The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 120: Andrew Brandt – Learning From A World Class Negotiator

Episode Date: May 1, 2016

Episode 120: Andrew Brandt – Learning From A World Class Negotiator Andrew Brandt leads a fascinating life.  A great mentor of mine told me to always be on the lookout for others who have had “success in multiple life categories.” In Andrew’s case, he’s done that throughout his life: Stanford graduating Cum Laude à Georgetown Law à NFL Player agent à VP and head negotiator for The Green Bay Packers à Top Business analyst for ESPN/Writer for The MMQB/ Leader at Villanova.  This is a very insightful conversation on The Learning Leader Show. Andrew Brandt is an ESPN Business Analyst. He’s a weekly columnist; at The MMQB.com Andrew is also the Exec. Director, Moorad Center at Villanova. He focuses on trying to stay true to the good and never peaking.  Previously, he was the Vice President of Player Finance and General Counsel of Green Bay Packers.  He was in charge of The Packers Salary Cap as well as negotiating all of the player contracts for the team. Episode 120: Andrew Brandt – Learning From A World Class Negotiator Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “There are a lot of fathers of success but few of failure.” In This Episode, You Will Learn: Self-discipline, internal motivation, having a lack of complacency leads to sustained excellence The story of Ricky Williams asking him to work for Master P! What it was like being in the middle of an NFL “war room” on draft day Working as an NFL agent with David Falk and Bobby Orr Writing, teaching, broadcasting are the three pillars of his career Wharton to Villanova Supporting coaches who are forward thinking and innovative like Chip Kelly Unfortunately, most coaches and GM’s are just trying not to get fired How to become a great negotiator Never let emotion override focus – “Emotions fade, focus doesn’t” Keeping Aaron Rodgers on hold while waiting for a trade offer prior to drafting him! An incredible Drew Rosenhaus story Not using the word “former” in the description for anything he does – Looking forward, living in the present.  Learn from the past but moving forward Stay true to the good and being in “constant beta mode” is the definition of a learning leader  “Stay true to the good… And never peak.” – Andrew Brandt Continue Learning: See Why Over 200,000 People Follow Tim on Twitter: @AndrewBrandt Read: Andrew's Work On The MMQB To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector W/ Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 082: Dan Pink – The Science of Motivation, Legendary Writer & Ted Talk Episode 086: Seth Godin – How To Become Indispensable & Build Your Tribe Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why Did you enjoy the podcast? If you enjoyed hearing Andrew Brandt on the show, please don’t hesitate to send me a note on Twitter or email me. Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell Bio From Twitter Andrew Brandt is an ESPN Business Analyst. He’s a weekly columnist; at The MMQB.com Andrew is also the Exec. Director, Moorad Center at Villanova. He focuses on trying to stay true to the good and never peaking.  Previously, he was the Vice President of Player Finance and General Counsel of Green Bay Packers.  He was in charge of The Packers Salary Cap as well as negotiating all of the player contracts for the team.

The Never Peak is really kind of a life principle for me. I'm in my mid-50s now, and people say, wow, I can't believe you're that old. I mean, I think it's just a number. You just try to be your best physically and mentally. And I sort of get upset with people. This always just goes back to, I mean, you'll see on my Twitter bio, my bio essentially, is never former anything. Former Packers VP, former age. and former Barcelona general manager,

it's always current, because you want to just be focused on going forward. I think too many people in life say, back when I was, back when I did this, back when I ran this, you know, that's for sitting in a rocking chair when you're 90. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made

through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey everyone, it's Ryan. I wanted to make a quick announcement. A number of you had sent me emails in regards to asking for a place to further this dialogue with like-minded people, other listeners, fans, and friends of the Learning Leader Show.

So I set up a group on Facebook. It's Facebook.com slash groups. slash learning leader. It's a closed group, but if you'd like an invite, simply shoot me a quick note, and I'd be happy to bring you into the group. This is a place where we can freely communicate and discuss leadership, learning, creative ideas, podcasting, and new and innovative ways of thinking a place where we could potentially argue a little bit, have an open mind, and have constructive dialogue. I've loved the early response from the people who are already in the group, but simply send me a note. I'll add you to it. I look forward to talking with more of you very soon.

Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. What a fascinating conversation this was with our featured leader Andrew Brand. Andrew was an NFL player agent. He then was hired by the Green Bay Packers to be their vice president of player finance. Basically, he was in charge of their salary cap as well as negotiating every contract for the players that they signed. Now he writes about the business of the NFL for the MMQB, Peter King's website, and regularly appears on ESPN discussing the business side of the NFL. He leads an extraordinary life. It's fascinating to hear it directly from him. A few of the topics we got into. What it's like to be inside the draft room or the war room of an NFL team and some of the stories that came out of that were awesome. I loved it. And then the specific tactics and thoughts on becoming.

a great negotiator. Over the course of his career, he has been in the room with some of the best negotiators in the world, and I loved hearing the tactics and tips he gave that all of us can implement. And then what it means to never peak, why we should always be in a constant mode of moving forward.

