Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Deshaun’s Legal Updates, Gronk in Retirement, and Cowboys’ Mike McCarthy Fined for Overworking Players

Episode Date: June 22, 2022

With the Deshaun Watson allegations nearing a conclusion, it’s still up in the air what will happen with the Browns. However, with Clowney coming back, maybe the Browns will actually be okay. Next up, Geoff weighs in from a player’s perspective on the Dallas drama: Coach McCarthy took a 100k hit for working the Cowboys too hard during practice, what’s the deal with this?Moving on to Moving the Line, Gabe and Geoff place bets on whether or not Pat Mahomes has deleted Tyreek Hill from his contacts after last week’s diss. Will Tom Brady’s inevitable call to Gronk pull him out of retirement, or is it really just a vet scheme to skip training camp? From a player’s perspective, was Peyton Manning scarier to face on the field than Brady? Closing the episode with NBA talk, analysis of Andrew Wiggins, and forecasting on Warriors odds.Make sure to leave a rating and follow the pod if you enjoyed, and leave a comment or tweet @geoffschwartz to share your take.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's wednesday june 22nd i'm jeff schwartz alongside gabe goodwin this is jeff schwartz a smart new power by the varsity podcast network it is happy father's day week i think it's a week but it feels more like barely a day gronk is retiring allegedly we'll talk more about that i don't think it's going to happen gabe we got some interesting ideas for overhauling college football teams are getting fined for practicing too hard. And Deshaun Watson news never ends, but does feel like it's coming to an end pretty soon. Gabe, how are you? Happy Father's Day week, I guess.

I don't know. Do we get a week? We barely get a day. No, we get more than a day. We're doing this like the Jewish holidays. There's like we get eight nights now, Jeff. It's going to be great. Eight nights of Father's Day.

I'm going to tell my wife about that. I'm sure she'll be very pleased. Yeah, no, it's a big win for us. Mother's Day, still just one day, but Father's Day, eight nights. I saw a funny thing on TikTok that was like, a guy was pumping himself up to get ready to grill on Father's Day, and the caption was like, I gave my wife off all Mother's Day. Now I'm getting ready to grill, cook, clean, hang out with the kids on Father's Day.

Yeah, I saw the same post and shared it with all my buddies. You know, listen, the moms do a lot of hard work from the very moment that they get pregnant all the way to the end of having a child. They do more of the work. Oh, 100%. But that Sunday, for some reason, is hard work for us. And they get to go have a massage on their day. Yeah, it is what it is.

But all right, let's get to some – we'll get to some – just the topic that I just – I'm tired of talking about, but it has to be talked about. Then we'll get to some more fun football stuff that's not as heavy as this one. So let's get into some more Deshaun Watson news. There is some that actually happened today. Yeah. So the news broke this week that the lawyer representing the

women who've accused Deshaun Watson of all these awful things, uh, announced that they have reached a settlement in 20 of the 24 cases, according to Deshaun Watson's lawyer. We're just down to some paperwork on those remaining four. We'll have to dig into that in the next few days. But whatever we may think of Deshaun, whatever we may think of how this news rolled out over the past several months, we're now approaching the final chapter. And soon we expect the league will step in and begin to hand down some suspensions. So his legal matters seem just about resolved. It's time to think about what this means for him as an NFL player. What were your first thoughts? I'm surprised it took us long to get this far. But one thing that

we had discussed was the NFL, their timeline with how they suspend Deshaun Watson, right? Because if the cases are still pending, let's say they went through the entire process, Gabe, of each 24 of these individual civil cases, right? That by the time one of them goes to trial or goes to, you know, to court, it's the end of next season. So let's say suspended for all of one year, then it gets into next off season.

And you hear more details about these encounters that you did not previously know. And the NFL might not even have known. Are they suspending him again? Like, you know, so like, so there had to be a point where these cases came to an end for the NFL.

They came to an end, and now the NFL can say, okay, look, they've all settled, 24 of them. We're not getting any more details out because of their confidential agreements, and now we can suspend them. And the rumor is it's one year. However, the NFLPA, and this is their job, guys. It's one year. However, the NFLPA, and this is their job, guys. I know people get upset when the NFLPA fights suspensions for players that you don't think deserve to have an appeal on their suspension. It's their job, though.

Their job is to make sure that the CBA is followed, even though I might disagree with their objections they're going to make. But what they're going to say is, look, you do not punish NFL executives, front office members, and owners in the same way that you're punishing players. I don't know if it's a great argument, Gabe, but they're going to argue that. And it feels like in the end, they're going to come to maybe 12 games, right? They're going to give them a year.

