The Bobby Bones Show - Lots to Say: The Quarterback, Author Jeff Pearlman, and 'Start, Bench, Cut'

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Bobby Bones and Matt Cassel discuss the culture of swapping jerseys after a game and how Matt missed out on most of it.  Watching The Quarterback Netflix series, Matt reflects on the insight from the show and how it compares to his own experiences.   NY Times Best Selling Author Jeff Pearlman begins with covering Barry Bonds and how great of a baseball player he was. Was Bonds' demeanor part of the reason his legacy has suffered so much?  Jeff recounts his book on the Cowboys and what made Jimmy Johnson's team so special.  What made Bo Jackson one of the best athletes of all-time and what was the one sport he couldn't play? Jeff talks about Brett Favre and why he was legendary. Jeff previews his project on Tupac (coming out in October) and how he spoke to over 650 people for research.  We play 'Start, Bench, Cut' with College Quartback trios from their alma-maters.  Put the QBs in order from Oklahoma, Florida, Oregon, and USC.  Matt and Bobby are both ready for real football and Matt is preparing for upcoming Media Days.   Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Cassel is part of the NFL Podcast Network See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Open your free IHeart radio app. Search 40s and free agents and listen now. Lots to Say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle is a production of the NFL and IHeart Podcasts. We got lots to say to say. We got lots to say. Now here's Bobby and Matt. Everybody, welcome to the show.

A question, when you played, and I know the culture of Jersey swapping and signing wasn't a thing. at least not as outwardly. Did you guys do that? Did you have anybody's jersey from when you played against? You're like, can I get your jersey? No, and thinking back, I would have probably liked to try to get some of these guys

that I played against and opponents that you just have a ton of respect for. But it really didn't become popular until later in my career when some of these younger guys started to go out and swap jerseys and do all that. And I thought, man, I really missed the boat on that one. Would have had a stacked up jersey case, you know. If you could go back and get one,

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's good. I mean, Farv, as I've said multiple times on this show, that he was just my childhood hero. One of those guys that I'd watch religiously had the Brett Farr of Cleats in high school, you know, just, and then also it goes back to my playing days when my first start in New England in the NFL was against the Jets and Brett Fav was the quarterback. And he was the first guy to come up right after the game, even though they lost, shake my hand and say, I'm really excited for you. That was such a big moment for me. Did he know you were a fan? No. Or was he just that person who was?

He was just that person. He had that type of polarizing personality that it was infectious. And you could tell, like, the way he played on the field was also how he interacted with you before the game after the game. And so that was cool to see that in person and actually have him come up because I really hadn't had any interaction with him prior to that. Yeah, that's cool. It was pretty cool. I did a deal once where I went up and I worked out with the Cardinals. and we were just shooting some content.

And I'm a Cubs fan, so it was weird for me to wear anything Cardinals. But also, I'm an adult now. So it's fine. So, yeah, so I'm out of game. Yeah, it's not as romantic as I'm never wearing Cardinal. Although I'd still really struggle putting on a Texas Longhorns anything. But you know what? Oh, is that Arkansas?

Oh, man. It's like, yeah, it's inside of me. But I go up and we are shooting this stuff, and Paul Goldschmidt comes out, who's not with the Yankees. And he's had an awesome career. Probably will be a Hall of Fame. and we're interviewing him. And he was like, you know, I used to listen to you when I was in college.

I was like 24. And he was like, 21. He was like, I listened to you in college when I was playing baseball. And I was like, no way. Goes, yeah, we listen to you every morning. And like, go. And so I took the microphone. This is such a stupid story, but.

I like it already. I took the microphone I was using. And small flex here, but I was the youngest person ever put into the Radio Hall of Fame. And so I flex. Nobody cares, though. So it's only small. I do. And so I signed it, and then I traded him a signed microphone for one of his signed bats.

That's cool. It was fun, and he thought it was funny. And so I still have the Paul Goldschmidt signed bat from his locker. That's rad. Yeah. That's a good exchange right there. See that? And so what I told him, I said, you're getting a Hall of Fame or I'm getting hopefully won.

You know, and luckily he's a good sport. Have you watched any of the quarterback series on Netflix? I've watched a little bit of it. Have you watched Season 1 or Season 2 or both? I think it was season one with Mahomes, Marriota, was Cousins in that one as well? Yes. He was in two seasons, right? So Cousins is still on this season.

On this season? Yeah. So, and I watched some as season one. I felt it was a little corny. At times. And I don't think it was the players. I think it was just how they would do the games. Like, it just felt, but I liked it.

Right. But there was a cornyness to it that didn't keep me completely invested. So I just watched clips. But it did make me like Kirk Cousins. because he didn't have anything to me other than coming out wearing the chain. I didn't understand like Kirk Cousins' aura. I didn't understand what he was as a person.

And not that a TV show gives you everything about a person, but it made me like Kurt Cousins. Right. He's a straight-laced, really good dude. Like solid dude. Solid human being, right? And there's no ego involved. He's a true professional in every sense of the word. And you can definitely see that as the season goes on

that his dedication to his craft to being the quarterback, the responsibility that comes along with that, and then going out and trying to perform at a high level. I do believe that that show gives you great insight into the stresses and what takes place during a season, whether it's battling minor injuries or whether it's, you know, you go through a difficult loss and just the logistics that go on in a season. Because a lot of time you just see the byproduct of all the hard work

that got put in during the week, and you just see the final outcome on a Sunday. but you don't really understand how much preparation and work goes into a weekly basis on a weekly basis to perform on Sunday. There's a scene in this season where it's Kirk Cousins' wife talking about getting the call from the coach, saying, hey, we need to talk. Cousins goes in, basically is told you're not the starter anymore. And then Cousins comes home and is obviously upset, sad, disappointed, whatever it is. understands, but is all of that. And then she walks and she sees him talking to Michael Pinnock on the phone.

Like, this is your job now. Like, you've got to get this. You've been waiting for this. How common is it that one quarterback would do something like that when they get pinched for the second quarterback? You know, I had a similar situation, I believe, when I was in my last year in Kansas City and Brady Quinn was our backup quarterback. Romeo Cornell was now our head coach.

