NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - The Only Nine Things We Care About On June 17th, 2019

Episode Date: June 17, 2019

A room filled with some heroes - Gregg Rosenthal, Marc Sessler and Chris Wesseling bring you the news around the NFL and the only nine things they care about mid June. What do the Internet, Josh McCown and Tarantino have in common? Find out on today's episode.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. Drinks its coffee black. Welcome to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. I'm Greg Rosenthal in a room filled with some heroes. We got heroes here, Mark Sessler, and Chris Wesleyan. Hey, Greg. I mean, you don't need to do that.

We're missing Danny. Dan Hansis, our fearless host, spending some quality family time over the weekend. He will be back with us at the all-important talent summit for all of NFL media held in swanky Santa Monica on Tuesday. We'll be there. Hopefully we get some interviews from there for a show later this week. But for now, it's just the three of us. That's it. Speaking of only drinks black coffee, I have never drank a full glass of coffee in my life.

Really? Wait a minute. Although I've never seen you even discuss coffee on any level, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised. No. Why? What's the reason? It's like dirt water.

It tastes nasty to me. Doesn't appeal to you. It's kind of like wine. The more you drink it, the more like you can taste the differences between it, the more you like it. I had to switch over to black coffee because I felt like my manhood was being challenged by my wife Emeka who only drank black coffee. I made the switch.

Your wife who once told you to come on this show, and declare that you wear the pants in the relationship? I mean, she still stands by that. There's a B-line of, of theymology there, I think. But fair enough. That she's a badass? I'll take that. Well, no, I don't disagree with that. I saw Chris over the weekend.

He hosted kind of a pre-Fathers Day Dad Fest. It's a Dad Summit. It's a Dad Summit invented by Connie Fox, Colleen Wolf, but you held it this year at your house. It was a good time. Yeah, she and her first. and Kristen, and to me, the Dad Summit is a testament to how cool the daughters are, that they fly their dads out here or the dads fly out here.

However they get out here, they have this amazing, like, three-day fest just celebrating their dads. It seems like a really cool idea. It's like, you know, Greg and I have young children, and you hope that when your children are the age of Kristen and Colleen, that they would want to be around you over the course of a full weekend. I think that's a testament to the whole gang there. I was sad not to make it.

Right. Yes, the fathers are fun to hang out with. Your kids, you know, want to be around. You still, Mark, on Sunday? I think so. I know that it sounds like I've advertised a level of chaos on the home front, just because they were so small for so long. Yesterday, I was telling Simone was the first Father's Day where we got to the night.

It was like, this entire day passed, and it was A-plus from wire to wire. And the kids are at the age where they can kind of, they made like little posters and stuff. Oh, look at that. You know, like, I got a father's dig where I went to a bookstore and bought. a book for myself as a Father's Day gift, best way to do it. So you're saying like the first five or six years that you have children, it's just a little too chaotic to appreciate it's cute, but there's no, but children aren't oriented to celebrate really anything but themselves for longer than about 10 or 15 minutes when they're

small. Yeah, I don't need to be celebrating all day long. That's, that was good. We ended up somehow in Echo Park wasn't really a plan and paddled some swan boats. I mean, you don't get much more dad than that. I've been looking to do that. It was actually, it was great. I saw an Instagram photo about that.

It was not a plan, and it ended up being beautiful. We all had a great time. I was wondering why you're wearing a life preserver. Yeah, like if it's so close-up shot, it looks like I'm almost badass enough to be on a real boat, but no, it was just like a paddle boat. And that'll get you tired. I mean, I felt like after an hour of paddle boating around,

and I'm kind of carrying the way. You're doing all the paddling. Well, yeah, Emiko was too, but I think I was, you know. I got news for you. You're 40 years old now. Anything will get you tired. Yeah, that's right. So this show hopefully won't.

We've already chatted a lot, so maybe that's going to ruin my overarching idea here. Let's be honest, it's June 17th. How much NFL do we need to talk about after having three big shows last week? I say for this show, we keep it tight, we keep it right, and we have nine things that we care about. Three each. We each care about three things. We keep it to three minutes each. and it's just like a power-packed episode and everyone goes on their way.

I like that a lot. Interesting to see, interested to see how this unfold. This has never happened before that we actually kept the tight and right. But I think, you know, there's something in the podcast. I mean, this side of the table highly doubts that any show clocks in it less than 57 minutes, so we will see. I know. Or any show starts on time. Yeah.

