Green Light with Chris Long - NFL UPDATES! Trevor Lawrence's Contract & QB Salary Cap! Softball, ZYN & Football in Dublin, Ireland!

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

FRIDAY FREAKSHOW! Chris and Macon are back with your favorite Friday podcast. Today, we cover a good number of bases, starting with a Hello and Layup Line, and talk which NFL franchise makes the most sense being adopted by Dublin, Ireland. We put a cap on our softball season that ended with a "1,2,3 - WE'RE ON TO CANCUN!" cheer in our season finale, meaning no championship title defense this year. And then Chris goes in depth on Trevor Lawrence's record breaking contract why NFL owners are considering a quarterback salary cap and gives his best solution to these record breaking QB contracts and the stress it puts on a teams' salary cap. Enjoy the Friday Freak! (00:00) - Hello, Layup Line and Dublin's NFL Team (15:35) - Green Light Softball Season Comes to an End (20:30) - ZYN Shortage (24:20) - Trevor Lawrence's Contract and Potential QB Salary Cap 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

You know, and it's interesting on the heels of this deal, we have a report talking about a possibility that we max out the cap on a quarterback based upon presumably a percentage of the cap. And I think that's coming from like, it's a reaction to the Deshawn Watson thing. It's a reaction to, I think Jerry is one of the loudest voices in that room. He's like, I don't want to be in this situation. You know, I'd like to have this thing slotted, easier to manage. And when I first read this report, I took it as we were discussing a separate cap for quarterbacks, misunderstood it, which I think is the way it should be. And if I had to wave a magic wand, I might make it that way to improve the game. Now, the reason that I think it would improve the game to have a separate cap for the quarterback would be because teams will stay together.

You know, like, I think it's good for the league to have the LOB. I think it's good for the league to have certain teams that stick together. And the first one off top of my head was Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. Well, when they started to fall apart and people had to leave, well, you can't pay everybody. You pay your, this is what happens when you pay your quarterback. Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. Thank you for jumping on today. The guests we had lined up, unfortunately, was unable to make it.

So it's just making and Chris today. We start off with a hello, a layup line, talk a little softball. Chris goes crazy on the Zinn shortage. And then we get into a long football discussion. We talk Trevor Lawrence's contract, the quarterback cap, news the NFL that the quarterback position might be its own separate cap. NFL owners are pushing for it. What's Chris's opinion?

How could this affect the league? Some other solutions that might work better. How that impacts certain teams that are about to sign quarterbacks to long-term deals. We go in-depth on this topic. Enjoy today's episode. We'll be back on Monday with a very special episode. A very special episode. Make sure you tune in.

Enjoy your weekend. We'll catch you later. Chris, you're basically a camp counselor today for a football camp. It's going to be a two-hour-long football camp at a local high school. What are you going to say to the kids? So you asked me this just before we started and I told you just wait a second. I had to do a podcast with a kid last night. Didn't have to, but sometimes I do podcasts like you're going on a kid's podcast.

He's a high school kid. Like Asher. Like above board or? No, it's above board. Like somebody will be like, hey, can you come on my mom? my podcast. Yeah, they reached out. They were just like, hey, can we talk to Chris?

He's a big Eagles fan, good dude. Where's the kid live? New Jersey. He wants to get into this. He wants to do this kind of thing. Okay, I told him, keep it up. Yeah. Okay.

But when he asked me, he's like, any advice for high schoolers or young kids who were thinking about the NFL, the first thing that came to mind and out of my mouth was stop. Stop thinking about it. Yeah. Right? Exactly. Yeah.

That's the right answer. It's not about, okay, because here it is for you, I said it. And then I had to justify it in my head overnight. because I was like, I got to talk to these kids at this camp today. And I think this is true, whatever you do. If your goals are small, they will always be worthwhile. If your goals are huge, then all the little things that it's going to take to get to that point where you can actually realize that goal are going to at times feel unworthy of your time

and of your intensity. And so that would be my message would be like, try to win every day. First off, like I could bore these kids with statistics about, how rare it is to get to the NFL. And I'm not saying that puff in my chest out because there's luck involved the whole thing. I mean, 90% of the guys in the NFL are freak shows. And when I got up there, I was like, oh, my God. Like, it is really what they say it is.

It's the top 1% of the top 1%. And so, yeah, the odds are stacked against you probably anyways. But I wouldn't think about the NFL. And I think that's going to resonate. Maybe not today, but eventually they'll get what I'm saying. I think you're right. I think it's also okay to have big time goals and not reach them. You learn a lot by not reaching a goal.

No question. Let me talk to you about adversity for a second. Sometimes it can buy you a ticket to a place you couldn't have gotten to any other way, if you's right. And I'm not even selling them adversity. I mean, obviously adversity is a big deal, like how you respond to adversity. But what I am selling them is just a mindset to where you don't put the cart before the horse and you show up every day. And you put your head down and work.

And then when your head hits the pillow at night, you can dream about the, NFL. I'm not saying don't learn from the players, don't emulate the players, don't, don't, you know, copy the ones you like, but like if your goal is NFL or bust, I mean, occasionally hedge your bets a little bit. When the head hits the pillow, think real estate agent. Yeah. Accountant. Yeah. Podcaster. Because that all works fine, dude. Yeah. So anyways, I got a football camp. I got to run today. Layup line. You pick Reed, Justin Timberlake anything. You're coming to the wrong guy for Justin Timile. Mirror.

