The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Cam Newton and the QB Market With Albert Breer, Brian Windhorst on Daryl Morey’s Resignation, and Examining Coach Ed Orgeron With Bruce Feldman

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

Russillo briefly shares his thoughts on Daryl Morey’s exit from the Rockets before talking with SI’s Albert Breer about the disastrous Jets season and what the market would be for Sam Darnold if the Jets end up with the first overall draft pick, college coaches primed for NFL jobs, what the Patriots will do regarding Cam Newton, the 49ers’ QB situation, Dak Prescott, and more. Then Ryen is joined by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst to discuss Daryl Morey’s resignation as well as the looming NBA cap hit, challenges the NBA faces for the 2021 season, and more. Then Ryen talks with Bruce Feldman of FOX Sports and The Athletic about his new book ‘Flip the Script: Lessons Learned on the Road to a Championship’ on Coach Ed Orgeron, including his tumultuous tenure in Miami, getting fired from Ole Miss, and bringing home a title at LSU. Finally, Ryen answers a listener-submitted Life Advice question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

we have a terrific podcast for you today i can't wait to do this one for you and uh touch on everything that's happening including breaking news daryl morey stepping down as houston rocket general manager and albert greer and we've got bruce f, too, on his new LSU book. So a ton going on. So let's get to it. Today's episode of the Ryan Rosillo Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That's like drafting a player that becomes an all-pro.

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State Farm goes from strength to strength. I consolidated all of my stuff with State Farm, and I couldn't be happier. If you want to do some grown-up stuff, just get on the phone with State Farm and be like, hey, I want to be a grown-up. How do we figure this out? Choose insurance that always brings us a game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Okay, we have this great setup for you, but I got to address the breaking news. Daryl Morey

stepping down as general manager of the Houston Rockets. Morey came to Houston 2007, 2008, and immediately, this is before people had accepted analytics the way we accept them now, even if there are moments where, yes, I'll push back on some of the stuff. And it was like, what are they going to do? And like, wait a minute, he wants his D-League or G-League team to shoot just threes. Like, what the hell is going on? Like, I think Hinckley did excessively dumb things. I think Darrell just went like, look, it's pretty simple. It's math.

And let's figure some of this stuff out. And I don't care what you say. Like everybody knows where my head is at with the rockets, but I respect the hell out of Daryl. I just do. Um, I wouldn't say he's a friend, but I've known him longer, I think than any other front office person in the NBA. If I think about it that way, I think I first met him in 2003 when he was working with the Celtics. I mean, Daryl's origin story is unbelievable. Like he worked with Bill James. He wanted to be a general manager. He thought the only way he could ever be a general manager is if he made enough money to buy a team, whether it was baseball or basketball. So that's what he set out to do. He actually was like, I'm going to figure out how to make enough money. So I actually

buy the team so I can pursue my passion of running the team. Um, when he was working for a bank in Boston, I think this bank was involved running the team. When he was working for a bank in Boston, I think this bank was involved in the transaction with Grosbeck and his ownership group to get the Celtics from Gaston. And from what I had heard and been told at the time, they sat and talked with Daryl and they were like, well, you come work for us. That's how impressed they were with Daryl. I think one of the first things Daryl did was he put together a proposal about whether or not it made any financial sense for the Celtics to build their own arena, get out of the Bruins partnership and do their own thing. And Daryl was basically like, no, it doesn't make any sense.

Here are all the numbers. And the ownership group was like, okay, great. This is incredible. So he wasn't even really doing any player stuff back then. Right. So, and I also remember too, hearing about all these sales guys in Boston that were bullshit about him saying that they don't deserve a new arena because there was all this signage and all of these different sales commissions that no longer were going to exist. Uh, that would have been there if there was an entire staff trying to sell out a building and all the different stuff that you could do, naming rights and all that. Um, but they were like, yeah, this Daryl

guy fucking stiffed us, you know? And i remember just hearing some of these conversations out and about and daryl was just looking at math and goes here's here's what your exposure is here and here's what the risk is there and here's the revenue and here all these different things he's like yeah i wouldn't open up a new arena and they didn't um and i don't know if that was the final definitive thing but then he gets to houston and you know early on even though i love jeff van gundy's like what's going on here? What's the point? And look, let's face it, they're the longest current playoff streak. His tenure is a big success. I'm not going to say it's a raging, massive, that segment of you that I can't believe you guys just wouldn't put your phones down for a few months and just let, let the adults talk here. But,

uh, he almost got this done and he was going up against the Warriors instead of trying to tank and avoid them. He was going at him in a Chris Paul hamstring injury. Maybe they're sitting there with a ring after, after winning it in 2018. Cause I think they definitely, well,

maybe, you know, I think they'd definitely, well, maybe, you know, I think they'd probably beat Cleveland, but I'm not sure. You know, they were putting together this run, and even though, like I said, I don't need to keep repeating myself about my rocket statement, but you could tell things were going a little south with the Westbrook thing because that was Tillman Fertitta. That was really, I believe, the son that wanted to do that, Harden wanted to do it.

The son said, let's do it. And as I remind you guys all the time, the owners are really the GMs for many of these franchises deciding to go ahead and do something on their own. And there's a bunch of younger owners, whether it's daughters or sons that are becoming more and more prominent in the decision-making part for these teams. I don't know if it's, it's not for these teams. I don't know if it's, it's not less than five. I don't know if it's 10, but there's a lot of stories that I'll hear all the time now around NBA ownership and decisions being influenced by the children that want to,

because you know, what's being, you know, what's cool. Like being a GM is really cool. And even if you're not getting to actually call the shots here is great. So hard wanted Westbrook, this, great. So Harden wanted Westbrook. The ownership and the sun wanted Westbrook.

Darrell never wanted Westbrook. When I got dragged by all the Houston people again for being right about something, for pointing out the Westbrook stuff and different stuff I was hearing that the tires were being kicked on what the market would be out there for them. Because it wasn't working. And then they go small and Westbrook had that incredible two months. And then again, it didn't work again, no way. But that was the Paul trade, the Westbrook part where I was like, and the fact that he had almost gone to another team over a year ago anyway. So we'll see what happens.

But I'm not remotely surprised by any of this. Supposedly going to stay on some sort of advisory capacity and we'll figure it out. But if anybody says, ah, you know, he never did anything or this wasn't like that would be. And again, he's not even my buddy. I've just known him a long time, but we are far too harsh in the way we grade some of this stuff. And to give anything lower than a B, I think, to Daryl, Maury would be a mistake. I know the NFL trade deadline doesn't get everybody really excited,

but I just think there's a lot of stuff moving, looking ahead to next offseason already with some of the changes that we've seen. So I want to do some of that with Burt Breer from the MMQB. It's a must-read on MondaysSI.com. So I normally would never want to start with the jets here, but I think there's a lot of interesting jets parts of this. First of all, Le'Veon Bell's out. It was a stupid signing at the time. McKagan, when you go through his run at the jets,

it is impressively bad. I was doing it this morning and I couldn't believe how many mid-round picks, like forget not making the team. They never played anywhere else. Not all of them, but too many. The bell signing, all that money up front, the gay situation, Darnold being part of this. I don't understand why Joe Douglas, I think maybe just guilt by association here with the Jets,

where now I start to see him in headlines here where he's been on the job just over a year that somehow he's not good at this either, which I think is totally unfair. Maybe I'm biased because of the people that I talk to that are in football that swear by Joe Douglas. Solas so give me a sense right now what's fair what's not fair about what the jets are who they are and then we'll get to the donald stuff and maybe the coaching stuff as well i generally think of the nfl ryan like it's really hard to grade a general manager until you're at least two or three years out because we all focus on the

first round picks but generally the guys like later on the guys you're getting like third fourth fifth round like those guys are gonna like by definition take time to develop so like i think i think baseline it's hard to really look at a general manager until you get like two or three years out beyond just that though like i think people tie joe douglas to gaze and don't like really recognize that he wasn't hired until May of that year of 2019. So he's really only had one draft. So we're talking about the guy who was come, who came in, right? Like his reputation as, as a road scout and one of the best in the league at that in Baltimore and Chicago and Philly. And he's really only had one crack at running his own draft now, you know? And so I think it's so I think it's borderline impossible, you know,

to pass any sort of referendum on Douglas to begin with. And so, like, look, like, great signs from his first-round pick, right? Like, it really looks like Mekhi Becton's going to be an answer for them long-term at left tackle. And I think beyond just that, like, you know, Ashton Davis looks like he might be able to play at safety. A kid they got out of Cal. We'll see what Denzel Mims, their second round pick.

But yeah, I'm with you. You know, Douglas has a fantastic reputation. That reputation is based on what he did as a college scout. And we just don't have a ton to go off of yet on how he's done in that area for the Jets. So what I really like, too, is the price on quarterbacks. I mean, the price on quarterbacks, whether you're a vet coming off of a down year whether it's cam look one million base there's there's incentive stuff that can take that to a nice number but it's certainly not going market rate we'll get to cam a little bit later annie dalton he was just healthy i guess

so he gets three million he gets more than cam but people are off these guys so fast that darnold who i'm telling you you probably hear this too people swear by his talent still but people are off these guys so fast that Darnold, who I'm telling you, you probably hear this too. People swear by his talent still. Like people are not writing him off as much as it seems like every Sunday, everybody wants to write him off. What would the going price be for him? Especially if you're looking at a Jets team, you could have to make a decision on Trevor Lawrence, who they obviously would take if they ended up with the number one pick. So I, yeah, I asked around about that, Ryan, um, on Monday and Tuesday after Adam had the story on Sunday on it. And so, just sort of curious. And like you said, the people I talk to all still believe in the talent there. The kid, too. That's part of it also. They really believe in the person. and he's an Orange County kid,

people looked at him as like this finished product when he wasn't that at all. Like he was a little closer to being like Pat Mahomes than he was Carson Palmer coming out of college. He still needed to be developed. So, you know, the teams that I talked to on Monday and Tuesday said, you know, low end, the low end I got was like a Josh Rosen type of deal

where, you know, Arizona got a second and a fifth for him. High end, you know, a a couple people said to me, maybe a team like Pittsburgh that looks forward and says, well, how are we going to answer our long-term quarterback question? Looks at it and says, you know what? It's worth flipping the 25th pick in the draft or whatever it is to go and bring Sam Darnold in potentially as a successor to Ben Roethlisberger.