Well, check on that. Yeah, we, you know, we got to mix. You know, there's something to be said for leave and want and more. So here we are. It's the nine things. that matter that we care about on June 17th. If it's not listed among these nine things, we don't care about it.

It does not matter to us. I don't care if it's a birthday or whatever's happening in your life. We don't care. Let's start the clock, Erica Tamposi, right now. I'm going to start with kind of the big news of the day. You know, that's traditionally what we do, news off the top, which is the Nick Casario drama between the Texans and the Patriots. Over the weekend, we learned that the Texans withdrew their attempt to interview.

Nick Casario, the Patriots executive after the Patriots filed tampering charges against them. There was statements that made it clear. It was kind of done at the ownership level between Robert Kraft and Cal McNair. And the Texans are standing down and Casario is remaining a Patriot. I was really surprised by this outcome. We're you, Wes? Absolutely. To me, it seemed like the, what's the saying?

The water is already over the dam or whatever. I thought it was, you know, the horsework. was out of the barn. Absolutely. This was done. I thought that, you know, the kid has already fallen off the swan boat. There you go.

Everything about this situation screamed that Texans are getting their man, and the Patriots will just let this guy go where he wants to go. And the Patriots dug in their heels and said, this guy's valuable to us. We're not letting him go. It's almost like a year after the Josh McDaniels anti-drama that this occurred. It's like they seem to have cornered the market on keeping their own if they don't like where they're going.

But I do, it's interesting as Bob Quinn got out of the building, John Robinson got out of the building, they're both GMs, and I stick to this thing that I think they are going to try to find a way to make Nick Casario their transition man post-Belichick, and that same with Josh McDaniels. I may be wrong, that's just why I think they're digging in so hard on these two individuals. I thought it was fascinating that it went to ownership level. You got the sense that otherwise maybe that wouldn't have happened,

that McNair was standing down, that Robert Kraft might have been particularly, upset because this guy Jack Easterby had left as well. I don't really know, but maybe now this gives the Patriots time to give Casario whatever he wants in terms of money and a title. And that's one option. The other is that he really does want to leave, which felt like that's what everyone was reporting. And so that's kind of the second part of the story that I want to hear report. And if he does really want to leave, maybe they still do work out a trade or something with a little less, you know, tampering heat.

I don't know, though. The Texas go GM free for a year because they're already halfway there at this point. GM's job is just about done for the year. I mean, you've got to lock up clowny, but they have other people in the building. They could trust to do some things, but then you bring in Nick Asario next off season minus tampering charge nonsense. Right. His contract reportedly ends at the end of the 2020, or this season, rather, the 2019 season.

And so then they could bring them in. I don't know. The whole thing is a lot about the patriots that I think is a mystery. And to me, one of the biggest mysteries is how much is Jonathan Kraft really running the show? And to me, what Mark said about having your transition phase, like, it doesn't have to end with Brady and Belichick. Maybe Josh McDaniels and Nick Sessario is a good replacement for those two. And we're in here, like the level of disgust. Well, yikes.

That is it. Tried to speak for Dan. Wes, you have one more thing that you care about, that we care about this week. Well, I got to thinking, and this may be a better question for Mark because we're the same age. And this really, I think... Like most questions. Yeah. What percentage of your adult life, let's say success, achievement, self-image, family, friends,

would have been possible had the internet not been made available to the masses at the exact moment you entered the adult world? Okay. And so that's just, wait, so that's on your mind. Yes. I think for me it's like 99% would not be possible had the internet not, let's say I'm 10 years older. So at age, instead of age 21, the internet takes off, I'm 31 years old in the internet. Is it too late for me to become a sports writer? Is it too late that any of this ever happened? Like even keeping it just at, on two things quickly. One, this career that we're in right now would never have happened without that because I just hit the internet at the right time to start

spamming newspaper editors when there were newspapers back in the day with a billion emails and it led to over many years other jobs and getting this job through internet stuff secondly I essentially met my wife in person but then we communicated for months over back in the day my space and had that not occurred I don't think we'd be married today so thank you the internet did matter that's a good call because yeah I'ma and I met long distance and there was emailing was big of that but also Skype way back in the day you know putting the old headphones on and having a free way to call for hours at a time when I could not have afforded like long distance calls a large percentage west we are I often think

about that that like our age we're we're on that cusp where we experience life without the internet and then life with the internet and obviously our kids are never going to experience that And that's why I think we can kind of like dip in and out of social media a little more than younger people can because it's like they don't even have a choice. Oh, they're hooked. They just have. Well, we are too. But there's like, I think there's a, it's easier to sort of turn it off and on because it's just not always been part of our life. Wes and I were born in log cabins.

