The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Madden Memories, Stafford Rams Impact, Rodgers and Russ Futures with Sam Farmer

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

Colin explains how one of John Madden's cornerstone beliefs would benefit today's coaches (3:00). Then, L.A. Times NFL Writer Sam Farmer shares some of his favorite personal interactions with Madden (9:00), and his influence on the NFL's massive growth (23:00). He and Colin also discuss Matt Stafford's impact on the Rams (32:00), if Pete Carroll's style can still work in today's NFL (37:00), if Russell Wilson will be around for the Seattle rebuild (42:00), what team would be the best fit for Aaron Rodgers if he leaves Green Bay (48:00), which NFL opening is the most appealing (51:00), and if it's possible for USC to ever return to the level it was under Pete Carroll (54:00).Make sure to Subscribe and follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sign up. Please use the promo code Colin so they know we sent you. Please use the promo code Colin, COLLIN. Fandul Sportsbook app, sign up. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Thursday morning podcast. One of my favorite writers, Sam Farmer's been covering the NFL for 30 years. He covers the league as a whole, but the L.A. Rams are his primary.

team of choice. He'll have a million stories, really clever, really funny guy. You know, I was thinking about the John Madden stuff. And years ago, I was a minor league baseball announcer. And this is the kind of story. I can't really tell on any other platform than this. So I got a job out of college as a minor league baseball announcer, a AAA job with a Las Vegas stars. And I had to sell for about 75% of the year. And then from, from me, about 25% of my job was broadcasting one inning a game. And it was worth it because I was going from college broadcasting into AAA baseball, which was one step away from Major League Baseball.

And that was my dream when I was like 22 years old. I wanted to be the voice of the Seattle Mariners because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, as many of you know. And so the first year with the team, I just did sales and they gave me one or two innings all year, like less than half a dozen innings all year. Second year I got more innings because I was doing really well in sales. And I almost that first year gave up the broadcasting dream because I thought nobody believes in me. And then finally, a guy named Don Logan was convincing enough to the guy who owned the team, Larry Kentop, give this kid.

He's a good salesman. Give him some innings. And I did. And I worked really hard. And I wasn't great, but I was good enough to get noticed. And the rest is history. Local TV station hired me KVBC, Channel 3. And, you know, again, a series of breaks, blah, blah, blah, you don't want to hear about my career.

But during the time I was a AAA baseball announcer, I was like the number two guy or the number three guy, right? They gave me like three road trips that one year. And I never forget, one of them was Phoenix. And the manager was a guy named Wendell Kim. Nice guy. And I went into the clubhouse because I wanted to do some pregame stuff. and on the wall of the clubhouse, he had like 25 rules. And I remember thinking, who could remember all these rules?

And it just all these years later, it's 30 years later, I remember it. And I'm like, that's too many rules. And when I became a parent, one of the things I quickly realized is that if you tell your kids when they're young more than two things, if you give them three, they'll forget all of them. So you have to say like, put your plate away after dinner and brush your teeth. You can only go two. If you go to a third and say, eat your vegetables, put your plate away and brush your teeth, they get discombobulated and forget all of them.

You can give your kids two assignments, brush your teeth and put your pajamas on. And that's it. You go to a third, it wipes everything out. Simplicity is the key. And I always loved John Madden because he had three rules. Show up on time, listen when you're here, and play hard on Sunday. And I remember Pete Carroll telling me this one time when he was at USC. He said, you know, the fewer rules and the less you make guys think, the faster they get,

you don't want guys thinking on a football field too much. Maybe your center, maybe your quarterback auto bowling, but you want your best athletes reacting instinctively, pursuing, chasing, catching, running, avoiding, tackling. And I think that's one of the things about Madden that always impressed me is that there's a brilliance in simplicity. And I go back to that minor league clubhouse where somebody had 20 rules in the clubhouse. And I remember staring at it and thinking, even if you were somebody who liked rules, wouldn't you have the self-awareness to acknowledge nobody could remember 20 rules? You're paralyzing players. Madden had a saying, the fewer rules you have, the fewer rules you can break. And my wife always says this.