He was the interim head coach after Todd Haley got fired in my third. third year. And I was just coming back off of a concussion. And so I thought I was going to come back in and play. I sat out one week. Brady started that week. And I thought I was coming back and it was going to be my job still. And I got called in and he said, hey, Matt, I know that this is tough circumstances, but we're going to go with Brady this week again. And, you know, nothing really prepares you for that type of conversation. When you're the starter and you envision yourself as a starter and it is a gut punch for sure. But you have two different ways in which you can handle it.

You can pout, you can get pissed off, you can be that guy that becomes a distraction. Or you're a guy that spends a lot of time with these other quarterbacks. You spend so much time throughout the course of a year with these quarterbacks. They're all your buddies and your friends. And so I went up to Brady and I said, hey, I just got the news. You're going to be starting this week. And look, at the end of the day, I'm going to be your biggest supporter. I'm not here to try to go behind your back.

and, you know, rally these guys against you, if that's their decision, that's their decision. And it takes, you know, you got to put on your big boy pants when that happens because you have to swallow your pride a little bit. And it's a difficult circumstance. But I don't know, I've also been around people that it doesn't always go that way. And they go into meetings, they could become a shell of themselves. You can openly see it on their face in which they're, they're not there for the team. They're there for themselves, so to speak. And so at some point, especially when you play a team sport, I think the biggest thing that you've got to first and foremost do

is you got to suck it up and do what's best for the team, even though you might not agree with it. If they were shooting this with the Patriots back when you played, imagine the season where Brady gets hurt and you go in. Like, what do you think of three main storylines would have been? Well, obviously, a kid that hadn't started since high school would be the number one storyline there. I think it would be the relationship and the dynamic

between Bill Belichick and how he's going to get this young, up, start going and give him confidence because he handled me differently than he had in years past when I was just the backup. He didn't ride me as much. He definitely held me accountable. Don't get me wrong, but he brought me in. I remember one day we had lost to the San Diego Chargers at the time, and we got beat pretty substantially. And I was wavering a little bit just because you're still trying to earn the confidence of your teammates at that point. He said, look, Matt, we're not bringing anybody else in. We've got you.

We believe in you. And that was different because I hadn't had any discussion like that with him before one-on-one where he came up and openly said positive things and tried to reinforce that, hey, you're here for a reason. Now just go out and do your job to the best of your ability. And we think that that'll be enough. And so I think that that dynamic would be interesting. And then there's also the Brady Castle relationship throughout the course.

Oh, my goodness. Tom Brady calling right now. Tom, hold on. I'll talk to you right after that about cover two defense and why I should have run instead of throwing that ball into a double defense. No, but then there's that relationship, and I think it was an interesting dynamic

because of everything he was going through with the surgery, and then at the same time, something went wrong with the surgery. They had to go back in and all that stuff, but then the conversations that we'd have on a weekly basis and the support factor that he had was definitely an interesting storyline, maybe not as much as we started to win games

and started to see these guys and these veteran guys like Rodney Harrison and Matt Light and all the guys that I had had relationships with Rally around me, Teddy Bruske, and the confidence that started to breed through the team even though they knew Tom Brady was in the shadows when was going to come back at some point

but started the belief within the building and not listening to all the other people talk about, well, they're done for the year. They can't do anything because the quarterback situation is a major issue. Were you traded right after that season? I was traded. So at first, because of the situation with Tom's knee and how long it would take,

they franchise me. So I was franchised, so I was under contract. And then as- Did that season start with you on the team? No, the next season did not start. So we're, so Scott Pioly, who was the head of player personnel with New England, got the GM job with the Kansas City Chief. and then shortly thereafter, I got a phone call from Bill Belichick that said he was making the trade for me,

and I was going to Kansas City. Is that because they knew or they felt pretty positive about Brady's knee actually being able to, and then they held on to you just in case, right? Right, and I think that I was the backup plan again, just in case he wasn't ready to go. They knew that they had somebody that could go out and win games. and so instead of just letting me become a free agent, they had me as the emergency plan basically under a franchise tender with the understanding that they had control over my rights

and could trade me anywhere. If you get traded and you're tagged, so if you get tagged, it's one year and it's like the average of the top five quarterback or whatever it was then, that's a significant bump. And if you get franchised for that year but you're traded, do you still get paid the same amount that they franchised you for for that year? So I was traded under the franchise tag for the one-year franchise tag.

So I didn't have to sign a long-term deal with Kansas City. But what it does do is gives you a bargaining chip for, as you said, the average of the top five players at that position, that that's my starting point for year one moving forward to sign a long-term deal. So I signed a six-year deal with them. But that was kind of the bargaining chip that we had was, hey, well, this is our starting point, which was pretty significant at that point in my career, obviously. So when they trade a franchise player, they're trading the franchised one-year contract. Right. And a lot of times the other organization will not make a trade for a player until they get a deal in place. Because otherwise, you get that player for one year, and then they could play under the franchise tender and leave to go somewhere else.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So if somebody has been franchised, they decide to finally trade them, they'll try to make sure that a deal's in place, signed sealed and delivered, before they bring them in to their organization. Who was the backup quarterback after you left in New England? Kevin O'Connell. So Kevin O'Connell was there. And then I think it was either the year I left or the following year that they brought in Jimmy Garoppolo. Was O'Connell your backup?

He was my backup. So he was drafted in like the second or third round. The fourth year, that's the year that Brady went down. I was in my final year of my rookie contract. And they drafted him. And I was like, oh, boy, they already drafted my replacement. So I'm like sitting there battling my ass off during training camp saying, hey, this is job security.

I got to win this job or they could maybe go with Kevin O'Connell. And luckily I did. But all of a sudden, Brady goes down. And now Kevin O'Connell's my backup quarterback. So then it was the two of us. And then maybe Matt Gutierrez, they brought back as like a third string guy on the team as well. And in the following year, they might have drafted Jimmy the next year. If not, then Kevin, I think was the backup quarterback.

back the next year. That's pretty cool. Your backups now the Vikings' frigging head coach. Yeah, it's killing it. Yeah. I mean, he's such a good dude. Was he a dude, though, too you could see being a coach? 100%.