So there's many areas. Yeah, you're five years older, which actually does change the internet equation. Well, because the internet was up and like cranking by the time I got to college. I'm also. Same here, though. Not a college graduate. I don't know if I would have left the post office without the internet. I doubt I would have moved to Tybee.

I definitely would not have moved to California. Wow. I wouldn't be working for Greg. Well, I wouldn't have had that job. I got into fantasy sports writing on the internet at a time when it was basically just started. There was only a handful of those jobs even existed in the world at that time. Well, there'd be no road a world. There was no such job five years before that.

there'd be no podcast. I mean, there may be some format to listen to stuff, but you'd still be having to drive around in your station wagon, you know, like extra long to listen to a full podcast before swinging back around into your house and using... Fascinating. I feel like

we might have to revisit that question, but now we're on to the third thing that we say matters. This is another news item, and, you know, it happened over, it happens essentially the day after our last show last week, where We found out that Pat Boland, longtime Broncos owner, died at age 75.

And I think to the younger fan, you really have very little concept of Pat Boland because he struggled with Alzheimer's and he really was not the public-facing owner of the Broncos for so long. But I do remember, you know, those memories you have in your first football fan, and as a Browns fan, when they were locked in those three AFC title games against the Broncos over the course of four years, The third one that happened in 89 was a blowout and largely in memorable, but the first two were obviously classics, the drive and the fumble. And the contrast that I remember that made me heighten my anxiety as a very new Browns fan

was that Cleveland's owner, Art and Modell, pre-everyone hating him, was a rather beloved figure because he had tried so long to get a championship in Cleveland. And he was during these two games, and most Browns games, a hot, nervous wreck. Like you could just feel his nervous energy from the, the shot they'd show up in his suite where he slumped over in his chair and just waiting for something bad to happen. And then they'd cut over to Pat Boland. And there'd be like a cool wind sweeping through his hair. He'd be in a big fur coat in sunglasses. And I was like, they have essentially like a Don Draperish figure at the age Don Draper would have been at that time

running the show. And we have this guy who is a massive hyper antsy guy running in Cleveland Brown's team, very concerning. But if you look at his career, And I think he did. He actually, there's an anecdote that he dropped that fur coat because a lot of Broncos fans thought it was a little too shishi and not really representative of their country living out in the West. And so he was someone that by the end of his tenure was incredibly close to many of his employees. Look at this seven Super Bowls, 300 wins in 30 years, 21 winning seasons. They are a team that posted a league high, 199 regular season wins in his tenure. And the second best winning percentage in the NFL, which was. the first up until a year ago. He was a pretty remarkable owner. We talk about bad owners on this show all the time. He was the reverse. Well, I think for owners in just about every sport, they are people of accomplishment and achievement who never got the credit or the public sort of image that they want. They want to be out there. They want to be acknowledged. But the best owners realize it's a public trust, like owning a newspaper, that it's for the region, it's for

the city. And that region of the Denver Broncos, you're talking Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, this whole Western United States roots for this team and identify with them because Pat Bowling gave the team to the region. He didn't try to keep the team for himself in his own glory. I think that's well said. And he cared so much that when Josh McDaniels went down in a house of fire in Denver, it was because of this sort of unoriginal videotaping scandal part two where Boland basically shifted gears entirely and brought an entirely different coaches from then on out because of that experience. Well, the one thing that comes to mind with Pat Boland, and you knew he was struck.

I'm done. We're just going to have. That's our fault, Greg. We need to be thinking about the third speaker. Well, we don't have a warning. I think that makes it exciting. It keeps us all on edge. And, like, we can talk about a Broncos succession plan another time.

A lot of family drama there. No family drama in the Tom Brady. What is that? Oh, well, it's lingering into Greg getting killed twice here. No, I love that. I mean, that is Pat Bowlin's shining moment. It was good to hear. I want to bring up something that hasn't been talked about at all in this show,

which is Tom Brady's contract situation. And I usually think that contracts for quarterbacks are kind of an over-talked-about topic on this show or just on any show. But this one, it strikes me that it's interesting because he's going to, into the final year of his contract. Nothing's been done. Nothing's been talked about. There's nothing happening in the public eye, which I think is great.