She has one rule in marriage. And Anne is my wife. Her one rule is, don't go where you shouldn't go and don't do what you shouldn't do. And that's it. So strip clubs, I have checked those off. No strip clubs for daddy. Not that I was ever hanging at them. But I always thought, what a simple rule.

don't go where you shouldn't go as a husband. Don't do what you shouldn't do. Raps it all in a nice, memorable little package. All right. Let's bring in Sam Farmer, who for years and years before I lived in Los Angeles, I read Sam and he's incredibly well connected and is active because he's always posting pictures hiking around Pasadena. And that's why I look so young and he keeps his mind fresh. So I only interviewed Madden Wynne.

time, and I'm from a very dark, bleak, gray place in America called Gray's Harbor County on the coast of Washington. And he coached at Gray's Harbor. The chokers, that was their name. Not because they lost leads in games, it was a wrestling term choking out, chokers. And I asked him about it once in my one interview, and he had a steel trap for a memory. He could remember anything. Do you remember the first time you either met John Madden, I'm sure there were several times, and what your impression was of him in person, not on TV? Trying to think of our first meeting because I would have seen him at Raider. I was a Raiders beat writer from 95 to 2000, so I would have seen him at practice.

But, you know, probably my first extended period one-on-one with John was the first season of Sunday night football in 2005 or six. I was in the booth with John and sat with them in Carolina for a whole game. I almost walked in front of the camera once coming out of a timeout, out of a commercial. And, you know, I kind of feel the way, you know, I'm thinking about my son meeting him for the first time. My son, who was a young boy, played a lot of men. He didn't even realize he was a real person. He thought he was a virtual creation or a hologram.

So I saw John and I said, well, you go say hello to Thomas, my son. And he tapped him on the shoulder and Thomas turned around and his jaw just dropped. I'm trying to think of what my first impressions of John were. I guess just that he was such an approachable, a regular guy. And that's what I wrote about today. He really made an effort to, I'm probably not putting it the right way, but put himself on your level and not put himself above you and make you feel like you were at the feet of John Maddenor at the feet of this NFL icon.

He tried to relate to you and said relatable things. I remember him telling me one time I was with John and Virginia, his wife, and Virginia was kind of haranguing him a little bit. I was just gently nudging him about his habit of feeding the dogs the freshly. cut deli meat out of the fridge. And I just felt that's so relatable because I've gotten, my wife has gotten pissed at me about that, about, you know, wait, it's salty.

It's not good for the dogs. We spent a lot of money, you know, buying this stuff. So I'm not really not giving you a good answer here because I do feel like this sort of collage of memories of John. And which really picked up in the last couple of years. mostly texting back and forth. And that happened probably, oh, once or twice a month for the last two years that we've sort of gotten into text exchanges about various players. But I don't know that I can put my finger on exactly how I felt the first time I met him.

Eric Shanks, my boss at Fox, CEO, he called him to the very end. He said, Eric said, you know, he taught me about T. TV a lot. John was a good idea guy. Eric said he was very observational about stuff, very observational. Incredibly. Yeah. I mean, that's, that was sort of the thing. I mean, and Eric obviously was his assistant for a long time. I believe Sandy Montag, his agent, also was this assistant. Yes. John had these, it was very Seinfeldian, if that's a word. I mean, his ability to, and I talked about a couple of those things today, How, you know, Vinnie Rao, who was a production assistant on Monday night football,

they were a production meeting in Philadelphia, and they sent out Vinny Rao to get sandwiches. And he brought back 20 of these anemic, pathetic-looking cheese steaks. And the whole thing was like, how could you find a bad cheese steak in Philadelphia? But he did it, and he brought back 20 of them. and John immediately turned to Fred Godelli and said, don't ever send a skinny guy out for food because skinny guys don't appreciate food. They don't know about food.

And the other thing, I was talking to Trey, and this was, it just so happened that this was a couple of weeks ago we were talking and we were laughing about John. One of the things that always struck me about John was, he said, you know, fat guys will tie their shoes on the outside of the knot on the outside of their foot because they can't reach down and center the knot. And so the heavier you get, the more your bow not migrates out to the side of your foot.