Mirror. No, no, no. Hold on. I got a good. He said, you're coming to the wrong guy, but give me a second. One second, because there is. J.C. played at one of your. Drink you away.

Drink you away. Great song. Great song. As somebody said on the internet, why are we, what's it called perp, perp walk? Why are we perp walk in JT? So evidently, evidently, Justin Timberlake got arrested. And he looked great. Yeah.

He does look great. He looks a little stone. Mugshot. But the lighting? Yeah, it looks awesome. His hair looks great. I mean, that's a win. It looks like a headshot for, you know, like... His under eyes? Look at my under eyes. Look at his under eyes. I know. He's, what is he? How old is he? 44? 44, yeah. That guy looks great. Anyways, the thing I wanted to call to your attention was, uh, was this report about Justin Timberlake.

I like that Jessica, the officer, the officer was putting, yeah, Jessica Beal is great. Officer was putting Justin Timberlake in the car and Justin Hemberlake was like, this is going to ruin the tour. And the officer was like, what tour? And he was like, the world tour. Yeah, I saw that too. Which everyone says like, that's going to be our response now to anything bad happening. Yes. Some little like bummer will happen. You just ruin the world tour, man. Do you not know who I am? I don't think he was saying it like that. I think he might have been saying it like that. No, I think if he said it under his breath, he was like, damn it. You know, like, oh no, I think he was looking for my bad. I didn't know you have a.

world tour on deck. I guess I'm being naive. Unlock these handcuffs. The world war. It just shows how old we are. There's grown policemen that have never heard of Justin Tim. You're damn right. We are getting old and there's people that don't know how to get the news these days like me. I have no idea that shit's happening. I rediscovered Hansen the other day. Read doesn't know who Hanson is. I rediscovered Hansen on IG. They were doing like an acapella Acoustic, acoustic version of Mbop. As far as I can tell, that was all Acapella. Dude.

No, they were doing, no, they were doing, they were doing it. The, uh, the Taylor Hanson. Yeah. Can I look them up now? Yeah, look them up. Still, oh, still might be the wrong word. Really? He is handsome.

Look at that top left. No, pull that third picture up. Pull that third picture up. Dude, even there. He's a better looking Leonardo DiCaprio. Wow. Yes. Yes.

Now I'll say this. And you're usually the resident expert on if a guy's hot because I believe there's a spectrum. And you are somewhere on the spectrum far enough where you can tell who's hot. Right. Thank you. Okay. Which I'm fine with. But I don't get it with Leonardo DiCaprio.

I just don't. A little round-faced guy, you know. So you hear what I'm saying. He doesn't have like a bod. You know what I'm saying? And this is the thing. It's a blind spot for me, dudes. Well, no.

Look, I'm not saying Leo's a hot guy, but he is a vibe guy. Yeah, he's vibe as fuck. And obviously he's Leonardo DiCaprio, but this is a, this is a, this is a heinous claim. You don't understand Taylor Hanson? That's what you're telling me? Look at young Leo. That's who they fell in love with. The guy sitting courtside at the Lakers game with young women.

For sure, the guy in Titanic. That's not a guy that I'm worried about when he rolls up to the beach on the James River. Well, Taylor Hanson, by the way, the Hanson brothers grew up. I'm not worried about it. They all grew up normally. have families and stuff and never got into any trouble. How about they broke the mold on that because supposedly when you're famous as a kid, you're not going to make it, you know?

And Taylor, to his credit, still gorgeous. That's, okay. Aggregator. Taylor, to his credit, still gorgeous. You know, Leonardo, he asked his date to hold his beer one time. Really? And she said she can't. It's illegal.

Oh! Oh, that's good stuff, cowboy. Dublin, Ireland. You know, Harrison Bucker has his wife to hold his beer and all the dinner plates and all the cutlery and then put it in the dishwasher, and that's all he asked her to do. Hello!

We said hello to Dublin Ireland. Can I hold some money, dear? No, I just thought what... Speaking of, Mrs. Trevor Lawrence made the contract signing pit. That's the first thing I noticed when I said that to you, I was like, bro, T-Law got his wife in the contract picture. I don't know if there's like a good or a bad precedent for this. I've never studied it. But that's not like every time.

Is this the only time? I think so. I've never seen it before. They're not good for them. You know, she's trying to get his turnover worthy plays down. Seriously. And I like Trevor Lawrence. I think he's tough as fuck, dude.

He can throw the cover off of pigskin, but he's got to cut down on the turnovers. We'll talk about that contract in a little bit because it's a lot of money. And, you know, if you looked at him in 22, you just said, yep, that's where it's headed. And you looked at him last year, they lose five or six down the stretch. And obviously injuries, which is part of the deal with him. He's got to be smarter and he's got to cut down on turnovers because his top end plays are something. And that's why they gave him this contract. Whether or not it's the right thing to do, teams just do it.

