Green Light with Chris Long - NFL Training Camp! Kyler Murray Contract, Trey Lance Takes Over in SF & Julio Jones to Tampa Bay.

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

(2:29) - Beau Comes to Big Sky Country, Kyle Tries to Find a Dog Friendly Hotel and Chris Assembles Adirondack Chairs. (17:18) - Good, Bad, Ugly: Home Run Derby Memories, Robots, New NFL Helmet Design and Madden Ratings. (39:43) - NFL Training Camp Pictures and Happy Trails to Recent NFL Retirees. (1:05:43) - Kyler Murray’s Contract, Trey Lance Takes Over in SF and Julio Jones Signs with Tampa Bay. Green Light Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc8cAKvkL1hTN_ZoirFzln_r8U3zUxf1HWXj8h8wttLxhJhHw/viewform 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/c/GreenLightTube1 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. https://www.greenlightpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Tennessee, y'all, too. 1-800-9-9-7-89. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. Oh boy. Thank you all for tuning in. We have a great show today for you. Recorded it Wednesday evening. We've got Chris checking in from Montana.

He's going to run through his past couple weeks hanging out in Big Sky Country. He did a little fly fishing and he's been doing a lot of watching NFL news. So we catch up on a lot of that. We study some of these pictures of these guys showing up to NFL training camps from present and past. With the Aaron Rogers Nick Cage video, obviously being the focus. will sound the Hunger Games whistle for the NFLers who have retired the past couple weeks. And Chris gives

the thoughts on the details of the Kyler Murray contract. Kyle Shanhan and John Lynch turning the keys of the 49ers over to trade Lance and Julio Jones joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A quick check-in, but thank you all for tuning in. Much love. Well, that was fun. Might take more breaks,

huh, Reed? Yeah. Go to Montana more often. Maybe this time we can go in the winter and we can hit the slopes. Well, I want to hear about your trip first. We, uh, California, we did, uh, Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park, uh, flew into San Francisco, drove down, did five days backpacking, amazing water, amazing hikes, spent it with my dad.

So it was, it was very nice, caught a bunch of fish, released them all. They were all unharmed Kern River golden trout. They're, uh, they're, uh, they're endangered in the area. I caught them, kissed the fish, released them. You were fly fishing? I was fly fishing. Yeah, yeah. I was walking and it started a couple conversations because they were like, damn, you got, you brought your fly rod all the way up here. I left mine at home and I was like, well, you sure brought it. You can catch some fish. Those guys on the airplanes always look so fucking cool with their little fly rod, you know, uh, suitcases, if you will. I got to tell you, man, I'm notoriously a guy who doesn't get fishing. Like, and you know, fishing is kind of one of those things. I'm on the river a lot. Like, like, you know, fishing is kind of one of those things. I'm on the river a lot. Like, like, you know, you know, you know, you know, you pass people who are fishing and I'm like, not to judge, but I just don't fucking care, buddy. And you always have to be like, are they biting today? You got

to like make contact and act like you care. But then I went fly fishing myself here for the first time. I was going to say you just, you did it. And if you run into another person on the river, there's fly fishing, the question that the fly fishing people would appreciate, what are you using? What fly? What are you using on there? Well, they're biting the dry fly, read. They're biting the dry fly. That's right. Did you do any streamers? No, no streamers. So the thing was, I had Bo Allen up, among other people,

have been here to the Ponderosa in Northwest Montana. And Bo came to visit, treated a little bit like an official visit for Greenlight, because we want Bo to do more stuff with Greenlight. So what do I do? I have him up and I get him absolutely shit-faced. And then I take him fly fishing because this is the one thing he wanted to do. he played switch with my kids. I rolled out the red carpet. We really did. And Bo had the trip of a lifetime. But fly fishing was probably the highlight for him. He rode the front of the skiff, Reed. We got on the

Clark Fork near Missoula, Montana, some of the best fly fishing you can do in the United States. Indeed. We got out on the Clark Fork. And, you know, me being unselfish, I let Bo Allen ride the front of the skiff. Well, what that means is the fish are going to see his fly first. Now, he slayed six or seven rainbows and cutties read. Damn. I didn't even catch a single fish. So maybe the fish heard me talking shit about fishing, but you would think it would work the other way around.

But that's what a good host does, especially on a recruiting visit. You let the recruit enjoy, you know, take everything in. Take his little fucking picture. He took his little picture where he. He took a couple pictures. He took a couple pictures. You should have seen him on the boat there. He was like, oh, it's getting hot.

After he caught his first one, he said, oh, it's getting hot. He was like, the next picture I need to show the car. By the way, Bill Allen looks terrific. It's amazing to think that under a 340-pound nose tackle, who, by the way, look great at 340, he sheds 30, 40 pounds retiring from football. Congratulations, Bo. and he looks jacked. He looks like I was afraid to take pictures with him, dude.

You know, like he's that friend for me now. I don't want to be in a shirtless picture next to Bo Allen. He's a dead ringer for Ajax. If they ever did a Troy origin story, he's a dead ringer for Ajax, to do with the huge hammer. Okay, because, Reid, I thought you said Jacks, and I was like, he's black. I was thinking Mortal Kombat. I was like, Reed, where are we going with this?

Okay, Ajax, okay. He's a dead ringer for somebody muscular in the movies. But he got some pictures holding a nice looking trout. I asked him on the way home how big he thought his biggest fish that he caught today was. And he said that definitely in the 20s. I don't think so, Reed. The fish he had was pretty big. It was 19 or maybe?

Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, it's hard to know how long bow's arms are because that's how you measure the fish, see how long the arm is. Well, you should have seen him. he was straining his fucking, you know, his shoulders to get the fish

close to the camera, you know, to affect the scale of the fish. Right, right. About how long did it take from fly, from fish on the fly to him reeling it in

to the net? Not long. Not long. Good. This guy was slam, dude. The guide was really impressed. And I was happy

because the visit went well. Let me ask you this question. Reed, is it a code break to play music? as you pass a fisherman on the water. It depends on how fast you pass them. If you're going real,

if you guys are floating together for multiple minutes, it is a code break. But if you go by quickly, if you're kind of like, that's your vibe and you're just floating by, I don't think that's a code break at all. It's really rich to claim code break on account of disturbing the peace on the river

when you're killing the inhabitants of the day. You know, like, how do you think they feel about you, fishermen? And you're worried about me disturbing your peace, Right, you're traumatizing fish and you're mad about the music. Did you get yelled at? No, no, no.

We're going to have music. I didn't want to fuck around. This was like a real guy, dude. But say I'm kayaking when I get back to Virginia and somebody's fishing on the James. I mean, you know, I usually turn the music down, but mostly because I'm so fucking afraid to offend fishermen. Yeah, you'll be fine around. Yeah. What are you catching?

Like, I give a fuck or no, dude. But I'm at least one toe in the water here with fish and I'm going back. I'm going back. I'm going to fly fish again. Kyle Long also visited me, Reed. That was nice. Well, he was more visiting my parents, I guess, but we spent a lot of time.

He didn't come over to my house once. Actually, no, I'm thinking about it. He wasn't the one who helped you with those Adirondack chairs? No, those Adirondack chairs were a motherfucker, Reed. You know, as I said in the video that I put on Twitter, you should definitely corroborate the story when your wife you that little assembly is required. And here's the kicker, dude.

These chairs were averaging. They said on the brochure 30 minutes a chair. I was doing like an hour and 20 a chair, bro. I was banging my finger on the little wrenches. I had multiple cuts on my fingers. Those Allen wrenches, man. Oh, man. I was doing it in front of other tradesmen.

There were a bunch of people laying sod and shit. So it felt like I was doing it in, you know, like Madison Square Garden. I felt so self-conscious. but even they were walking by like these Adirondacks are the worst man and I was like yeah they were your contemporaries you had a you had a good audience to impress I feel like craftsmen are the people that you want to impress the most oh dude people who work with your with their hands for sure dude I don't want to be you know that's one of the most emasculating thing in the world like to have a guy walk by with his tool belt and I drop a tiny Allen wrench

and the fucking the Adirondack falls apart Here's the worst part of it. This might have been actually take the cake for the most emasculating thing that happened to me. A week later, my wife gets home with two assembled Adirondack chairs. All that was for not. But Kyle did not help me with the Adirondack chairs. Kyle was hanging out at Mom and Dad's house. Kyle took Dad's truck to drive it across the country.

He had his giant German Shepherd with him. Bear. Bear was jumping off trees. I saw those videos. Yes, Bear's really good at fetching things. If there's one thing Bear enjoys doing, it is fetching things. So Bear was here. He had to drive Bear back.

