The Ringer NFL Show - Peter King on Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady in Tampa, the Jamal Adams Trade, and the COVID-19 Season | The Ringer’s NFL Show

Episode Date: July 30, 2020

NBC Sports’ Peter King joins The Ringer’s Kevin Clark to talk about COVID-19 concerns (1:37), who won the Jamal Adams trade (13:35), Aaron Rodgers’s future in Green Bay (18:55), whether Tom Brady can hit the ground running in Tampa (22:50), and much more. Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Peter King Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Before we get started today, I want to draw your attention to the fact that our show has made it onto Spotify's top charts list, a collection of Spotify's most popular podcast. I want to thank you guys because it turns out that you like listening to our show and all of our guests talk about football. Thanks to everyone for listening and supporting this show. And feel free to check out the other shows on the top charts by going to the podcast

hub on Spotify. There's a couple of other Ringer shows that made the list as well. Okay. Today's show, we have Peter King. NBC Sports, get to it. Incredible interview. Touch on a variety of topics from the COVID off season to Jamal Adams to Aaron Rogers or Tom Brady. Okay, Peter King, NBC Sports.

We just met Chuck, your dog, which is a highlight so far from me of training camp. How are you, Peter? I've been doing great, Kevin. How about you? Okay. I mean, this is the strangest training camp that I've ever been a part of, probably that you've ever been a part of. Normally we see each other on the road and Buffalo.

or Minnesota or something like that, that won't be happening this year. I want to start a big picture with the last week, Peter, because we saw the Marlins News in baseball. There was a report this morning from Jeff Passon that the Phillies have essentially pressed pause on their workouts because of a positive test. How closely, because the NFL is not going to have a bubble,

how closely do you think NFL executives are looking at baseball with a little bit of sinking, feeling in their stomach like and saying maybe this is something that might happen to the NFL season, Peter? Well, very close, Kevin, except I think as of now, before all information has been gathered, it appears as though there's a good chance that this was a knucklehead situation by the Marlins. Right. And that this just wasn't some little accidental, you caught it from a clubhouse attendant in Philadelphia. We don't know yet, obviously, but if the Marlins did go out en masse in Atlanta to a bar, to a club, to a restaurant, that's clearly going to be verboten by the NFL, not to say that it won't happen.

But I think that, you know, as somebody from the NFL said, one of the general managers said to me, said, listen, so far from what we've seen, this is one group from one team. and look, I think the cautionary tale with the NFL to me is Andrew Whitworth of the Rams. I was going to bring that up. You spoke to him for, nine out of nine members of his family got it. You spoke to him for a story two weeks ago. He basically said,

his comments kind of led you to be a little bit dubious of the NFL finishing a season. So tell us about it. Look, I still am dubious. Yeah. I'm, you know, Brian Gumbull asked me on, real sports what I thought the chances were of the NFL starting and finishing the season. And I said maybe four out of ten in the regular time.

Yeah. Because, I mean, think about it. It's 269 games over five months. And from what everybody is assuming there is going to be a second wave. And look, it doesn't look like the first wave is over yet. You know, and I know that from my perspective, in trying to convince NBC to let me go to three training camps this year, the hoops I know I've had to jump through to just go out in the world being very confident. Look, I'm a 63-year-old guy. I don't have any health conditions.

There's nothing wrong with me. and a lot more people at NBC are more concerned about me than I am about me because, hey, I live in Brooklyn. I've been wearing a mask every day since probably March 20th or somewhere around there. It sits, I live in an apartment in Brooklyn. It sits by my front door. I put it on every time I go out to walk Chuck or go out with my wife or to do anything. And, you know, to say we do anything is a pretty gross exact. We don't do anything, you know.

