that player. Yards are yards, buddy, whether you get them in the run game or pass game.

I don't think it's – I mean, I just told you, like, his yards aren't leading to success. Like, they're not winning. At least Derek Henry's yards, they were winning those games, which is a whole different story whatsoever. All right. Well, listen, I was hoping that I could get you to think outside the box a little bit on Christian McCaffrey. You seem pretty stuck in your football guy mindset here.

You don't like Christian McCaffrey getting paid. This is not a football guy thing. This is a nerdy discussion. This is what analytics people tell you. If I was a football guy, I'd be like, pay all the running backs. But I'm not. All right, fine. Whatever your terminology is, I need you now that we're in a nice place,

we're agreeing on language. Let's broaden our horizons. Let's think big let's not immediately shoot each other down on this one let's be let's be a yes and like an improv team okay so let me get through this before you yell at me okay all right major league baseball is considering playing abbreviated seasons with teams exclusively in florida and arizona the homes of their spring training setups. All right.

The goal for this in a regular season would be to have all of the players essentially quarantined in two locations to eliminate travel and to be able to play a bunch of games as safely as possible. Right. This would mean keeping players away from their normal routines and their families, presumably. It would be a big, big shift in their lives, but it would mean putting games on in a relatively safe manner

for a national audience to see. All right? They'd be on in multiple time slots. We'd just have baseball wall-to-wall from a bunch of parks in Arizona and Florida. So what if the NFL tried similar? And I'm going to do my best to outline this. Before I do, let's just assume that smart people have said that this is reasonably healthy, that the players and owners have come up with terms that are agreeable to everyone.

Let's just take the hardest part of this conversation off the table and say, it's fine. It's going to be okay. Okay. What about this plan? What if we had a 16-game schedule played in two cities? For now, let's say Los Angeles and Atlanta, two cities with multiple stadiums and universities that could be used as basically training facilities slash alternative stadiums, facilities for players and staff, more importantly, to stay and be comfortable and safe. Let's imagine that those are our home areas for the NFC and the AFC. Let's imagine that we play two games each at 10 Eastern, 1 Eastern, 4 Eastern,

and 7 Eastern every Sunday. Okay, so we have, what is that, 10 games being played total throughout the day. It's kind of like those weeks where we have a London game. But instead of having like nine games on at 1pm Eastern, we're spreading the games out two at a time all day long, AFC and NFC, two different coasts. basically like doubling down on what we do opening weekend, right? So just like week one, we'd have two games on at five Eastern and two games on at eight Eastern, so the West Coast game. And then on Thursday, we do one version of that. So we'd still get all the 14 games we need in each week. We'd have the bye weeks. You'd still need those. CBS and Fox would split up the Sunday broadcast like they do, but they'd get more games on in front of a national audience. ESPN and NBC would now split up the Monday night game because the Sunday night game would be part of the Fox-CBS deal.

There'd be no cross-conference divisional games, right? So the AFC East wouldn't play the NFC North or whatever it ends up being this year. You'd just replace those with more intra-conference games. So you'd stay on your coast. I'll shut up there. Why can't this work? Oh man. Wow. You put a lot of thought on this. More than I should have. More than you should have. I mean, I guess it could work. What are you doing with families? And what are you doing with living arrangements? Are players and families quarantined? Are they allowed to live free about?

That's what I wanted to ask you about. So let's imagine that, well, first of all, you can probably hear my family on this microphone right now, which is evidence that maybe you guys wouldn't mind a break from their families every now and then. But let's assume that people want to be around their families. That is going to be difficult. I don't have a solution for that yet. So I wanted to ask you as a former player and a guy who had a family while he was in the league, how would one handle that? Because baseball, if they're going forward with this plan, is going to have to solve that problem.

It'd be really tough. I told my wife about this about a week ago. I said, hey, baseball's talking about doing this spring training thing, and they play in Arizona, Florida, but you don't see your family for four and a half months. And she said, well, you're making millions of dollars, right? I said, I mean, presumably some of them are. And she goes, yeah, that's fine.