His trip took him through Minneapolis. So my dad lends him the pickup truck to drive home because dad needs a driven home anyways to Virginia. So he's going to drive across the country, him and this bear. Well, Kyle, you know, he doesn't really follow like ways well. So he's putting extra miles on the truck. I don't know. Maybe it was one of his side adventures. that he went on with Bear to take him for a walk or something in some rough terrain,

but something got into the axle around Minnesota. So at 11 o'clock at night, Kyle's got nowhere to stay because not every hotel is dog-friendly. He's got no car. He's got to call dad and tell him, hey, I fucked up your car. Sorry. And the worst part was the hotels that were actually dog-friendly because I was frantically in dad mode calling them on the, like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, where yet. He's like, I'm just walking through the city

trying to find a hotel. Don't worry about me. I'm good. It's 11.30 at night, dude. So I'm on the porch stoned out of my mind trying to call hotels to see if I can get a hotel book for my man-child of a brother. He'd walking around with a fucking police dog in downtown

Minneapolis. He ends up in the fucking, he ends up in some, you know, I get a place with a vacancy on the phone. I get it all set up. There's just 15-minute process. Me and the lady are like friends. I'm about to make the reservation. He comes back on the phone and says,

I'm sorry, there's a problem. We don't allow German shepherds. He got dog racismed. He got breedism. Dude, they breedism. And is that common to not allow German shepherds at places? I'd never heard anything like that. I just know at like some rental places,

you can't have like a dog over a certain weight, which is weird because all the small dogs seem to be the yapper dogs. They're making the most noise. But I never heard a specific German Shepherd can't go into a hotel. I did not know there was a large scale like animus towards German children. I thought that was pit bulls. And by the way, pit bull people, man, you ever roll up to a pit bull? And you're like, there's nothing wrong with the dog in my mind. Like it's a very muscular, strong dog. So maybe I'm going to exercise a little more caution than I would. But these pit bull people, you really got to kiss their ass about their dog, don't you? Yeah. If you see a pit bull in public,

You're like, I love this dog. You see a rescue? And you know, you got to talk to him about the dog and the whole thing. There were these two pit bulls sitting at dinner the other night. And we had the kids out. And we roll up and we walk around the corner. And everybody, the elephant in the room, when five of us walk around the corner and see two pit bulls tied to the open table on the patio next to us,

the elephant in the room is, oh, pit bulls. So, like, immediately you're trying to scoot your kid around to the other side. I know somebody's going to attack me with their pit bulls over this shit. But you know it's true. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the dogs, but it's a risk, you know, it's a risk assessment,

dude, you know, the dogs are giant, they're muscular, you hear stories, I know they're misunderstood, so I'm scooching my kids around. My kids are like,

I want to pet the dog. So what do you do? Because you don't want to offend the pit bull people, of all people. I allow them to inch closely, a dog. I interrogate them a bit about, is it a friendly dog?

Of course, I'm like, he looks friendly, is he? Yes, he's so friendly. good with kids. The kids pet him. You know, I got a lump in my throat. The kids sit back down. I say, how long have you had the dog? The woman says two weeks. I rescued him two weeks ago.

He said, he's had a very hard life. You can tell. I said, are you fucking kidding? My kid just pet, but he's friendly. He's friendly. I've known him two weeks. He hasn't had no issues. And that's pit bull people in a nutshell. And I know I'm going to take help for this. I know not all of you were like this. Kingston, am I going to kill for this? No, that's insane. That's all could have gone through any number of things and it's like five to ten years of existence and snapped out of it in two weeks. The worst part I was like, how long have you had it? Two weeks? I was like, what did you go through? I don't know. Just a lot of stuff they said. I'm like, you got to be fucking kidding me. So

anyways, long story short, Kyle goes to Minneapolis with the German Shepherd. They turn him down. He's got to spend two days in Minneapolis with a dog. He's out there getting drunk on the lamb alone in restaurants with a dog tied to the fucking. He's a German Shepherd. People probably kissing his ass walking by, right? Pretty dog. I love those dogs.

Yeah. They've come a long way from Nazi Germany, haven't they? That's right. They're not being asked if they're a friendly dog. Everyone just knows. Everyone just assumes. Everybody knows. Really good with kids.

Really obedient. Really good at fetching. So here's the kicker. Kyle, Kyle's riding across the country. He leaves at 1 p.m., right? He Irish goodbyes me. I hadn't seen him in 24 hours. We're three minutes away on the point here. The Irish goodbys me. I got to learn from my parents that he's left. He's been here a week. Okay. I'm sitting at dinner. They're asking me where he is. And his wife goes, oh, I know exactly where he is. I go, how so? You know, we put one of those trackers in his car. car because they don't trust Kyle and it really wasn't it was it was it's not like his wife is

crazy or anything Kate's the best it's just collectively as a unit her and my parents made a decision that it would probably be better to put a tracking device in Kyle's car so uh so Kyle demands a tracking device on all cross-country expeditions has Kyle has has Kyle found out since that he has a tracking he had a tracking device? Does he know now? I don't think he cared at all. He's not hiding anything. It's just about like keeping him from, you know, disappearing. Right. On accident. Like a Bermuda triangle situation in Minneapolis. There's so many late. You could be in any of them. Um, so Kyle, Bo came up. We had our little reunion. Shout out to the guys, uh, from conquering Killy that do the Killy climb that came up here,

uh, to hang out this past weekend. And that coincided with. with Bo's official visits. So let's just say, Daddy was hung over, like, for two days. I was miserable on that fly fishing, but it was beautiful. Shout out to Caleb, who was our guide,

but I was on E. So just coming out of that, it's been a fun time being on break, Reed. I'm glad you got some time away. I had some time away. Kingston had some time away. And I'll give you a good, bad,

ugly off the top here. We're going to talk a little NFL in a second because Lord knows. There were some things that were happening and we kind of agreed like not to podcast. And I'm sitting here just chewing on my fucking fingernails. Like I just wanted to talk about it. It's amazing. Absence makes the heart grow fond of read.

I love this podcast. So here's my good. I get to Montana. And every summer I come to Montana in northwest Montana, I've been coming here since I was, you know, six years old. Some of my best memories ever were up here on Flathead Lake. I mean, it's like, you know, everybody has. that place. You know, if you're lucky, you've got that place.

And my pops inexplicably in the early 90s made friends with some Laker players, one of them being Frank Rukowski, who played for the Sonics later. People would remember Frank from getting into a Dennis Robben. He eventually bought a place up here. But before that even, Larry Christoviac, who was the head coach at Utah for a bit and played in the NBA for a long time, big man, who was a mutual friend. Had this big get together up here and my dad came up and found love with it and we got this this little cabin on the lake, you know, because we were living in L.A. at the time.

You know, this was just before we moved. So I can remember driving with my dad and his best friend Mike through Vegas up from L.A. for the summer. We'd go up there and bring the truck up. My mom would, you know, flying with the younger guys. And I can remember waking up in Vegas and seeing the, you know, that big waterfall and all the bright lights and shit, going back to sleep. just some great memories driving through places that had no speed limits back in the day.

And you get up here and we'd be out on the boat. My dad's Cobalt in the mid-90s with Bruce Springsteen on the tape deck, just on repeat. And at the time, you're like, you know, pick a new tape, Dad, you know, like Counting Crows, hooty and a blowfish, Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love. Which Bruce Springsteen album was the greatest sense? Okay, tunnel. And Tunnel of Love is kind of a country album, works perfectly for Northwest Montana. And that thing would be just, you know, not blaring in the boat because the system wasn't great or anything.

And I'm just really appreciative every time I step off the plane that I have this place. Like the smells, the crisp air, it's, you know, it's low of 60, you know, at night, it's 85 and sunny every day. And the lake water is clear. You can see down to the bottom of lake, 20, 25 feet. Isn't that the coolest thing? Yeah, it blows people away. And I also have the family memories on top of it. So I love Montana.