And Troy said, that is so funny you'd say that because we were in a production meeting. And John, you know, has his spyglass hat on and he's kind of hunkered down. He looks down a lot. And the production meeting was a lot of Troy and John, I've been in one of these things, asking the questions. And Bob Stenner, who was a producer, John's producer for a long time, mentioned that and that human observation. And Troy said, I, out of my side of my eye, I look over at John, and I notice that his shoes are tied on the outside of his seat. he said John, John is looking down, looking at his feet as Bob Stenner is saying this, and then kind of looks up and he and Troy meet eyes and then Troy just busts up.

He said, John, you could tell, just hoovered up that observation. And then John used it all the time when he talked about. So he was a collector, two of those things. He would make incredible observations about people and ask these questions. I remember that Monday night game, him going around. It was the Packers playing the Panthers. And John had gone down to the field. And his mission was, his self-appointed mission was to find out what different players had on their iPods that they were listening to.

And that's just sort of like the weird quirkiness of John and the things that he liked. I got to tell you, one of the really cool things that I've ever done, the Monday night football thing was cool. But in 2009, I think it was, eight or nine, I went up to Pleasanton as part of a direct TV thing. Yeah. I got to be a fly on the wall, had dinner with six quarterback dads. And some of the guys had two kids in the league. So it was like Archie Manning, obviously two guys, two quarterbacks in the league, Matthew Stafford's dad, Drew Breeze's dad, Don Hasselbeck, Bill Palmer, Carson Palmer's dad.

Anyway, great group of dads. And I got to be the fly on the wall. And John sent us to a steakhouse in Flesington that night. And we just sat around and I just absorbed everything in this conversation of these dads talking. And then in the morning, John brought the Madden Cruiser around and picked us up at our hotel and took us to his studio, which is like a big airplane hanger. I don't know if you were into that. No. And then had setups for us, lazy boys for each of us. With John sort of had like kind of a wooden throne in the middle of these things. And it was a giant, if you could imagine,

And I called it in the story Turduckingham Palace because it was like this huge movie screen, cinematic movie screen, surrounded by smaller like 60-inch TVs. And then he had a DJ there. And John would just say, put the Raiders on screen one. He had a chart like a little menu,

a laminated menu. He'd say Screen 1 Raiders, and the guy would switch it over. And any time the operative was never a commercial, which I always thought was funny because he made it such a fortune on being a pitch man, but he never wanted to watch a commercial. But just watching with these quarterback dads, these guys who wouldn't ordinarily, wouldn't ordinarily do anything but watch the kid on Sunday. They would never leave the house. They wouldn't have friends around or whatever, but just to be

in the presence of John Madden and to be with each other watching their kids play and rooting their kids on. And this, in this particular weekend, strangely, nobody was playing each other. I did this another year when Archie was playing, when Peyton was playing, Doug Smith, Alex Smith. So he had Doug Smith and Archie sitting next to each other and the kids are playing each other. But anyway, it was just so cool and to be around John and his enthusiasm for football. And I'm rambling here, but I just, I feel sort of flooded with memories. Hey, it's Colin for Fandul. Each win means even more in the college football playoffs.

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You've been covering this league for how many years? Almost 30. Yeah. You know, we talked about this. I talked about this with my friend Nick Wright, who's a TV host. And I said, you know, years ago in the 70s, there was a feeling that the nation was split. Baseball and the NFL were pretty tight. Back in the 70s, the NBA was kind of pre-David Stern, a bit of a mess.

So we were a NFL and Major League Baseball country. And then, and Madden certainly has influenced, the video game being crucial, the NFL has been on about a 30 to 35 year run when they have simply been better run, a better television product, more nimble, able to pivot quickly and adapt to make a better TV product. Sam, when you came into this league 30 years ago, the lead now, I say this, the NFL is the sun and everything else is just rotating around its galaxy. Your first year in the league, because I think in the late 70s, we were as much in a baseball nation as an NFL nation.

And if I said to you, Sam, give me a couple of reasons why the NFL has distanced itself. You could say gambling, but that's only recently the Supreme Court came down legalizing gambling. Where would you give the credit? Who or where would you hand

the credit to? I look at free agency for one thing and the building of these teams that happened in 93 and the interest. But I think fantasy football, I think all those reasons why L.A. went without a team for so long and was satisfied with that. It became a perfect TV game. I think fantasy football, the obsession with that.