We don't look back. Notice Andrew never talks about former. He always talks about what he's doing currently and what he's going to do in the future. He believes in learning from the past, but not dwelling on it. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's Andrew Brandt. Andrew, so excited to have you here at a Learning Leader show.

I've been following your work for quite some time, so it's really interesting for me to be able to learn from you directly. I got a question right out of the gates, and that's around your career and the people you've spent time around. You've been an agent. You've spent time in the Green Bay Packers front office. Front Office. You're now a TV star, a great writer at the MMQB. So you've spent time around a lot of. people who I would say have sustained excellence over an extended period of time. I'm curious.

What are some of the common characteristics those people all share? Yeah, well, Ryan, it's really good to be with you. I'm a fan of you and obviously a fan of your brother, one of my favorite guys during my time at the Packers, my nine years there. I put A.J. right at the top of the list. And I can segue to that answer because I think A.J. is part of this group. I always admire people and have watched people have success who I have these kind of traits. And what I mean by that is self-discipline, self-motivation, lack of complacency, reliability, dependability, conscientiousness. And it's interesting because when I went to the combine every year, our coaches and scouts, they're asking about this player, that play,

and all the players say the same thing. They're so coached up. I love my mom. mother, I love my coach, et cetera, what I would do is ask questions about exactly what you're talking about, that we could find sustained performance and excellence from these guys. And what I would ask are questions like this, to get them off script, I would say something like, okay, young men, what do you do when you get up in the morning? And he'd say, I don't know, I brush my teeth. What do you do before you brush your teeth? And he'd say, I don't know, I'll use the bathroom.

And I'd say, well, what do you do before that? And then he'd sort of give me this crazy look, and even the coaches with me would give me this crazy look. But I told our coaches and scouts, here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for that guy who says, you know, when I put my feet on the floor out of bed, I do 100 push-ups. When I put my feet on the floor, I turn on my little flashlight to not wake my roommate, and I get another hour of studying in before class.

when I wake up, I write down 10 things I want to do today. I wanted to see who's that, that self-motivation, that self-discipline, that way to make himself better, not every month, not every year, every day. And those people are successful. Those people, in my experience, are completely successful. And we were able to find some of those guys. And I would put AJ in that category. One note about your brother, when we did that.

long contract, the highest contract I've ever done in the draft, fifth pick, 30-something pages. It was before the new CBA when everything was pre-set. Rookie contracts were very hard before that. I called him that night or his agent did and said, you know, meet Andrew at seven or eight in the morning. And he came in sweating like a pig because his big concern about signing the contract before going to practice was could he get a workout in? and I love that.

I told Ted Thompson, I said, we're going to love this kid. We are going to love this kid. Because his primary question about this whatever million dollar contract was, would he have time to get a workout in before he signed it? So there's still sweat stains on that contract. And nothing much has changed from when I've obviously, you know, I'm two years older. And so he's kind of been like that since birth.

and it's still like that today with the Bengals. I just saw pictures of him working out. It's really cool to see. I'm curious, actually, and this just popped in my head, were you in the draft room when you guys selected them fifth overall? I was, and that was as memorable a year as I remember, except for the Aaron Rogers pick a year before that, because, yeah, I mean, we had a terrible year in 05,

and that led to having the fifth pick. And like I said, that was before the new CBA, where everything was pre-set. So that Friday night, we got word that the Houston Texans with the first pick had sort of leverage between Reggie Bush and Mario Williams trying to get a better deal from each of them, which you could do back then. You can't now. And they took Mario.

And then, you know, we sort of heard rumblings, Reggie Bush didn't want to go to New Orleans and would we be interested in trading up? and I told people that asked about that no way. I mean, we're not trading up for 185-pound running back in the second pick in the draft. Yeah. So then Bush went, then Vince Young, then Brick Ferguson. And Ted never really let on. You know, Ted's very, as everyone knows, pretty quiet about his intentions.

But there was a guy always that he had his heart set on. And I was thinking it's either A.J. or Vernon Davis. It's one of those two. Yeah. And then we got to the moment and he moved AJ. So really, like, it wasn't out and known. He kept it that close to the vest to just himself? Or is he like, does he have like a right-hand man that maybe they go back and forth?

Or is it really, I know Ted's, I don't know him well. I've never met him, but from Ted Thompson, I'm talking about the GM of the Green Bay Packers. Is he the type of guy that makes decisions on his own and is able to keep that a secret? Or is that because you were primarily a, from the business and the caps? side of the Packers. Yeah, well, I knew some of that. You know, the one thing I learned and we can talk about is really stay in their lane. We had so many good personnel guys.

