The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Demaurice Smith Talks 'Turf Wars,' NFL 'Unincorporated,' Colin Kaepernick, Shedeur Sanders + More

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Demaurice Smith Talks 'Turf Wars,' NFL 'Unincorporated,' Colin Kaepernick, Shedeur Sanders. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hunter, host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite-sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. Stories like Erica Hunt. A young mother vanished without a trace after a family gathering on 4th of July weekend, 2016. No goodbyes, no clues. Just gone. Listen to Hunting for Answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, my name is Enya Yumanzor. And I'm Drew Phillips. And we run a podcast called Emergency Intercom. If you're a crime junkie and you love crimes, we're not the podcast for you. But if you have unmedicated ADHD... Oh my God, perfect. And want to hear people with mental illness, psychobabble.

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We're all finished or y'all's done? Morning, everybody is DJ Envy. Jess Hilarious. Salomey de Guy. We are the breakfast club. Laurao is here as well. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed.

He said, just call him D. D. Ladies and gentlemen, DeMorris Smith. Welcome. Man, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I'm sorry I'm a little late. I would have crushed breakfast had I been here earlier.

You still got time to get some. Done. Done. Ben. But you're the former executive director of the NFLPA. Tell us what that title helps. You know, simply you're the head of the union. You represent all 1835 players.

You go to war with 31 billionaires. You do the best to make sure our guys get paid. You make sure that they have health care, make sure that they have control over their work. You govern their pensions, their post-career training, everything. So the union representing a lot of players, and they're young. For most of our guys, it's their first job, which makes it difficult to sometimes represent them because they've never had the kind of jobs I had coming up, paper routes, working at a pizza place. Those guys come into the business of football, believing in understanding.

how to play the game, they know virtually nothing about the ruthlessness and the cutthroat nature of the business. And your job as the head of the union, at least for me, I only had one way of doing it. You know, my coach used to call it 10 toast of the wine every day, going up against the guys

who, you know, sit in the sky suites and want our dudes to work. And then the other thing is, man, just tell the guys the truth. And sometimes they don't want to hear it because they've grown up in a culture of football that rewards them for everything they do on the field and they have a misunderstanding that Jerry Jones doesn't care.

Wow. And Robert Kraft doesn't care. That's true. And, you know, there's always that sign on draft day that says, welcome to the NFL family. And I told the same rookies for 14 years, you are not in the family because you are not in the will. It's reality.

I mean, again, some guys don't like to hear. that because it's a little brutal and that's where I came from and that's kind of the way I know how to do business but you're not in the will what's the most difficult thing you have to deal with with being headed at Union as far as dealing with teams what's the worst thing that the most thing that they hate giving up and I'm sure you control control what type of control all of it you know I forget who it was listening to Dion who was always great to me he always had this line you either you either chase the game or chase the bag right you know the

bag, you chase the money, and sometimes our guys are just focused on the money. What drives the NFL is control. They want to control everything. For example, up until 2011, the National Football League had the unilateral right,

exclusive right, to add as many games to the schedule as possible. Which is great. They could have gone up to 21 games, 23 games, if they wanted to. I mean, I'm a little older than everybody else in the room. Don't say anything else. Happy birthday. Thank you, brother. But I remember a 14 game season.

I remember a 16 game season. You know, when it went from 14 to 16, the players never got any more money. Wow. I didn't know that. Nobody does, right? It's control. So they don't get paid for the extra game? No.

When they went from a 12 game season to a 14 game season to a 16 game season, they never got an increased share of revenue. I get it because their contract is already set for the year. You just spread out the money longer, right? And even guys when I came in in 2009 didn't understand that, right? Yes, revenue increases, so the cap goes up. But it's just like, you know, you're working at a, I work at Jerry's sub shop, right? You work Monday through Friday, Boston, give a, you know, how you deal with your life or what you've got going that day. But if the guy comes in and says, hey, man, I got a good idea.

Everybody's going to work on Saturday and Sunday. First question on my mouth would be what? How much overtime on a game? when they went from 12 to 14 to 16 the players never got paid overtime that's great so in 2011 i mean we went through a war i mean they declare a war on us i do war the big win for the players in 2011 was we we wrestled back that unilateral control and we got the ability to govern our work so you know that resulted in in you know you fast forward to 2020 the league won at a 17th game Fine.

