NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Best Football Books

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

A room full of heroes -- Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling and Marc Sessler – discuss the final episode of ‘Top 100 players of 2016’ and which players are candidates to “Make the Leap” in the upcoming season. Then to wrap the podcast, the heroes discuss some of the best football books they have ever read and the impact they had on their careers.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the NFL podcast features Chris Wesleyan's time machine. Welcome to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. I'm Greg Rosenthal sitting in. There's no Colleen Wolf. There's no Dan Hansis. But I do have a couple of heroes here in the studio. Mark Sessler, Chris Wesleyan.

What's going on? Hey, Greg. What is Chris Wesleyan's time machine? Another drop that I have, I don't even know the reference at this point. Well, I'm guessing the reference is the key word. All of my references are from the 70s and 80s. Oh, sure. That's true.

His television shows. No, that part I am well aware of. Uncle humor. I don't have uncle humor, Greg, just because you trample over my jokes every time. I am. Greg about to step over Wes's Sanford and Sun reference. Yeah, we've done a better job. appreciating Wes's pristine jokes.

But someone came at me the other day for not noticing some punny had. And I'm not, I don't mind if I step on his puns. I don't mind if you step on puns either. That's where they belong on the bottom of a shoe. We had to go deep into the reserves, by the way, for me to be hosting this show. Dan Hansis, of course, the old Zusser on the East Coast right now, enjoying the Jersey Shore with his lovely family. and Colleen Wolfe, who has evolved, developed really into the host

whenever Dan's not around, is on some strange island I've never heard of. Like, I asked her what's going on, and she said she's in Moria. And I said, you don't need to make up, like, pretend places just to avoid hosting podcasts. Did she any more detail on where it is? What part of the country? I did Google it. It exists. It's not in this country. I'll tell you that much.

But what's going on? We haven't done a show in a week. A lot's happened in this week that we've been off. July 4th, of course. We had a Best of show that went up. Yeah, now we're back. I mean, I did a lot happen? We played some softball.

I made it on my debut on the softball team. Sort of. Our opponent, which was the other NFL media team, got kicked out of the league for forfeiting three weeks in a row. So we basically had an intra-squad scrimmage, and we needed guys like Greg and the DOP Henry Hodgson to show up for this event. Greg acquitted himself quite well. Yeah, baby.

I've been calling him a sneaky good athlete for a couple of years. I've got to take out the qualifier. He's just a good athlete. What did you do? I just ran all around the field. I used my hustle. You're getting hits? I was getting hits.

These are the things that I notice about Greg. He learns throughout the game. And, you know, he's a pull hitter his first two times up. pits one right into, it's a screaming line drive right into Nick Shicks glove at third base. He learns, oh, the holes between first base and shortstop. I'm just going to hit that second base hole every time. He's a smart athlete. Next year I'm joining this team, I decided.

I had a lot of fun. But you didn't this year because you claimed, I heard you ever say in the office yesterday that you were sure you could not, you didn't want to be flaky. You didn't want to join and be all excited about yourself and then you can't go to multi-term. Right, because people don't like the guys that show up half the time. That's not being a good teammate. But if I'm going to make the commitment, I'm going to make the commitment.

I'm going to be like the Irishman behind the glass who, I mean, he was very pleased with himself last Thursday. That much is for sure. There was some extra motivation that was thrown my way. So I feel like I did well last week. Which was what? The old Zusser had the chance to pick myself and you. And he did not pick us.

So that. Well, Dan and I were the captains charged with picking the two teams. And he left Greg, Henry, and the Irishman out there for me, I was happy to pluck them up. And they started out, I believe, what was it, 14 to 5 at one point? Then we went on a 15 to nothing run to close out the game. Irish has always been a good hitter.

Every game I've been to, you've connected. We won't talk about his performance in center field. Yeah, I think the two home runs you hit off Dan make up for you tripping and falling while running. That's very true. But the 14 to 5 deficit, I came in when it was 14 to 5, shut them down pitching after that. That's true. Boom. I liked that this team, not unlike, you know, with Greg's Johnny Mansell like,

2017 return to the field, that that's what you guys have to look forward to at this point. Greg is. I'm going to help you win. I'm not going to be the top of the order or, you know, the best player in the team, but I'm a glue guy. That's all I want, glue guy. Glue guy who learns as the game goes along and knows where to hit the ball in the whole, Also, the only first baseman I've ever seen to go out for the cutoff.

Yeah, I'm running out into center field. There wasn't a lot of hustle among these people. I think I specialize because there was only seven people per team. That gave me more space to run around. He was first baseman slash rover. All right, we've clearly exhausted all the softball talk to her today. There's not a lot of news here, Irishman, but let's do some news. Todd, tag!

You guys okay? Oh, somebody's got to be in there. Oh, no. Oh, call 911. Call 911. That, of course, is the great Will Forte from Magruber. I know you like that. I brought it back.

Yeah, that's in honor of me stepping in as the old host today, an all-time classic. Another all-time classic is the fact that we don't have to talk about the top 100 players of 2016 anymore. It's over. No more NFL now hits. We are going to talk, though, because, you know, they unveiled the top 10 on Wednesday night. So we should at least quickly discuss the top 10 that was unveiled. Chris and I did our own list, which you can check out on NFL.com. But the official list had Cam Newton number one, Tom Brady, 2, J.J. Watt, 3, Antonio Brown, 4.