And we'll talk about that in a couple minutes. London can already claim the Jacksonville Jaguars. What about Dublin, Ireland? That's interesting. Did you already say hello to them? Well, yeah. You sort of interrupted with some Butker misogyny. Yeah.

You can run it back. It's in there. Okay, good. So we've said hello to Dublin. Here's the deal. The Steelers in the NFL, they are hot for a doubling game. And I think it would be awesome. I think a doubling game would be awesome.

I've never been. I, you know, it's, it's only anecdotal for me, but I hear Ireland's great. And so I think it'd be great to have a game in Ireland. It does well when the college teams go over there. Yeah. Six hour flight, easy. Like, I would go to a game in Ireland. There's nothing easy about a six hour flight.

Well, relative to, you know, an eight or a nine hour. Have you all ever, that is true. Have you all ever raw dog to flight? like no headphones, no entertainment at all. Yeah, dude, back in the day, that's what we all did. Back in the day, no books, nothing. Yeah, they put us in a little metal tube. I'm pretty good at looking at the back of a seat.

I'll bring a bunch of shit and just do none of it and just stare at the fucking, you know, like stare at the seat in front of me. I'll look at the, I'll look at somebody else's movie for an hour. And this includes no alcohol or drugs. Usually an edible. Okay. All right. So anyways, Dublin, I just wanted to pitch this to Dublin because you could go like with the traditional teams.

If you're picking a favorite team, if you're a wee lad. I also like I also like the fact that basically Dublin had like a, because we said hello to Dublin the other week. It was because Dublin in New York had that portal. And I think Dublin had like an audition, right? Like can we Americanize you guys? And we absolutely can. They are just fucking, they're chips off the old block. Or we are.

they just did they they they they were doing i don't even want to go back and say what they were doing on that portal but they were doing all types of stuff on that portal they got the portal shut down and i think the nfl was like i think i think they're ready for the nfl and so we're going to bring a game dublin and if you're a wee lad in ireland i just want to lay this out for you like i said you could go bears jets giant steels you could be traditional you know they have irish populations of those cities but i think there's only one team to consider if you're an irishman looking for an NFL team and that is the Philadelphia Eagles sure Boston very Irish city 22% Irish the most Irish city in the whole country and they do have a common enemy

the British UK Great Britain Revolutionary War yeah that whole thing and now you know you've got the the IRA and the UK and all that stuff but which I don't fully understand well the potato famine right but I don't think it's just that and I think they'll appreciate us pointing that out. But here's the deal. Philly is 14% Irish. They wear Kelly Green and they have an all Irish receiving corps, Brown, Smith, and Campbell. And on top of that, I don't like what Boston did to you guys with the leprechaun thing. I don't think that's what you guys look like. That's what Boston thinks you guys look like. We don't think you look like that at all. So I think you should be an Eagles fan, the Kelly Green, you could go Minnesota,

seeing as there's 90% white people in Ireland, you'd feel like if you went to a Minnesota game, you'd feel like you were in Ireland. But they're not, you're not gonna like rooting for the Vikings. Wrong. You ready? Yeah. Dublin is a warm and welcoming city known for the friendliness of its people

and famous for its crack. Oh. Now, crack is spelled C-R-A-I-C. Oh. That mixture of repartee, humor, intelligence, and acerbic and deflating insight that has attracted writers, intellectuals, and visitors for centuries. Thought they had a crack problem.

It has faded grandeur and a comfortably warm, worn, worn sense. So I landed on the Minnesota Vikings. Now, you'll remember the Vikings originated from the area that became modern-day Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Well, they settled in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Iceland. The head coach's name is O'Connell. Yeah. But here's the thing.

Vikings thrive when the weather gets cold. The NFL Vikings struggle as the year goes on. Think about that one. Do you care about your heritage, your lineage? Somewhat, I think it explains certain behaviors. Really? Yeah, I do. Alcoholism.

Yeah, well, for a while. I think if the Irish had mushrooms and weed, it wouldn't have been a problem. Hey, real quick softball up day. I know you love these, but this is, you will actually like this. What happened? I'm fighting for my life in a tennis match right now. Oh, really? Yeah, we had a couple break points in the current game,

and now there's a game point going on the other way. We're in the third set. It's a whole other world out there, where people are gambling on tennis. And now we're down 5'4 in the third, so we're serving to stay in the match. Jesus. Yeah.

So softball was really bad, making, to the point where I figured I'd talk about it. A couple things happened. First off... A lot of things didn't happen. Yeah, it's one, two, three, Cancun for us. We're going to miss the playoffs. We thought y'all are five and one.

We're going to miss the playoffs. We've lost four in a row. And to top it off, it was a doubleheader in the first game. And I've had a tremendous relationship with the Alamoire County Police my entire adult life. But 7 p.m. Tuesday night, they kicked my ass. I mean, I felt like they had the billy clubs out. I didn't even know we were playing the cops in the first game. You didn't know that?

No idea. We got our asses kicked by the cops. Well, it's the cops record. Cops are the best team in the league. Oh. Which the cops are the team that we run ruled in the championship last year. Oh, did we? Yeah.

That's why they were so mad. Yeah. Here I was thinking it was my stance on criminal justice reform that caused that cop that hit a piss missile between short and third to go, oh, after it hit it. You know, even after the game, I came into it, I was like, man, you really smoked that ball. And he was like, yep. And then I proceeded to go to the parking lot. Okay, and so I just shout out to those guys.