I mean, I say that, but it was probably later on I started to see that that was the way that he was going to go in his trajectory. Whereas when you come in as a rookie quarterback, any rookie quarterback, especially in that situation, you're kind of fish out of water. You're trying to find your footing, understand what's going on, all the different elaborate calls that we had at the line of scrimmage, the checks. And I'd been in that system for four years. So there was a lot of a learning curve right there. But then as the discussions progressed over the years, you start to see immediately, oh, he gets it. Jeff Perlman coming up next. He wrote books on FAR,

Bo Jackson, the 90s Dallas Cowboys, Barry Bonds. He's got, how many of, number one, one bestsellers he have, Kevin? Ten. Ten number one bestsellers. He has a book on Tupac coming out. He is literally one of my favorite interviews that I can do or anytime he's on anything, I'll watch. We will talk to him coming up next. The 2026 NFL draft is here and the NFL Daily podcast has it covered from all angles. Join me, Greg Rosenthal and Jordan Roderig after night one on Thursday. Nick Schuck joins me night two Friday and then Sunday to recap everything that went down over the three days. in Pittsburgh. We'll tell you who won the draft and which players were my favorite picks.

Listen to NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and free agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stopped. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency, the combine. The NFL draft Pro Days trades. This is where teams reshers. This is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money. On 40s and free agents, we break down every move that actually matters. From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits, to my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the

tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise, and what it means for your favorite team. Real Conversations every week. I'm not about the smart, but definitely analysis. Listen to 40s and free agents on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'd like to welcome Jeff Perlman, who I'd say is a friend. We never actually met in person, but like he, I don't know, we text.

I'm like, it's cool. I'm texting with Jeff Perlman. Jeff, thanks for coming on. You know, I don't pick my friends easy, but if I can find one on TikTok, I'm all in. Yeah. A fun thing that Jeff did, because Jeff was, are you an adjunct professor? Would that be your title there?

Correct. And so will you explain to Matt the project that you did and that I was a part of? Yeah, well, Matt, you should be warned. Now you're going to be going to be roped into this. I can't wait. Yeah, I do. Final product I teach basically long-form journalism at Chapman. Not that far from where you grew up.

You knew Chapman. Did you know Chapman growing up? I know Chapman. Yeah, Orange Circle. So we taught a final lesson was every student, we do a draft of notable people. And Bobby was in this year's draft. In fact, he was the number one pick in the draft. And they have to write a, you know, 2,000-word profile of the person.

So we interviewed them, interviewing some of people from their lives and write these long pieces about them. So Bobby did go number one in the draft. He can always hold that over you. Was there any stiff competition, though, is what the next question I have to ask? Like, who went second in the draft? Wait, I don't remember who went second in the draft. You never do. You know, Marcus Latimore, I think, went second actually.

Oh, wow. The former. And so that's a pretty good pick right there. Yeah. You know? We're Latimore on our projections. We had Latimore going one, Bowens going seventh. But so he won.

No, I didn't know there was a projection list. I told Jeff. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I said, I'm happy to do it because whatever you want me to do. I'm in. I said, but I'm so nervous about getting picked last. It's just like that, you know, from being a kid.

He didn't pick last and everything. That was, that was what I. And she did good, right? The grade was good. Yeah, she got an A. I mean, you know, you were no Lattimore, but you were very good. Nice. Very, very, of course.

That's what I'm often told. You're no Lattimore, but we'll take it. But you're the first overall pick, man. Let's go. I do want to start, Jeff, with a question about something we've talked about on this show a whole bunch. And I would just like your opinion since you wrote on Barry Bonds. I have said, and it was a very hot take, flaming hot. And nobody wants to touch it.

That I think Barry Vons was better at baseball than Michael Jordan was a basketball. What do you think about that crazy hot take? I mean, if you're, you have to throw in the fact that he was using performance enhancing drugs, obviously, all right? So we're saying that. We're allowing that as a thing. I probably would agree with you. I mean, when I was covering bonds, I was at Sports Illustrated covering bonds at his absolute freakish heyday when he was going over 70 in home runs. You couldn't pitch to him.

I mean, the ultimate moment for me was they were playing the Diamondbacks bases were loaded. And Buck Shawlwater walked him intentionally to walk in a run because the fear of him hitting a grand slam was so great. I mean, that doesn't happen. So he definitely, he was unpitchable. You could not pitch to Barry Bonds. He had no weak spot in a strike zone. He could turn on anyone's fastball. So yeah, at his best, juice or not,

we're just saying whatever, he was as great a performer as you'll see. Yeah, I think juice counts because it was just what we saw and what we got to live through. I felt smoking hot take that he was, nobody wanted to face him ever. Jordan was one of five. It's one-on-one with bonds in the.

the pitcher, you know, and so I felt like you could double team Jordan to make somebody else score. You really couldn't double team bonds. What you could do is walk him or you could hit him, and that was pretty much it. He, um, he was at a real unique place in his career. He basically had, like when I was growing up, Ricky Henderson had the, you know, impenetrable strikes. Like, you couldn't pitch to Ricky Anderson. And Bond is the only other guy I knew who had that, where he just, he had an incredible eye for the ball. You couldn't pitch to him. It's not like you could fool him on pitches. He had the Tony Gwynne intelligence, the Ricky Henderson Strike Zone, and the Babe Ruth Power, all combined in one player. So, yeah, I mean, at his best, I've never seen

anyone like that. Because of the performance enhancing, performance enhancing aspect to his career, do you think that he doesn't get the credit for being the Michael Jordan of batting that otherwise he would if all these different stories didn't come out? I think there's two things about it. I think number one, he definitely gets an asterisk to his name by a lot of people. I think number two, just being honest, being completely honest about this, he was mean to people.

