The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Annual NFL QB Tiers With Mike Sando

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Russillo is joined by Mike Sando of The Athletic to discuss his annual QB tiers in which 50 league insiders vote to rank all 30 veteran starting QBs (0:20). Then Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (48:47). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Mike Sando Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

the quarterback tears the annual piece from mike sando it's out we'll spend about an hour with him and then of course life advice get your passports ready this episode is brought to you by uber eats winter is here so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

Excited to do this every summer. Mike Sandoz, quarterback tiers from the Athletics Senior NFL Rider. He joins us again in his 10th year of doing this exercise. It's usually met with more questions than just acceptance on some of it. And I'll admit, Mike, when I went through it,

I was like, you know what? Most of this makes a lot of sense to me. So if we look at tier one, on down, it's Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, Rogers, and Justin Herbert. And then the cutoff is tier two last year is the only voter that had him tier two was he a voter for this one it was it was there any follow-up he's a voter for this one went to tier one I mean come on I mean what could you possibly after this year so they subtract Tyree Kill the offense gets better uh you know their defense is mid at best you know i mean even worse than that probably their special teams by the way was 32nd in the league by epa this season uh and then you know let's just let's just you know remember the movie misery when she broke the guy's ankles you know let's just break let's just have his ankle turn sideways during the uh playoffs you know just degree of difficulty a little higher and you know let's just beat the best team in NFC.

Let's just do it. It's what could you possibly want more from this guy? Yeah. And just to clarify for everybody, Mike speaks with NFL coaches, executives, eight, there's eight general managers, 10 head coaches, 14, 15, excuse me, coordinators, 10 executives, four quarterback coaches, and three that are involved in analytics. So 50 total voters on it. I had to start there just because I'm like, all right.

And part of it's actually scouting the voters, knowing that there's some people that have way too many people at the top. They're easy graders, guys that are more difficult. But reading it last year and seeing that one person was like, you know what, I'm going to throw a two on Mahomes because after his first read, what's really there? And you're just like, dude, what else could you possibly want from him? Oh, yeah.

Someone who has a chance. I mean, to match Brady's resume feels impossible, but from a talent standpoint, we really might be watching the best ever do it, and he's on that path. So I just couldn't believe anybody had him tier two. So just glad to know that that guy's, that guy saw enough last year. He came around, you know, he came around.

And I think, you know, talking about legacy and greatest ever, the thing that I think is, when I talked about the, you know, the, him doing this without having good defenses

this whole time is a differentiator. Because if you look at Joe Montana in the 80s, the fewest points allowed in the 80s is the 49ers. They're a great defense. There's Hall of Famers all over the defense. Of course they're good on offense.

But you look at Tom Brady's run. There's a lot of top 10 defenses. There's a number one special team. They were always winning in the margins. It doesn't diminish Brady in any way, but it elevates Mahomes to me. Now he doesn't have as many Super Bowls yet,

but he's early. He's doing this with bottom half of the league defenses. That really hasn't been done with a lot of championships. We've all seen the careers of Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning and Drew Brees play out spectacularly with like one Super Bowl win for Brees, two for Peyton Manning, but let's put a big asterisk on the second one. And even the first one, people don't know this, the first Super Bowl that Peyton Manning won, they were terrible on defense. Bob Sanders came back.

They were lights out in the playoffs. In the playoffs, Peyton had three touchdown passes and seven picks. Okay. And they won because their defense showed up, not diminishing Peyton had three touchdown passes and seven picks okay and they won because their defense showed up not not diminishing Peyton but that component was there for them to get over the top it hasn't been there for Patrick Mahomes and yet he's on a equal or superior pace to the all-time great legacy winning quarterbacks the rest of that tier, Rogers is fourth overall

because I just don't think between Burrow and Allen there's a ton to discuss there. But feel free to fill in anything that you think is entertaining anecdotally, anything you want to throw at it. But Rogers had 31st tier, 22nd tier.

And it's just funny because I remember four years ago looking at some of the numbers and digging in going uh-oh like are we starting to see it then he wins mvps so i don't i don't know if this is going to repeat itself with with a better situation with the jets roster but i i have a hard time turning the page on rogers because of how good i think he still has a chance to be before this year ryan uh he'd been in this obviously been in the quarterback tiers every year he had 401 of 408 votes were in tier one okay he had gotten seven total tier two votes even when those years when people were questioning them with the, hey, the offense has fallen off. Is it Rogers? The voters were like, no, almost unanimous or unanimous tier one. Anyway, they stood by him. This is the first time we've had wavering on Rogers.

And it reminds me very much of Tom Brady's last year with New England. It just didn't look good. Tom Brady's last year with New England. It just didn't look good. It felt like it was done. And there was nothing dynamic about the offense. And people just started to say, you know what, they put two and two together. This guy's 40 years old or whatever. This is it. This is when you start to fall off. And I think that's what people are doing to Rogers. And i think if he's healthy he's clearly tier one but there are some questions about his ability to uh maybe hold up moving forward one of the neat nuggets in this thing to me that i hadn't thought of was he's got 14 games on turf this year i hit four last year that's a difference for these guys as they're older. Little nagging things here and there.

I think that part of it, the durability as he turns 40 this year, a couple tackles that could have some question marks, right? New system for everybody. Breakdown here or there. Some good defenses they're going to be playing. That's, to me, the number one threat and concern to Rodgers is just wearing down 17 games, age 40 season. So the cutoff is Herbert fifth overall as the last member of tier one

to Hurts being number six overall, but at the top of tier two. If the voters are looking at Hurts saying, all right, I just got to see it one more year before I can make him tier one, I don't have an issue with that. But I think because of the resume part of it, and some of this I think is just so ridiculous with quarterbacks, but for Herbert to not have the run in his career like Hurts had last year. Clearly, the defenses are different here. I think I saw a number where since Herbert's been in the league with the Chargers, they've been outscored

for the entire run of the seasons. He's been a starter. The blown loss to Jacksonville, there's a lot of authors that are guilty of that collapse there. I guess I'm just asking you first, who's a better quarterback? Who do you think is better, Hurts or Herbert? I think Justin Herbert's a better quarterback.

I think that Jalen Hurts, though, has certainly closed that gap and with another good season might pass him. But you couldn't have a greater contrast in terms of how things are set up for each guy. If you ask why the Eagles have won, you could point to 10 different things. Well, the scheme's amazing, really helps, hurts. The offensive line's the best in the league.

The run game's amazing, the creativity in the run game. The defense is a top five, top 10 defense. Coaching staff's amazing. Ownership of the team with Howie Rosen is probably the best GM. We can make a list of all tons of things that would all be true, including Jalen Hurts is good. You look at the, you look at the chargers, you think their owner's good?

I don't think anybody's right. You think it's a run game and scheming that's really helping? The defense, is that pretty good? So you look at them, last two years, they're 28th statistically in defense and special teams. The four teams that rank worse than them are 51, 84, and 1. The Chargers are 19 and 15. Why do the Chargers win?

It probably has more to do with the quarterback than it does in some other places where a ton of things are really set up well, and that could be San Francisco, that could be Philadelphia. So that would be the case. And then the second part of this that surely comes into play is pedigree coming out, the physical looking at the two guys, and Herbert's ability probably to stand back there and beat you when the other stuff is taken away throwing the ball so you know it's the gaps closed

but I think most people would probably still take Herbert would you I would um and and like I said with Hertz if I see this for another year, not necessarily just a Super Bowl appearance, but if I see the same player that I saw last year, and it took a bit for me, it clicked, and I went, okay, you know what? I don't really have like, okay, what's it going to be like this week anymore? There's an expectation. Your floor is raised, and I think that's like a big turning point

for a lot of quarterbacks. But when you dig through all the things that you just talked about with Herbert, I just think it's okay. It feels like it's against the rules at times. It's like, well, no, I can't say that guy's better because that guy just played in the Super Bowl. And you're like, this is so fucking stupid. Sometimes it's like a pitcher. It's like a pitcher who has a nice winning record. Granted, nobody cares about one loss record anymore for starting pitchers, but you're like, what's his run support? Like, okay, well, guess what? This guy's a better pitcher. He just has way worse run support. We would never do that with starting pitchers, or at least we started to figure that out.

