Green Light with Chris Long - Kevin Clark! Dak Prescott's Future, Eagles 2024 Prediction, Private Equity in College Athletics & Kyrie Irving as the Best 'Robin' of Professional Sports?

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Kevin Clark joins Chris and Macon to talk about little football, plenty of basketball and what Nick Sirianni, Mike McCarthy and Brian Daboll will need to do to keep their jobs after this season. We go in-depth on the NFC East, talk 18 game-NFL seasons and private equity in college athletics. (00:00) - More Golf and More Softball (9:48) - Kevin Clark! (13:30) - NBA Playoffs, Kyrie Irving's Dominance and the Final Four NBA Playoff Teams as NFL Squads (32:52) - Jaden Rashada's NIL Lawsuit and Private Equity in CFB (43:25) - Coaches on the Host Seat in the NFL: What do they need to do to keep their jobs? (54:45) - 18 Game NFL Season? (59:00) - First Down Chains in the NFL (1:04:20) - Inside the NBA Casted with NFL Personalities Want your Green Light Merch so you can look exactly like Chris and the fellas? Hit the website below and get kitted! https://stores.kotisdesign.com/yotehouse/products Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open. Green Light Hotline: ‪[phone]‬ Send any Talent Search submissions to: [e-mail] Include any video of your talents, takes and bits as well as a little bit about yourself. Love hearing from the Green Light fans. Also, check out our paddling partners at Appomattox River Company to get your canoes, kayaks and paddleboards so you're set to hit the river this summer. https://paddleva.com/ Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light Tube YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgxWFAA-wuB7osdiAJyLOcw Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

for a long time, we believed, hey, Dax better. And Dax's going to be the guy that's going to lead him to Promised Land. And now I'm not even sure they're better off than they were when they had Tony. I completely agree. First of all, to add to the sort of media perfect storm, Jerry Jones has a Netflix show coming out this summer. But there's going to be a net, and Lord knows what he said in that. Just being around. And whenever anybody's like, oh, Jerry Jones said they're all in.

Man, I've been in a lot of Jerry Jones press conferences. He's mostly just kind of freelancing. I wouldn't put much stock into anything that Jerry Jones is saying for many. at any given point. Like, we've seen the doodles. I think when he said, we're all in on next year. I think he meant, like, we're just focused on it. Like, I don't think we're going all in.

We're not looking ahead. Yeah. Clearly. Welcome to the Green Light podcast. Thanks for jumping into today. We have a wonderful Friday episode for you. Kevin Clark joins from ESPN and Omaha Productions. Kevin Clark's going to run through a litany of NFL topics, as well as a couple NBA topics.

We talk about his beloved. love it Orlando Magic. Is Kari Irving the best Robin of all time? And then coaches on the NFL hot seat, what do they need to do to keep their jobs? Dack Prescott's contract, the latest news out of Dallas. And we cast an NFL version of Inside the NBA, the most entertaining cast we could think of. We select those names. We have a good time. A short open with Making and Chris, we'll kick things off into Kevin Clark. Y'all please enjoy it. Yeah. No mullies, not straight up.

Oh, straight up. No offense. I don't trust you on the Mulligans. No, I had a witness. Are we rolling? I don't think you. Okay, I trust you. No, I have a witness.

So my friend called Kyle, who you happen to be related to? Nope. No, we beat him in softball on Tuesday night. Like he's never gone. We were down to Kyle. Oh, that guy. Yeah. He's never gone 0 for 3 in a softball game.

Until. Yeah, he went over 3. I know. I was trying to get him out because he made some snide remark. last year he's wearing a fucking polo and an ankle brace out there a little less softball a little more rice kyle do you know why he was wearing a brace because he was he fell he was watching videos of of high school basketball player i like Kyle young men good guy he's a great guy and very impressed by your pitching style i guess you have a high release i do so i like to well they call me the day and they're like

hey you come to the game tonight and reads like yeah you're coming to the game you're pitching and this is like i had a nice run pitching last year but the problem is when you own the team and you pitch it kind of feels like you're putting on the hockey on the hockey own the team is their ownership yeah i fucking own the company dude who thinks paying for all the little green light button down yeah good point so i get up there on the mound for a stretch and i'm fucking good for a little bit like i'm unorthodox i'm pretty good i'm putting spin on the ball and then it just started to be a like a sports psychology thing where i was walking people and i started to feel like i was letting the team down and eventually I just said I retire from pitching but they pulled me back in this week

and they did fine you did great there was there the pitcher on the other team was all he wanted to do was walk he was not he didn't swing at one pitch I don't think he did not one pitch every time he I'll tell you the key you got to throw a lot of balls yeah get people up in the count because nobody wants to walk in softball now then you throw them then the third pitch you kind of put it around the zone. Yeah. And George will call it. Well, you put it around the zone. Hey, walk if you please, but chance are you going to pop me out. Right. Are you going to pop yourself out? Because I'm going to put it up high. Right. Right. Right. So anyways. Lots of pop outs from you. So I don't even know what we're talking about. You were going to say you, you, you shot a 46 in golf, which I would just say this.

Love you like a brother. Wife alert. And like if I had to trust you with my life, I trust you. Yeah. But not with your golf score. Dude, like, I'll swear on my kids right now. No, it's all not doing it for me. Okay. On your kids. Like, whatever you want. I don't you care about my kids either whatever you want i use two balls i took the penalty when i lost the one it was a 46 straight up nine holes 10 holes 10 holes 46 yeah so it's 4.6 strokes a hole you got that right now it's it's it's it's a majority par three core so oh go i mean there there are there a couple par fours there's a par five in there okay i par in a par three is this is this the uh birdied one actually it's the east course. I birdied a fucking par three.

Did you know that? I did not know that. He did. My own tournament. Here you go. Tournament. I think we should start potentially playing golf. Oh, yeah, sure. We should be golfers. I will go to one golf

outing for every water outing. But you're going to have fun at the golf. Do three golf outings to one water. I think that's fair. I don't want to go golfing three times. Then where do I fit in my water outings? Cowboy, maybe we we golf a little more off. That's no problem.

Three hours of fucking driving around a hour and a half. How long did the... You know what the worst thing about golf is? Hour 35. All the motherfuckers behind you. Oh, we were wide open. No, there's nobody.

That's the thing we go at Monday at 1230. No problem. Okay. It can be a lot of fun. At any rate, this guy, Kyle, say you kind of defend as if you don't have arms. Like you just try to block balls down

with your body. Well, yeah. Well, no, my glove kept, falling off. Okay. Yeah, glove fell off so I would take it to the chest and then throw the glove out of the way. It's not my glove. Why was the glove falling off? Not my glove. That's why it was falling off? Yeah, yeah. I don't own a glove. Yeah. Too small or too big? I just show up. How does it? How does it not fit your hand? It's not my problem. It was it was another player's glove. I understand that it's somebody else's glove. Maybe it's a little loose. I don't know.

Okay, a little loose. That would make sense. You know, it fell off multiple times trying to feel like acrobatic ground balls. All right. OJ. Maybe we could go to like a sporting good store. Yeah. Let's just be sports guys. I do own a Bronco.

I'm on an email chain. What do you call an email chain when there are a bunch of people? Yeah, like a thread of some sort. I'm going to be playing pickup basketball again. No shit. Nearing the age of 40. No shit. Yeah.

Probably in Achilles within a couple months. No. Exactly what I was going to say. But we could be sports guys if you want. be sports guys hey real fast i have something for everybody uh favorite dark green favorite color yeah is it a favorite color uh like if there's a red light green i really like brown actually these oh there might be favorite color blue blue all right here you go i mean there's this is stupid favorite color these are all these are gifts you and nine uh these are ball guy related gifts sorry

these are mouth guards the fuck you i need this for dude if you're gonna be a a stunt guy in the fall guy you need a mouth guard oh gray i like gray as well gray and brown are my favorite colors so you know wear them whenever you want doesn't matter when you go see the fall guy playing madden because honestly i played i just found out last night i played 230 hours since i got the game i feel like a seizure's coming soon i don't want to bite my tongue off were you a little intimidated when i told you that i i played your brother to a squirreless tie about a quarter not because did Kyle share with you that I made him quit the game? No. And he accrued such a debt to me that he didn't want to share it with his wife, who I would wife alert, but he's not on the show today.