And I was like, Meredith, you yelled at me the third day I'd be gone when I was training in Arizona for four weeks for the season. Like, it's not the way this works. And you know that. You know that as a family, you want your husband there to help you with the kids

and you want your husband there to just be part of your family and to say that, hey, you're going away for four months. I'm just going to accept that is never the way you were. And maybe some wives would accept that. But I just don't think it's going to work that way. Part of having a family that I enjoyed while playing, of course, besides my family. So like it was a break from reality,

right? I come home and I wouldn't have to worry about football for two hours while I played with my son. I don't have to worry about this and that. I don't have to worry about the game I just played. I come home and see my family. The amount of joy and relaxation and mental stress that your family takes away from you is a big part of why I think a lot of players succeed in the league is they're able to take that time away and have a break from the life of football or baseball or basketball to be with their families and the support that your wife and your spouse or a loved one you know gives you helps remove you a little bit from the game and allow you to enjoy life a little bit. I just can't imagine being with my family for four months to play football,

especially that physical sport like that. I mean, she's going to go back to the hotel and lay around for 14 hours of the day and do nothing. I just don't think that's good for anyone's mental health. Okay. So that's why I want to talk to an actual human being who played in the league and has real feelings instead of just guessing what guys would be like because remember fans like me mostly have the impression of it being you know kind of like it isn't hard knocks and we're not we're seeing it in snippets and it looks like a great hang it looks like yeah man you live at the hotel like your buddies are down the hall you're working your butt off all day long so by the time you do have some free time you play a little xbox you eat too much food and you go to sleep like you know maybe one or two nights a week coach lets you out

to have a little bit of a party so we none of us are able to do that right now so you know that's already crossed off the list like i guess i don't mean to be insensitive, but I wonder if just saying, well, you're going to earn millions, you don't have to do this. You can just choose not to be a part of it. But if you want to earn the money, that's the lifestyle you sign up for. We're all sort of living this strange new reality anyway. I'm really not discounting people's feelings. Do you think guys would not sign up for that? Well, in the end, they do it because it's a lot of money.

And just a reminder, everyone makes millions, right? I mean, my wife got a little jaded for, you know, when I was on the Giants my last two years. Otherwise, I didn't make a million dollars in any year up until that point, until my seventh year. Yes. I mean, look, guys would do it because they want to get paid and that's their job. Training camp is a good – I'm glad you brought up training camp because training camp's unique. You know, it's only three weeks now and it's pretty much understood that those three weeks are training camp and there's not much free time. They kind of romanticize the free time you have in training camp. It's a couple hours during the day and then at night, a lot of us just go to sleep. We're not up there playing ping pong and, you know, in the break area and in the players' lounge. A lot of us just go to sleep. We're not up there playing ping pong and in the break area and in the players' lounge. A lot of us just go to sleep

when camp's over. And during the season, your schedule's not like that. You're off Monday or Tuesday. Friday's a half day. Saturday's a half day if you're at home. I just think players would

just be so tired of being bored and not being able to see their family and whatnot. Again, you bring the families or you quarantine them, I guess. It's kind of unfair for them, too, to just have to travel somewhere for four months just to be – who's paying – the team's paying for that, you know, that setup. There's a lot of things outside of football.

But, you know, if I got called to do that, I would suck it up and do it because I'm making money. And you have only a couple years in the NFL to earn money. And so, yeah, I would do it. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I would suck it up and do it because I'm making money. And you have only a couple of years in the NFL to earn money. And so, yeah, I would do it. I wouldn't be happy about it, but I would do it. Yeah. I mean, and that's, again, I'm trying not to overlook the human beings that are actually would be facing this choice.

But I guess what I often hear when we're talking about normal situations, what I often hear is you only have so many years to earn and you never know when it might be your last season. And you've obviously faced some some tricky injuries. And, you know, your career has gone differently than than you might have wanted to go because of injuries. So wouldn't a guy who's 28 right now and just starting to play the best football of his life really not want to miss these next couple of years? I mean. Well, yeah, it is just one year. I think they would play.

But besides the family part of this, I know you mentioned the facility part. I'm not quite sure there's 16 facilities in every city for the teams. Are they then are they going to be at hotels like like training camp and go practice at a high school and bus back and do the meetings and film and recovery and hotels. This was not a plan that anyone at the NFL or any team has proposed. So I'm not, I don't want to take this more seriously than we should. And I have to again, say, this is all hypothetical. If we thought it was healthy, I'm not treating people like animals here. And the one thing you said, the 10 a.m. kickoff of East Coast,

it's early. Yeah, but we'd have football on at 7 a.m. out West. There'd be wall-to-wall football. So from a fan perspective, this is so much better. From any fan perspective, any sport right now is better than no sport. And you look at just the prospect of football coming back we're

seeing some states with some movement about you know quote-unquote reopening like I'm getting excited and more optimistic I've been this whole way about football coming back I think that if we don't have football this fall Gabe we have far bigger issues in our country than football not being back I mean that just signals in my opinion that we're a long way from finding a way to kind of, I don't know what the right word is, get over the virus. I mean, obviously, the vaccine won't be ready. But just like managing life with COVID, if we can't have football by September 1st, we have a lot of other issues in this country.