Like he was a mean guy. He was a mean guy to cover. He was a mean guy to teammates. He was a mean guy to fans. He was a kind of guy where, like, in basic terms, you hold the door for me. He doesn't say thank you. So, and this is my last Bond's question,

but where do you think that is based? Like, what's the trot? Because I have some traits about me. they're great, some that are awful based on how I grew up in the circumstances I grew up in. Not good, but have made me really strong in some ways and my at times, like my human

emotional intelligence isn't great. But what happened in Barry Bonds' life do you think, because you spent all this time learning about him and talking to people that knew him from all ages, why did he become a d-a- I think it's a great question actually. I think a lot of what happened with Bonds

has to do with being raised. So his dad, Bobby Bonds, was a major the other primary mayor role model in his life who some called his godfather was willie maize and those two guys when they were playing baseball it was the era where the black ball player should just be grateful for being here and if a black ball player needed a day off he was a complainer he was a maliner for black ball player asked for more for more money he was ungrateful you know etc etc and i really think barry saw from those guys understandably that like baseball wasn't going to treat you that well. And you had to be your own guy. You had to be resilient. You had to be a

bad. You couldn't take anything at face value. These guys were going to pay your lip service, but they really weren't going to treat you well. And I just think from Bonds, from Willie Maze, from being growing up in the clubhouse around these guys, he developed a very severe shell that came off in very prickly ways. I mean, Willie Maze was not a fun guy to deal with. He was a joyful baseball player. Willie Maze was kind of the same way. Bobby Bond was kind of the same way. They just developed a prickliness that didn't turn off. Jeff, you wrote the book, Boys Will Be Boys, and it was about the glory days, the party nights of the Dallas Cowboys. Now, we all have heard these stories of the 1990s Cowboys and their partying ways. When you think about those teams with all those different personalities,

and then I think of Jimmy Johnson, right? And he kind of let them be themselves. How much of a role did he play in the success of keeping that group together and being able to go out and actually perform on Sundays with all the chaos going on outside the building? So he was, it's kind of amazing. Like their first Super Bowl run, this is like Jimmy Johnson, nutshell, their first Super Bowl run, they play a playoff game against the Chicago Bears. And they're winning big. And late in the game, Jimmy Johnson inserts their backup running back to Emmett Smith.

It's a guy named Curvin Richards, who had been a star pit, I think he'd been a fourth round pick, the Cowboys. They inserted him in the game, playoff game, Cowboys are winning big, insignificant fourth quarter. Curvin Richards fumbles twice. And after the game, Jimmy Johnson goes into Jerry Jones's office and says, I want to cut Curvin Richards. And Jerry Jones says, well, it's too late we can't cut him because we can't replace his roster spot. I don't give a crap. We're cutting that guy. I don't want that guy in my team anymore.

And he's like, are you sure? You're going to have a man short. Cut him. And they cut Curvin Richards. And it wasn't like Jimmy Johnson hated Curvin. Richard's. His number one thing was, I want to send a message, right, to my team that, like, I will do this to you. And the other thing he did that I like, I don't know, kind of actually interested how you had this in your career. Like, he made it very clear, I am not treating all

of you the same. Like, Trey Eggman, Emmett Smith, Charles Haley, Darren Woodson, will get better treatment than Clayton Holmes and Kevin Smith. Like, that's just the way it is. And you guys need to know that. With stardom comes better treatment and more empathy and more understanding. And I actually think the players who are lower on the totem pole responded to that with fear fighting for your job all the time. And the players like Aikman just felt comfort in knowing that their coach had their back. I don't know if that's uncommon or not. You would actually know better. Well, it's interesting because I played for Bill Belichick. And Bill Belichick always treated everybody equally. And nobody really got special treatment. And I'm talking about from Brady

to Randy Moss, if you did something in a game that you need to be called out for, he'd call you out in front of the entire team. And so it was always this interesting dynamic because you definitely felt it as a young guy that you've got to step up, but you're going to be held accountable in every phase. Now, other coaches operate differently. And by that, I mean, same thing that you just kind of discussed was certain players have earned the right to not be thrown under the fire in front of the team, maybe talk to individually or have a discussion on the side, whereas the younger players were the guys that were going to get most of the criticism in those meetings. So it was all based on the coach and what you would see.

But Bill Belichick did it completely different. Yeah, that's interesting. What about like Todd Hayley? What about those other coaches you had? Were they different than Belichick in that way? Not so much. Like, I remember Todd Haley. This was a funny story.

Jackie Battle was on kickoff team, and we had a kickoff or it was a punt team, excuse me, and the ball was a touchback. Jackie Battle wasn't even around the ball. but Todd thought that he was the guy that was supposed to block it and get us to get a little down ball inside the 10 yard line. Well, he's running off the sideline and Jackie doesn't know what's going on.

He can see Todd yelling on him. He's like, Jackie, your asses cut tomorrow. You're cut tomorrow. And to Todd's credit, the next day he found out it wasn't even Jackie battle. It was another player. And so he went up and said, Jackie, don't worry, your job's safe for now

because I realized that wasn't even you. But, I mean, he's coming off the field in the first quarter of a game. yelling at him, you're cut, you're cut. So he kind of had the same, he came from that Parcell's tree where he's going to get after you, he's going to ride you, he's going to make sure that you're accountable like that. So it's all based on where these guys come from and the pedigree that they grew up in. With all the athletes that you've written, and you've written a lot of books and a lot of great

athletes, and I use the word athlete because I'm going to ask about Bo Jackson. Was Bo Jackson the best athlete of all of the athletes that you've covered, or did he just choose wisely? Oh, no, there's no close second. There's no close second. I mean, it sounds fictional. Okay, I acknowledge it sounds fixed. He ran a 41340 at Auburn, and he was 220 pounds and a track star. He shows up at the Raiders, and he puts on pads and Tom Flores as a coach, and he's like,

let's have you do a 40, almost for entertainment. And you're in a 419, and they didn't believe it. So they laid it out again and he ran a 417. Like he was prop. I always say, like, this is what I always say. People are like, oh, Bo Jackson, blah, blah. I'm like, all right, there have been other Tyree Kill super fast, right? Whoever, Barry Bond's super powerful.

The clip of Barry Bond's climbing up the wall in Baltimore. Literally running toward a wall thinking I can either stop and pop something, run forward, running up the wall, running across the wall, running down the wall. There's no other footage of any other human doing that ever. Like literally, there's one person who has climbed up a major league baseball while during a game, run across the wall and run down the wall. And that's Bo Jackson. And we say that to me is the perfect embodiment of who he was.