And then after that, Adrian Peterson, Aaron Rogers, Luke Keekeley, getting a lot of love at 7, Julio Jones, Gronk, and Odell Beckham. Any issues there with the top? Three or four, let's say, Cam Brady Watt. I mean, I don't want to take this exercise too seriously. They did a pretty good job of getting 10 of the top 15 players in the top 10. So, I mean, you can trifle with some of them, but they did a pretty good job. I still think Aaron Rogers has been the best player in the NFL for the past half decade,

but it's hard to quibble with this list. I agree. I know yesterday we, during the network, the NFL now hit, We had some squabbles about it. But in general, I don't have a problem with Cam Newton getting number one after what he did last season. The one thing that was different about him. With number 73 the year before. Well, but this list, if you want to get into it, it's going to be a whole lot of recancy bias.

It's going to be a whole lot of what you did in the last two months before, two or three months before we voted this. It votes in January, right, as they're exiting teams. I mean, I would put Tom Brady at number one year after year, and that's my bias because he's the best. best football player that I've ever watched. And you kind of want to keep floating people ahead of him here and there. That's fine. I'm not a voter on it. Whoever wins the MVP, by the way, is the number one player the next year, which is kind of silly.

The only time that ever didn't happen was JJ Watt last year in six years of doing this. So it's not a huge surprise that Cam is won. I put Watt number one on my list. I just think he's so far and away. And Aaron Donald was right there. It was a bad job that they didn't have Aaron Donald on the top 10. I think I had him number five. He should have been in Adrian Peterson's spot because Adrian Peterson,

I don't think, was even the best running back in the NFL last year. I thought Doug Martin was. And JJ Watts's the best defensive player. Aaron Donald's right behind him. And then Gronk is far and away the best tight end. But you can't say that about Adrian Peterson at running back anymore. Yeah, I agree. I mean, although right now, who really had a much better year than him?

Lavian Bell was hurt, so you've got to see if he's going to be healthy. I think Todd Gurley's got a complete game, but it doesn't bother me. But that's veteran respect for Adrian Peterson more than maybe an accurate assessment of where he is. I mean, why is Von Miller not higher in this list? There's a lot of ridiculousness. Because they voted before the Super Bowl and probably before the AFC. But he's been, if not the best pure pass rusher in the league, then close every year he's been in the league. So he deserves a little more love.

Donald is one of the guys that that season is now forever going to be, I don't know, forgotten is the right word. undervalued because of the year that it happened. I think it's one of the five or six best defensive seasons by any defensive player this century in the last 15 years or so. I mean, there are years where Terrell Suggs snuck in and won a defensive player of the year in kind of a weird year. Troy Palomalu, the year he won was not necessarily his best year.

And Donald doesn't make the top 10. He doesn't get a defensive player of the year. Even though I think his play was better than just about any other season we've seen from any defensive player, not named J.J. Watt in the last five or six years. Do even the players struggle to latch on to a defensive lineman as a top 10 type force? Because he's on the Rams. He's a dead giveaway for who's watching the games and who's not.

Well, because he's on the Rams. He's not in prime time. He's not in big games. If you watch Aaron Donald, whether you know football or not, he jumps off the screen as the guy wreaking havoc in the middle of the field. And I think football players during the season, When do they have time to watch other teams outside of the opponent? That's right.

Well, yeah, and when you listen, when you watch the show, and I know we've made fun of the rankings at some point or get tired of talking about it, but the show is very well produced and is interesting because the thing I like about it is that, no, I really believe it, because the offensive linemen, they'll get to talk about Aaron Donald, and those are the guys ranking Aaron Donald high,

the guys that have had to play against them, and they're describing, or the guys that play with him, why he's so much better than anyone else that they play all year. And that stuff, that stuff is interesting. Big surprise, I thought not a Jacksonville Jaguar in the top team. Wow, that is a shock. I thought Gus Bradley would just be number two, just for fun.

Moving on, not a ton of NFL news out there. It's amazing that the next biggest news item we could find over the last seven days is my man, Tom Brady, being involved. in the Kevin Durant sales pitch in the Hamptons. Part of the Celtics group that was trying to tell Kevin Durant why it would be great to come to Boston. You know, reportedly he impressed Durant, whatever. I guess he's trying to say...

Oh, it obviously worked. Well, here's what it's like to be a legend in the city of Boston, a sports legend. I have never heard of such a thing. An all-time great player being part of a pitch to try to sign another Super Bowl. Of course, Kevin Durant winds up going to Golden State, but supposedly the Celtics were probably the third in that running, a distant third, but they were kind of the Dark Horse, which is amazing for a team that, you know, hasn't won a ton of games over the last four or five years. What's in that for Tom Brady?

He loves sports, I guess. Well, hold on, though. That's what I thought. That's why I thought was worth mentioning. It's cool. It's cool that he would do it. It shows he's kind of a fan. There's also a lot in it for him, had it gone different.

and had Durant wound up choosing Boston, then Brady's legend only grows. It's like you're actually making other sports teams excellent. But does he seem like a guy who cares about growing his legend in Boston? I don't know. Maybe to a sneaky degree. Really? He's got to make up for the whole deflategate scandal now.

I don't think so. I bet he has a, and I'm sure there's been reporting on this, that I just didn't read because I wasn't breaking down this story. But he probably has a relationship with someone in the Celtics front. an office or ownership, doing them a solid. But I don't think you do that unless you're a big-time sports fan. And you just think it's cool. Let's bring Kevin Durant to Boston.