So, again, I remain hopeful that we have football. If this is the way we do it, I'll be glad to watch it. I don't know if as a player I'll be pumped about it, but I think players will be happy to get paid and just have some normalcy in life. Yeah, so when this was proposed as an idea that, I mean, who knows who leaked what, but when this got surfaced as a possibility for baseball, where they would blow up

the American League and the National League, it'd just be weird. It'd be a different year. It would have an asterisk on it forever. But Tony La Russa, who's, you know, an important voice in the history of baseball said,

so you have a unique season. I've got no problem with that. If Tony La Russa, who's like as old school as they come in the baseball world, if he can just roll with it, I, I kind of think like, okay,

why wouldn't NFL players, owners, every, every stakeholder just say, all right, that's different, but we can roll. I certainly know a network TV executive would be thrilled about this. The thing with baseball, and I know you're a baseball fan as well as I am, is baseball has always been quirky, right? Like there's always weird oddities about baseball. And I think that it wouldn't be, as a baseball fan, let's just say, which I have been my whole life, I wouldn't feel so weird about having kind of an odd season, right?

Where just you throw every team together and the division are thrown out and now you have different things happening for a year. I feel like for football fans, that would be hard to accept. And I just, football's more rigid. Not much change happens over time there. I feel like baseball is just odd. It's an odd sport and weird things happen all the time. And it wouldn't seem that weird if baseball just had an odd season where they played in spring training homes. I hear you. I think this is where the fan mindset maybe needs to shift a little, which is that, yeah, it would be odd.

And yeah, it would be different. And the records would mean something different. And our viewing habits would change. And we'd always get to argue that whoever won the Super Bowl this season wasn't really a champion. Like we'd get to have that qualification every conversation we ever had forever. But we'd get to watch some football on Sundays. So I don't see any reason not to explore this i i hope that people are exploring it with like a human touch and not forgetting that yeah there's a hundred guys on each team that have

families um i just think of baseball who you know to their credit i mean they made some mistakes some of the things that they've updated the game with in the last few years, we don't love, but they do keep trying to innovate to get people more interested in to not lose relevance. And I, I think that they're smart to lead the way on this. So let's see what baseball does or football. Excuse me. I'm all right. I, like I said, I, I want football, so I'll take anything. All right.

Tompa Brady is the most calculated dude on the planet can we agree with that okay i'm gonna move on even if you don't agree he spent two hours and nine minutes with howard stern the other day two hours and nine minutes which a lot of media members have been joking is probably more time combined than he's ever spent with any of them one-on-one in history all right and everyone is saying he accidentally revealed a bunch of stuff to howard stern like oh my god tom was so loose he just started saying stuff he didn't mean to say bullshit okay nobody goes on howard stern and accidentally reveals anything especially not someone sober and as calculated as Tom Brady. So like, that's just not what happened. Look at it a different way, everyone. He did this to control a narrative. He did this to have his version of the story be what gets circulated all over the media landscape,

not just in sports, across the country, as I, Tom Brady, broke up with them. I respect Bob Kraft and walked him through it, but it was me who decided, not just this year, a year ago, I had already decided I wasn't going to stay. And I told Bob Kraft, and then I told Coach Belichick. And there's nothing wrong with my relationship with Coach Belichick, but, you know, I understand where he's coming from and he understands where I'm coming from and we're moving on. It's obvious to me that he's trying to make it so that all of us think this was his choice so that if he's successful in Tampa,

his legacy takes the boost, not Belichick's. He claims he doesn't care about legacy, but that's complete horseshit. I agree with everything you've said. It's a calculated move by him to get out in front of any bad press out of New England, which they tried to do. But also, I think he wants to make himself more relatable to people. He wants to make himself relatable so that TB12, Tampa 12, Tampa. What's the other one?