So he's the only human being on the planet who could run up the wall or run across the wall. He was just the unparalleled merging of power and strength and strength and speed. Just there's no one like it. much money do you think he'd make in the NIL space now on today's college game? I mean, I mean, pick the max. He was playing at Auburn. He was a super duper dupe. I mean, it's funny. Like he was, you know, they're all getting paid under the table back then. And in hindsight, it was his pennies. He'd be the one thing he lacked, I mean, the one thing he actually lacked is charisma. Like he was not a charismatic human being. He had a stutter. He grew up with a stutter.

It took him a long time to feel confident talking. So I don't know how great he would have been at that stage in his life as a pitchman. Even if you look at the Bo-Nose campaign, Bo-Nose baseball, Bo-Nose football, one of the great keys of that is he didn't have to say very much. There was a limited interactive advertising series that worked wonders. So I think the one thing he would not be a TikTok superstar.

He wouldn't be an Instagram superstar as a conversationalist. But his athleticism was so freaky. The other thing is it's a problem with nowadays. Like a lot of Bo Jackson truly was the mythology of it all. Like he ran a 4-1-340s, documented, blah, blah, blah, but there is no video of it. You know, like, the people with the Raiders swear they clocked him in 419, showed me the 4.9 clocking, but there's no video of it.

And there's something about seeing stuff that actually removes the mythology of it all. Like, once you see it, it feels a little less. It's like Babe Ruth's pointed shots. The reason that's so mythological is because we can't see it. I feel like the same thing with Bo Jackson. And once you splash stuff on TikTok, it loses a little bit of, like, Shohei Otani, if he'd come along in the 70s, we'd be talking about these things he did that you wouldn't believe.

But now we can see him and they seem a little less believe less amazing because we see him. If that makes sense. The 2026 NFL draft is here and the NFL Daily podcast has it covered from all angles. Join me, Greg Rosenthal and Jordan Roderig after night one on Thursday. Nick Shook joins me night two Friday and then Sunday to recap everything that went down over the three days in Pittsburgh. We'll tell you who won the draft and which players were my favorite. favorite picks. Listen to NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and free agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stopped. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg, free agency, the combine, the NFL draft pro days, trades. This is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money on 40s and 40s. free agents, we break down every move that actually matters. From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits to my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move.

We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season. Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise, and what it means for your favorite team. Smart analysis, real conversations every week. I don't know about the smart, but definitely. Definitely analysis.

Listen to 40s and free agents on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Because Bo Jackson was from a small town and he played these sports young, was he like playing shortstop and pitching and playing quarterback and where they put the best athletes and then eventually he ends up being a running back in an outfielder? Yeah, he was a pitcher who threw in the 90s. He had no control. He played shortstop in high school. I think he had 40-something errors at shortstop. like he had no glove at shortstop, was drafted by the Yankees

a little bit with the idea of being a shortstop, never signed with the Yankees, didn't play basketball, sucked to basketball, was obviously really good at football, played on the defense, you know, you played both ways back then, obviously.

And he was just really drafted more than anything as this a supernova athlete, you know, who could do everything. But he couldn't play basketball, couldn't dribble a lick of basketball. What do you think his career would have been if he didn't get that injury to the hip? against the Bengals, what do you think the outlook of, or the projection of what he would have

become? So I think he was a better football player than a baseball player. Like I think in football, he probably has an Eric Dicker, you know, he's in that, he's on that conversation with Eric Dickerson and Walter Payton and Marcus Allen and all those guys. I think in baseball, his thing about baseball was he never like, he never, because he chose to play football, he never took the time to learn the things in baseball you need to learn. pitch selection, reading the motions, reading a defense, looking where the second baseman is playing, none of that stuff at all. So, like, physically, he was compared to a Roberto Clemente, a Mike Trout, a Mickey Mantle.

I think realistically, if he'd continued to play, he probably would have had a Gary Sheffield-type career, which is a great career at a borderline Hall of Fame career. I think football was definitely his better sport, but he was exceptional both. I mean, he's an all-star in baseball and a pro-bowl and football. I do want to go over to Brett Farr. A lot of people don't know about the car accident that almost killed Brett and you wrote about it in your book.

Tell us about that. And just talk about it from the beginning a bit because, again, I didn't know about it until I read it. Oh, my God. Well, it was at Southern Miss. He almost died. Like, that's the thing people don't know about Brett Farf. He almost died in a car accident.

Had to miss... I forgot what year was. I wrote that book a while ago now. I forgot what year was he missed. But the basic idea was he wouldn't play football. ball again. At first it was he's not going to play this season. Then it's like he's not going to play the end of the season. But then Favre just shows up and plays. Like the guy was just say what you want about Favre. There's a lot of good. There's a lot of bad. Like what he developed at Southern

Miss was his air of indestructibility. You know like, I mean, first, this is off topic a little, but first game ever, he wasn't even really on the depth chart. And they're playing Tulane and the coach throws him in late. Farvard had, I think he said he had 18 beers a night before. And he's on the sideline. And the head coach is like, great, you're going in. And he vomits all over the sideline, goes in and beats Tulane. Like, no matter what that guy did, almost dying a car accident, 18 beers waste on the sideline, he just always found a way. So he was supposed to be dead. And instead he winds up just playing. In your opinion, what was it about Favv that people just gravitated to and drew them about his play on the field.

You know, it's funny. Like, he just had this thing. Like, the years, I would say the post-retirement years have not been kind to Brett Farr, reputation-wise, we take the Jen Sturger thing, the Mississippi Welfare thing. The thing that was really interesting about him is, like, guys just, like, felt him. Like, you could be a black wide receiver from L.A., you could be a running, running back from the sticks of Louisiana. He had this way of really relating to people

and this awe-shocks thing about relating to people. And also, like, I will die for you. Like, there are a million clips of Brett Favrewing these ridiculous blocks on, like, end-ar-rounds, where a lot of quarterbacks might sound to skirt out of the way a little bit. He just would freaking die for you. That was the biggest thing about Fav, you know?

And, like, he was factually likable. He was beers after the game in an error where that was fading out. he was, oh, you want to hang out? Let's go duck hunting. Let's go here, blah, blah, blah. Black wide receivers love that guy. The offensive line and the white guys who went hunting, love that guy.