I think it's cool that he's going to Golden State. I think that team, whether people say you don't even need to watch the season now, it's going to be fascinating to see what they do. I actually am a little bit more of an NBA fan now, Wes. I don't think it's cool at all. Well, you're one of those guys. What are what guys? that maybe the sport itself should step in and say,

hey, you can't just build dream teams and the other 28 teams don't matter at all. Why do you root for the teams so much? I root for the sport. The players have no choice of where they can go when they get drafted. No other job. And that's good. What are you talking about do I root for the teams? I root for the sport, and it doesn't make the sport good when 28 of the 30 teams are irrelevant.

I'll bet you the ratings for those Warriors games, which are already insane. I don't care about your ratings. I'm talking about the health of the sport. Rating is a good sign of the health for the sport. Yeah, ask the other fans in the 28 other cities whether it's good. The Warriors didn't win. They barely beat the thunder. They really probably shouldn't have beat the thunder after being the best team.

That's the great thing about sports. There is no guarantee that they're going to win. That's why we're going to watch. You're not addressing the point that for 90% of the league, the entire season is irrelevant. Why even suit up? What do you mean? chance.

Well, this was an issue. If you're the Portland Trailblazers or the Houston Rockets or now the Oklahoma City Thunder, you don't know that. You do know that. No. This was an issue with baseball for years, too. And so football has been the sport that said, we're going to bring parity in a salary cap. And I still think there's a handful of football teams that go into the season the same way,

but it's much less. And there's late season games. It's entirely their own fault. But football, football brings parity. You want the same thing in the day. The football, this is what the same guy that. It was stridently saying, especially after the first two games, even before the series started, Warriors are going to sweep the thunder.

Warriors are going to seize a catch. Why do you keep bringing up this point? It has the playoffs. They have nothing to do with the point I'm making. For 82 games across how many months is the NBA, it seems like 10 months. It's entirely useless for 90% of the- Well, I have always said, here's my formula for the NBA, and I, you know, people will disagree, but the regular season is interminably long.

Have four NBA playoffs, and the winner of you. Each of them plays each other in a giant Final Four. Nobody needs 82 regular season games. It's a legitimately great idea. Call me a dinosaur. Call me the old dude. I do think it means a lot more to win a championship when you've earned it and not when you just went and joined the best team because you wanted a dream team.

Maybe, but means it to you. It doesn't, I don't necessarily think it means any different to Kevin Durant. He can do what he wants. Who knows what he does in a couple years? Sure, he's successful and rich and won't worry about his legacy, but I'm free to bash him for it. But we also bash guys for taking more money. He's taking less money to do this stuff. What does it matter?

He's already made $150. I mean, give me a break with that. Who cares? Oh, he took less money. He's already made more money than the 18 people associated with the NFL media's death. Here's the thing. Mark and I are great examples of the casual fan. I am more in on the NBA right now than I have been in years and years.

And it's because of the, it's because of Durant. And the Warriors and you don't live in Oklahoma City and you don't live in Portland and you don't live in Dallas. You have the luxury of just rooting for these three superstar teams. All right, we're 25 minutes into this show and we've covered softball and basketball. What will be the next sport that we've touched? Let's talk about making the leap. That's it for news or what was even close to news. Let's talk making the leap.

That's our big series each and every year. And if you're new to the podcast or to the website, check it out at NFL.com. making a leap, but we looked back. We've been doing this since 2012. So even before I moved out here to California, I was working in New York, we were doing this series, before Chris Wesleyan even was at NFL, but while he was still constructing the final pieces

of the Rhodo World Empire that he built by himself, brick by brick. What? Did you read the series in 2012, West? Did you click into NFL.com and read our hot takes? Had no idea it existed. We had some good ones. by the way. We had Demarius Thomas before his breakout year. We had

Tori Smith before a nice year. Had some bad ones too. We had some really bad ones. Kendall Hunter, I think. Well, we discovered that well, we discovered that a couple players have been done twice. A couple players have been on twice. But the idea is we're picking guys. They can either be under the radar and they're going to make the leap to, you know, to a good starter, you know, a breakout type of season. Or they can be guys who are already good, but they're going to make the leap to superstar so you don't have to be totally under the radar and the guy kicking off the list and this

year they're presented in no order no ranking is jadevi and clowny and i wrote the clowny piece and he's a guy who i think is really misunderstood by a lot of people out there people breaking out the the b word for bust people talking before he was drafted about his high motor and i think i wanted to do this because I think he has a potential to be a pro-bowler star this year. And I think people don't realize he's already a good player. He's a good starting player. He needs to stay on the field. That's a major, major problem.

And if he doesn't get over that, his career is going to be a disappointment. But when he was on the field last year, he showed a lot. He showed strength. He showed excellent run defense. I mean, you're afraid to run right at him. You're afraid to run left at Watt. That is a problem for defenses because I think he is at that level as a run defender, not Watt, but at a Pro Bowl, one of the better run defenders at his position in the

league. He's just so strong that he can get rid of double teams and he's so quick he can get around people if he needs to. And that all shows up on tape. He's not a great pass rusher yet. I have some, you know, things that I think he could improve on there. But to me, he is healthy this offseason for the first time. And I think he's set up to kind of show everyone why he was the number one pick. I thought, I watched your appearance on NFL HQ, and I thought you really did a good job in the face of skepticism from Jamie Dukes, who seemed to obsess over Clowny being the number one overall draft pick. Yeah.