You know, the players wanted a 17th game. Fine. Some players didn't want a 17th game. Fine, but it's a democracy. So the players voted for a 17th game. The kicker there was the league bought a 17th game in 2020 for approximately $1.6, 1.7 billion over a 10-year period. It was a game they had for free in 2011.

The game of football, the reason I wrote the book, it's about power. And I think that at the end of the day, I never wanted a football book because I'm not a football guy. My high school coach will tell you. I was probably the worst high school football player he's ever seen. But I wanted to write turf wars because it's about power. I love the header. It says the fight for the soul of America's game.

Because I thought to myself, does the NFL have a soul? The NFL does not have a soul. The players have a soul. Okay. Right. And the NFL is the largest, most unregulated, socialistic business in America. Break that down. The NFL privatizes their wealth and socializes their cost, right? So you think about stadiums, for example. Every state and local government goes through a referendum to get taxpayers to pay for the owner's stadium.

We pay for it. he keeps the profit so what they do better than anybody else in the country there are no 10 case there are no 10 ques there is no annual report there's no public board

of directors there's no SEC control there's no attorney general control there's no state attorney general control they are a completely unregulated business up to a few years ago the NFL league office was

a 501 C6 nonprofit. They're going to do $25 billion next year. How can a corporation like that be a nonprofit? Not a corporation. How? I'm saying how can they not be a corporation? Got time? Break down a little history?

All right. So first thing that happens in 1960s, they have the AFL, American Football League, and the NFL. Those two entities merge, right? So think about it like Lowe's and Home Depot, right? If Lowe's and Home Depot merged, what would be the price of a hammer? $500. Right?

Because there's no competition. In the 1960s, that's exactly what the NFL did. They became the merger of Lowe's and Home Depot. So they merged, the only way they could merge, was they needed special legislation from Congress, which they got. So think about it. The taxpayers, who these dudes are supposed to work for, allowed the NFL as, the AFL to merge, which basically meant

they eliminated all of the competition from now until the end of time. First thing that happened. Second, under the Sports Broadcasting Act, they also have the unique ability of negotiating singular television contracts. So instead of the

Rams doing a TV contract or the Patriots or anybody else, the NFL does one big TV contract a year. Virtually nobody else can do that. So they've cornered the market on the merger, cornered the market on media. At the end of the day, all of the teams are not corporations.

They are LLCs and LLPs, limited liability partnerships. So, you know, my job is to audit the teams, which, you know, gave me an ulcer and, you know, got me addicted to Johnny Walker Blue. But you think of those corporations, you take something like the Dallas Cowboys. There is no one singular Dallas Cowboy entity. They're made up. of dozens of little LLP's and LCs. They loan money to each other.

They borrow from each other. They pay each other. So the way this thing works from a tax liability standpoint is if they do everything right, you know what they pay in taxes at the end of the year? Damn they're nothing. Yeah. So they're not a corporation.

That's crazy. They don't file anything publicly. Make it even crazier. You cannot find an audited financial statement for any NFL team or the NFL as it exists. They do not create audited financial statements because they don't want anyone to know. When they put those numbers out and they say,

hey, we made this amount this year, that's just something they're throwing out there. There's just something they're throwing out there. And look, I like magazines like Fortune that do the valuations of teams. That's not based on any audited financial statement. I mean, the only people who audit them is the NFL players,

association. And we can't talk about how much money. I always wanted to know what a player, is there certain things that they cannot give a certain player. Like for instance, let's say, I don't want to say, I'll use LeBron James, right? I know it's not the same sport, but let's say I wanted LeBron to stay on my team, right? Right now, he's probably the biggest player, biggest draw. Yeah. Could they give LeBron a percentage of a team? No. Why is not? Because I was He was like a Michael Jordan. Why didn't you ask about the NFL player? I don't want to know how you're trying to think about a player.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who has the leverage? Who has the leverage to get? Tom Brady. Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes or Brady or Brady. Tom. Tom.

Somebody like that, would they give them a percentage because they built that? Would they? Would they is a different question? I think the answer is no. No team wants to give a player a share of the team because no team wants to give up that control. Right? But to your question. and can they pay them that if the player demanded?