They're now all GMs. John Dorsey in Kansas City and John Schneider in Seattle and Reggie McKenzie in Oakland now. That was his inner circle about that. But I'm not sure they even knew for sure on some of the picks, you know, going back all those 10 years I was there. And I'm not sure about AJ. know that, you know, I know he went to Vince Young's workout. Ted, he really liked that. You know, who knows if Vince Young was available, but we had just taken Aaron the year before.

Yeah. But, yeah, he did keep a lot of it to his self. And I'm not sure how much John and Reggie and John knew, but they knew more than I did. It was interesting. We had a big family party that day, and I hated that I had to miss it. I was actually down. I was playing arena football in Birmingham. Alabama at the time. And so I had a game that night. And so I remember being in a hotel room. We had an

away game in South Georgia getting ready to play in front of, you know, a few thousand people. And I'm watching the draft with a random roommate who, you know, you get assigned to on the road. It was a surreal moment texting with my dad. And he's here in Ohio. I'm down in South Georgia. and it was just, we had, we actually, the bus was leaving for a walkthrough earlier, and I literally wanted to be, can you guys just hold up for a minute? I really want to watch this live to see my brother get picked because it was a moment that, you know, you never forget. It's one of the coolest, the happiest days, at least as a family for us to see it happen.

And that's where you wanted to go. We actually had heard that if Houston was going to take Reggie Bush, a lot of people, and Mike and McCartney, who I know, you know, while AJ's agent was saying that there was a good chance the Saints would pull the trigger at number two for AJ if Reggie would have went one. And so we were like that that was in play. And then if that didn't happen, we thought, oh, please, Green Bay, that would be the coolest place to go. And that's how it worked out.

So really interesting stories. Andrew, I want to get into you and your story, though, because you've, the reason why I was so excited to have this conversation is because you have a career that is so unique. I can't think of anybody who has done what you've done. So if you would here for a minute, describe what you've done since graduating from law school, really, briefly from a career perspective, because I'm fascinated by all the experiences that you've got to do. Yeah, I appreciate that, Ryan. I mean, I was a tennis player growing up in Washington, D.C., played a lot of tournaments up and down the East Coast. even one national tournament, went to Stanford, but certainly was not good enough to play for

our national championship team, but got to play on what was called like a tournament team. And basically it was the best I've ever played my life, that tennis. And even after Stanford, I thought, let me give this a try. And what I tried to do is a couple of these satellite circuits, which, as anyone knows, who's sort of scuffed around in sports, I mean, arena football. looks like the Ritz Carlton compared to what I did. It was showing up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, or Panama City, Florida in front of maybe 20 people at most and trying to get points. And I did a few of these tournaments and realized I had no future.

So what I did was I went to law school back in D.C. where I'm from at Georgetown. And luckily for me, there's a big firm there called ProServe, represent a lot of players. And at that time, a lot of tennis players. and that was my hook into them because I said, hey, guys, you know, I'm a tennis player. I'm not a pro, obviously, but I know pros. And that kind of got me in, and then I started proving myself and worked five and a half years for a guy. I moved from tennis over to team sports, a guy named David Falk.

David was super agent. Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Morning, Alan Iverson, so many great players. But the real opportunity for me was to develop a. football practice because David was so engrossed in the NBA. And I was able to do that, not big names, although one Hall of Famer I was working with named Chris Dolman. So about 15 guys. And in 1991, the NFL started this World League, and they came to me, and they knew me.

Actually, Mike Lynn, who was running the Vikings, knew me from Dolman's negotiations. And how would you like to join the Barcelona Dragons? I said, what's that? We're starting a little league. It's going to be great. Overseas, introduced football around the globe. And I said, all right. And then it was a decision whether to leave the player side.

But, you know, I was young, single, had no responsibilities. And I said, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to move to Spain and run a football team. And I had no players, no coaches, no staff. I had to hire everybody. It was a two-year experience I'll never forget where everything you could think of going wrong with an NFL team was nothing compared to this. I mean, we had, you know, they were putting up the goalposts in the corners of the end zone when we got there.

The fans did the wave the entire game long. The first touchdown, a 70-yard seam pattern. There's polite golf applause. Extra point kicker comes on. They kicks the point. The crowd goes nuts. I mean, two years of this. and never got better in terms of sophistication of the audience, but they enjoyed it as a party.