And that there's a different expectation he needs to meet. And I think you have to throw that out the window after a micro fracture surgery that ruined his first season. You kind of have to throw that season out, and I thought he was a good starter in his second season already. And people seem to forget that he played 13 games last season, that it wasn't five. or six, that he isn't consistently, it wasn't an injury-plag season the way the previous one was. Right. Although he had a lot of different injuries. I mean, he had a knee and an ankle and then injury, and then he ended up with a foot sprain. And that's what hurt was when they got to the

playoffs, he wasn't there. And it really hurt the great momentum that he had, because the best stretch of his career by far was the five weeks before that. I mean, he dominated a couple games. He dominated the game against the Jets, and he played outstanding against the Patriots. That was a Sunday night game that we weren't watching live, so we didn't see, hear Chris Collins were gushing over how dominant he was. He had a couple sacks that game was incredible in the run game. And if you throw a tight end at him, I don't care if it's Gronk, he's going to make him look bad. He made Gronk look bad a couple times, especially in the run game, pushing people back. And that's the thing about the microfactor surgery that surprised me going and watching much more

than I would have on a normal Sunday. He was explosive last year. I mean, right off the gate, I mean, he didn't look like a guy. He still looks like a guy when you watch him that stands out from the rest of the NFL player. He does. You can immediately identify which players to Debbie and Clowny when you're watching the Texans,

and he plays with a power that you don't often see. And he plays with hustle. That's the thing. I mean, he made so many plays, and sometimes the commenter on TV noticed it, so many plays running down from the backside running down to play. It could be 15 yards down the field,

and he's so quick. If they do those plays where you just leave the last guy on the line unblocked and you just figure your running back is going to get wide to the hole too fast, he kills those plays because he is hustling. So I did not see anything about his motor.

And if you listen to his coaches, I don't think they do either. I think they think he is a difference maker, that their defense is totally a different group when he's on the field. And they talked about this offseason being a healthy offseason finally and that he seems to have, if there was any motivational issues or he was a little bit in awe of the NFL experience

and not healthy out of the gate, like he seems to be very plugged in this offseason, which, by the way, everyone is in this off season. It's a little bit of a worry, but for Clowny, at least it's noticeable because it's coming from Mike Braybill, who's a hard-nosed coach, and they have gotten on Clowny in his rookie year through our NFL media insider Ian Rappaport about not loving his attitude in terms of fighting through injuries and coming back from injuries. So it's not just, you know, Knox against him, unfair knocks. This was a legitimate criticism, but he's a young guy. He's

22 years old, I think, right now. He came out early, and maybe he's maturing, he's taking it a little more professional, and I think he's never going to be Demarcus Ware or Von Miller coming off the edge. I don't think that's him, but he reminds me of a guy who could have a Terrell Suggs-like career. Suggs is an unbelievable run defender throughout his career. He's maybe not the most natural, he's not going to bend the edge type of pass rush, but he racked up a lot of sacks over the years just because he's stronger than everyone, and

he works hard. And I think that's the kind of player Clowny could be a James Harrison or a Terrell Suggs type of guy. Now, we're a week out from you doing your defensive line rankings, and one thing that I noted from your tape watching that you saw Clowney, you know, you call him an outside linebacker, but he's up

in the dirt, he's playing an end, he's playing a little tackle. Does, after this making the lead project that you've done, Are you willing to look at the Texans, and they weren't even on the list of your top 12, I think, defensive lines? Can they crack that top 12? Well, that's a good point. I counted the way that teams list players. They list them as an outside linebacker.

The more you watch, the more you realize these positions are silly. I mean, I don't have the breakdown of the snaps he took at end, and he took at least a handful, it seemed like every game at defensive tackle, too. How many outside linebackers, by the way, can play defensive tackle and play it well? And that's what Clownie was doing. It seemed to me that at least half the snaps he's on the defensive line and his hands in the ground. So I don't know what the difference is. I mean, you like never in coverage. Khalil Mack as a rookie run stopping was a premier talent of his right away.

And let's say that with Clowny his first year as a wash, it's gone. Yes. You saw a great run stopping last year, but they drafted him where they drafted him to get to the quarterback to. Could you see a similar type jump where he adds that element to his game the way Mac did last year? Yeah, because I think he's stronger and he's going to stay on the field and he's going to overpower people. But no, he didn't show the pass rush skills that Mack did right off the top. I think one thing Mike Mayock talked about, which made a lot of sense, and I knew to look for it after I saw it was, you know, he is so explosive right off the snap

and he's going to push guys back, but he didn't have those finishing moves. Like, Max seems like a more natural pass rusher. I mean, Clownie had 22 hurries in pretty limited snaps last. year, but I think he can be a good pass rusher, a 10-11 sack type of guy, maybe not leading the league, but this year, and then get better and better. So to actually make the leap, he needs to learn how to set up blockers and polish up some of his pass-rushing move? And stay on the field.

He had four and a half sacks his last seven full games. I mean, that's a pace for about 10 sacks. So I think he can get 11, 12 sacks, be a great run defender. Make the Pro Bowl. That's Jadevi and Clowny. He should give the Texans a lot of optimism. They are quite loaded on that defense. Chris Wesseling, let's get to your guys.

On offense, the Colts are rather loaded, especially because of their young wide receivers that you like. Yeah, I think you look at the Packers, Colts, and Cowboys is three offenses that set the NFL on fire in 2014, and they all took a major step back in 2015, mostly because of injuries. And if you're looking for a reason that they'll all bounce back, because I believe all three will.

For the Colts, it's Andrew Lux Health, and then Dante Moncrief. and Philip Dorset emerging, you know, you get Andre Johnson out of there. And who has a faster trio of wide receivers than T.Y. Hilton, Philip Dorset, and Dante Moncrief? I don't think any team in the NFL does. Hard to argue with that. This is going to be the speediest wide receiver core in the league. I'm trying to think of one.