No, because that would be a violation of the salary cap. So the way the salary cap work, I mean, I'll make it really simple. You take all of the revenue that you generate in sport. Players get about 50% of that revenue. That all, and then you divide that by 32 teams. That's a salary cap. It's not that complicated. If you gave an individual player a certain ownership interest in the team,

that would be a violation of the salary cap rules. And here's why. all the owners have to agree on it? Oh, all the owners would have to agree on, and they never would. Yeah. Because you've got to play like Brady, right? And Brady says, I want to leave New England. Can't do it. If they said, you know, we'll give you 1% of the team.

Can't do it. He can't do it. I mean, look, if the players wanted to negotiate a new CBA and made that, you know, something that the players would want, more power to them. I think it would be a, I would think it would be a bigger fight than you saw Kaepernick deal with. Because none of the players, you know, again, these are, for the most part,

these teams fall into two big categories. Either they are family-owned teams. You know, the Roonies, the Maros, the hunts, or it's a set of owners who made some outside money and they bought a team and they're generating money for their own. They do not want to share anything, right? I mean, I'll give you the best example. There is no NFL team in the country

that couldn't give their city a percentage of the team if they wanted taxpayers to help pay them for a stadium. Think about San Diego. A few years ago, they wanted to stay in San Diego. They put up a referendum to see if taxpayers would pay for a new stadium.

Taxpayers overwhelmingly in San Diego said, nah, we don't want to use our tax money for a new stadium. So the Chargers left and went to Los Angeles. The only thing Dean Spanos had to do if he really wanted

to stay in San Diego if he put his money where his mouth is and said I want the fans of San Diego to love us I love the city of San Diego the only thing he had to do was to do what you asked about LeBron

he could have gone to the city of San Diego and said hey look I want taxpayer revenue to build a stadium here's what I'll do I'll give the city of San Diego 5% of the team and the citizens will own part of the charges Did you do that?

No. Don't the packages have some type of structure like that? They have a different structure. The city and shareholders own on the team. And you know why that happened, right? Because it's all history and I'm just a dork at the end of the day, right? So, you know, back in the day, you know, you had all of these teams based in these traditional textile cities, you know, Kansas City, Green Bay, you know, Chicago, Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh.

I mean, you know, working classes. These are working class towns that I'm not knocking any of those cities, but those cities did not become Los Angeles, Boston, and in Atlanta or certainly New York, right? So you've got a little team in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Green Bay, Wisconsin. Everybody there knew that if we don't figure out something to try to keep this team in Green Bay, this team is going to another place. And this is before Jacksonville. This is before expansion teams anywhere else. Yeah.

So the deal was they figured out a way of, whoa, we will give you everything you want for a new stadium. But here's the pull. We want the city to own the stadium and own the team. And they said yes. But from the day the Green Bay was the Green Bay Packers went to a public ownership, how many teams followed that model to stay in their traditional city? Not one. Pure greed, pure greed, and pure control, right?

And so, you know, look, I wanted to write this book. Again, I'm not a football guy. I wanted to write this book because the way that the NFL is run is the way that our country is run. Ooh, break that down. I'm here for that. If you looked behind the current president's inauguration, who was, standing behind him all the tech guys all the rich billionaire guys right it is about control over money if

you have control you will have the money for us to figure out a way how to get back to a system that truly represents us to have congressmen and congressmen who truly represent us we all have to understand that this is all about power it has it is yes i get it everybody wants to focus on money it's about control and power and if you are either unwilling or unable to go ten toes to the line, to confront power

like a player's union did for 15 years, you're just going to get your ass beat. And the reality is, man, you can, I love the eight years of Obama, but everything from the middle end of his term until now

we lost the women's right to abortion. We have lost the voting rights act we have lost the ability to control um redistricting and gerrymandering in state houses dc my home city is a home city that's got the national guard patrolling let's get it clear they're only patrol in the safe areas in dc let's not get it twisted right they're not in the national guard is not in southeast where i grew up really they're downtown at union station where nothing's happening i mean unless somebody drops an ice cream You know, but again, you know, you're looking at a president that literally federalized the occupation of the nation's capital.

And that's where I grew up. That's where my parents grew up. But this is a president and a party that has run roughshod, and I'm a Democrat. They have run roughshod over the Democratic Party for the last 50s. 15, 20 years. You're not even close. You're absolutely right. It's been a blowout.

Been a blowout. And my critique of the Democratic Party, a misunderstanding of power. These people are not to be negotiated with. They are not to be trusted. You cannot sit there and decide that you are going to make some sort of agreement with them and expect for them to hold up their side of the agreement. They're not going to do it.