And that makes sense to me. I don't know. What do you think? The idea that Pittsburgh could have Sam Darnold in potentially as a successor to Ben Roethlisberger. And that makes sense to me. You know, I mean, like, I don't know. What do you think? Like I, like the idea that Pittsburgh could have Sam Darnold under contract for two years, 21 and 22 with Roethlisberger still on the roster and then eventually have him take over. That makes all the sense in the world to me. Doesn't, I mean, I correct me if I'm wrong. I think that that's a pretty logical thing for a team like that to do.

Especially when you look at some of the quarterbacks that are taken to the 20s. And look, Pittsburgh's smarter than other teams. But we've both seen teams over the years go, you know, we have to adjust the position. And then they just take somebody. Like, they take the fourth guy that's available. Like, oh, we needed a quarterback. And, you know, we evaluate it. We like him.

Look, I'm not trying to pretend like no one knows anything about the quarterback. And then just go, we evaluate it. We like him. Look, I'm not trying to pretend like no one knows anything about the quarterback and then just go ahead and take him. But I would think with the disaster that is the Jets, unless you think Donald's just damaged permanently by all this stuff, you would like the evaluation and going, OK,'m, I'm with you now, maybe it's just because I'm out in Los Angeles and I'm around too many USC guys that still keep telling me he's fine. Um, but would you say that it does feel different as opposed to other quarterbacks, their first round picks that don't look like they're going to work out? I guess the way I'm asking it is it still feels to be more positive around Darnold than other guys that look like it's just not working out as a first-rounder. That's how it feels. I think part of it, too, Ryan, is probably just what you said off the top about the Jets situation and how bad that's been.

I mean, you're going to be more willing to give a guy a pass when you look at who he's been throwing to, how the Le'Veon Bell signing worked out, the guys that have been protecting him. I mean, that's been a really bad situation over the last three years. And so it's a lot easier to look at him and say, could this be Steve Young in the 80s with the Buccaneers? You know what I mean? I know that's turning the clock way back. But if you're San Francisco and you get to the end of this year, let's say, and you're like, maybe we go forward with Jimmy, maybe not, but we want to bring in some competition for him. I mean, maybe a team like that looks back in its history and says, that's what we did in like 1987 or whatever it was when we traded for Steve Young. And it turns out Steve Young was just a product of a bad situation in Tampa. That's why

that didn't work out. And we'll get them in a better situation, and then we'll see how that plays out. So, I mean, to me, I think that's such a huge piece of this, too. It's not like he had the situation Lamar Jackson had in Baltimore. It's not like he had the situation Pat Mahomes had in Kansas City. The fact that he's in a terrible situation the last three years, I think, would lead a lot of people to believe, you know, absolutely, there's a reason why this hasn't worked out. The reason why it may not work out for Donald with the jets too, is because of what we just said there with Trevor Lawrence, because you had a piece in your mailbag about this and it's, it's a no brainer to take Lawrence number one, whoever ends up with that pick, but there's been a lot of push, whether it's out of Houston, uh, you mentioned Dabo.

If you went to the NFL, he'd be a terrible fit in New York City. I couldn't agree more. And I think Dabo is somebody, if you really think about his story, taking over for Bowden in 2008, no one. He might not even. He probably was the only person that thought that he was going to succeed.

I thought the receivers coach, wasn't he? Dudes laughed. Dudes are like Dabo's. Dabo's only 50, by the way. So that means he was, what, 37, 38 when he took over and I remember you know maybe it was just the SEC guys at ESPN just rolling their eyes but they're like Davos the head coach and it was like I wonder who's going to get that Clemson gig you know it

could be it could be something and now we're talking about somebody that's been in four of the last five title games so I'm going to ask you this because I know you like college football as much as I do. Would you rather be somebody who's like a 20 to 30 year legend on a campus or see if your stuff works on Sunday? So I think that this is a, you know, it's a very interesting question because the NFL has had its eyes on some college guys over the last few years. Give me some of those names. Lincoln Riley and Ryan Day are two that I know the NFL. The NFL goes to those guys for answers. NFL coaches consult with those guys on,

how do I do this? How do I do that? With the COVID stuff, those two guys were getting phone calls. So the NFL has had their eyes on guys like that. Matt Campbell's another name at Iowa State who's circulated a little bit through. And I think Matt rules success in Carolina, at least how he's done so far. I think that's going to pique the interest of NFL teams when they're looking where to look in December, January. Yeah, it's a tough call with Dabo because I think one of the things that goes through the minds of a lot of those guys is, well, I've established myself at the level... Look at Nick Saban, for example. So he wanted to take a shot at the NFL, but he also knew if it doesn't work out, colleges are going to be lining up for me. So you can take that shot and you still have it

backstopped. If Dabo Swinney went to, went to say Jacksonville and three years later, it doesn't work. It's a disaster. Like how many schools would be lining up to hire him? You know? So I think it's sort of, I think in a way, the best way I can put this, I think for some guys, it comes down to how connected they feel to the place that they're at. Does that make sense? Like where it's like, if you're Nick Saban and you're at LSU and you're like, well, you know, I really like the college game, but I want to give the NFL another shot. How connected do I feel to LSU?

How much am I going to regret having left LSU? Well, he winds up at Alabama two years later and he's in a great spot. You know, like how much does Dabo value what he has at Clemson? Or is it more, I want the personal, I want, I want to see if I can do it in the NFL and then I'm okay going back to another college if I, if that's what it comes to three years from now. So I understand what you're saying, but like, I think a lot of these guys, part of the equation is if you've established

yourself at that level, it's well, you know, I can always go back if I, if I, if I want to. And if the NFL doesn't work out, that's not going to turn any big-time college off to me. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a good point. And it really comes down to the guy. I remember interviewing Pete Carroll when he was still at USC. We had him in studio.

He was doing a book thing. And I could tell within five minutes of talking to him about it, the Pats and Jets thing bothered him so much that I go, that guy's, I'm serious. It's like one of the few times you're like oh my god that guy's definitely going back to the nfl now people can sit there and say well he wanted to get out of usc with everything that was going to happen after the reggie bush thing that's fine too it sounds like he probably knew but it's worked out for him in seattle i just maybe it's old maybe it's it sounds cheesy but i think the sense of community and to be around a college campus

and to have it wired the way you need it to be wired. And now Clemson's a national recruiting thing. And the fact that what he's making at Clemson is higher than almost every NFL head coach already. I get the ego part in going, I want to see if this works. I wouldn't say you're wrong for doing it but I wouldn't want to leave the current situation and again he's still only 50 and there are times that Dabo like drives me

crazy with some of his quotes and all this stuff but none of that really matters the pie chart of does that matter like it would be a sliver compared to the success and the fact that he did something there that really no one thought he could do. And I'd have a hard time leaving that knowing that, you know, my family, the community.

Yeah, it's a small town, but I don't see him necessarily wanted to be driving in and out of New York and New Jersey to be working with pros. And I think guys are just different the way they're wired with like, hey, I could just pick the best players. And I like recruiting. I like talking to families. I like talking to moms and dads and, and doing all that stuff. And it's real folksy down South where, you know, other guys are like, I don't want to have to deal with any of these kids and guys are just different. So what's interesting about that too. And you bring that up, like, I think legacy can play into that also. Um, and this is where I, this is what was sort of interesting to me.

I'd always heard like the one regret that Nick Saban had, you know, and the way that everything played out over the last 20 years was he could have been LSU's bear Bryant, you know, and at Alabama, like he's going to probably go down as the greatest college coach of all time.

Right. But at Alabama, there already is a bear Bryant, you know? And so I, I sort of wonder if that will be part of all time. But at Alabama, there already is a Bear Bryant. And so I wonder if that will be part of the equation for Dabo too. If I stay at Clemson, the stadium is going to be named after me. There's going to be a statue up front. He has a chance to be the Bear Bryant and he's an Alabama guy. So he's pretty well attuned to this. He has a chance to be the Bear Bryant of Clemson, right? And so from an ego standpoint, I think there's some value in that also, isn't there? That's the way I would look at it. Now, the flip side of it, Ryan, is that

Dabo is in a very unique situation now in that Deshaun Watson's in Houston and Trevor Lawrence is going into the league. And I think whenever one of these guys takes his shot, whenever a college guy takes his shot, and Nick would tell you this based on what happened with him and the pros, make sure the quarterback position is right. And if Houston were to come after him, I think he has to consider, it has to at least come into his mind.

If I'm ever going to take my shot, maybe I do it with the guy I know, right? Maybe I do it with Deshaun Watson because I, there's no gray area there. I know what I'm getting into, or maybe I do it with Jacksonville because Jacksonville has the number one pick, right? Maybe I do it with Deshaun Watson because there's no gray area there. I know what I'm getting into. Or maybe I do it with Jacksonville because Jacksonville has the number one pick,

whatever it might be. And I know I'm going to get Trevor Lawrence. Like, I think that that's got to be part of the equation too, where maybe there might be a case where guys aren't even thinking about it, but then they're presented with a situation where it's like, if I'm ever going to take my shot, like this sort of has to be it.

And so I think the fact that Dabo was in that like unique situation where not one, but two, like young franchise quarterbacks, one in the league and the other one entering the league could wind up being sort of on the table for him if NFL teams want to hire. Yeah. But I also think the media is in love with this idea that coaches are going to follow around their college quarterback, you know, like, Oh, wouldn't they love to just be paired like like like as if that just solves everything it's like any given sunday where uh doesn't didn't he follow uh steven willie

beeman right i don't remember i haven't watched i think at the very end deniro i think at the very end i think the very end right or pacino I think the very end Pacino followed, uh, fallen Steven, Willie Beeman when he signed somewhere else or something like that. I can't remember. I have to go rewatch that, but I think that's what happened. So maybe that's the,

maybe that's the scene I'm playing in my head with Dabo. I saw it in the theater. I was really fired up for it. And I, I don't know. Sports movies for me at times. I'm just like, what,

what is going on here? It seems so over the top. So now if I go into it with less expectations, I should, I should check that out again. But I'm just like, what, what is going on here? It seems so over the top. So now if I go into it with less expectations, I should, I should check that out again. But I mean, like remember the, the Harbaugh,

Andrew Luck stuff. We're like, okay, well this means he's going to be like, luck. Couldn't wait to get away from Harbaugh. Right. Okay.