Speaking of, is how, let's say he owed me money to. How are you getting that money? Yeah, what would you do if you were me? Um, small claims after he dies, maybe. Okay. All right. Like, can I call his mom or dad or? I think they would side with him. That's the way things work in my family. Okay. Okay. What's interesting is I've never played a sport that required a mouth guard, and I don't even know how to put this in.

Like your teeth go in here, right? You boil it, and then you bite down. Oh, so I shouldn't put it in. Put it in some hot water. You can put it in now. It works without boiling it, but it's better. Is Kevin Clark here? Kevin Clark's here.

Kevin Clark's here? Hey, y'all. Green Light has official merch, like this hat right here, or like the one on my head, this dad hat. Love this hat. I'm not even a dad hat guy, but this thing fits great this this hat right here fits great we've got hoodies we've got by the way this hoodie's like super comfy i mean it's like soft plush it's not the type of hoodie

that's going to get stiff with one wash uh and the shirts too because like i'm a big comfort guy okay you got like this white shirt here you got the shirt with the logo the abbey road looking logo with Dr. Fex smoking presumably a blunt, Kyle carrying Cowboy Reed, making driveling a basketball, which I've never seen him actually do, and me carrying a football. And then you've got the black shirt here too with the logo. So stickers, hit the link in the description in the video, below the video actually, and make sure to tag us on social media showing off your green light merch. It's quality, quality threads here. Okay, wouldn't do it any other way. Kevin, as a guy with your hair, do you want to, like, run a hand through your...

There you go. There it is. I mean, that's, that's, we can't throw stones. But like, if I were to have lettuce like that. Yeah, no, he's got great hair. So I had a big decision to make, boys. I could have done this, this lettuce right here, which is what I went with. Or the other alternative was this little prop here that I got at the Super Bowl.

Oh, good looking. Look at that land. I keep right behind here. I love it. Always with it, ready to grab at any moments notice. And you see how he went with the hair. Yeah, no, he won't with the hair. I would too because fucking looks great.

Who's behind you? Why are these people? Yeah. So this is the badass wall. You've been on the show. And so what we do is at the end. So what we figured out pretty early is the guys don't like telling stories about themselves. If I said to you or I said to Eli Manning like, tell me the time you, you crushed it.

You're going to be like, I don't know, man. What guys like is telling stories about the teammates. They don't want to tell about the legendary teammates. And so what we've done is a tribute to kind of formalize it is when someone gives a badass, we print out a big glossy. My producer sends it to the CVS by my house. I pick it up and we pin it on the wall here. So we've got all sorts of guys.

We got Brandon Jacobs, who was Eli's. We have Dominic Ryola, who Dan Arlofski put on here because he chirped Tom Cruise one time. That's right. At a commander's game. Willie Roof is back there. I see Willie Rove. Yeah, Bruce James Harrison. A lot of guys.

A lot of guys. Hey, can I tell you about the time my dad split a guy's lip from the top down to the chin in a football fight? Put him on the wall. The guy or your dad? My dad. Okay. He split the guy's left. All right.

We will get that. It was like, bring your kids to work day. And the guy brought his kids to work and then started to fight with my dad. What? He was like, watch this tomorrow, son. that it just didn't go well. I would tell you the guy's name, but probably. Well, I presume you have to go on Kevin's show to get the story told to get the picture on the bulletin.

No, it's all right. By the time you'll come on in the fall and we'll have big Howley back there. And we'll make an exception. Aaron Donald up there. We have Aaron Donald back there. Okay, good. Who told you about Aaron Donald, me? You and Andrew Whitworth.

Pretty much anybody that knows Aaron Donald would probably put him on that. So Andrew Whitworth said something pretty. interesting he said that he's the only guy he saw that every day worked out like an undrafted free agent that's true that checks out guy was training with knives they were fake knives but they were still knives hey i have an announcement uh today is aaron donald's 33rd birthday no way wow happy birthday 99 yeah um i bet he smashes his cake i bet they just let him destroy his cake he probably so won't let himself even eat it no I don't know.

I don't know what his diet's like, but he looks great. Okay, so Kevin, a lot to talk about today. Let's just start with the NBA. Yeah. You know? Big Magic fan, the magic were the one wind total that I won this year in the NBA. So congrats to the magic. Congrats to me.

Thank you, Kevin. It's half the reason I bet the magic over. I guess my biggest question coming off of last night, this is, it's uh what day is it Thursday Thursday Jesus it's Thursday I've been having trouble with these the days of the week ever since I started this new uh workflow structure where I take a lot of days off Kyrie Irving big performance early in the game last night the Mavs pull out a close one against the T-wolves and they do it uh in a fashion where Luca doesn't really get going until the fourth quarter great close out performance from him but I kind of wonder if the Mavs end up pulling this thing off

could we rightfully call Kyrie Irving the best Robin of all time? Whoa, that's a great question. He's in the mix. He's in the mix because, I mean, the thing is, you do it over different situations. Like, Scotty Pippen did it with one situation with one guy. And the two years that he was the solo guy, like, he didn't even really react that well. You know, like he wasn't even that. And so I don't even know who in the NBA.

I'm not really sure who would be in the mix there, but absolutely. to go in and be the second fiddle in so many different situations, perform in so many different situations, I think is completely great. And also, not to take the different direction, like, he's acting normal again. He is, dude. I don't know what happened there. He's just like totally back to being like 2019, 2018, Kyrie Irving. And I'm not really sure if it was like a stick he was putting on for a couple of years because there were some some end game there. I'm not really sure what it was, but he's just, he's just back. I also think people like go through phase. where they explore intellectual ideas, even if they're misguided by a lot of people's standards.

Like, you know, and when you're 20-something years old, I don't know how old he is now 32, 31. But in your 20s, you think of somebody as like a full-grown person, but they're not. He's 32. He was in his late 20s, dude. If I think about myself at 39 compared to where I was in my late 20s, like, I'm a totally different person. I'm the same person, but I have different intellectual threads. you know like curiosities theories like you just you just evolve and i'm not putting thoughts in his head or deleting you know certain um like sound bites we've had from him off the face of the earth

but what i am saying is like people change and i'm watching him last night he looks like he's having a lot of fun you know like i'm watching him on set after the game and they're talking about anthony edwards calling him out and saying like i'm gonna i'm gonna guard kairi and he answered the question perfectly he was like i that's the one thing about kairie that i I had a hard time, you know, kind of contextualizing some of his comments and and some of the avenues he went out is because he always seemed like a really chill guy, like that you'd want to be around. Big smile, smart guy, seems to be a good teammate, guys like having him on the team.

And so it's fun to watch him back where he was, so to speak. Can you, having been in the locker room, can you answer what makes a good Robin? Like once it you, it doesn't make, those role players who were just like, I'm going to be the best at this. And they're going to be the 38th most important guy in the roster, but they're going to be amazing at being the 38th most important guy in the roster. But to be really good with it also except the Robin role is a very different bucket. You have to be secure. You have to know who you are. And you have to, you know, everything you're trying to prove like within the terms of being in that situation, maybe you're not going to be able to prove at all.

you know you can't be the one a guy and maybe you think if you're on another team you can be the one a guy but i think a really good robin whether that's a pass rusher or a number two receiver um is and those are the places that that that usually shows up you know like being the robin like it's either you're going to get the ball or you're going to get rushes or you know like when i was i was robin to robin i didn't want to be batman i was happy to be robin you know because batman was really fucking good. It made me feel bad about being Robin. I think being a Robin is all about being secure with yourself.