So let me ask you a question. If the Democrats, based off this analogy, are the players and the Republicans are the owners, who's the NFLPA? NFLPA is the players. NFLPA is the players. Yeah, NPA is a union, man. So who are the Democrats in this situation? Democrats in this situation, I mean, it's, put it this way. I mean, I had a rough fight over 15 years.

I mean, everything from Deflategate to Ray Rice to Cap to COVID. I'm not saying we won every fight, but we fought every fight. and you lose 100% of the fights you don't want to fight. So the Republicans are definitely the owners because they run a rush shot over everybody. 100%. And I think in this analogy,

at the end of the day, look, I don't have any friends at the National Football League. I am not going to get a holiday gift from any one of these. I know it's a family show, so I'll keep it clean. No, go ahead and crazy. I'm like a any family show from these MFs.

I mean, I was going to say, motherfuckers. I was going to, you know, my mom might be listening and she's like I thought you was going with niggers but motherfuckers I would go

look I go with hard with our guys right because you go to hard hard with our guys oh come on

come on bro man come on man you chill yeah good god pump the brakes good god

like chill out what are you drinking I don't know what's in this car people well yeah there's something in it

no I go hard with our guys because look our guys come in to the NFL system believing that because they are one of the top 250 guys that make it to the league every year when they walk across the stage at the draft it always boiled my blood that our dudes hugged roger godell like he gave them some shit they didn't earn it yeah the only reason you were on the stage is you were one of the top 250 guys he didn't give you anything. So shake his fucking hand

like a grown-ass man, right? And then walk away. I mean, I worked for big law firms. They gave me, you know, I got great jobs there. I mean, there was a day that I didn't walk in and hug the managing partner like he gave me some stuff. I think you have a misunderstanding of power and a misunderstanding that these people are out

to blow us out. How did you look at Roger Goodell? Did you look at him as more of an ally or adversary? Pure ass adversary Wow I mean look Roger I mean he He's there to protect the owners basically

That's not even basically I mean he The commissioner is a myth So they created this title called commissioner Way back in the day Because it makes us think Oh the dude's in the middle

And he's just making sure That football is good for the players And football is good for the Good for the owners No Roger gets paid $63 million a year I thought 64 I mean he may have got the bonus I don't know I don't know

I don't keep trying. You know, I know when we do have lunch, he buys. So, no, he gets paid $63, $64 million to represent the interest of the owners and a plane for life. I'm not even mad about the money. It's the plane for life. Damn. I mean, that's the kind of thing where you're like, Jesus. That man don't play no football.

So it's possible for him to be objective about players? He's not paid to be. How no. Are you able to be this? Well, were you able to be this honest when you were in your role? 100%. I mean, I came not getting a gift. I came from out of football, just background for me.

I was a homicide prosecutor for eight years in D.C. After that, I went to a big law firm. I didn't have anything to do with sports when I got elected into the job. So I came after what I consider a legend, a guy named Gene Upshaw, who was the former executive director. But Gene died in the job. He went to the hospital on a Wednesday and died on a Sunday. And, you know, I ran against two former NFLPA presidents and, you know, I won. They didn't.

So I always took the job from a standpoint of I never looked for an NFL job. I never wanted to work for a team. I don't need anything from the owners. I wasn't there to become your friend. So I know how to do one thing. I know how to do war, right? and I know how to have I was hired at Latham in these big you know big law firms to basically represent the richest biggest companies in the world and do game strategy that's what I know how hard was it for you navigate in a Colin Kaepernick situation because people felt like y'all were hands off you are very vocal so it seemed like you would be hands off but yeah I wasn't hands off on that one yeah um you know the the the first person to do an interview after Colin knelt was me uh because I knew exactly how the league was going

to turn that story. And, you know, I didn't know that he was going to kneel. You know, it was a preseason game and I remember getting a call from one of my PR guys that this is now going to be a thing. It's going to be a thing tomorrow. So I gave an interview with the nation, I think that night or that

morning, to frame this is why he's kneeling and this is why he's doing it. But I also knew in a heartbeat that again, going back to this power, man, once the league realized, that this is an individual player making a political statement that is rooted in history and rooted in fact.

I knew when a nano... My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. Hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

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A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder, take center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My boyfriend's professor is way too friendly, and now I'm seriously suspicious. Wait a minute, Sam.