They were actually really cool. And there's no actually about it. They were just cool guys. It was just that they were kicking our ass in the process. And it wasn't fun. And then the second game of the doubleheader, it got ugly for your boy, my first career strikeout. Oh, you struck out? I struck out.

I struck out with the bases loaded. Oh, no. How many outs? Like one. Okay. I scored a couple runs. How often a game, is there, are there, are there strikeout? There's a game, 0.5 a game.

Yeah, point, yeah. Point five a game. In this game, there were a couple. He got Nate, too. This guy had some nasty stuff. He got Rob. Yeah, he struck a couple guys out. But needless to say, yeah, sure, show up one night.

And so I strike out and I turned to walk back to the dugout. And I noticed that Team 2 has an entire wives section sitting right by the backstop. And I'm like making eye contact with all. I struck out in front of all their wives. Wow. It was just an ugly, ugly night of the ball. ballpark. I don't know if the police had our short stops family held hostage, like one of these speed situations where you've got, instead of going 60 miles an hour, you have to boot every

ball. I'm not going to name who you know. We can name him. Sam. And he's our best player. Seramico Sam. Serramico Sam. But he's had a hard time. The last four games in short have been. Ever since he played his old tile company, I'd been the same. For people that like, hey, if you played us in softball, I know there's a sense like, hey, we have one camera out there. And sometimes we talk about it on the podcast. We will talk. about it when we get our ass kick too and when we get embarrassed and quite frankly striking out for the first time in that league in three years was a low point in my professional or amateur athletic career i do want to softball sam did have an inside the park home run serramico sam

saramico sam uh inside the park home run and hit for the cycle and slow slow pitch softball not very well not done i bought you guys fucking grubhubhub Gatorades and everything. Which went to... I mean, it was like people were getting shot. I thought Reed got shot in the outfield at one point. The way he falls sometimes, he like dove for a ball and he makes some incredible plays. But sometimes he falls so hard.

It's like when he gets to the mid-air point, gravity gets 10 X. I don't have the best air presence. Neither do I. That's why I'm on the hell. I've lost the tennis match. I'm sorry to hear that, dude. I cashed out at Love 40. I'm really sorry to hear that.

percent of my investment. I had a bystander shoot some video of you on the mound. Oh, boy. And I guess my question would be, can you command? Oh yeah. I only walked one guy in two games. Okay. But like I saw three different pitches and nobody's swinging and I can only assume that the ball's maybe not near the plate. Really high relief. You would think I'd walk more people if that were okay. Okay. All right. You know, I regret. Pitches were good. The pitching was not. not the problem. Yeah, the pitching was definitely not the problem. The problem was the hitting was the problem. Every fielder ever. The hitting was the problem. What about leadership? From 5 and 1 to 5 and 5 in missing the playoffs? I will say,

it's kind of hard when one of your franchise players is at an ayahuasca retreat the entire season, basically. You? Oh, me. Yeah. Let's get to football in a minute. Yeah. You know? That's what we need to get to. We're under football. Yeah, we're on the football. But first, Did you guys hear about the Zen shortage? Whoa! You seem to have restocked. We have restocked. Tell me again, what is Zen?

Would you say? $200 a can. Does anybody that knows what Zen in want to talk about, what Zen is, want to talk about Zen? Zen is a beautiful product, a pouchless, or sorry, a smokeless nicotine pouch. You put in your mouth. Nicotine. And nicotine is what you get from smoking a cigarette.

Right. But you also get lung cancer. Without any of the problematic side effects. so nicotine isn't bad for you if you're just having... Has this been around long enough to make sure there are no side effects? Because we thought, oh, we're dipping. Oh, well, what about all the fiberglass cutting into your bloodstream? When did you not know about the fiberglass?

Yeah, we knew dip was bad for you. We all knew that. We knew that. Yeah, we knew that. That's why we're zinning. Okay, all right. And so how does this, what are the mechanics? What's the...

The mechanics is these little pillows are full of nicotine, and then they pump it straight into your blood system through your upper lip. And the next thing you know, you're such a monkey, a nicotine monkey that you're too busy looking for nicotine to even read the articles when they say Philip Morris isn't going to make anymore because supposedly the government's like doing a probe into their product. Yeah, because they have flavored stuff, which there's like now laws against flavored tobacco products. I would say this is not a tobacco product. It's just nicotine. This isn't in English?