He didn't want to sign up for that. He didn't want more of that. Uh, we, we definitely fall in love with those storylines that I think are just more make-believe. All right. So staying on the Texans thing, because you're close to New England, I think that's fair to say, your Globe days and where you're still based.

Jack Easterby's with Houston. He's going to be the GM the rest of the way. But for those of us that knew his role in new england he was the chaplain so that sounds dismissive and i don't mean to be dismissive but give me more of an understanding especially for texans fans like wait who's actually making the football decisions here because in houston everybody there already thinks he's just going to grab whatever patriots people he can and put down there with the sean so his his history is really interesting because now you, you remember the Javon Belcher tragedy. I think that was 2011 or 12 in Kansas city,

right? Like, so that happens. And, um, and Scott Pioli was the GM at the time and Easterby was the team chaplain. And my understanding was he was only there like a day or two a week, um, the way some team chaplains are. But he was instrumental in getting that organization past that, right? Like in getting individual people past that. And so after Scott got fired in Kansas City, they're going through the Aaron Hernandez thing in New England. And that was a major reason why Bill Belichick brought Easterby aboard in New England, because they sort of needed somebody to help them get through the Aaron Hernandez thing internally. So they get out of that, they get past that. And then over time, Easterby's role really grew to the point where he was sort of in charge of grading scouts and

grading coaches. And the weirdest thing about him, Ryan, is that you talk to people who worked with him in New England and they all love him, but they were all sort of suspicious of him. Like, what's going on here? Why is he in charge of assessing the job that I'm doing? But he almost became a quality control guy for Bill, quality control over the coaches and scouts and the football operation. And then he hired an agent, which raised a lot of eyebrows all the way up to ownership in new england And all right, like what is this guy aspiring to do? Um, he was set to go to indianapolis with josh mcdaniels in 2018 before that fell apart And you know, then he winds and he winds up in houston a year later

They fire the gm, uh, brian gain that june He tries to get nick casario to come with him down there. Obviously, the Patriots blocked that. And so this is a guy who's been sort of, I guess, like his job in New England, the thing that ties like what he was in New England and Houston together is he's sort of been in charge of like maintaining the organizational culture and kind of being a backstop in the types of people they're bringing into the building and assessing the people they already have in the building. And so that's sort of the role that they had him in. And now he's risen all the way up to EVP of football ops. And, um, yeah, I mean, I, a lot of personnel people in the league, like wouldn't trust him at this point after what's happened with, you know, with Brian gain, what happened

with O'Brien, like there are a lot of people that don't trust him. Um, but you know, it's clearly he has the air of the owner. He's got a close relationship still with a lot of people that don't trust him. But, you know, it's clearly he has the ear of the owner. He's got a close relationship still with a lot of people in New England. I'll give you this too, Ryan. He's also got a very close relationship with Davos Swinney from his time in the Carolinas. So it's just, it's interesting to see kind of where this goes because he's not a football guy per se, but he's had designs on becoming a top football executive for a long time. It's kind of a crazy timeline, but it also shows you how there really are so many paths to this.

And I'll never forget the first time when I first moved to Boston in 2003 and doing the show at the station I was listening to. And I met with somebody in the Celtics front office. And I was like, yeah, I'd rather kind of work in a front office. And he wasn't going to help me at all. But he did give me the best advice. And it just proves out time and time again. He goes, recruit owners. I'm not even 30.

I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, find people that have money. Find people that will make decisions. Find people that have minority stakes with teams. He's like, build relationships with those people. And he's like, it could be a 20 year play, but recruit owners to get them to believe in you because you didn't play, you didn't coach, no one cares. Yeah, you watch a lot of basketball, congrats on taking notes. But the only way to do it is to recruit ownership. And I was like, what? And it didn't even really make any sense to me.

And now it's, I mean, here we are 17 years after I've heard it. And I've seen this example happen time and time again, where you're like, how the hell did that guy get this job? And I'm not trying to be dismissive of Easterby, but if I'm a Texas fan, I'm scared. I'm like, what is going on here? Because you're right. I mean, his athletic background in South Carolina was like working in the athletic department. And then when it was the quality control thing, I think in New England, some people were like, wait, is this guy just like monitoring me? And then you know how it is. If somebody were your editor that had never written, you'd be thinking, why is this guy

critiquing what I'm doing when he's never written anything? So again, I'm not when he's never, he's never written anything. So again, I'm not trying to be dismissive. I just think it's a part of that Houston storyline that, um, isn't as national as I would expect maybe. Yeah. And I think it's like,

it's, it's interesting too. Cause like, you know, like the piece of people I've talked and talked to, um, in new England, like when players or coaches,

when they were going through tough situations personally, like Jack was there for them. And that's why he's able to kind of build trust with people because he was able to do that. I think the one thing that's sort of interesting to this too, and I don't want to like trivialize this at all, but the religious angle I don't think is insignificant here. You know, I know part of why,

and the old GM in Houston, Rick Smith, was able to build a very strong relationship with the McNairs and Cal McNair, the son who's now in charge, in particular. And a lot of that was based off them both having very, very strong religious beliefs. And so in that way, it makes sense that Easterby was able to sidle up to Cal McNair, right? Like if you look at that, like, and you see that was sort of the way that Rick Smith had such a strong relationship with the McNairs. Even when things went sideways with O'Brien, with Easterby, it's the same sort of thing. And so that part of it, I think, is just interesting.

And, you know, like if you consider like how strong the bond could be when it's based on that, I do think that there's, like, I don't know, like it's, it's fairly easy to see how it happened. Okay. So let's go back to new England cam long-term. You mentioned the room loves him. As long as he's healthy. I want to see how the whole year plays out, not just with his health,

but I think there are moments in that first month or so it happens with young quarterbacks too, where everybody loves Herber. I remember everybody loving Darnold. I remember everybody thinking Daniel Jones was terrific. And then there seems to be a bit of a correction. Bortles is another good one because it at least went through the entire season. Cam's been around long enough that there isn't going to be some massive correction on it. But you can already see that New England uses him differently depending, you know,

obviously the Seattle situation was different than the Raiders situation. But what's the long-term guess from you with Cam in New England? See, I'm a little different in this that I would go to him early and try to get a deal done just because I think it's sort of become a fait accompli that you're going to have to tag him after the year, especially now that I think it's become somewhat apparent that he's going to have suitors. I mean, I think Dwayne Haskins getting benched in Washington

actually has reverberations in this because you have Ron Rivera there. And if the, the, the, if, if Washington doesn't have a, you know,

an answer for 2021 at the position, that's the easiest thing for them to do is to go and sign Cam Newton. You know, both Rivera and Scott Turner, their OC have, have close relationships with cam. So I think, you know, for that reason, I would try and get him done early.

And I would see if he would be willing to do something, maybe like a three- or a four-year deal, you know, during the season. Absent that, I think we're probably rolling towards the franchise tag here. And the good news for New England is that because they've managed their cap a little – a certain way and because they've been, you know little, a certain way. And because they've been, you know, I think like prejudicious and how they've handled it this year, they've wanted to clean,

clear the decks and take on all kinds of dead money in 2020. So they'd have clean books in 2021. They can afford to do that. And, you know, really to me, like, you know,

Ryan, the way I look at this, I'm new England is, you know, low end. I think he can be to you what Alex Smith was to Kansas city where, you know, Ryan, the way I look at this, I'm new England is, you know, low end. I think he can be to you what Alex Smith was to Kansas city where, you know, like they were, they were fine with Alex's or quarterback, but they were constantly sort of looking. And then they eventually,

because, you know, it's sort of like being, I guess the best way to put this is sort of being on like a month to month lease is like, you know, you can get out of it when you need to, but if something nice comes on the market, we're going to go and strike on it. Right. Like, so it's like, you know, with, if you, if you, you had Alex Smith that allowed you not to be pinned into a certain year where you go and get your young quarterback. So now you've got flexibility year to year, you find the right guy, Patrick Mahomes, you get aggressive and go and get them. I think the low end cam can be that for new England where you sign them for a

few years and then you just give yourself time to find the next guy. So you're not pigeonholed into a single year and being a pigeonholed into a single, single year, like you referenced earlier, like that's how Christian Ponder winds up going 12th overall. Right. You know, and then, you know, the high end of course is that he's MVP cam again and that the next three or four or five years you have got a great answer. But I think, you know, and then, you know, the high end, of course, is that he's MVP Cam again. And that for the next three or four or five years, you've got a great answer. But I think, you know, you look at the totality of the situation. In one way or the other, the Patriots are a lot better off having Cam for the next two or three years at least.

And I think they're going to approach it that way. Okay, now other names. Because Arthur Blank, after dismissing Quinn and Dimitrov, basically say, hey, the next football guy, and we know it's McKay right now, again, it's another great story in how these front offices is like, yeah, McKay doesn't really have anything to do with it. It's like, actually, now you're in charge,

but they're going to bring somebody else in. Just a lesson out there, kids. If you have a job that you don't like, you could be in charge of everything six months later. Is Matt Ryan going to be available? I think Arthur Blank's being forthright in that he wants to leave that up to the next head coach, to the next general manager. Obviously, there are some teams out there where you could see, like San Francisco, for example. His financial numbers are similar to jimmy's so if you know kyle decided like hey you know this isn't working out

and we need to find like a a veteran answer for the next few years obviously matt has the background in his offense so that could make some sense um if they come to that decision after the year so i think there will be some value for him that'll go beyond this year. Like, I don't think you need to dump them at the trade deadline to get fair value. So I think the way that they approach it, you know, Rich McKay and Arthur Blank and all of those guys is, you know, if like somebody comes and makes a godfather offer

for Matt Ryan or Julio Jones, fine. You know, we'll think about it then. But as far as like conducting some sort of fire sale, we're going to make the job that we have more attractive if we have these pieces in place and we let the new GM and let the new coach move those pieces around. I think the job becomes less attractive if all of a sudden you're selling off for parts and then, you know, you don't give the next coach, the next GM the flexibility of working with what you already have. Okay, two more things before I let you go. I mean, you mentioned Garoppolo here a few times, and we know that it was the contract that becomes a little bit more manageable.