Maybe her boyfriend's just looking for extra credit. Well, Dakota, it's back to school week on the OK Storytime podcast, so we'll find out soon. This person writes, my boyfriend has been hanging out with his young professor a lot. He doesn't think it's a problem, but I don't trust her. Now he's insisting we get to know

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podcast. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal, glass. The injured were being left. loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

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host of Hunting for Answers on the Black Effect Podcast Network. Join me every weekday as I share bite-sized stories of missing and murdered black women and girls in America. There are several ways we can all do better

at protecting black women. My contribution is shining a light on our missing sisters and amplifying their disregarded stories. Stories like Tamika Anderson. As she drove toward Galvez, she was in contact with several people, talking on the phone as she made her way to what should have been a routine transaction.

But Tamika never bought the car, and she never returned home that day. One podcast, one mission, Save Our Girls. Join the searches we explore the chilling cases of missing and murdered black women and girls. Listen to hunting for answers every weekday on the Black Effect Podcast. Podcast Network, IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Second, that they were going to come after him and come after anybody who supported him. That's just the way that they play the game, right? And so for me, you know, I go into game mode.

You know, first, make sure that the message is out there. And two, if there ever comes a day when we believe that he is going to be blackballed for what he's doing, that's why we joined his lawyers and we sued the National Football League for blackball. I know you talked about it in your book a bit, but do you feel like he was blackball? 100%. I mean, look,

I don't want to say anything that gets a whole bunch of other quarterbacks mad at me. But in the year that Colin wasn't signed, other than the top five quarterbacks in the league,

you know, at that time. And I'm just talking about everybody from Brady to Aaron Rogers, everybody in the middle, Breeze, Pat, Peyton, everybody. Colin was one of the top 10 quarterbacks in the league. I mean, everybody, there were a bunch of other guys who had jobs, quarterback jobs. I don't think it's close that he was better than 50% of the starting quarterbacks in the National Football League at the time.

So when he worked out with the Raiders are when, I know, when Rock Nation had put together the workout that he was supposed to go to, but then he went somewhere else. You're the one in it, yeah, the tryout in Atlanta. Yeah, what do you think of those two situations? Were they just for show or what you think? Hey, look, I, nobody was more stunned than me that he didn't go through with that tryout in Atlanta. I know that there was a fight over some waiver or something like that. You know, there were a bunch of college scouts there. I'm sorry, a bunch of pro scouts there.

Sorry about that. Pro scouts there. And he decided, you know, for his own reasons, that he wasn't going to throw that day. That surprised me. It disappointed me a little bit. Well, he did go throw. He just went up the road. He did.

He went to a high school school where all the scouts weren't. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and again, I just tend to be blunt, right? But there were also dudes catching for him that day. who were looking for jobs to. They didn't go to the high school. Oh, got you, got you, gotcha, got you, gotcha, got you, gotcha.

So look, you lose 100% of the fights, you don't fight, right? If I would have had to wave, wait of a magic wand, would I have wanted him to go throw that day in front of a bunch of scouts and show off that freaking arm and show off, you know, his feet and his footwork? Yes. You think it would have been hard to keep him out of the league after that if he had a good showing? Yes. Yeah.

Because I think the pressure shifts, right? I mean, everybody was there in Atlanta. Press was there. Scouts are there. Man, he is going to do well. And it is, at least from the way that I look at the game strategy, it becomes incredibly hard from that moment for the league to continue to hold him out of the league when you've got 30. some odd scouts there. The media is there and he does well.

I mean, I just look at pressure points, right? That puts the maximum amount of pressure on the league at that moment. And what I have loved to seeing him go through that process, yeah. But you know what, man, you know? From your standpoint, I just got a couple more questions about the traffic next situation. Why him, though? Because he wasn't the only player kneeling.

He was the guy that started it. Got you. So, you know, if you're reading the, you know, and again, I just, I'm just the war guy if if you know whether it's you know the art of war or Machiavelli's treatise on war um you know there isn't a warrior campaign in the world that doesn't try to kill the lead general right and and nobody really wants to talk about that way but I don't care what war you have ever waged or whatever war any country has ever waged from literally the beginning of time

if you get an opportunity to kill the general you kill the general and I think that the league took the opportunity to turn its guns fully on Kaepernick because it was a hope and I think it was misguided I think it was a hope that if they show the rest of the players that they can control what happens to somebody with a loud voice if they can control someone who

looks like they might be bigger than the league what do they do? They send a message to that guy you and they say oh no no no we can control and put a bullet in you and that's a message to everybody else. I don't think it worked though I don't think it did either. It didn't stop anybody from the earlier. No it didn't And honestly, I thought that was one of the best times, one of the few, great times that I had in the job, because guys responded to that in a way. I'm always looking for guys to be, to have a level of solidarity between them. Like the owners.