I think the Madden game, interestingly, changed the league because initially in the Madden game, the idea was to make it look as close to football as possible, even those rudimentary, figures in the early Madden game. But in the mid-1990s, it flipped, the paradigm flipped, and it became the NFL chasing the Madden game. How do we make football look more like the Madden game? And I think that was a lot more of the sky cam angles, the cable cam, all those things.

And how do we make it more TV-friendly and just make it the ultimate, it stay-at-home game. I think the fact that you have the build-up, unlike baseball, you can miss games in baseball and still be a big fan. Football, you have one game a week. There's such build-up and hype around that. And the NFL has made

good decisions all along to promote the product. Whether it's, and a lot of that has been in the Gedell era, but whether that's moving to the draft to prime time and two primetime nights of the draft, creating this hype in the offseason. Even now, amid all this COVID stuff that we're talking about, the league in the background is working on promoting the Saturday game in week 18 and creating two Saturday games that head into the playoffs. I realize that I'm getting a little off topic here,

but it sort of indicates that the nature of what they've done to constantly hype up the league. Right now they're trying to select a couple of Saturday games to play in the final week of the season that are teams fighting for their lives that would get normally lost in the 1 p.m. window. So can the league promote a, you know, a Raiders Chargers. with when the teams are the eight and nine seeds or whatever and teams fighting for their lives. And it's just sort of the ethos of the league is just excellent promotion of the NFL.

So that's a big reason. I realize that's sort of drifting off topic. But I think that if I were to look at it, I'd say free agency, creation of NFL network, the Thursday night games, even though they haven't always worked out, out of always pushing the envelope of how can we, we don't want to be satisfied with the status quo. How can we continue to push this and promote the NFL?

Yeah. Football, as somebody once told me, the NFL has always viewed itself as an underdog, even when it's been for the last 30 years, the king. It's Michael Jordan's ability to create villains that didn't really exist. Doubters and critics that didn't exist. baseball as it's fallen behind still views itself royally as the national pastime. That's a great point. And, you know, one of the tenets of Roger Goodell's is that one of the biggest challenges is success,

because the league has success with something, and then people say, let's continue doing this. They're not continuing to push forward. So success is among the NFL's biggest challenge. challenges. One of the things that drives him crazy, and I spent some time with him this summer, and he said, you know, when somebody comes back to me and said, okay, what are we doing on April, or, you know, August 8th? And he said, it drives him crazy when somebody says, okay, what do we do last year on August 8th? And that whole idea that let's do the same thing that's worked before really bothers him.

I give him a lot of credit for pushing the league forward. A few years ago, I said this on the air. Newspapers needed baseball and baseball needed newspapers. I always feel baseball is a newspaper sport and the NFL is a television sport and doesn't really need newspapers as much. And I say that talking to Sam Farmer, but it is so driven by what we view. on television. And sometimes they think the media tends to be, they don't do it as much anymore, that they were a little hard. They were apologetic for baseball's stubbornness with rule changes.

I mean, for God's sake, little league baseball figured out the replay before Major League Baseball. They were sometimes almost apologetic for baseball's missteps and stubbornness and much harsher on Roger Goodell because I do think being a governor, a president, or a commissioner. in this social media world. It's just a tunnel of hate. Nobody likes anybody, especially people in power. But I do view Goodell as a really bright guy. And I do think he has a little bit, considering his dad was a, I think a powerful politician and he's been, you know, a very successful person. I do feel Roger, I've had dinner with him twice, has a very relatable personality.

Both times I sat down with him, he peppered. me with questions. And I like him. I like being around Roger Goodell. I find him to be. David Stern was abrasive if you were around him at times. He was, there was a lot to David. Roger Goodell could easily disappear with eight, nine people and just be a guy.

