Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - How Will Teams Navigate a Shortened Preseason?

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

With the NFL preseason cut in half, Geoff explains what this means for younger players, position battles and game-day preparation. Plus, with new details of Cam Newton's one-year deal, we'll re-examine particular benefits of the deal. Newton's contract: (0:46) Vets & younger players: (5:49) Same-day travel: (11:56) Fan waivers: (15:35) 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.

It's Friday, July 3rd. This is Jeff Schwartz of Smarter Than You with me, Jeff Schwartz, solo edition late in the week. Hope you had a great week. Happy early 4th of July. Hope you're able to enjoy the weekend with family and friends in a small gathering. Remember, guys, we want football. We want football.

Keep your gatherings small. Come on, let's do our part and get football back. Got a lot to cover today. There's a lot of NFL news about the preseason, about our schedule, about the way things are going to work once we hopefully get back to football. I'm still fairly positive we're going to have football, even though it's tough to sometimes have those feelings considering the news that comes out. But I'm still very positive that we're going to have football. So we'll discuss that. But first, let's get to the contract details of Cam Noon. They came out yesterday. And of course, we were abuzz on social media about what this looked like. And

remember, guys, we talked a lot about what contracts mean, what exactly they represent. One thing we didn't discuss a lot is leverage, right? Leverage is hugely important in negotiations. We know this in day-to-day life, in any negotiation you have, the leverage is typically on one side, more the other side. Sometimes it's 50-50, sometimes it's not. In this situation, the leverage was all on the Patriots side. Cam Newton's coming off two injury-plagued seasons in a row, basically a year and a half of football injured. He wants to be a starter. How many places are there for him to start?

Very little. The Patriots know this. The Patriots know he wants to be a starter. And by the way, he deserves to be a starter. He's a starting quarterback in the NFL. So his deal is $1.05 million base salary. Guaranteed half of that, $550,000, a little over half of that. And then he can earn additional $6.5 million incentives and per-game roster bonuses. Also, no provision that restricts the Patriots from assigning him the franchise tag

in 2020 excuse me 2021 also worth noting that he's made 100 million dollars already right so he's not hard up for money but of course we should all get paid what we're worth and and what we deserve to get I think that's that's without saying I know we're upset about this, not we, but people are upset and shocked by this. But really, it had a lot to do with the leverage being on the side of the Patriots. And again, I think this works out. I think this relationship is going to work out. Cam wants it to work out. The Patriots want it to work out. And according to Dana Russini for ESPN, she said that in an AFC East head coach, there's only three of them

that she could talk to. Flores, Brian Flores with the Dolphins, Adam Gase with the Jets, and obviously Sean McDermott with the Bills. They said that, she said, I think that they're going to keep three QBs, use Cam Newton perhaps as the wild card. I actually don't see him starting week one in the offense. I know for a fact the Patriots love Jared Stidham. Look, I'm not questioning Diana's sources. I'm sure this was said, but this is just utter crap. I mean, it's just not remotely of this world when you consider a healthy Cam Noon or a healthy Jared Stidham.

I mean, it's not even a question. It really isn't. If it comes down to an injured or a recovering Cam Noon, or you can get yourself a healthy Jared Stidham, yeah, you might choose a healthy Jared Stidham. But in no world are they choosing a Jared Stidham over a healthy Cam Noon. I'm sorry.

The AFC East coach has incentive to say this because he would like Jared Stidham over a healthy Cam Newton. I'm sorry. The AFC's coach has incentive to say this because he would like Jarrett Stidham to be the quarterback and not Cam Newton. He would like to prepare for the same offense that he's been preparing for for all these years. Because preparing for Cam Newton is so difficult because of the option of his legs. And it's not just the runs we see, it's the entire offense around his legs. And it doesn't have to be 12 runs a game for Cam Newton for defense to account for him. It's got to be 2-3-4. Even just a zone read where he doesn't keep the ball, but the backside DN's got to eye Cam Newton.

He's late to the party. The running back gets a little extra yards because the DN can't run him down from behind. It's on play-action pass when you're faking that zone read. The safety comes down the box. You've won less safety. That safety is down the box to protect against the run. There's so many eyes to Cam Newton all over the defense because of the threat that he can run that you can do things with running backs, jet sweeps, all this stuff.

Ghost motion behind you. There's all these things you can do because the ability for Cam Newton to run. Pass rush has got to be different. When you face a mobile quarterback, if you notice, pass rush is more of a constriction of the pocket. It's closing the pocket around the quarterback and then ditching the offensive lineman and making a move. It's not quick movements by the defensive line at the snap. Because if you are facing Cam Noon, Lamar Jackson, Russell Wilson, these guys, and you beat the offensive lineman kind of off the ball, right? And the offensive lineman just kind of gets enough on

you to kind of push you by a little bit the quarterback can just step up and go and run and you don't want that right so you want to just slowly constrict the pocket constrict the pocket so you have to pass rush differently against a guy like cam noon so of course the fce's coach wants cam noon to not play it's ridiculous again i don't question the the report. I'm sure it's accurate. But man, of course, of course. All right, I'm all Cam Newton now. We've covered it.