Would the Steelers could compete when Bryant's on the field, but he's not going to be on the field. Even then, Antonio Brown runs about a 4-55-5. You're talking 433 for Dorset, 435 for T.Y Hilton, and a 4-4 for Moncrief. That is amazing. Texans have some speed. How about Nelson and Jot Smokey, but they don't have the third guy that can match it? You're right. What about Dorset?

I want to hear more about him. Moncrief is a trendy fantasy pick. We'll get to him in a second, but I kind of want to hear what you said about Dorset. There is nothing in Dorset's rookie tape that would make you believe he's going to make the leap. There just isn't. He played a couple of people. he making the leap? Well, you have to take the lead, you have to take the coaching staff's effusive praise, the teammates effusive praise last offseason, and kind of project what he did on the field.

Toward the end of the season, week 16, week 17, you started to see them using him a little bit like Brandon Cooks with some jet sweeps, some bubble screens, some slants. But they didn't do that early in the season. I think he wasn't ready. And it's the same problem Dante Moncrief had as a rookie, Pep Hamilton's offense, and this is the offense that Philip Dorset was in early in his rookie season before Pep Hamilton was fired, is one of the few in the NFL where they don't have an X, Y, and Z receiver. You have to learn every wide receiver position in the offense. That is he. That's what held these guys up. And you could see Dorset's first game, he wasn't ready. He had the yips. You'd see him as a punt returner. He fumbles two punts. And he, you know, he's just

not there yet. And then the second game, they're playing the Jets. And he and Andrew Luck tried to dial up five or six deep balls, and the ball is not within 10 yards of him because there's no rapport there. So I think what Dorset, he just wasn't ready. And you imagine that there's a Brandon Cook's-like role for him in his second season. But the more I watched these guys, the more confident I was in Moncrief above Dorset, that Moncrief is one of the best breakout candidates available. There's a D'Andre Hopkins-like sideline, acroft. to his game and in the end zone he's a great leaper knows how to use his body he's physical and he's a guy who came into the league he fell in a draft because he had all the physical tools of

a number one receiver but he was sloppy in college he you know his route running was an issue he played with bad quarterbacks his hands were questionable all that went out the window last year he played with terrible quarterbacks with the colts right even luck was bad hasselbeck wasn't that good and then the freeman you know linley i mean That's just, let's not talk about it. He's corralling all these bad passes and showing great hands, which you don't expect to see, and good after the catchability. To me, he looks like a complete receiver.

And Matt Harmon, who does, works on our fantasy team, really studies route running, believes that he's the best example of a guy who came from college, improved by leaps and bounds as a rookie, and then improved by leaps and bounds again in his second season. So he's a guy who really looks polished to me. And Moncrief showed it at times the year before, too. I mean, there were games where he put on tape what you're talking about him doing this season. And it's not like he had a terrible second year at all.

Like you said, Matt Harmon, who does a great job with his reception. Wow, he's getting some love here today. You know, pointed out, he thinks he was much better as a second year. 733 yards, even in six touchdowns. It's not a bad second season in the NFL, especially considering what was around him. He wouldn't even be eligible for this list if not for two. Right. Luck's injury, and then he's already having a breakout season by the end of October.

Then they run into the Panthers and Broncos, who had the two best secondaries in the NFL, kind of shut him down. Luck gets hurt in that Broncos game, and then all of the wide receiver production goes out the window from the rest of the season. Well, he also has, you know, Wes and I don't always agree on players. Oh, really? But no, we do agree on players more than not. If anything, we only argue, you know, about the exceptions to the rule. But what I was going to say is one thing I know we both love, and it is like a trait that is always in some of our favorite receiver.

I mean, guys who can win at the point of attack that don't need to be open to make catches that fight for balls. I mean, Anquan Bolden is just about my, like, right when I started doing fantasy for a full-time living was my all-time favorite player for that. And just those types of players, Steve Smith is obviously another. And Moncrief, I don't know if he's as physical as those guys, but he certainly he certainly has some of that that trait he he is physical i mean no one's as

physical as anquine bull right that you just don't get that but moncriep does have some of that he's six to 222 i mean that's a good size for a wide receiver and he uses his body well brace yourself irish we've moved to that point in the show where gregg and west just starts slapping each other on the back and having drinks we can't win when we disagree no it's just you know i'm just going to sit back and drink it in at this point no that well that's what you do during the fantasy show but that's not coming up until later in the season are we got to do we got to do fantasy week again well we don't have to no we should do we got to do fantasy week i think we should even stretch it out i have a little a little fantasy preview maybe before camp and then fantasy

week during the season i agree because i want to go to sessler's fantasy corner oh yeah that was one of the best places to be in the country last year quite accurate i think too sester's fantasy corner all right that's making the leap uh if you're listening to this podcast because, you know, you haven't heard a fresh one and you just wanted to listen right away. If you happen to be listened to this on Thursday, Chris's piece is not even up yet, so you're getting a preview,

but it will be up on Friday morning at nfl.com slash making the leap. The clowny piece is up now, and we're going to be rolling through these all next week. Mark Sessler has a couple of bangers coming up. A couple of good offensive players. I won't give him away. Yeah, let's keep it as secret.

Yeah, we'll keep it a secret. But that'll be all next week. We probably won't talk leap every show, but we'll try to catch up every few shows and have some discussion. I'm not going to even be here next week, by the way. We're all taking our turns. Neither are you, Wes. I'm out.