They want eight. They come to 12. It's suspended for most of 2022. And then this is done with. It's still going to be, in my opinion, a topic that we'll always discuss with Deshaun Watson as far as his time in the NFL. Browns fans will always, in my opinion,

think about this when they see Watson play. Some might think of it more or less. It'll always be talked about, but now it'll be done and we'll move on to his suspension. Yeah, all right. Well, so one of the things I've been curious to pick your brain about, you know, this whole way through is not as a legal analyst,

though you, you seem to understand the case well, but more as just a guy who lived in locker rooms and understands the mindset of players. So help me with this. Jadavian Clowney, who I guess could have gone elsewhere this off season has decided he's staying in Cleveland because of Deshaun.

His quote here. I was all aboutveland because of deshaun his quote here i was all about where my boy deshaun was going i just wanted to go play with him and see what i can do with him again so like jadavian clowney wanting to be in cleveland specifically because of deshaun watson maybe he's just given you know his guy a little pat on the back because he feels like he's been down or maybe a lot of players feel this way like there's he's a guy to rally behind or you know what take me inside the mindset of somebody who says that publicly because it seemed weird to me i think players just say things i don't know like we have to talk right like you're you're being asked for quotes you're being asked to interviews you know if you're a quarterback get on the podium every week during the season.

And you just say things. Like we saw with Tyreek Hill last week saying, oh, you know what? Tua's more accurate than Pat Mahomes. Like you didn't have to say that. He just said, I like playing for Tua. He's a very accurate quarterback. Just like Kleiner could be like, yeah, come back to Cleveland. It's where I want to be.

Deshaun Watson's here. We're buddies. I want to play with Deshaun. I'm back in Cleveland. I'm happy. But the realistic part of this is most likely to offer him the most money. And it's a situation for him to play and put up numbers because everyone's going to be focused on Miles Garrett on the other side.

And he's back now. And this goes to a bigger point, though, I think, about players and how they view accusations that Deshaun Watson has been leveled against him, right? Because I think there's players that inherently believe that everyone's out to get them, right? And that this must be all these women out to get Deshaun Watson. And you do have to, if you're, and I never played with a teammate at the time I knew was, you know, Josh Brown was a kicker with the Giants. I didn't know what was happening when I was with him. It was after I left.

So I've never had this situation where I've had to basically ignore an off-field incident or incidents. I don't want to downplay what Watson, you know, what the allocations are. But the idea that something off the field is happening with a player and I have to basically put it behind me to play with that player, right? Because if I go into a game on Sunday and I don't even know how I would manifest myself and not playing well because I don't like Watson, but my livelihood's on here too, right? I have to find a way to mentally play with

that player because it's my livelihood too i'm i'm i'm making money i'm under contract i can't like i even know i'm trying to think of how it even manifests but like i probably wouldn't be friendly with deshaun watson in the locker room but i probably would have to be friendly enough for him to trust me as an offensive lineman he's playing with right so there's this like there's this line that you have to try to walk i think as a player with someone who's been accused of of these of these crimes like right like you because you have to work with them gabe you don't have a choice yeah and especially if it's a quarterback offensive line relationship like if it's a wide receiver man i don't want to talk to that guy i wouldn't i don't ever talk to a wide receiver narrative but if deshaun wants to invite over as an offensive lineman to have a bonding experience with the

rest of my group, what do I do? I go. You know what I mean? So that's the hard part, I think, that for a player like Clowney, other players, when you hear them talk about Deshaun Watson, and they will talk about Deshaun Watson in glowing terms, this is the mindset of how this happens. Yeah, but he does play on the opposite side of the ball i mean it just seems to me like an overcorrection the clowny thing is just him but just blabbing away i'm just talking about you're gonna hear like sure they're gonna talk to to you know to jedrick wills and they're gonna talk to jack conklin the offensive lineman right they're gonna talk to joel batonio and they're gonna say glowing things about deshaun watson i'm telling

you right now they're gonna say it even though deep down they might not agree with it. Even though deep down they might hate the guy, I don't know what they're feeling. I'm not putting words in their mouth or feelings, but this is how you have to do it in our profession because you're playing directly with Deshaun Watson. Again, if you're a defensive back, I never talk about you. Like if you're accused of these things, like I'm never going to talk to you ever again in my life. I'm never going to talk to you.