There's like Tampa Bay and Tampa Brady. That was not even a pun. That's just stupid. Yeah. So I think that he's trying to soften his image because he knows he's at the end of his career-ish, right? And that he wants to be known as more of a softer personality, right word? It's a softer personality, right? He wants to get out there and say what he wants to say. He talked about smoking weed, I believe. Did he talk about genitalia size too at one point?

Like just a bunch of random stuff. He told a really funny story about Matt Castle got hit in the junk and then his testicle got all big and they made a joke out of that. Like, oh, whoops, I let that slip in my two hour chat with Howard. So I think that this was, I think everything you said was, was accurate. Plus what I've said as well, but I'll tell you one thing that kind of caught my, uh, my, uh, my ear. And I think this is the one part of this that was the,

not the most truthful, but I, I felt that probably he didn't expect to talk about as much was his relationship with Gisele, his wife and his family. And she said something like, hey man, you're spending too much time worrying on football and not enough time with the family. And something that I dealt with, I didn't have kids at the point,

but I went to Minnesota for a year, wasn't playing very well, and I was kind of depressed up there. My wife wasn't with me. She was in nursing school, and we saw each other just on the weekends, only on home games for small times. I was in the hotel Saturday night,

and things just weren't going well. And she broke up with me at the end of the season. We got back together a couple months later, but just the toll of just focusing so much on football and letting that take over your emotions. I was depressed and sad, and I didn't want to talk to her. It was kind of opposite of what Brady's doing. He was being driven to do so much.

But the game can take over you and take away your time with your family. And even after we had kids, I had to find ways to make sure that, hey, I was showing enough time to my family because, yes, your wife is supportive of you. I know Giselle works. My wife works as well. But you have to make time for your family. You can't be so obsessive over football. So that part actually caught my attention because out of all the things he said, that

felt like the most real, quote unquote, real, right? Like, I don't know if he expected to talk about Gisele and him going to counseling and, you know, trying to make it work. I don't know. You seem very skeptical of that. Well, I mean, with respect to you, maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because it, you know, you're being sincere. So maybe he was too, but I also think you're on a slightly different level, um, in terms of like Howard Stern's interest. And remember, like, it's kind of ridiculous to imagine that Tom Brady would spend over two hours with Howard Stern and that his supermodel wife and sex life, dating life,

other women in his life from the past, that wasn't going to come up with Howard Stern. Maybe he surprised himself and revealed a little bit more of that human side that you possess and are comfortable sharing. Maybe Tom didn't know he'd go there, but I don't think he said anything that wasn't already known to his family. Right. But I think that the personal thought about Giselle telling him, like, dude, you better wake up or I'm going to leave you, essentially, and you better be more of a family guy. I'm not sure he wanted to reveal all of that, right? I don't know. Not many guys talk about yeah my time everything everything else everything else i agree with you i think that was like totally but but that was my takeaway

because out of everything he said that's the only thing i can relate with right i can't relate with how many titles he's won or how famous he is or you know breaking up with belichick in craft or i mean i can't relate to some of the groin humor. Oh, yeah? Well, go there. I've never seen a guy's testicles swell up, but I had surgery in the groin region once and everything kind of floats down. All the swelling goes down your body. So that I can relate with.

But like the stuff with the family, like I can, as different as my life is than Tom Brady, as different as my wife and his wife are, I think a lot of players can relate to that idea that you're spending so much time consumed with football. Again, mine were different. Mine was more like depressed, sad, didn't want to talk to my wife. His is the opposite, too driven, right?

Spent too much time away and working on his craft. We can all relate to like, look, you have to find a balance is the opposite too driven right he's made too much time away and working on his craft we can all relate to like look you have to find a balance between doing what you love and also being with the people you love and finding a way to make that work yeah again uh it's pretty well documented on this show that i'm not a tom brady fan um i will draw the line between Tom Brady, the husband and dad, and Tom Brady, the quarterback and bane of my existence. But I also will say that that answer strikes me a little bit like the classic interview answer where it's like, well, you know, Jeff, we're really thinking that you might be a great fit on our team. But we should just ask, like, what would you describe as your greatest weakness? And your answer is like, man, I just work too hard.