We've got to take our time because six, seven days a week after camp started. Mark's already saying all the off-season's over. It feels over to me. I was going to start to read a book that just interested me. I thought, you know, nope, got to wait another 10 months to do things. What are you talking about? This is the time to read books. Camp doesn't start for two and a half weeks, Phil.

There is a sense of chaos, and it's like just over a couple hills away heading right at us. I'm going to bang out about, I'm going to bang out a ton of books in the next three weeks while I can. I mean, this is the time to do it, to be motivated, which is a great transition here to our conversation coming up. Well, I think your nightlife is a little bit compared to mine I've noticed is that you are more organized in your activities in the evening. What does that mean? I mean, I would say one of my issues when it comes to knocking out, banging out multiple books is beer would be one. Wes would be another one. Wes and beer.

So, you know, I've not gotten to my reading as much as I needed to. Wes and beer are basically the same thing. They're redundant. Look. You could say Wes or beer. We have a job. We have two months to live. Yeah.

In June. So that's when I get it done. Yep. That's fine. I'm a bad influence on Mark during those two months. Well, I'm not sure it doesn't go both ways, but... Oh, it definitely goes both ways. If I'm ranking it, who has a worse influence on the other...

In an upset, I'm giving it to Mark's a worse influence on the West. Don't need to rank it. Why rank that? Why would you need to rank that type of thing? I rank everything. It's just what I do. It's basically my job description. Up for debate.

Yeah, my kids don't like it, that's for sure. I rank some books. That's right. The summer reading list. And we mentioned this earlier in the offseason that Chris Wessling dropped a hammer. NFL.com slash books for the rest of time is going to be there. And people could check out Chris Wessling's great top 10 list of his favorite football books. And there's some other honorable vengeance.

And we wanted to break it out and really have a longer discussion about books because all of us, we love books. And we know a lot of people listening, maybe not everyone, a lot of people listening, would love to hear some about these football books because one thing that I was frustrated by when I got into this industry, you know, you go to the bookstore, baseball, you go to the baseball section, oh, and there's three bookshelves of,

oh, every single baseball book about the 45 Yankees or whatever, and then you go to the football section, and it's just like a handful of leaflets. That's the same size of card games or whatever. It's like an NFL yearbook from two years ago. It's terrible, so I couldn't agree more. Golf has more books.

And I always thought this is crazy because football, one reason I like it is there's the biggest gap in understanding, I believe, when it comes to football between the players and coaches and the fans. So that means there should be than any sport. I think there should be more books to help the fans love it. And you have a lot of bangers, Chris. Let's start with your all-time favorite football book. Is that okay way to start?

Is there a way to even call a favorite? Yeah, it's hard to categorize these books. That's one of the main takeaways from this project that, depending on who your audience is and what bias they're taking into the exercise, it's hard to make recommendations. If you're just getting into football, you probably want something that explains the nuts and bolts of the game. If you appreciate fiction,

my favorite book is a fan's notes, and right up there is Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walks, which to me are two of the top five books ever written on fiction, literature, and American sports. I mean, a fan's notes capture as football better than any, I think any book or why fame and football go together. It's right up there with the natural, as far as I'm concerned, in fiction, literature, in American sports.

Frederick Exley, 1968, this is number one on your list. And I know you're a fan too. I would put it number one on my list, too. And I've not read every book in this top 10, and I'll get to that at some point over the next decade. I will say clearly, this is not just my favorite football book. It's a top two or three book in general for me. And Wes and I, before Wes was even hired,

this must have been six, seven months before you were even on NFL.com's radar. We were tweeting at each other late night about this book. I think it's how we first probably interacted. And I came to it in a very weird way because I was trying to remember when I first heard about fans' notes. And it was way back in 1998, I was living. in the Denver YMCA for a couple of months, long story, but would spend days of the library and ended up reading...

The Irishman's shaking his head with his hand over it right now. It's true, but Hunter Thompson's great collection of letters. You and I found this book the exact same way. I was reading The Proud Highway, which is Hunter S. Thompson's first collection of correspondence over a 10 or 15 year period, and he mentions he's sort of like taken with the book. He was, he was writing to a publisher saying how it was an unknown. and he called it a demented kind of honesty. Yes.

Yeah. And it is. It is demented. And when you read it, to me, this is the first book I ever read where it just spoke to me. Like, okay, I totally get this guy. And everything he's going through, I totally understand it. It is, it's in that sort of, I don't know if it's a category or genre or there is like a type of book of like the book as salvation. and I don't want to get too deep into this,

but this book is almost the reason why he went through all that is to create this one book. And the evidence that's in your hand is the evidence, like it makes it all worth it. It's sort of the evidence of his greatness. And he didn't go on to write a bunch of other great books, but he managed despite all the things going against them to create this thing that here, almost 50 years later,

two guys that have nothing to do with them are connecting with, which is, I mean, that's the best thing you do. I thought he, yeah, I thought his ability to kind of describe his obsession with the New York Giants in a certain era of the Giants. And specifically, Frank Gifford. And Gifford. And to the point where, like, I think anyone that grew up loving football from an early age, there was a certain ritual to Sundays that, you know, I grew up in the East Coast,

football games would be at 1 o'clock, but you would make sure that your old morning, and even the night before was centered around preparing for watching football that day. And he has a long passage about how. how he would take to Sunday New York Times and what sections he would read in certain orders and he'd be at a certain tavern at 10 or 11 a.m. to prepare for the game. I mean, it's not just well written.

It really, if you're a football fan, there's a lot to take from it. And it's one of those types of books. And I think you guys really like these types of writers, guys that, it's like they had to, he had to write that. He had no choice, that he's just writing with, like, insane urgency. Like, Hunter Sdomson is like that.