That's my experience with Roger. You? Yeah, I agree. And I also think that being that lightning rod is one of the reasons he makes so much money. I think the owners like to have someone who is the lightning rod and does take some of the heat off the individual owners. And I'm certainly not saying I agree with every decision Roger Gadell's made, but I do like him. And I think he's done a good job with the league and this sort of unwieldy, well, unwieldy job. I mean, it's really difficult to make some of these calls.

and the league's had its more than share of missteps and everything. But yeah, in terms of a guy, very relatable, normal when you get past the veneer, this is the commissioner. All right, let's start and I did something on the air. And I said, let's go back and revisit the trade. So the Rams, knowing they're a good team, they will draft later in rounds, gave up two firsts and a third for Matt Stafford. Now, knowing that Stafford would be at least competent to slightly better than Gough,

they knew they were going to have a bottom 810 pick first round. And then they probably Les Sneed thought, well, the second year first round were going to be even better. So that's another bad first round pick. And then a third round pick. So I understood, I talked to Les about this. He's like, listen, we don't draft high. And so the reality is, I've been told this for years, Sam, after about the 15th pick in the first round, from about the 16th pick to the first pick in the third round, it's all second round guys. You're just paying first round money.

So I looked at the trade today and I thought, okay, what they really gave up are two second round level talents and a third round talent. and Matt Stafford, as of today, if he has two touchdown passes in the next two games, we'll double golf's touchdown pass total from last year and give you four times as many, what we would call huge Sundays, three touchdown games. And I said this morning, they stole him. This is the first year. This is without Cam Acres and Robert Woods for a chunk. And as I looked in retrospect,

he had that choppy three or four game run with pick sixes. But this morning, when they made the move, Sam, the Rams, you don't make a move if you think you're losing it. But the potential for them to win this trade is fairly striking to me, considering Goff had 20 touchdown passes. Stafford today's at 36. Your takeaway on that it's been better than they thought, but they wouldn't say it publicly,

because it would be negative toward golf? Yeah, I don't know that they, that's an interesting concept, that they wouldn't say that publicly because they wouldn't want to hurt golf's feelings. But I agree with you. I think now those pick sixes, three pick sixes and two picks in each of those games, it's a little befuddling, I will say,

but he has definitely changed the tenor, bless you, the tenor of this organization. and I get what less need, what his philosophy is. The fact they haven't had a first round pick since Goff 2016. They've traded all of their first round picks to 24. And I agree with that philosophy that if you can get a quality starter, particularly a quarterback. And I did look at Matthew Stafford as an elite arm.

Even though he's never won a playoff game, he's never had a running game in Detroit. Seldom had a defense. And he has infused this team with a chance. And I just don't know that if you look back and look at the picks they gave up for Jalen Ramsey and look at the players that Jacksonville selected with those picks, you wouldn't recognize the players. I'd have to go back and look them up who those players.

players were, but there's nobody who's a, I think fans get it in their mind and people get in their mind when they think first round pick, they think Hall of Fame type player or even starter for sure. And there are so many first round picks that go awry and so many lower round picks that really work out that I think it's more valuable to take an established player who's going to change. change the trajectory of your organization like Matthew Stafford has, where you can come in and actually win games for you. Not, not lose games, but come in and win games. A prime example would be the Arizona game. And you find out two hours before kickoff that you don't have Jalen Ramsey, you don't have Tyler Higby, you've already lost, you're starting running back,

and you're starting right tackle. And you come in there, the team that's already beat. You you once, you're in their place, and you beat them. You halt a three-game losing streak, and you beat them when the season could have been going off the rails. And that's Matthew Stafford. It's a huge part of that. I had a conversation earlier this week with Andrew Whitworth, and I asked him about, you know, those three interceptions in this last game. And it was not, obviously, Matthew Stafford's best game. But, you know, he talked about each interception sort of in depth and how each one has its own story. And but he talked about the leadership of this guy and the enthusiasm, excitement,

belief that he is infused in the team. And it's pretty compelling. So I think, I think that the Rams, you know, who knows what would happen with Detroit. They're such a young team anyway. So whether you say the Rams won this pick or I think the Rams have no regrets about Matthew Stappar. Let's put it that way. You know, it's interesting to pivot off that about first round picks. I've been highly critical of Pete Carroll.

If you go look at his New England run, the team got worse. The Jetsy was fired. Seattle, he was in big trouble. 7 and 9, 7 and 9 had just traded and given Matt Flynn 10 million a year. If Russell Wilson isn't available in that pick, Pete gets fired for a third time. He obviously was an enormous success at SC but left the program in turmoil. And I've talked to multiple players about this. His meetings are fantastic.