And I still think we're archaic with some of the quarterback stuff. I was reading some of the comments about Herbert and the playoff loss to Jacksonville. again, they were plus five in turnovers. They're up 27 to 10 at halftime. I think they were up 24 in the game. They lose on the last second field goal there. And I look at all of it and go, yeah, but can't we just watch the person play the position and appreciate that this person is that good? And I felt like some of the negative commentary was too vague for me about Herber in the piece where it's like, well, you know, you're going to win more games. And I just went, okay, so what, what's a better description of who he's been and what the team has been, what you just shared with us or, Hey, they lost the playoff game.

And I think people make it way too simple. Yeah. Yeah. Make, but I think the point of when you're up whatever it was, 24 or 27 points, make a play to win the game. You shouldn't lose that game. That does go on your sort of resume to not be able to make a play. Even though there's other stuff going on in the game,

I don't think that's totally unfair. Just like Trevor Lawrence gets credit for coming back in that game. He gets credit for coming back on Dallas down 17. I think it's a part of the equation, but it shouldn't be just reduced down to that only. So Lamar comes in at number seven. We know there's a big change here with personnel. It feels like he finally has more than just looking for Mark Andrews every time he's down in the red zone, which, by the way, isn't a bad thing.

But it's Todd Munkin now at OC instead of Greg Roman. I've found this just kind of... Here we've all complimented Roman for years because they tailor-made an offense to make Lamar the best version of himself. He wins an MVP. Right. And then it's like, no,

now Munkin's in and we're going to really see him open the whole thing up. Maybe, but it, it does feel a little unfair to Roman when everybody seemed to be on the same page that he was doing such a great job with this. And I also wonder like, wait, could,

could we learn something after this year that Roman was actually right with his approach? And we could. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's part of my fear for where Lamar is, but I think it's seven. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

I totally think those fears are justified. At the same time, I do think it is time to find out. Right. Because what Roman did was perfect for Lamar coming out for what Lamar was as a rookie coming into the league. Um, remember, uh,

Bill Pullian, you know, said he should be a lot questioned if he's a quarterback, right? Remember when, when he came out and he was like, Bill Pullian, what an idiot,

you know, but Bill Pullian was assuming they were going to try to run a different offense. And they're like, this isn't going to work. Well, the Ravens solved that by not running the type of offense that Pullian was used to people in the NFL running. They ran a totally different offense and it worked great for Lamar Jackson and helped him be the MVP of the league. Clearly, there has to be more from a past standpoint for Lamar and the offense to take another step. I think what Roman or the previous setup was saying is, hey, we reached those limits. You know, he didn't, maybe he didn't evolve enough as a passer.

But now we're not only going to change the scheme, we're going to give them totally different weapons. So he has a better chance to do it. And I would much rather look at it and find out than stay in the world necessarily where they were before and just have it overly tailored to a run game and 13 personnel

and that sort of a thing. There's another part of this where I want to bring it up again later when we look at the bottom third of the rankings here because there was less quarterbacks just overall judged in this year's version of it than last year because there was still some question marks about who would be starters. And then we have two guys there to be pencil in the starters that are top draft picks as well.

But I had felt like for a few years, we were building to incredible depth that position. And part of that's inflated just by the numbers that quarterbacks, like average quarterbacks now are putting up numbers where we think they're pro bowlers growing up. But the drop off around nine and 10 of where we're at at this position. Like once you, I know this sounds silly, but to finally like see the list in front of your face where you're going, wait, Dax nine, Stafford's 10, Deshaun's 11,

Kirk is 12 closing out tier two. I don't know if you agree with me or not, but all of a sudden it's kind of like, wait, maybe this position's not nearly as deep and it feels like it happened really quickly. It, on the positive side, it feels like there's fewer, just terrible options, right? I mean, at least those guys down at the bottom, you're going to, Desmond Ritter, we don't know. I mean, he could be terrible, but we're not looking at, you know, Matt Castle, Ryan Fitzpatrick,

or some of those, Mike Glennon, or some of those guys who've been in there before who you just know it's not going to be good. So I do think there's at least some new blood in there. I think six of the seven bottom players are new to the poll this year. So it's at least flat fresh blood down there but that middle tier there's a lot of mid just a lot of there's just a lot of you know kind of in the middle i don't know how different that is i should actually look and see is the average tier vote worse than it was in the past.

I can look at that from last year. The average vote. So the average vote last year was 2.77. Okay, 2.77. Let me look at this here. This here, it is... this year it is this year it is 2.67 so I don't know it's about the same

probably averages out I actually looked at last year's bottom third because I was looking at this year's and I think the first one when I was looking at the PFF rankings, their projections, and they had like Justin Fields, I think he was 19th on theirs.

And I thought, whoa, wait, Justin Fields already at 19th? And that's because I think he's terrific at running the football, but there's so much more that I want to see from the passing attack. I go, so that means he's better than a third of the projected starters already.

And then I started looking through it on their stuff. And then, of course, I went through your piece once it came out. And I was like, okay, so who could be replaced out of the bottom third? I'm like Garoppolo at 18. Fields, if it doesn't click in his third season, that would be a little harsh at 21. At 22, Tannehill feels like he's on the way out. At 23, Mac Jones, this is absolutely a prove-it year.

If it looks like anything like last year, I imagine they're going to make a move. We still seem to be removed from when Belichick, in the middle of a night game, benches Mac for Zappy. And you're like, whoa, what's going on here? And the next whole story is like gone. All right. Then you've got Purdy at 24. Jordan Love.

He's thrown, what, 80 plus passes in his career. I imagine they give him the year, but I don't know. And then you've got Baker again, who'll probably be replaced. He was in last year's group. Howell, Atlanta, it's too soon with Ritter, but if it weren't great, would they feel like they'd had to give it a third year? The Colts, we already know that Minshew's not going to be the guy at some point. And then of course, Carolina and Houston, both of those rookie quarterbacks. That felt like a long list, but when I compared it to 22 hey Baker's out Wentz is out Jameis is out Davis Mills is out Zach Wilson's out Trey Lance is out Mariota's out Darnold's out Trubisky's out Drew Locke at 34 who was ahead of Gino is the 35th of the last quarterback that was even graded in this entire thing so it actually is a similar

number it just it's always something I'll look for with turnover going. How many teams are entering the season right now where by like week nine, we could see a different player or knowing next year this person will be replaced?

What feels better to me is that there's a lot of, there were a lot of guys that were really tired out. Carson Wentz every year. Do we have to analyze Carson Wentz again? God, I'm glad I didn't have to ask people

about Carson Wentz. Marcus Mariota, Mitch Trubisky, Sam Darnold. I mean, what is there to say? These guys have been in quarterback tiers five times or whatever, and it's like, can't we turn the page? Some of the guys they're turning the page to may not be.

They may get their page turned too, but we haven't even seen him yet and i would rather see what sam howell can do than watch carson wentz again and know exactly what he's going to do okay so let's go back to that middle middle of the pack thing uh deshaun watson the rare example of somebody and he comes in at 11, where he had votes, one tier one vote, 31 tier two votes, 17 tier three, and four, excuse me, one tier four vote. I don't know that that happens very often where you have somebody represent all four tiers. No, there's usually like one guy who's sort of all over the place. And I think Deshaun Watson

rightfully is all over the place. He could be any of those things. I mean, he looked done last year for six games, but it was only six games. Had a long layoff, other factors, obviously off the field. Clearly, he's not washed up as an athlete by his age. So he could be tier one. He could be tier three. I don't really know what to expect from him.