And being a team guy, you know, which, which Kyrie's always been a team guy. Like, maybe an NBA, like Matt, has there been chapters of his career where he wasn't a team guy? Celtics maybe a little bit. Yeah, but like, other than that, when he was in Cleveland, I thought him as a consummate Robin. I mean, they don't win that final without him. Not one of the greatest shots in the history of the game. So I just think he deserves his due in that conversation. Completely agree.

I mean, there's also a mentality where like, I think it's a little different, but Kevin Kisner, the golfer, he literally said a couple of years ago, he was like, I can't win at a bunch of these courses. My game is just not built on it. And then they said, well, why do you even show up? And he said, because there's a ton of money in 20th place. And it's like, once you get that mentality, your whole thing. And I'm not saying Kyrie has that, but that's where you settle in and you say,

I know exactly what I want to be as an athlete. Be the best you, you know, and a lot of athletes, the comparisons to Thief of Joy. It's true. It's true with your sports career because you sit there and you compare other situations and other players. And, you know, Kyrie ultimately he wants to win another one. Here's a bad question nobody at all will care about. Who would you take at 6 and 11 last year if you could do it all over again for the magic, Oh my God.

I still believe in Anthony Black as an athlete. Jet Howard was not the pick at the time. Derek lively was right there. Yep, Derek lively was right there. We still need to take a lottery pick on a shooter and then your number one off-season task is still finding shooter, showed you may have missed on the pick there. We thought maybe he was more NBA ready than he was.

you had to spend some time in the G league. I did not. The rebuild's going great, but we left some meat on the bone there in the lottery last year. Who do you think are good parallels for these four teams that made the finals in the NFL? Yep. It was a fun exercise that I was running through this morning

where I'm like, who are the Pacers in the NFL? Who liking the wolves making a run to a team? Like, do you have any parallels to share? So for me, for the, for the Timberwolves in particular, I'm seeing a lot of 2021 bangles, Super Bowl bengals. Because we have a generational player

where we don't know how good he can be this early. And I saw a stat here that blew my mind. Eight guys in history were in the conference finals as their teams leading score who were 22 or younger. Seven of them lost. Only one who won was LeBron James. So we get to see a little bit of a marker here. Is he in the LeBron category or is he in the category with some of these other guys where it's going to take a little bit longer?

But we didn't know how good they could be this quickly. We didn't know how quickly they could change the franchise. And then beyond that, like with the Bengals, we're understanding the defensive talent as well. Because I saw a stat Rudy Gobert, I think, held the nuggets to three of 12 shooting in game seven. Which is akin to shutting down Patrick Mahomes. 100%. And so you have the Trey Hendricksons and the same Hobbards of the world. And you're starting to understand that it's not just him.

But the culture is being. changed by one guy and then the rest of the roster we're finding out is is really, really good. And I also see like, I remember being in Cincinnati and one of the coaches being like, turn the recorder off because I was doing a burrow story. And he was like, you got to understand. It's not, it is borough changing the culture, but it's also Higgins and Chase and Tyler Boyd at that point and what they're all able to do. And then we're going to look back on this five years and be like, this was a really special time. And you look at this wolf's rostering.

Like, there's a lot of talent here. It's led by one guy. There's an ignition by one guy. but it's it's it's it's it's one through 12 you know um for the mavericks for me with the luka thing because i think we're all waiting around for this reminds me a little bit of the first mahomes team where the defense wasn't quite there yet i mean you look february on they gave up the most layups uh in basketball like lazy defense they still you know remember they had to fire bob sutton they did professionalize that a little bit on the defensive side of the ball but we saw

proof of concept for what that that looked like um and so those are the two i feel most strongly about that the pacer's I threw out maybe because just because of the pace and the offense and the historic numbers that they're putting up in albert and say on the other night that they're changing the way teams are thinking about how fast I like where you're going it feels a little miamiish it feels a Miamiish right down to the star player throwing a pick at the end of the game but the only difference between the pacers and the dolphins is the pacers are here yes in the Eastern Conference Finals. So I'm with you on the pages.

We had the same team. The only difference, I don't think Carlisle, I mean, Carlisle is not a young boy genius. No, he's not. He's not. But I think McDaniel is a really good coach. And I still believe that. And he's going to have to make a decision at some point.

Does he want to hitch his wagon to Tua? And that's what we're talking about right now. And I'm not going to return the favor and get you to go viral asking about Tua's contract on your show on my show. It was one of the one of my biggest answers. to a rants or anti-dolphins rants was on his show. Okay, so who- And then we didn't clip it.

We didn't clip it intentionally. And then they found it anyway. It still made it. They found it anyway. Because they looked for everything. They looked for the perceived light. We were like, all right, we're not going to put it out there. We're not going to do like the Chris Long sounds off on the dolphin situation.

We're not going to do that. We do do that. We weren't going to do it out of respect for everybody. And then an hour later to Anon was like, look what Chris Long had to say. He's sounding off. They need me, dude. They need me. It's like Cowboys fans need Stephen A, and I'm not putting myself in that category of, like, influence, but they need me.

It's good, well, relative to the influence of the dolphins, I'm perfect. You know, and so, and then the last team is the Celtics. Yeah, I didn't have one necessarily except maybe the Niners, where they're always good, there's always a floor. Oh, yeah. They find guys, like, Drew Holiday won them in the game the other night. And it's like, there's just a floor there where it's like they're always going to be able to find guys. who fit the system and know how to play. And I'm not even sure if it's winning basketball necessarily.

I'm not even sure if the Niners play winning football. It's just consistency on a play to play basis that always wins out. Well, I went in a different direction on the Celtics. I think the Celtics are like the Ravens because we're getting used to some letdowns in the playoffs. I think I think Indies like Miami, we talked about this. I think Dallas is like the Chargers. Like fast forward a year or two. And I think there's going to be a hump that Justin Herbert gets over that's akin to

of the hump that Luke is hopefully getting over right now where there was there was some talk about like hey well what is lucca want you know and and and that sort of thing and i think there's also that like healthy resentment of lucca in some NBA circles there's a healthy resentment of justin herbert in NFL circles like he's one of the most polarizing topics in the NFL and i think there's a big disconnect because people want to see the results right away as if there's not context around the player and so I would put them in that category. And then Minnesota, I'm with you, but fast forward, who are the Bengals now? To me, it's the Texans. You know, everything you said about the Bengals, same things I'm saying about the Texans now. I just think they're so ready to take off. They're so ready to blast off,

Houston style, man, you know, and it all starts with one guy, but they've got a really nice supporting cast. And the same thing with Minnesota. Now, one thing you said is aunt in the LeBron category. And I love Ann Edwards and I hope he's the future league for all the reasons everybody else loves him as well. But when I think about young LeBron and I think about that Cleveland Detroit series or the Cleveland San Antonio series, like it was it was abundantly clear that he was the future of the game.

There was no like, can he ascend? is, you know, it's early. Like, he just walked in and he was the whole damn team, and I'll never forget those two series. It was, we were in college. Yeah. I feel like it was yesterday. And juxtaposed to Ann Edwards right now.

And there's, it's a high standard, high bar to clear. But like, when somebody else takes over game one, I know you're tired. You know, seven games, a bunch of nights in Denver. You're fresh off that. I think he'll, he'll be fine in game two.

But you don't want to see Luca take over the fourth quarter and you kind of fizzle down the stretch and really not not add a lot offensively in a big game like that the west reminds me so much of the afc in general because like even when the thunder went out everybody's a well young team they'll be back windows don't work like that in the west anymore man and same with the a fc where it's like wemby's coming you think about how many elite quarterbacks there are where there are legitimately what seven or eight aFC teams that i would not be surprised at all if they won the conference one the conference no question and that's that's how i I view the West too.

