The Kevin Sheehan Show - Scott Turner

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

Kevin's interview with Washington Commanders' OC Scott Turner on the show today. Also, NFL agent and former Washington salary cap analyst J.I. Halsell jumped on to talk about the Kyler Murray/Arizona Cardinals situation from last week.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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So what you're hearing here are two interviews that I did earlier in the week, one of which aired on radio that you're going to hear a significant amount of it, the interview that I did with Washington Commander's offensive coordinator, Scott Turner, and the other interview that I did with my good friend, J.I. Hallsell, J.I. Longtime NFL agent, former salary cap analyst for the skins. And I talked to him earlier in the week about the Kyler Murray situation, which is an odd situation for sure. They put that addendum into his contract, the independent study addendum into his contract, then they pulled it. And I wanted to get J.I's thoughts on that. He's an NFL agent currently. So you'll hear that interview

on the show as well. But we will start with my conversation earlier in the week with Washington offensive coordinator, Scott Turner. Scott Turner, of course, is the offensive coordinator for the team. He joins us right now. Scott, thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. A few days into camp following what was really your first normal offseason since you got here.

What's your early gut on what the offense is going to look like in 2020? 22. You know, I'm really excited about this group. I think we had a really good offseason. You know, this is something, you know, talking about, you know, coming in here with Coach Rivera in 2020. And, you know, obviously, you know, you kind of alluded to it, you know, we've dealt with some interesting circumstances. But, you know, everybody else has, you know, everybody in the league has dealt with some different things. And, you know, we've kind of built up this team and, you know, coach and we've all, you know,

built this roster up. And I feel like, you know, we're getting to a good place. And we got a good, you know, good group of young, talented guys. And they're coming together, working together. And I feel like we're getting better every day. All right. Let's not bury the lead. How's Carson Wentz doing so far? Yeah, that didn't take long to get to that. No, I carcarsen doing great. You know, I've really been impressed with him, enjoyed working with him, you know, since, you know, since he got in the building, this offseason, you know, just getting to know him, obviously as a player and then just as a person as well and just kind of what makes him tick.

You know, and he's a, you know, he's a very talented quarterback. I think, you know, everybody knows that. It takes a lot of pride in what he does. And, you know, he really wants to be great and really, really works at it. And we, you know, he's taken to, you know, learning our system is different than any, you know, kind of any system, at least verbiage-wise, that he's. ever been around. And, you know, he's really doing a great job of mastering that and, you know, building a relationship with his teammates. And you see it, you see it on the field and he's making

a lot of plays. And I think, you know, he's just getting, he's just getting better and better. And we're getting to know each other, you know, myself as a play caller and, you know, him as a quarterback, you know, you really want to be in unison. And I think we're making strides in that direction. Is there always, no matter how veteran the quarterback is, is there always a learning curve when you end up in a new place with a new system and new verbiage? Yeah, I mean, I think there's degrees of it, for sure. You know, when you do have a veteran guy, you know, like Carson, I think it can be, it's a little shorter than obviously if you, you know, you draft a rookie that, you know, doesn't have any NFL experience or, you know, never been in the huddle, you know, a lot of these guys.

you get there, they're all, you know, spread guys. Everything's, everything, no huddle and all that. But, you know, there's always, it's, you know, a little bit. I mean, it's like learning a new language, you know. I mean, there's concepts that he's run that he's been familiar with, but we call it something totally different than what, you know, that we, what he called it in the past. And, you know, just learning that and, you know, all the different things that go along with it.

But like I said, I mean, he, you know, he had a great introduction to that, this offseason, he had time. over the summer to study it on his own. And he's been outstanding throughout the course of this whole process. Is it hard to know before you play an actual game in the regular season, how comfortable he is and how ready he is? You know, I think you can have a pretty good idea. Like, you know, I've been in situations like this in the past.

And, you know, you feel, you know, I mean, I mean, there's times where you're going to the race season, you're like, yeah, you're not really sure. And it kind of plays out that way. You know, it's a little bit more hit or miss. And then you go, you have other situations where you're like, hey, this guy's gone and nailed. He'll do great. And that's how really it plays out. I mean, not that you're always right.