But I have to talk to Sean Watson. I have to be friendly with him. I have to find a way to work with him. So when you hear comments at some point, I'm sure you're going to hear them. You'll be like, how the hell did they say that? That's kind of the reason why. It doesn't excuse it. It's gross.

I get it. But that's the mindset i think of players i think you can get that game you're you understand that but i've worked with a lot of people who have pretty high profiles and i bump into a lot of people you humble brag i like it i like it yeah including you jeff uh and i bump into a lot of people who want to know what those folks are like to work with or be around and i'm luckily for me i'm not usually in front of a microphone so i can say what i think but i am conscious of people's sort of reasons for asking and when i don't have something nice to say about someone when i don't have a lot of respect for someone i used to work with

i just tell them about the things that person does well you know oh yeah nobody works harder you know or like oh you know like say what you will about him but like he certainly like never caused any problem for anyone i ever worked with you know what i mean like you just find a way to qualify it so you aren't on the record saying oh i vouched for him and he's a great guy you just say he's good at that thing he's good at and i feel like that's what you're telling me a lot of guys will have to do they'll have to do that they'll have to because they'll have to talk about it especially when he comes back from suspension if he's not during you know during camp it won't be talked about very much we'll talk about jacoby brissett or i mean i mean if he's suspended for the year what's stopping bacon mayfield from

playing this year out in cleveland well then we're gonna get back to that don't worry we got the whole rest of july and august to speculate about that let me ask you this though at their best in the last few years even you had to admit that defense is very good that run game is great yeah clowny coming back is an important thing like are the browns maybe actually gonna be kind of good and by the way jacoby bursette you know he can get you to 500 easily with that line and that defense maybe they can win a few more games than they lose and be a contender um uh not in that division with with bursette as quarterback i feel like in a different division maybe but you have burrow you have lamar jackson you have the steelers that just continue

to win a bunch of games um not not what you're gonna be set now well let's move to the most talked about division in all of sports uh the nfc east and the cowboys so this is a weird one and it's a good off-season story because it's just hot takes. You can actually make us smarter here. I was confused by this. Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy was personally fined $100,000 for running an offseason practice that was deemed too physical. There are rules for what you can do this time of year. He broke those rules. So he and the team were punished. This is the second year in a row he's done this uh last year he kyle shanahan with the niners urban meyer haha with the jags we're all fine for doing similar stuff i i don't know what to make of this jeff because on the one hand football guy mentality is like grind it out

work harder there's no off days on the other hand it's like this is really stupid and you're putting people in a dumb position but what do you make of it? Okay. So this is an interesting topic because I was actually talking to my brother about this recently. And he made comments on another podcast where we're talking about off-season workouts, OTAs, organized training activities. And how he thought, and I agree with him that there's too much contact in these practices because you're supposed to be non-contact practices, right? Non-contact. Well, if you have helmets on and you're doing 11 on 11, there's contact in the trenches. Like you are hitting each other.

There's no like not hitting each other. That's not a thing that can happen. And so I think that for many years it's been ignored for many reasons. One is that a lot of the players doing the enforcement of these are former players, like sort of a little tiny older than me that went through this physical off season practices. And there was no, no such thing as like limited contact. You were going full speed and just helmets and maybe some, those kind of soft spider on um and so guys were like whatever uh some contact here and there but i think now as you're getting kind of a new wave of people responsible for overlooking these practices i

think you're getting more players vocal about the way they're practicing as well uh the guys are getting it fine and again all the practices are filmed and sent to the NFLPA. I believe that's how it's done. And they're looking at it, right? Are there too many collisions between wide receivers and cornerbacks and secondary players?

Are the offensive and defensive line, are they hitting too much of these practices? And so it's funny this has happened because I just talked to my brother about this like two weeks ago. We were together in New Orleans and I felt that way too. It never really bothered me.

But yeah, these are supposed to be game non-contact practices. So let me understand this a little better then. Are you saying that a player or someone thinking on behalf of the players for the union is sort of like telling on coach? Is this reported? No. Well, no. so there's people that review the practices and you can't report it you're allowed to self-report like hey we're hitting too much you can certainly do that so that's not necessarily what happened i don't

think so no they film all the practices and they go through the footage and they see like okay well there's too many collisions there's too much hitting um we're not gonna do this and every year this happens this happened a bunch in se Seattle where Pete Carroll notoriously, right, does very competitive practices. But you really, the rules state it's non-contact practice, which are basically impossible with 11-on-11. Seven-on-seven, fine. I mean, you don't have to connect with each other.