His optimism and energy is through the roof. But there's a growing sense as he's gotten older that. Some of his beliefs are a bit outdated. He has had, when Paul Allen died, he was given immeasurable power within the organization. Paul Allen's sister is not a sports fan. And Paul kind of kept his thumb on Pete in the organization, and that's no longer the case. He is, they have whiffed as an organization on multiple first round picks. I mean, even recently, Rashad Penny is not nearly as good as a healthy Chris Carson,

who was a seventh round pick, LJ Collier's third on the depth chart. And it doesn't matter if Pete convinces me that he can turn it around. It's can he convince Russell Wilson? And I wonder, Sam, you know Pete pretty well. McVeigh, Stafford, Shanahan, Kingsbury, Kyler. That division is very offensive leaning, as is the sport. Every division leader in the NFC is an offensive coach, even some Mike McCarthy that we have questions of. deep down with Pete's psyche.

The other day, he said, we're not in a rebuild. And I thought he's too smart to believe that. How do you view Seattle and Pete currently there? Well, obviously, he's really struggling. We're seeing some things that, you know, walking out of the press conference, uncharacteristic things of Pete. I remember going up there in 2012.

I spent a week with Pete. gave me an office next to his so I could sort of observe the organization, how it was, which was a fascinating look at both Pete and how an organization runs. I got to go to all the meetings or any that I wanted to raid the cafeteria, which I did several times a day. And it was a really interesting, but Pete had that spengali effect. I mean, and everybody, the buy-in was very high, and they had incredible success up there with Pete. You know, I'm not of the mind that, you know, people become bad coaches.

I think that he knows how to coach. I think he's still a very good coach, but I agree with you. And I like the personnel department. I like Scott Fitter and what he was able to do there and then parlayed that into the GM job in Carolina. And some of the players they found, you look at that draft where they were getting Richard Sherman late in the draft.

And they had a number, was it 2012 or 2011 draft? They had this incredible testament to the scouting department. But I agree. A lot of their first round picks have flamed out. And it really feels like Russell Wilson is done there. And, you know, and it does feel like a rebuild. I mean, I don't know how you define rebuild. I think you've got it, you know, it's a sad state of affairs right now when you look at Seattle.

They don't do anything well. I mean, Sam, they don't do anything well. You can do superficial, you know, total defense, total offense. You can deep dive to third down conversion rates. You can go deep surface. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

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A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

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Each episode we pick it here unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill Waxing All About Crack in the 80s To be clear, 84's big to me not just because of crack I'm down to talk about crack on day But just so y'all know At this point Mark this is the second episode

Where we've discussed crack So I'm starting to see that there's a through line We also have AIDS on the table right now So Thank you for finishing that. Sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important

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Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different. levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Keer Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. This level, they don't do anything well. Like, I mean, there's nothing they do well. And it's funny.

A friend who is connected to Russell Wilson, who I know a little bit, it said this, is that He and his agent Mark Rogers, there's been a feeling since Russell came off the injury. They're just looking to the end of the season. And it's interesting. I don't know if Russell has the stomach for, and I think he does because he's so aspirational, draw a line in the sand, me or Pete. But I don't know if there's equal value for an Aaron Rogers or equal value for Russell. I mean, good God.

The lion's got two first and a third for Stafford. and it already looks like the Lions didn't get nearly enough. And that was a losing quarterback who's never won a playoff game. So it's, I don't know, to your point, I think it feels like a line in the sand season. Do you see the same, not to lay this at Russell's feet, but do you see the same sort of college enthusiasm that we always saw in Russell Wilson's heyday now in him?

I just wonder if he's level off as a player. And I mean, do you think Russell is the same type of player that we've seen all alone? My argument to a friend two nights ago who's a huge Seac fan, I said, Lockett's a gadget guy, should be a three. Metcalfe thinks he's a one, but he's a two. He doesn't run routes. They need an elite high-end wide receiver. They are now using, it's like a pitching staff.