We sold it after a few games. I realized we're going to sell this as three hours in America. So, long story short, two years, it was shut down. It came back as NFL Europe later. I wasn't involved. Shut down, came back as NFL Europe two later, shut down, and now gone. I went back to the agent business, and what's interesting is, a firm called Bob Wolf,

Associates, Bob, unfortunately, a pioneer in the industry, he passed suddenly with a heart attack. His wife inherited this sports firm. She didn't want anything to do with it. She sold a group out of Boston. And they hired people like me to run the football basketball. They hired a guy you may have heard of named Bobby Orr

to run the hockey division. That was quite a partner. And again, my time there, a lot of BC clients, one that's just retired, my favorite player of all time named Matt Hasselback. Yeah. Just because we're close friends. And I'm friends with his whole family.

And then my time there was really dominated by a guy named Ricky Williams, who I met as a baseball player playing summers for Philadelphia, Philly's double A team. I eventually had him agree to let me represent him in football. He was going to come out. That after his junior year, decided at the last. minute he wouldn't have. I didn't send in the papers if I would have. He would have been a pro year earlier, but I knew he was kind of a different cat. And then long story short, he left me after the draft. I mean, after I'd signed him that January, sometime in February, he decided to leave me for a guy named Master P. Now, he wanted me to work for Master P, and I didn't know what I

was going to do because this was my watershed client, and what am I going to do if he leaves me? I may have to work for Master P. At the exact same time, Ryan, like within a day or two days, the Green Bay Packers keep calling me. Now, I had Hasselback, but he was kind of a third-string quarterback, and I finally called him back. I said, listen, I can't deal with Hasbac. I got Ricky Williams. I got Master P. And they said to me, we're not calling about Hasselback.

I said, why are you calling me? Well, Mike Holmberin just went to the Seahawks. I said, okay, I went to Sports Center. He said, well, he took Reinfeld, the guy ran the whole contracts cap business side. I said, okay. And they said, well, how'd you look to switch sides? And I said, okay, let me come up to Green Bay and talk about it. And I said, why me?

You deal with 100 agents. And they said, well, you certainly have a nice way to dealing with people. You know your way around the cap and contracts. And we're impressed. And I said, that's very flattering. I was very direct. I said, don't take offense, but do I actually move here to do this job? And they said, no offense taken, but yes.

And then it was a discussion with my wife. Now it's married, one kid at the time, and we decided to do it. And again, I had no affiliation with the Midwest. I'm an East Coast kid. I went to school in California. But it was a time to sort of get off the agent train and experience a different side. So nine and a half years, my wife and one kid moved there, had another kid while there. For lack of a better word, you know, people call it capologist, contract guy. I was just sort of the

guy who handled the business side of the football operations. So I didn't really deal with stadium issues or sponsorship agreements or leases. I dealt with our football business. So any contract, any cap issue, any league issue, grievances, fines. I was kind of the coach or GM's right hand on anything business related. And I enjoyed it, Ryan. I really did. But I think at one point for the late in my time there, my wife and I realized, you know, this, we got to get back east. We've had a great experience in the Midwest, but it's just not where we are. Also, I want to in a different life. Nothing against working for a team. I'm asked all the time, would I go back? I just want to try something different. And you opened this podcast talking about how many different

things I did. I wanted to bring that perspective to, I didn't have a definite in mind in 2009, but I figured write, teach, and broadcast. And in the past five years, six years, I've been able to do it, where I started writing for my own site, then I started writing for ESPN, then now I write for Peter King's Monday morning quarterback, started teaching at Wharton School for Business. Then Villanova came to me to actually run a program in sports law, sports business, which I've done the past three years. And then on the broadcast side, I was fortunate because ESPN came to me.

They saw what was ahead with lockouts, with contract issues, and I joined them right as the NFL went on strike. strike, or I'm sorry, lockout in 2011. So I'm now in my fifth year with ESPN breaking down kind of complex issues in sports. So I've been able to sustain it and I very much enjoy it. As busy as I am, I do get to manage my time a lot easier with my kids and I'm fortunate. I was going to say you can pretty much, it feels like, I'm guessing, one of the desires for you was to run your own schedule more so than when you're working for a team. you're they pretty much call the shots of when you need to be there.

I got to believe there's just a ton of working hours. I know the front office guys, the coaches, all that seem to be just a really time intensive role or roles. Yeah. And again, I wasn't a coach. I wasn't a scout. I didn't have those kind of work into the night responsibilities. But I think anyone in a front office, you just, you just, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, kind of described it, you just kind of feel on all the time.

Yeah. When I'm home, when I'm with the kids, even, you know, would Reggie call to sign a guy? Would Ted call, we got this issue? Would the league call? Something about a contract we submitted. Something about a player testing positive. You just are always in that mode. Yeah.

Now that you're on, you're outside of it, not directly involved with one team, but you're, you probably have contacts and sources and people with many or potentially even every team. I was really curious. I was listening to Lewis Riddick. He was on a podcast recently. I think Lewis is great on ESPN. And I don't know if you probably know him personally since you guys both work for ESPN. But he does a phenomenal job on the draft.