Like the owners. I mean, the owners are serial killers. Let's not, again, they are absolute killers. And for the union to survive, forget us winning, for us to just survive, we need more solidarity. on our side than you do with the owners and that's what you saw with our guys and then that you know that night after the president gave that speech in Huntsville

you know where he called and said you know wouldn't it be great if every owner right I mean I am sure that he did not understand that he called every NFL player's mothers. A son of a bitch a bitch. I mean

you know from where we come from you can say a lot of things you get to that point there is going to be a land of hands on you when you say, and I think when the Republicans woke up that morning and realized that even Trump had gone over the line by calling players mothers a bitch, man, that was the weekend you saw every player, Neil.

I mean, I talk about it in the book. I flew to watch the Cowboys play, not because I'm a Cowboys fan. I went. Thank God. Be respectful. We can go Cowboys, baby

Look, I mean that Michael Parsons thing work I know I mean, we don't have to talk about it See, okay I don't know He's a little salty He's a little salty You know, okay

Let's move all the sharp objects You said that week that you went Because I knew Jerry's team Was gonna kneel And you know Jerry had come out and said Nobody's kneeling on my team Because that's the way that he believes in control Yeah

I knew his team was going to kneel and I wanted to see what he was going to do. He went out of him. He moved his cell from the end of the line to the middle of the line and knelt because for the only time that he has run that team, he understood the difference between being on the train or being in front of the train. And he chose to be on the train because his guys decided as a group of men this. And I was proud of him. But that's the job. I want to ask you another comment. Yeah, another comment question.

Yeah, because y'all sued, you got with Collins lawyers and you sued the NFL. Yeah. There was a settlement. Yeah. Do you think that's when leverage was lost? Was that the right thing you do except the settlement? Yeah. I mean, so we represented him with his lawyers.

His lawyers did the settlement. We didn't. I didn't know about the settlement. I woke up and saw it in the news. Oh, so the NFL VA didn't even know about it? No. That doesn't make any sense. Welcome to part of my job.

That's all people were confused about. That's how I was saying with the hands on. on hands-off thing. People were confused where y'all stood because things were happening and y'all weren't. And it's hard because, you know, again, I'm a lawyer and lawyers have attorney-client privilege. I didn't know about the settlement. The NFL paid did not know about the settlement. We woke up and found out about it that morning. And as a result, it dismissed our part of the case against the league. That's the way it happens. He has the right to do that. He has the right to be represented by his own lawyers, fine.

At the same time, you know, I always tried to not second-guess lawyers, you know, because I'm not there. I don't know what the terms of the settlement were. I don't know how much money exchanged hands. I wasn't involved in negotiations, so I'm not going to second-guess another lawyer, but I will say this. the NFL PA's job is to protect our players and again I only know one way of doing that

and that is to start off at 100 miles an hour and go to 150 and if there's something in the way you run over it we were more interested in the facts of who made the decision to blackball a quarterback

A black quarterback in the national football. I'm interested in what's in your phone. I'm interested in what emails you're sending. I'm interested because I get all of that in discovery, right? Just like the collusion lawsuit that I filed against the players after Deshawn Watson, I filed that lawsuit before I left. I wasn't there for the ruling. But the reason I filed that lawsuit is, man, we're looking for the truth.

because the truth gives us the ability to fight the control, right? So my job in any collusion lawsuit, I mean, I'm going hard. And there's nothing to settle for the union, right? So once you take all that money, you wave all the rights to the discovery and everything. It's like you don't care about the actual issue anymore. You never got it.

Gotcha. Okay. So I'm not second-guessing anyone. Yeah, but we're all y'all on the same page? about that? Obviously not. Anyway, anybody read the book? Yeah, I know.