Like, he had a very unique relatability. It's one of the things I think that happened to Aaron Rogers in a way is he walked into a trap in Green Bay. Because Aaron Rogers isn't that guy, wasn't that guy, couldn't be that guy, but people were so used to that guy in Farr. But there's only, there are very few guys like that, like a Terry Bradshaw, that type of guy, you know. We're just a few months out from the Tupac book. coming out. Why, Tupac? Love Tupac. Felt like there'd never been a definitive, definitive, interview, 650 people, dig fully into his life, bookwritten. I went to try something beyond sports. All my books have been sports. My career has been sports. And I just thought,

here's a guy I'm genuinely fascinated by a guy whose music speaks to me. And I thought, why not a white sports writer? You know, why not a, that's the one thing my agent said to me. I'm going to be honest, my agent's like, he's like, he's like, you know there's going to be some people are going to be like, why a white sports writer? And I think it's a fair question. And I just, from the beginning, I'd be like, because I'm fascinated by this guy. And there's a book out there that I want to read that I haven't seen yet. So I'm going to try writing it.

When you say you interviewed 650 people, which I believe you, obviously. Talk to me about how much information of that 650 interviews you actually use or just use as cross-referencing to make sure the, I am just, it's so interesting to me that you can go and go into that much detail. but take 650 references for one book. Yeah, it drives me crazy. So, like, example I used a lot is like, all right, Tupac went to the Baltimore School of Performing Arts for two years.

That was his high school. And I got all the yearbooks, right? So you go in there, and you go name by name through the yearbooks, and you literally make a file for everyone, not just as classmates, but everyone who is there, teachers, staff, janitors, etc. And one by one, you reach out to these people. And like, in a way, the best example I use is like Brett Farr, right?

You work on a Brett Farr. This is my guiding principle in life, actually, as a journalist. Brett Farr played all those years of football. At some point, there was a free agent running back from Lehigh in training camp with the Packers, right? He was there for three weeks. Brett Farr Farr isn't going to remember anything. He probably wouldn't even remember that guy existed. Bob Jones from Lehigh.

But Bob Jones from Lehigh is going to remember the one time Brett Farrv walked up to him and offered him a bag of Pringles, right? Bob Jones is going to remember that for the rest of his life. The free agent from Lehigh was telling that story at family reunions, barbecues, et cetera, for the rest of his life. That's the same with Tupac at Baltimore School for the Arts. You find the one person who's like, oh, yeah, I used to have lunch with him on Tuesdays.

He always drank blank. Or I was in his class. The one thing I remember is I always used to listen to this Kate Bush song, blah, blah, blah. So, like, out of the 650 interviews, I probably quote 300 of the people directly. Of the information I get, like the 10,000 pages of information,

I probably use 3%. Right? Like in the book, literally the 3%. But even knowing, it could be someone could be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring. You know, Tupac always used to drink Diet Pepsi. Bingo. Like that little detail tells you something different

than he used to drink soda. He used to drink Diet Pepsi. It tells you something about someone. So you're always just looking. for those little details, scouring the little details, if that makes sense. Totally. Jeff Perlman, you guys follow him on TikTok. He's the best and the book's coming out.

And if you're just a sports fan and no more time, but his book, Showtime, ended up being winning time. So about the Lakers. Right. It was a great series, which should have never been canceled. Stupid COVID. One of the worst things about COVID, other than people dying, obviously, that show was canceled because it was an excellent show.

And congratulations on everything. We really appreciate the time, Jeff. Oh, thank you so much. Thanks, Jeff. NFL draft is here and the NFL Daily podcast has it covered from all angles. Join me, Greg Rosenthal and Jordan Roderig after night one on Thursday. Nick Shook joins me night two Friday and then Sunday to recap everything that went down over the three days in Pittsburgh. We'll tell you who won the draft and which players were my favorite picks. Listen to NFL Daily

with Greg Rosenthal on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and free agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stopped. This is my favorite part of the calendar. Yeah, mine too, Greg. Free agency, the combine, the NFL draft, Pro Days, trades.

This is where teams reshape their future. This is where Daniel Jeremiah makes his money. On 40s and free agents, we break down every move that actually matters. From my draft evaluations, mock drafts, and team fits, to my top 101 free agents and how real rosters are built, cap space, contracts, and all the tough decisions included. You got quarterbacks on the move. We got teams rebuilding. It's hope season.

Yeah, absolutely. It's hope season. We'll tell you what's real, what's noise, and what it means for your favorite team. Smart analysis, real conversations every week. I don't know about the smart, but definitely analysis. Listen to 40s and free agents on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's play a game. Kevin, what is the game?

Called Start, Cut, and Bench. Oh, is just like F. Mary Kill? Yeah, pretty much. Football version of it. Got it. So start... How about Start Bench Cut? Yeah, I guess that makes more sense.

I was going to say, they can't even get to the bench. By the way, how do you say the game, and I'm going to do my hands so physically, but how do you say this game? Rock, paper, scissors. Interesting, because I don't say it in that order. How do you say it? Paper, rock, scissors. I've never. ever met anybody that says scissors, paper rock.

No one leaves with scissors? Paper, scissors, for sure. I would say rock, paper scissors. What would you say, Brandon? Paper, rock. You would say paper, yeah, paper. That's weird.

I'd say rock. Rock paper scissors? Yeah. Yeah. What do I say? What do you say? I said rock scissors. Yeah.

Yeah. No, you said paper rock scissors. I don't know. Now I'm confused. You said paper rock scissors. Yeah, you said paper rock scissors. Yeah. What are we going to play?

Let's say, let's say, let's say, let's do paper rock scissors. Perfect. That's all I'd say. Let's play start bench cut. Okay. Start bench cut. Before we get to start bench cut, what do you call those things at the movies that run before the movie starts? Previews?

Got it. What do you call them? Trailers. Well, I don't call them trailers, but there is a large contingent of people who call them trailers. The people in the biz? Or the people. I don't know. The two people I know are from the Midwest.

So they refer to them as, oh, I'm going to get there early and watch the trailers. Because they are trailers, but I would say previews. Previews. What do you call, what do you call if you're going to go get a soda from the gas station? What do you call it? I don't call it a pop. I call it a soda. You would even call it a soda.