And I just like the perspective he brings. And he also wasn't a big name guy as a player or even in a front office guy. But he came into ESPN and he's done great. But he was very honest. And he was discussing the fact that a lot of people, you know, that are listening to us now, Andrew, work for varying degrees of companies. There's entrepreneurs. There's all different types of people. But at times, people can, I get emails about this, complain about maybe some of the leadership that's being displayed at their place of work.

And usually the notes I get is that it's not good. And Lewis was mentioning that there are many of those types of environments within the NFL. And to us, the fans, the outsiders who aren't involved, were shocked by that, shocked by the fact that every coach isn't world class and every GM isn't super smart. The fact that there are ones who are there, who, as Lewis would say, don't belong coaching a third grade team. And I'm curious from your perspective now, the differences in culture between maybe a team like the Packers, who we know is pretty top-notch versus you don't have to name them but other organizations in the league. Yeah, I mean, one thing that's frustrating about a lot, not a lot, but some people in the league,

and you can put it at scout coach or other front office executive, where their primary motivation in what they do every day is to not get fired. Yeah. And that's a really bad way to go about your business. rather than be forward thinking, be progressive, come up with new ideas, and work without fear. They're basically the opposite of Chip Kelly. Yeah. Yeah.

And speaking to Chip Kelly, you know, that was very public. I'm here in Philadelphia. That last year, I mean, basically from January 1 to January 1 of 15, there were silos. There was his group working on what they were doing. and Howie Roseman, the general manager and his group, doing what they were doing, that certainly isn't healthy. Right. But as Lewis kind of indicated, there's probably more of that than we know around the league, not as pronounced as that, but just the one thing you always hear about. And I guess we had a little bit of this in Green Bay, but I would think less than most places is scouts versus coaches.

So it only happens, of course, when there's no success. So players aren't playing well. And then the age-old question, is that due to talent or is that due to coaching? And, you know, this kind of insiduous blame them. There are a lot of fathers of success, but few of failure. So, again, I don't have specific examples. I'm sure Lewis is thinking of certain places. there's this natural tendency of the scouting community to question if coaches are using players right.

And there's a natural tendency of the coaching community to say, hey, he gave me a kid that, you know, look good on tape or tested well, but doesn't fit our system. And that's why you hear the Chip Kelly's of the world wanting more autonomy, so there's not that disconnect. It's interesting. It's been very, I think, when it comes to Chip Kelly, easy to pile up. on and he's been crushed in the media. And I've noticed, I obviously follow everything. A lot of things you say, especially on Twitter, you've been a supporter of because of the fact that he's a forward thinking guy, which has made me a huge fan, but even bigger

fan of you as a thinker because that is, that is truly what this whole podcast is about, is having an open mind is, is not being fearful of doing things in a new and innovative way. And sometimes it doesn't work. and that's okay. I think as long as you learn from those situations, I think that's a great takeaway. And it's been interesting to me to see you continually support Chip Kelly. And I have to believe you think he'll be successful ultimately in San Francisco at some point. I do.

And, you know, again, you can support hubris and arrogance. And I didn't work with him. I don't know him. But, you know, if you have people saying he's hard to work with, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, not conducive to a team environment when in terms of building consensus that's a problem too so let's get that out of the way yeah but in terms of the forward thinking i like it i think a lot of the criticism as i've tweeted many times is from the that's not the way we do things crowd and i don't like that that's the way we always have done things crowd you know and i think he will be successful i think uh people forget You know, he came into the NFL first two years and won 21 games. How many people do that? Especially out of college.

How many people do that? How many people average 10 wins their first two years? And, you know, are these new coaches this year, whether it's, I don't know, Malarkey or Peterson or some of these other coaches are Dirk Cutter, are they going to win 10 games? I don't think anyone thinks they are. Will Chip Kelly win 10 games? Maybe not.

less of a talent base than he had in Philadelphia. But we'll see. You know, I just like the fact that he's very, you know, some obvious things, have more plays rather than less, spend less time preparing for each play, get the defense on their heels. Now he's criticized because in the fourth court he can't take the foot off the gas, but rather be forward thinking in the first way than not reacting to, than going too slow in the other sense.

Yeah. You know, shifting gears a little bit, one of the primary actions that you were involved with was the negotiation. So I was saying the act of negotiating. And I want to try to bring back practical tips now for the people listening who are in everyday situations where there is a negotiation taking place. And I've had on basically negotiation trainers before. and that episode actually was extremely popular. So this is a topic people care about quite a bit. If somebody came to you and said, Andrew, hey, I have a few minutes,

how would you distill it down to say, here are the few tips that anybody could use to be a better negotiator. And this is coming from a guy who's negotiated for many years with world-class negotiators. Yeah, that's a great question. And it's interesting because I just, eulogized in writing a great negotiator who unfortunately passed too soon too soon an agent named Eugene Parker who dealt with all his counterparts including me with respect with kindness with total

respect for the other parties what's going on in their lives so I think the the key thing with negotiating to me is never let emotions override focus when I dealt with negotiators who were yellers, who were screamers, who were red-faced, who got up in arms about something I said, I'm like, I got this guy. You know, because I always have a phrase, emotions fade. Focus doesn't. So they're going to be a red-faced in screaming, but that's not going to last. That always wears off.