And not that there's not always going to be some hiccups. I mean, it doesn't matter how long you've been in a system. I mean, this league is challenging. There's a lot of really good defensive coaches, a lot of good defensive players. So you're going to have issues, you're going to have adversity. But really, that's what this league's about. Yeah, so what you just said, you know, you've been around enough, you've got a sense, we're going to be okay, you know, when we get to Jacksonville on September 11th. Or, you know, it may be, you know, a work in progress.

So at this point, and it's super early, it's, you know, it's August 1st. Do you have a gut on where, you know, on how you feel, you know, how you're, you know, how you're, feel when you get within a week or so of the season opener? Yeah, I mean, I definitely have a good. I got feel for it, and I'm excited. I think that he's going to, I think he'll be great. I think when we get to that point, like at the comfort level between myself and Carson and the rest of his teammates will only be that much better than it is right now,

we'll have a feel for, I mean, we already have a feel, but we have any of the things he does well, the things that maybe he doesn't do, quite as well, and kind of how we want to construct a lot of it depends on the opponent and the type of defense and the type of things that they do schematically. But, no, I think that we're going to be better than fine and I'm excited about the opportunity for our team. You've seen up close, whether as a coach or as your father's son, some really talented teams, offensive teams in your lifetime, the cowboy teams that he coached with

Troy Emmett and Michael on the 99 team here with Brad Johnson, some of those explosive charger teams that he was the coach of. You know what one looks like, a really talented offensive team. Describe the overall offensive talent on this team. Yeah, you know, I'm not really big into comparisons. I do, I totally understand what you're saying. You know, just talking about our guys. I think we got a good group of receivers. We got a good group of guys that kind of have different skill sets, guys

that can do with different things. You know, obviously got guys like Terry that is going to get separation and go get the ball. Very, very competitive, very tough. You know, we got a young guy, Jahan, who is, you know, quick, you know, you can move around a lot of different

spots, really good ball skills. You know, Curtis, you know, he's kind of a Swiss Army knife. He can do a lot of different things. And then, you know, Diomi, second year player that's, you know, a speed guy, deep threat, but a little bit of a bigger, a little bit more size. And he's really, you know, I think he's really ready to take a step, you know, take that next step. And then, you know, Cam Sims, who's a, you know, bigger, more physical, you know, contested catch, a high point player who's who's stepped up for us big over the last two years in times that we've needed him. You know,

the tight-in position, you know, right now with Logan, he's coming back from the injury. I think, you know, he'll be back. He'll be back at some point. If it's not at the very beginning of season, it'll be very soon. You know, John Bates, you know, he really, he stepped up first last year. And, you know, he's only a second-year guy, but he, the way he acts and carried himself, it's like an eight-year pro, you know, and then, you know, we got some younger guys in tight position.

And then at running back, really excited about our running back, Antonio. you know, rushing for 1,000 yards last season, you know, still relatively new to the position. And he's only getting better and better. Everybody, you know, knows about Judy McKissick. And what he brings to us on third downs as well as just the passing game and, you know, as a backhanding of the ball. And then Brian Robinson, I think everyone's excited about him, you know, drafting him and, you know, someone that's, you know, a solid accomplishing between the tackles runner

and kind of take the load off of AG a little bit. And I think that those three guys' combination is going to be a really good backfield. So, you know, we got guys that we can spread the ball out too. Obviously, we just spent a lot of time talking about Carson. So, you know, with that group overall, you know, you got some guys that are going to make some plays, you know, and they're going to be able to do different things to complement each other. And we don't, you know, we don't have, I mean, you know, obviously we know about Terry, but we don't have, you know, and that's been the deal of Terry.