And so I just think there's a lot. There's a lot there. Yeah, no question. I will say this. Like, I don't think the indie series is over. This is, this is, it's so funny because I was watching Get Up this morning, as I do. And they're talking out of both sides of their mouth because everybody's like, you know, the Celtics have been known to blow games at home and they don't win in big spots sometimes

in the playoffs. And then they're like, the Pacers miss the golden opportunity. They're going to lose this series now. You know, I don't look at it that way. The Pacers barely shot any fucking free throws the other night. I agree. You know, it's one of those things where they made a ton of mistakes, turnovers.

I know that's part of the equation with them, but I think they'll be better. So I'm looking forward to a good series. First team in history to be inbounding the ball up three with 10 seconds left and loose. And like, I don't think that's. How much was Virginia up? We were down. We were down.

We were always down. Okay. But it was like that. It was like that. It was like that. First team in history to lose this way. Yeah. But for me, it's like, I completely agree with you, Chris, where this, they was a proof of concept

last night or two nights ago that the Pacers can score a bunch on the, on the Celtics. And the Celtics are going to have to keep up by necessity. Like, I thought they weren't to be able to go this fast. I thought they weren't able to make this many shots. Well, they can. This stuff can work in the playoffs at this round. And so I think it's going to go like six or seven games. If they get into the big one, is there a team you can remember in recent history that Star Power was more equitably

spread like because i don't think of haliburton as a superstar well i could talk about the 2009 of lando magic which was my favorite team ever but you have superman but that was he was like hito turkalo and rachar lewis were the alphas of that team no question no question and that that series could have been longer i remember there was one game you guys blew there were two games there were two games two games yeah we reasonably should have won that series and nobody really turns out everybody tunes out when i do it like simons i almost i like half made the point point like on Simmons pod 10 times and every time Simmons would just hit the eject button midpoint just like all right so what's something else.

J.J. Reddick's still maddie didn't play more. And so he's taking it out on the NBA. He's going to be a head coach and he's going to play all his whiteboard American players. Hey, if you were JJ Redick, you would not, I have this take that he should not stop. Shouldn't let the Lakers job get in the way of his future. He should go full Gottlieb? No. Don't go full Gottlieb. Never go full Gottlieb. Never go full Gottlieb. But, but I mean, I mean, he's got such a good thing going. Like, be best friends with LeBron. Do a wine and basketball podcast the rest of your life. Work at ESPN. Like make boatloads of money. Have the best basketball podcast out. Like, or coach the Lakers and get yelled at by LeBron in two weeks in. And maybe like I would, I would, I would, I said this the other.

the day. Remember when Dennis Miller did Monday night football? And I remember, remember when Dennis Miller did Monday football? I think it ends up like that. They're like, remember when JJ was the coach of the Lakers? Like, I, if I was JJ, I wouldn't do it. That's just my take. You wouldn't take the job in general. I would take the job. But I would also continue doing my media company. I just wouldn't do it when, like the one thing, it shows a basketball confidence. Like, what Draymond Green has been able to do the last four years has been incredible. And like I have a friend, I have a bunch of friends who work in that company and they're like he'll be the number one focal point of the night like we kicked out of a game or he'll have a bad game and literally like he'll text my friends be like y'all ready to pod like that's

that there's that there's a game maybe two years ago he literally said like i know y'all hate this but you're gonna get this pod no matter what like they're getting this pod you're getting get this pod and so if jj kept doing it that's that's alpha behavior if he was just like that is alpha behavior but draymond has alpha behavior where he like doesn't care right like he just doesn't care he's just going to do it and i feel like if you're a coach and you're doing a podcast it might be a little bit different if you could enter a jj set up coach any NBA team other than the magic and you have to it's basically like you have a best friend that's the star which best friend would you want in which team well the problem of lebron is that he's close to retirement he's floated retirement right you can't like it's the old thing

about how anytime you enter into an NFL facility, you never want to be the coach's guy. You always want to be the owner's guy. So you need to pick a young guy where you're just going to ride them for 15, 20 years in some cases. So Victor Wembeama, I would love that. I'd have to learn French, a little fire up a little duolingo and go in Iraq. Yes. Yes. Also, also, Wembe feels like the guy you need to do the least coaching with. Like, what, what coaching tips is Wembe need? You just get in there. How do you yell at Wemby? Like physically?

Like, physically? Like, could you hear you? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, it's like your child yelling at you. Hold up notepad so you can see it. Yeah, that'd be tough. Yeah, Wemby would be my number one, but by far. Just the next 20 years, just be like, let's just pass the ball to Wembe. Pretty simple. Do you think coaching in the NBA is hard?

No. Someone said that Winhorst, I think Winnhorst said the other day on a show that, By the way, Winn Horse looks great lately. I don't know if he's been working out, but he looks great. been getting sleep he's that's my guy he said that uh the coach is realistically like seventh or eighth most important person in a facility and i tend to agree i tend to agree like i don't how much is it really matter these guys win championships and they get fired like eight months later it's like hockey coaches now and i will say the coaches that are in it right now are good coaches like we were

talking about this like uh carlyle's great coach all timer um and tibs who was just in it i mean that's the reason the nicks were still in it you could argue it's the reason it's the and they're out of it, although I wouldn't. And if you look at the West, like there's been some really good coaches that made deep run. So I feel like in the NBA, it's like there's this player coach model

and then there's the coach model. Are you at all offended that J.B. Bickerstaff has been terminated after defeating your team? After defeating the magic? I thought about that. When I was watched that series, I did not think that was a coaching masterclass by the Cavs. They weren't running plays necessarily.

that didn't look good necessarily let's talk some football dude yeah i want to start i want to start in the college ranks um this jaden uh reshita's story who you spoke rashshada rashada rashada rashita i have trouble with names you know that yeah all good um you know who's not you know who knows his name drew weather philipier billy napier knows his name 155 is the number uh he was promised certain NIL perks and didn't get them? Is that the gist of the story? Yeah, he was, he was, promised a bunch of stuff. 13.8 million is what he's suing for.

The down payment of a million was in the lawsuit promised by Billy Napier directly. That's just that he said, she said kind of deal. But that's, that's the crux of it, is that he was offered 13 million to play football for Florida and didn't get any of it. You know what hurts me about this? I really want to trust Billy Napier. I really like Billy Napier. Like I want to hang out with Billy Napier.

Am I wrong? You might be able to very soon. I think he's going to be out. I think he's going to be out down to hang very, very soon. Yeah. Well, I like Billy Napier. And I also like Kirby Smart who said, hey, no problem. You want my blessing to sue the fuck out of an SEC rival?

Like, go ahead. I think this is like, I would liken it to like some country's currency. You know, like coming into question like the value of the currency. I mean, it's just like you're fucking. what do you do now you know this is a big news story and every kid knows it and you know like now Florida there's just dark cloud it's not going to it's not going to lift like Kevin's anxiety it's just going to sit there exactly right uh they did get as Florida fans are funny my mentions because I went at them earlier this week they did get DJ Lagway in the last cycle was a pretty good

quarterback uh really good quarterback recruit you won't play this year um and we'll see where that goes to me this is like a monumental watershed moment because college sports college coaches just lie all the time like the but the famous story is that urban mire told jevin's need that they were recruiting tim tibo as a linebacker just so he'd go like there's no repercussions for that for 20 years or 100 years and the whole thing with the nil landscape was oh it's the wild west there are no rules you can do whatever you want well now we get to see if the courts agree that it's wild west and i think that's there's a power shift there. And I've had some disagreements with people this week with like, well, he has to win. No, he doesn't because this is going to send a chill down the spine of every collective that's signing fraudulent deals or overpromising. And I think there's going to be professionalization.