You know, isn't it funny that one side of the coin is up in arms about banning Zen, but the other wants to ban the same side of the coin wants to ban porn it's like you know freedom is a funny thing you know i want a flavored pouch and porn and where can i move right you know what i mean completely run out of zen i'll probably smoke a cigarette like well that's the that's the hook that's what they're doing the philip morris types they want you to just smoke cigarettes again but i'm here to tell you there are other alternatives to zen out there i went to this shady gas station the other day and found this like totally different, soon-to-be defunct nicotine purveyor because they're all flavored, but it's called pick, and they're very good. I also was running around with these special Zin's

talking about how hard they hit. I'm like, man, they hit hard. They're nines. Oh, Swedish ones. Yeah, Swedish ones. So there are other options out there for those of you who are fiend for Zinn, but this is the way it goes, man. Like, you got to find a different delinousiness. You got to find a different delivery system for your nicotine if we don't get Zim back. Contains nicotine salt and other food grade ingredients. Yeah, there's not much. It's just nicotine and pillows. Hey y'all, Greenlight has official merch like this hat right here, 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 But, 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. And the shirts, too, because 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. Fax 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 the the black shirt here too with the logo so uh stickers hit the link in the description in the video uh 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 you guys what did you think of the Trevor lawrence extension all right so here's the deal Trevor Lawrence is making what 255 million something like 275, 142 at signing, guaranteed at signing, and 200 guaranteed after 2020. So Trevor Lawrence is rich. When I see these numbers, I look at it from a standpoint of timing and, you know, like who's going to be looking at this contract and saying, hey, pay me.

It's going to be Tua. It's going to be Jordan Love. I think Jordan Love is going to make $56 million a year. Crazy. I think he's going to be the highest paid quarterback. I think Tua is going to slide in there under some of these other guys. If they do pay him, they have cleared space, Christian Wilkins. There's a couple guys that they kind of let walk there that signal that they're circling the wagons to pay to it does Trevor deserve it i don't even know what that question is anymore okay like at one point derrick car was the highest paid quarterback in the league at one point jimmy j was the highest paid quarterback in the league at one point joe flacco was the highest paid quarterback in the league so let me move the zen out of the way they're not paying me they can't pay me lawyer fees

All right, so when it comes to quarterbacks in the NFL, I was recently looking at this, you know, ML football, dove climbing type summertime, fill-the-time graphic. And it was basically the beer prices at different NFL stadiums. And you look up, the Eagles actually have the most expensive beer in the league. Chargers are getting charged 1375 a brew. Yeah, it's too much. It's too much for a team. like the Chargers. Those people have to drink to survive watching their team play. Maybe not anymore,

but that's entrapment. The point is, is like you look at the Eagles, you told somebody in 2010, a Miller light was going to be $15 in Philly at the Link. They said, are you fucking crazy? You know, it's just like before you know it, the cost of a good just keeps going up. And when they have you, it's like in an airport. I'm going to pay fucking $30. for a bag of dried fruit. You know, it's an exaggeration, but they have you there by the balls. The water is going to be a certain amount of,

if you're an NFL owner, there is a scarcity of this good. If you're an NFL team, there's a scarcity of this good. Quarterbacks are going to continue to get paid more. You know, like from offseason to off season, from month to month, I'm not going to ask myself anymore,

does this quarterback deserve that much money? Really, the question is binary. Does the quarterback deserve, an elite contract or do you do a workaround or let the guy walk it's not binary i guess there's a couple different options in there but it's a yes or no and if you look at Trevor lawrence as i said in 2022 it looks like a yes last year it looks like a no i think you can throw 2021 out the door right and last year you can put an asterisk by it i really do think that because of the injuries uh the way they they they lost down the stretch i thought the defense really struggled you know i think ryan

nielsen's going to be better for them okay i thought the the additions they made on offense did not bear fruit. The Calvin Ridley thing. It was like they just couldn't get on the same page where there was the Kansas City game early in the season and they're inches away from converting or in the back of the end zone, just the timing being a little bit off.

They were not a well-oiled machine. So when you look at it, you say, does he deserve it? I don't know, you're sitting there at halftime and you really need a beer. You walk up and buy a $15 beer because that's what they're going for. And, you know, some years,

I want to say this because Daniel Jones, sat here a couple years and you're like this is what you do you just pay the quarterback i have evolved okay i've been covering this for five six years now the nfl when i played in it i didn't have time to really form opinions i was worried about the six inches in front of my face you know i wasn't worried about are we going to pay this guy are we going to pay that guy um now i'm looking at it and i'm saying there are guys that are no-brainers there are guys like trevor lawrence who you're like oh i got to I got to take a breath before I sign this check. It's a lot of money.

Does he not deserve that much money? Is it eye popping? Yeah, but it's also eye popping that you have to pay $15 for a fucking beer. And people just accept that that's the way it is. And that's what these teams have to do is they have to accept that Trevor Lawrence is going to cost that much. And Tua might cost way more than you think he should cost, but that's the going rate for a starting quarterback. And I would argue that sometimes you have a Daniel Jones or a Tua where you're like, everybody's not sold on it.

I'd liken that to maybe popping up at halftime and they got Mike's hard. Are you going to be willing to pay $15 for Mike's hard? Are you going to come back in the third quarter? You know, it's up to you. Depends on, you know, how thirsty you are, how you feel. I think you could make an argument that the dolphins might not pay to it,

and I've made that argument, but they're going to pay to a. And this is the way it goes. Trevor Lawrence gets paid too. When we were 17, I kicked a bunch of the Mike's hards under the sectional in the basement.