That's kind of how they do things. But I would expect the contract at sometime this offseason. And it really is interesting because we've never seen anything like him playing this well into this long. How are they going to do that? And when is it going to happen? I kind of expect it to happen before this season starts because it doesn't make sense to me to have Tom Brady playing out a final year of his contract.

that would be weird, but what kind of contract do you give Tom Brady right now? Are they going to, like, make up some of this guaranteed money? I don't even know, but it's just something as we're heading into this dead time that I thought was kind of a topic to just throw out there. Wouldn't it be odd or bizarre or strange if all of the sudden, after all these years, Tom Brady said, I want my money. I want what I'm owed. I want what I'm due.

I want overtime for all of the years I took less money. This is a guy who has made it clear he takes less money because, Because A, his wife makes $75 million a year, or used to anyway. And B, he knows. He knows it helps the team win. He knows that they can build a better team and have a, their championship window is more wide open than other teams, but because their all-century quarterback takes less money. And you could argue kindness to team and also what my wife makes as zero factors if you wanted to.

You could say other players could care less about where that's coming from. That's extremely selfless to do that. It's the, we talked about their succession plan. They have no succession plan at quarterback based on some drama that's happened in the past couple seasons. I don't know. I hear the Jarrett Stidham buzz is starting. Well, let's see how that works out.

It's like the guaranteed money and kind of the, are they going to put their money where their mouth is? Is Tom Brady going to put his money where his mouth is too? And like make this a contract where it's guaranteed for the next couple of seasons and like, hey, we are actually all on board with this guy playing until. he's 44, 45, it's not a one-year thing. Like, it's just never been done. And as a Patriots fan, I'm definitely curious to see what happens.

Have you ever wondered how many young quarterbacks look at this example and say it's a tremendous competitive advantage to marry a supermodel? Why don't I do the same thing to do? It makes a lot of sense. I mean, there's only so many Gisels, though. Right. I mean, there's only so many out there, but there should be like a line forming of quarterbacks saying, hey, look, Tom Brady showed us.

It's a huge competitive. Yeah, maybe marry, like, An heiress. Like Serena would have been a good catch. Just like any woman making an incredible... Yeah, Sierra. I don't think it's like too far afield from the way some quarterbacks think. They're not like marrying total dark horses that work at like Rite Aid three days a week.

The whole like it saves. The test is over. I mean, it's just like scary when that voice comes in. And if anyone recognizes where that's coming from, let me know. Wes, this is going to be the fifth thing that we care about on June 17th. And there's only nine. So we are living in sports. In terms of sports, we are living in the analytics revolution.

This is what the 21st century has brought with Moneyball. And it's all rooted in Bill James in the 1970s and 80s. You go back even farther, Pete Palmer, some other guys who were into analytics. And it was sort of outsiders bemoaning what the insiders were. doing with sports, that it's sort of this caricature of the old time he scout with the chal in his cheek saying, I can tell where this guy's going to be good just by the way he's walking off the plane or the bus. And all these outsiders said, well, that doesn't ring true to me. I'm skeptical. That's what we've been dealing with the last 20 years. My prediction is the next big

sports revolution is going to be the counterbalance to analytics. It's going to be a response that basketball is not as great of a sport as it could be because everybody's standing around taking three-pointers. Baseball right now is sit on your ass baseball. It is boring. It's more like softball. And the next wave of sports revolution is going to be, let's get the sport to be as beautiful as possible,

to be as rewarding and as entertaining as possible. Can the sport reach its apogee? Bob Knight used to tell his players, you're not playing against the competition. you're playing against the perfect form of basketball. And I think it's going to be led by former players who are really intelligent and it's going to be led by former analytics guys who were into the movement and take a step back and say, what are we doing to our sport?

I know it's smart, but is it beautiful? Well, I think analytics, you know, good analytics front-office-minded, you know, folks have always wanted to integrate, you know, the actual scouting or whether it's the input from players and coaches with the numbers. It can't be such a, I don't know what the word is for just, you know, that you're just married to analytics and that's all you're thinking about it. And I think that has happened. But I think that's something to keep in mind, especially with the NBA of like, is it making the sport better or worse? I would say baseball has a bigger problem than basketball right now in terms of

of what the analytics are doing to it. Because ultimately, if you're winning, no one cares about whether it's pretty or ugly on a team-by-team basis. But everyone's asleep at the wheel. There's nobody in charge of making sure the sport is its best form, its most rewarding form. Everybody's in charge of...