I get nostalgic every time I come up here. And I can always remember one of the things we did up here was we watched the home run derby. You know, because that was always kind of when we were up here. And it was like, you know, baseball and childhood for somebody in their mid-30s right now. They go hand in hand. Like the 90s were at the golden era, right? you had a lot of those. You know, the race for 62, you know, like watching those guys, like the sluggers,

the derby was awesome. And you were a kid, so you just can't recreate that. But I sat down because I was on a break and I could really sink in and enjoy the home run derby. Shark Week also was a big one. Shark Week used to come on every time we were up here. So even though Shark Week now is hosted by the Rock, and I've seen the same fucking shows about shark attacks and all that stuff for going on 30 years, you know, a little bit of

nostalgia creeps up in me when I watch Shark Week. But the home run derby was awesome because it was like nostalgia on top of nostalgia. You had the derby. It was it was beautiful at Chavez Rubeen. I mean, I've heard it's a dog shit stadium, but it's beautiful that time of night. You also had Albert Pooholz, who, you know, was when I threw out the first pitch, my rookie year at Bush Stadium or Cardinal Stadium, rather, I walked by him in the dugout. I was like, holy shit, that's a scary dude. I mean, he was just trapped out, legitimately jacked, but supposedly one of the nicest kindest people you could ever meet, like universally loved in St. Louis. When you think about St. Louis and, you know, kind of a Mount Rushmore situation of best athletes or most

famous athletes in St. Louis, I don't want to speak out of turn. I'm sure you've got the wizard and Stan Musial and all that stuff. And I'm sure I'm going to forget somebody. I mean, somebody from the greatest show on turf's going to be in there and whatnot. I'm forgetting somebody. So I apologize if you're out in the 3-1-4. But I think Pujols is on that list. He's definitely on that short list. And when he left, man, people were broken. People were broken.

His restaurant went out of business, not because it wasn't a good restaurant. I think because it was just like it's too painful to go in here and eat. But people came back around 11 him. And to see him come back to St. Louis this year, him and Yadi on the same team. And him getting a bid in the home run derby was really fucking. fucking cool. And I know that a lot of people thought that that would be a dog and pony show, right? Because, you know, even me, like 20% of me. And I am a confirmation biased guy as a fan. Like, I'll jump out of the gym for something. I was, I was convincing myself that Pooholz would be competitive. You know, it's just, it makes too much sense. They're not going to trot him out there if he's absolutely dog shit. They had to ask him, like, how many dogs can you hit? And he was probably like, oh, 10, 12. And they're like, yeah, that's worth it. That will carry the home run. Irby. And it did. It did and then some because he could actually hit the ball out of the park pretty well. Once he got warmed up, hey, we did a poohol's, you know, keeled over hands on his

knees, meme to, I mean, everybody was capitalizing on that little bit. You know, pitch 10, he's going to be gassed. But he got better as the thing went on, man. And at one point, you're looking up, and he's going head to head with Schwarber, who's the, the Phillies dude, right? And I'm having an inner conflict because I put a couple of couple hundred bucks on pool holes to win. That's how my confirmation bias works. I put a couple hundred bucks on poo holes to win the whole thing. And for about half the deal, I was like, maybe I'm cashing in here. I mean, Schwarber, you could see like, you could see in his eyes when he realized he was going to lose to this guy. I think that was a big bet. It's more like the three point

contest than the dunk contest. Like that skill of like hitting the home run and he's still got the power. Like I feel like that doesn't go away, you know. You're right about that. You're absolutely right about that. And I'm not a Major League Baseball player, so I don't know how it feels for Pooleholz the next day. Maybe he felt like Jerome Bettis in the cold tub on Mondays after taking all those hacks. Who knows? But my man hung in there. He swung the bat well.

He upset Swarber, and he damn near beat Soto. I mean, it came down the last minute for Soto. And that was crazy to me because you're watching Soto, who grew up in the DR. he's he's a huge fan of Poo Holes have to beat his idol and he was happy to. But that was a really cool moment. So there's a lot of nostalgia that night for me with the Derby and with Albert Pooleholz being featured so heavily in there. And on top of that, you know, I just stayed on the couch. And I, you know, a really good sporting event, I always say this, as you so zoned out that you just stay on the couch for a couple hours. Like you don't move. If your

kids are asleep, whatever, you're just, you're glued. Like, what did I just watch? I changed the channel a bit, found Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. Excellent. Didal-l-l-l-l-l-de-le-le-le-le-le-le-le. Yes, Reed. Rufus.

If you love Bill and Ted and you want to get a nostalgia boner, go back and watch that movie, because every moment of that movie, I remember like it was yesterday. Wild Stallions, dude. Oh, Napoleon eating ice cream and shit, John Mark in the, in the sporting goods store. You sew crates, dust in the wind. It all came back to me.

And it's fucking crazy that back in the day, George Carlin's like, I didn't realize the gravity of who I was watching. Dude, George Carlin is literally God. He's up there. So just an awesome, nostalgic time up here in general, but that night was great. And then I'll give you my bad, the Madden ratings, dude. When did Madden need to advertise, right? Did John Madden passed away? God rest of soul. And did people just start fucking, is it Lord of the Flies over there, dude?

Max Crosby, not in the top 10, edge rushers, right? Yeah. We got Robert Quinn, who had 18 and a half sacks. I know bias on these guys. And I just want to take the time to point out, and I'll say that I called the Max Crosby thing two years ago. I don't do this a lot, but I've been on this Max Crosby thing since before it was popular. This motherfucker is a top 10 rusher. Easy. Now, the problem you run into is you've got all these guys who are kind of legacy guys,

and I'm not doubting that they still have 90 ratings in the tank or 93 ratings in the tank, but you've got to see it if it's been a year. I just didn't like where Max was. And then on the flip side of that, you have guys like Trey Hendrickson Saddick who were rated too

low. Hendrickson might have got snubbed the worst. He was rated below Chase Young who I love Chase Young bro. When I saw Chase Young, we were a NASCAR thing. I tried to link up with him because I love the way he works and I think he's a good player man. He's got a chance to be a great player. But if you go off production,

having Trey Hendrickson below a Chase Young, having Hassan Reddick below him, like as an edge rusher, I was sitting there that morning, I woke up and I said, look at all these fucking people on social media in a frenzy about Madden. It's working. Madden's getting exactly what they want.

They get ESPN to talk about the ratings. You know, it coincides the launch. But I think it's also irresponsible to these players. And it's the same thing I've said about PFF at time. The lowest common denominator of fan. And I don't mean that in a status way. But like most NFL fans are very, are very, you know, basic fans.

They're not like, there are so many NFL fans. There's so many casual NFL fans. So it's a bit irresponsible to just haphazardly grade these guys. And if they think they're doing it according to some like algorithm that's superior, I'm looking at the, I mean, listen to what the guys are saying, man. I just did the defensive ends there. And I was sitting here saying, fuck Madden, dude. I'm not going to jump into the fray on this thing and give them exactly what they want.

I was going out to get in the water, jump in the hot tub. have a nice little, little like Wednesday morning, whatever it was. And I see Max Crosby's not in the top ten. I see Trey Hendrickson, who's had like, you know, 27 sacks of the last two years. He's not in there. You know, Robert Quinn. I know you're not, you're doing the opposite of buying the dip here, but he just did 18 and a half or whatever he did on the Bears. I know he didn't watch.

They did a good job with some of the ratings at least. Did you see Buda Baker? Well, yeah, we know Buda Baker. 91 speed. Buda Baker is very fast. He's very fast, dude. Hey, I just want to point that out. Buda Baker is very fast.

It's almost like an ad read we can do on this fucking show. Buda Baker is fast. And we're going to talk about one of his teammates in a couple minutes. Hopefully I don't get quote tweeted by him. It was tough. It was tough with the bad ratings. It was tough to see that. The ugly for me, a couple things.

I'll just rifle through these things. Number one, I told you so about the robots, man. I've been off for a couple weeks. I've been, you know, biting my tongue. I haven't been, you know, the mic hasn't been on. But robots suck. They suck balls, man. These robots are out here breaking kids' fingers.

Bullies. They're bullies. They're bullying kids, man. They're holding guns. They're not even trying to hide the fact that they're black mirror actors, dude. These robots are going to take the world over. They're going to take everybody's jobs, which I don't know if people were really crazy about working right now anyways. But they're going to fuck shit up is what I.

I have been saying it. I've been saying this thing, guys. Like, I'm not right on a lot, but I'm right on this. I'm right on Max Crosby and automation. That's what I'm right on. Okay? And if they don't nip this thing in the bud, it's going to be a problem. I'm just telling you, I might have to disappear.

I'm not even going to be able to podcast. So if you listen to Greenlight, go sign a fucking petition or something. What do we have to do? Do we have to march on Boston Dynamics and get mowed down by a bunch of fucking four-legged robots, does somebody have to, like, get in front of a tank for this to, you know, like, what are we doing here? You ever think about how you're probably, like, the robot's number one target, if they ever do go that way, you know, because you're this outspoken critic.

Like, they're coming for you first. No question, dude. That's why I'm brave. And that's why if I die at the hands of a robot, you all need to do a statue of me. Like, I don't care that they're listening. I don't care of this bulletin board material. I don't think you guys are that good at stuff at all. Obviously, they're not that good at chess.