You know, we've really leaned on him last few years and kind of take some pressure off of him and open some stuff up for him, you know, with this group of guys that now we have around him. You know, you just went through a long list of players, and I think a lot of coaches will do that this time of year, but you went through the list of players that I think from afar, all of us have some high expectations of as well. And that was, you know, the fact that that was a length of. the answer is a good thing, that you're excited that you can name that many players.

I want to know from you outside of all the guys you mentioned, you know, the guys we have high expectations of from the outside looking in. Terry, you know, Antonio, J.D., Logan, hopefully when he's healthy, Jahan Diami. I know that you guys really had high expectations for him when you drafted him. Give me a player or two that you think will surprise him. us, somebody that maybe we don't have any expectations of that you guys know will end up being a contributor? Yeah, I mean, you know, I listed, you know, a lot of guys, you know, there. And I think you're going to get contributions for a lot of them.

You know, we got guys, obviously, Dax Milne, who contributed last year for at the time. You know, I think he's a guy that could potentially make a step in the, you know, in the coming year. but really that collection, that group that I went through earlier, that's where we're expecting, you know, a lot to come from. I did not, the other name that I think might surprise us, and I think this might be more the answer that you're talking about is a guy like Cole Turner, you know, that we drafted in the fifth round from Nevada. And, you know, he's a guy that's a big target that I think can really help us in the passing game.

So I wanted to get your thoughts on a few players specifically. And I want to start with two guys who, when I listened to you last year in your weekly press conference and I had Ron on the radio show each week, I had this sense listening to both of you that the losses of Logan Thomas and J.D. McKissick were huge and impactful to what maybe you guys thought could have been a longer run after your four-game winning streak. Give me a minute on both of those guys and what your expectations are from both of them, assuming and hopefully with both of them 100% healthy. Yeah, I mean, Logan, starting off with Logan, you know, we lost him for, you know,

a couple different reasons throughout the course of the season. He's just a really friendly target. He's easy to throw to for the quarterback. You know, obviously he's so big. He'll go get up and get the ball. You know, that really helps a quarterback. So just not having him out there. It's a security blanket.

And then the other half or part of that security blanket is JD. You know, out of the back field, really smart player, understand, you know, finding those opening to where the quarterback can get the ball out of his hand. So, hey, you know, we're trying to push the ball down the field. The content's not open down the field. Hey, you know, let me let me get the ball out of my hand, you know, get a five, 10-yard gain. and just not having him there. Those two guys are really kind of, you know,

the quarterback's best friend that we have and losing them both and really around the same time at the end of the season. That was tough and that hurt us. What's the best Antonio Gibson can be as an NFL back? You know, I'm not going to put any limitations on him because you're talking about a guy that had 33 carries coming out of college and has really carried the load for us.

is now two years in a row, and you just see him getting better and better. He needs, obviously, you know, take care of the ball security issues. You know, we can't have the ball on the ground. And, you know, that end of the year last year, you really saw, you know, his vision is continuing to get better, and the more reps he has, the better he's going to be, and he's just seeing it over and over again. And that's really where he can go, because, you know, you talk about he's 230 pounds.

You know, he's a, you know, 4-4 or close to being a sub-4-4 guy. He's hard to tackle, you know. And when he's decisive and he puts his foot in the ground, he can run through tackles. And then, you know, he also is, he can do a lot of things in the passing game as well. You know, he's got that background. So I just, I think that, you know, the sky's the limit for Antonio and we're just kind of seeing him scratch the surface. couple more and I'll let you run. I appreciate the time. You know, you're one of the people in the

organization that remembers what it used to be. You know, your father was here for the last years of RFK from, you know, 94 through 96, and you probably went to games in RFK. You were there for, I'm sure, the first game at FedEx Field, which your father coached and Gus Verrett threw a touchdown pass to Michael Westbrook in overtime to beat the Cardinals. What are some of your memories? Give me your favorite memory of your father's teams here and one that was really a killer for you and the rest of the family. Yeah, I mean, there's so many. He's head coach here for seven seasons or almost seven seasons. But I remember it clear his day watching Michael Westbrook. you know, scored the touchdown.