See, we call everything was a Coke when I'm from. Everything was a Coke. Yeah, that was the weird part because my family, my cousins and stuff grew up in Ohio. They either called it a Coke or a pop. And it was only Coke. We always said soda. The soda for me now, because I've had to love. learn to adapt to the normal.

Just not have a super distinct southern dialect. Yeah, because a Coke, you could still say a Coke where you're from, and it could be a Sprite. Oh, for sure. It almost was never the actual Coca-Cola product. Hey, what do you want to drink? Give me a Coke. What kind?

Dr. Pepper. Yeah. Interesting. Anyway, just old vernacular. Exercise. A little regional thing there. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

So the game is called start bench cut. Start bench cut. Start bench scissors. Start bench scissors. Yeah. So you got to start. start one, you got a bench one, and you got to cut one. I'm going to go through five colleges.

Now, these are the players' quarterbacks in their college days, not NFL, just when they were in college playing for these programs. Okay, we'll take turns going first. Okay. You can go first on the first one. All right. Number one is Oklahoma. You got Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, and Caleb Williams.

Okay. I'm going to start. Did all three win a Heisman? Yes. Wow. Because I started to go, well, Caleb won a He won the Heisman. Start Kyler Murray. No, but we're talking about when they were in college.

Start Kyle Murray, bench Baker Mayfield, and cut. My boy. Williams. Okay, I'm going to start Baker Mayfield. And I'm going to tell you why. The dude was a walk on twice. Yeah, he was awesome. And because all three of these guys are elite, which is what makes the game hard and fun.

The fact that he was a walk on at. tech and went over to Oklahoma and did the same freaking thing. And didn't Kyler wait on Baker Mayfield to graduate before he even got to start? Yeah. And like Baker stayed in, I think, an extra year or two. And Kyler just stayed and sat. And then bawled out. And then bawled out.

I'm going to go, I'm going to start Baker. Okay. Although I'm going to have to pay him more NIL money probably than the other two because he had a bigger personality. Yes, he did. Yeah. And personality is really that plus talent equals NIL. NIL.

So Baker, I'm going to bench Kyler, just like in the old days. Yes. And then I'm going to cut Caleb, who didn't play on the team when he was like four. Well, he was only there also for like a year. Yeah. But he bawled out when he came in for Rattler. Yeah. Right, he did.

He bawled out. And he left for this coach. But he left. Yeah. So, I mean, the cut thing, he kind of cut himself. He did win the freaking Heisman, though. It's tough because they're all high. At USC, though.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. They all won the Heism. I know. Well, you don't count as you can't count as you. USC. I thought he said college. He did. Yeah. Yeah, but for the...

But he was at Oklahoma technically to start. So if they're all in the same team and yeah, he won the Hysman, just not out. All right, what else you got? Number two. I'll go first. Florida, Danny Worfell, Tim Tebow, and Rex Grossman. Okay, I'm going Tebow number one. Without a doubt. And speaking of which, NIL money, you got, we have none left after Baker, but I'm talking about we are deep in debt. We are deep in debt with Tebow. And he's donating it all, too. Like, we just get to.

He's donating it. Yeah. He's got programs all over the world. Babies are getting circumcised in every country. So. Pilgrimage. I'm going Tebow at one. And you had to,

Werfel and who? Grossman. Marks Grossman. Did Warfell win a national championship there? With. With Florida? I believe he did. You should fact check me on this.

Yep. Because I believe the old ball coat. I mean, that was all. Yeah. I'm going to go Warful. I'm just going from memory, though. Like, who do I remember more playing? Yeah, 96.

They won a title, right? They won it, yep. I'm going to go Warful and then Grossman. But Grossman, I don't know, Grossman was so good. He's so good. I know. He was really good. I'm letting his NFL days. I know.

Which is unfair because Warful didn't have the run Grossman had in the NFL, but because we didn't see him as much, we don't think of him being terrible, because Grossman with the Bears went to the Super Bowl. Yes, but I'm telling you, in my mind, Grossman, the Bears went to the Super Bowl in lieu of, in spite of Grossman. And it's not fair because that's not true.

But I'm going to go Warful, then Grossman. I'm going to do the exact same. I mean, Warfell won a national championship. Tim Tebow's Tim Tebow, the next coming. And Rex Grossman was an outstanding quarterback in college. But between those two, that's where I'm going. The negative association I have with Grossman, is totally unfair, though.

It is. He gets a bad rap. Yep. And because, and I'm going to tell you what else is unfair. I think a Grossman with the Bears and I also think of Mitch Trubisky with the Bears,

who had a lot of hype and didn't play. So then I associate those two together. So then I feel worse about Grossman because I feel like he's Mitch Trubisky and they picked him over my homes. Like this is unfair where my mind goes. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a rabblehold.

So like Grossman compared to my homes. Yeah, all three are awesome. All right. Next up. Okay. Oregon here. You got Mark. Marcus Mariotta, Justin Herbert, and Joey Harrington.

Okay, I'm going with Marcus Marietta, start. Joey Harrington bench, and I'm going with Justin Herbert. Cut. I'm going to go the same. Recency bias may be a bit here, but the reason I'm going to go with, especially with Mariotta. I remember Marietta, and we were up there. There's a whole facility.

It's the most amazing facility ever. It's like the little island. Yes, it's crazy. The island with all of his high school teammates and everything there. He's a god. And Joey Harrington was on the cover of college football back in the day on PlayStation. So that automatically gets him on the team. Do you remember the billboard that they had for his Heisman Trophy?

In New York. They put it up in New York. They put it up in New York. It was just Joey Harington. Super tall. Super tall. That was it. Okay, we're the same on that one. Give us another one.

Okay, Texas here. You got Vince Young. None. Eliminate them all. Colt McCoy, Vince Young, and Chris Sims. Just as you said him. So, yeah, the Chris Sims issue that I have is I was there whenever it was Sims and Applewhite. And Sims was brought in as the big five star, but Applewhite was still winning.

And it was constant. Who's going to start? And there was, like, drama. And Applewhite got hurt. So I was just annoyed by the whole situation. Sims is third. You don't like the controversy. I don't like Texas.

And so that made me even more annoyed with them. You said cut them all. Yes. Vince Young did win a national championship. Yes. Sorry, against your boys. I know he did. That was the Bush.