Well, the commissioners are. No, they're not. Because they're hamstrung by the owners. Well, it's funny. And the owners are told by their analytics guys, this is what's important. I mean, I think in the NFL, we haven't really even seen,

I think we're just starting. And even though a lot of teams don't advertise it and are very into analytics and using data as much as they can, I still think it's pretty early in the process. For football, absolutely. The trick is, like, we can see certain teams jumping out of the others analytics-wise over the course of the last decade to five years to now.

But, like, that movement is, it does one team start that? That's a good question. We'll see. This one is, I want to throw this out to the group versus winding on for three and a half minutes. But I love, one thing that I do get excited about football and I don't want to like manufacture stuff that I'm not actually into is the concept of like the berserker team that we spend all off season talking about we expect A, B, C, and D

to go to the playoffs or even like these two teams to like fulfill their potential and reach like the Browns, for instance, even the Jets, they're going to make the playoffs for the first time in a long time. Who is the berserker team that no one even sees at all that is going to F everyone's expectations and plans up with a nine or ten win season that gets them into a wild card and for me I'll throw one out there and we don't need to I don't need to linger on

for me when looking up and down the list the bills I would say the bills are a team that in the in the AFC East could do some damage and sneak into the playoffs because they're well coached and they're well run a year before or two years before people expect I love that pick and to me I mean everything depends on the quarterback right

Right. Is he the guy who so many people decided before he even took a snap would be a bust because he's not accurate enough. He doesn't read the field well enough. His instincts aren't that great. Or is he the guy who looked like the best athlete on the field in a lot of the games he played? Good question. There's only so many options because even a team like, I don't know if the 49ers even qualifies as like as such an underdog. I thought.

We give them too much credit on this podcast. What? The 49ers, we're always talking about how they're going to be good. and their coach. I think they have the potential. And they don't win football games. The Cardinals would certainly be an option. The Lions, I think the NFC North is too good for them to do it.

You know what I hate to say? The Bengals. The Bengals came to mind a little bit. Yeah, the Bengals are one that I've kind of given already. Part of me is a little afraid that the Giants are going to be better than people think. The Bucks and the Giants were two that popped into my mind. If things go right for the Giants, I don't think that's the worst team of. Things go right for the Giants.

They win six games. I think they could win nine or ten if things went really well for the Giants. Why not? Name a less talented roster than the Giants. They do have a couple younger players. If things go totally right for most NFL teams, I think they could win more than six. I mean, the Dolphins probably have less talent than the Giants. I can't think of another.

The Raiders? No. I think the Raiders have more talent than the Giants. Giants are the skill position players. I always pick the Bucks. I just pick like five different berserker. I mean, defense is part of the game. Right.

And the Giants' defense is... That's why I think the Bucks have a lot of upside, not just Ariens with Winston, but just because their defense has been so bad year after year that if the coaching is just better and they get to 20th on defense, a little bit of luck they could scrape out 10 wins. Yeah, I guess.

I mean, we're talking about a coach who decided he had enough. Suddenly you're anti-Brus Arian. You were the king. The king of Bruce Ariens, now that he's with Davis Winston, you're anti-Brus Arianian. I famously said,

I don't need to sleep on a cot. When he was into football, he said that. Now he's already done. I guess like the completest part of me, the part of me that has done 700, 800 of these shows. I don't know. How many have we done? I think we're close to 300 threshold.

Maybe 900, whatever. Feels like we should get Josh McCown's retirement into this program. Just out of respect for Josh McCown. So I'm going to throw away the other couple ones and throw Josh McCown officially retiring in as the seventh thing we actually care about. Because this is a man who is, I think, misunderstood,

especially by people who have just paid attention to the last few years, and they think of them as like this, you know, backup who's really good at helping out the guys underneath them and he's a great guy and all of that. And that's all true. But Josh McCown to me was the ultimate, like, five-tool, like baseball player that really couldn't put it all together. I was almost over-hyped at some level,

and it's not that he was taken high in the draft. He was a third-round pick, and he bounced around. But this guy, man, had a cannon. This guy could run. This guy could make any throw on the field, and he was fun. One of the best dunkers in the NFL. Fun as hell to-

Making the lead candidate. Right, fun as hell to watch as a young player, but just kind of maybe like a Josh Allen, maybe didn't put it all together, like mentally or whatever it was for a while in his career. But just for the kids out there who don't remember what he was like on the Cardinals where he had an okay couple of seasons. He had a big time moment knocking the Vikings out of playoffs.