But I think that many players in the NFL have talked about this. Coaches have talked about this. Players in the NFL just have to be smart. And Kevin, you know, it just, it's an exclamation point on this. My first column back after being on vacation, I got a tour of the Minnesota Vikings training facility in Egan, Minnesota, Eric Sugarman, the trainer, and the guy who the NFL kind of holds out

as a paragon of how to do things right in this infection control business, you know, he's got COVID. And so it's going to be difficult to get through the season, but I do think that there may be evidence that the Marlins are a one-off. Yeah, I think it's interesting.

I thought when I read your column, about Minnesota. It was a great column. And what stuck out to me when Eric Sugarman was diagnosed with COVID is that the Vikings not only did everything right, but they have the facility. They have such a huge facility. You can socially distance there. I mean,

it is, they seem like the perfect team to, I guess, uh, control everything. And now that Eric Sugarman has been diagnosed, I guess you're right. It's a,

it's an exclamation point on just, um, how widespread this can be. Um, from a competitive standpoint. point, Peter. You've written that this is quote, this could be a quote, wholly unfair season when you talk about some people being in the stands in some cities and then no crowds and others or if four linebackers get knocked out of a game when it's a big division a week.

You know, Philip Rivers has brought up the point. What happens if on Monday a quarterback test positive, you know, in the Super Bowl, what is the protocol there and who determines that? And is there a gray area and that sort of thing? When you think about how this season will played on the field. What stands out to you is something we're not talking about enough? Something as simple as, you know, the fact that there's been so many virtual off seasons and no on-field stuff that veterans might have an advantage this year or players who learn differently might have an advantage this year or, you know, teams with more depth or whatever, when you think about the way that the game will look this year because of the last seven, eight months,

what stands out, Peter? Well, I think two things. Number one, just the fact that there's, There's not going to be much practice, really. And there's not going to be, I mean, first of all, the entire, you know, the New Orleans Saints, they very well could be my pick to make the Super Bowl in the NFC. And when they gather this week, it's the first time anybody will have had any sort of football meeting, practice, preparation, anything since January. that is totally absurd compared to what a football team always is. The Saints would have gotten together starting around, I think, April 13th or 20th, and they would have gone through a normal off-season program.

So, you know, that is going to be really unusual to see how teams adjust and adapt. And sort of as a part B to that, you know, I think it just, means that normally in a given year, we always say that, hey, you know, because I think it's now been 20 years in a row that at least four new teams have made the playoffs every year. I mean, a front office guy told me a couple of weeks ago, he said, this is the kind of year where the Detroit Lions are going to be lifting the Lombardi Trophy at the end of the year because maybe they were healthiest. And he said, I only use the Lions as an example. could be anybody, could be the Browns, it could be, but there are going to be some teams.

I will not be surprised, Kevin, if some team plays a 12-game season or a 14-game season. And that leads me to the second part of this that I think is really important about this year. Look, I love football, you love football, we love Sundays in the fall. I chuckle, I slash chuckle, get outraged when people say, you don't want to see football, you want to see COVID take over and cancel the season. And I just say, what kind of nut are you? But the one thing about sort of the way this year is going to be. And look, I know that Roger Goodell is about as popular as spoiled milk to a lot of NFL fans.

But I think this is the year that Roger Goodell needs to be given the power to do what's in the best interest of the game week by week by week. And if four offensive linemen, starting offensive linemen for the Minnesota Vikings test positive on Thursday one week, Roger Goodell should have the ability to say that their game against the Bears on Sunday is postponed. You just should. This is an absolutely abnormal year, as I've written. You're right. It's a wholly unfair year. But there needs to be some common sense, you know, power given to the commissioner of the NFL

to make sure that for this season, there are going to be some rules imposed that in a normal season would never be imposed. I want to get to some other non-COVID stuff. But before we get that, you know, I've had conversation with people. and one of the big things that comes up is maybe there's 16 games, maybe there's a full playoffs, but maybe there's, and you've talked about this too, maybe there's a week 18 and 19, and maybe there are two weeks spans where a team can't play. What do you think the chances are that the Super Bowl happens on the date that it is currently scheduled early February? I mean, I'm dubious, but I mean, it's not impossible, but I'm dubious because, look,

the NFL has built into their schedule and the facility in Tampa has it built in that they could basically play any Sunday in February. Weather-wise it wouldn't be a problem. There's four Sundays in February. They could play any one of those they wanted. Now, I do think that if Florida continues to be on fire and it gets to be, let's just say, October 1st, I definitely think the NFL is going to start thinking of alternatives. I'm sure they're thinking of alternatives, you know, right now. You know, Goodell is very fond of saying internally that hope is not a strategy.