I think he's on the books for 20 plus million the next couple of years, basically, where the teams would have the chances to side. Like, do you think he becomes available now? Because you keep mentioning it, and I'm just wondering. Yeah, they have them under contract for the next few years. I, um, you know, I can tell you like the Brady thing in the spring was sort of interesting. Um, you know, the way it worked was, uh, basically Brady got word to them that like, I would be willing to go here. And if you guys are interested, you're going to be at the top of my list. And so, you know, that sort of, you know, caused John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan, everybody in that organization to take a deep breath and say, okay, we need to consider

this. So, you know, a handful of guys went and broke down Brady's tape over like a two or three day period. And they all came back with the conclusion, Brady can still really play. Like this would be a really good option. And then what they did was they turned around and they said, okay, like now let's go look at Jimmy's tape. And for them, it like reaffirmed a lot of the things that they thought about Jimmy. And so that was great for Jimmy

that he got kind of that reaffirmation that I'm the guy again. But Ryan, like the thing for me is, like if you were willing to open up that question, that tells me that maybe you're a little closer to looking at Jimmy Garoppolo, like say Vegas looks at Derek Carr than you are how Kansas City looks at Pat Mahomes.

And so I think that that sort of becomes a, if they wind up say five and 11 or 6-10 with all the injuries this year, and if Jimmy shows that he can't raise the team around him above the circumstances they're in, then I think they're right back where they were in March when the Brady thing came up, which is we're happy with who we have, but we're willing to kind of look at the landscape out there. And if there is a better answer for us, say that's Matt Ryan, then that's something we're willing to kind of look at the landscape out there. And if there is a better answer for us, say that's Matt Ryan, then that's something we're really going to consider. Okay. Final thing here. We know Dak with the injury, he makes his money this year. His agent comes out and says he's going to be even better off, which again, I mean, look, it's the agent. But I don't know that he's wrong. Uh, and as I had said back in my podcast a year ago, and I think it finally like Dak turned down a huge

number. I don't understand why so many people have a hard time processing like, Oh, Dallas is messing with Dak or poor Dak didn't get his money. Cause Dallas messed with him. If Dak wants to bet on himself and turn down a hundred plus million guaranteed for an average annual salary that was under 40, but wasn't good enough for him. Cause he thought he could make even more, which is great, which is fine. But then you have COVID and then you have this ankle injury. Like all of this is like the grownups talking, go, okay, you turned it down and then you got hurt, but there's still a chance you're going to get all this money and maybe even more. So as much as it sucks to see him upset, which I totally get in him crying, coming off the field and his teammates caring that much.

I think it's a completely separate thing from the reality of it's could still work out, but he's still the guy that turned down this massive extension. That wasn't exactly an insult. Yeah. It sucks for Dak. Like, I, like, I think we all like, I mean, look like that's separate from the financial situation. We all felt awful.

You know, like watching that, that watching that. That goes without saying. I'm with you. There's good examples of guys getting screwed in the franchise tag if you look for them. Henry Melton's a great example. Now, nobody remembers that name anymore, but he had a great year for the Bears in 2011.

He was playing the Warren Sapp role in that Tampa 2 defense for them and tore his ACL the next summer and wound up making $5 million total after that year for the rest of his career. That sucks. That's a tough situation. Dallas is going to be backed into a corner where they're going to have to tag him again at $37 million.

And so, I think... He could make two years of the franchise because the next franchise is like 50 and then he could end up getting the 100 plus million guaranteed and maybe everything's better off and financially the cap and they know what's going on with the new tv deal like he could crush this i mean it's unbelievable like if you look at the leverage he has right so here are the scenarios either he is a free agent this year which i don't think is going to happen but either he's a free agent this year, which I don't think is going to happen, but either he's a free agent this year or he gets tagged at 37. And then after being tagged at 37, he's either

a free agent in 2022 at 28 years old, or he's got a long-term deal, or he's making $54 million on the franchise tag. He's got a crap load of leverage. And I talked to Steven Jones about this last night, and I can give you the direct quote. I asked him, does this change anything? His answer was, doesn't change anything. We're all in on trying to get it done. Does not change a thing. And I think if you read between the lines,

the way the Cowboys are going to approach this, they've got a ton of big contracts. Zeke Elliott, Zach Martin, Jalen Smith, Demarcus Lawrence, go on and on and on, right? And the cap is likely going to come down next year. Because the tag is what it is, it's a lump sum, that gives Dak even more leverage, right? So the Cowboys know Dak's going to be their quarterback in 2021. They're going to want to avoid having him on their books at $37 million. So with everything else that's going to want to avoid having him on their books at 37 million. So with everything else, that's going to go into their salary cap next year and the salary cap being

lower, the Cowboys are going to be super motivated when we get to January and February and March to get something done so they can plan the rest of their off season accordingly. And they don't have to dump veteran players to make it work. So I think Dak is still in a tremendous, tremendous position. Now, all of this is obviously contingent on how he comes back from the injury.

Does he have infections? All that different stuff. But just from like a contractual leverage standpoint, no one should be shedding a tear for Dak Prescott whatsoever. This is incredible stuff, man. You got to check out his work again every Monday. The MMQB and Albert Breer and making sure I get it right. It's Annoying Buckeye.

It's at Annoying Buckeye Fan, I believe is the handle. Some people have been begging me to set up a second account. So maybe I got to look at that and I can use that handle. It's because I'm like, God, I love this guy so much. And it'll be like a couple Saturdays where I go, oh, he's so mad. Yeah, look out. Look out, Ryan. We're nine days away now. Oh, I know.

I'm ready. I'm ready. All right. It is at Albert Breer. That's two E's. Thanks, man. All right. Thanks, Ryan.

Hey, Daryl Morey out. We'll get to that breaking news of Brian Windhorst. But first, what if a quarterback completed four out of five of his passes or a point guard hit four out of five of his shots behind the arc? Well, now when you're hiring, you can play at that level because four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. No matter the industry, healthcare to manufacturing to business services,

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Let's talk NBA with breaking news and Daryl Morey stepping down and a great piece up on ESPN.com right now for Brian Windhorst, also part of the podcast, The Hoop Collective on ESPN, a run of podcasts, which you should check out as well. A great timeline kind of restart of what we're supposed to expect, because I don't know any of us really know, but let's at least start with the Rockets here. We knew that there probably been moments in the past, as you know, that Daryl maybe was thinking of leaving. Ownership there is aggressive. I knew once they brought in Russell Westbrook, I didn't really think it was going to be Daryl's decisions all the time anymore. And we know that with ownership, where they can take over. So what does this tell you about Daryl deciding to step down?

Well, look, there's been a lot of discussion about this within the league for the last, you know, two, three months. You know, there was, I can't remember what day it was. two, three months. I can't remember what day it was. I remember where I was when I watched the interview. I was getting my car serviced. And I remember watching the interview that Tillman Fertitta, Tillman goes on CNBC about every week. And sometimes the interview is asking really well-formed basketball questions. And it's not often that owners take basketball questions about their teams on the record like that. And when Tillman went on there, he announced, yeah, Daryl Morey's job is safe

and he's going to decide who the next coach is. And it was sort of a passing reference, but like that surprised, from what I understand, that surprised people even in Houston when he said that. Because there was an expectation that there was a very good chance that not only that Darryl was going to either be fired or step down or maybe even go somewhere else, but that Raphael Stone was being groomed to be the successor. These things had been in the wind for a long period of time. And so when Tillman went out and said that, that not only was, you know, Daryl going to make the hire, which

that surprised some people a little bit, you know, basically it wasn't going to be Tillman and that, and that Daryl was going to stay, you know, it was like, wow. So then in the last week, there's been a bit of a feel out there that maybe Daryl's choice for coach may be a little bit different than the owner's, which is not unusual. And so I doubt that was a precipitating event. I doubt that it was like he threw his hands up and walked out the door like that but you know deciding the coach is kind of a thing and and you know if you're the if you're the GM you want to make that call so I wonder if that had a role um when it came to actually choosing the coach that's when Daryl

walked away and I have to say from what I understand he he had a lot of money left on his contract and he was one of the highest paid executives in the NBA for sure. And so while he did resign, I'm sure there was something worked out. And I would love to know, and maybe I will someday, how much money he walked away from, because he had a lot of incentives to stay on and be fired as opposed to walking away. to stay on and be fired than as opposed to walking away. Yeah, that's a really interesting part of this whole deal

because I know, and I'm sure you do too, I'm not going to say the team, but I know that there was a time where he was to the day close of taking on another job. And a lot of the ways they make it work is like, okay,

you're president of the whole thing so we can make that transition. And then he ended up not doing it. And I wonder. It's well known that he interviewed for the Philadelphia 76ers, with the 76ers, a year, I guess it was more than a year ago, before last season. He interviewed there. Yeah, I think he was very close. So we'll just say since we're throwing the team out there.

That's not a secret. I think it's not as well known how close he was to going yes that day so i guess that's kind of where but that's all right you're breaking news on this how how do you think just so i don't get in trouble that's not breaking news that was reported he's an aggregator i'll probably get in trouble anyway probably too late on that uh how then do you look at this Rockets job? You know what I would love to do? I would love to know what the coach, whoever it is in the GM,

do they sit down with James Harden and go, hey, what do you want to do, man? Do you want to keep doing this? You know you can set screens. You know you can do that, right? You know when the ball isn't in your hands, you can still do stuff. Do you want to do any of that stuff?

Or do you just want to take a million shots and put up absurd numbers and just kind of keep it moving? Like, I don't know what the answer would be there from Harden. And I don't know if he would give you the answer you want to hear and believe it, or if he would just say, no, I'm good, man. Well, let's just be honest here. They've had a coach walk away. That's a brain drain.

They've had, you know, a successful executive. He was not a championship executive, but a very successful executive walk away. That's a brain drain. They had Gerson Rosas leave, which, you know, he left to take a, you know, a general manager job in Minnesota. And then they had Monty McNair leave to take a general manager. They've had a significant drain on the organization.