I know internally there, they're optimistic and they think he's going to be really good. But, you know, around the league, people who played him and watched him were like, my gosh, where did this, where did he go? This didn't look anything like Deshaun Watson. So he got a little bit of benefit of the doubt of like, all right, he had a long layoff. It was only six games. Let's just watch him again this year. And in the meantime, he slipped. He definitely slipped.

I think he went towards the bottom of tier two. I think he had been bottom of tier one last year going into this. So let me just find him from last year. So he was in tier two last year, but he was, he was a lot higher. So I like that you have, um, some of the coaches that actually defended some of these guys. Right. And I forget which quarterback it was. I think it might've been Tannehill where it was like, would you rather have them on your team or be playing against him? And the coordinator essentially was like, I'd rather be playing

against him. What do you learn about certain quarterbacks when it's being judged from the person that's putting in the week's work of just defensive preparation and then in-game adjustments against him? Because I felt like that was the most valuable stuff that you could share with us. It's a small number of guys that really move the needle, you know, that you really have a specific game plan for, or, uh, worried about, or is going to, going to, you know, beat you when you have your best call. Right. And so that's a short list of guys. That's really what tier one is. And there's some guys in tier two that are special considerations like Lamar Jackson, obviously you're very worried about him as a runner, um, and some of the things he can do.

But there's a whole pile of in the middle there where it probably doesn't even matter to the defensive coordinator who you're playing, right? They're interchangeable. They just don't, there's just not a lot of difference. They're not going to do anything overly dynamic. They may have certain things. Some of them like, okay, Tua, if you disrupt the timing,

he's really, really thrown off. That could be a little bit different than when you're playing, you know, Kyler Murray or somebody who's in a different style or different offense. But I think most of those guys, unless they have a really special trait of being able to run, we mentioned Kyler, Jalen Hurts, Trevor Lawrence, there's probably not a lot of specific game planning for Geno Smith or Jimmy G, Derek Carr, right? You're probably just playing your defense.

Cousins having 25 second-tier votes and 25 third-tier votes was perfect. I think that was perfect. Uh, Kirk comes in at 12th up a couple of spots from last year. And we know the comebacks that he had, uh, their record in one score games, I think it was eight and O which is, which is pretty incredible. Um, and yet I was looking at him in comparison to Dak. Okay. Cause Dak, as we pointed out here, was ninth. I know who Kirk Cousins is. I feel like I've known who he was for a long time. And I know the best way I could describe Kirk is I know what he won't be, right?

I know his floor is really good. He's going to put up some numbers. And if you haven't had an answer if you've been going through vets if you've been culting it the last few years you would love to have a Kirk Cousins you know a lot of the quarterback decisions are kind of like almost relationships like what have you been going through the last few years okay well you know what Kirk comes in he's steady we know we've got a guy we're fine but there's there's a ceiling there that's not going to be that much fun at times. And we saw that again in the playoffs for him. So the reason I compare him to Dak is

that they're in the same grouping and there's going to be some nice numbers, but I've had the hardest time with Dak Prescott, my own personal, like, who do I really think he is? I've watched him all the time, all those NFC East games that are on in prime time, and there'll be the night where he lights it up. Some of the turnover stuff last year was atrocious, but I still think that's not necessarily who he's been in his career. The whole reason I'm going through this is that I think they're kind of the same, and through this is that I think they're kind of the same, but with Kirk, I know. And with Dak, I guess I hold out hope that I don't know. And I swear to God, Dak's career is going to be over. It'll be a 15-year run. There'll be crazy numbers. I have no idea. If he has one run of playoff success, then I guess it'll all mean something. And if he doesn't, he'll be this massive

disappointment. But I feel like that's what's going to happen with me and Dak, is that when his career is over, I'm still going to shrug going, I'm not quite sure who he was. Because I know when it's good, it's really good. But last year was really concerning. I know one of the voters that I've known for a number of years has just insisted the whole time that Dak's just a tier three quarterback. And there's been multiple times where I felt like he was about to prove otherwise. I thought there was a time in the last couple of years where I thought he was even going to possibly make a move to tier one. It just, it looked like it, I actually started, I wasn't going to, I didn't come close to writing it, but I was writing,

putting some stuff together, some research. And then it, it just disappoints, you know, it just doesn't get it done. And I think you're right. There's not a huge difference between Prescott and Kirk Cousins. I think we've always liked and people have liked the makeup of Dak Prescott. I think people have perceived Prescott to be a better leader, perceived him certainly at times to, I think he's been more mobile, more able to probably handle it when the rush gets in his face.

That's the knock on Cousins is, you know, he's sort of dead to rights when there's someone coming in to get him. And he might, he might on fourth and eight on the last play of the playoff game, throw a completion underneath for a four yard game. That's what he did in the last game last year whereas i think we feel like or deck prescott might i don't know take a little bit more of a chance um be a little bit more more aggressive uh be maybe a little bit more resourceful but end of the day they're probably a lot more alike than we've wanted to think.

Yeah, I'm just looking at the completion percentage is terrific. The yards per attempt is still pretty good, although that number can kind of be all over the place. I used to feel like it was a default thing. If you want to go QBR, it felt like it's fallen off the last couple of years. But the most alarming number was the 3.8% interception ratio, which is just double kind of where he's been here for multiple years. So it might be the outlier. That's probably what I would think of. And then you go through the swing of who he was against Tampa and then who he was against San Francisco. And a lot of these guys are week to week, so it's not too shocking.

I was not surprised when they beat Tampa. I thought it was a pretty bad matchup for Tampa in that game, but then against San Francisco. I guess there's – I'm repeating myself here. There's some hope that that turnover bug that he had last year and some of the decisions i forget was it the jacksonville game you're like what the hell is he doing terrible there's some terrible ones right so go ahead that to me that is the outlier when you just double your

interception rate i don't think that's just going to be the new back of doubling the interception rate but remember we were talking before about justin herbert oh don't read don't overanalyze and read too much in the playoff thing i think think Dak Prescott at this stage of his career, really, if they were to reach a Super Bowl without him really playing any better, as you say, it's their defense, they pick up a turnover, and they get to the Super Bowl. Don't you think your opinion of Dak would change?

I personally try not to do that. You know, like you said, Herbert's a perfect example. Like, I am going to argue when I think somebody is really good and then they don't really have the playoff success. Now, granted, you're like, hey, you're a Chris Paul fan. Shocker. But yeah, it's a bit like the Eli thing. Like, there's a really good piece.

You could do this and you could do it with just quarterbacks. I'm giving you this little editor stuff here. You could just look at quarterbacks over like a 30, 40 year stretch and be like, who has a Super Bowl that completely skews

who they were? I think Eli Manning would be like the first person I think of. And granted, he's got two. He beats the Patriots of all these teams. Tim Plunkett has two. Yeah,, he's got two. He beats the Patriots of all these teams. But if he lost to.

Yeah, Plunkett has two. Bradshaw. Would you rather have Jim Plunkett or Dak Prescott signing up as your quarterback for 10 years? Well, I don't. I mean. I mean, it's a different era, obviously. But or Eli Manning. Would you rather have Eli Manning or Dak?

Hell, I thought Romo was more talented than Eli when they were both. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now, Eli, though, did play great in some of those postseasons and Super Bowls and made amazing throws. Does that skew it? So I'm a Hall of Fame voter. I mean, we're going to have Eli Manning in there with people advocating for him. What do I say?