You like Kerouac, Sessler. It's like they just have to get it out. Let's go to, what were you going to say? Well, part of that urgency comes from being an outsider in America. To me, it's one of the best books about America. Like Gatsby is about America and its potential. And actually takes a lot from that, I think. And that's where the urgency comes from, that he has no place in this country.

He feels like an outsider. What stands out to you, Sessler, from your football box? It could be on Wes's list. doesn't have to be. Is there is there one that's that stands out for you other than the fans notes? I think that we we all liked education of a coach. Yeah. Which is a great book. And you said this so well in your write-up of it that David Halberston, he is a historian and a writer first and eventually got to football as a subject matter. And the mix of him and the study subject, which was Bill Belichick, and not just Bill Belichick and what you would think would just be kind of a

hell all biography, but really at a point in time where he was learning how to turn the Patriots from, yes, they won a Super Bowl into something much more than that. And the unpacking of like Ernie, it's the first time I had really read about Ernie Adams, Belichick's behind the scenes, guru. He just describes Belichick's obsession from an early age with football in a way that is, it's an excellent read. You're suddenly 250 pages into it. And whether or not you like the Patriots, you've got to respect what the writing's about here.

David Halberstim is probably my favorite sports writer of all time. I love Gary Smith and Jim Murray and a couple other guys, too. But you're talking about a Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting on the Vietnam War. And then he writes the best and the brightest about the Kennedy White House, which is so acclaimed. I mean, he's one of these guys who writes about sports. He called him as Little Entertainment, because it's basically a break from his real job. And he's so good as a writer that he can write sports with anyone. But, yeah, I...

Everything they had, which is a collection of his sports. I love that book. It is fantastic. Breaks of the game. He's got some NFL stuff. Yeah, breaks of the game is the best basketball book ever written. And Belichick was, you know, he's canny and smart. And the only reason this happened is because they apparently are neighbors on their vacation homes.

And so they became friends. Greg teaches tennis to their kids. No, stop. But it does show the other side of Belichick, which is, you know, one of the things that just stands out when I think of this book is how he is always throughout his life is sort of challenging, wisdom and is that the right way to do things and that is sort of the to me and you learn about his father of course is a huge huge part of the book I think that's why I agreed to do it is it's almost a a love letter to his father but it's also a love letter to don't accept what everyone that's above you is telling you because that's how he got ahead essentially I love that as a bio let's let's break

it into bios because I did I did actually let's go around I'm I'm going to give you my first my favorite book which is, I think if you're going to read one book on the NFL, I'm just going to pick one. I'm going to go New Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football by Paul Zimmerman. To me, Dr. Z, and it was cool on MMQB last week, they had a Dr. Z week, which I recommend you go check out. They also had a GoFundMe thing that they put together to help Dr. Z out, who's struggling with health issues. Man, this guy, all I thought when I read these books was I wish someone could write these books today. because they're incredible. And if they were writing about the players today in this sort of way,

it would blow me away just how in-depth it was going through each position and just this style that he has almost of reporting to an incredible degree. And it's almost just like a collection of the quotes from the players all tied together in a way that really helps you, I think, understand the sport in a totally different way, what goes into playing each different position. I would recommend you pick up the new Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football, which is the 1987 update of the 1971 book, which was his original. They're both great.

They're not that, that much different. But it is really, he's just an amazing writer. I love some of his other football books, like the last season of Weeb-U-Bank is a really terrific season in the life book with the Jets. And he just gets such honesty and such inside sort of access that you don't see elsewhere. I think a lot of writers today, including me, try to write like Dr. Z. And it's the combination of he knows He played in college

And he played some semi-pro football after that He knows the X's and O's better than anyone who's ever written football He knows the game film He also knows the history of football And how to tie that in to what's going on While he was still writing How to tie that in And he could report

He had so many connections in the game And he could spin a yarn Tell great anecdotes So it wasn't too dry, whereas if you read Finding the Winning Edge, which is another book that every coach has on their shelves, very dry, kind of like a textbook for football, Dr. Z's stuff reads like fun. And he understands the nuance of every position on the field, every coach on the field, every game plan going on, there just aren't writers who can do that. No, and the fact, I think last season of Weeb Eubank is one of my favorite season in the life books, and that's kind of a genre of itself, and it's just him on the plane. with Weeb Eubank, and it's in the middle of Joe Namath's disappointing the part of his career that was disappointing and a kind of a coach at the end of his rope. I love those season in the life books in general.

Bringing the Heat by Mark Bowden about the Eagles in the early 90s is another one. Three bricks shy of a load by Roy Blunt about the 70s Steelers is insane writing. It's very 70s. Good writer. Hunter S. Thompson types and just the characters, you would just love, it's just never going to happen again. You would love to see the characters. Well, wait, let's talk about Hunter S. Thompson for a second, because it's not a book necessarily, but it is included in some of his books. His Super Bowl reporting is.

Fear and Loathing from the Super Bowl, which you can find in The Great Shark Hunt, one of my favorite books of all time. That's the best compilation of Hunter S. Thompson. And it's not the drughead who a lot of trust fund hippies really love Hunter S. Thompson. because they've seen the movie. This is the 1960s. I don't know if anyone said that movie. Early 70s journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who was the best journalist of his era?