So he looks at Florida right now and the absolute bungled way that Ron DeSantis has handled COVID. You know, he's tried to basically go to the Donald Trump School of COVID, which is so odd for a guy who went to Yale, you know, and graduated from Yale, you know, a really, really bright guy, evidently. Oh, I think I'll just pretend this doesn't exist. This ought to get a lot of good comments to your podcast, Kevin. But anyway, so, you know, if two months from now, they're still, if Florida is on fire,

the NFL is going to at least start considering, what would be an alternative. I think the last thing the NFL would want in a year like this, maybe not the last thing, but one thing they don't want, they don't want a fanless Super Bowl. Right. They don't want a Super Bowl with no fans there.

So, you know, we'll see. But that's why I think everybody just has to take a deep breath and say, we have no idea what this year is going to bring and don't get too excited. I got in a big argument a couple of weeks ago with Chris Rousseau on his show. about he's saying it would be really competitively unfair if the Eagles could have fans at their game,

20,000 and the Giants can't. I said, that is about 943rd on the list of unfair things. I said, do you think that anybody in the NFL is going to say, if you can have fans come to your games and you can bring in some revenue because of that, don't do it? I don't think so. Yeah, I mean, and there's such a long list of concerns that so many of these things end up not mattering.

I want to talk about the Jamal Adams trade because you talked to John Schneider, you talked to Pete Carroll over the past week. It seems to me, you know, there are exceptions to this, Janja Hopkins being one of them, but it seems to me that first round picks are now the default cost of doing business to get a superstar in the NFL. Having talked to John Snyder, having talked to Pete Carroll, you believe in the Seahawks plan versus the Jets plan who won this trade? well, I'll say something that I never thought I would say. If you asked me to name the team that I thought made out better, I think Seattle made out better. And part of that, honestly, Kevin, is that I think you have to look at, you know, Seattle surrendered first and third round picks in 2021. Yep.

and then obviously a first round pick in 2022. Well, I guess I would ask you, because I don't think any of us know, we can just guess, but I don't know what the draft is going to be next year. And let's just assume for the sake of argument that the Seahawks will be picking 25th, you know, in the first round and 25th in the third round. So what that means essentially is that this year you have lost the 205th, you know, and say 90th, 89th picks in this year's draft and then next year's won. Well, what if, let's say for the sake of argument, 20 potential first round draft choices

in college football opt out of playing college football this year? And you have to judge your players that you're going to draft in 2021 on what you know about all of these guys so far. You saw that there was a Virginia Tech corner. I don't know who any of these guys are. But you saw it was a potential top top two round pick. Yeah, yeah. He said I'm not, I'm opting out.

I'm not going to play this year. And I'm sure, as you know, there's going to be a lot of people, I would think, who are going to opt out of this. But the only reason I bring that up is that if you're John Schneider, and your last few high draft choices, as I documented, in my column, they've had five, they've had five top 45 picks since 2014, and not one of them is a prominent player on the current team. So if you have to say that, look, we've got a really good scouting system and we've got a good mechanism for picking players. and still we come up with, and look, Rashad Penny might end up being a great NFL player.

He hasn't been so far. You know, he's been hurt and all that, and I get it. But what I'm saying is, if you're John Schneider, never in a million years, as long as Russell Wilson is your quarterback, you're never picking sixth in the draft. You never are. So why not use a guy who is the legitimate sixth pick in the draft? He's performed better than that and trade that draft booty up and basically get that guy, especially when you have to worry about what next year is going to be anyway.