And so you don't see a lot of people excited, you know, to be there right now. And so that's certainly worrisome. Now Tillman, you know, Tillman is a very strong believer in Tillman. And he probably has full confidence that he will make the decisions that will make things run correctly because he's run 500 restaurants and five casinos or whatever brilliantly. And a lot of owners feel that way. Some of them are right. Many of them are wrong. When you look at this roster, they have five guys next year who are at $120 million. You add up all their salaries, $120 million, and the salary cap is probably going

to be $109 million, artificially inflated. And Tillman has personally taken on Tillman has personally taken on several hundred million dollars in personal loans to keep his empire afloat because the pandemic absolutely crushed him because he owns restaurants, casinos, you know, not just with the standard MBA deals, but the Rockets had the most sponsorship deals with China. And so it's not Tillman's fault that he got crushed financially. And he happens to be a guy who's very, very leveraged. Now, I am not a, I don't have an MBA. I don't, I don't operate in high finance. Tillman has explained that he's actually very strong. And the fact that he can get a $200 million loan or whatever, however much it was, shows that how much people believe in him. And that could be true. My point is they've got $121 million payroll and an owner who is an uncertain cash flow position. I wrote about this

about two months ago, where I wrote about which teams could be in some danger financially. And I guess I'll just say it now because it's Daryl left, but Daryl called me very upset that the Rockets were portrayed as a team that may not be in a strong financial position. That he said that the Rockets are very healthy individually and that Tillman's restaurants have nothing to do with the Rockets. And that, you know, as any general manager, as somebody who was advocating for their side, he completely disagreed that they were in any weak and financial position.

And I said, okay, but you've done 15 backflips to get out of the luxury tax the last two years. That is not an indication of a team that is ready to go spend all of their exceptions when they've only got five guys under contract. And, you know, he said that, no, no, the Rockets will be spending this offseason. You know, this is mid-pandemic. I think it was in the bubble. It already started.

So Darrell at that time was very much focused on the future, but very much disagreed with me that they had any financial concerns. So I presented both sides there. I think they've got financial concerns, and their maneuvers indicate they've any financial concerns. So I presented both sides there. I think they've got financial concerns and their maneuvers indicate they've got financial concerns. Tillman has said that's not true. Darrell has said that's not true.

We will watch in their actions. But my comment is they have $120 million committed to five players. That makes it difficult to do much with this team unless you start some sort of rebuild, which is not in the cards, I think, right now. I think all of that's fair because I know the piece that you did, I don't know how long ago it was. It feels like yesterday. It probably was two months ago where you outlined all the different ownership stuff and whether that's the cap number.

I mean, I want to get to some of that but i think it is important to understand every time these franchises become available it's set a new record every time you're like what did they get for that franchise it's because of the growth of the tv rights and sports being the one kind of appointment viewing now that we have and if you were to have a bunch of leverage owners four or five of them all at the same time and then the franchises become available that's the last thing the rest of the owners want based on the appreciation of these these franchises i just i thought what you did is you outlined possible scenarios without saying it was definitely going to happen but how much concern do you think there is just for this league that this could be something that happens if we have a later start date and we have a start date

condensed season and no fans because we just don't have those answers right now. I am moderately concerned about the financial health of the league because of the uncertainty with the fans coming back in the buildings and how important that is to so many aspects of the NBA.

It cannot be a television only product. Bottom line, it cannot. They are I mean, this is something that nobody that adam silver will never say but is true they are better off not playing than playing in a bubble next year because playing games with only television means every single game that you play you operate you operate in the. So you're better off not playing at all than you are operating games where you lose money. And since we don't really have a good feel for when fans are going to be able to come back in,

that is very worrisome. The second thing to me that is very worrisome is the precipitous drop in the ratings. Now, I have read and studied many, many things about this. And I can tell you that, in fact, Marist just put out a poll yesterday where they did as much of a survey as you can, as has been done, as to why people are watching fewer sports. And Ryan, it's scattershot. Like even going over the numbers, there was just no way to understand. There was no specific reason.

I know that some people have claimed that it's a political issue, that the politics issue that the players and leagues have taken has hurt ratings. I think that may be partially true, but there's like 15 different things weighing down on ratings right now. And it's true, they're all down. It's not just the NBA. But it is foolhardy to look at the drop in viewership

over the last few years, stick your head in the sand and say, oh, it's just a one-off because of the pandemic. It's just a one-off because it's in the fall. And I'm going to tell you something, the guys who run this league and the women who run this league, they didn't get their positions of power by being foolhardy, by sticking their head in the sand. So I am concerned to very concerned about the short-term financial health of the NBA. And I also am very concerned on this one, that I don't think that the players as a whole, there are certain players, their eyes are wide open on this. I don't think the players as a whole

have any idea what sort of financial hurricane is coming at them for next season. And I think there's a number of reasons why that is. One is because they have just gone through this bubble where the tax it's been so mentally and physically taxing that they can't even worry about that. Two, I think it's complicated. And three, I think it's because for the last seven or eight years, the NBA has been living in a world where there is an ocean of money pouring in every year. It's like, well, this is a record increase. This is a record increase. Your average player has gone from

making, you know, five or 6 million to 10 million. The average player salary in the nba has jumped from like 5.7 to 10 million in the within the last five years um before um 2016 there had been two players two in the history of the league who earned over 30 million dollars in a year jordan and kobe and this last year i think there were 17 or 18 maybe even more uh so there's been all this money pouring in, all of these players. I mean, some guys have been around a long time and remember when things were a little bit rough around the Great Recession.

But for the most part, these guys have lived in a world where every year it's just been more money, more money, more money. And I think it can make you not worry as much about that cash flow. Well, that cash flow is not, it's going to be the opposite.

It's going to be how to manage the money that's going out the door. And so I know that that, I know that you probably listen to this podcast and you'd rather be like, well, are they going to trade James Harden or, or is, uh, you know, where's Giannis going to go? And I understand that that's what the average fan wants, but I'm just, I'm just telling you from where I sit, who lived this league every single day, that's a, that's a, a real thing that I'm just telling you from where I sit, who live this league every single day, that's a real thing that I'm watching right now. Okay. So your piece that's up now, it's a lot like trying to figure out the restart. Like, hey, this is what's being talked about. What do you think is realistic about an actual start date that has been like it was an imaginary start date that's already been pushed back? It feels like three times.

Yeah. So I can't emphasize this enough. Forget about the Olympics. Forget about the All-Star game. Forget about the calendar, you know, trying to get back on schedule for 21-22. Forget about, you know, not doing back-to-backs or back-to-back-to-backs or player rest, whatever. I'm not saying that stuff doesn't matter.

I'm saying take all of that and draw a giant black line on your paper three inches thick. The only thing that the league is focused on right now is being able to play games with the fans in the buildings. Because if the fans can't get in the buildings, like I said, they cannot run an economically viable league. There may be a couple of teams who could do it. The Lakers' local television revenue is so huge

that the Lakers could probably do it. But the league itself cannot function without getting some fans in the building, some revenue streams in the building. And so when you think about the start date, the start date is when can you do that? Now, in Florida today, I mean, I'm fairly certain that Miami Heat could open their doors and let's say, let's have 15,000. Let's go, everybody. In California, where the majority of the money of this NBA flows out of, you can't do that. The Golden State Warriors, you know, you've heard this number and I've reported it many times. Adam Silver has said it.

You've heard this number about 40% of league revenues come from the arena. For the Golden State Warriors, it's like over 60%. I think it's around 70%. for the Golden State Warriors, it's like over 60%. I think it's around 70%. And the Golden State Warriors are a cash spigot that feeds a lot of other teams in this league. And if they cannot get people into the Chase Center, they cannot play. So that's the question.

Yes, would Martin Luther King Day be beautiful? Would that be a wonderful day full of great basketball and Lakers Clippers on opening night? Oh, TNT, oh my gosh, that would be great. If they can't have the testing or have the local numbers be at the point where the politicians and the scientists and the health people are going to let people in the building,

it ain't happening on Martin Luther King Day. So I don't have a crystal ball that will tell you when testing is going to be available because the testing has got to be reliable. The testing has got to be available. The testing has got to be economical. It can't cost $150 per test. And we're getting there. Now, I think today, which is October 15th is when we're doing this, I think you can travel to Hawaii. And I think if you're flying from San Francisco to Hawaii today, you can go spit in a cup and they will tell you whether you're positive or not. So that when you get on that plane to Honolulu, you know everybody has just tested negative. Okay. That is what they're hoping to

get. And by January, Ryan, they may be there. Or the virus may scale back a little bit and there may be more of these cities that are like, yeah, we're going to let 8,000 people in. But until we get there, we can't have an NBA season. So in this piece, I said, I used the M word, I said March. Do I think today it's going to be March? No, I don't. But I think it's irresponsible for me to say, oh, yeah, it's going to be Martin Luther King Day. I think it could be anywhere from Martin Luther King Day to March. And if we did another one of these in a month, I may be saying something totally different.

That's where we're at right now. What about transactions? When's the moratorium going to be lifted? How is that going to work in relation to trades, free agency, and the draft? Which, I mean, do we feel like the draft is locked in for the 18th? Probably. You know, I felt it was a bit of a red flag that the NBA did not want to have negotiations with players until after the bubble.

VA did not want to have negotiations with players until after the bubble. And I think it was because they were afraid that if the negotiations went south, that it would potentially cause the players to think about not playing anymore. And so to me, that means that there was at least some worry that these negotiations were going to go poorly. That said, the players don't have a lot of maneuverability. They're going to have to accept it. But in this piece that I published earlier this week, I took, like I said, I don't know if the players all understand this.

I don't know if the fans understand this. I took the example of a player playing in California. Pick your team, Kings, Clippers, Warriors, whoever. I like to go Kings first. Okay, King. Let's say you play for the Sacramento Kings and you make $10 million. Oh, life is great. $10 million.

This is fantastic. I can fly private. I've got a Bentley. I've got a mansion. I've got an apartment, wherever. Everything is freaking great. $10 million a year, right? All right. Well, first off, if you live in California, as you know, Ryan, you have a big state income tax. So between your federal and state income tax at that tax bracket, you're going to pay about 48, 49% in taxes. So now you're 10 million

down to 5 million. All right. We knew that already. That's not new information. Now, let's talk about what's going to have to happen for this NBA season to happen. So what they intend to do, I believe, is to artificially keep the salary cap high. Because if the salary cap drops, the salary cap was supposed to be $115 million this year. If it actually goes with the revenue, holy hell, man, because the salary cap is tied to the revenue, it might drop to 90 million.