Their ace is D.K. He's not. And Lockett's there, too, and he's not. And, you know, they tried to solve the offensive line with Gabe Jackson, who doesn't have much left. And I think they're pretty weak in a couple of their interior line spots. I think they're weaker than people think Freddie Swain doesn't beat people down the field. I think they're weaker at wide receiver. I think in terms of running back, it's DJ Dallas. It's Rashad Penny, who's never healthy. I just don't think they have spectacular players. Jamal. All Adams, again, I'm not giving up two firsts, a third, and a safety for a box safety. So I think what happens, they've missed on a lot of draft picks, Sam, and they've gotten desperate in trades to solve those. As Pete has aged, he doesn't want to rebuild it. And that's just what it feels like to me. It's felt the last two years like a house of cards with big swings due to draft whiffs. Yeah, and it seems like they've cobbled together a line for a long time, tried to cobble together some type of offensive line. whether that be missed bat and missed draft picks

linemen that they thought they were going to work out that they took early in the draft or you know success sort of turning defensive linemen into offensive linemen they could make do with that but that's caught up with them now and I think the offensive line obviously is a problem if I could be you and you could be me for just one hour

If you could find a way To get inside Each other's mind Walk a mile in my shoes Walk a mile in my shoes We've all felt left out And for some That feeling lasts more than a moment

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Looks like Dad has the bags. Daughter is bringing up the rear. Oh, but the diaper bag wasn't closed. Dipers and toys are everywhere. Ooh, but Mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks to be about nine or ten, has secured herself in the booster seat. Dad zips the bag closed, and they're off.

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Learn more at nhtsa.gov slash the right seat. Visit nhtsa.gov slash the right seat. Brought to you by NTSA and the right seat. Brought to you by Nidza and the Ad Council. Are you surprised? I'll throw this league-wide question at you. So Aaron Rogers does a weekly hit with Pat McAfee on YouTube. And his latest venture, I thought was funny.

He brought up again, you know, maybe I'll retire. And I thought, it's almost as if Aaron is going to create his own media company. It's almost Trumpy. And he's trying to create these news headlines on a way. weekly basis. I can't imagine on this is the second time he's brought up retirement as he's an MVP level quarterback. And I don't quite know what to make of it. Bill Simmons and I had this discussion about a month and a half ago. And Bill said, when you get older and you're rich and you don't have any kids and you're never married, you spend a lot of time in your own head and you can get strange.

Interesting. And I thought that may not be wrong. I find Aaron. to be complex and fascinating, but yet, Sam, I still feel that he'll be a packer because I don't think he wants the blowback of moving and potentially failing. Do you have a strong conviction on Aaron going forward? Well, I would have said before the season, my conviction was he wasn't going to be a packer. I've always sort of thought that he would wind up in Denver with George Peyton. And why? I just thought that was a good situation for him. I thought that George coming from the Vikings has a lot of respect for,

they obviously need a quarterback for what Aaron Rogers can do. I thought it was a, they've built the receivers there in Denver. If they can get a quarterback, I think they can turn the key on that offense. Yeah. And I just thought that was one of the places where he was, was most likely to land. Obviously, I was wrong. He stayed in Green Bay and maybe it will be increasingly difficult to leave Green Bay. And you may never do that. But that's just always been in my head thinking, I wonder if he's, if he's going to wind up in Denver. You talk about,

you know, I wonder if a guy like that even thinks about the money, but Pat McAfee's contract has to make a lot of guys think. You know, he's on that show. And once he gets 30, million a year. That's food for thought for anyone. But he is a complex guy, and he's always been that way, Aaron. And so, you know, yeah, but if I were to say he's not going to, if he's not playing in Green Bay, I put him in Denver. But that's just me.

That's a gut feeling I have. All right. I'm going to put you on the spot. Denver Broncos are probably. moving off Vic Fangio. It's the reality. There's going to be new ownership. The offense has really stalled in the division with Derek Carr, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, and the league is moving clearly toward aiding offense at every turn. Denver's going to have an opening. Chicago is going to have an opening. Las Vegas is going to have an opening. Jacksonville's

going to have an opening. I think Denver is the best of those openings, despite not having a quarterback. If I said, in your opinion, Sam Farmer, rank those four openings, Jags, Raiders, Bears, Broncos. Boy, I'd have to put the Jags at the bottom. Yeah. Culturally. Yeah. And the Bears, great historic organization, but I'd probably put them third, maybe Raiders second and Broncos first. I still, I think that's a very, I think that's a good organization. And despite the sort of uncertainty at the ownership, you know, what's going to happen with ownership there?