Yeah. And dad found him. And he's like, what's going on here? And I was like, well, I didn't know they were alcoholic, you know,

I was a lemonade. And then he was like, well, why did you kick him under the couch? And I said, huh? But to your point, Daniel Jones,

I look at it as percentage of cap. Is that fair? Yes. And the names at the top of that list are Burrow, Josh Allen, Herbert, Lamar,

Mahome. Jalen Hertz, Kyla Murray, Deshawn Watson, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence, Jared Gough, Matthew Stafford, and then Daniel Jones at 13, you start to look at it a little funny at 18. And it's been a couple years now. And it's been a couple years. So I think you're exactly right. It's easy to point to the record, Trevor's record as a starter,

being 20 and 30. Yeah. And not feeling too groovy about it, but. What are your options? You know, you're in the stadium. You don't have any way out. You can't go to the fucking Exxon and get something cheap. It is what it is.

And so to your point as well, it's like you got to get by with what you got. Or you could spin the wheel on a bridge and you can do the unconventional thing, which is letting a franchise quarterback walk. That doesn't happen a lot. So, you know, and it's interesting on the heels of this deal, we have a report talking about a possibility that we max out the cap on a quarterback based upon presumably a percentage of the cap. And I think that's coming from like it's a reaction to the Deshaun Watson thing.

It's a reaction to I think Jerry is one of the loudest voices in that room. He's like, I don't want to be in this situation. You know, I'd like to have this thing slotted, easier to manage. And when I first read this report, I took it as we were discussing a separate cap for quarterbacks, misunderstood it, which I think is the way it should be. And if I had to wave a magic wand, I might make it that way to improve the game. Now, the reason that I think it would improve the game to have a separate cap for the quarterback would be because teams will stay together. You know, like, I think it's good for the league to have the LOB. I think it's good for the league to have certain teams that stick together.

And the first one off top of my head was Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. Well, when they started to fall apart and people had to leave, well, you can't pay everybody. You pay your, this is what happens when you pay your quarterback. T. Higgins just got franchised. Okay, like maybe there's a way to keep everybody happy. Maybe there's a way to keep Brandon IUC happy in San Francisco. Teams can bring players up and not be penalized for drafting well. You shouldn't be penalized for drafting well.

In my opinion, you should be able to continue to take care of those players. And you certainly shouldn't be penalized for finding a really good quarterback in the draft or going out and trying to pursue a quarterback and turn a franchise around right now. Like that to me, and you could say, hey, this could create a parity effect where a parity goes away. a little bit because, you know, certain teams, there'll be the haves and the have-nots, right? Tyreek Hill still on the Chiefs. Yes. For instance.

Tyreek Hill is still on the Chiefs. But I think it also will allow teams to invest in backup quarterbacks a little bit more. Like, you know, you got somebody you want to hold on to, say Aaron Rogers wanted to stay in Green Bay a couple more years and, you know, he's going to go any year now and you had to pay Jordan Love a certain amount. Say you knew Jordan Love was really good and you wanted to stash him away. You can pay that guy, right? I think it's good for the league when fans don't have to buy a bunch of different jerseys, right? I think the league's always turning dials, right? They're pulling on levers. One of the levers they're always pulling on is a safety lever, right?

Like how much safer can we make the game and still have it be watchable? You know, we see that all the time with rules that come up every off season. They're also pulling the watchability lever, which sometimes, you know, that has to do with scoring. You know, it has to do with the bottom line, which is points. But it's really about keeping the quarterback safe so that that player can be safer than everybody else, complete a bunch of passes, throw touchdowns, keep the scoring up. And I think the third lever they pull is the business lever. And that one's a harder deal to understand.

I don't pretend to understand it, but what I will say is like with Jerry Jones or whoever it is, presumably complaining about having to pay a franchise quarterback, what we should be doing if we're the NFL is talking about a separate cap for quarterback. because at some point the popularity of this game is going to outpace this ownership group's ability to to pay players in a way that's commensurate with what they're doing for the business and they've pulled that lever in a different way in the past like you were a beneficiary of the old cb a old cbay but owners didn't like that they're given 50 60 million dollars to any pick that you make yeah five it wasn't sustainable from an ownership point of use so they introduced the rookie

salary structure that's what they're just they're making little adjustments and this would be one that would be big and change the game for sure but what i am saying is you know eventually this game if you're an NFL owner you're sitting in that fucking ivory tower and you're talking to your buddies about growing the game and you're talking about a game in dublin and you're talking about globalizing the game and popularizing the game and if we can get youth numbers up which have been declining and still the game's really popular so if we can get it more popular play 60 if we can get flag football going you know integrate kids into a system where they're getting into football, make it more accessible for people all around the

globe, like a market in London, a market in Mexico or Canada or games all over the place. That to me is like that you have stated your goal. Your goal is to be a global game. At that point, what do you think players are going to want to make? At what point do the owners that are complaining about counting every dollar right now and not saying, hey, we have a ton of fucking money. Let's just clear this whole thing up and pay the quarterbacks a certain amount and make it detach from the cap. That to me is the kind of ownership we need. The hypothetical situation where the owner's like, hey, bro, I got plenty of money. Let's push to where the teams that are rewarded draft well, find quarterbacks and have owners that are cash fluid. That is coming.