But a full team, I mean, you have four periods. You're doing, you know, you're doing, what is it? That's going to end up being like 32 plays-ish plus a seven-on-seven. You do 40 plays, 45 plays of nearly 11-on-11. You're going to hit each other. It's nearly impossible, especially inside. So I'm not surprised this is happening more often. Now, it wasn't just the Cowboys.

I think a couple other teams got fined also. But they're just paying more attention to what's been happening all along, which is a more physical practice. Again, it's very pillow fighting-esque compared to training camp, but you're not wearing pads. You're wearing like nothing. I think you wear those little soft, call them spiders, but they're kind of built in now to your shirt sometimes,

kind of a substance to maybe help with some contact in your shoulders. But if it's alignment, I'm punching guys. I'm double teams. I'm in there with my shoulder. You're in there having contact during these practices. So it's not surprising that this is being enforced more. Okay. Well, my memory is not like yours.

So help me out here. My impression from certainly some of the bad games the Cowboys lost last year, Okay, well, my memory is not like yours, so help me out here. My impression from certainly some of the bad games the Cowboys lost last year was that penalties were a problem. And we talked about Mike McCarthy is not running a very disciplined team. They were costing themselves yards, situations, ton of penalties. So it seems like more evidence that he himself is not especially disciplined, nor are the guys on this team, if they're sort of breaking these very easy to follow rules in the offseason. So I don't want to read too much into it, but is he just sloppy and unable to enforce this? Or is he actually intentionally trying to get something out of them because he thinks it gives them an edge and he's willing to pay for it? A little bit of both could be true, but I think it's more likely that he said hey guys like let's not have physical practice and the players just do it anyways and he has set up practice in a way

where it ends up happening right like you know there is some trust in the players in this game if i tell you hey gabe if you go play this you can't be physical with it and now it's up to you to do it right so you have to you have to respect what the coach says you have to be able to play within yourself to get your work done but also not break the rules and so maybe they're maybe they're not having the players on the team that can follow the instructions well enough to not get in trouble but again you know a coach can also say hey guys that's enough contact let's not do this the rest of the day. He's, he can obviously show examples and practice to me on film. I should say a practice of too much contact and whatnot.

So there's many ways that he could have maybe had his team aware that they were going a little bit too hard to get fine, but maybe to your point, maybe he just wanted them to be physical and he'll, he'll take the fine. Yeah. That'd be a strange way to spend a hundred grand, but I didn't think the issue with the Cowboys

was that they weren't physical enough. I thought the issue was that they weren't organized and disciplined enough. It was penalties and whatnot. And I think I saw something too where he is not going to work on special teams very much in the spring. It's like, buddy, all those things matter, man.

All those plays matter. Okay, so then I'm going to sneak an over-under in here. Over-under, Sean Payton is the Cowboys coach by the start of next season. Over-under, 75% chance. Well, there's a Dolphins there too. Vince got Mike McDaniel though, right? So Sean Payton, yeah, over. Yeah.

You think Payton ends up in Dallas getting paid a ton of money. They set the price with that Miami report, and now he'll get $20 million or whatever to be Jerry's next guy. I think so, yeah. All right. Here's a take. This one jumped out in both our feeds, and I don't know enough about it. You're going to have to explain it.

So basically, people think that the 10 FBS conferences, not the NCAA, should now run college football moving forward. That's a sloppy explanation, but here's a tweet from our buddy nicole our back at the athletic uh pac-12 commissioner greg don't even ask me to pronounce this man's name it's george klofkov thank you that was hard to say he basically said it one organization setting the rules enforcing the rules and running the postseason that's what he'd like to see happen tell me how the hell that would really work. Okay, so this is an interview that she did with the Pac-12 commissioner. He's been on the job about a year now.

I think July 1st is the official one-year anniversary, but he kind of started in June of 2021. So we talked a lot about NIL, NCAA this last six months, right? It's a big part of what's happening in college sports. And we talked a lot about transfer portal, everything, right? Well, the NCAA game has like no enforcement, like they can't do anything. And the biggest parallel in another sport is happening in golf right now, right? You have the live tour, right? The live tour is picking off golfers because the PGA doesn't have power to really enforce things that are happening on their tour. Because the majors are controlled by USGA and by Augusta National, right?

Like the Masters. Well, on the college football side, the bowl games and the playoff are not controlled by NCAA. They're controlled by the TV partners, by ESPN. Really, ESPN controls. They have every bowl game but two. I believe Fox has the Holiday Bowl and CBS has the Sun Bowl. Otherwise, they're all on ESPN. Really, ESPN controls. They have every bowl game but two. I believe Fox has the Holiday Bowl and CBS has the Sun Bowl. Otherwise, they're all on ESPN.