He had another season where I think he was about seven and seven as a starter. I mean, this guy had tools. This guy was like loaded and was a lot of fun to watch just in terms of his skill set, not in terms of like being a mentor or whatever. He seems like a throwback. Greg Nate's Mentors. I mean, that just gets overdone. He said throwback in the way that Johnny Unitas can be drafted by the Steelers cut,

be actually playing San Lot football. and then turn into a Hall of Famer. Josh McCown at, like, age 33, went to the U.S.L, and then he was coaching high school football. Not like in his spare time. That was his job, coaching high school football. And then he had a whole other career after that. Right.

He somehow, he was a smart guy that somehow, you know, was just a great guy to have around and then realize, how can I use this skill set that maybe I, like, burn through early in my career? Because he had 99 starts, but he had, how many different dudes? one, two, three, four. He had nine different teams during his career over 18 teams. So let's stop calling like E.J. Manuel a journeyman when you've got Josh McCown on like

half a dozen teams plus three. Josh McCown is kind of the definition of a journeyman. And sometimes it was pretty ugly. That buck season that he was the starter was one of the worst, like. That was a tough watch. He was just taking a bullet for them basically and just like wasting out a season. I just, I don't think we're done with him. I think the same way that Tony Romo went to television, it's not, it's not.

going to be to that immediate notice of people, but I think he talked about it and is going away piece. Coaching is a passion of his. He is around the league people are like, this is someone we want on our coaching staff. I think he's going to be a super fast riser. And it helps because he looks like someone shot out of Mad Men within a fantastic haircut. He looks the part. He's a great leader. And he is a mentor. Yeah. No, he absolutely is. But just happy trails. That's what I want out of a backup quarterback. I don't want like the guy who's going to come in and not make any mistakes and not kill you. I want someone that comes in the game and makes it more fun to watch and just is like a little

crazy. He is kind of a rich man's Ryan Fitzpatrick. It's over. I would nominate Mark to go and then I'll wrap it up because mine, it's not really about sports. Sure. Mine is, VIRs pretty heavily away from sports too, but why not do two in a row? The thing that I am honestly very excited about is the movie coming up soon, once upon

in time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's ninth film. I do think, honestly, it's going to be a very different kind of film from his previous ones. And we know that it's about 1969. We know that it's about Hollywood. It's mixed in with Sharon Tate's killing and all that stuff. And they've made a billion movies about that topic, and most of them have been done horribly wrong. And they're basically just a regurgitation of what we already know. When you put Quentin Tarantino's worldview on it, and he has the OK from the Tate family after they read the script and saw what he did,

I think that's a big part of this. I would give you two things, if you're interested in this topic, to look. Last week, I saw a movie, the wrecking crew that starred Sharon Tate, and it also had a dangerously overly tan Dean Martin, who made me show that movie stars of that age. They're just simply old. Like, Brad Pitt still looks essentially younger than most people that are 35. That's not how it worked back in that time.

But that was her last movie, and go watch her in that, and tell me what you think of her after seeing it. She's not the greatest actress on the planet, but there's something about her spirit that's pretty crazy. There is a book called The Family by Ed Sanders. If you've read Helter Skelter, that book is a crazy departure from what Vincent Bugliosi wrote in Helter Skelter, which was not rushed, but written quickly after the case and as the case was going on.

This was a poet and a songwriter who was hanging out with a lot of people in the story while he was writing it, and there are some crazy things involved in there, and people should remember that Sharon Tate's father, who was a colonel in the army, I believe he spent years researching this case undercover going into the hippie community trying to find out what happened because there were a lot of divergent tales back then. This movie won't go, I think, too deep into that world. It's going to talk about the DiCaprio and Pitt Hollywood relationship in the end of Hollywood, the end of a Hollywood era. Interesting. I spent a lot of the early offseason reading about old Hollywood, and it is fascinating to read the stories. The characters involved. That was a different time in America.

there have been a movie that's come out in years that is more up Mark Sessler's. No. I mean, this is a movie made for you, and it does look like a lot of fun. I like it when the secondary characters like I can't, Timothy Oliphant has a big role. I love Timothy Oliphant. Like Luke Perry is in this movie.