I think it's a good job and I like that GM a lot. You know, it's interesting. I actually think the Raiders between Colton Miller at left tackle, Derek Carr, Waller, Hunter, Renfro, and Jacobs. I'm like, they've got five really nice offensive pieces. I don't think the Raiders is a bad job. Now, Mark Davis is one of the more peculiar. your owners, probably the poorest, and the division is tough. But I think, you know, do you have any liens on where the Raiders would go?

I do think Denver has a chance to not only get Aaron Rogers, but to get the best candidate. Now, that could be, is it Matt Eber Fluse? It could be Josh McDaniel. No, they wouldn't go that again. Whether it's Eric B. Enemy. I feel Denver has separated it. I don't think the Raiders is a bad job. That's my takeaway.

is it viewed in the league? Yeah, I think it's a little better job than it has been. And yes, you do have a quarterback or if he's your guy who's played really well these last couple of years. Generally, it's not being considered a great place to go work. But I think Mark is a different guy than Al. And I think the personnel you mentioned there and, you know, Max Crosby too. I mean, they've got some they've got some good players.

in an inciting environment, you know, and they're getting a Super Bowl. Yeah, I'd put them second on that list. And so, and they've had some sort of unusual choices as head coaches. But yeah, yeah, I'd put him second. I mean, I'd really have to look at it. Think about the question a little bit. All right. one final question. It's an LA question. So I've said this before. When Pete Carroll was at USC,

there were no NFL teams in Los Angeles. Now there's two in a brand new stunning stadium. There was no LAFC. The clippers were unwatchable. And the Dodgers were okay. Also, the Silicon Valley wealth has exploded. And people now, more people have second homes. More people are distracted economically, more people have options, is that I don't know if USC football can ever feel huge in Los Angeles again. Am I being a cynic? How do you view it? It's hard to imagine it ever being as huge as it was under Pete Carroll with no NFL team, because it was clearly the NFL franchise in L.A. for all those years. Obviously, there's excitement with Lincoln Riley and what can he bring back. But I do think you are now in the shadow,

especially SoFi Stadium versus the Coliseum, you're now in the shadow of the NFL, particularly the shadow cast by the Rams who are ascending in popularity. And, you know, it's still got a huge SC has a huge fan base. And so I think it could be very big again and a nostalgic program. But I don't know it will ever be as big as when it was filling the vacuum for an NFL team or two NFL teams. So I think it can be big. I think it can be exciting. And people will be excited about SC football if it does well.

But that's a bygone air. when there wasn't an NFL team here and they filled that void. Sam Farmer, L.A. Times and a podcast near you. Been here a long time. Have you always lived in Pasadena, that area? No, we moved around. My dad was at IBM. So we lived in Maryland, Colorado, Northern California.

I went to Occidental and then worked in Seattle for five years and San Jose for five years. and then came back down to L.A. in 2000. So I moved around quite a bit. But I love L.A. I feel like an L.A. guy. So do I. I do. I do. I do. I do. But I love the Pacific Northwest, as do you.

I do. I'm over damp. I'm over it. Mid-50s, Sam. I'm over soggy. Yes. But I will say the summers, Pike Place Market, Bainbridge Island. Oh, it is just, it's really special.

It's the south of France. It's 79 degrees, 82 degrees. It's the water everywhere, boats everywhere. It's light till 10 o'clock at night or 9.30 at night. That's great in the summer. But I agree with you. I mean, if I could live there three months a year, you can. I can.

I'm in newspapers. Great seeing you, Sam. Yeah, great seeing you, Colin. Thanks. Don't forget the volume sports. Go to the YouTube channel at the volume sports. Little button on the right. Subscribe.

Always appreciate that. Plus, Instagram at the volume sports. Twitter, too. Talk soon. Thanks. The volume. If you love to be remembered as the person who gives the best birthday gifts, I'm here to tell you that 1-800flowers.com is your ultimate birthday gifting destination.

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This week my guest. guests, S&L's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast. Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human.