So if I were John Schneider, that's one of the reasons why I think in this case a bird in the hand is really worth it. Now, for the Jets, I get why they did this. but at some point, Jets have finished last in their division three of the last four years. They're probably going to finish last this year. At some point, you've got to stop winning trades and start winning games. And the Jets just have not done that. So, you know, if this trade becomes the bedrock backbone of a consistent playoff team over the next three or four years, I tip my cap to Joe Douglas.

But let's see it first. Yeah, I've changed my opinion over the past couple of years about these sort of trades. Not necessarily this one, but in general, where I used to reflexively think that anyone who got a first round pick or two first round picks made out like bandits. You know, I remember when Amarai Cooper was traded, I said, oh, my gosh, the Raiders just that they might as well have done that with a gun and a mask, right? And Amarie Cooper turned out to have unlocked Dak Prescott in that season in a way that I didn't anticipate.

And I've come around on the idea that getting first round picks is not the be all end all of running a football team. I think that the Jets did well. I also think that so many things they've done have been at odds with other things they've done. Remember, they have Sam Darnold, and they should maximize that rookie contract window. But on the other hand, they've done such a poor job with that already. At some point, you just have to change your strategy midstream. So it's an interesting move for both teams. and I think that in some ways both teams probably got better from it.

I want to talk about Aaron Rogers really quickly. So he said this week on a Spotify podcast that he essentially is aware that the team will probably move on from him sooner rather than later. He described draft night and the Jordan Love pick. And none of this necessarily is a huge shock. You had talked about how the fact that he was unhappy pretty quickly after the draft in April. Peter, how does that play out this year? And if you were to put an expiration date on Rogers and Green Bay, what is your over-under? Well, Kevin, as much as I really do like Brian Gutikens,

because I think that he believes in the Ron Wolf School of General Managing, which is you always have to be prepared at quarterback. That's number one. And number two, you're going to be a very unpopular person at times. Ron Wolfe was at times when he was the GM. Ted Thompson was even with Mike McCarthy, and he was unpopular as well at times. But the Brian Gutickens philosophy in this draft, I'm not going to kill him for taking Jordan Love.

I'm not going to kill him, But what I am going to do is I am going to be very critical of him for ignoring the wide receiver position and in basically relying on a bunch of equanimous St. Browns and guys who might, might become, you know, the book end to Devante Adams. but I just, when you have Aaron Rogers as your quarterback and you don't give him the weaponry that almost every other good team in the NFL has on offense, that's going to rise up and bite you. It just is. And so I feel for Rogers in this way. And again, look, I do not think that it was a dumb decision necessarily. to take Jordan Love.

But I do think in the second round, he had to move around. He had to spend some draft capital. They had to go get. He told me the weekend of the draft. There were two receivers with their late pick in the second round that they were looking at, but both of them got picked.

So I'm sorry, that's not good enough. You got to go get one of those guys. You got to make sure that you get one of those guys. in my opinion. Now, as far as his expiration date, I believe that if he keeps playing well, if he plays top five in the NFL over the next three years, that I bet the Packers would look to do with love

what the Patriots did with Garoppolo. Is it likely? No. But Aaron Rogers and Matt LaFleur control that in their own hands and in Aaron Rogers right arm. Yeah, it's it's now after this week, I would say one of the more fascinating on-field dramas. I guess if you can classify that as on-field, but it is a football story that'll happen in 2020. Speaking of quarterbacks and subplots, the Tom Brady thing in Tampa to me is so different than it was in March. When he signed there, it felt like you can hit the ground running.

He's going to have Bruce Aaron's. You can have all these weapons. when you start looking at the fact that every workout he's done so far has been on a random high school field in Tampa or it's kind of makeshift, he hasn't been in the building in any meaningful way. He is so into continuity. He loves knowing where everything is in the building. That's, you know, the Patriots as an organization.