like at some point if we are successful as a league and it's global and it's a lot more profitable that's coming and i wonder if these owners i know they have the money but are they willing to part ways with it there are Saudi groups and we talk about this with other sports like there's global money out there that that can dwarf some of these billionaires that own NFL teams and so i look at it eventually as like a crossroads to the NFL where it's like and the quarterback caps part of it we need owners who can fund these type of type of things you know like and are willing to pay every year this cap's going to go up every year quarterbacks are going to be more important that's the way the game's going so i just think it's twofold we're talking about like a system that's imperfect how could they

fix it and then on top of it like if they fix it could this ownership group that currently exists in the NFL keep pace i don't think so i think eventually if if they meet their goals that going to need more money, you know? Yeah. And owners who are willing to spend it. What do you think is a good number of teams who think they have a legitimate shot to win a title before the season starts? What's that, what's that sweet spot out of 32 teams? I think it's 10 to 12. And then and then there's a group in the middle that's like, hey, a lot of things would have to break right. And then there's, you know, teams like the ones I was on for eight years where you're like the players, your job is to sell a dream to the players. And that might work. But people upstairs know

generally and the veterans know this is not the year we're after something different but you know in that in that group of 10 teams you know i would have counted the eagles in that middle 10 when i signed with them the back 10 uh you know the eagles were on a list or two that put that team 2017 in that lower tier but internally i think we knew we were we were probably in that middle tier and everything did break right you know what i mean and then some but for the most part it's 10 teams now if you had your your quarterbacks and you keep everybody together and you can build a program, you can be more patient. I think it's better for player development. I think it's better for the fans. Now, you could say, hey, what happens if you have a separate cap for quarterbacks and there's kind of like a

supermax tier? What happens to teams with quarterbacks on the rookie deal? Is that no longer a loophole? You know what I mean? So I think you get creative with how you compensated teams that are on rookie that have quarterbacks on rookie deals. You know, like, there's all types of tinkering that you could do with the business side of football to make it more palatable doing this, in my opinion. I know it seems, does it seem outside the box to you? No.

Okay. Niners keep knocking on the door. Brock Bertie, seventh round quarterback, million dollar cap hit in 2024. So that's where you're saying, where more money could be allocated elsewhere. Well, other teams are going to catch up because other teams are going to be able to,

invest heavily in quarterbacks and like usually that's a an ace in the hole having a rookie deal quarterback and so that's not going to be an advantage as much if you go to like a separate cap and i do think for quarterbacks who are sitting there on a rookie deal and they're looking at that number and they're saying like why can't i get there quicker well you're going to have to either pay them quicker and put them in that category or it could turn into a deal where it's like restricted free agency every year for rookie deal quarterback so if you've got if you're trying to to skimp on not paying a quarterback that supermax deal and you're C.J. Stroud, you know, like, and you're sitting there and you're like, bro, I'm one of the best fucking three, four

quarterbacks in the league every year up to the max, which is probably set by a percentage of the cap, which would be fine because you have to cap that number else it becomes like a bidding war where it's like, and maybe the free market's a way to go there. And eventually these quarterbacks give them. English Premier League. Yeah. And I don't know what's so scary to us about that. no cap yeah no cap you got it so i mean so i i just think i just think there's ways to tinker with it where you know for every in this hypothesis for every hole you could punch in it there's a way you could balance it out that's what the nfl does they they do a tremendous job of just pulling the levers to keep a balance competitively you know because it is the most competitive game in

in the world i mean like e pl we talk about the epel you know there's a couple clubs that are have a chance to win it and there's some that get relegated and that's competitive nowhere near the amount of parity and with huge massive investments from like Saudi groups and others exactly and on top of that it's like you look at American sports it's hands down the most competitive sport you know i'd say hockey you know you never know sometimes and that's a really difficult playoff but what i would tell you is from a competitive balance standpoint you can get beat any any week look at the cardinals this year beating the cowboy and so on and so forth.

I mean, there are examples like that all over the board. I mean, you're afraid to bet two touchdown favorites in the NFL. Yeah, for sure. Do you think owners that have recently signed a quarterback might not want to do this because they see that the other teams are going to have to keep going up and keep going up? Like, if I had signed Joe Burrow a year and a half ago, I wouldn't want this deal because, like, you're letting Jerry Jones off the hook. You are letting Jerry Jones off the hook in the immediacy,

but then once you're a contract down the line, everything resets to where it's like we're all on the same. I think it would need to be instituted at a future date. No question. You can't come in right now with it. But I really do think there's something interesting about this concept of paying quarterbacks separately. I think one of the things that would come up would maybe be, you know, players that are

position players being pissed off and saying. But like for me as a position player, I knew who buttered my bread. You know, maybe it was the fact that sometimes we didn't have one that was upright in St. Louis that was healthy or a franchise quarterback. whatever you want to say, you know, I know what that's like. And I'm not going to sit here and complain that Tom Brady's making that much more than me or that Jalen Hertz or Carson Wentz or one of these guys that put us in the position at that moment to win. I'm never going to say, like, hey, we should make more than quarterbacks. I don't know what you guys think,

but like, would you say 30% of a team's cap should fairly be allocated to a quarterback? Because I think there's an argument to be made that it could be 50. It seems unfair, but in actuality when you when you make up the probability of that team's success and thus the the playability of being on that like the experience of being on that team so much of is dictated by the quarterback you know so to me i don't know what that number is but i wouldn't be frightened or offended if i walked into a locker room where the quarterback's making 70 million dollars in a given year but we have a 270 million dollar cap right now it's 250. but let's say it goes up and

quarterbacks go up accordingly. I'm not going to walk in and be like what the fuck is this guy doing, making all this money. I'm just happy he's here. And I don't know that everybody, every player thinks that way, but I do. Separate the two different kiddies, which is basically what you're saying.