Contrable playoff, all on ESPN. They're controlled by the TV networks, not by the NCAA. March Madness is an NCAA product, not the Contrable playoff. If you look, there's no NCAA logos on there. They're controlled by the Contrable playoff. And so George Kolkoff is saying

look we have our 10 conferences plus notre dame so be 10 plus notre dame um and why would we be under the control of a governing body that doesn't control us anyways that has arbitrary punishing systems essentially right that isn't isn't the way of nil is it makes no sense to be part of ncaa anymore if you're a football program in that realm in the 10 conferences or including not or but including no name the problem with this game it's a great thought i think we're going that direction anyways in some fashion or former fashion how the hell does this happen these conferences can't agree on shit they can't agree on anything yeah and now they're going to agree to basically form

um you know a sports league into themselves and have one commissioner up top of all the different interests of the sec and the whack like come on it's never gonna it's a great thought and eventually i again i think that what's going to happen is this. My guess is this. They're going to break away from NCAA. Okay?

And so on this fact, I think George is right. And they're going to form tiers like the English Soccer League. Right? We're going to have an upper tier, a middle tier, and a lower tier.

Maybe it's four tiers, whatever. And you can have, the top tier is going to be the teams that want to spend the money right alabama a&m lsu ohio state michigan oregon usc oklahoma texas like all teams that want to spend all the big nil money that want that want to be in this upper tier the next tier is teams like utah right really really good but probably not going to spend the money it

takes to win a national championship. And again, the top tier is not everyone who can ever win, but just the idea of like, you know, Oregon and USC are spending a bunch of money. So is A&M, right? Louisville. Louisville just got a five-star running back and a five-star wide receiver yesterday. Like, maybe they're in the upper tier now because they want to spend the money, but they're probably

in the second tier. The lower tier is, you know, is, you know, is Kansas, right? thinking, you know, Kansas, right? Like, they're just, we have a football program. And that feels like what might happen eventually

because there's no way that these 10 conferences will come up with one way to do things. It's impossible. They're not going to, they couldn't even come up on a playoff game,

a format for the playoff and now they're going to break away and form their own. That's why I think kind of like the tier system is the easiest way to do this if there is one system to do it. As you say, hey, look, we're going to do this tier system and relegation would be incredible.

Can you imagine the final week of the college football season, relegation was about to happen? It'd be incredible. Up and down every year so that to me is the only way it can work otherwise there's no chance ever to come to uh basically an agreement of how to make this work all right i don't want to layer too many hypotheticals on top of a hypothetical that you're telling me is probably not going to happen but you know my very basic understanding is that you kind of need the NCAA to have sort of maintain the tax status and to make the financials of college football work. So I'm just confused.

How does this go if you separate from the NCAA and just say we're a business with our 10 conferences as our business partners kind of running like you know the nfl does how do you then keep all the benefits that you currently have in our tax system and try not to bore the hell out of us with your answer well you're basically saying like you become a for-profit right because right now they're gonna be non-profit yeah um yeah i mean you'd have to figure that out i'm'm not a tax expert. Okay, good. So we won't do that here. No, but I mean, yeah, yeah.

Things will be different, obviously. But what if you create a 501c3 as a college football tier system and that's a charity? But if you're doing it specifically to make money, nobody's buying that. And this has become the PGA Tours problem. There's a bunch of people that are tax exempt that make a ton of money. That's fair. That's for a different podcast. Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you, but he's not an accountant.

Title IX is another thing that comes to mind. I don't know how that would work if you start doing it this way. It's very interesting how that works into all this because you know like football and basketball generates so much money you know and they end up covering a lot of these sports is if you if football breaks away then what happens to the other sports um in title nine by the way like the way it's not enforced fully either like it depends on the state you're in and how much you really want to do it. But like,

there's a certain number of like, if you have a certain number of like male scholar, male athletes, and there were female athletes, it's not, but it would be very tough game to work around that in my opinion. All right. Well,

uh, I'm all for whatever gets us a bigger playoff and, and relegation sounds cool and more games with higher stakes um and more teams with chances to compete when it matters i'm for all of those things so maybe maybe one day we'll stumble into that uh let's take a quick break come back do moving the line or over under game kind of almost touched on this earlier but i want to get more of your take so patrick mahomes deleted tyreek hill from his contacts over under 50 chance um patrick tried to laugh off the stuff tyreek was putting out there a few

days ago and said that he just has a new podcast he had to promote. That's probably why he said those things. But I bet this kind of stung a little bit, don't you think? It had to sting a little bit. I don't think he deleted him from his thing, but it had to sting a little bit. And there's a very good case to make. He just was like, yo, man, I'm sorry. I just had to say that for the podcast.