I remember one of the executives once telling me, one of the reasons they didn't go away from training camp is they just love the fact that there's just so much continuity in the building and nothing ever changes and all that stuff. And a guy who values chemistry like that, do you think there's, there's an ability for Tom Brady to hit the ground running in Tampa this year in a way we thought, or is it going to take a little bit longer? Or as kind of you said, it's going to be such a chaotic season that just the pure talent might win out over all the things that Brady typically values like continuity.

I think it's going to be really hard for him to hit the ground running. I mean, basically, Josh McDaniels, and again, look, I'm not in their meeting rooms. I don't know. But I've always got me impression that Josh McDaniels solved so many problems during the week for Tom Brady, especially in the talent gap years. You know, like last year, how on God's Green Earth, they started eight, no, I have no idea. And they were so much more, in my opinion, you know, look, you know, as crazy as it is, in games played after Halloween last year, the dollar. had a better record than the Patriots. And I think that is more of what the Patriots were.

They were about a 500, maybe a 9 and 7 talent team that won more games than that because they have an all-time quarterback and an all-time coach. But they still had so many holes. And honestly, I think McDaniels over the years has done a really good job of filling those holes and solving those problems before they get to be huge problems. Now, look, I think we're really going to find out a lot about Byron Leftwich this year because Bruce Ariens really has empowered Byron Leftwich to work with Tom Brady. And we're going to see, you know, basically if Byron Leftwich is ready for prime time, quite honestly. And I think, look, I think,

their plan with James Winston was great. And I think they coached him well in training camp. But at one point, the guy is going to go out and play. And James Winston was, you know, just made way too many mistakes. Yeah. And as far as, I think Brady is going to be drooling at the talent that he, that he has to play with. You know, his tight end position and his wide receiver position. I don't. know any team in the NFL, and I will include the Chiefs with this, the depth at tight end and wide receiver. I mean, I would take the Chiefs over Tampa Bay, but just in terms of pure numbers, you know, look at the tight end position, you know, on Tampa Bay and how great it is. And they've got two of the 15 best wide receivers in football, too, and a little bit of depth

there. So I think Brady will play well, but I do think it's going to take some time for them to come together. We'll get you out of here in a second. I want to talk briefly about the team building aspect of all of this because the cap going down or at least smoothing over the next four years is hugely important. I mean, God, having massive contracts on your books right now, unless they are, you know, Patrick Mahomes-esque contracts that are absolutely worth it can be a harrowing experience. When you talk people around the league, I've talked to GMs who are still grappling with this, but what do you think the biggest difference in the next couple of years with team building will be because we aren't going to get the cap spikes like we were expecting?

Well, I think that free agency is really going to be more like it was in 2020, which everybody looked at as it was almost a recession in the NFL this past March. I mean, Von Bell, three years, 18 million. There's a great example of, you know, a good, young, whatever he is, 25-year-old safety, who can really be, you know, an Earl Thomas-type quarterback back there. And he gets no action whatsoever. And, you know, looking back at it, and now he's lucky that he got six million a year in Cincinnati. Believe me, I'm not saying, oh, gee, six million, it's nothing.

But the inflation in salaries that you normally get, I don't think you're going to get now, Kevin, until the new television contracts kick in, and that's either two or three years away. otherwise I think this next year is going to be a very disappointing year for a lot of players and also consider that all the players who have opted out. I think the hidden story in the opt-outs is what happens if, so the Patriots took two linebackers and what happens if both those guys play really well? And I have no idea what'll happen. But they could both play 700 snaps and both play really well.

And maybe Bill Belichick will say, I love you, Dante Heightower, but we'll do well with these guys because we've got to manage the cap. And what will he do with Patrick Chung coming back? Will Patrick Chung come back? Will Nate Solder come back to the Giants? So there's all of these questions that we don't know the answers to, now, but I do believe that they're going to contribute to sort of, as I say, a recession in free agency and in player salaries at least for 2021.