There's stuff that I'm trying to avoid saying. Saying because I had conversations with their side of the lawyer, so I can't divulge anything. But I can tell you that I woke up and found out about the settlement from, I think, ESPN. What were your thoughts on the way they handled the Sanders young man? Control. Same situation? Do you think that was-

Think about it? Look, I don't know. know what happened. You know, I borrow this line from James Baldwin all the time. I don't know if in your heart you're a racist, but I see what you do, right? So I look at the way in which a young black man knelt during a preseason game, and the league turned, I believe, every gun that they had on Colin Kaepernet.

And again, let's be clear, he didn't interrupt a game. He didn't kneel on the field. He didn't stop the game in any way. This was all before the game, right? So no one can make an argument to me like they did during Anthem that, well, you know, D, this is impacting, you know, the economics of the game or this is impacting football. No. Even if it's during the national anthem, this is before the game, right? And I got to sit in the stands.

I watch guys in the stands during the National Anthem buying another beer, swigging another beer. You go to Baltimore in the middle of the National Anthem. They yell, oh, in favor of the Baltimore Orioles. If you're going to say that that's disrespectful for him kneeling, it's disrespectful, just as disrespectful for you to say something about the Baltimore Orioles during the National Anthem. But I don't see anybody pulling down or turning guns on dudes on that.

They went after Colin because he was iconic. And they were afraid that what he was doing would lead to other people doing things and they would lose control. Then you get to the Shadour. That would happen if you didn't take the thing. Right? I don't know. I'm just being nice on the...

But then you get to Shadur. And again, I wasn't... Nobody invites me into the draft. bathrooms, but I ask myself a pretty simple, linear question. Is, is he better than Johnny Mansell? Shadurr Sanders. Johnny Manzell? Yes.

In college? Come on, man. Johnny Manzell was a beast in college now. Come on, man. Like, he, I mean, I like Johnny Manzo. I mean, yeah, Johnny Manzel was a beast in college. The two people, if you put them side by side, as far as who is more likely to be a pro-caliber quarterback. Shadour beats him

to death. Right? It's inexplicable for him to fall as far as he did in the draft. Right. You think about the number of quarterbacks that the NFL owners pull off of the draft line.

He was predicted to go first round. So every other prognosticator is wrong and the NFL is right. No, that doesn't make any sense. I just go back to the number of quarterbacks that they pulled off that line. After you get to the middle of the second round,

every one of those quarterbacks that you pulled off the line, I would have taken Shador over any one of those dudes. So I find it inexplicable except for one thing of why he would drop so far in the draft on the draft side. Because remember, think about it, you draft this guy, you know, he still has. to make the team. Right?

I find it inexplicable that a person of his caliber, the things that he was able to accomplish in college, for him to drop as far as he did in the draft round. I agree, but I disagree with the Johnny Mansell comparison. Like, Johnny Manzell was a beast, bro. He won the He was a different. In college. He sucked in the pros.

Right, but college he was. There's a lot of dudes who do well in college. I guess we agree to disagree, but here I think we can agree on. There's a lot of guys who perform in a college system whose size and skill will not make them terribly successful in the pro system, right? And I think that when you look at the arm strength and the size of Chador and what he was able to demonstrate in college, both with his feet and his ability to throw, just crazy, right? what he was able to do in college mimicked what I thought he should be able to do in the National Football League.

But fine, we can disagree about all that. I keep coming back to this guy dropped so far in the draft despite everybody rating him at a much higher level. And also the people, like the, I think people were awaiting. Like his debut, I think he was, it's 2.2 million views.

It was the most. That's his rating, though. I have to do it play. But doesn't, so he plays well. We know that. that, right? And I love you, though, but he is third string on the Browns right now. He is. But how much does a team want to take it?

This is through training camp. This is through practice. You know what I'm saying? He's third string on the Browns right now. I guess what I would say is there are, I'm sorry. What was the question? I was just asking how much does that matter? Like, because people wanted to see him.

None. To an NFL scout, NFL coach, you know, quarterback, quarterback coach, man, they don't care about likes, man. They care about whether you can deliver the ball in a three by three. box with you run and right, throw in right, and whether or not you can throw that ball on a line for

30 yards. That's what they care about. That's all they care about. My point is, coming out of college, when you take all of the predictors about Chador, did all of those predictive qualities point to him

going higher than when he came out? Yes. And again, I don't No, but I do know one thing. There is not an NFL owner that liked the way in which he carried himself in college. That is not their vibe, right? You know, so interesting about this conversation, and I feel like, and I'm just going back to this, because I feel like if Colin Kaepernick hadn't settled and went through with the collusion,

and you're all able to get these emails and everything else and prove who was doing what, owners would never be able to collude against the player like they did your door ever again. Or they would never be able to collude against players like we found out in the most recent lawsuit. I mean... No, this was...