And if it drops to 90 million, there isn't going to be free agency. Literally, none of the free agency, there's going to, you know, people are going to be signing minimum contracts. You know, Anthony Davis is going to get signed, but no one's going to spend any money. And those free agents would end up paying a horrible price. It would be terrible luck. So what they're going to probably do is they're going to keep the salary cap artificially high at $109 million.

We're going to pretend that that money is there. And to make the books balance, and what I mean by the books balance is the NBA owners get 50% of the revenue and the players get 50% of the revenue. To make the books balance, they're going to take money from every NBA player. Which they already do, but it's going to be more.

Right. So it could be up to 30%. Okay. So remember our $ million dollar player yeah who has now is 5 million after taxes now i'm going to tell him that his paychecks starting november 15th which is when the next league year starts they're going to be 30 less okay uh and um by the way you gotta pay your agent which is up to four percent we're all of a sudden down to that 30 million we're all of a sudden down to 1.6 million now again i'm not asking you to just lay awake tonight and look at your ceiling and have tears roll down your eyes but when you are when you are going to be expected to pass this in front of the players, when they

understand these finances, it's going to be a little bit of a shock and awe moment. And to again explain this, you mentioned how they hold out the, you know, if you have a mortgage, I know this is the way I do it. I don't know if everybody does it this way. I think this is common. I know this is the way I do it. I don't know if everybody does it this way. I think this is common. You have your taxes added every month to your mortgage payment and the bank for you holds that money aside. And then twice a year when your taxes are due, your taxes get paid. And it's an escrow account essentially. And it's sort of a way so that every six months you don't have an issue about paying your taxes. It sort of takes care of you. And maybe some periods, in fact, I got lucky this week.

I just got a check from my bank for $80. I had $80 extra in my escrow account for my taxes, right? Okay. So this is essentially what the players and the owners have done for years. They're guaranteed 50-50, but nobody knows 100% for sure what the money is going to come in. So they hold the players' money, 10% of their paychecks in an escrow account. And if we get to the end of the year and it all balances out, the players get that 10% back. In recent years, Ryan, business has been so good that it's exceeded expectations. There have been a couple years where the players not only got the 10% back, they got a check for like $300,000 or $400,000

because the owners had too much money. All right. So now again, potentially 30% of that is going to have to be held aside because they're afraid of what it's going to do. And I just think that getting all of that, because I know your question was about, are we going to have trades, which I think is the average fan's question. Well, we're going to have trades when they agree to a deal for next season. But they're going to have to go over that whole thing that I just did.

And one of the things that the players are going to say is 30%. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's crazy. You're not taking 30% of my pay. How about you take 15% of my pay and I'll write you an IOU for next year and I'll give you another 15% next year because I think next year is going to be fine. The pandemic is going to be over. We're going to be nice and healthy and maybe, you know, I don't have to take 30% less. And the teams are going to be like, guys, we don't have any,

we don't have season ticket holders that we can get money from. We don't have anybody coming to this building. We need your 30% just to operate the freaking team for the next year. And so how that gets figured out, and by the way, both sides think it'll get figured out, but how that gets figured out over the next couple of weeks will determine whether or not we're going to be able to get trades before the draft. My expectation is yes, that by sometime in November, we will have a league league schedule you know we will start on x date hopefully yes trades will now be allowed and you guys can all these trade nothing's happened since february we're going to see some deals start popping um but assuming that's going to be that way i'm not in the assumption camp just yet that's brian windhorse you can follow him at windhorst

espn and you can check out uh their nba finals reaction did lebron facetime you from the locker room brian you know i haven't talked to lebron in um i have not spoken to lebron face to face in the in the year 2020 how'd you feel about it not not talking i know i know you over that. I don't care about that. You know what? I was happy for the Lakers because they've been through a lot. And they played great. They were a worthy champion. And they raised their games.

Rondo, KCP, Caruso. I happen to think Frank Vogel is a great guy. I was happy to see him on a personal level have success. You know, LeBron put some skin in the game to go to the Lakers, although the risk was relatively low. So I thought they were a worthy champion. I do not find this particular title as compelling as what happened in Miami or Cleveland. That's my personal opinion.

Different people can disagree. I mean, essentially, this is the cyclical nature of the Lakers. Every 10 years or so, they get a superstar or two and they win a championship. It has been happening for 40 years. The way they've gotten those guys has been different. Some of them, they've gone out and found like kobe some of them have forced their way to la um but this is essentially you know followed the path of the lakers for 40 years 50 years i don't know whatever it is like um and so it's it's just another chapter in the lakers

history books i it's special because it's it's now but it's to me it's you know in you know there's a fair bet in 2030 there'll be some other superstar that is playing there who is helping them win a championship because that's what happens to the Lakers. So I am not as compelled personally as by the other two sets of, you know, he won three other ones, but the two in Miami and the one in Cleveland. Laker fans who are as rabid as any fan base in the world

feel a certain way about everything. And it's hard to have a nuanced conversation with the Laker fan. But I certainly say to them, it's been a dry spell for you guys. And yes, people doubted the T this team this year, but it wasn't like they thought they would win six games. I mean, that's what it's

turning into i mean i i guess somebody sent me one media member who said they weren't gonna make the playoffs i was like all right well that's ridiculous but i just felt like for me i personally battled with the coin toss between them and the clippers all season long i mean for a year that's what i did internally watching him going try to get this right try to get this right and i would change my mind all the time so yeah i i know lebron because he has as i've said before access to hate in a way that no modern athlete or no previous athlete has ever had before he has more access to criticism of him than any athlete we've ever seen um he like a lot of us you know a hundred nice things, one bad thing. And the one bad thing stays with you.

And the, and the bad things stay with him in a way that I was like, this was so rehearsed. I just checked my LeBron respect meter. I think that the respect for LeBron is pretty high. I think it's pretty high. That's what I think. Yeah. I mean, he's, but you know, it's hard to tell the other person, as I say,

all the time, Hey, don't, why do you care? And it's like, okay, but you're not me. Clearly he cares. I mean, Michael Jordan used his Hall of Fame speech to rip his high school coach who cut him when he was 14. And was short. He was short. You know what I mean?

The last dance, my favorite lesson in that is three guys get a lot taller later on in life. Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman. I'm just saying, like, who cares what the circumstances were? Like, the guy is going into the Hall of Fame. There is nobody who is a rational thinker who knows anything about

whether a basketball is blown up with air or stuffed with feathers who would argue that Michael Jordan isn't the greatest of all time. a rational thinker who knows anything about whether a basketball is blown up with air or stuffed with feathers who would argue that Michael Jordan isn't the greatest of all time. And he is still, he's still not over being cut. So there are certain people who are part of their personality. I don't think LeBron is that competitive as Jordan was, but you know, it's certainly related. Like I have always thought it was amazing. Many who are great three-point shooters are also great golfers steph curry ray allen you know i don't know there's more that i'm forgetting right now but there's something in connection with the brain about repetitive motion of the of the of the

shot steve kerr i think is a pretty good player for, there's something with the repetitive motion of the shot that equals the repetitive motion of the golf swing. And it connects the two of them. You could probably do a study. There's something with athletes who compete at an extraordinarily high level who have this vein of super preposterous competitiveness within them. There's a relation there. So LeBron can sit there and say, give me my respect and can be both like being super alpha male and also people out there in the world

listening can roll their eyes. Both of those things can be reasonable responses. Sounds good. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, Ryan. Take care. Sounds good. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, Ryan. Take care. One was rushing, but we'll talk about the Steelers wide receiver in a moment. State Farm agents provide personal service so you can customize your insurance to fit your very needs. Like a GM putting together their very own roster, you need a team that supports you, and State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more. With a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strength. Choose insurance that always brings its A-game.

When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Our surprisingly great player from last week was Chase Claypool. Out of Notre Dame, big number 11. He was terrific at Notre Dame. You heard us talking him up all fall, but even this is ridiculous. Drafted 49th overall by the Steelers because the Steelers do what just draft great receivers out of the second round he's their leading receiver right now ahead of even Juju Smith we had Booker McFarlane on who said no no Chase is the one

like he's a real one and if you go back to the draft like how did he go so late well the scouting report said we'll struggle to separate his play speed doesn't match workout speed. Not a great route runner. Not a big, quick twitch guy. Well, he's 240 and 6'4", so maybe not as quick as you'd want some of those elite outside guys, but he was terrific.

He could have had five touchdowns. He got called for a ridiculous pass interference. So, Chase Claypool off to an incredible start with the Steelers. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Okay, we love talking college football. This guy from Fox and The Athletic, it's Bruce Feldman. He has a new book out called Flip the Script on Coach O and the LSU Tigers.

It's coming out October 27th, a forward by The Rock from Coach O's Miami days with him as well. So let's get to it. You've known Coachcho a long time the origin of his story though is is definitely one I don't know that people always remember but he ends up down in Miami and it was just wild and he ends up leaving so let's start there how wild was it and ultimately we'll get to the next part of Coach O where it looks like none of this stuff is actually going to work out for him. Yeah, it was obviously crazy for him at Miami. I mean, at that point, he's got all these great players.

He's helping recruit and develop, whether it's Cortez Kennedy or Warren Sapp. But they got national titles. He's living fast. I mean, you got a guy who is not very worldly. When he took a job at the University of Arkansas after being an assistant at a smaller level, he didn't even know where Arkansas was. And by the way, Arkansas was not like on the other side of the country. So we're talking about a guy who was just, everything was about football. When he gets down there, he's working for Jimmy Johnson.

They're winning. There's a lot of stuff coming at him fast. He'd already been a big, big, big drinker. So you take this big party atmosphere. And when things were rolling, it got way out of control. And as he told me in the book, he was like, he could not stop. And ultimately, that cost him his job and what he thought was his career, because they were on top of the world. And he was still a young coach at the time. And he's around all these great players and everything else. And he was like, I just could not handle it. And he ended up going back home, back to South Louisiana, where he is then basically

staying and sleeping in the same bed that he grew up in where he had the same, you know, little league trophies on the wall and all that stuff. And it was humiliating for him. And I think, um, I think he really felt like, oh man, I blew everything and I'm never going to be able to get it back. What were those guys doing? Am I like, I i don't know his stories like you lift a million pounds and and drink a million beers like i you know i don't you kind of wonder like how how was it so like what was the point where he's this young and jimmy has to tell him hey you got to go home like we can't have you in town anymore well after jimmy was there was the one who hired him but then jimmy and half the staff went to the Dallas Cowboys.