So I don't think he deleted him from the contacts, but he's not chief anymore. Like when I see Mahomes, he's always with Travis Kelsey. I don't really see him and Tyreek together very often, so I'm not even sure they were close friends. I'm sure they're friends, but it's Pat and Travis are the best of friends. So they might not even be – I don't know. I shouldn't explore that, but I would say he didn't delete them, even be i don't know i shouldn't explore that but i would say he didn't delete him but they probably don't talk very much do you think uh all professional

athletes have a little bit of petty in them you must have some deep down yes do you think that guys like pat are rooting for tyreek to struggle not to fail and not to get hurt or anything like that just not i would say not rooting but like if they fail, they won't be sad. They kind of chuckle at that. Yes. Yeah, I think we can all relate to that. Of course we can. If you're part of a team

and somebody who's a big part of your team leaves because they think they found a better thing, you're kind of rooting against them. They just are. 100%, yes. All right, speaking of teammates who are linked forever, weeks before Tom Brady makes Rob Gronkowski come out of retirement because some guy didn't run the right route in practice,

over under eight and a half weeks. I have to tweet out, in reaction to Rob Gronkowski's news, his agent, Drew Rosen, has texted, it would not surprise me if Tom Brady calls him during the season to come back and Rob answers the call. Of course, Rob just didn't want to do training camp. Of course he's coming back. So you're not even thinking that it's like he'll have to be talked into it you're saying this was just the classic veteran move avoid training camp unretire in the middle of august

show up week one play like he's always played that's what it feels like yes okay that's interesting i i think he's gonna sit a little longer no he's not he'll sit like okay i tell you he's not going to just like show up the first week one but he'll like week eight week nine hundred percent oh that's why i said over under eight and a half so give me your side of that i will say um over i think it's over i think week nine ten eleven something like that yeah i i think cameron brate and whoever else they've got is doing their thing. And then Tom's like, I've had enough. This sucks.

We're only 6-2 or whatever he is, and we should be better. Get me Gronk. Gronk shows up. He's in decent shape. And then he plays the whole postseason. Yes. All right. Staying with Brady, sort of.

Bart Scott says Peyton Manning was scarier to face than tom brady when he was a player over under 99 chance this is true um yeah i think i think a lot of defenders feel that way because of his ability to kind of the the no huddle at the line of scrimmage his ability to manipulate the defense based off of just kind of standing there. I think he's more scary to face just because all game, I think you felt like he was playing with your mind and using what you did against you, where Tom does that, but not the way Manning does it, like in your face.

Manning's like in your face doing it all game. Brady's not doing it in that manner. So I think a lot of players do feel that way. Yeah, I also think a lot of people who lost to Tom Brady didn't even really know what happened. And in a lot of cases, I'm not just being a hater, Tom Brady's classic wins. He wasn't the hero. The team beat you. You know, the defense beat you in Brady's prime.

And, you know, it wasn't always just him having to pull a rabbit out of his ass the way peyton had to do every single time he ever won anything yeah i still think that uh that tom brady is good you you're discounting tom brady right there i didn't like it well another reason bart scott may feel this way is that he went into new england 2010 and beat tom yes and then went to an afc championship as a result basically the only good thing the jets have done in my lifetime well they're back now got zach wilson good draft just stop you said you're back you said you're back now i'm back until i'm not you know i'll be out again okay week two week two is all i'm thinking

about week two i think wasn't that chiefs charChargers Thursday night? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, the first Amazon game. Amazon has put together quite a – they got Ryan Fitzpatrick now on their crew. Yeah. Put on quite a cast there. Al Mike. Al Mike.