Right. I think one takeaway is some of the best football writing comes from people that aren't writing football all the time. That's absolutely true. That's true. Buzz Bissinger is another great example of that. Friday Night Lights, people know of it now more as the show and the movie. That is the best piece of reporting

and social issues and complex and a page turner all in one. That is right there. If I'm making a Mount Rushmore of football books, that is definitely on it. And it's a fun read. You'll read it in two or three days. It depends what you want. Maybe you don't want to get the new Thinking Man's Guide and kind of have this broad luck, and you want a story.

It's an incredible story, but it also is meaningful. It hurt to leave that off, but because I'm writing for NFL.com, and it's not an NFL book. I kind of left it off, but you're right. It's on the Mount Rushmore of football books, and the reporting is up there. For one last book to me, if you're starting out and you want to start your football book collection,

I would start with America's game, which is the definitive history book of the NFL, and what separates it from other books that attempt to do the same thing is that he writes this story against the cultural and sociological backdrop of America as it's happening, and he weaves that all in so well. I think he does tremendously with it. It's a great read.

What else? Is there anything, we've got a few more minutes left here. Are there any on your list that stand out to? I feel like I, again, just check out the list because we're going to miss some of our favorites. Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is the best book I've read in the 21st century football or not. I love it. I think it's so well written. And when you have a guy like, who's the guy that wrote the Kite Runner?

Caled Hossini, he basically read the book. and said, his reaction was, oh, my God, why continue writing the whole undertaking is pointless evidence? It's that well written. He captures the 21st century George W. Bush America, where we're in these wars. And football is this thing where it's a thing of superabundance and excess, where we've got all the planes flying over, we've got all the pageantry, you've got Destiny's Child at halftime, gyrating, and the whole thing, just the excess of football in the early 21st century.

And it's got a great Jerry Jones-ish figure that is the Cowboys owner in this, which is great. I mean, it's not exactly Jerry Jones necessarily, but it's the Cowboys and it's the owner. And the whole thing is great. I'm really looking forward to the movie. See, if we're going to give recommendations here, read this book before the movie comes out in November or December. It's going to be a tough movie to pull off, but it is Ang Lee directing it. It was a great director. And I think it would be cool.

I agree with you. It's one of, it would be in my top, you know, 10 books, period that I've read, you know, this decade. Who's the star in it? What's bringing me into the theater? That's a good question. I would not be brought into the theater. I don't know how you're going to handle the literature of this book on film. I don't know.

You never know. It's the prose that makes this book. He's an incredible writer. You were right about Michael McCambridge, too. I did a, but to me, that's like if you're teaching a class in football, that should be. your textbook. That's America's game. It's America's game. We got a few more minutes. I want to throw out when Pride

still mattered, which is one that certainly has gotten love over the years, but that would be my number one bio. I agree. Of football bios, it's great because it punctures a lot of the little, the myths that that we,

as, you know, football fans 50 years later, just assume is fact. One thing I didn't even realize until, I think I read the after word of this book, is the the title is sarcastic. It's not, it's not to, you know, people don't take it that way, but the title is sarcastic when pride still mattered. A lot of it shows you how little things have changed, that you don't need to put this guy on a pedestal and make him some other worldly guy to show his great.

Vince Lombardi we're talking about. Vince Lombardi, I'm sorry about that. He has a phrase for that, David Moranis, the author has a phrase for that, which to me is the key phrase in the entire book, the fallacy of the innocent past. apply that to everything in life that the past was so much more innocent and the past honestly was not innocent of course not well the best thing about that book and it's one of the first football books i read was the fact that it paints lombardi as very much a flawed human who drove certain people absolutely nuts that he was great through hard work at what he did but you know we turned him into a myth when he was very much a normal man well like all humans there's a

duality in him, and I think Moran has captured that really well. Another bio, before we get out of her, Nameth by Mark Kriegel is a really good one. I think some of the, there's some fun. Johnny U. is a good bio. That's a good one. Training camp one. I love the training camp.

That's sort of a genre or two. A few seconds of panic, which if you're looking for a book more about the modern NFL, it's with the 2006 Broncos from a really good writer, Stefan Fatsis. It makes you love Jake Plummer, by the way. And you really get to know these players on the Broncos. Broncos really well. That's a good one. Paper Lion is a classic. It's not your favorite West, but I think it holds up well. I still love it. Yeah, I know it's, there's all these books that you're supposed to love because they're classics. And I couldn't get through a paper lion.

Oh, really? I didn't think it held up well at all. Oh, I love it. And I'm a George Plimpton fan. Like I've read his sequel too, Mad Ducks and Bears or something. That one I liked better. One last one, not so football oriented, but my little pony Apple Jack, the honest to goodness switcharoo, by GM Barrow. Time to go. Show over. You know what's the truth is I recently purchased a My Little Pony and a My Little Pony book. Now the show's over.

I am not a brony. Don't allow any context for that. I'm not a brony, but, you know, my daughter wanted it. Now you can trade stories with Ali Bahrain. Made a trip to Toys R Us. Got a little My Little Pony. Nothing will, you know, question your masculinity than walking through a store with that. Let me tell you.

All right, we've run out of time. We've got to get out of here. That was a fun chat about football books, a little making the leap. We are out of here for the weekend. Dan Hansis will be back on Monday with the show. Mark Sessler will be here for that. Wes and I will be on vacation, but I think they'll try to get Colleen Wolf in here.

We'll have some, see if we can have some other special guests next week. And that'll about do it. For the Sizzler, Chris Wesseling, of course, Brandon and some shadowy league figures telling us to wrap up behind the glass. I'm Greg Rosenthal. Until Monday. 24 hours from now, I will be on a psychotic air voyage across the country with two insane toddlers. This is an IHeart podcast.