So what is their focus? And the good negotiators distill very quickly what's important to the other side. And I just, over the years, and it took a long time, I just started to ask. You know, don't tell me your offer. Tell me what's important. And usually with agents on player's side, it's always upfront money, how much you can get early in the contract because they know that the later parts not guaranteed. And from a team perspective, it's always risk.

You know, how much do you risk? If you give them a big bonus, you try to defer it out longer because if they get in trouble, let them chase the money instead of you chasing it. What's the risk of the contract if the player goes south? That's what you always wonder about. And I think in terms of dealing with people, obvious points, or they seem obvious to me, is just being a nice guy.

And just sort of getting to know each other. Maybe, you know, in football, and this is probably true in all sports, the community is pretty small. You know, the agent community, the team executive community is pretty small. So you see these guys over and over. And I learned that you never want to have a lopsided deal. Whether you're getting screwed or you're feeling like the other side's feeling like they got screwed, that never's good because you're going to deal with people over and over again if they have that sort of bad taste in their mouth.

I'll give you a quick example. I had a guy that came in. I dealt with his agent a lot. and a guy needed a, you know, he was a no leverage kid, and he was an older player, and I said, yeah, we'll sign him. When you say no leverage, could you define that for everyone listening? Yeah, he just needed a job, and he wanted to try, and he liked our situation, and the contract was pretty clear. He was not getting a bonus. The agent kind of said, hey, he's going to move his family up there to work out.

He's got kids. Can you just give him an advance? you know, no bonus but in advance. And I said, here's the problem. I get your story about the kids and moving up here and buying in. But if I give him an advance, other players will notice, other agents will notice. And then I'm dealing with that in every little basic, no leverage negotiation. And then I get the, you know, the puppy dog eyes.

He's just a guy, you know, needs help to get up there and move his family. So I said, listen, I'm going to give him a 5,000 advance. You tell me if he doesn't pay this back, you pay it back. You know, you pay it back. And I'll do it. I want your word. And you say, yeah, yeah, I'll do it. You know, this guy has a ton of players.

He makes a nice living. And then, of course, we cut him, last cut of training camp. I don't bring it up. You know, I got $5,000 on my cap all year from this. guy and he never brings it up and at some point I'm like when is this guy going to bring it up and I didn't it wasn't until the next year's combine I'm like you know that five thousand dollars oh Andrew you know if Packers are worth a billion dollars you're worried about five thousand dollars I said you know what this is the conversation did not want to have you gave me your word

and and here's the thing I don't care about five thousand dollars But I had to deal with that in other agent negotiations, and I never felt the same about that agent. You know, it's that principle thing. It's that your word is your bond. Right, exactly. Yeah. Another interesting time can be the, I can imagine potentially, depending on the, we've seen the movie draft day, and I know you've done a great job of making fun of that movie. Even though there's some entertaining parts, obviously, but it's a movie.

and other specific draft moments. And I want to take it back to, there's a couple of stories I want to tell, but I want you to tell this first one. And when it comes to the year, so it would have been 2004, when you guys have a first round pick, it was a pick number 24.

Mm-hmm. And the drafting of Aaron Rogers and how that whole story came about. Yeah, it was 05. 05, okay. 05, you know, year before AJ. We had 24. I can't, you know, like I told you about AJ, I don't know who Ted went into this draft really wanting, but when you're 24, things are dictated to you more than you dictate.

And I just remember, you know, when we set a board in Green Bay, it's still this way, obviously, you don't put 32 players up there. you put those you think have first round talent. And it could be anywhere from, I don't know, 15 to 25 players. Well, that year, I think we had 20 up there, say 19, 20, 21 players that we thought had first round talent. And we go through that 20, first run 23 picks, and they're all wiped out. You know, we looked at, I remember DeMarcus Ware, like, wow, could he fall to us? I remember another de lineman that Dallas took name Marcus Spears. I remember Fabian Washington.

I remember Pac-Man Jones, Cadillac Williams. Those all were our first round grade players. Anyway, we get to 24. There's just one name. And it's Aaron Rogers. And, of course, we've got the most durable quarterback in the history of football. And there was some rumbling from the coaching side of the room. Like, you know, we take this guy.