You know, and the problem is you remember the bad one, way more than the good. You know, winning the division in 99, you talked about already, you know, how good they were offensively. There were number two offensive league that year behind, you know, the greatest show on turf. That was a lot of fun, just that whole year. And I remember, you know, I wasn't at the game, but I remember watching the game at home when they beat San Francisco and, you know, Lerick Center scored a touchdown. to clincher division. And that was a huge moment, you know, getting to the playoffs for the first time for my dad as a head coach.

And then, you know, the negative ones were, you know, later in that year, you know, the way we lost that game to Tampa in the divisional round being up 13-0 and then, you know, not having a chance to see the ball on the air with a bad snap on the field goal. And I was, you know, I was 17. I was a junior in high school. And I was standing on the sideline. You know, that was tough. And, you know, because it really felt good about, you know, that we had a chance to go to the NFC championship game there. And then, you know, the next year was really tough. And, you know, Brad, I mean, Brad got hurt and Jeff George's playing and, you know, beat the Rams on Monday Night Football.

And, you know, had a good team and then lost those two really close games back to back to the Giants and the Eagles. And then, yeah, and then, you know, and then my dad getting fired. I mean, that was tough, you know, being a senior in high school and dealing with that. And just, and not so much for me, just, you know, watching my dad go through that because I know how much he puts into it. You know, just how disappointing I know. At this point he was that it didn't, you know, that it didn't work out. But, you know, that's, you know, stuff that's, you know, obviously been in the past.

And, you know, I think that, like you said, like I, you know, I remember what it used to be like here. And I think that Coach Rivera and, you know, the people in this building and our players and what we, you know, what we're working towards that, you know, we can get this thing going again and get it back to, get it back to, you know, what it used to be like. And, you know, you know, get the area and just the community, you know, get them back around the team and get some excitement in the area. Yeah, that Tampa game was painful, you know, the Turk to Turk snap that rolled back and we never got to. to see the kick, and it would have been a matchup in the NFC championship game between the two best offenses and football in St. Louis. And the worst in that game was, you know, Sean King gets sack, fumble, and the ball's on the ground and works on the 20 yards.

Yeah. Yeah, and they probably don't win their game. Exactly. They don't win that game if they don't convert in that situation. Yeah, that was rough. So what is your father's role role? right now with you and with the team? Well, you know, he doesn't really have a role with the team,

but, you know, obviously he's retired. I mean, he's living out in Del Mar in California. But just for me personally, you know, obviously he's a mentor to me, has them my whole life, not even when we didn't work together. And then, you know, we worked together for years in the league. But he, you know, he watches our film. He watches our film daily. and we talk about it all the time, and he gives me advice on different things.

And, you know, he's seen a lot in this league. And, you know, there's some things that he'll say that, you know, that maybe I've missed or, you know, he'll talk about players that we have and people that, you know, that they remind him of and things that he used to do with those players or, you know, just, you know, things like that. And that's good. Just, you know, more people generate ideas.

Obviously, we have a great coaching staff, and we do a great job working together, and I get a great lot of ideas from the guys here, but just to have him, someone's removed, you know, not in the building every day, just seeing it from an outsider's perspective is really invaluable, especially when you're talking about not only because it's my dad, but just someone with that level of expertise and the resume and the accomplishment that he's had in this league. So that was my interview with Scott Turner from earlier this week on the radio show, There was more to it. He weighed in on how Sam Howell was doing the fifth round pick out of North Carolina, the quarterback.

And he also shared with me what his father thought of the team that he's about to coach, the offensive talent that he's about to coach this year. If you want to hear the rest of that interview, go to the team 980.com and click on my show, the Kevin Sheehan show, and go to Monday, August 1st, and you will find the Scott Turner interview. there. You can also download the Odyssey app, which is free to download and listen to that interview in its entirety there. But I did enjoy the conversation with Scott Turner earlier in the week. Up next, you're going to hear a conversation I had earlier in the week with J.I. Hallsell about the Kyler Murray situation in Arizona, J.I. Longtime Agent, former salary cap analyst with the skins. We'll get to that right after these words from a few. of our sponsors.