Like, you know, like, come on, dude. That's kind of a nonsensical answer. Like, the thing he revealed about maybe the flaws in his relationship is that he's too obsessed with football. The Dwight Schrute, I'll give you three reasons. Jackhammer. Like, i don't know i just i i feel like we all took the bait i saw all my favorite shows all my favorite hosts were responding to this like hours later they were on their own shows there's nothing to talk about right now if he had done this in the middle of the nba playoffs

and baseball starting up and the masters this past weekend and all these things happening, this would not be as big of a story. And I also think that the pairing of Stern and Brady just seems so unlikely, right? To your point, Brady did one interview a week, typically, WEI. That was it. And now all of a sudden he goes to Tampa. He's on Howard Stern. And people are wondering why he's doing that.

You know, obviously Stern interviews everybody. So it doesn't really, from that, from that angle, it's not surprising, but did he reach out to Howard Stern? The Howard Stern people were, I mean, it seems like, like, like he wanted to do like, it's almost like he, right. I think he probably reached out to them. It was like, I want to do this interview. Yes. This is, look, there are high powered, highly paid PR firms. You know, you know how they work that coordinate this kind of stuff like that. And these interviews are researched extensively. Like Howard is not a huge sports fan. Howard didn't know this stuff.

He didn't know what to ask. They like they put a ton of work into preparing him for this interview. You know, like Gary is a big sports fan. Guys on his staff, John Hyde. There are guys on Howard's staff who are big sports fans who could have thrown a bunch of good ideas into a document. But Howard didn't know the nuances of the Brady Belichick relationship unless they've done a lot of pre-interviewing and discussing of what was supposed to come up. How much time do you think they spent prepping Howard for the interview? I mean, to the degree that Howard likes to be prepped, I wouldn't know. But it seemed to me like more than usual because I think his base.

Is he like a high? Does he prep a lot? Like we see some guys in the industry just like are so good at it. Just hop on and interview people without much prep. I wish I knew the answer. I mean, he's such a professional and he's's been so well-documented as a hard worker when it comes to the craft of radio. He may not take other things as seriously, but he does not take it lightly to put together his show.

He does fewer of them to do a better job on the ones he does. So I would imagine he does do real prep, but I don't know. If he's talking to Brad Pitt, maybe he just knows what he wants to ask Brad Pitt. I'm not sure. With Tom Brady i have to imagine he he got his staff to really help him dig into some stuff like they clearly read seth wickersham's article they clearly like knew the tick tock of tom brady's career in a way that i frankly i don't even think i would have been able to remember on the fly yeah um but there's no way tom goes into that without thinking about yeah what would

happen if i brought up the fact that i smoked weed like what what would the ramifications of that be well he's probably thought about this for he's gabe he's thought about this for 20 years now he's thought about when the right time is to share these stories yeah and he but he's clearly trying to say i was boxed in and turned into a robot by that guy belichick like i'm a cool guy yeah he's trying he's 100 trying to prove he's a cool guy which i don't know i just don't know if that's his personality or not but that's been coming out that's been leaking out from his former teammates anyone who played with him at michigan anyone who knew him in the first run in new england before he became a robot we'll all talk, Brady, man, he could chug a beer in four seconds.

Like he's a great hang. Like he's not the guy you think he is. Because I think he's trying to sell this TB12. And it's easier to sell when you're like in every dude who just like gets on this TB12 and, you know, gets shredded. It's tougher to sell when you're just some rigid dude who is eating avocado ice cream and tomato salads. And this is part of your rigid your rigid

personality and lifestyles he's trying to everything he's doing in my opinion off the field and i even think to a degree on the field um has it's kind of post-career mindset in it because i even think tampa like it's he went to a place with a coach who notoriously just doesn't put in the same hours everyone else does. That's not, by the way, a slight of BA. I think BA is very prepared. But he even talks about, like, if you have something to do, you can leave. I don't know many coaches that allow other coaches just to leave. It feels like he went to the exact opposite place he was in New England.

And it feels like he's preparing himself. Like this was decision to go play in a looser environment with maybe less hours, less, you know, less demand on having to meet with coaches as kind of a, you know, kind of a post-retirement thoughts in mind. I think so too. And every, you know, regular guy, relatable guy has like, you know, their cool nickname, only their buddies call him. And so Tom Brady is now Tompa.