My pushback on Eli would be he was never even really like a top five quarterback. So are you going to be pushing back on it? Well, I'm not going to be against it. I'm open-minded, but I'm going to certainly point that out. I feel like we're going to get to the Eli Rivers debate

for Hall of Fame. And I think Rivers is the better quarterback. I think Rivers is the better quarterback too. So in our calculus now circling back to quarterback tiers with a Dak Prescott, I think he definitely suffers at this stage from the fact that he hasn't gotten him over the hump more in the playoffs.

That's clearly a part of the frustration with Dallas and Dak, right? Yeah, no, I get it. I get what the assignment is for that position, but I will not allow myself to ever get to a point where all of a sudden I just kind of fall in line with so many other people that feel like, oh, well, this guy had this playoff run. When we don't pay attention to turnovers,

don't pay attention to defensive stuff historically, we'll just go like, oh, yeah, that guy really figured it out. That guy's better than Flacco. Flacco had the amazing postseason run that one year, right? Does that make him better than? No, it doesn't. No, that was the Matt Ryan Flacco thing. The entire time of watching those guys play,

I was like, there's no world where Flacco's better than Matt Ryan. He's just not. And then for a month, I had to feel like an idiot. And then I quickly was able to get back to not feeling like an idiot. Staying on the Hall of Fame thing, Kirk Cousins is 28th in career yardage. Depending on where he lands, I mean, we're talking easily top 20 when he's done,

maybe even top 15. In the NBA, you make the Hall of Fame with that. Yeah, no way. There's just no way. And that's with all due respect. There's just no way. There's just no way, right? There's no way.

No, I mean, of these guys in quarterback tiers, Mahomes is going to make the Hall of Fame. Rodgers is going to make the Hall of Fame Rogers is going to make the Hall of Fame I mean if Lamar Jackson has five good years right now I mean there's no guarantees right I mean I don't

I just feel like I feel like for these quarterbacks you either got to be off the charts with your stats or you have to have good stats with that team success, because with that playoffs championship success, I do

think is a part of it. I think the head coach and the quarterback gets a disproportionate amount of the credit for the championship stuff, and it's okay to a certain extent. What if... What about Stafford? I don't,

I don't think so. But he's not done yet. And I got to really think about it too. Like, cause, cause you have, this is why it's great to have five years after they retire, because we need to synthesize the whole thing, right?

If you just, you sort of have in your mind the whole run in Detroit for what it was and what it wasn't, which is a big part of it. But I think we do have to wait for the dust to settle. And what if he comes back and has another great year and gets into the Super Bowl in the future? I think that would possibly change it. the Super Bowl in the future, I think that would possibly change it. But right now your case for him would be he was in a really bad situation in Detroit

and if he wasn't, he would have had a lot he would have done better. I don't know if that's a great case. You'd rather have him than Eli Manning though, right? Yeah, I would. Would you rather have Trevor Lawrence or Dak? Well, right now, Trevor Lawrence all day.

Because there's that little bit of unknown, right? I think we sign up for that versus just kind of knowing what we have and it's fine. Yeah, that's exactly it. The tiebreaker is Lawrence figured it out last year. Give me the guy that... Because the beginning with Lawrence, you're like, hey, the best thing about you coming out of school was that you didn't make some of these mistakes.

And he looked pretty lost. And maybe the other lesson in this too is like when I went through some of the bottom third guys last year, I went, wait, this is like five or six of these guys who completely figured it out. Hertz jumps up massively. Lawrence jumps up massively. Geno Smith is like a unicorn. I mean, that doesn't happen.

The guy comes in last and now he looks like a real starter. Josh Allen has been in this thing five years. He's improved every year. I think that really plays into whatever optimism there is for Justin Fields. It's like, Hey, we've seen a Josh Allen be rough around the edges, be more, be more, you know, a runner as anything. Um, and then, and be inaccurate and then grow into this. We've seen Jalen hurts, you know, be limited. And now he's growing and he's still got more growth to do needs to be in some two-minute situations but you know on his way uh there's some players

like that I mean even Russell Wilson to some degree in his career was you know made made uh an evolution that I think kind of lights a path for us to see, okay, maybe Justin Fields can do it. Whereas I think 10 or 15 years ago, Justin Fields would be more written off earlier by people who just look at the flaws in the passing and say, sorry, he's never going to be able to do it. A couple more guys that I still want to get to here. Tua is at 17, easily top 10 without the injuries. 17, easily top 10 without the injuries.

And I thought one of the quotes that you got about the no-win situation that he's in was terrific. And it was completely fair. Can you explain that? Yeah. Yeah. You think he would be top 10 though if he was healthy too? Maybe, maybe. Yeah, actually I do.

I think that's the way it would have worked. The momentum that he had, uh, I think he'd be ahead of Stafford. I think he'd be right at 10. See, I disagree because I think people see just, this is the quote you talked about. Maybe he's in a no-win situation. I think people see him really having to have it set up perfectly and the timing has to be exact. Then he can make an accurate pass when it's clean and the guys are open and it's on time. He can boom, one,

two, three, put it right on the money. But as soon as you muddy the picture and disrupt him, which happened at times last season, when it wasn't as good, probably a little bit later in the year, um,

he wasn't that player at all. So, but I think the quote you're getting to gets to the idea that if you didn't like Tua early in his career, you would blame him for that. You'd say he's bad. Then, once they get a good coach for scheming offense and great weapons and Tua does better, you just say, well, yeah, it's because of the coach and the weapons. And you never acknowledge that when he first came into the league,

it was totally stacked against him. They didn't, I mean, they were, they had Chan Gailey trying to get Ryan Fitzpatrick ready. They didn't even want to play Tua. They had no plan for him. He was in an absolute terrible situation, but that wasn't really acknowledged.

And now that he has some success it's because of all those other things around him so that he never can get the credit right no it was perfect it was perfect because you know granted if you if you love tua you hammer the first part of this and it was so clear how how much they did not trust him the calls the play calls you could see the third and long stuff in the red zone they're like okay this staff has no faith in him so if you're a young quarterback and you're trying to prove yourself and you already know when you're showing up to work like hey these guys don't even think i'm any good that doesn't help and that's why you know personal coaches especially like i'll

listen to whether it's quarterback coaches or basketball trainers and they talk up their guys so much. And I'll be like, Hey, you're so like off the air. I'll be like, you're so full of shit right now. Right. And yet I don't get mad at them because that like, I might as well do it this way. I might as well tell my guy, he's, he's going to figure it out. He's's gonna be really good because the even if that doesn't work the reverse effect could happen if he doesn't think that his main guy the guy that's supposed to have his back doesn't believe in him so clearly McDaniel comes in he has all of those things to to immediately it looks great early but you're right like if you decide you don't want to change your mind you

can just go well wait the weapons are good it's all these different things i think the timing thing is the best piece of it all and i thought there were some games too where the numbers didn't actually show how bad he had played in the game i thought there were some games watching too if you watched every throw of those games you'd be like the end of the day the box score didn't look as bad as i think he actually ended up playing but if you love to throw of those games, you'd be like, at the end of the day, the box score didn't look as bad as I think he actually ended up playing. But if you love Tua, then you can just go back to like, wait a minute,

after the concussion debacle and the way they mishandled the whole thing, he wasn't right the whole year. Tua is, the Tua position is open to every available possible argument. And I don't know if we'll get the definitive answer this year,

but it feels like it'll be more definitive after sort of this unknown of like, is he the is he a potential mvp candidate or is he somebody they're going to have to replace and clearly the main hope is that he at least stays healthy so we figure that out that's the number one thing he has to play i'll play all the games i think that's the number one challenge and the thing i'm most worried about for him in light of the concussion history you know and all of that so So, um, but it is fascinating. And I think, I think this, he's not the only one. I mean, we talked about Jared Goff's been in extreme situations, you know, Oh, it's

McVay. Oh, it's Ben Johnson. If you let, if you liked, if you didn't like golf, you can always use that and never really give golf the credit either. You play for Kyle Shanahan. Yeah. It's the Shanahan offense. Anyone can do it.