I thought the Kyler Murray situation in Arizona was a real interesting situation from last week. It got leaked that there was this independent study addendum requiring him to do four hours of additional study each week in preparation for the upcoming opponent. And then it leaked that that was in the contract and Kyler Murray got upset and the Cardinals pulled it from the contract. I reached out to J.I. Hallsell, who is a good friend, Jay I was a salary cap analyst with the skins. He's an NFL agent currently.

And I wanted to get his thoughts on the Murray situation with the Cardinals last week. And I started off by just asking him, when he first read that this was in Kyler Murray's contract, what was his immediate reaction? My immediate reaction is that it really proved that a lot of the things, we read, being reported about Kyle Murray's leadership, his character over the past year or so, must have had some truth to it, because anytime, you know, this type of cause gets put into a contract, or any time you look at the different mechanisms in contracts, they tell you what the team thinks of the player, not just on the field, but also just holistically.

And so, again, when you hear questions about his leadership, questions about his maturity, and then you see this type of clause in the contract, it makes you at least think that there was some fire behind that smoke. Yeah, I think that's really important that everybody understand or be reminded of, you know, as an example, Charlie Casserly's very, you know, pushed back upon comments right before the 20, 19 draft when he said that Kyler Murray garnered some of the worst comments he's ever gotten about a highly rated quarterback before. He said, you know, he mentioned leadership, study habits weren't good. The boardwork was below par.

And Cassarly got skewed for that, but he stuck to his guns about the information that he had. And, you know, we remember the playoff game last year where he refused to go back into the game at the end of that Rams game when the Cardinals as a team, and Kyler Murray specifically was awful in that playoff game. You've been around a lot of contracts over the years. Was that totally unique, that kind of an addendum? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that is, and I've been around player contracts for nearly 20 years now,

both in the league office, at the skins on the agent side of the business. So I've seen these deals. That is a unique clause in a deal. Anytime, and, you know, remember what the penalty would be if, you know, he were to run a foul of the clause. It could void what are substantial guarantees in the deal. And we all know that the guarantees are one of the most important aspects of these deals. So for it to, you know, jeopardize his guarantees tells you how significant it was, at least, for the Cardinals to put this in the deal, because again, it is a truly unique clause that I had not seen in nearly 20 years of looking at these deals.

It may have been hard to audit, you know, J.I., in terms of really enforcing it. But beyond that, I think everybody in your line of work was pretty much taken aback, and it was something that was totally unique. You live out there. I'm not asking you if you know more than anybody else does, but I'm asking you to kind of, with a hunch. Guess, you know, how this went down. Because when I read it, the first reaction I had was, you know, what you said about Kyler Murray, probably true. But B, that's not something you should put into a contract with the threat or the possibility of it getting out. You've got to work with the player. You know, if you're going to sign him to this long-term deal, you've got to work with him and you can't put him into a position where this comes out. How do you think it got

broached. How do you think it went down and why did Kyler-Marie and his agent decide to sign it? Yeah, I think, you know, like a lot of these contract mechanisms, they are a function of trading between the player agent and the club. So from a club perspective, the conversation is, well, if we're going to make you the second highest paid quarterback from an average per year standpoint, if we're going to give you $160 million guaranteed, well, in exchange for us giving you this windfall, we're going to have to have some protections in this deal that effectively protect our investment in you. And one of those protections is significant per game roster bonuses, because we don't want to pay $160 million guaranteed and you're not on the field.

And so when you look at Kyle Murray's deal, you'll see that there are years where he has 850, $50,000 that are tied up in his ability to be on the active roster on a weekly basis. Similar, if we're going to invest $160 million total guaranteed to you, we've got to know that you are doing everything possible, reasonably speaking, to make sure you are prepared on game days. And so we're going to, we would like to put in this independent study clause. And this isn't something that, you know, from a club perspective, they probably sold it as.