Do you think that affects contracts like Dak Prescott's? Because I think Dak Prescott's playing it perfectly except the time that he's trying to reach free agency. The whole thing, though, this is going to be difficult for Prescott because if, you know, I forget what his number is next year, like 37 million or something like that. It's huge, obviously. If they tag him a second time? Yeah, if they tag him a second time.

So let's say it's 37 million. I'd have to figure it out because I believe the cap probably will be 175. It'll be what the floor, you know, what the NFL and the NFLPA negotiated. So now you basically look at his salary and you say, my gosh, his salary is about 22 percent. And I just did that roughly in my head. I'm probably wrong. But it's like 22 percent of a salary cap on a team with a bunch of big contracts. Tons, tons. And so it's almost incumbent. And look, I'm not, I'm not telling Dak Prescott what to do. We get, you know, Kirk Cousins has made more money than any player in football over the last four or five years.

So, Dak Prescott, I think normally I would say, hey, just go ahead and do that. Here's why I wouldn't do it now. Because Tom Brady, a couple of times said to Scott Pioly and Bill Belichick, listen, I'll take less money, but you've got a guarantee you're going to spend the money that you save with me on players to make us better. And the Patriots always did that. My feeling is that if Dak Prescott doesn't do that next year, if he just takes the max for himself, which he has every right to do. But if he does it, he has to understand that he will

not have as good a team around him as he could have if he did, let's say, a long-term contract with a first-year cap number of, I'll invent it, 20 million bucks. And that to me would be the best help that he could be for the Cowboys being good for a long-term. time. Now, he might not be concerned with that. And hey, it's, it's not his job to be concerned with it. For all I'm saying is if he wants the Cowboys to be the best team, he's going to have to be reasonable in what he takes next year. My only thought is that the Cowboys need to keep Dak Prescott around and figure out how to do that. And if he doesn't want to take the, I think you reckon with it, he doesn't want to take the discount, just because not having Dak

Prescott and going into the draft again or afraid of trying to find a quarterback is just is not something the Cowboys should want to deal with. Here's my question. So what would be a reasonable approach do you think? Like get together with him during the season this year. Lay this out when it looks like you know what the cap situation is going to be. Talk to him and Todd France have a meeting maybe during the by week. I don't know.

What do you do? So first of all, I think you throw out the Mahomes deal. I think that the Mahomes deal is its own thing. It's $503 million. I think you try to negotiate off the Russell Wilson, Jared Gough deals, and those are all at this point in the low to mid-30s. I think you, listen, Dak Prescott clearly values short contracts in the same way Kirk Cousins said.

Kirk Cousins gave everybody a blueprint. I think Dak Prescott's better than Kirk Cousins. But Kirk Cousins and Mike McCartney gave the League of Blueprint, franchise tags, short contracts, all that stuff. And I know the Cowboys like giving these long contracts. I know Zeke Elliott signed through 2025 or whatever it is. 26. But I think that at some point you say we have to let this playbook play out and we have to give Dak Prescott the type of flexibility he wants because, you know, I remember talking to Thomas

Dimitrov about this. When we talked about the Matt Ryan negotiations, we basically said he gave him 30 million because at some point you're, you're haggling over, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is to get to that 30 million. And you're saying, what are we doing here because the what happens when you don't have that franchise quarterback is palpable throughout the building that's what that's what dimetroft told me and that you everybody is just searching for it there's a sense of desperation in a building where there's not a franchise quarterback and i think doc prescott is that type of guy where if he leaves the franchise at least temporarily would be in disarray and i think you have to pay for that yeah i agree you've got to figure a way to

make it happen. There's almost been this, and I know that covering the NFL is now a 12-month-a-year venture, obviously, but I don't remember any contract story in my 36 years of covering the NFL that had as much maniacal fervor about it than Dak Prescott. And I've always figured, and I still figure, to this day that he and the Cowboys will figure it out. And again, you know what else? Kevin is really interesting about Prescott and the Cowboys. And I don't know how many people think of it this way, but I certainly do. You know, it's different being the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys than it is being

the quarterback of the Carolina Panthers. Yeah. You know, and he could certainly go somewhere and make an awful lot of money. but is he going to be doing the, and I forget what commercials he does, but I mean, he's in the top five in the NFL in commercials. Are you in the top five in the NFL in commercials if you're playing for the Vikings? I mean, that's, that's the whole thing, you know. I'm seeing chunky Campbell soup commercials.