He had to break the kid's finger to win. Bet you can't build an Adirondack chair. Fuck boys. So anyways, that's ugly. The kid from Kentucky, the quarterback who's cross-fading with nicotine and with mayonnaise, that's hideous, undraftable. You know, I'm going to give you a chance, Will Levis. You know, come on here and clear your name.

name. Okay. Will, anybody out there listening knows this this muscle bound quarterback from fucking Kentucky who's jacked out of his mind on a diet of amphetamines in his fucking, in his

fucking mayonnaise. He's mixing the caffeine with the manate. He's putting mayonnaise in his coffee. Will, if you want to get on here and fucking, I'm 37 years old, dude, it's not too late. You can resurrect your image, man. You don't have to do this. All right?

You're hurting your draft stock. You can't have people like that in the building. I mean, it's just, it's disgusting. It's ugly. And I want to give you a chance to clear your name. Anybody know Will? I'm not, he's a fine football player. But that's poison.

It's disgusting. He also eats bananas with their peals. That's one-eighth as hideous is what he did to that cup of coffee, which is drugs in the first place. Okay? And then the last ugly is going to be these helmets, man. I mean, the NFL is just diarying these alternate helmets. Like, which alternate or throwback helmet are you most excited to see this season?

Well, I'll probably be tuning out of any game that the New Orleans Saints are wearing that bad boy under the lights. The yellow lights of the Superdome. This is a black helmet with a bunch of tiny little little. floor de lise the middle of the front of the helmet all the way back like a stripe it looks like a fucking chanelle bag looks like a bourbon street chenel bag uh dudes running around with chenelle bags on their heads and and we're o-d in on the black helmets man makin who's going to be back at some point soon and i were talking we were back cheneling about some of these uniforms just a bunch of black helmets i mean it's just the easiest cop out black helmets were bold in 2003 man on my

school team. When we, when our colors were maroon and white and went to a black helmet, that's when that was like a, now I'm not going to give you a golf clap. In fact, it's hard to pull this off. Well, look what Washington. Did they just took a black helmet and put a small W on top? That's right. And I don't hate that out of all the black helmets, because at least you're not trying to be fancy, you know? At least put, at least put like a W on the side, matching Ws. And where is Daniel Snyder's yacht? What the fuck? While we're at it.

Yacht watch. What is that maneuver? Ben sealed team six, dude. What are we doing? Go get that motherfucker. You can't skirt the judicial arm of the NFL. You look, you guys look like total babies right now. You look like total babies.

You got Dan Snyder playing fucking Leonardo Caprio right now. Catch me a fan. Yeah. Yeah, he's in a fucking slow-ass boat. Roll up on him with one of those inflatable outboard motor boats and a bunch of fucking frogmen, dude. Go get that guy. I love the Bengals White Helmint. The orange bears helmets trash.

But I will tell you, the Patriots, the Falcons, the Giants, even the Cowboys, they're doing a good job with this thing. Okay? If I left anybody out, I'm sorry. It's the degradation of some of these brands. that some of these people are worried about. Why didn't the NFL do like five alternate jerseys? I mean, this is what you get. Not everybody, not all uniform connoisseurs are created equally.

And people with big wallets are making these decisions. They don't all know unis, man. And some of these lids are hideous. So back to business for a second. We've had good podcasting going on. We put together a couple good shows for y'all so we could go on autopilot for a little bit. Shout out to Kevin Clark for shouting us out. We don't get that a lot. The Michael Bennett interview, he gave us some props for that one and some of the ways that me and Mike were talking

about coaching and power dynamics in the NFL. I love Mike, man. Mike's a lot of fun. I can talk to Mike for probably three hours at a time. I want to do more with Mike. So Mike and I are going to try to do some more in-person stuff, I bet, at some point here. I'd love to do more sit-downs and tackle some more stuff with old Michael Bennett there. And then Leland, Melvin, an astronaut, joined me in studio, which was really cool. I hope you could hear how fun it is to talk in person. You know, like to have a guest in studio was cool. And Leland and I have had a nice little friendship, friends with an astronaut.

So it was cool. I probably would have been shit in my pants if an astronaut who I'd never met strolled into Studio J and I had to like, you know, hang in there with him. But he was a great guest and we got a lot of feedback. Maybe he was one of the favorite guests anybody ever heard. So on our show, at least. So shout out to Leland, Melvin, and NASA, but let us borrow a former astronaut.

I don't know if it's one of those things like Marines, you're not supposed to say former Marine, you're always a Marine, right? If you're an astronaut, are you always an astronaut or is it like former astronaut? It's got to be always, it's got to be he's always an astronaut. Yeah, because he could always at any moment just pop off and go to space. Exactly. they all have personal spaceships somewhere I would love that dude

I would go through the first man stuff if they let you keep a spaceship that you can use like recreationally there's so many satellites you know what that's what UFOs are they're all just former astronauts they're all astronauts personal spaces and NASA just doesn't want to tell anybody

that all the astronauts have their own personal spaceships that's what it is that would cause a panic and then everybody else would want one. Yeah, exactly, because they're all like, I want to, I want one, and then everybody sign up for NASA, and NASA's like, we can't take everybody. You all got to chill.

So it's big sky country here, Reed. I'm looking at stars every night, checking out the Milky Way galaxy and all that shit. I saw the Milky Way last week in California. I bet you did. Oh, man, she is milky. And me and Bo were out there looking at that thing, and that thing was juicy,

and there were satellites just, you know, just going crazy up there, man. I don't know if you knows. There's a lot of satellites out there. Hopefully they don't hit each other. That would be a problem. You know? It's actually a huge problem.

There's this, it's called space junk, and there's like a bunch of defunct satellites up there that are just orbiting around. There's like way too much. It's a lot of people say that it's like a big problem that we're not dealing with. Well, add me to that list of people who say it's a big problem. We're not dealing with. Holy shit.

Too many satellites? Maybe. But yeah, Leland Melvin, the astronaut who was on the show. Shout out to Leland. That was a great fun time. And, you know, Goldberg was a fun interview too. Hey, I love having these long-form guest interviews. We will do more of them. I think we plan on doing some more of those on Wednesdays in season. As many as we can, we'll keep serving y'all with some of the non-football content from time and time because we're about to be in that mode of like, man, there's a lot of football. When you're building a dream team, great scouts can help you find the future MVP's first. To hire great talent faster you need Indeed. Indeed is the hiring platform where you can attract,

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Plus, earn up to $500 extra in sponsor job credits with Indeed's virtual interviews. Visit Indeed.com slash Bluewire to learn more. Claim your credits at Indeed.com.com slash Bluewire. Indeed.com slash Blue Wire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire, you need Indeed. The way I jumped out of the gym when Eddie Goldman retired, not because I wanted him to retire,

but because, oh, there's some entertaining football news. Like, that's the way I'll be wanting to break in about, you know, three, four months. In training camp, Reed, they used to say when you'd roll up, the vets would be like, hey, Rook, or, you know,

C-Long, this is the best you're going to feel the rest of the season. And that is a sobering fucking thought, dude, because I'm kind of sore from running the conditioning test. Okay?

And that's us as podcast is right now. Like, we're going to take a few more weeks, kind of on and off, maybe sprinkle in some pre-recorded stuff, but we are not going to feel this good. until February. And then I got to go climb Killy because I'm doing that this year again. So this is going to be a long few months, all right?

Makes me think about retiring, all right? There's a lot of arrivals and departures in the NFL right now, right? You got the rookies coming on. You got vets reporting. I'll talk about some of those pictures or whatever. And then you got the retirements, the departures, man. We will get to the departures in a sense. second, but when it comes to the arrivals, man, holy shit.

I mean, like, Nick Cage was actually pretty well executed. Very well executed. I want to say this. Nick Cage was more diesel because I saw a side by side. Nick Cage is more diesel than Aaron Rogers. Oh, for sure. He might be able to beat up Aaron Rogers of the Green Bay Packers. Oh, for sure.

He was no disrespect because they're both, you know, great athletes. Nick Cage was big. He was big in that movie. Fuck yeah, it was big He was yoke And then I guess You know people were breaking down Why did he drop his bag

In the middle around all this shit Like you think he just left that For somebody there I mean I don't know Well that's what I was gonna ask What do you think he Did you just throw it on a pile Did we not see a pile of bags

Did he throw it Was that something from the movie? Maybe maybe it was something from the movie You know Put the bunny back in the box But I don't remember If there was a scene in that movie Where the bag was dropped that way

but I'm going to assume that there was a pile of bags. I wish they had. It got me thinking, you know, because you see some really cool ones every year. And, you know, people do it up. You've got Jalen Ramsey in the Brinks truck. You've got, you know, Reggie Wayne every year in a different age. She shows up in a Formula One car.

Brett Kiesel and a tractor. You know, some extravagant, like, man, this took some thinking. But I'm really into the old retro pictures of dudes just rolling up to camp. I think that's what's getting lost in the shuffle right now. It's an unfair beauty standard. It really is. It's like on Instagram, the filters. You know, there's players sitting around out there that come to camp all normal.