This isn't anything that we're asking you to do above the norm, but we feel compelled that if we're going to make this investment, we need to make sure that there's some mechanisms that ensures we're going to get a return on our significant investment. So that's how the horse trading goes. You think either one of them, like for a moment, considered the possibility of this news coming out and, you know, making, you know, Kyler Murray look bad. I think making the organization look bad as well,

but really the position that it's put Kyler Murray in, regardless of whether or not they pulled it from the contract, that's really at this point, you know, it's the horses out of the barn because NFL fans are going to consider the possibility after every Kyler Murray poor effort or poor game that it was because he didn't prepare enough. Like, why didn't they think this thing through? I mean, this, did they think, you're an agent,

did they think that this kind of thing would never come out? Well, I think both sides had to have known that given the media world that we live in today, that this clause was going to get out publicly. That being said, I think on both sides of this, and we see this in everyday life as well, When you feel so strongly about something, sometimes it fogs your thinking and allows you to ignore certain aspect that you really truly should be considering before following through on whatever it is you feel passionately about. In this case, from a club perspective, they felt passionately that they wanted to have this clause in there and it, to a certain degree, made them ignore the public media reaction. on the agent player side of it, it's $160 million total guaranteed.

It's $46.1 per year. When you're on the brink of that type of generational wealth, it can make you ignore all of the considerations that you probably should be thinking of inclusive of how will an independent clause make me look particularly moving forward if I have a bad game. And so I think on both sides of this, because the money was so significant, it made both sides or allowed both sides to truly ignore kind of the media reaction part of this. We're talking to J.I. Hallsell on our BetQL guest hotline. You know, part of me when I saw that they had pulled the addendum last week based on him, you know, feeling embarrassed really more than anything else that this thing had gotten out there. part of me thought that really the best course of action would have been for him to say, I'm a big boy, I sign that contract.

It's in the contract, and I'm going to work my ass off to fulfill it. You're an agent. What kind of advice would you have given them? I don't disagree with your perspective there that, you know, look, you're generationally rich, right? And you, particularly as a quarterback as a leader of a franchise, you learn. you shouldn't have learned certain levels of diplomacy, right? And to your point, if you take the high road here and say, look, you know, from my perspective, I don't have any concerns about my study habits, but obviously the clubs felt like there

needed to be some improvement in that area. I'll show them that, you know, I'll get better, even though I don't see it as a concern. And, you know, for me that I'm not scared of me losing my guarantees as a result. That's taking the high road, right? and that's putting this thing to bet. By not addressing it or by passive-aggressively pushing back against it, you're only adding fuel to the fire, right? And we saw that this thing became a raging inferno over the past week.

Warren Moon told TMZ over the weekend that it was, quote, a slap in the face to all African-American quarterbacks. It's something we were always accused of back in the day when they didn't let us play, that we were lazy, that we didn't study, that we couldn't be leaders, that we weren't smart. So all of those different things just kind of came to the surface after we all put that stuff to bed over the years and just because of this deal and what's going on between Arizona and Kyler closed quote. Do you agree with that statement from him? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've read Warren's statement, and I don't disagree. I think, you know, perception management. is a big part of athletes, black, white, or whatever, right? And when we think about the history of black quarterbacks, and we think about the successes that black quarterbacks have had, when you see a clause like this put into a quarterback's contract who happens to be black, it makes it a further obstacle from a perception management standpoint.

That being said, sometimes perception is reality. And we've just talked about how there had been here, Hence that Kyler has some of these character issues, perhaps, right? And then you see this clause in the contract, and I think the challenge becomes, you know, we don't want to see clauses or things like this put into contract when they're not warranted, right? And I think that's the bigger thing we want to be careful of. But, no, you know, from a perception management standpoint, this is something that could be a challenge for black quarterbacks they go through the scouting process and hope to come into the NFL.

Yeah. Thank you, as always, for your perspective on this. I will talk to you soon. Appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me, as always. All right, that's it for today. I'm going to have something else for you tomorrow, yeah, on Saturday, to listen to as well.