Dennis Erickson comes in from Washington State, Pacific Northwest. And then so you have Ed, who even though he was a young coach, still had this, he had the connection to the old staff. So they valued him. They valued the respect that the players had for him. He was the guy who nobody wanted to mess with. And keep in mind, I mean, you're talking about the University of Miami where you had some bad dudes out there. And he was one of those guys that nobody wanted to cross. And he knew that.

But at the same time, that edge that he had that he would bring, I mean, talking about he was getting into bar fights, there was some ugly stuff that was involved there. And as he told me in this process, a lot of it was like, all my problems came when I was drinking and he would get out of control. And it was way out of control. And I think he realized, I can't do this on my own right now to get it under control. So what did you learn from him this time around? Like how different was the relationship? And it's just the years that you put into this. And I knew you were with LSU quite a bit. There's a trust level there, but you're around constantly with the Ole Miss thing. How different was it this time? Yeah, that's a good question. So here, like I, I had read pretty much everything

that had ever been written about at Ogeron, including years after I did Meat Market, as well as watched all these TV pieces and everything. And as I got into this book process for Flip the Script, I thought about it. I was like, what am I going to learn? And I knew I would learn stuff from the LSU part because I was around that the last month of the season and I had access nobody else had.

But when you're talking about the Ole Miss Miss days, we were talking about the dark days that we were just alluding to, you know, I, you know, we had talked about it before. Now, what I didn't know coming off of, uh, you know, his, his just demise at Miami, he goes back home and he gets the number of, of, uh, he had heard about the John Lucas Treatment Center. And as I think a lot of your listeners know, like John Lucas, obviously former big time NBA player who then ends up with his own major issues, right? And so he goes, I don't know how I had the number, but I just call. And the woman at the front desk basically says to me, sir, do you have insurance? And he goes, no, I don't have anything. She goes, I don't know how I had the number, but I just call. And the woman at the front desk basically says to me, sir, do you have insurance?

And he goes, no, I don't have anything. She goes, I'm sorry, we can't help you. And then he goes, five minutes later, the phone rings. And it's John Lucas himself. And he basically asked him, can you get here tonight? And Ogeron was lucky. His dad drove him there. And he spent a lot of time in that treatment center.

And he said, he was there for 45 days. He got sober. He got a lot of, you know, invaluable life lessons. And John Lucas never asked him for a dime, you know, so all that John Lucas did for him. And again, John Lucas didn't know Ed Ogeron from anything. Right. And he just knew this is a football coach, an assistant football coach. It wasn't like this was like, you know, the guy he is now. So John Lucas did all this for just some random dude who he knew lost everything. Now what I, the other thing I didn't realize, and again, as you said, I was around Ole Miss for like two years, but from talking to one of Ogeron's sons, who's now just graduated college, but at the time was a, I don't know, six, seven, eight-year-old at Ole

Miss. He said when they found out that their dad got fired, they were literally dancing in their living room that night. And Ed was too. And I was like, that doesn't add up because I knew how crushed he was that he got fired. But as he elaborated on it for the book, he said, you know, there was a lot of stuff that I wanted to work out there. He said, but my family was miserable there. It was a toxic environment. And I thought, you know what, I'm finally getting my family out of this. finally getting my family out of this. And he kind of went into detail on just how screwed up it was, how much he worried about what it did to them, the emotional toll it took. And he said, all of that, that's why he had a big smile on his face. That's why he was dancing in the living room with his wife and kids at the time. And it just, it was surprising to hear it because I'd never heard it before. I'd never heard that side of it because I'd only heard about the frustration he had that they pulled the plug on it. Yeah, it really seemed to bother him when the fan base was making fun of him. I mean, look, he went three and eight, four and eight,

three and nine. Everybody knew he was a big time recruiter. So then the scouting report on Coach O at that point is, oh, big time recruiter can recruit anyone. Can't coach at all. They made that song, that yarr, yarr, yarr thing that just. It really pissed him off. It really bothered him. It really pissed him off. I think it, you know, I don't know how much you would say now. I think it still pisses him off. And like you see later in the book, he crosses paths with a columnist who at the time was in Memphis.

And it was somebody he felt like was really unfair to him. And I think his big thing was, you know, like if I screwed up and you call me out on it, so be it. But if I did something and it was like you, he feels like it was treated unfair or it was malicious to his family or demeaning, then he gets really pissed. And he saw this guy back when he first got the assistant job at LSU on Miles' staff. And he said, you know, he buried the hatchet with the guy in terms of like, you know, walked up and talked about it and shook hands and kind of, hey, let's move on. And he said it felt very cathartic for him.

He didn't use the word cathartic, but just felt like you got a lot of – it just felt good to get it off his chest, carry around all that venom and angst and all that other stuff. And again, I mean, you're not kidding. I mean, it was coming at every turn for him at Ole Miss where they thought here's this stupid, gruff guy who's in over his head and has no business being a head coach in the SEC. And a lot of what was said, and I'm not saying none of it was true because some of the things you would hear about in meetings or some

of the things, he didn't trust anybody around him. And I think he knew, we talked about this in this book, is I think he was aware of if left to his own, trusting his own first instinct is, is sometimes is the worst thing for him because he's going on instinct, he's going on emotion. And sometimes his first instincts are not the best. They're not, they, they're, you know, could, could really be problematic. And so some of those stories, I think there, there were truth to them, not all of them though. And I think with him, I think almost anything is believable because there was this like kind of vibe about him. It was almost like he was King Kong in a football coach back in those days. So let's go into this year. What were the things that stood out to Coach O,

some of the staff that you talked to on what their expectations were? Because look, was good two years ago like oh you know this guy's tough all right you know what and lsu had this really tough stretch of starting quarterbacks now for a while um going into the year they win a title did they have any idea they knew they were going to be really good so when this book started to take shape, I went down there last spring. And it was so, as you said, Joe Burrow had a good first year. Now the stats weren't great.

He had transferred from Ohio State. He hadn't played really before that. And their offense and their personnel had evolved. And it evolved really, Burrow told me for the book that it really changed for him when they had that seven overtime loss at against texas a and m right and then all of a sudden it changed a little more when they when they beat ucf when ucf had that long winning streak in the bowl game at the end of the year and then it turned even more in the offseason when ogeron hires this you know no name assistant from the saints, Joe Brady,

and they add more to the offense and then the receiver starts to develop and it starts to get momentum. And Joe Burrow's personality really starts to come through a lot more and more of this guy coaches kid, huge chip on his shoulder, but super smart. And all of a sudden now it just starts to go. Well, I went down there that April and spent some, Ed had told me a lot about how impressed he was with Joe Brady, the young assistant coach he'd hired. And so I spent a week there and I could feel it. I was out at practice. I'm like, I'd never seen, it's not like I'm out at

LSU all the time, but I'd never seen their offense torch their defense like that. I never heard of it. And that was what's going on. It wasn't like they didn't have good players on the defense either. They, I mean, they really did. So that made me think, okay, this is a team that has a legit shot to be a playoff team. I really thought they were a legit top five team. And so I started working on this book proposal. And then you'd watch the year, you know, they go into Texas in a shootout and they hit big plays and they win. And then they, you know, then they beat Auburn, they beat Florida. And then after he beats Alabama and the way he does it, you know, you saw guys develop last year. It wasn't just obviously Burrow.

developed last year. It wasn't just, obviously, Burrow. It was like Clyde Edwards-Hilaire comes out of nowhere to be, honestly, better than Geis or Fournette into what he did for them. And Patrick Queen was a guy who was not starting. And all of a sudden, Patrick Queen's looking like a first-round pick. So there was those elements. Jamar Chase, who I had heard a lot about from those guys, but had really done not that much as a freshman, Jamar Chase turned out to be the best receiver in college football. And so you're seeing all these things kind of come together. And it was just turned out to be this kind of magical year. Now, I had thought, because I was around them the last month of the season. So I'm in meetings, I practice from the time they played Georgia and they thumped Georgia in the SEC title game. Not surprised by that. Not surprised that they whip Oklahoma. The part that when I

left the, uh, the, the dome, the Georgia dome, or I guess Mercedes Benz, uh, in the, after they crush Oklahoma was the first time I was like, they're going to win the national title. Cause I had such a feeling that Clemson was so good or Ohio State was so good eventually you know they're more balanced than what Alabama was I think they will that'll be the end of the end of the rainbow ride but then after going like after being at that that Oklahoma game it wasn't like that obviously Oklahoma's not good on defense but just you would see the level of confidence that LSU was playing. I mean, they were loose to the point where they look like they did on Wednesday at practice. And I was like, nobody's beating these guys. They're on too much of a roll. They're playing with too much confidence.

Unless Joe Burrow gets knocked out of the game, they're not losing. I don't care if it's Clemson. And then they got to Clemson, you know, look, Clemson, you know, gave him a, gave him a good first half and then LSU just kind of blew him away. I mean, that was what they were last year. Give me your best Burrow story when going into this past year, it was, it was clear he was going to be the guy. So there's a couple of really good Joe Burrow takes on the world stories that we have in the book. But I think the best one to me is Burrow has not won the job yet. And there was a lot of guys in the program who actually wanted another quarterback to be the guy, right? But so the defense is dominating as it always is. And Devin White, remember Devin White was the best defensive player in the country a couple years ago.

He is just yapping the whole time at practice. And then the third time he basically says something, Joe Burrow, who's not a big talker, not like the most, you know, it's not like he's Mr. Quarterback or whatever, just basically turns around and yells out, Hey, Devin, shut the F up, or I'm going to come over there and beat the fuck out of you. And everybody was like, whoa, where did that come from? It got everybody's attention, including a lot of the coaches

and including a lot of the defense. And one of the coaches, the offensive coaches, I actually think that's kind of what Devin had been waiting for, was somebody to challenge them. And from that point on on it was a snowball effect of oh shit we got a quarterback and from that point on they believed because you weren't getting that look danny etling was a nice guy and he you know he was a good you know managed the program well you know in the offense but all these guys have had come through there whether they had arm talent or not whether they were four stars or five stars or not they they didn't have the intangibles Joe Burrow had.