I'm seeing mattress commercials. I'm seeing a lot of commercials here. Insurance ads. I'm seeing a lot of these. Yes. Yogurt, absolutely. How could I forget? Last thing, Peter, when I was 22 years old, I met you at Starbucks and introduced myself

well before I was an NFL reporter. Do you remember that? And did you think I was a psychopath if you did? No. Where was this? Where did this happen? Tell me. It was in, it was on the east side of New York. It was I think it was on 53rd Street at a Starbucks. And you were on your laptop. And I was such a huge fan that I went up and introduced myself. And we talked for maybe five minutes and you were incredibly nice to me. Wow. I feel terrible in saying this. I don't remember it, but... That's fine.

I was such a sports writer dork that there's a number of people where that was true of, including famously Bill Simmons. I went up to Bill Simmons and I was 17 years old in a hotel lobby at the Super Bowl and introduced myself. He does remember all he's... The only thing he said was, was it pleasant? It was very, very pleasant. And the same is true of you, Peter. Well, thanks.

You know, the interesting thing about this job is... is we all had people in our lives who we met early on, you know, in our business. And you either, you know the name Studs Terkel? Yeah, of course. You've ever heard of him? Yeah. Studs Terkel was this great writer out of Chicago. And he wrote a book one time called Working.

I was a student at Ohio University. And I remember I love working because what Studs Terkel did is he spent a year. and he went around the city of Chicago, and he spent one day with, let's say, 40 people who were just doing their jobs. And he described it. My senior project at Ohio University was, I called it 45701, that's the zip code, Athens, Ohio, where Ohio University was. And I spent one day with 10 different people as an homage to Studs Terkel. But the story is, I called Studs Terkel. I think he worked for the Chicago Sun-Times.

I called them one day, and I asked him, I was very nervous, and I asked him, would you be willing to do the forward for my little project? And he basically said, kid, I don't have time for that. Good luck to you, see you. And I was crushed. And at that moment, I said, I'll never do that again. Wow. I'll never do that to anybody.

And, you know, I probably have, but I try not to anyway. Stutz turkle big time. you, Peter. He did. Yeah. I, the only, I studs turkle, aside from knowing what the book is, he was on the Daily Show in like 2002. And I vividly remember him saying, he remember him saying that all of his reporting

led him to realize that everybody just wants to get through the day, which I was found to be a very profound. And we all, you know what? Don't we all just want to get through this crap? Yeah, I know. I know. I really do. I mean, I'm sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn right now. And

I mean, I've been here all but seven days since March 14th. And, you know, I mean, I watched the Tampa Bay Buccaneers draft on this laptop, you know, in round one. You know, and that's how I covered the draft. That's how I was inside a draft room. But and all that, hey, it's cool what you can do, you know, with technology. But do you want to do it? No. you know you want to get back out there and actually experience life so hope we can do that

pretty soon do you know or can you say you're comfortable saying which teams you're going to visit peter well i mean i'm trying to arrange going to tampa uh and i'm trying to arrange going to kansas city and maybe one other one but i kind of you know the other thing is kevin usually i'll go to like 20 and i'll and i'll make this big list but this year I kind of want to see what if one team has 15 positives well I mean I might want to go there you know and either from the outside

just try to peer in to see how it's going but I don't know to me I think I'd really like to see Tom Brady throwing a football dressed in orange or fire engine red on a 96 degree Tampa afternoon I think that would be good. Peter King, thank you for joining us.

Hey, Kevin, thanks a lot for having me. I love your work. Thank you so much.