That was probably the greatest, maybe one of, probably the greatest college football game of all time. Yeah. I was living in a lost. Three Heisman trophy winners just in that game.

Reggie Bush, Matt Linerd. And did Vince Young? No, he lost the line. No, he lost the line. Or Bush. But also, USC, they had Bush. They had Thunder and Lightning.

Lindel White. And Lyndle White. Reggie Bush. Duane Jerry. That was... That was crazy. Mike Williams. I'm going to go Vince Young, then Colt McCoy.

And Vince gets it because of the... But Vince was like Cam Newton. Unstoppable. You is an absolute freak of nature. He was. And we've, again, I'm not associated... NFL. I shouldn't do anything in NFL.

Dual threat, quarterback, everything. Yeah, Vince Young, Colt McCoy, and Chris Sims. You two, Matt, same thing? Same thing. All right, last one here. USC. Boom. Okay, we got Carson Palmer, Matt Liner.

and our boy, Maddie Gassel. Are we talking just about college? Yeah. Can we kill? Can we put the kill one back in? Yeah, I put the kill. Well, I'm cutting liner because that means I'm playing. That's funny.

That's funny. All right. Well, if we're talking just about college, I mean, I played with all these dudes. Sepok is the most physically impressive human I've ever been around before. We called him Seapok. Carson Palmer. Special number one draft pick overall.

Physically, why? Because I don't think of him. Dude, he's 6.5. Barrel chested has an absolute cannon for an arm. Footwork like he's 6'1. Like his feet were just dynamic when he talked about perfect footwork dropbacks.

You know, like with those old clips that you used to see of Aikman just in rhythm, this guy had it all. And not only that, I think he ran a 4-5, 4-6 coming out. I'm glad you said that. Because did you guys think of him as like a superior as a superior quarterback? Yes.

but obviously we didn't know him. We weren't arms late. He's a freak athlete. That's crazy. I didn't know that. 465. 465. Wow.

I'm telling you it's 6.5. He's white, so he seems slow. And he's a quarterback, so he seems slow. And he stands super tall. So, yeah. He's that big. And he was at a time where USC was struggling and kind of brought us back into prominence. Like when his senior year, when he came back and made the decision to come back, we went to the Orange Bowl.

And we beat, I think it was Iowa. for the first orange bowl victory. That's really what set Pete Carroll up in that kind of dynasty. But he took the program to the next level. So I'm going to go with Carson Palmer. I like how I stated the first, but you're going to have to go with Matt Linerd, obviously, both those guys,

Heisman Trothie winners, but Matt won, what, two national championships, back to back, and then, I mean, I'd still like to be on the team, but obviously if we've got to cut somebody. We have a spot for you. We got a spot for you. Yeah, tied in.

Yeah. Thanks, Coach Carol. That's exactly what I came here for. Go get my head beat in. Yeah, I guess I got to go with the same. I had a loyalty, though. You know what? I'm going to put Castle with my backup.

Yeah. The guy did great work. It's backup later in life. You know, we can't go there. And the versatility. I was a starter, too, okay? Don't kid yourself. That's right.

Thank you guys for listening. Here's what I can't wait for. Football. I know. We've done this podcast now for months and months without any football. We've gone through the absolute hardest time. We started, what, in December? Yeah, like when it was over except for, like, the Super Bowl.

We got to talk about the playoffs with the Super Bowl, and then it was just off-season minutia. We have just been grinding through it. I'm ready to talk about real football. When's big comedy days? Next week, next week, the 22nd through the 24th. So we've got four teams a day for three days straight. It'll be fun.

Or maybe more than that. How many teams do they have now? What do you mean? Oh, you mean like they take the podium? Well, like, what do you do there? So we'll do interviews on the side. So what every, every big network like NBC, CBS, whoever has Fox, they'll all have their own space and rooms set up. So you'll come in and they'll do individual interviews with coaches, players.

I might do something on the side for their socials, talk to some of the quarterbacks and do all that. And then it's just about interactions with the coaches on the field. And then they'll go up and they've got about, I think, five, ten minutes on the podium and kind of talk about their program, promote their program, give us kind of their feelings about this upcoming season. It might be schedule. And then at night, they'll have some dinners that you get to go to and once again rub elbows with these guys and kind of talk to them and get to know them a little bit more.

So it's a fun time and it's also a great kickoff to the season. It's probably fun to go in. It's in Vegas this year too. Like other sports people, probably other ex-players. Yeah, it's a blast. It's a blast. So it's three days. It's like truly the kickoff to get going.

on for college football, and then it starts at the end of August. Last week of August is our first game. Pass along, hello. I got two bros coaching. Who you got? Barry Odom at Purdue. Barry Odom. That's my dude. New coach.

He was just here a few weeks ago. I'm excited. I took his daughter to meet Lainey Wilson. I remember you saying that. Yeah, he's the best. And then Brett, Bilema. Bilema's. Those are my dudes.

He's a stud. We talked about him last week. Send my warm regards. Okay, that's it. Thank you guys. We'll see you next week. That's Matt Castle. that's Kickoff Kevin.

That is Brandon Ray doing all the video. Thanks to Jeff Perlman. Be sure if you like the idea of his two pod book or any of his other books. He is such a great writer. Check it out and go to jeffperlman.com or just go to a social and you'll see it all there. I'm Bobby Bones. We've had lots to say.

See you guys. Lots to say with Bobby Bones and Matt Castle is a production of the NFL and IHeart Podcast. For more podcasts from IHartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The 2026 NFL draft is here, and the NFL Daily podcast has it covered from all angles. Join me, Greg Rosenthal, and Jordan Roderig after night one on Thursday. Nick Shook joins me night two Friday and then Sunday to recap everything that went down over the three days in Pittsburgh. We'll tell you who won the draft and which players were my favorite picks.

Listen to NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I am Greg Rosenthal. I know that, Greg. We're teaming up on 40s and free agents, the podcast that owns the NFL off season. This is where teams are built. Free agency, combine, pro days, trades. Every move matters.

From my draft boards and mock drafts to my vaunted top 101 free agents and how rosters come together. Quarterback movement. Surprise signings. We'll tell you what it means and who really wins. Open your free IHeart radio app. Search 40s and free agents. listen now. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.