It's going to be fun to watch. I think it's – well, they got Richard Sherman, right? Fitzpatrick. Krista Thompson. Al. We're missing analysts too, the game analysts. But yeah, they got a good crew together uh we'll check on that for next time uh oh tony gonzalez right i don't know if

he moved over there it's a lot of shuffling i mean each of the networks sort of suddenly there's more networks covering than ever before they've all moved you know a little bit of musical chairs here oh it's herb street herb street herbie with it's al herb street carissa tony gonzalez richard sherman and fitzpatrick are like the six of like covering the game in studio yeah well let's see well it'll be all the same faces and and voices they're just going to be on different networks why can't there be new voices on networks like big linemen voices talking about the trenches i don't i've called games like i called games like four years ago i was terrible at it i would i'd take another shot at it it's a lot of

time away to like make no money when you first start it wasn't worth it for me like i was doing radio stuff i was building my radio career like getting paid minuscule money to call like marshall and north texas on facebook on stadium It was Facebook live at the time, whatever. It wasn't worth it. I'd be better right now. Well, maybe it's finally time to bring out the offensive line simulcast. You know, you and a few guys who've played in the trenches calling the game from an alternative perspective.

That'd be nice. You know people. Let's make it happen. Okay. I do know some people. All right. Let's talk about this. Another guy who kind of wants to keep things going in a new place and dominican sue uh hinted at joining the raiders is this uh

maybe gonna make the raiders kind of good actually over under 49 chance you think the raiders are good this year no they're gonna win like eight games in that division so you're not gonna start being cool i like it and dominick is taking quite the turn. I know he still kind of did some scummy stuff on the field, but he tweets out some good financial advice sometimes. I'm a little jealous, man. He's set up pretty well. You know, him and Warren Buffer are like boys.

I do know that. There's a Nebraska connection there. Yeah. He's done smart with his money. That leads us into our next topic. Yes. So maybe Trevor Lawrence should have been asking him for some help because apparently Trevor currently is down almost $9 million in cryptocurrency value. He's only been earning millions for a couple of years now, and he's already lost about 60% of it.

Curious, Jeff, the amount of crypto money you have lost in the last weeks over under 50 bucks. Zero dollars. Good for you. Zero dollars gained or lost. I've lost, you know, the market. Everyone's down like 20% this year. But that's the kind of there's a long history of the market going back up on that side of things. Yeah, it's a bold move, man, to put your signing bonus into crypto when you're that age.

Seemed aggressive. move man to put your signing bonus into crypto when you're that age seemed seemed aggressive uh does not look like it's going to pay off at the current moment but he could still get the last laugh he should but he's just he's just still owning like he shouldn't have sold probably i imagine he hasn't sold yet at any point so he's just like just holding on to it man see if it gets back up to like 60 000 do you think let me ask you this uh obviously trevor lawrence instantly became a multi-millionaire you know the day he signed so he went from whatever he had growing up to one of the richest people uh he'll ever meet do that did the sharks start to circle and and you know are you constantly if you're him having to like try to ignore bad advice and people trying

to take advantage of you do you think he got duped or do you think he just made a call and it didn't work out there's no way that he was not advised on what to do here like there's no way this financial was like man i feel like crypto is the way to go and he's like i don't know anything about crypto we're doing it anyways no he he had to he had to okay it so do you think because that's sort of been talked about a lot the last few days so i think he also got an advertising deal. He got a deal to advertise for those brands. And part of that was putting the money into it. Now, we don't know if he just put it in there and then took it out.

We don't know the money's still in there or not. But he had to agree to do this. And he had to know what he was doing, in my opinion, to know that he was doing in crypto to make this happen. was doing, in my opinion, to know that he was doing in crypto to make this happen. Yeah, because it seems to me like a lot of professional athletes would be easy marks if you were trying to get high income people in on something speculative, like one of these random crypto coins. And you get them in and get them to hype it. And that can drive the price up for a little bit. And then you don't actually care if they lose all their money in the long run, because you already bought the rise. It seems like it might be happening to some athletes i hope i hope not

but it could be happening i understand like if you have your second or third contract like russell okung's on this list it's like his fourth deal okay you want to put six million dollars in into a you know a high leverage asset fine you know i mean like but to put your rookie signing bonus essentially into this feels aggressive. Yeah, certainly does. Uh, okay. Make,

make a bet on something a little less aggressive over under 25% chance. The Warriors repeat. You have to bet it. You have to bet it right now. They're the favorites next year. I would say, I would, I would say,

uh, I would say no, you would not bet the Warriors. Dude, there's not a lot of repeat champions in the last 20 years. The NBA, it's, it's hard to do, right?

Lakers, Warriors, I guess. That's just once though, right? They repeat only one time. Lakers, Warriors, that's it, right? Spurs never did it. Anyone think of anyone else? I'm probably missing. Bulls, obviously, but not in the last 20.