He's not going to help us. This year, maybe not next year, maybe not the year after, maybe never. But from the management side of the room, and I put myself on that side, the choice was clear. You know, we always say trust the board, best player available. And he was the only one left. So the opposite move would have been jump into the second round graded players because of a need, of a delinement or a corner or whatever it was. And we decided not to do that. Ted told me to get him on the phone, get his agent on the phone, who I knew well,

who's now the negotiator for the Broncos, Mike Sullivan. And, you know, Aaron answered. I felt so bad. I'm watching him on TV. And I said, Mike, he said, this is Aaron. I said, okay, all right, this is Andrew Brand from the Packers. Can I talk to Mike? And I'm like, Mike's, you know, trying to be the side of his mouth.

Are you going to take him? You're going to take him? You're going to take him? I said, just hold on. And at that point, it was 15 minutes. and I just had to tell Mike, just hold on. And of course, we wanted to see if the phone was going to ring with something we couldn't turn down.

Yeah, a trade offer. The phone never rang, quiet as a church mouse in there. And with two minutes left, I could tell him. And, yeah, that's how we got Aaron Rogers. Who knows how history would be different if that phone rang? Incredible story. I've heard it, but I loved hearing you tell it because it's just fascinating to see how little moments affect history in such a big way.

And obviously, that was a monumental great pick. And it certainly lends itself to the strategy of trusting all of the preparation and the work that you've put into a draft board and sticking to it and believing in it. Because I would imagine the teams who don't probably end up picking near the top of the draft every single year. And that's one surefire way to stay up there. Yeah. Did you ever have many dealings with Drew Rosenhouse? You know, it's interesting because I mentioned Eugene, who I just attended his funeral, seemed to be a guy that we always got players represented by Eugene.

It was kind of the luck of the draw. And Drew, who's got the most players of any agent, I didn't deal with much at all. He had a receiver that was a first-round pick for us for a while, but he got him after. He was a first-round pick. guy named Javon Walker. Yep. He had a corner way back in the early 2000s named Mike McKenzie, but we traded Mike to the Saints. And then we had a little, oh, we had Najee Davenport, but no, I mean, very, very limited dealings.

Now, when I came back to Philly and was doing my thing media-wise, before I got to ESPN, the Eagles, who I knew very well, asked me to help out as a consultant when they were moving Howie Roseman from this cap to personnel and I helped out and I dealt with Drew on LaShawn McCoy a rookie deal which is pretty cut and dry So yeah Drew and I know each other a long time But I never dealt with them on any real big deals

We had a really interesting story about Drew I don't think I've told it on this before Before leading up into the draft of an AJ's time He was not, as you could probably guess, really big into wanting to meet with these guys. And so he trusted my dad is, we're very fortunate to be, I think you might have met him after a game before. I don't know. Oh, sure. Yeah.

Yeah. So he's very smart, great leader himself, and we trust him with our lives. So most of the time he would talk to all these guys and he would meet with them. Well, Drew, Rosenhaus said he wanted to meet. and my dad being wanted to be honest with him said, Drew, I got to let you know that you have a zero percent chance of signing AJ. He's leaning towards somebody, which was Mike McCartney, the guy he ended up signing with. He's leaning towards somebody, and so I think it would be a waste of your time. Thanks, but no thanks.

You know, just wanted to save him a trip. And Mike and Drew said, listen, all I'm asking is for an opportunity to sit down in front of you guys. And AJ said he would not go to the meeting. He didn't want to. And so my dad asked me if I'd sit in with it just to hear me. I mean, we thought, you know, I was working the profession of sales, and I thought, well, let me hear this guy because I'm guessing he's pretty good. So he flew up to Dayton here. Chad Johnson was one of his clients.

So he said, he's like, I'll fly up. I'll take Chad out to dinner and then I'll come see you guys. And we had him in, and I'll have to tell you, Andrew, his pitch was as impressive as I've ever been in in any situation. The knowledge, the preparation, everything. that he brought to that meeting was incredible. And then he even said, hey, I want you to quiz me. And he said, Ryan, name any current active NFL player. Just name one. I don't care who it is. And I will tell you anything you want to know about that guy. I said, are you serious? I can just name any NFL player. There's a lot of guys in the NFL. He said, yeah, name one. Name one. I know all of them.

I said, okay, John Lynch. Because I was trying to think of a guy who we know who he is, but he's not like, you know, he's not T.O. or somebody. I said John Lynch and literally Drew gave me his life story even about his baseball statistics in college things that would blow you away and I literally looked at my dad and said oh my goodness he actually almost made me you know I did tell AJ how impressive he was and AJ said that's great and and as he left a meeting he said hey I'm fine if AJ goes with somebody else for his first contract but a lot of guys decided to come with me for a second one including guy by the name of Zach Thomas, who I know AJ idolized and looks up to, which was true. Zach was a Miami guy. And so it was really, he was playing the long game because I think he realized he wasn't going

to win, but maybe he could get him for his second deal, which certainly AJ, once he picked this guy, I didn't think he was going to change from Mike. And he ultimately went with Mike McCartney, who works out of Chicago Priority Sports. And I also went on that first meeting with Mike, which he was very impressive, but in a different way. I think more of a laid back, more measured, very intelligent. I could see having great relationships. I'm guessing you've dealt with them a number of times and probably could vouch for that.