They probably get sad looking at fucking guys rolling up in Lamborghinis with their own personal photographers. You know, guys hitting a knee to get that perfect angle of you walking through the parking lot looking cool as fuck. I have friends with photographers right now. I'll never get it. I vow to never have a personal photographer. Okay. It's an unfair. It's like a filter.

That's not how we show up to camp. That's not how most people show up to camp. I wish they had St. Louis pictures, man. You know, me walking through Westport Plaza garage in the 106 degree heat, it was the garage under the fucking thing where they had the dumpster. And I'm just inhaling like trash from room 637. And I've got a jug of water and a couch cushion to put between my legs. Like, that's how I roll up to camp.

And nobody gave a fuck. Like, I tried to find footage of this. Nobody cared about our camp. I tried to, I typed in St. Louis Rams training camp arrival, 2008, nine, 10, you know, all the years. Didn't find one. It's like a really painful dream. It's like it never happened, dude. And we used to, we used to come down through the bowels of the Westport Plaza there.

And that's how most people show up to camp. Now, not every camp is as unceremonious as rolling up to like a, you know, hotel and a shopping district in St. Louis. you know, a lot of people riding bikes and that sort of thing. But I'm loving sifting through old pictures. I posted a couple, Roberto Garza with 27 rolls of toilet paper. He was not a rookie, so that's pretty

disturbing. He wasn't bringing that for anybody. Maybe he was being unselfish and was tasked with, this is 2010. He's a vet at this point. He's like one of the guys at his position around Lee. Benches like 700 pounds. He's not getting toilet paper for anybody. He's getting toilet paper

for himself. He's rolling up in slides with 27 rolls of Charmin getting ready to test the plumbing in Bourbonnet. He's eating a diet of 4,000 calories a day. That's got to land somewhere. So he needs the soft stuff. He doesn't want that fucking paper thin doctor's office stuff. You know, that stuff will cut your butt, man. Roberto Garza was a great player.

He was prepared. He was prepared to go to camp. Same thing with fucking Kyle Orton. There's this Chicago Bears. article I found with all these, you know, bears from throughout the years showing up to camp and all these Phil Velasquez pictures, who's, I guess, a legendary Chicago photographer or maybe, yeah, Chicago Tribune guy, you know, snapping all these regular Joe's going to work. Kyle Orton, he's got a Led Zeppelin shirt on and a guitar.

I don't know who the fuck is listening to Kyle Orton play guitar during camp, but he's got a guitar, dude. These are the pictures that I'm more interested in. I've got Rex Grossman carrying a a TV and a bed sheet looking like shit, dude. That's what most guys look like rolling up the camp. You know, shout out to Edron James for going to camp in a taxi in 2002. And actually, he had to go to camp in a taxi because he had too many speeding tickets. That's the backstory of that thing.

And Peyton Manning was like, you got to show up all blue collar and shit. Don't get a limo. Like roll up in a taxi. It was like an hour drive, supposedly, to their camp. And he took it in a taxi cab. I bet he had a good year in 2002. Okay? Look like one of those crazy taxi cabs with the checkers on the side and shit.

That's how you roll up the camp. That's how most people roll up to camp. Somebody sent me in Jim McMahon rolling up the camp in the 80s, dude, with a bunch of cases of Bud Light, which means that quarterbacks don't do shit in camp. But I don't think it was just the quarterbacks in the 80s. I think everybody deleted beers and training camp because you had no choice. Like in our training camps, everybody's like,

I can be sober. for three weeks. When you went to camp for like three months and there were two days every day, I think everybody was like, you have to self-medicate. Did Jim McMahon just always wear those sunglasses? Oh, yeah, yeah.

He must have always had those things on. Which is, I kind of wonder how many pairs he loses. Right, or was it the same pair? Did he always have him on? He also just looks like a, uh, he looks like a dad heading to the beach, like walking, from the beach house down to the beach for like a full day of drinking.

He doesn't look like he's going to, you know, a three-month, you know, meat grinder there. But that's where he's going, dude. And the bears in the 80s probably deleted a lot of beers. But you know, his quarterbacks, that's why they look happy now. That's why fucking Russell Wilson's like all hyped growing up in his own jersey, which might be a code break in a Jeep or a Bronco. it's all decked out and shit. Like he had time to think about this.

I mean, Aaron Rogers going is great. I mean, like I love the bit and everything. I'm glad he didn't do like face off. That would have been confusing. Like a John Travolta mask. If he rolled up in a John Travolta mask,

everybody had been like, what's fuck? He should do Wicker Man next year. What do you think about Wicker Man? That'd be good. So quarterbacks, they got time to think about this shit, man. We didn't have time to think about that.

I was like, man, not going to be hydrated. I'm thinking about my back. And I'm not thinking about an outfit. So a lot of arrivals. Keep that in mind. Most of the NFL doesn't arrive like that. It's an unfair beauty standard. That should be a poster. Yes. So yeah, a lot of arrivals, also departures, man. A lot of retirements. I'll start with one that's near and dear to my heart. Danny Mandola officially retired this week. And not a surprise. You know, like, it's been 13 years, all right?

And didn't do much in Houston last year because of injuries. He was in Detroit before that. But most people know him from the Patriots and the Rams and that sort of thing. And he's somebody who's a good friend of mine, you know, been to Bonneru with him. We partied, traveled all over the country, played football together, dealt with some hard losses together. And somebody I just, I consider a great friend and a great teammate, dude. he was just one of the all-time teammates. Me and Danny Emendola met in, I don't know, 2008 probably at the Gator Bowl banquet.

Virginia was playing Texas Tech. We were playing Mike Leach's team. They had those crazy O-line splits. The O-Lyman would get like, you know, 10 feet apart. And so, like, good luck sacking Graham Harrow. You've got to go 30 yards to get him. And Danny was out there. Crowdtree was out there.

And we should have beat him. We lost. And it was a bad loss. It didn't feel good. You know, like, I don't carry the Gator Bowl around, but it was kind of shitty eating at Morton's with my family later that night to celebrate a college career, dude. Like, it was a disappointing loss.

So Danny, fast forward, has a stint with the Cowboys in 2008 or nine. Featured on Hard Knocks. Featured on Hard Knocks. That's how a lot of people got known. In 2008, I guess he was with the United. the Eagles for a little bit as well. But in 2009, he rolled up to be a St. Louis Ram. He had never really seen real action when he got dropped off in Earth City.

And I can remember the day he walked into the locker room. And his locker was near mine. And he walked in. He's got this little fucking duffel bag. He's holding it. It's the Gator Bowl duffel bag. And I walk over. I'm like,

fuck, man, some nerve, huh? Like at this point, we didn't really know each other. We just met at the Gator Bowl. And I was like, yeah, dude, some fucking nerve on you. Like, I wasn't pissed, but I was just laughing.

Like, kind of just trying to take his temperature. See how he could take a little, a little ribbon. And he gave me this, you know, that smile. And we ended up being buddies. I ended up taking him out to, I believe it was Obie Clarks there in St. Louis on Brentwood Boulevard, for those of you who were in 314. And just got him absolutely shit-fing. like his first night there on rumplements of all things dude and when i tell you he puked in my closet

he puked right in my closet that night cleaned it up woke me up in the morning you know i woke up in the morning walked out uh into the uh the kitchen he's like hey bud he's like uh puked in your closet pretty good, but I did clean it up. I cleaned it up really well. So he was a great player for the Rams, man. We had terrible offensive line, couldn't really get the ball

out to him, but he still caught a million ball. And Sam and him had a really good connection. We all had a really good friendship. One game in 2012, he had 12 catches in a half. So just unbelievable and unbelievably tough, dude.

Danny, I always tell the story. Wikipedia tells it better than me. I pulled this up. It reads, on October 4th, 2012, Amandola suffered a dislocated clavicle in the second quarter of the game versus the Arizona Cardinals.

In a rare case, instead of popping out, uh-oh, the clavicle popped in and came millimeters from puncturing his trachea and aorta, which probably wouldn't have been the first death in the Edward Jones dome. somebody probably kicked the bucket at some point in there. Damned it took Reggie Bush, took his ACL on that shitty track of concrete.

Anyways, Rams medical staff called around a league for information, but no teams reported ever having a player suffer a similar injury. And they said, you only see this injury in car accident victims. He got anesthesia before popping the clavicle back into place. Due to the unusual nature of the injury, the Rams were not certain when he would return, but was able to recover after just three weeks and recorded 11 for 102

in a hard-fought tie with the San Francisco 49ers, which is the game that I was so disgusted. We tied the Niners. I got really shitty and fell up the bus steps getting on the charter bus steps right in front of Coach Fisher. And he laughed and smiled because I played pretty well too. but Dola bawled out that game. And it was three weeks off of having this horrific injury.