So there's kernels of truth to all of those things, but it does make it, it does lend itself to defending whatever opinion you already had of some of these players. Two more guys,

and then we'll finish up here. Kyler comes in 13th. I thought this was one of the weirdest quotes of the entire deal that one of your voters said that bringing in vet receivers, having guys like Larry who was already there, Larry Fitzgerald, DeAndre who was brought in, and then AJ Green as part of their vet signing spree that they had last year as an organization this quote was this it's really weird when you're young

this is from a coach what happens is these guys are naturally tougher on you you can come off some type of way now the work ethic stuff the intangible part of the job enough is out there where that is real Kyler has to establish that with a fresh start because on the field, I think he's a Tier 2 quarterback if he's healthy.

He even had one Tier 1 vote still, and I think people looking back to two years ago when he was just kind of keeping them going, making these absurd plays, the throwing is really top-level stuff from him from a talent standpoint. But I feel like the, the combination of enough stuff,

whether on the record, off the record of like, this guy's just not really wired the right way. I thought it was really like playing the results to go wait. So a young quarterback having these legends at receiver who've established himself, having these vet guys that we usually be like, Hey, these older guys, they can show that that's a negative. I think the problem is Kyler.

I think the problem, despite the best versions of him and after this knee injury, we'll see. But there has to be some adjustment with the way he carries himself around the team. And this was said about him before the draft. And for Patrick Peterson, just go on the record and just say like, hey, man, you need to figure some stuff out. Like that was really, really alarming. And I thought this was such an odd quote because normally that's what you always want.

Some of these offensive players, they're going to be your guys that have gone through a ton of stuff. And now somehow this was spun as leading to all this negative noise around Murray. I did not agree with that. Yeah. So on Kyler Murray, I was a little bit surprised that the commentary on him wasn't harsher.

Now, sometimes when I'm picking the quotes for these things, I want to use the ones that are a little bit different, you know, that are a little make you think like I, I hadn't really thought of that, you know what I mean? I don't have to agree with it,

but I'm glad that somebody said it. I loved it. You used it. Right. I disagree, disagree but i love thing that's a weird thing and then the other one was the like the one voter who put him in tier one i'm like what are you talking about you know but he was like hey this team was in the playoffs well it wasn't because of their defense it wasn't because of running game was because of deandre hopkins it wasn't because their offensive line is because of this guy. And so I thought that was interesting perspectives. I was actually glad that people weren't, I feel like he's been beat up enough

deservedly. Like it's been enough of a story that this didn't need to be a pile on, you know, and we, we know all those things. So we talked about him probably in last year's quarterback tiers. You know, it was probably last year's was probably more negative, even though this year he fell. He didn't just fall off the charts with people burying him and putting him in tier four. So I think he is very interesting in a really interesting situation where he may not be able to play. They're going to have a high pick. They have a ton of draft capital. They could have other options.

Isn't that an interesting mix there's like there's not much he can really do on the field he's got to try to win them over off the field maybe get on the field at some point during the year but is he going to be ready to play well uh do they want to just do a fresh start with someone else but they've paid this guy a ton they're still committed to him him. I think there's, it's interesting. And their coaching staff, to me, has gone out of their way to put the spin on it that these guys that were doing positive quotes than Kyler did.

They've been out of their way. Like going to his statue unveiling at his college, you know, early on before they even really know him, just talking about him as if he's the guy. I think they've really tried to embrace him and, and almost kill him with kindness and try to win him over that way, as opposed to maybe the old school way of, you know, being a little bit, putting more of the public impetus on him to come around.

Doesn't it feel that way? Like they're trying to reach him through overt positivity and just hoping that it'll maybe work. Yeah, I think that's what coaches do when they come in. They tell the owner, hey, I can figure this guy out. No problem. That's how you get the job. Sean Payton wouldn't do that though.

I think the Payton thing is, first of all, perfect transition because that's where I'm going to finish. But Payton can get away with it. And even though they've invested a lot of resources, this is Arizona investing all that money into Kyler. That deal was absurd. The guaranteed money that they gave him at the time. And yet sometimes it's kind of next man up with the quarterback contracts and that's how it works. But this is not a Sean Payton resume staff. So they couldn't do that. But more often than not, if you want the job and you're the second guy replacing that rookie quarterback's first head

coach and first staff, you tell ownership you'll solve their problem, not that rookie quarterback's first head coach and first staff you tell ownership you'll solve their problem not that the quarterback's the problem you do that the second time around to save your own job so yeah a little bit of the difference here though was the organization was already down on kyler and had put that stuff in his contract even you know there was a there was a little bit of a negative tenor, I thought, between the organization and Kyler already. So, yeah, I think your point's good. I'm glad he didn't have any Tier 4 votes because that would have felt way too harsh.

So, one Tier 1, 18 Tier 2, 31 Tier 3. Okay, let's finish with Russell Wilson, whose Tier run has fallen off a cliff here the last few years. Tier 1 going back to 21 and 22 down to tier two last year. He actually had two tier four votes. As bad as he was last year, that would feel aggressive. But you were on this, and I'll give you credit. I think you know Wilson's career as well as anyone we talk to on the show.

Can Peyton save this? Because it's not just improving. By default, he has to be better than he was last year, but can he save this and make Denver feel good about this kind of trade? I think it's more stop the bleeding and improve the health of the patient, but I think the days of Russell Wilson being at the top are over. And I think they were already before he got there. If you go back to entering the 2020 season, he was unanimous tier one, 50 votes in tier one. Entering 2021, he had 40 votes in tier one. Entering 2022, he had 15 votes in tier one. Entering this year, he has zero. I think the trend line is longer than, uh, you know, just the last year or even two, I think there's been a decline.

Now, does he get a bounce back year? Does he, is he super motivated? Does, uh, I think that's all possible, but I think it's unlikely that he's going to recapture the dynamic athleticism that he had that really made him a special player. And I would encourage anyone to do this. Just go on YouTube and watch Russell Wilson highlights from 2019 or 18. It's shocking how different he looked. He's unbelievable. He was a true magician. He looked a little bit like Kyler Murray. Darting, guys coming up the middle, flipping around, just, oh my gosh, he made a terrible decision

to turn his back to the defense, but guess what? It's a 28-yard gain. I don't see that coming back. So I don't see that being how Sean Payton's ever played. So what does it look like? I think it could look efficient, but I just don't think it's, it's going to look dynamic.

Excellent work. This is one of my favorite things that comes out every year. And I hope you enjoy coming on again during the football season. We'll catch up again. We'd love to. Yeah. I think we did a mid season check in every year. And I hope you enjoy coming on again during the football season. We'll catch up again. Would love to. Yeah, I think we did a midseason check-in last year. Call me anytime.

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Life advice. The email address again, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. What up, Steve? What up, Kyle? Speaking of Steve, Cerruti in Portugal. We have somebody checking in saying that he doesn't have a question, but he and his wife will be in Portugal around the same time Cerruti's going. We get there August 1st.

That's today. the same time. So Rudy's going. We get there August 1st. That's today. It'd be cool to watch a women's, not female, World Cup match with a fellow American as we play in the round of 16 or quarterfinals. We'll be in Porto. Not El Porto.