No, Lakers in the last. They did 9 and 10, right? 9 and 10. The Warriors, 15, 16, I think. 16, 17. last 20 yeah no lakers in the last they did nine oh nine and ten right that nine and ten the warriors 15 16 i think 16 17 i would say i would say no especially if clay thompson is kind of on the downside of his career which um you know they ran into you know john morant got hurt in that grizzly series they were kind of struggling before he got hurt right to put them away um they faced a boston team that i don't know i think think if Chris Middleton is healthy for the Bucs, the Bucs and Warriors are back at it

and good chance. I would say no. It's interesting though because they kind of rebuilt while in a dynasty. Oh, they did because they were bad for two years. The guys were hurt. So able to get a bunch of draft picks. James Wiseman, right, is up there.

They got the trade-off for Andrew Wiggins. But Draymond is effective as far as he's a leader and he moves the ball around. But he's not getting any younger. I think he's like 33. Steph is 35-ish or vice versa. They're not getting any younger. And then when the Lakers get Kyrie Irving, they're going to win the West anyway. So it's not going to be LeBron and Kyrie back together again.

Okay. That's too ridiculous for us to end on. It's going to happen. You think that brother Muzan tweet from Kyrie was him saying me and Omar should team up again? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Oh, my God. There's no way LeBron lets him back.

They played pretty well together. They won a championship. I mean, that's now six or seven years ago. Yeah, but if you were to choose Anthony Davis who can't stay healthy or Kyrie Irving, you'd take Kyrie. Kyrie Irving can stay healthy. He just can't play because he refuses to do the thing you need to do. Yeah, but that's over with. Yes.

I don't know. We'll see what next season is like. Nick Wright made a great point, which was two guys who very publicly were uncomfortable taking vaccine uh one guy said all right you know what those are the rules i want to compete for a championship i'll do it the other guy refused wiggins right wiggins did it and now he has a ring and he was probably the most important player on the team other than steph kairi didn't and he got swept in his. And I'm not making a comment about vaccines. It's just interesting that one guy, they both believed the same thing,

and one guy made a sacrifice in his own mind, and now he has a championship. And he played well. It didn't affect him at all. So maybe that changes his mind in the future too, Wiggins. Here's the last question for you. Do you think that there will be more guys like both Andre Iguodala and Andrew Wiggins, guys who were supposed to be the guy in a mid-tier market. They never got it done. Maybe they made a playoff or not, but they just couldn't be the one.

And then, you know, midway through their career, they go, all right, it ain't happening. I'll go accept a role as a two or a three. I'll play a lot more defense. I'll take only the shots that are there for me, but I'll win. Do you think more guys are going to see that model works and just not join super teams, but go be a role player for a superstar? Well, Wiggins didn't have a choice. He was traded. Yeah, but obviously, like, my point is not whether he decided to do it or not.

You're basically asking, like, whether or not a player of, like, Iguodala was already on, what, year 10-ish when he went to the warriors he'd been around for eight nine ten years yeah so you're saying like like a player in his fourth or fifth year would say you know what i'm gonna take oh like like i'm saying if carmelo anthony had accepted many years earlier than he ever did you know i know i get your point i'm just thinking about like in today's day, it's Wiggins. But like as a free agent, you willingly take less to go be the second or third wheel on a championship team.

Or you may not even have to take that much less, but you... I will tell you, I mean, okay, a decent example of this is Dwayne Wade did it with LeBron technically, right? He allowed himself to become the second or third guy. But I'm talking more about humbling yourself and playing defense because andrew wiggins showed us that defense is just about effort yeah i mean i but i think i think when you're in that culture

of the warriors you buy into those things because it helps you win a championship when you're on the t-wolves you're like fuck this shit i'm not gonna play defense why i'm gonna get mine and go be traded somewhere. Okay, but if you look at the five or six teams that have a chance, let's take the Bucs, and you're like, I've been scoring 20-something a game, and my team's going nowhere, and I don't really have to play any defense.

I'll go to the Bucs. I'll score 15 a game. I'll be the best defender in the lineup. Yeah, NBA players would do that. I think more guys are going to start to do it. I really do. Especially because you could still make 15, 18, 20 million a year, it seems like. Oh, yeah, 100%, yes.

All right. Well, we solved a lot of problems today. Jeff, anything we left out? I don't think so. We'll be back in a couple of weeks. Please rate, review, subscribe. Powered by the Varsity Podcast Network. Have a great couple weeks, subscribe. Powered by the Varsity Podcast Network. Have a great couple of weeks, everyone.

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