Nobody had ever had before. And I can remember that night when we were playing the Cardinals, watching him argue with trainers to go back in the game. That was an absolute psycho. And it wasn't like putting on a show. Some guys were like, no, let me back in there. Like he was fucking mad. And walking him down the tunnel there.

And Edward Jones down him. And he's throwing his helmet. He's, you know, Dr. Metava. was telling him like, nah, it's over, dude. Like, we might have to go into surgery tonight. And luckily, they just had to pop it back into place. Finish that season with 800 total, 804 total yards, 666 yards on 63 receptions. And, you know, and 122 on 17 punt returns.

He was, he was awesome. He did it all for you in 2013. Remember when Welker left and went to you guys. Reid. Hours later, they scooped him up in New England. Mm-hmm. So he was like this West Welker kind of guy in New England as well. And I can remember in 2014, they won that Super Bowl.

And he played big that playoff stretch. He was big against Baltimore. He was big in the Super Bowl. Me and Sam Bradford in Mexico on vacation in this authentic little bar, slamming coronas, just obliterating them, stressed out, watching this game on a tiny TV. because our friend was in it and because the Seahawks sucked. So that was my memory of supporting Danny and just watching him go on that run.

And for us in St. Louis, when a buddy leaves, you want him to play so well, it's like, I don't have an ounce of resentment for somebody who escaped St. Louis in that time period and saw what he saw. So we enjoyed watching him. I mean, I even, you know, after the dust cleared and settled in our Super Bowl, Eagles, Pats, where he had 152, was pretty proud that that dude that started in Earth City just turned into such a consistent, really good player. Somebody that, you know, whether he was in Miami or Detroit in the Matt Patricia era was good for almost, you know, was north of 600 yards every year, give you a bunch of return yardage, played through anything, great locker room guy, loved Danny Amandola. And he played 13 seasons after going over the middle a ton as an undersized dude. That's insane.

I said that to him on the phone two nights ago. You know, he hit me up. And, you know, when somebody retires, you want to, like, tell them the truth. You want to tell them, like, because when you have a buddy retire, when I retired, you know, I had a couple people calling me and tell me what they thought of my career, you know, like, in an honest and really good way. And it's important to tell people. how great they were, you know, like, or good they were, you know? And for me, I just, there's

one thing I said to Danny. He was like, look at your career, dude, 13 years. And you got blasted. I can't even count on one hand in time. I thought he was dead in St. Louis, dude. Like, he was the buddy Lee of the NFL to me. And I almost quote tweeted his retirement tweet with that, but I thought people would think it was a slight because Buddy Lee says, small, but you could not fucking kill Buddy Lee. So not to mention, you know, being playoff, Dola, you know, catching a bunch of balls from Tom Brady, you know, milestone catches, big playoff catches. But I'm just as proud of the catches that nobody remembers, you know, where not a lot

of people are watching that game or it means nothing. And, you know, some guys are fairweather football players. He was not a fair weather football player. He was any situation, and he did it for 13 years. So that's the one thing. When guys retire, dude, you got to hear it. Your buddy's got a call and say, hey, you were fucking awesome. And so when he hit me up, I was so excited for him and also just unloaded all these compliments.

I'm telling you all. And I'm just really appreciative that he got to escape St. Louis and have such a great run in New England because he deserved it. So Hunger Games whistle for Danny Amandola. And there's a few more. All right, Jeff Fisher used to tell me don't retire in months to start with Jay, like January, June, July. And that's actually why I ended up retiring in 2019. 2018, quick story, I got to camp and I was miserable. I was like really not happy.

I just didn't feel, I didn't have a good feeling about what was coming. Our room was really crowded. You know, Michael Bennett, who I mentioned earlier, had just come on. I was like, this is going to be tough. It's going to be a tough year because I feel like, you know, maybe it's inevitable people get full of themselves after a Super Bowl. It's inevitable I'm going to get the short end of the stick here as an older dude. I mean, like, and it's training camp. And I was just fucking struggling a little bit.

And when I tell you that physical day, I spent 30 minutes in my car thinking about retiring, you know, which is not shocking at that age. I'm sure a lot of guys sit in the car on the way to training camp, like, do I really want to do this? and it followed me into the building and I went home that night I was like I got two days to do it like if you're going to retire you need to just do it but I eventually decided to stick around

and I don't regret it but I know guys consider it every fucking year and to have the balls to do it to start camp good for you like not even not even throwing shade

I'm actually complimenting guys that they want to camp they show up now it's one thing if a quarterback or a player that's, you know, a top five player on the team or a top 10 player on the team is considering retirement and does it because that puts their team at some sort of a disadvantage. But you know, a lot of these guys that you're hearing are retiring, you know, some of them I didn't know where they were. And I don't mean that pejoratively.

I just mean that, you know, it's that time in your career. And Eddie Goldman, who was a really good player in Chicago, kind of was the first one to catch my eye because he had just signed with the Falcons 13 days ago. And you're thinking like, man, it must be bad in Atlanta. I need to hammer that win total on the underside of things. And I actually haven't done that yet. I didn't do that. Eddie Goldman probably moved the fucking the number. Because, you know, here's a guy that I did not expect to be retiring. And it happens every year. You've got guys like Chris Carson who retire. because of an injury. But, you know, the first day at camp, I see that some Raiders guy retired.

I'm thinking to myself, like, I wonder where his head's at. You know, a lot of anxiety going to camp for a lot of guys, man. It's a stressful time of year. It's not just fucking fun. Like, it's not just Nicholas Cage rolling up to the building or this, that, and the third. But, yeah, like, you get guys every year who show up to camp. They're like, this isn't for me anymore. And good for them, you know, like, good for them for following that thought.

because if you're not ready and you go do that, you're not going to be your best, you might get hurt, and you're not going to help the team. And then you got guys like Mitchell Schwartz, who we saw this coming, great player, great right tackle for a long time,

Ritchie Incognito, who played for what feels like. I mean, it felt like he had nine lives. Like, you couldn't kill him. Better known as the serial shirt ripper on this show. Yeah,

Rip making shirt. You got to play many years after that transgression. And then Jason McCordy, you know, another really good player. He played a long time. Got a chance to win a Super Bowl

with the Patriots, him and his brother, Dev. And then KJ. Wright retired. You saw he signed with the Seahawks. He was pretty emotional about that. One of the most unsung heroes on that LOB kind of era team.

I forget what his first year was. But, I mean, it's been 11 years in league now. So, you know, it was 2011 or whatever. He got, he was part of that ride, man. And just seemed to always be on the spot to make a play. deflection, a big tackle, like getting somebody down in the open field, you know, adding on a rush. Like he just did, he did a lot of stuff for them. And I was really happy that he got to sign

with the Seahawks because he is loved in that city. So congratulations on a great career. You see this every year. Guys retire for different reasons and, you know, it ain't so bad sitting at home in the heat of August. Remember when Vante Davis did it, uh, did it in in fucking December. That was incredible. Or November. That was. He retired in the middle of the game and made it home before the game ended.

He watched the end of the game on the TV. I watched the game. Sat down. His wife turned around and after the door opened. He was like, what are you doing here? Absolute stones on that guy. So I'm never going to knock anybody for saying this is too much. Timing, it helps sometimes to go early.

But a lot of these guys are like, hey, I'm really not hurting or helping too much. You know, maybe I just head home. Mika Fitzpatrick fell off a bike on vacation, non-football injury list. Take time to remind you, don't judge these guys, man. You know, people don't mean to get hurt doing stupid shit. Fuck, I can't ride a bike. I don't know. Shit happens.

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Terms and conditions apply must be 21 or older and present in a state where win bet is available. Gambling problem in Arizona call 1-800 Next Step. In Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey, and Virginia call 1-800 gambler. and in Michigan, 1,800 270, 7117. Tennessee, y'all two, 1,8009, 9789. Kyler Murray, dude. Kyler Murray, 160 guaranteed. You know, my dad always used to say to me as a player, he was like, hey, when you see a number,

just go straight for those guarantees, right? And now that's kind of become the thing. In fact, some people were like, oh, Kyler should have pushed to get more guaranteed money. That's what everybody's doing now. you know, everybody should be getting guaranteed contracts, especially a quarterback. One, I don't think everybody's ever going to get guaranteed contracts. And that might be my pessimistic hat.