Kurt Russell's in this movie. Al Pacino's in this movie. Well, he just like wish cast his lineup of actors and it's typically people that someone hasn't seen in a film for 25. Jackie Brown is an example of that. That's what I love and I think he's going to go all out. He says it's last movie, I don't buy it.

Let's go to the last thing. Ring that bell. I mean, we don't even need a bell. Let's go down. And there was only nine things in the world that we care about this week, and Wes has the final one. Well, I call this topic what they don't tell you about cancer. I was incredibly open throughout the whole process, and I was told that.

I can't believe you revealed so much. And to me, that was always weird. Why wouldn't I? I am on this podcast. It's public. Of course, that's part of our lives. but I've been quiet since sort of the end of chemo. I haven't brought people along for the ride.

And what they don't tell you about cancer is that you lose your identity. That there's a vulnerability. Like for me, I was a staunchly, fiercely independent person who didn't need anyone, didn't rely on anyone. Well, you're so vulnerable, you have to rely on people. You're on a feeding tube. You can't feed yourself. You can't really function. And Keisha and her mom took care of.

me, you guys came and see me, but along the way you lose your identity and I just want, like, ask our listeners, be patient with me. I haven't been the same person after cancer as I was before cancer, and I'm still trying to figure out who I am. And I think I've sort of lost that centering that most people have, and I'm still trying to figure out, like, what am I going to be for my next 30, 40 years or whatever it is. So that's my quick word on what they don't tell you about cancer. You just lose who you are. I don't think you lost the element that I like about you. your self-awareness, though. Some people would just not even realize that that's all happened to them.

The analytical side of you, but also other things, are able to see that that transition's happened. Well, I think you think about that stuff more after you go through something like that. You, I think by necessity, have to be a less selfish person, a less self-centered person. You can't just sit around thinking about yourself all the time. Well, you're a different person. I mean, everyone is always like a different person than they were a couple of years. years ago, but when you have something that life changing and transformative, I think what

I'm getting from you is just that you feel like you're still Chris Wessling, but how could you not be like a different person? And then just, you know, putting that with whoever the old Chris Wessling was and kind of making that all merry and feeling that that's you. Well, have you ever noticed that Jerry McGuire's memo is basically same? humanity. Like he writes this memo and it makes sense, but everyone's afraid to jump on board. Everybody's afraid to buy in. But we all have Jerry McGuire's memo in our lives and we never really let it out because we're afraid of the backlash. And to me, what I learned from cancer is I'm sort of just going to throw out. I'm going to use Jerry McGuire's memo. I know

these things are right and I don't really care what the backlash is. Is Lakeisha your Renee Zellwiger? Absolutely. See, I think I don't know if you would have, I don't know if any of this that's happened to you, the amazing chapter in the last couple months would have happened had you not gone through this change. I think there is certainly a large part of that that I've changed as much because of Lakeisha and her positive, relentless positive outlook and energy as I have from cancer. Well, when you, when that makes you Tom Cruise and that means you're going to beat Justin Bieber if you ever see him, I promise you will. You think, well, when you say this and you're bringing this topic up for the listeners too, is it because, like, why do you

want to bring it up for the listeners now I guess I think like there's a part of me that's still really stubborn and really outspoken and really opinionated and I talk over people in the room and I know listeners get upset with me because of that they probably get upset with all of us because of that but I'm trying to shed more of that part of me and it's hard like that's who I was for a lot of my life you know yeah I don't think you need to change don't shed it all though yeah totally who you are and I don't think I don't think you could if you totally tried but if if you're saying that you're a different person and you have different priorities I think that's natural and hopefully we all that happens for all of us I just hope that doesn't mean that um you know that

you just start writing books and you're no longer on this podcast in a few years or something well writing books I mean they don't just write themselves like an Eli Manning retrospective is what we need from Wes you've really really gone through transition and they're 600 175 page Eli Manning novel. I've always been more of a tabbler than a finisher. And it's hard to be a dabbler and write books. Look at this. Oh, wow, look at this.

It's just started. Erica wants to get on the road. We want to get on the road. I mean, that was a hard turn. For Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, Erica Tamposi. We did it. We'll see you Thursday. This is an I-heart podcast.