The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Free Agent QBs Plus Van Lathan | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

Russillo talks about some free agent QBs including Jameis Winston, Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, and Joe Flacco (3:50). Then Ryen is joined by The Ringer’s Van Lathan to discuss his upcoming podcast with Jemele Hill about ‘The Wire.’ They also discuss their mutual love for LSU, moving to Los Angeles, Van’s time at ‘TMZ’, celebrity stories, and much more (16:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

hey what's up it's ryan rossillo and this is the brian rossillo podcast on the ringer network brought to you by state farm just like football contracts the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected the unexpected is The unexpected is me digging into Ryan Tannehill's guaranteed money. That was unexpected a year ago. We're going to get to that because I have a thing on quarterbacks and the quarterback market.

You know I love talking quarterbacks and today's guest, now part of the Ringer Network and a new wire only podcast with Jamel Hill way down in the hole. Van Lathan. So he is part of the team now, and I'm excited to talk to this guy. Baton Rouge guy, LSU guy.

Didn't go to LSU, but you know him from TMZ probably. So we're going to have him on, talk about all that stuff. So yeah, Tannehill, contract, year ago. Hey, he's going to make 90-plus guaranteed in a year from now. No, he's not. All right, he did. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected talk to a state farm agent today my teammates nephew kyle kyle how you doing man all right i'm good sounds great

okay there you are what was going on you were you off to the side now you know you didn't the other day you were like hey man are you hammering the keyboard? And I like, you know, now I just try to mute so it's not all up in your face. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's cool. I appreciate that.

Give me a breakdown of your day to day. Give me the most basic Kyle timeline. Wake up to go to bed. Wow. Well, wake up at 830. to go to bed. Wow. Well, wake up at 8.30,

set up this thing with you and Van, and then go back into editing the Pearl Jam two-hour marathon that we just did with Bill and Eddie Vedder and Jeff. And then we're doing some other stuff. Wow. That's coming up, which I don't know if it's been announced or not,

so I'm just going to keep quiet for fear of spoiling it. And then I'm just going to keep quiet for fear of spoiling it. And then I'm just going to probably play Modern Warfare Warzone because that thing is just engaging. Hey, are you drinking a lot or no? You know, I stocked up on some red wine. And also I got some Bloody Mary mix, which I may or may not be having. Do you live with a roommate? I do.

I do. Do you like with a roommate? I do. I do. Do you like him? Oh, yeah. He's my best bud from back home, actually. He was living on my couch for about 10 months. We were just kind of waiting out my roommate. I'm not proud of it. And my roommate finally was like,

I'm tired of this guy on the couch. So he left, and then he took over the room. I got to imagine there's some heavy, heavy home drinking going on right now because people don't have to go to work. Younger people, at least, you know. Yeah, it scares me. And then I read.

What's that? It scares me, though, because I can't. You know, you guys. Hey, guess what? I just had this idea. Let's do it. I don't want to be half drunk trying to set up a Google Hangout. And, you know, I'm sure that it's.

Oh, no, it would suck. It would suck to be a younger guy that wants to get after on random nights working alongside somebody like Bill or I, because we'll just be last minute. Hey, can you be there at 7 a.m.? That's the only time I can get this guest. So I'm asking the younger audience out there, because you're my younger audience right now. I imagine some of you just getting after it inside of your apartments to epic levels where you're just like, whatever, you know, I'm 20. And when you're in your twenties, you don't really know. You're just like, wait a minute, night off dudes around what else we're going to do, not have a million course lights. So, uh, I don't, I'm not judging by, by any means, but I'm just, I'm just asking because I think people want to know people want more nephew Kyle content out there. I don't know if that means you're going to ever get a podcast. If you were asked bill, if you could have your own podcast or is he like, look, no, I haven't asked him. I, you know, I don't like rejection, so I'll just wait to be asked. And if not, then I'll never have one. Yeah, right, right. Okay. All right. So here's what

I want to do. This week's open is about the quarterbacks that are left over, the quarterback market in general. You know what I should do though? I should give you a little Tannehill stuff here. So Tannehill's contract with the Titans, he gets $20 million signing bonus, fully guaranteed salaries of 17 and a half mil this year if they play, and 24 and a half million in 2021. You know what? I'm going to stop saying stuff like that. I don't want to edit it out. I want to leave it in as a lesson to myself. I'm going to stop saying things that everybody else says about, oh, if they even play, it seems unfathomable to me that there would be no football season.

So they say they need another month before training camp and all that stuff. Guess what they'll do? They won't care. None of the players want to do training camp. The only people that want to do it or care about it are the coaches. And the coaches are probably right about like, hey, is it okay if we practice like more than once?