But part of it is because, you know, like outside the position of quarterback, especially, and if you're not like elite, right, this is the hardest sport to project success over a contract. You know, it's the most injury variability, you know, careers are the shortest, right? average NFL careers three years. So if you sign a guy to a four-year deal in baseball, and you sign a guy to a four-year deal in football relative to basketball or some other sport, the second one I mentioned is the one that the guy might change the most

over that four-year span. And I can attest to that as a player. Like I saw that happen with contracts that I signed. You know, like you're not the guy often that puts pen to paper. So it is hard. And they also point to the key. escrow rule, which is a bit antiquated, to give guys guaranteed money. So it's going to be hard to do this. But I can see some NFL quarterbacks getting guaranteed money in the future. Like many of them,

probably like especially Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow, who are going to be up about the same time, are going to be justified in asking for guaranteed money. And because of that escrow rule, because Spanos and Brown, as I believe I understand it, have to put, money into an account to almost prove that you have the funds to pay that quarterback or that player after that first year under contract, you know, like those are two of the notoriously cheapest owners in the NFL. So I'm not saying they're not going to pay them, but it's pretty interesting that those two quarterbacks are going to be aligned for big guaranteed contracts. And like the bangles are known not to pay people? You're going to get a bit of like a hometown

discount discount, like tug at the heartstrings with Joe Burrow. But Justin Herbert, you know, you got to pay that man. He's worth what the market's going to, you know, willing to pay him. And I'm sure they'll get these guys paid. But guys like that, they could get guaranteed contracts. Anybody else, you know, guys below that tier in the future in the NFL, I could see some quarterbacks getting short guaranteed contracts. Like Kirk Cousins had like a two or three year deal.

That's easier to stomach. You know, it's easier to afford. There's less risk. I don't see position players getting, you know, guaranteed deals by and large at the, you know, in the middle class of the NFL and below. I don't unless, you know, guys want to go to like one-year deals eventually, which would make it like a, you know, kind of a headhunter kind of league where you've just got a ton of roster turnover and that sort of thing. Lamar's leverage is insane right now, dude, because if it comes to Lamar or Kyler,

10 out of 10, I'm going Lamar. Even with Kyler improving year after year, even with him making a lot of these awesome plays, and I've said it, Kyler has an opportunity to be that guy who's kind of must-see pay-per-view. He kind of owns every Sunday

on TV. If he eliminates some of his mistakes and bad habits, he has that in him. And before the revelation about the four-hour rule, which we'll get to in a second, we knew that this was a bit of a barrier to entry for him, like preparation. You know, there's been rumblings.

And no one's, you know, me as a media member, I don't want to say that because unless I'm in that building and I see that, I can't just haphazardly repeat what I'm hearing as gospel, because number one, it's probably a little bit irresponsible, but number two, what we do now when you criticize a player or something like that is, everybody calls you a hater. You know, like, it ain't worth it to make this inference. with Kyler Murray and get called a hater by my peers, I think it's confirmed at this point

that he has a bit of a preparation problem. And that scares you. I mean, when you couple that, and for people who didn't see the Kyler Murray contract details, that the Arizona Cardinals put in a clause wherein he has to study at least four hours a week outside the building on electronics. And the clause is so specific,

I say it's not just the time spent, we're going to go good faith that you're not playing a video game or watching TV, like, I've never heard of that in a contract. And 100 people have said that by this point in a week, but I just had to say it. That kind of scares me if I'm a Cardinals fan, especially when, although he's improved every year and he's put up some good numbers, he's a below 500 quarterback right now, right now over his first couple years. He's been poor in the red zone.

and he's faded late in seasons. And that's the scariest one. And I'm not blaming him for getting hurt or getting dinged or wearing down. He's a slight guy. And he's an explosive athlete. Explosive athletes get hurt sometimes. Slight guys get hurt sometimes. And especially guys who use their legs a lot.

And I'm not saying he's not a pocket pastor. He's a fucking, he's got a cannon on his shoulder. And when he lets that thing loose and he knows where he wants to go with the football look out. And that's why I say if he can tinker with this thing, maybe this four-hour rule catapult him. Maybe it's the stick, not the carrot with him. He can be that kind of guy that own the NFL like Lamar in 2020 or whatever it was. Is that a PR disaster though? Like leaking those contract details? Like doesn't it look bad both ways? Like bad on him and also like they don't trust him? It's bad. I don't know if they leaked it intentionally. But it kind of if they leaked that

I don't think they leaked that intentionally because, yeah, I don't know. What do you think? I don't think they would leak that because if you leak that, that just puts more pressure on him to succeed. Now, maybe it's one of those I'm washing my hands of and I'm letting people know what the problem is so that we have some plausible deniability on this thing. Or people are like, well, there was this extenuating circumstance why he didn't get done over this contract. But dude, you're paying the guy. You're committing the guy. You can't have step on this thing.

So I don't think that they're leaking that. But what it is is it's disturbing because. Because even though you know you want him to succeed, you burnt the ships to have him, you ship Josh Rosenway, which they've made the right move, right? The right move was made. But what you do now, you have to be very careful. And hopefully it's the right call. I'm not saying I wouldn't have paid him. But, you know, it is disturbing to see the four hour rule. And, you know, Rappaport's the funniest thing is he leaks it and then clarifies it. like just after that, you know, like he already studies four hours a day. It's just this interesting detail and all this stuff. Like, no, Ian, like you leaked it. Fucking incendiary, dude. And it should have been leaked.

It should have been leaked because this is a hot tamale of a detail in a contract. Dude, I don't know if I've ever seen one so unique. So. And specific. It's very, very specific. There's been ones before, like Kurt Schilling and Glenn, baby Davis both had weight, you know, marks they had to hit. They would get money if they hit their weight.

And Vladimir Radmonovich with the. The Lakers, he had a clause in his contract. He couldn't do any extreme sports, no skiing for him. What was that that fucking problem, hitting the slopes? I know, yeah, he just had that champagne powder. I don't know which I'd rather have, like a starting quarterback who doesn't study four hours a week or a guy that likes to hit the slopes during the season. You know, like, I don't know. But here's the thing.

And maybe part of the projection, nobody knows. Nobody knows Kyler better than Steve Kime and Cliff Kingsbury. And it is not Steve Kimes job to get this kid to study. It is Cliff Kingsbury's job. And it starts with Kyler, right? So I'm all about player accountability. And this is concerning. But Cliff Kingsbury has to get control of that quarterback.

Okay. If he's not worried about the pressure on him on the team or on the coaching staff, enough to study for four hours. You're the fucking, you are the needle that we're trying to thread here to get paid, to go to the playoffs, to win a Super Bowl, to sell tickets like you are. And this is why, you know, heavy as the head that wears the crown. You're the fucking straw that serves a drink. We, we as the Cardinals, can only go as far as Kyle and Murray takes us.

And that might have been one of, probably the only reason they would have leaked it is to put more pressure on Kyler. Like, we're taking this so seriously that we're going to leak it. Information goes public. Everyone now knows that he has an issue studying. He plays too many video games. He doesn't take this as seriously

as he should. Isn't that risky? Well, I don't think it's as risky because you're, the Cardinals are putting it all on Kyler. They're showing him that this is this much of a problem and everybody's going to be talking about it. You either need to step up now

and fix it and take care of this or like you're going to look silly and it's going to be on you. See, Kyler's agent is probably the one who hit up Ian. I feel like if I'm the GM and maybe this is just me or if I'm the one doing this contract, you know, I'm worried about a guy who just said he didn't want to be a Cardinal unfollowed me on all the fuck. There is a level of like ego management here too, right? And we have to do these dances. Sometimes we don't want to where this guy just didn't.

want to be on the team recently. Like he's he wiped this, you can call that, you know, leveraging or posturing or whatever, but you've got a situation here. You're going to throw gasoline on it. Um, because if I'm Kyler, I'm probably studying if I'm Kyler, but if, if I'm Kyler, I imagine I'm also angry that got leaked. He's 24 years old. Okay. So I want to say this. Cliff Kingsbury, I, you know, like to finish that earlier, like Cliff is the one that has to, of all these people, make this happen. It is on him. Okay. And, you know, like the scary thing to me is if he's fading at the end of the season, that's when you're going to win, dude. You're not even playing in a cold weather climate.

You know, you're not in a division, you know, where it's 32 degrees outside every game. The interesting thing for Kyle Murray is if he doesn't show signs of improvement, I worry this is the last big contract he gets, right? Like, he can't be underwhelming on this deal because nobody at 28. or 29 is going to project this explosive athleticism alone as a winning formula for him over the next four to five years. He has to learn to be a football player too. You know, and I think that's what you're hearing, right? And a football player means like all week. You know, you can't just be a football player during practice and on Sunday, especially not as a quarterback. So 24 years old, I was super immature at 24, but I wasn't the head, I wasn't the quarterback in an NFL building.