But I enjoyed that dinner as well, but the Drew one was like a show. I wish we would have filmed it. He's incredible. Yeah, he's very persuasive. When you meet him, I mean, deal with him from a team perspective, he's always, how are you doing? Good to see you. You do a great job. And he's people, he's very likable.

And that's not only with clients, but with teams and people he meets. Just a couple more thoughts. One for you and the way you go about your life, Andrew, as a leader in your own right. One of the things that you say often is stay true to the good and never peak. And I have my thoughts on especially the never peak part of that. But I want to hear what you, that's in your Twitter bio and I've seen you say it. What is your dig a little deeper there when it comes to staying true to the good and never peaking.

Staying true to the good is something I heard from a friend of mine when I was like a teenager, kind of a good friend of mine that we were close and I kind of lost track of him. I don't know where he is. He's kind of out west doing a lot of hiking and biking. And it just stuck with me my whole life where you have a lot of decision making every day in your life. What's the good? You know, what's the answer that's the good?

And I know it's amorphous, but there always is an answer that's kind of better for the greater good, for you and or whoever you're dealing with that makes sense that brings you back to your core principles. The Never Peak is really kind of a life principle for me. I'm in my mid-50s now, and, you know, people say, wow, I can't believe you're that old. I mean, I think it's just a number. You just try to be your best physically and mentally. And I sort of get upset with people. This always just goes back to, I mean, you'll see on my Twitter bio, my bio essentially is never former anything. Former Packers VP, former agent, former Barcelona, general manager.

It's always current because you want to just be focused on going forward. I think too many people in life say back when I was, back when I did this, back when I ran this, you know, that's for sitting in a rocking chair when you're 90. I just want to, I just always feel like never peaked. Now maybe I do triathlons. I'm not going to run the pace I did five years ago. I get it. But in that sense, I guess I have peaked. But never sort of feel like you're really going down the other side of the matter.

mountain. That's kind of my life goal of mine. And I view it as always being, and I've said this, and partly because I've read from you, always being in that beta mode, meaning I'm, and that's kind of what the learning leader is all about for me too, is that I'm always striving and have a strong belief that every day I'm going to get better, I'm going to get worse. And so it's on me to be intentional with my actions to seek out people who can help me learn and find a way that I could have an impact on others as well. And I think that's why I love the Never Peak. And even practically, I think of, my wife did, at one point did like a, not a bodybuilding show,

but like a figure competition. And to do one of those, you have to peak. There's times to peak. And I'd always tell her, like, I don't like that. I want to be able to do the competition any day that somebody says, hey, today's the competition. So when I think of Never Peak, I think of always. being in beta mode, always being ready to play a game. Always, if somebody says, hey, can you give a speech tonight?

I want to say, yes, I'm ready. I don't need any. My preparation, I mean, I'm always preparing for whatever that next speech is. And I think that's why I never peak is it. I really like that aspect of your philosophy, the fact that you're not looking back. You appreciate it, and it's a great part of your story, but we're looking forward and always being prepared and ready to go for whatever may come next. Yeah, and probably I've got to leave in a minute, but I do deal with a lot of NFL people who have parted either voluntarily and involuntary from their teams.

And I just kind of look at some of them that kind of wait or maybe even pine away for a call to go back in the business. And listen, I don't want to judge, but I say, listen, I've found other passions and I found I don't want to go back. I really don't. And people can't believe that. And I'm like, listen, that's part of my past. It's a chapter. Being an agent's a chapter. And I closed it.

Being in Green Bay is a chapter. And there's more to come. So I'm just trying to keep writing chapters. I love it, man. I know we've got to get going. Where would you send everybody to find more about you online? A couple ways. I mean, my Twitter's, as you know, Ryan, very active.

And kind of thoughts on football, thoughts on life, thoughts on business, Andrew Brandt, so it's just my name. And writing a weekly column for the MMQB comes out every Thursday morning on the business of football. And on ESPN, primarily outside the lines, dealing with kind of bigger topics in sports, but also sports center inside the NFL insiders, et cetera. So I'm kind of easy to find if you want to find me. Yeah, I love it, man. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for being here, man.

I really appreciate your investment here in a learning leader show. I loved having you. It was great, Ryan. Enjoyed being with you. Thank you. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information

and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on The Learning Leader Show.