And the NIL thing is going to die out in my three or four years once they all become employees and all that stuff. But I just think that if you want to treat kids, if you want to scam kids, you're, you're proving the adults, not the kids of the scammers. And you're going to face real consequences. this year. No question. The adults all over the place, agents, boosters, uh, coaches, like the kids are honestly the most honest people in this equation. Yeah. And people are like, oh, well, he, he's greedy or whatever. He's 19 years old and someone was like, you want to have $13 million to play a sport that

you were going to play for free if there wasn't some weird law that came into effect two years ago. Yeah, I would take that. There's no greed there. There's no greed whatsoever. You and I would both do it. still water's not going to do it. Can I ask you what the biggest lie you got in recruiting was? We're just like, come on, man. Ooh, recruiting. My recruiting, my courtship was short. I was wildly insecure and didn't think I was good enough to play college football

because my dad was like, hey, you might want to start doing some guard sets. Like, hey, like, look at those Ivy League letters. You just, you know, and then I watched Florida State at night. And I was like, I kind of want to go to Florida State. and I've watched and so I was like, I don't really know if there's a, there's a place for me here on the D-Line at Florida State. And then I took one visit to UNC and the coach blew me off until he knew my dad was Howie Long. And I heard the whole thing. And I was like, fuck, I'm not going to UNC. So I just committed to Virginia and called it a day. It was my first offer. I didn't really get a lot of

lies. Bill Musgrave, uh, was my recruiting coordinator. He left shortly after, but it wasn't like he lied to me. I did not get a lot of lies. Now in the NFL, you get lied to. because the NFL is an extension of the recruiting process. You certainly have more leverage, but you don't know how they're going to use you. And a lot of coaches will tell you, we don't have a plan. We don't promise anything.

And that's usually not true. They're promising certain people things, and then they're just not going to promise you anything. I mean, I can remember signing with the Eagles, and I've told the story a bunch on this pod, where they're like, we're probably not going to sign a defensive end.

We're not going to draft the defensive end. I go to Germany to get stem cell. I turn my phone off because it's six hours difference. I go to bed. I wake up to take a piss at 2.30 in the morning or whatever it is. And I have 100 text messages. And most of them are, is this bad? The guy who broke Reggie White's record at Tennessee.

They said they're not going to draft the defensive end. But usually it works out. You know what I mean? And me and DB became great friends. And you don't hold that stuff too close to the vet. So did you ever get a lie in the recruiting process? Yeah, actually. I will know.

And when I was going to school, it was either Virginia or Michigan, and I visited Michigan twice, and it was 75 and sunny, both days, two different times of the year. And I was like, this is pretty nice. And then you look every other day. Yeah. It's more like the frozen tundra. Are they like, we're going to win a lot of football games while you're here against Ohio State? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So the other question. was because we talked about private equity firms in the NFL last week, which I'm not opposed to. Maybe I don't understand it, but I feel like cash in the NFL, some liquidity, not that these owners aren't rich enough, but they obviously aren't parting ways with all their money and public has to pay for a lot of stuff. I don't know that PE firms would actually pay for a new stadium or anything.

I don't think it's the worst thing in the NFL. Is it the worst thing in the NFL? And then how does it figure in with this Drew Weatherford story in college football? All right. So on the NFL side, I think it's fine, like a 5% investment. Like what, you think Bob Kraft's going to get bullied around by Bain Capital? It's going to be like, all right, here's your money back. See you guys later. Like that it's just cash infusion, which is I'm fine with.

I don't think that like all of the jokes for private equity. Like I don't think there's going to be a 10% investment. And all of a sudden, like the X, Y and Z. receivers are going to combine into one job and there's going to be they're going to be playing with eight guys in the field. It's like, hey, well, both guards are just doing, there's one guard now. We're just doing one guard. Yeah.

Yeah. The PE guys looked at it and we're like, nah, we can save, we can trim the fat here. I don't think that's going to happen. On the college side, it's significantly different because it's almost offensive because their business models are going to have to change because it sounds like they're going to give $20 million a year to the athletes from now on. And if you're in a Power 5 conference, which I'm fine with. that's probably low.

And every time somebody's like, well, these kids, you know, the freshmen, they end up busting and, you know, they're not, they're not that good or, you know, only half of them end up playing a snap, whatever. If they were guaranteed sure things, they would get more money than that. That's how that works. Like the bust factor is factored in. And so I don't think there's any way you can reasonably look at private equity and say this is a good thing for college.

And here's why. You're going to have to say, okay, we don't need 11 associate ADs anymore. Like Billy Napier, not to go. back to this, but like his whole thing was we're going to build a super staff. Guess what? Nobody cares about super staffs anymore, man. Like, yeah, I think the whole thing was that he hired like 50 people or something. There's this whole big photo, team photo of his staff.

Nobody cares, man. And I think that the new coach at Maryland actually had a really funny set of quotes on this, this time last year where he was like, we got all these nice facilities the moment the facility stop matter, the moment, because nobody cares anymore. It's like an NFL thing. Like, Chris, you didn't go, but you weren't like, oh, I'm going to choose this team or this team because I, I love their training table.

No, usually it was like I chose the team and I was like, holy shit, they actually have a training table here. In St. Louis, we ate Mexican, Chinese, and barbecue in rotation. We didn't have a chef. We just catered in. So this private equity thing to me is a transparent way to put the TV revenues into the pockets of the athletes, which will be happening. And then maintain administrative bloat and the cash. on hand for the people in charge. This is going to be a nightmare for future generations of people who are like the next AD.

Like, oh, we'll get a short term cash infusion. Oh, by the way, Drew Weatherford, who by the way, is heavily involved with another, with Florida State, obviously. He was, I think he was, his brothers on the board, his brother's on the board of USF. He might be on the board at FSU. I know we did speak last year at that, um, the conference call where they're all trying to get out of the at the ACC. But he's going to like own 3% of the team and he's going to be able to say, hey,

It's time for, I don't even know what a margin call is, but I'm going to say, it's time for a margin call, boys. Time for a margin call at Wake Forest. No, that's just not going to work. And so I think I don't trust that at all. And I also think there's not enough powerful people in college staffs right now who are going to be able to keep these guys at bay in the same way that NFL owners would be able to. Did Drew Weatherford play us in 06 when we beat him? Drew Weatherford at Florida State 05.08. Or Xavier.

Yeah, dude. I hit him so fucking hard. and I guess the joke's on me because he's like rich as fuck. Maybe. Like how rich is he? Is this like an Oppenheimer situation? Do you think that hit led him into destroying college football? People make the Chris Turner thing a big deal, the Maryland game.

I hit Drew Weatherford just as hard. And I did not think that Drew Weatherford end up being richer than me at some point. Well. Is this his money? How does this work? It's called. I think his brother, Willetherford runs the capital thing. But then I think this, I think he is partnered with Redbird here, who's a different entity.

Yeah, jokes on me. Just create something called Long capital. Yeah, yeah, long capital. That's a great name. That's a really good name. Okay. Thank you guys. A couple NFL topics.

Guys, leave me through because I don't even remember what we wanted to talk about. It's a slow news day. All right. So we got some coaches potentially on the high. hot season. Kevin, I'm going to give you a result for a team and is this result good enough for the coach to keep his job? Perfect. Let's say the Eagles go 12 and 5, win the division, win the wild card, and lose the divisional round. Now, let me color this in a little bit. Jalen Hertz gets back to normal. He's not he's not the MVP candidate he was a couple years ago, but he's he's a franchise

quarterback. If they win the division, yeah. If they win the division, he keeps his job. The divisional round. If they win the division, they keep, he keeps his job. Because well, I might fire him just because they had to play in the wild card. Like, how do he? Like, we have a buy, sir.

I think the threshold is pretty high for him to keep his job because the talent, the coaching talent available is going to be generational. It's going to be Belichick. it's going to be Mike Frable. It's going to be Pete Carroll in some cases. And then whoever gets fired this year or can't come to deal with the contract, whatever.