And so the four hour thing does concern me. I can't wait for the lawsuit for a few years from now where he claims that playing Madden was studying. Oh, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's really good. I mean, like, hey, Madden's really tough these days, man. It's really detailed. That could be he and he might have to read defenses and feel pressure in the pocket. I don't know. I'm not saying he's not.

I think he's, he's obviously a bright kid. He's obviously tough. He's obviously, he obviously plays hard. I mean, he's out there playing like he's in the backyard, man. But being a football player is an all-week thing. And, you know, this is, this is an admission in the process of the contract negotiation, pen to paper here, that he has not been a football player all week. And, you know, I'm not hating.

I like Kyler Murray. I said last year, I think he can have that Lamar type year. But can he have that Lamar type year? can he have that Lamar type year? Or can he have a couple years where he plays at a really high level? Because when you hear this and you see the way they're set up and the way they've faded late in season as a team too, they seem like a team that might make one run,

but then nothing after that because it takes a lot to be consistent in the NFL as players and as a team. So the Cardinals, I'm not buying them this year after that. They're going to have to show me that there's been a big improvement there because that's scary. And here's somebody who I don't want to be unfair to. Trey Lance, like, listen, he's been there a year. I've said this over and over again.

I thought that it was concerning. They stashed him as much as they did in like situations where you thought they'd use him, like in the red zone or in key situations where Jimmy was struggling. But I get it. You know, they believe in this kid. They wanted him to wait a year. And they got some valuable experience. out of him, you know, not just the preseason, you know, where you got to watch him slinging

around a bunch early in, in August. But you had the Seattle game in the second half. You had the Cardinals game. You had the Texans game. Like, this guy saw some action. And some of it was impressive. Some of it, not so much. I mean, the guy's got a live arm, get him comfortable turning his back to the defense, you know, to marry up some of the, this run stuff they have in their system. If the run game gets going, Jimmy G, they killed his trade value. I don't know what to make of that, but, you know, it's

Trey Lance's team. There's no going back now, not unless he just burns it down and Jimmy's healthy and he's there, which I don't know that happens. You know, I think it's likely, what do you think, Reed? They probably release him or at some point before camp ends. Yeah, I

think it's a, if they can't get a trade deal done, then they'll probably release him. And it's all these teams like there's not many teams to go to. You know, the Panthers made their deal. The Seahawks, what are they going to do? It seems like that they're okay with Trulock and Gino Smith and they might wait till next year to draft a quarterback.

But there's not many other spots that you can go to. Yeah, and I feel bad for Jimmy. You know, like Jimmy, I've often said he's like kind of, he was in a similar situation to Baker in that, you know, you knew he probably might end up on a different team, but Baker occupied that musical chair first, and the Browns were rolling with Jacoby Brissette. That's not to say something can't happen with Jimmy,

but it doesn't sound like it's going to. You know, with Trey, the footworks are concerned, you know, misses some really easy stuff. Like I've seen him miss a bunch of underneath balls last year, stuff in the flat, like ball placement, and being like a passer, not a thrower, right? That's what they say. I might have butchered that,

but the guys who can can pass, say be a passer, not a thrower. He rifles a lot of balls in there. He's got great arm. It's early. So I don't want to write him off. I don't see what he's seeing. I'll say that. But that's not to say I'm right.

That's Kyle Shanahan, okay? Trust the guy. I don't know if it's a John Lynch call or what, but I trust Kyle Shanahan. And, you know, sometimes as somebody with a pocketer, You're going to get the fuck out of the way and say, Kyle knows more than I know. And Kyle has seen Trey Lance in practice. And you have a team who was a player two away from the Super Bowl last year.

They've been in the dance at the end of a couple years now with Jimmy G as their quarterback. This might be an indictment on how little Kyle thinks of Jimmy G's ceiling. And he's more of a ceiling guy. I mean, this is a guy that threw the ball at the end of the Super Bowl when it was all locked up, right? He's in attack mode, you know? and Trey Lance might fit the bill more in his head when it comes to getting into attack mode, taking shots. I mean, he's had to sit and win games

throwing the ball six, 12 times, over the last couple years in the playoffs. You know, the Vikings win, the Packers win, although Jimmy made some really nice shows in that game in the snow. Like, they've had to win games where they hide a quarterback. He must think I can improve Trey Lance to the point that I get more upside and I can still hide him, you know, where he's weak.

as he develops. So kudos to him for putting his nuts on the table on this thing. I know, you know, there's confirmation bias there, but you got to ride with him, right? And by the way, Kyle Shanahan, great lettuce, man. His lettuce is on point right now, good for him. Hopefully, Trey Lance is the guy, because they're a fun tape. So, and then Julio Jones, Julio Jones down in Tampa I haven't really tracked to Julio Jones

sweepstakes Tampa was really the only team he just kind of came out of nowhere and signed with them at the end there were some teams that were like oh Julio Jones would fit in here fit in there fit in there but he wasn't really tied to any teams

before he was announced that he was signed in Tampa where he really fits very well he does fit and you know they need somebody this is an interesting year for Tom, right?

Like, I don't know, you know, Godwin's coming off an ACL, right? You've got Mike Evans. You bring in Russell Gage, who I think is as big an acquisition as Julio almost in some ways because, you know, like, I don't know if you're going to be able to count on Julio for 16 games, you know,

you need depth there. You're losing Rob Gruncowski in the passing game. Like, you know, on paper, Evans, Godwin, Jones, looks like this blockbuster movie, right? I've already seen the thing where they're all like back-to-back and silhouettes and stuff. But like dig a little deeper. They still have Scotty Miller. They still have some pieces.

But on the top end with a guy coming off in ACL and a guy like Julio who hasn't played all the games coming off his Tennessee stand, they're like an injury away or two away from, you know, Tom looking around like who the fuck to throw the ball to? Did you like the Kyle Rudolph signing? Rudolph, hey, listen, Rudolph is a guy that you're going to get, I hate to do this, you're going to get really solid play out of him and great leadership. You know, Kyle Rudolph is going to be a guy who makes the locker room better. And I feel like I'm talking about an old me here. So I hate how I used to feel when somebody would say, like, he's a good solid player at 32 or 33. And he's going to make the locker room better.

He's a locker room guy. I think he's going to surprise some people, but he's not grunk, right? So listen, I think it's going to be an interesting thing to see that play out there. There's another team like Dallas that I'm really curious about how that's going to play out with those wide receivers. You know, they bring in James Washington from Pittsburgh. He's got to kind of step up. They lose Cooper. Gallops coming off an ACL as well.

I only say there's a guys recover from ACL as well. But these recoveries are bumping up to camp, I believe, with these couple guys. You can confirm that for me. Chris Godwin is not listed on the Pupp list. He's a full participant in training camp. But Michael Gallup was listed on the Pup list. And you just don't want to take anything for granted. You also lost Cedric Wilson.

So there's going to be some key guys. And that's why I look at guys like Russell Gage, or I look at a guy like James Washington, maybe some of these, like this guy, you got a hit on this, maybe under the radar, free agent signing. You know, Green Bay is another one. Like, what's going on with those receivers up there? Who's going to step up and be the guy? And I just saw an Aaron Rogers thing about Alan Wazard and like going from Hall of

Famer to Hall of Famer and it being tough. Reed, explain that soundbite to me again. I might just be out of the game too long here. He said something about Devonte or Devante said something about him. He was asked how it's going to be going from Devante to Alan Lazzard. And he said, well, it's always hard going from a Hall of Famer to a Hall of Famer. but you know And here's

it's not even a funny joke It doesn't like Right It just felt like he was pissed Yeah Yeah Like a big fuck you Derek Carr

Exactly And that he's I don't know It seemed like it got to him For sure Um Yeah If you're gonna do that

Make it funnier Right You know Because Alan The distance Between Aaron Aaron Rogers And Derek Carr

Is not the distance Between Devante Adams And Alan Lazart That's a fucking And that's a, that's a, that's a mild gap. And I say that because Devante is the best in the league. I do think Lazard's going to have a big year.

I like Lizard a lot. Now, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Devante covers a lot of, you know, warts for these guys. But we'll see. A lot to look at. Receiving cores around the, around the league. And fuck, dude, that's just a couple days of Patty Cake camp. And we've got all that to talk about.

We just keep this ball rolling. If they keep making news, we'll have. shit to talk about and we'll coast through the season guys we'll be good so uh we'll be i'll be back in the chair eventually here but uh i appreciate everybody listening and they're their patience letting us go on vacation for a little bit y'all y'all take care and and uh i don't know when i'll be back on this mic next but uh but uh we've got some good we've got more pre pre pre recorded batch stuff going what is it the first ladies draft we got a first ladies draft and we got a little nostalgia 90s babes draft

nice nice it's a good wholesome content very uh for the first week of august all right y'all