Porto. A couple issues here. One, I'll be in Lisbon or around Lisbon, so I don't know. Oh, he says Lisbon. He says between the 1st and the 14th. Here's the real question. Would you meet up with a stranger who emails in to watch, uh,

a soccer match with, I don't think so. Um, only because if I was there for, I'm only there for a couple of days and my wife is like really excited about just like, we haven't really taken a vacation. Um,

I know everybody's like, Oh, you had three months off from Trinity. I, we haven't really taken a vacation um i know everybody's like oh you're three months off from trinity all right we haven't really taken that much time off since then yeah so so she's excited about a couple days that we can spend on the beach so i don't know that she'd be pumped like hey honey i'm just gonna dip out for a couple hours with this guy i don't really know i'm sure you're awesome he's bringing his wife though the emailer so maybe the four of you guys get together it's always just a risk you know you. You're just going to meet up with a rando. It says also I'm into wife swapping, which I don't know. Oh, okay.

Yeah, definitely. I didn't read that. How about this? Should we DM? You never know. You never know. If he looks really good, if he was a really attractive guy,

you'd probably meet up with him. This guy looks like he knows his way around Portugal. Yeah, maybe I would. Maybe I would. But I don't know. It's a tough sell for the wife. That's the kind of issue. Kyle, you were shaking your head ferociously. Well, I'd

rather just be like set upon. You know what I mean? Then like, all right, we're going to schedule a date for a dude who clearly is a fan on some level, but also feels like he knows me. I'd rather just be like, somebody be like, Hey, I heard you were going to be here or something rather than like setting it up. So sometimes though, like if I'm in a place, I'd be like, Oh, it looks like we're going to this place.

And then it's like, if you want to go there, you can see me, but I'm not like, yeah, I'm not making a date. I don't want you to feel special enough. I want to be able to totally exit out of there. If I, if I get some vibes that I don't like, so I like to make it impersonal. I don't want you to feel special enough. I want to be able to totally exit out of there if I, if I get some vibes that I don't like. So I'd like to make it impersonal. And then if, uh, dudes want to show not, yeah. Okay. But so you're saying, you're saying if somebody like you were going to Portugal, Kyle, and then a guy emailed in was like, I know the best dive bars in this area, whatever you would be like, well maybe i'll see you you would not do anything like coordinated is what you're saying you know what i might even do this is maybe this sounds crazy if a guy's like hey i like sends me a dm in my request and i see it i might then put out

a public tweet like hey any good dive bars in Portugal, hopefully that guy answers via the one-way tweet replies instead of the in the DMs thing. I'm like that even weird about it. I might even just like, I might even like give him an opportunity to do it on the public forum so we can keep it in a space where I'm comfortable with. One-on-one's tough too.

You know, if it was like a group, how do I, listen, I'm not saying this guy's not awesome. Maybe it's a great time and I'm missing out on an awesome, awesome situation. But, man, one-on-one, somebody you don't know, and then the wives are involved.

It's also one thing, you know, after a show, like I love chatting people up at the live show in New York. Kyle and I talk to like a million people. It's awesome. It's great to like, you know, take a move.

Yeah, but it's like, you know, it's five minutes here, five minutes there, you know, a couple hours. It's awesome. It's great to like, you know, take a move. Yeah, but it's like, you know, it's five minutes here, five minutes there, you know, a couple hours. It's just, it's not my strength. That New York show

was the best crowd, by the way. Those crazy fucking Long Island guys. That was just the best crowd. The energy was off the charts and I was just getting shaken by my shoulders

like left and right. Those guys were really touchy and it was just the best crowd I thought that they were they assumed a lot yeah I guess I mean I'm not from like down there but that's okay they felt they felt a connection and I just I'd never been shaken so much

you know everyone was just they were taking a lot of liberties yeah good for you guys a lot of dudes are touching you yeah what you're saying yeah yeah well guys were drinking guys were yeah guys were you know and guys from the five boroughs long island they you know they're hands-on dudes they also gave him like an extra hour to drink too yeah that was a lot of it so it's probably that wasn't the one i was wanted to introduce my wife to the world at, but that's the one she was at. And I was just like,

that was, that was, that was interesting. I do like when guys will send out the bat signal though. And it's usually for women, you know, like somebody be like, Hey,

in Memphis, what's good fam. You know, it's like, you know, just to be like, Hey, I'm in, I'm in Lisbon. What's cracking?

Right. Look at me. Then every now and then I'll see somebody where now Randy Scott's going to become the default all the time. Be like, hey, folks, I'll be in Fort Worth. Come down and say hello. I'll be at the Outback. The Outback? On Decatur. You're like, wait. like wait who's like hey what are you doing today

well i was getting i had dinner plans but randy scott's at the local outback so i think i was gonna swing through there let's swing by get a get a twisted tea with him or something so uh all right there you go those those are the rules for that one. Okay. We got a million passport follow-ups because apparently here's the move. And this is a culmination of a lot of different people

here. Cerruti's already making a face where I know there's people direct following up to him. Yeah. And I've sent the link to a lot of people. Kyle actually hasn't hit me up. Are you good now or what? I've got I've sent, I've sent the link to a lot of people. So if you're, you know, Kyle, Kyle actually hasn't hit me up. Are you good now or what? You know, I've, um, I gotta be honest that you're, you know, you're, you're guy. I don't, I don't love the sound of that when it comes to stuff like passports is probably

going to require a social security number, uh, and like, you know, whatever's on my passport application. I'm not sure if I want to give it to some guy. And then I looked up like rush my passport, which, Gay, who is like, you know, we travel for, you know, for, for work a lot. And a lot of people fuck this up. So, you know, they use that it's like $1,300 and you're my manager, so am I able to expense that or not? I think it's probably not one. There's a little bit of red tape with the, with the Swedes, I think when it comes to expenses. So, uh, I don't think I could, I don't think I could just throw that one

and I don't want to go that bad. Alright, first of all, there's something happening here. The dynamic that is incredible is that Cerruti has a way in but Kyle finds the way in to be too sketchy for Kyle.

Here's the thing. It's not $1,300. That's a rip-off. My guy wouldn't do that to you. We should stop. We should stop. But again, the fact that Saruti has a guy

and Kyle's like, eh, I don't know. Seems a little sketchy. The guy needs my social security number. I don't know. He's just a guy. Well, for passports, normally they kind of want that stuff.

I don't believe... He's like a fixer. Getting to know both of you and Kyle being hesitant while Sir Rudy provides the option is just a massive role reversal that I did not expect to have take place with international travel. The point is we had a bunch of people come in with a similar solution. It's basically all the same. So here we go.

I had to renew my passport. I didn't want to wait the amount of time to mail it since I was considering traveling internationally at some point in the summer. I did the emergency route that Kyle mentions in the pod by going to one of the offices in New York City. You can schedule employment. You just have to call first thing in the morning, 8 a.m. Eastern, I believe. Slots fill up fast. The earliest you can schedule is 14 days out. You get your passport on the same day, so that's not an issue. Sounds like Kyle has an actual flight travel plans, which if you do, show receipt of the travel plans of the passport agency. I didn't even have this, but if you are traveling to Canada or Mexico, all you have to do is show a hotel reservation. Say you were driving, so I made a fully refundable reservation starting technically the day of my appointment at some random hotel in Montreal. I just had to show him the email confirmation that once I showed it to them, I canceled the reservation, had my appointment at 9 a.m., got my new passport by three o'clock the same day. There are other services that Saruti mentioned, but those usually cost a bunch of money. This way is no more expensive than just mailing your passport in. So this is

definitely an option if you don't want to worry about actually lining up the appointment time with your real flights to Europe or give your passport over to the third party service. Overall, that would be very easy experience. We had multiple emails. I just thought that was the best description of the thing where another guy was like, I told them

I was changing my flight to that day and started punching keyboard numbers and gave them a fake confirmation number. We don't want to do that. You know, we're talking about. I'd rather just book and cancel. That's great. Yeah.