The Eagles have fired a lot better coaches than Nick Siriani. And I think that Jalen Hertz got to take. Literally, I just have a rebound season to his 20, 22 form. As you just said, Chris, they're going to have to win the division and they're going to have to play smart football. Because the team was just, I'm so against the idea of saying, this team is broken. This team is beyond repair.

They were in an unrecoverable stall last year, to the point that they were playing a Bucks team that was just okay. And no one in the world was like, this team is capable of beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. No one in the world thought they could. Except for me, who bet with my heart that night, I was like, fuck it. I'm just, there's only so much action left. Does your brain ever seize up? Because listen, the first seed gets a buy now. and then two place seven, three place six, four place five.

Is that not the wild card round? Yes. Yeah. That is the wild card round. Yeah. Okay. All right. So it's totally, you can win a division and be in the wild card.

Let's take it back. I want to retract what I said. Yeah. We're busting Matt's ball. Yeah. Hey, maybe now we should bust your ball. Yeah. No, my balls are on the table.

Yeah. My bad. All right. Next team, Cowboys. I'll go 11 and 6 second in the division, win a wild card game. then get blown out the divisional rounds. Then they're going to fire McCarthy.

Yeah. You cannot lose in the wild card round this year. You can't lose before the conference championship came for Mike McCarthy. You cannot lose. And like my, I thought the Cowboys were going to make the Super Bowl last year. And then I'm looking at it at the end of the year. And I'm looking at the process I had to get there.

And I was like, I picked a team to win the conference that looked at their roster and looked at their franchise and said, you know what we want more Mike McCarthy. We want more. We want not only do we want to retain Mike McCarthy. We wouldn't make him the play caller. We want to get rid of the guy who had success. By the way, Calmore, all perennally overrated. And I'll just.

That's bad news for the Eagles. It is bad news for the Eagles. But anyway, like they, I think that McCar, it has to be, even these Dax, might be Dax last year there. Like, the expectations have to be conference championship game. And that's to be also like a dignified conference championship loss, in my opinion. Which is why, to me, you're not going to see Mike McCarthy the year after this next year because I looked at the team. I mean, we just got done doing our breakdowns of every roster.

And, you know, you're going to be asking that defense to a lot more than they're accustomed to. I mean, playing defense in the NFL at a high level is tough, but it's a little bit easier when your offense is firing on all cylinders. It gets harder when you replace Dan Quinn. It gets harder when the offense might be behind the stick some. They don't have a running back group to speak of their depth that wide receiver is not great. The offensive line is retooled. And DAC is a guy you're not even given a new contract. So like I just don't see how this team wins more than 10, 11 games this year.

And if if they win that division, then Siriani should be fired. I also don't believe in distractions necessarily. You're far more equipped to talk, talk about that than I am. I just think that whenever we said, this could be a distraction. It's normally not. Most guys just keep to themselves. Dak Prescott entering free agency. True free agency, which we've never really seen with a quarterback that good because he's better than Kirk Cousins, is going to be a media apocalypse, a media apocalypse every single day topic on not just get up and first take, but like every Dallas radio show, every time anybody writes a story or isn't that locker room, they're going to be asking every single person about deck Prescott's depending free agency.

That's something to me that's actually going to hurt the team. Because most teams handle their business. Like most teams are just like, oh, we have a quarterback we want to keep. Here's money. That's how this works. And the Cowboys like, maybe the market will bust. I would argue it's the perfect storm.

You know, like what you're talking about is just like, we're at this point in sports media where this thing can become a distraction. I mean, we have more coverage than ever. It's the biggest market in the NFL when it comes to the media and coverage.

And on top of that, they've had to wait so long. And you just feel like, I said this after the Green Bay game, if you look at, if you look at Dallas and you look at Tony's run, and everybody kind of resents Tony's run because he couldn't get him there.

The DAC run is much the same. And, you know, when you look at their playoff performances, what's happened ultimately. For a long time, we believed, hey, Dax's better. And Dax's going to be the guy that's going to lead him to Promised Land. And now I'm not even sure they're better off than they were when they had Tony.

I completely agree. First of all, to add to the sort of media perfect storm, Jerry Jones has a Netflix show coming out this summer. But there's going to be a net, and Lord, what he said in that just being around and whenever anybody's like oh jerry jones said they're all in man i've been in a lot of jerry jones press conferences he's mostly just kind of freelancing i wouldn't put much stock into anything that jerry jones is saying for me at any given point like we've seen the doodles i think when

he said we're all in on next year i think you meant like we're just focused on it like i don't think we're going all in we're not looking ahead yeah clearly but uh the the the thing you just said um i i just think that there's, first of all, there's, there's, there's so much below potential. But then beyond that, the reason that they don't have these great runs in the postseason is they don't maximize the roster. They draft really well. And then they use free agency in spots, which is what you did in 2003. It's not what you do now. You have to take huge swings in order to win a conference now. You have to take, I'm like, the Niners had a really good pass rush. And they were like, what if we traded for Chase Young? What if we added strength on strength? That's what you actually have to do is go

and make these big swings. And I remember when Thomas Mitchell was on my show last year, and he was talking about how Holly Roseman gets so aggressive at the trading deadline. And then also, if there was an incoming call, Hallie would always ask for a second round pick for anybody. Could have been probably, you know, you were probably about to retire and howie was probably shopping to you for the 33rd pick in the draft. Okay. He actually shot me for a six at one point, I think. But then I remember Cowboys reporters like, quote, to him, be like, meanwhile, Jerry Jones's phone doesn't work. Jerry Jones, there just hasn't been an outgoing call in Dallas in 30 years. And outgoing calls are how you win the conference now, man.

Actually, somebody called and wanted me, and they were willing to send a five or a six, and he jacked the price up. Nice. Yeah. So before, which year? And there's the last year. Last year. Yeah.

I mean, the way I was running around, I'd have made that trade. Staying in the NFC East, Macon's team, the Giants. Let's say they go nine and eight, third in the division, and just missed the playoffs via tie breaks, but Daniel Jones has a solid bounce back season. No way. Dable's out in that situation. They have to do something otherworldly for him to keep his job.

And I also think, like, the likelihood of that happening is not high. That's another team where looking at their roster, it feels like almost like, like Cowboys feel like negligence and like they got here because of negligence and they're not really sure how to stabilize the situation. The Giants to me have made a decision that like, hey, we're just going to ride this out this year. And in a year when Belichick's available,

that's going to be the head coach because they did not add pieces that say like, hey, we're trying to win this year. So no pieces and the coach leads him to nine wins and you're firing him? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's their plan going into the season.

They're going to not be great. and then Bill's going to be the coach next year. If they're four and 13, I'm with you. But that scenario said nine and eight. You're going to fire a day. You're going to keep Daible after they go nine and eight this year? Yeah. Yeah.

And Danny Dimes looks like just Danny Dime. Yeah. Okay. Awful. Yeah. What an awful plan that is. I need a, I need a PE investor for his team.

You've dismissed from Long Capital. I think Daniel Jones is a top five crushed it candidate in the entire NFL. He was never very, very good. He's going to leave this game with $100 million. He's on stage with Zach Bryan like once a week. Like at some point, Zach Brian's going to be like, come on, man. Is he up there with Zach Brian a lot?

He's up there a lot with Zach Brian. And I'm quitting a show I went to. No, Shane Gillis was like the onstage guy. And then Zach Brian was on, or Daniel Jones on the wing. I believe Daniel Jones has been on stage with Zach Brian multiple times at this county. There is a picture that Lane Johnson sent me the other night. The other night. I have a friend to Jason Gallagher was there.

And he said Lane Johnson's on stage. Elaine was there. And Lane took a picture with Zach Brian. And not only is Zach Brian like a miniature human next to Lane Johnson, they were wearing the same fucking outfit. The same fucking outfit jeans, boots, a tan shirt and a baseball hat. And they stood next to each other as if that's not the joke. The joke is that they dress the same. Now, you're not going to be able to find this online, I don't think.