Now let's get to NFL scheduling news and notes as we head toward the start of the preseason. Weeks one and four of the preseason are canceled. The NFL training camp begins July 28th, like usual. Preseason week one, August 20th to August 24th. August 27th to August 31st is preseason week two. Veterans are pumped about this. Young guys, it's rough. Let's start for the reason why. The reason why is less about the virus itself and more about the players being ready to play. I've talked about this for months now.

The biggest concern is not the actual virus, in my opinion. It's a concern, but it's not why the preseason was altered preseason was altered so players are healthy and ready to go when they do start putting the pads on and because players have been disjointed with workouts we talked about how they're working out right now you want to come in and get them with this they call a ramp up here three-week ramp up period in 2011 after the lockout we went right to to practice. There was no, we showed up, went right to practice. There was a higher percent of soft tissue injuries, right? Hamstrings, calves, groins, of Achilles injuries, right? You tear your Achilles, ACLs, right? Just lower body

injuries because you were not ready to do football activities. As much as you can practice those on the side, we saw Russell Wilson, Antonio Brown working out. I saw C.D. Lamb in his backyard with his helmet on running routes. That's all great, but there's a different intensity of running those routes with someone guarding you. There's different intensity, obviously, in the trenches between just practicing offensive line movements or defensive line pass rush and then actually going about doing it, right? It's just a little different burst.

You have to burst a little differently. And it makes sense to have a long ramp-up period to make sure guys are healthy come the first week of the preseason. So there's now an elongated ramp-up period. So it made sense to chop off the first game. Totally made sense. Chop off the first game. Totally made sense. Chop off the last game for a couple reasons. One, the last game is on Thursday before Labor Day. Labor Day weekend is the cut weekend,

College Football's first weekend. NFL starts always one week after Labor Day. And that game typically is four or five days after you play Saturday or Sunday. So you have less time to get ready for that game and veterans don't play in that game. So it makes sense to chop that game off. Also, if you are thinking about COVID, let's say someone plays in that now the second preseason game was the third and they get sick in the game. game was the third and they get sick in the game. You get two weeks between that game and the start of the season.

So you can quarantine and then come back and play week one. So that makes sense to do that. The question becomes, how does this affect competition? I've long told you guys that I think competition is not as fierce as the media would like to make it out to be. 53 roster spots, 47 of 53 guys are already penciled in to start training camp. Salary, draft slot, need on your team, maybe injuries, all penciled in. So there's about, there's six spots, six, seven, eight spots available. 10 guys, 12 guys are for those spots. So that's what practice and games are for, determining who those guys are.

A lot of times it's special teams, special teams. Go to my Instagram, at Jeff Schwartz, I tweeted out, I tweeted out, I IG'd a video of Ugo Omadi, Oregon Duck rookie last year in the NFL. In the preseason, he made a hustle play against the Vikings on punt. He split gunners, went down the field, tackled the returners, he caught the ball. Those type of splash plays get you to make a team.

And those type of plays are the ones that you probably get in the first and fourth game. And those might be eliminated now for young guys. The opportunity to make those splash plays is now going to be even less. The opportunity for players that are undrafted and lower round draft picks to make the roster are going to be far less. Teams are going to rely on veterans to do a lot of this. They're going to rely on veterans to play this year.

They're relying on veterans to make the roster this year. I do feel bad for undrafted free agents. They do not get a fair shake. They didn't get a fair shake in the draft this year. I do feel bad for undrafted free agents. They do not get a fair shake. They didn't get a fair shake in the draft this year because there were no pro days for a lot of these guys. They did not get a fair shake in the preseason. But this is the way that it has to be for everyone to be healthy and to be able to play this year.

And the goal is playing on both sides, college and the NFL. Colleges, they're hemorrhaging money if they can't play. They're hemorrhaging money. On my Pac-12 show, Sirius XM 373, I talked to Oregon State Athletic Director Scott Barnes. He said that 80-85% of his budget, and he estimated most budgets, rely on football to fund them. We just saw Boise State yesterday.

They lost three athletic programs. Football, as crude as it sounds, as... I don't know what the right word is, it's worse than college football because they're not being paid. You know, if you're a pro and you're agreeing to go play football, basketball, baseball, hockey, whatever it is, you're at least getting compensation for it. You're an adult and you're making that decision really without a penalty, right? If you do, if you're a college football player and you don't play, there's going to be a stigma.

You're going to maybe lose another year of getting closer to the draft. Like, it's just, it's different in amateurs. I feel worse talking, and they're not really amateurs anyways, but they're student athletes. They're not getting paid, so they are amateurs. But, you know, I feel worse about forcing those guys to play than I do NFL players who agree to play. But money, money is driving this, guys. Money's driving basketball coming back.