But if you're going to Montreal or Mexico, both within driving distance, depending on where you're at. Right. Your corners of the country, both reasonable. You go to Tijuana that afternoon. That's kind of on brand. That's great. Today is 14 days from my actual real travel. So today I'll be making that call.

Or maybe I guess tomorrow morning. We'll see. But yeah, I would have totally done that a week ago. But thanks. I think everybody should know that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who fucks this up. You know what else today is? The first day of the rest of your life.

That's right. Okay. that here we go all right uh we'll just do this one because we already did all that stuff and because this one could be a little bit longer what's up guys just quit my job at espn for my girlfriend whoa all right 23 he doesn't include a picture you don't have a picture okay 23. How hot is she? He doesn't include a picture. You don't have a picture. Okay. Dude's got some size.

He's got so much size, and I'm not sure that I even want to get that specific with it because, well, let's see. Maybe if he's already quit the job, he's already quit the job. I just didn't want the guy to expose himself too much if he was going to say stuff about ESPN. That's all. And then ruin his chances later on.

Anyway, we'll just go with it. 6'6", 265. Serge Zwicker's younger brother chiming in here. Pickup comparison. Senior year Tyler Zeller at UNC. Drop step, post hook over the left shoulder. There's my bread and butter. I box out running floor, but don't have much of a left hand.

All right. We like it. Not another Boris Dia floor, but don't have much of a left hand. All right. We like it. Not another Boris Dio. We had like four more Boris Dios today. I wanted to get your opinions and advice on a recent life decision I made. I apologize if this is on the longer side, but it may be relatable for some of the listeners. I currently work for ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut. I got hired straight out of college.

So I've been here a little over a year. I love my job in the control room, but I've been browsing other opportunities to get involved in production content side of the industry. Backstory, when I accepted the job during my senior year, my girlfriend and I had been together about nine months and I knew this job meant we'd be doing long distance. She was applying to a physician's assistant schools in other states and our timelines didn't match up well enough for her to move to Connecticut with me. For reference, we graduated from UNC. I've lived in North Carolina my whole life. However, I never had a doubt that we would stay together. I just hope this guy doesn't mind everybody knowing who it will be in his circle of the 6'6 guy who's 265, went to UNC, and then worked at

ESPN. I mean, I'd probably find this guy in 10 minutes. Yeah. All right. And I have his name, so it'd be even easier, but I'm not going to share it. I just hope nothing happens in the email where then we feel like, oh, kind of expose this guy a bit. So anyway, I've never had a doubt that we would stay together. This is a girl I will marry whenever the time comes. But I felt that an opportunity at ESPN straight after graduating is too good to pass up, and she understood. I just figured it would be a rough couple of years and long distance while she was in school,

two-year program, and I was working up north. PA school ended up not working out for that specific year as a result of not going to school yet. ESPN Disney's generous vacation time and some cheap flights were able to visit each other pretty frequently over the past year, at least a few days every three or four weeks. That sounds about right. Take a vacation

every couple of weeks? No, he's just figuring vacation day. Yeah, I think that's probably what he was doing. Although I would imagine the PA program, if you were doing a ton of long weekends

early on, right out of the gates. Yeah, you might as well come and just be like, I'm also kind of more of a big picture guy. I'm not really into this type of stuff. Also, I'd need Friday off. Well, the good thing, you probably had Tuesday and Wednesday off, so maybe the flights were cheaper.

He just took the extra Thursday, and he worked weekends, so they were fine with it. Yeah, it makes sense. A little summer at Connell for him. It wasn't easy, but other people have had a lot worse doing long distance, so I'm thankful for our situation. Flash forward to now.

We've been together over two years. Everything's going great between us. My girlfriend was recently accepted into a PA school. I can't say where, which means her classes start in October. Two daunting years of strenuous studies and little free time lies ahead of her. It's become increasingly more difficult to be apart. And the thought of doing this another two years

with less time to visit terrified me. She happened to be in Connecticut on a visit when she got the news. Obviously, I was overjoyed for her, but after the initial excitement died down, we realized what that meant for our relationship. After some serious talks about our future, what would make us the happiest, I put in my resignation at ESPN three days later.

This is my own decision. There was no pressure, no persuasion from her. I want to stress, if I had caps any doubt about us being together for the long haul, I would not have made a decision like this. But like I said, she's the one. Stop. I'm all in. Stop. This is not completely out of the blue. I've been searching for ways to move closer to home so we could be together for a few months. The more I thought about it, I know being in Connecticut without her, even with a nice job, would be miserable. My girlfriend and I have never lived together, but I have no doubt we'll be compatible. I've heard the horror stories, but they haven't deterred. Look, somebody at some point,

you have to move in. Somebody, right? I'm waiting for some of my buddies to get divorced. Like, yeah, I got a spare bedroom. So this leads me to my question. What would you guys have done in this situation? How did you feel when leaving ESPN? I have no immediate regrets about the decision I made, but I would hate to look back in a few years and say, man, I wish I would have stayed at ESPN longer than 15 months. Also, as I'm sure you know, telling people you work for ESPN is pretty cool, especially for a 23-year-old. It's a great conversation starter. I've noticed people's faces light up whenever I tell them what I do for work. How do I manage this going forward and tell my friends and family, hey, I just quit a lot of people's dream job in sports without another job

in place yet. I have some great connections in other places, so I'm not flying totally blind, but it's still terrifying. Huge leap of faith. I know I'll be much happier overall in my new situation. I have a month left of working in Bristol before the move takes place. Thanks again. Love the show. I think we all know what my answer would be, so why don't we just go with Saruti here? Well, I just did a quick Google of your average physician's assistant salary, which is six figures, mid six figures, up to like 150, 160. So there's a good chance that she's going to be out earning you. The PA, it's a slow grind. Good chance. So I think on just the financials alone, you made the right call.

And I get the ESPN thing of like, yeah, it's cool to tell your buddies and people like randos and how awesome that kind of feels. But I will say that that doesn't really last. I think you've been there, what do you say, a couple of years. So I guess maybe he really does like it. It is a cool thing. But at some point, I know a lot of people that got tired of that. That was the one perk that you get.

Oh, I work at ESPN. What else do you get? I work weekends and overnights and I don't see my friends and I'm vitamin D deficient because I never see the sun because I'm working at night all the time. That can't be the only thing. Yeah, it's a bummer that you have to leave, but I kind of think you're

making the right call. All things in a perfect world. You didn't say the school. I assume it's farther away than UNC then? Is it super far away? No. so they just don't want to do the the two-year thing again yeah i don't know i think you're making the right call i don't it depends what your your career is i mean there's a lot of other media jobs though you know like there's a lot of other small pop-up whatever or just you know new media situations that

uh i think can fulfill you and maybe you can grow faster at because that would be the one issue. And then the other thing is you should be leaving jobs every couple years as a young sort of professional. That's how you end up moving up in the world. Maybe big picture,

you come back to ESPN one day and you and your wife move there. Who knows? But I think for the situation right now, if you really love this girl and you want to be away from her for two more years, which does suck,

I think this is the right call. Kyle? I don't like it. I don this is the right call. Kyle? I don't like it. I don't like it. I just, I don't know. I mean, this is medical school, right? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it's not like she's going in to be a doctor, but yeah.

But I mean, it's crammed in. It's crammed into two years, right? I mean, so this is like her master's sort of of deal or this is like, I mean, either way, she's going to be super busy. I don't think you guys could be hanging out a ton. And I don't know. I think I think you probably could have held out for a little bit longer. Like, wouldn't it be better to be there a little bit longer and then like maybe try

to transfer something? This seems like a like a story my grandfather would have told me or something like, oh, and right then and there, I quit my job because I knew it was going to be me and her, baby, against the world. I quit the cobbler shop that day. Right. I got on my horse and rode off road west. So I don't know. I think it seems like you got no plan and you got into a thing that was, I mean, getting hired at ESPN right out of college. You're already in a very small group. So I don't know.