Yeah. You got the quarterback cap and then you have the rest of your team cap. And I know that what Jerry's doing or whoever owners are doing, they're mitigating costs. They're trying to keep the cost down. which is why I'm saying to do the right thing, to do the thing that makes sense, maybe we need different owners. Yeah.

And then the NBA, it's a 35% max on a player. But of course, you have more players. So I think something like 25%, 30% would make sense. Whatever it is, it would just simplify things. I just think about teams that break up, man. And I'm like, you know, look at the Super Bowl and the NFL. We just talked about it with the NBA. You know, one of the reasons the NBA to me is like lukewarm, milk toast to me,

and not being a hardcore basketball fan is, I don't, you can't get behind a team like things change too often um we see we see a play out with the parody and we look up and we're like the ratings suck and i had somebody in the youtube comments who was like you're sitting up here speaking for the average fan how do you know based off ratings what the average fan likes i'm like literally it's in the answer there dude it's literally i'm speaking for directly for the average fan what is the metric that tells you the viability of a product other than how much is being consumed by the consumer. Of course. It's like what's a move what did a movie do at the box office?

Bro. Oh, Billion dollars. And there's a difference there because a box office movie could inherently suck if you're a real appreciator of movies. But there's no football teams like that. Right. Like an entertaining great football team or an entertaining great basketball team, it's

going to be correlative. I just think the ratings thing when we talk about the NBA, the, the consumability. of these finals objectively has not been great. And I look at the NFL as like, we had Kansas City and San Francisco. A fucking rematch, two teams that nobody was shocked were there. In football, it's about having the best players playing on Super Bowl Sunday. And I think it's also about having the best franchises going deep into the playoffs. And the reason football is tough is it's not so easy to flip the script.

You as an organization have to be good. Like, you have to be sound. You have to have a vision. And if you don't, it's going to take a couple years. That's what makes the NFL great, is it's really fucking hard. You can't turn it around in one year by signing Kevin Duran, Bradley Beal and all that stuff. And in basketball, that didn't work. But everybody when it happened was like, oh, they're going to be a fucking, they're going to be a bitch.

And you can't do that to the Panthers right now. You can't do that to it. And I know the sons weren't trash before they came, but I'm just, you can't turn it around like that in football. So, yeah, a team that has a supermax. type quarterback and they're taking advantage of the cap and they're drafting well are going to be ahead of you but you still have an unbelievable degree of parity like the odds on a nineers chiefs rematch is 14 to one yeah and i and i don't think if you change this things would change to the to the point where the game loses that parity i think it the game has the right amount of parity in the

nfl it's just right but i also think keeping some teams together is is a good thing and and and these quarterbacks are going to have to get because at some point somebody's going to come in and be like all right they're fucking around with y'all joe burrow they're fucking around with y'all dach prescott whoever it is could be 201 off season come play in Uzbekistan i know they're not very cash fluid there but like come playing saudi arabia you know Uzbekistan's not going to work because most guys in the NFL are susceptible to being thrown cash at them. They play a violent sport where they're not guaranteed money. So eventually something's going to come to a head where it's like,

hey, the owner's got to ante up a little bit or else somebody else will. Football is always going to be fine. But who's going to hold the keys? Is it going to be America? Is it going to be the NFL, the brand? Protecting the brand is going to cost you money. Congratulations, Trevor. Yeah, Trevor, you got a whole think piece

fucking coming out because of your contract. If Doug can get the turnovers down, great. He was at like 3.4% last year. That was the 12th worst in the league. Not acceptable. You could point to a lot of throws where you're like, dude, you just don't have to make it. Also, sometimes he just dropped the ball.

Yep. Like literally he dropped, he let go of the football. Okay, you know who else is up in that top worst 10 is Josh Allen, different player? you'll take that with everything he does and then Brock Purdy. So the point I would make is if you can just protect him because injuries are a thing and if you can keep those turnover worthy plays down, you'll be okay. And we're talking about a percentage point here.

Two plays a game. Just don't those two fucking plays a game, dude. And then you're in the CJ Stroud and Joe Burrow echelon, which is like a 2% turnover worthy play average. I know it's way boiled down. You look back at Doug Peterson. in Philly. Carson had a lot of turnover-worthy plays. You know who didn't? Nick Foles. And all I'm saying is that offense was way different. It was a lot of RPO's easy throws. Nick made some big throws,

but he just, he followed the fucking map. You know what I mean? And that's what Trevor's got to do a little bit more of. I know they don't run as many RPO's, but it is a timing offense where he's going to get the ball out at times quick. They would get the ball on the perimeter. Just make it easy, man. Don't try to win it all every time you touch the ball. Gabe Davis in that room, Brian Thomas, LSU. Nice weapons.