Money's driving baseball coming back. And ultimately, that's why they're going to play. And they're putting these precautions in to make sure they can play. Another precaution they talked about that is just a non-starter is flying in the day of a game. It's an absolute non-starter. So for those who don't know how we travel, this is typical travel. You have your game Sunday, travel Saturday. You practice in the morning, get on your plane about noon, you fly the city you're at, get three, four hours off. You go meet family and friends for dinner. You relax. You have

meetings for a couple hours. You have a snack, go to bed, wake up, go to the game, play your game, fly right home. If you're going on a long trip west to east, east to west, you might go Friday. And typically, you go Friday either after practice or you might go and practice when you land. I've done that before. We flew from east west carolina to go play seattle all the way off my back was really messed up that week and um i didn't practice up until friday and i had to lay on the back i had a hip thing eventually when i had hip surgery kind of corrected itself but my back was so locked up i could barely stand i was like kind of like hunched over like it was it was it was bad i could barely stand we spent all week trying to work on my back and so when i flew to seattle i laid in the galley on the floor with my legs up

on a pillow so i actually fell asleep too the flight attendants were messing with me that was a bad trip but we go to seattle we practice immediately after we land we practiced at husky stadium It was a bad practice. It was sloppy. It wasn't very crisp. They do that from London every now and then. They fly, teams fly to London, wake up and go practice when they show up.

Practice is not very crisp. Now you want to play a game that way? Fly and go right there and get off a plane, bus to the stadium and play to avoid going to a hotel? First of all, let's just say, what if you're delayed? I mean, I've been delayed for three, four hours on a plane before. I was delayed seven hours one time in college on a plane.

Just not play the game. What happened? You move the game back, I guess. I guess. So you just have a floating start time. Oh, whenever the team shows up, they show up and we go play. I think the medical reason, it's not the reason why it's not good to do this,

is you get inflamed on flights. You get dehydrated on flights. It would not be ideal to have this happen to your body and then immediately go play a game when you land. Have you ever had surgery or had like a kind of an injured body part? Have you ever noticed that when you get off an airplane, you're swollen? It's just the compression in the airplane, the altitude leads to just inflammation in your body.

A lot of us wear like recovery tights now when we fly. So inflammation doesn't bother us, right? Kind of flush that out. I remember when my ankle, I wore a sock over my ankle when I flew, compression sock, trying to limit the swelling of my ankle when I flew. You don't want this before a game. And I get that you're trying to stay healthy. But the NFL can pay to have the two floors of the hotel sanitized

and the meeting room sanitized in the hotel. Just your players can't go out. Like they can find ways to make this work. The night before a game was the best night of sleep I got the entire week. I'd put the air as low as it would go, 65 degrees. And I would just slumber. I'd watch college football.

I'd pass out, sleep till eight, wake up, have breakfast, go to the game. So it's a good idea and I get the gist of it, trying to keep people healthy, but it ain't going to fly. Let's end with this today. NFL fans may require fans to sign waivers. Daniel Kaplan of TheAthletic.com reports the league is considering a requirement that fans sign liability waivers protecting the league from lawsuits based on contracting COVID-19. The potential waiver likely will be forwarded to teams by the middle of next week. It's probably something you do electronically.

They're also typically unenforceable. So this is something that it sounds nefarious, but in all reality, it really doesn't mean much. I mean, it's the simplest, simplest way to protect yourself. But evenwin kushner of new york law firm harrick feinstein which represents team owners said they're typically unforceable depending on circumstances like they're very general and then you have to prove you got sick at the stadium so it's like the this is like the minimum requirement like the like the not requirement the minimum layer of security for the teams. It doesn't mean very much. I mean, it sounds harsh.

But I've said this. If they allow fans in the stadiums, it's up to you as a citizen, your choice. Personal choice to show up or not. Set it all along. It's your personal choice. Would I go? Probably not. I don't know yet.

I don't know if I'd go in September to a game. October, I don't know. I don't know. But if they do allow fans, and I saw Buffalo today, or the city of New York might not allow fans at Buffalo games, Bills games, but it should be your choice. And if your state is open for fans, and you have a season ticket, and I think they're going to allow all season ticket holders to come to games, you can choose whether or not you want to come or not. I know a friend who's got a buddy who got 20 season tickets to Giants games. They're just not going to go this year. So it's your choice. It's your personal choice to go or not.

Maybe you sign a waiver. Maybe you don't. I don't think waivers should be necessary because, again, it's hard to prove you got the virus there. And it should be your own choice to go or not. I mean, look, there's lawyers, as Andrew Brandt says, there will be lawyers. There's lawyers in every part of life.

But I think in this part, this sounds scarier and, you know, harsher. And like the NFL is trying to get one over on their fans. It's less of that, in my opinion, more just covering themselves at the minimum layer. It's like we talked about. It's hard to enforce. Hard to enforce.

All right, guys. Hope you have a great 4th of July. We're getting sports back soon, I think. I think NBA saw the Lakers, a Lakers fan. They're back practicing. Saw some spring training baseball stuff. We're on the right track. Hopefully, we're getting there. All right, guys, have a great weekend. Talk to you guys Monday. Take care. Be safe this weekend. Be safe.

Enjoy your food, your family, your friends at small gatherings, and your fireworks. Happy Fourth of July. Talk to you guys Monday.