I would have probably finessed it if that's the goal. Maybe there's things you can do to get there, but there might have been some sort of transition you could have worked out where it's like, yeah, now I'm working for the local news station in Durham or Charlotte or something. Something where you enjoy the career,. And I don't know. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you, you know, put, start beating the pavement and be like, Hey, I've been at ESPN for 15 months. I'm not sure how good a 15 months at ESPN looks when you're right out of college. I don't know. Um, but I guess you're right. She's got a career and you'll probably won't be hurting for money eventually, but I don't know. I think you probably could have thought about you a little bit more here, even though she didn't want you to do this. I guess this was sort of a selfish move for you to just kind of up and leave.

But he is thinking about himself. Like he said, he was tired of that. He wanted to see her more often. So, you know, it's OK. It you know, it's not like you turn down like an executive job ESPN to to, to like, you're, you know, it's, it's a, it's a low thing on the totem pole. Um, and you could kind of pivot somewhere else.

I do think having ESPN on your resume, if you want to work in media for 18 months, it's actually a pretty good thing. You probably get a lot of, at least first, you know, a lot of, you'll get at least a first interview or two more than often,

more often than not because of that. So I, I don't know. Like, I think he's going to be, it sounds like he's going to be happier by doing this. This is just a part of the consequence, but he wants to do this.

Yeah, I'd have to know more about what you want to do. Do you want to be on the air? Well, then I would only stay in the control room at ESPN for like two years tops, right? Because eventually you got to get out of there and move on because guess what's not happening? You're not just going to magically be on air. I mean granted sometimes

there would be some younger women that would be accepted into the PA program and they would show up to work like they were getting ready for a beauty pageant and you were kind of like what did you think was going to happen? Like they were just going to be like hey we're short an anchor.

Does anybody have thoughts on Brady? Here you go, hot girl from Florida. Although I think twice it may have actually happened. Where they were like, this person's so hot that we're just going to like throw you in front of the camera for digital stuff. Yeah, you're right. I talked to, there was a lot of, you know, I hung hung out in the PA circles early on in my career. There are a lot of girls exactly the same that were definitely good looking and thought that was going to be their pathway. And they were gone probably around a year when they realized that that was not going

to be the plan. Yeah. So there's that kind of a wake up call. It's like, just get your foot in the door. If you want to be on the air i don't think you did anything wrong okay if you want to be on the production side of things i'd have to know like where you were in the pa program if you'd actually connected with any supervisors where you felt like there was a real path because the part the dirty little secret that they don't tell you is that the pa program and then into kind of the screening and all that kind of stuff, like it's also set up to sort of weed people out. Like who will commit to this? Who will live in this part of the country? Who will continue to not make that much money,

have these fucked up schedules? It's a little bit like boot camp, like, you know, to weed out that, you know, for the army or whatever. Not that it's the same, obviously it's a little more stressful in the army, but like, yeah, it's just like, who can actually, who really wants to be here? Right. Like I would have, I would have in my early twenties been dumb enough to then gone at 30 to be like, what happened? Like what now what do I do now? I don't know. Maybe that's not entirely true. Cause I probably would have at some point been like, Hey, if this isn't going the way that I envision my future, but if you want to work behind the scenes and you want to be in production and

you want to be in that kind of stuff, um, there's, there's two very different paths that can happen to people there. And that is one is the things do work out, but you're going to put in the hours, you're going to make those sacrifices and having a long distance relationship with somebody who's training to become a physician's assistant is going to put some massive, massive strains

where you and the other person would have to be on the same page. And a page would be really hard where you're constantly telling, hey, this is worth it. You were still my future. All the things we're saying. And I don't want to hear about Doug who works at the orthodontist office that's super friendly. You know what I mean? Because that's what happens is people will find attention somewhere. And if they're not getting it from you, they're going to eventually find it from somebody else. And they may not even plan on, they may not have gone into it thinking like, I actually want to move on in the relationship. It just becomes natural.

Some animal instincts there and all that stuff, which is a different topic altogether. So not having enough information to email the note, and we don't need a follow-up, but not knowing what your true goals are. Because I think too, when we touched on this, sometimes guys will write in and I can tell they want to be on air, but they're really hesitant about just being like, oh, maybe this, maybe a little on air, maybe a little production, maybe a little behind the scenes, maybe some digital stuff or whatever. It's like, no, you want to be on the air. You want to be on the air. And when you want to be on the air, you can't say the right.

You have to say, I want to be on the air. That's it. All I want to do is be on the air. So I don't think you did anything wrong if that's what you want. So, I don't think you did main producer for Game Day down the road. I'd like to be one of those guys. That was going to take a really, really long time. And the odds are probably stacked against you of it even working.

So there's a chance where you could have stayed in the program. And maybe it wasn't the PA program strictly, and then you got a job after it. You could have been in that for a really long time. The industry has changed dramatically very quickly. There are opportunities all over the place. long time. The industry has changed dramatically very quickly. There are opportunities all over the place. I actually think you made the right call because you have to be single-minded. You have to fucking love it. And you have to be willing to make some serious personal sacrifices to get through that and break through the next stage of actually being somebody in management

thinks can have a future that's like a 10, 20 future at the company which is something when you get out of school you're like holy shit this is amazing like i'm gonna work at espn i've been producing monday night football one day it's like maybe maybe the fact that the path exists is kind of cool but in this phase of your life to have a couple people think it's cool after a couple beers be like what's it like what's it like and then you tell them all the stories that we would tell everybody and be like, oh, it's kind of like this. It's kind of like that. I would say you made the right call based on all the math of it all.

And speaking of math, do you think you're going to get hotter at 6'6", 270? You know? Start when you're 30. You know that size. You know? 6, seven, six, six, 270. That's not for everybody. The other thing is, does she want to move? Did she want to move?

It doesn't, I would assume that had a weighted decision. Like whether you've waited two years, but she's going to move to Connecticut. You had to wait until she got in. Right. And then, and then that's where you get a job, right? Yeah, look, sometimes when people break up over it, it really doesn't have anything. It's like, well, this isn't going to happen,

so we didn't even have to go over any of that stuff. But when you hear about the long-distance stuff not working out, most of the time it isn't because the person stops caring about the other person. It's just the convenience of it. Get done with a late night session, cuddle buddy, and you're out there cutting

fucking Padres highlights at two in the morning. That sounds bad. Can't talk right now. We're going to extras. Yeah, that can't talk right now we're going to extras so yeah that that setup that initial first phase for somebody who's not on the air at espn you're gonna mix you're gonna make some real sacrifices and if you're in love with somebody living multiple states over i think you made the right call yeah i guess he didn't walk away from more than just the possibility of something cool working out after years like it wasn't like he walked away from like a great gig at espn i didn't i didn't i guess yeah right

odds are that's i think who knows you may have fucking killed it and gotten everything you ever wanted and the on air and on not on air thing is a part uh an important part the distinction between like what you're but you're right kyle the odds are this early on you you didn't leave anything that was so significant that you can't get back in some other way yeah you left as a tier four quarterback right as i know it's safe you left as a we four quarterback, right? As Sando would say. You left as a, we don't know. Right, tier four though in Shanahan's system. Okay. If you would want to call it Shanahan's system.

It depends. I mean, look, it was Shanahan's system without question for a long time. I do think the job is very different now, just in general. I think the place is different. I think the vibe around Bristol is very different from what it was

when I at least... When I got there in 06, people were probably saying, oh, it's not the same. Maybe I'm just saying what everybody else says as they get older. But I don't think I'm wrong on that one. All right. There you go.

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