Like that makes sense. That's totally relatable. If you meet Tom Brady in the next two years, we call, we say, Hey Tompa. Hey Tompa, what's up, man? Good to meet you. I've been, you know, hard time rooting for you over the years, but now I see you're pretty cool, dude. Are you where your, your, your, your Jets Tebow, your, uh wearing your Jets Tebow jersey with you?

By the way, I had a guy sidebar. I was walking with my mask on, walking through the neighborhood the other day. Guy with a mask on coming my direction. We sort of make eye contact. And he goes, let's go Mets. He had a Mets hat on. I was wearing a Mets shirt. I said, give it a second.

Wait till you see the back. And I thought he was going to enjoy it. And he walked past me. He looked over my shoulder. He saw Tebow on the back. And he just went, ugh. We had this brief moment of bonding in this horrible time. We were bonding for a second over let's go Mets.

But as soon as he saw Tebow, he was out. That's fantastic. All right, let's move the line. It's a little over-under game. No real stuff to bet on right now, so these are just imaginary bets you could make. Jeff, this is a little bit dated now, but I have to get your take on it.

I want to know Texans' win total. Let's say we play 16 games. Texans' win total over-under 8.5. This is based on their most insane to date trade yet. This is acquiring Brandon Cooks from the Rams for a 2020 second round pick. Now they've got Brandon Cooks on that offense. After giving up DeAndre Hopkins, a second round pick was exchanged in each case. So they basically traded DeAndre Hopkins

for Brandon Cooks. Somehow the Texans make the playoffs every year with Bill O'Brien. I do not understand this. Probably because their division is an absolute wreck. Look at their division right now. The Colts have old man Phillip Rivers as their quarterback, who's not going to make it through the season.

I forgot that was the case. Jacksonville has Garnu Minchu, who's not going to make it through the season. I forgot that was the case. Okay. Jacksonville has Gardner Minshew, who realistically is probably not the answer there. They might get Cam or might draft someone. And the Titans ran back the same team. They're going to not make the playoffs probably. So they're going to win the division. They're going to go over eight and a half games. Yes.

And they also have an amazing quarterback. And it's part of it, too, is they have easily the best quarterback in the division. And that's a big part of winning football games. So I'd say yes. Over. Even though their coach slash GM is a complete moron now. I don't think he's that bad of an actual coach. I think he's a terrible GM.

He's really bad in the playoffs, though. But help me understand this. What is the rationale for that trade? They get a second rounder for DeAndre Hopkins while he's still on a decent deal. And now they give up a second rounder for Brandon Cooks, who's not on a good deal. I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't know what he's thinking.

I don't. I wish I did. If I knew that I would be able to bet on this much easier. I have no idea. It's all emotion. This is why coaches, because coaches are very emotional, it's why coaches don't make good general managers. General manager, you have to be emotionless.

Coach is way too emotional. A lot of them are former players. You have to have no emotion in this. And he has way too much emotion. That's his problem as a general manager. Yeah. Interesting. Or you just need to split those two roles up. John Lynch, former player, clearly a terrific GM, built a great team. Looks like he'll win some Super Bowls as a GM, was also Hall of Fame caliber player. But that's the rarity though, right? I mean, how many, and across sports, how many former great players have been great coaches or great in the front office?

No, the great, great players almost always become bad front office guys. The average players sometimes are great. Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of evaluating and taking emotion out of it, I want to know remaining number of draftee selfie workout videos we're going to see during this prolonged quarantine. Please, God, the over-under is.5. Please take the under. Tell me we're done with these. I did an interview yesterday, and someone said to me, they asked about Tua. It might have been this morning.

They asked about Tua. And they have been this morning. They asked about Tua. And they said, Trent Dilford really likes him. And I said, oh, the guy who trains him really likes him. Wow, that's shocking. I'm surprised the guy who ran as Pro Day feels highly about him.

These are so useless. And I say Pro Day is one of the most useless activities that we've fallen over. And I'm the same way for every guy. Justin Herbert, guy at Oregon. He threw like some 62-yard pass without moving his feet in pro day. I was like, this is the stupidest video ever.

We know he has a big arm. Who cares? Now, Tua's a little bit different because we want to see how he moved. So different than other pro days when it just doesn't matter. But even then, I think he was at D1 in Nashville, the same place I trained actually for the combine.

They don't even have a field. They have a tiny little soccer field. It's hard to get an idea of depth and how far he's throwing the ball. Ridiculous. I have a video coming out, by the way. I did a pro day at home with doing dad chores. And it's coming out today. It's going to be absolutely fantastic.