That sort of. After the show, they posed together and they were wearing the same fucking thing. Look at Lane with his t-shirt. into his blue jeans. Looks great. I saw Zach Brian maybe four nights after Springsteen came out. And so everybody's amped up because it's all in Long Island. Everyone's like Billy Joel's coming out.

That's what's going to happen. That's a new standard. The night before Pete Alonzo from the Mets came out, everybody had a good time. Everybody's a Mets fan on Long Island. So it's Easter. And his guest is just his dad dressed as the Easter Bunny. And everybody's all pissed off.

And his dad may have had a few more than he should have and just fell off the stage. You know what? Is that Brian's dad? Yeah. It was amazing. It was amazing. amazing. That's awesome.

The guest was Zach Bryan's dad dresses at Easter money. I like Zach Brian. I'm trying to get into Zach Brian. I love him. I'll send you some. I'll send you some stuff. You should.

So you guys are going to have Bill Belichick and Shador Sanders. Yep. At MetLife for the next five years. That's right. Yeah. Or Carson Jack. Because you're going to go six and 12. You can't even nail it.

18 games. Nice segue. Yeah. Six and 11. Yeah. I don't even know how many games are anymore. They're talking about 18 game season. Roger Goodell, in a thousand words,

is like, hey, listen, like, these are all the reasons why it would work. Ultimately, we make the decision based on player safety. Well, here's a novel concept, Roger. Ask the fucking players, what makes them feel safe. Yeah. Because they keep telling you that they don't want this. This is like being like, you know, hey, son, ride,

ride, just put the seat boat on. You don't need a car seat. You know, like, that's what's safest. the kids like i don't know i don't i don't feel safe you know and that's what roger's doing i mean it's just just because i think it's like obviously and no amount of preseason trade off is going to equate to it's not a game for a game regular season games like a a fucking car wreck dude a preseason games like a tough practice you know like uh so i i just don't they're going to do it eventually we're also hearing things about australia yeah he like threw it an australia nugget and

this whole thing. The 18 game thing seems inevitable to me, Kevin. All right. So a couple things about this. I want to quote the great philosopher Kyle Long, who the other day, I had a great tweet that said on his first day of training camp when he was a rookie, Roberto Garza asked him how his body fell. He said he's a little sore, but he feels okay. And Garza said it's the best he'll ever feel again. And Garza was completely serious and was correct. And whenever that, funny I heard the same thing totally different team who told you I think Fred Robbins it's like they all had a meeting and they were like hey if the rookies ask it's true they're like hey this is the best you're gonna feel ever for a very long time I didn't get the ever

it was like till next April and then yeah but ever it works too that turned out to be true so now you're waking up in the middle of night yeah yeah but I never played and I'm waking in the middle of the night. Yeah, that's true. I would put it to the players and say what's, and this is a PA thing too, is there a financial tradeoff? Is there, is there a thing where you'd say, for 15% more, I would put my body through another game? I don't know. I'm putting it to you. What's, if you're sitting down with with Georgia Tallah and those fellas, yeah, what guaranteed money would need to increase by how

much? I mean, zero now, but to me, I'm not much of a, I mean, I'm not a union guy. I am a union guy. I am a union guy. I'm pro union and everything, but I'm not somebody who's like tremendously involved in that process. To me, I would, I would come in guns blazing and be like, hey, yeah, you won 18 games, give us guarantee money. Yeah. And the need or or free agency a year earlier. Or free agency a year earlier, get rid of franchise tag, like pull on some lever because, hey, 18 games isn't going to kill us. It's just going to kill us a little faster, right? So, you know, it's not one of these, it's not one of these things where it's like you know

we can't do it we can do it 18 games we can do it guys do it all the time I play with guys in New England that we're playing 20 games a year for five years now a lot of them fizzle out and that sort of thing because of the attrition and the physical nature of it but if you can pull a lever like the franchise tag or up the guaranteed money then that would be a tradeoff for me but I'm only speaking for myself

like I'm very cautious about making statements that could be construed as reflective of the whole. I am not in these meetings. And there's a ton of guys that think differently than me. I look at things pretty realistically. I think the franchise tag is the one thing NFL owners would fight the most. Yeah. They would give up so much because the franchise tag is the number one negotiating lever that has existed.

And since Freedency began, whenever that you know 30 years ago so I don't I think I think there's probably a little more givebacks but yeah it'll be it would be interesting if the if the PA drew a line in the sand that you have to get rid of the franchise tag that would be a fascinating negotiation okay a couple more things before we let Kevin go first down chains this is something I've been talking about for a couple years here I know that it makes a lot of sense to put a chip in the ball or go with some optic like kind of resolution here where we it just speeds the game up and we know without a doubt this is where the yard market should be but do not lose the

chains 100% the chain should stay even if they're a decoration even if it's a formality even if we're communicating what we found out via technology with the chains for people at home like chains are a part of football and if you take chains away part of the pageantry is gone for me it's it I also think this like the replay system people bitch about it and people bitch about officiating I think the NFL is better for people talking about officiating it has not stopped people from

watching the NFL in fact more people are watching it than ever and you could argue that with the technology we have now the cameras we have now refs are always going to look bad but I just think I think it's one of those things that the three minutes where we go to commercial or we all huddle around

our TVs and they're talking about it in the booth if they found a way to immediately get the answer they were looking for. Pretty much anywhere in the NFL game, like any corner of the game, I would be against that because I think part of football is the stop and start. It's the suspense. It's the human error. Now, if you can mitigate some of that with technology, great, but do not lose the pacing

of the game. Do not lose the chains. Do not lose. So what to you guys should be untouchable in the NFL game? Might go away at some point. but in your opinion, what's untouchable? The ball, for one. I'm curious as to whether, do you, has the NFL, you all might know this answer.

Have they had the data? Has the chip been in the ball? Yes. So that they've known for a long time, hey, these officials are like two feet off placing the ball 85% of the time. Is that true? They've never released that, but the ball has had a chip for a long time. And they've been able to study that. They never released it.

In the beta stage. Yeah. Yeah. I think you can make it public, but also keep the, keep the chains. Keep the chains, man. I'm surprised you didn't say Brian Dayball was unreplaceable. Brian Daibble. You cannot touch the sanctity of Brian Daibble.

All right. So you have to keep the chains. Lambo field. You have to keep the chains because the drama of the big guys on fourth and two. Standing over it. Standing over it. And just getting ready. to signal we're going this way and running off the field.

What are they going to do? Look at the video board like tennis, watch a little Hawkeye thing. Whoa, everybody goes like that. That is kind of dope. That is kind of dope. That's stupid.

No. Jadavian Clowny has a different career without the chain gang. That hit against Michigan and Outback Bowl. Yeah. I was because we had a, we had a measurement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Short.

Yeah. You're right. Yeah. You're right. I think the chip in the ball should be reviewable. I think you could put it on review. but I don't think every down and distance should be a chip in the ball. I think that's ridiculous.

Can you imagine if they went back and we're like, let's correct all the chain mishap? We've had how many different champions we'd have, how many different games would be lost in one that, you know, like iconic moments that. And then are we going to go to second down three yards, two feet, seven inches? Yeah, I think so.

And it sucks. I don't want that. Yeah. So I want to keep the chains. I want to keep Lambo field. I want to keep outdoor football. I don't care if it whittles down to five stadiums. Like Buffalo, we talked to Brandon Bean last week, who's great.

Love, I don't know if you've gotten on, but he's the fucking, he's the man. But I was like, bro, you guys moving inside? He's like, no, man, like we got, we're putting roofs over the fans, but there's a big hole in the top. It's going to be like a do that. They want grass. Do that because they want grass. Keep grass.

Keep outdoor stadiums. Another thing I don't want is I don't want to see Love's gas station. like on the Thunder jersey. I don't want to see that anywhere. I don't care how many P.E. firms buy in. I don't care how much cash infusion you need. Keep the uni sacred. That's a great list.