I filed a lawsuit against the National Football League that they were colluding against players getting free agent contracts. Wow. I'll file that in 22 or 23. I was gone by the time the arbitrator ruled on the case and not to throw any shade on my successor. But it's easy.

Damn. Well, facts, man, facts hurt. And so for whatever reason, it's still mind-boggling to me. My successor, who's gone now, decided that they would enter into a secret agreement with the league and not tell the players about the result of the lawsuit. and for whatever reason my successor told the players that the players lost

the collusion lawsuit that I filed when in reality the arbitrator found that the management council that runs a national football league colluded and told teams not to urge teams not to give guaranteed contracts to players

now that's something that I would have told the players because first of all they're entitled to know and second as soon as you as soon as I would have found out that the owners who run the league

you know Kraft Jones Mara Rooney all of those guys are on their executive committee once I would have found out that those people told the teams to not do guaranteed contracts I sue on behalf of every player going back

to 2015 that's what I would have done because look you lose 100% of the fight you never fight. When you find out the owners are colluding, then what happens? I don't, well, in this case...

What's the consequences for them, rather? For the owners, it could be cataclysmic. I mean, think about it. If there were a player who... I'm just going to try to make the math easy. Let's just do Lamar. You know, if Lamar or Russell Wilson or any of these guys,

the young man in San Diego Herbert, I'm sorry, the Chargers, Herbert. Let's just say that he wants a fully guaranteed contract. And just to make the math easy, he wants a fully guaranteed contract at 300 million. And the owner only gives him a contract of 150 million guaranteed. Theoretically, your damages are between 150 million and 300 million that he didn't get times every player that didn't get a fully guaranteed contract. So, you know, historically, if you think about one of the reasons the Major League Baseball Union became so powerful, yes, they went through a strike in 1994, but what really broke the owners in the 80s and the 90s, the baseball owners, they lost collusion cases, lost them. Wow.

It's billions. So Cabinet could have started president. Anyway, read the book. So he wants me to like, hey, no, no, no, no. I'm just trying to make it simple for people. I'm not trying to, I don't. This ain't even about him. This is about how that precedent could have been started to take these owners out.

It's about the strategy of power. Yes, because you're writing the book, owners aren't stupid. Morons on occasion, but not stupid. They realized long ago that a single massive army is more powerful than 32 regional ones, especially while fending off an attack. And it made me think about it because you can have all the money in the world, but if they're unity and group operation. 100%.

That keeps them in power. 100%. Man, you want to be the next executive director? director of the NFLPA? No. I guess I had to do a pitch. You can't give you too much. Pick up the Burke Wars.

Thank you guys. Appreciate it. You need to do Bill Simmons podcast, man. I would love to. Yeah. I would love to. I would love to. I would love to.

Turf Wars. Demarcus Smith. Thank you for having, man. Damaris. DeMaris. DeMaris. D. D.

How do you pronounce it just so? DeMars. DeMars. Yeah. My mom wanted to call me La Kinnard. Or my dad did, but thank God. Thank God my mother stepped in. My name is Leonard.

That's close. Yeah, but Conard. La Canard is the duck. La Canard. In French. That would have been a little bit rough. Why? Would you look like a duck when you was born or something?

Damn. That's crazy. We're going to end on that. That's wild. I just, man, it went from, we were on such a high. Did you look like a duck when you was born? No, no, no, no. Salomeen first.

You know what he's mad or he's mad about the Cowboys thing? Yeah. It's a little salty. And so what was she was going to name you La Canard? My dad wanted to name me La Canard. La Canard. Thankfully, my mother was. like, uh, no.

Yeah, Lenard means clown. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. Wow. Real crazy. D, we appreciate you. Thank you guys.

Just means what? Just means what? Trans lover. I sure. Man, this just thing went. Dean, we out of here. The thing went off the range. Right.

Dangerous show. Thank you, brother. It's the breakfast club. Good morning. Oh, no. Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The breakfast club.

Do y'all finish or y'all done? I just normally do. straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story.

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