I have a buddy. My radio host on my Pac-12 show is an announcer. So he announced the video, and it should be out soon. I gave him full clearance to do everything he wanted in the video. Okay. I'm looking forward to seeing that. My dad tour game is getting better. Back to the football, though, for one second. because Dilfer, who I like Trent Dilfer.

I think he's one of the better analysts out there. I think he's more honest. Yeah, he's good at it. But this is a strange scenario. We talked about this last week with, like, what's Rex Ryan doing crapping all over Tua? Like, what's his angle? Where's he coming from on this? He seems like he has an agenda.

Trent, at least, is being honest. Like, it's known that he works out with the guy and he's so he's complimenting him but he claimed he throws better than Aaron Rodgers and Dan Marino like that's a ridiculous thing to say I mean Tua might be a terrific NFL player but come on I don't know why we do this like you, you know, Jordan Love is the next Pat Mahomes. Like, really? I am so out on player comps. I have to do some thing where they're talking about offensive linemen. Give me your, you know, who's Mekhi Becton's player comp? And I'm like, himself?

Like, it's a silly thing to do. I mean, Brian McKinney's the guy. But still, like, it's one of those things where I hate the player comp because every player is different. I get why we do it, right? Because we want to say, oh, Tua's so talented. He's Aaron Rodgers. You could wrap your head around him.

But I've never seen him throw and be like, wow, he's the best arm in college football. No. No. No. He makes some plays. They just aired the Super Bowl between the Packers and Steelers from a couple years ago. Dude, Aaron Rodgers in his prime? Oh, my God.

Yeah, no. I mean, Tua would be – if you said, Tua, sign up right now for Aaron Rodgers' career, he takes that in a heartbeat. Of course. That's so much better than his best. All right. I agree. Last one.

What percent surprised you, Jeff Schwartz, were to find out that Joe Exotic is a Cowboys fan? 50-50. Oh, not at all. Screamed Cowboys fan from the beginning, especially being in Oklahoma. Texas is right there. Just everything screamed that. The things we've gone out of this Tiger King

is incredible. The Carole Baskin Savage song and dance is absolutely amazing. There's now internet sleuths that are talking about what's-his his face being her husband um the jeff low jeff if you look at a put over husband her husband that disappeared and jeff low side by side they look sort of alike um i mean no not to me but that's a fun conspiracy theory that would then mean that don Lewis, after his disappearance,

was hitting on my wife in Vegas, not Jeff Lowe. You're right. Oh, man. Don Lewis is like 80 now. So she never saw the Tigers. No, she did not get to see the Tigers. We actually had a discussion the other night. Now, you know, as I mentioned, obviously, last week's podcast that Georgina, my wife, we believe was hit on at a blackjack table with a friend of hers by Jeff Lowe, who then gave them $1,500 worth of chips to play with at the table.

chips to play with at the table. That led nowhere, according to my wife, except a text message a day or two later from him inviting her to Malibu, which she did not do. She told this story to a bunch of friends who remembered it from the time and were now like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And the other night we were on a Zoom because that's what having a social life is like these days. and someone was like hey you should text him let's see what he says and we started typing out the text and we're like you know what this is not a relationship we need to start up again like only bad things could come out of reaching out to this guy so we have not used you should have done it via like a private secure message thing it doesn't have your number. Oh, that's interesting. Use like signal and send them a note.

I bet he's got a new number, right? Or burner numbers. Like how can he still have the same cell phone? I don't have the same cell phone since I was 16. I don't know. Yeah, but you're not running a criminal enterprise and you're not a total dirtbag. That's what you think. You're like Marty Bird.

You have a secret life. I do. I'm slinging matzo balls over here on the side during Passover. Those look terrific, by the way. Your Passover seemed nice. Good. Are you Ozark? Are you caught up?

I need to watch it. It's on my list. Okay. I might start tonight. My wife just took off to the beach. Dude, I just gave you your plan. Between now and the next time I see you, you could probably knock out three seasons. only are three seasons so yes yeah let's so get to it jeff we should stop this right now and give you that all right let's do it all right thank you guys for joining in today i really

appreciate it rate review subscribe always love hearing from you guys at jeff schwartz on twitter have a great week everyone talk to you guys next Tuesday.