I'm trying to think what else. The coin toss? Totally unnecessary, but we need to have it. We have to have it. Chris Collins, we're sliding in. You got to keep that. Absolutely. Absolutely. I wish I had more time to think of a real list.

we should have prepared for the question we yeah yeah exactly yeah um okay last one for you yeah inside the inside the NBA uh I mean I think it's one of these shows and I just in a hot take that we're going to look back at in 30 years and be like that's why we stayed up late like do you remember that you try to explain to your kids like I swear you were little do you remember chuck and shack like they were just it was magic there was an ernie and Kenny like watching him walk up to the it's like a part of my life and i'm not even a hardcore NBA head and so it's a real shame uh and it had me thinking if you Kevin Clark could build out that same show in the NFL now I am on a show called inside the NFL which is different you take me off the show start from the

start fresh take Ryan Clark off the show who do you want to be on your you are inside the NFL. And they can be, should we make current players eligible? Like make it five years from now? You got a five year run? Who are those guys going to be on the set? It's so funny because, as you know,

it almost goes back to like what Bill Burroughs said about stand-up comedy. A lot of these guys say they're like the eighth most funny person in their high school, but they just pursued it and they ended up getting the cadence right and all that stuff. That's how I feel about a lot of guys who are funny in media, whereas the funniest guys in locker room sometimes just disappear to a farm or they go coach defense at their old high school and they don't do anything. And so I've been around a lot of guys who are really genuinely funny. And you've been around some hilarious people who just don't do media.

The one person who sticks out because it's this show, first of all, no BS, not trying to blow smoke, I would put you on. I think this is an amazing show. I think you see the game in a really special way that does. is hard to replicate. I would parry with Michael Bennett. I'll take $5 million a year. I'd parry with Michael Bennett.

Because when he was on this show, first of all, someone else, I believe, was on this show, telling Michael Bennett's stories that were just unbelievable about how Michael Bennett

would walk in and say, I'm not listening to white coaches today. Oh, he did not see a spectrum. I'm not listening to no white coaches today. He did his high-pitched voice. He did not see a spectrum. He did not see a spectrum of the coaches.

He did, though. The thing about Mike is like, you hear stories like that and you're like oh he's this militant guy he just he just hates everyone and like he's super hardcore like he's you could talk to him he's like talking to a kid the world is just beautiful to him he's so intrigued by everything he's so he'll he'll talk to you about art he'll talk to you about music he'll talk to you about politics he'll talk to you about football and he can talk about all of it he's like a renaissance man he's also a character i mean he's also a character. He'd come in and, oh, my foot hurts today a little bit, guys. Oh, my foot hurts a little bit. And then

you'd be out there taking all his reps. Or, uh, or, you know, he wouldn't, he wouldn't buy a car when he was in Philly. He was just too cheap. He was living in like the Ritz Carlton, but would not even rent a car. So I was tasked with driving him home every day, Kevin. And he would hover in the building till 7 p.m. I try to watch film until like 8, thinking he might just fucking get an Uber one of these days. He would be waiting by my car every day. I was it. His house wasn't even on the way. So Michael Bennett is a guy that if we did a show right now, we could start with no notes and do a show. I, like, I've had some great. We sat next to show on the plane that entire year. It's fucking awesome, dude. He'd be like, no white people back here except for it.

Carson, get the fuck. Carson. You'll sit with the kicker, you know? Oh, he was funny, dude. He was funny. He'd watch the same movie every week. I couldn't remember what it was. He watched a movie like seven road trips in a row laughing at the same lines. We got to get this guy on TV, man. Like your conversation with him when he was on the show a couple of years ago about Urban Meyer versus Bill Belichick and why one can work in the other.

And it was about ruling through fear, which is what Urban tried to do versus ruling through expectations, which is Belichick. Boy, that was his style. And it was just so illuminating. It's like, we don't get enough of that. on TV we don't get enough of it on podcast it was just really special um I thought about so there's a couple other guys that made me laugh consistently your colleague channing crowders is one of these guys were just hysterical cannot stop uh making me laugh deran bates who hosts raw room yes great shout out all the time and so i'm going i'm going he's got the j jay thing going yeah

darren bates yeah yes yeah with a ceilana yeah oh sorry i thought was a ceox yeah it was a seahawks last year we'd see him on the sideline all hype behind and Pete Carroll. And then this year I was like, yo, do you think you get me like, Xavier Leggett? And he's like, after I get him. So I'm going, Darren Bates there, if he, if he wants to go into the media world or wants to pursue more of the coaching. Then we need a quarterback.

I'm going. So first, I thought about like JTO Solvin, just lobbing bombs and calling everybody a little baby. His thing that he wouldn't want to be on with me. I've just joking. I think he actually listens to the show. So I like JT stuff too. I watch his YouTube.

But I'm going to Olavski here. I just think he's generational broadcasting talent. Stuff for Lovsky in a locker. That's what we would do. We would abuse him. So those are my four. You, Michael Bennett, Darren Bates, and Orlovsky. Can you imagine Michael Bennett and Orlovsky on a set together?

It was just Orlovsky reading off Caucasian recipes. That's his bit. I eat like the whitest foods. Yeah. It's pretty fucking funny. There'd be some chemistry. there. Makin, you have an answer?

I do. Oh, really? Yeah. Tom Brady and Jay Z are on my stuff. Michael Rubin. Okay. This is vintage. Rubin in the Ernie chair?

And a quick joke. No, no, no. I'm being serious. This is a good inside the NFL. Tom Brady, J.Z, Charles Barkley. Oh. I mean, he doesn't watch college basketball. Right.

And he's great. And then you're going to roll your eyes like, oh, it's not a great answer. Just think about it for a second. McConaughey is the point guard for this set. It's quite the group. Football. Sort of like that. To your point, I saw Barclay in the Patriots locker room after a playoff game maybe five years ago.

I don't think you were there, Chris. And his level of detail on the team, like he went up to Mike Reese, who's the Patriots Board for ESPN. It was like, you do a great job, man. I'm just like, this guy's locked in. It was going around like role players talking football. like Barclay could handle it. He likes football more than, like just as evidenced by the fact that how cool he was to me. Like, you know, I'm not a star.

And he's a Philly fan. But he treated us in Minneapolis where he forgot that he's been. Five years ago. Five years ago, he spent the night with us. And he was the fucking greatest dude. And we talked football almost the whole time. Yeah. It's like basketball.

UVA just won the national championship. All he wanted to talk about was football. I think you, I think you hit. on something here. The crossover appealed pretty good. Do you have one? No, but I do think I could play in the NBA. You could put me in just to inbound the ball in the end of the game. Do better than than Halliburton. Yeah. Whatever the fuck it was. Josh Allen said he can get some minutes. I like that. Yeah, I was going back to the ball a little bit. See, Akum be basically Patrick Willis out there, you know. Okay, that's pretty good, Kev. That was a good list. Covered a lot

topics. I have no idea how we found that many topics on a day like today. Well, and this is breaking. Yeah, it's good producing. Interestingly, Kevin, I don't know if you've seen this. Tulane University is expanding. Oh. What? Tulane University is expanding. It just came

across the ticker. Like, wait, like would they I don't, are they, they're getting bought out by pirate equity it's going to be four lane university oh no wow hey give me your wrist he's not supposed to tell that joke anymore we like outloaded that joke two years ago uh and we have a two lane flag up here all right so anyways hey kevin clark this is football with kevin clark check it out anything kevin clark's on is awesome that's one of our favorite people thanks guys been too long since we had him. I mean, I, have you been on one time? I was on the day before I went to

Omaha, his piano and I couldn't tell you guys. That's right. That's right, dude. So it's been a while. We're super happy for you, man. We love watching you. So come back again. Right back at you, man. Right back at you. Thanks, my dude.