And I think when you're talking about a team that had, you know, it had been so long, Ryan, since they had beaten Alabama. Yeah, there was a year or two where they hung with them, but then there was other times where they get their butts kicked. And I just think that it was always going to be, hey, we're going to have to win with the defense, or we're going to have to have a super human running back to beat Alabama. And even when they had the super human running backs, it didn't do them any good. It took Joe Burrow basically going, you know, I'm running the shit now, you know, whatever, this is, this is my deal. And when they saw that and they bought in, and then it grew from there i mean there's other stories of

of joe starting fights at practice with the defense and everything else and they you know they just had a different level connection with that kid the book is flip the script again from bruce feldman story about ed ogeron and that lsu tigers team the one to title the rock with the forward it comes out oct October 27th and you like I can pre-order it like I just did pre-order it right now. So thanks Bruce. Thank you, Ryan. My pleasure. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari three 55 cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine

and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required life advice is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com we got one here because we have a bunch of other stuff so let's get to it all right uh i I think we're going to leave the name out. This isn't that big of a deal. Some of you guys, by the way, are asking some really heavy, serious stuff,

which I'm not saying don't send those in, but I got to be honest. I'm, I'm a tad skeptical that I'm the guy to deal with some of your issues. You know, we're having some fun here, but I don't know that I should be diagnosing things. Probably not qualified for that. Somebody sent you a picture of their foot or something like,

what do you think? No, but I did have that happen to me once in 2001 when I was doing small business health insurance consulting. I wasn't even selling the policies. It was kind of a joke. I don't know that I've told that whole story, but I will, I will get to it one day. Cause I was there basically just be like, look, I'm just signed this piece of paper. So I'm now named your consultant done and done. And they were like, okay, but what's this on my foot? I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I bartend and play Madden. I don't, I can't help you with your mole.

Okay. Uh, all right. Here's this question. Yeah. Super quick. And for someone new to living alone 23 in graduate school in chicago i love the city so far but have one bedroom apartment first time in my life i am new to living alone it's been an adjustment going from having three roommates for

the last four years i really just want to hear why you like it and how you make the most of it a pretty open-ended question but i know you've talked about living alone since your mid-20s and wanted to hear your thoughts on it. Love the show. And thanks. Okay. Wanted a writing update. Don't have one. Okay.

I have not had, let's see, my dorm roommates college, obviously. One summer on the vineyard, a girl asked me to live with her that we met in college. And I was an 18-year-old prick and and had buddies over and we left beer cans outside. And it was, as I still, I will admit, even wow, God, 27 years later, I broke a window with a lacrosse ball. Uh, they were so nice to me. The family was so nice to me. And I didn't understand that at the time. And then it was just the immaturity of like, Oh, cause she's like, Hey, you're going to move out. Cause my family's coming now. I was like, Oh, what? But there was stuff going on in my home that I didn't understand that at the time. And then it was just the immaturity of like, Oh, cause she's like, Hey, you're going to move out. Cause my family's coming down. I was like,

Oh, what? But there was stuff going on in my home that I didn't want to deal with. So I was like, Oh, all right, fine. And then,

you know, there was like a cable bill that still wasn't settled. And I just was, I wasn't a mean person. I just was a kid. And I was like, Oh, what are you talking about?

Cable bill, broken window. We did replace the window and covered the expense of that. But, um, that, that one didn't work out great for her. I had a blast. And then I had roommates in college. And then I had a roommate one year out of college. And then I rented a room. I sublet a room from another guy as I was

finishing up my degree. And then after that, pretty much I've lived alone. I'll tell you what kind of spawned the whole thing is the last time I had roommates, I think it was Oh two Oh three ish because I did live alone. I think 99, 2000, 2001, and then 2002 in New Jersey, I lived alone. Um, I, for, for what I needed to do, especially career wise, when I first got into Boston, I was getting up in the morning and doing those shows. I couldn't be living with a bunch of idiots. and I had this one stretch where I had an apartment in Somerville outside of Boston and they were guys I'd known a long time and one to this day still a lifelong friend and there's another guy like you think of that line in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams explains Matt Damon's friends the other guys like this guy would do anything and

this guy would like I had one of those friends who would you know no questions asked what do you need me to do but he also was kind of a mess of a guy and he was he was big into pills and it sucked because i would be working construction on the vineyard for a couple days and take the ferry over drive up to boston park and go down to my bedroom and i'm trying to get this career started. And I'd be infrequently started to fill in on some shows here and there. So it was starting to actually happen, which didn't even make any sense at the time. And this guy sucked and he could also kick my ass, which made it worse because I was getting so upset that I was telling one of the other guys, I was like, I've about had it. I was like, this might happen. And he's like, look, I get it.

Yeah. And school, you're bigger now. He's like, but he's still going to kill you. It's like, yeah, probably. But I was like, I'm just so mad about this. And then it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And I mean, it was almost coming to blows the entire time. And so then shout out to Phil and Chris who lived in Boston and they were younger dudes from Vermont and they'd let me sleep on their couch. I slept on their couch for a few months and then my career started and I was able to move in and get my own place. The point for me is that I have a routine that's all not, not all that great to deal with. Uh, I get up, um, it's different now on the West coast, but it's earlier now I get up, I start my day. I mean, Saturday, Sunday, I'm watching 20 plus hours of football. I just am. Uh, and then I don't want, I don't want somebody telling me to change

the channel. I mean, look, there's a certain age where you shouldn't have roommates. Okay. You just shouldn't like over 30 and you're living with a bunch of other guys. I don't know. I mean, if you're into it, that's great. Yes. When I was younger and I'm not telling you, you shouldn't have roommates now at 23 and you're in grad school. Like if you get one cool, I would give anything to have three roommates or be like, all right, what's in the mix? It's Friday night. And again, normal Fridays aren't the same. I would, I would kill for the time travel ability to just have a Friday where everybody's kind of rolling in and trying to figure out what the plan is or a Thursday. Give me a good Thursday. Like back in the day, it's been way too long and it's not going to happen.

That doesn't exist. As you get older, it it just goes away so you're still young enough but maybe you're a social creature and you don't like being by yourself all the time i unfortunately am so the other way now like the idea of me having a roommate like somebody asked me a couple years ago when i first moved to manhattan beach was like hey do you mind like could i live with you in your spare room i was like are you fucking high like no i don't want to live with anybody don't take it personally but i don't want to come home and have the tv on a channel i don't i don't want to come home and have somebody cooking something that i don't like i don't want to i don't i don't want to do any of these things if you're in your early 20s or whatever you're probably not even thinking

about any of this stuff but as you get older uh i don't know coming home to a roommate at this stage of my life uh I think there's older guys listening to this right now being like, yeah, what's the advice? There's no real debate here. If you feel like you're lonely, I don't know, it sucks. It's Chicago and it's COVID and it's about to get real cold and weird. So I don't know what to tell you, but I think there are some people out there that do want constant social stimuli. Is that, is that the way to phrase it? Kyle, maybe you should take this one. Do you have a roommate right now? I do. I do. And it was like one of my best buds from home. And it's just, once it gets bad, it just, it stays bad. I just, you know, so it went bad. Yeah. It's going bad right now, but you know, what's the problem. Wait a minute. You should have been talking this whole time. My bad. No, it's fine. Take the floor. No, it's just, you know so it went bad yeah it's going bad right now but uh you know what's the problem wait a minute you should have been talking this whole time my bad no it's fine take the floor no it's

just you know i brought him out he stayed on the couch for a while we kind of not proud of it we kind of forced our the other roommate out just because like we i wanted to get him in the other bedroom because i didn't like the other guy we had like weird interactions and stuff so give me an example of a weird interaction um i don't know like the way he would go through rooms and stuff and and like uh i don't know we'd both be in the kitchen and you know i try to like say something and it's like getting like grunts and shit and i don't know it's just weird the way he even came in he like took the apartment from his sister when i was already in there i didn't really have a say in the matter i just didn't like it so i got my buddy from new york to come out and

he stayed on the couch for like i'm not kidding you dude like eight months and then the other guy was like all right i think i'm gonna leave and we were like yes so fast forward a year and he's like you know he's late on rent i mean it's like you know 20 days and uh just kind of being a dick about it just a bunch of stuff where it's like now that it's gone bad it's just it's just bad so i i i agree with what you're saying it's like i think like now that we're in the house too it's just bad so i i i agree with what you're saying it's like i think like now that we're in the house too it's like it'd be nice to have like a a safey safe and uh it's just not the case so wait you're still living with this guy right now yeah yeah yeah so first of all you got rid of the other roommate by just sort of hazing him into the idea that your buddy was sleeping on the main

living room i'm not proud of that at all i'm you, but you planned this to be like, let's make this suck so bad. You'll sleep on the couch and then he'll move out. Yes. Yes. Not, not one of my finer moments, but you know, this is karma right now. But now this is almost like the guy that marries the woman or vice versa. Who's constantly cheating. It's like, so this guy was capable of this, of sleeping on the couch for eight months to force out the other guy. And now you're living with him and that part sucks. You probably should have seen that coming. Totally, totally.

But you know, even my dad told me, it's like the other time I got an apartment, I was 19, the same thing happened. But you know, the guy basically turned into like pills, like you said. And then it's like, shit, I think somebody jumped through my window. Oh wait, was that my roommate?

Nice. So it's just, I've had two like that. The college experience is great experience is great but outside of it it's just i'd like to live alone too yeah because then once i was getting up at four in the morning for work i couldn't i couldn't live with anybody you know i couldn't but i also too like the weird thing me as a roommate is if you're gonna do something fun and this is when i'm a lot yeah it doesn't even matter but you don't want to be the roommate who's like you can never do anything fun because i need my sleep but then you also can't be the roommate who's like hey i'm not working for six months and i'm just gonna tear it up every single night and have no respect for your deal yeah

anything there needs to be compromised now there's guys on my couch it's like it's like who's the guy you have guys on your couch again no but like it's like for like a day and it's like who the fuck was this guy it's like whatever he's a subtenant so i mean we'll have to figure this out i think uh i think we're approaching the end but i'm living it so count your blessings guy in chicago sure are all right there you go that's life advice please subscribe rate review the ryan russo podcast the ringer podcast network we'll talk to you next week Thank you.