Is that all right? Is it okay to do that? But the players won't care. The owners won't care. They won't care if everybody's absolutely out of shape is they can get this stuff on TV week one, they're going to do whatever they can to put it on. So I don't think they care about the preseason and the camps and the OTAs and reporting and all this stuff. Do the draft. FaceTime everybody. Just, hey, what are the rosters? What's my fantasy team say? Because honestly, that's what most people care about.

So TV, fantasy football. All right, so back to Tannehill. $20 million signing bonus, 17 and a half, and then 24 and a half in 2021. His $29 million salary in 2022 is guaranteed, fully guaranteed, if he's still on the roster on the fifth day of the 2021 league year. So think about this.

That would mean that they would have given him a $20 million signing bonus, and then he played at $17.5 million. So Tannehill made $37.5 million in the first year of the deal, that then they would have to cut him on the fifth day of the league year after that first year was over. So that's not going to happen. So the only way he doesn't see the $29 million that's guaranteed in 2022 is if he were cut after the first year where he already made all of this absurd money. So that $29 million, he would have to... I had a joke there, but I'm going to leave it alone. I'm not going to say it.

So that basically puts him up to... Kirk Cousins, who who made 84 million. He got a new deal because they were so cap strapped for him. So this means 17 and a half, 24 and a half. We're at 55, 65, 71. Yeah. It's, it's 91 million. That's, that's crazy. Yeah, that's right. So $62 million guaranteed fully at signing, but they would have to cut them at the beginning of the league year. After the first year, they just paid them all that money for it to not be guaranteed, and that's not likely. So it's almost like you get a $91 million contract. And hey, it's almost like when Ryan says all the time,

if quarterbacks got to true free agency, they would get guaranteed money. Hmm. Because that's what happened. Okay, so who's still left? And this is the bigger theory. This is the theory of, do we keep asking who quarterbacks are

much longer than we should? Is it almost like this bad relationship? Now, I understand if you're a fan of, like Jay Cutler and the Bears. Chicago fans, every year we get so mad because I'd be like, I don't know, I just don't see it. They're like, no, we got Trestman. He's from Canada.

Do you understand? Have you even seen a CFL game? Do you even get it? Do you know what this is going to be like with Cutler behind the helm? With a guy from Canada calling the plays? Martz, I think, was there at some point. I saw Martz's poster with the Chicago Bears. That kind of was like, oh, that's right. But if you were a Bears fan, you were emotionally invested

in Cutler. So you probably were a little delusional about what the ceiling could be all the time. And there's guys that have games. There's guys that have runs. We'll get to some of this stuff. We're like, oh, wow, that was pretty cool. But is that really who the quarterback is? Is this guy ever going to be a top 10 guy? Okay, let's look at Andy Dalton, still available. He's going to be 32, 33 going into next year. Well, he'll turn 33 during the season. He's made three Pro Bowls. He's been to four playoff games, not four playoff runs, but he was just Cincinnati and he's available. And think about this. They moved on from Dalton for a rookie who no one was really all that excited

about. And then Dalton came back. Dalton doesn't miss games unless he's benched. He'd only missed like eight games since taking over the job after being drafted in the second round. Now this is a Cincinnati franchise that went from 1990 to wait a minute. Their last playoff win was 1990. God.

Every time that stuff sinks in, you go, hey, when's the last time we won a playoff game? Oh, it's only been 30 years. They didn't make the playoffs from 1990 until 2005. They made the playoffs

once between 2005 and then 2011. They had a game there. They lost to the Jets in 2009. So 2011, Dalton is in the games in 12, 11, 12, 13, 14, and then that brutal game between the Bengals and Pittsburgh where A.J. McCarron was a starter in 2015. Dalton lost all four of those games. One touchdown, six picks. They got smashed in some of

those playoff games. His yards per attempt that, you know, if you do the adjusted metric, he was a completely different guy. We knew that in primetime games and playoff games, Dalton was 5-19. We watched him look like a different guy on those games. And if he had a decent one, people would say, well, look at this. Look at this. You know?

Oh, you people out there saying Andy Dalton. No, Andy Dalton wasn't that good. And that's why he's still available. And that's why his own team with a year with him said, no, we're good. Now, if they didn't have a top five pick, would they keep Dalton around? He has no guaranteed money on the contract this year.

Do they want to bring him back at some number? I mean, that's not impossible, but like Andy Dalton's a classic example of why are we still debating this? And that's kind of my overall point. The same thing with Cam Newton. He'll be 31 entering the 2020 season. This is a staggering collection of bad stats for Cam Newton. His 2015 season when he won the MVP and went to the Super Bowl was a fluke. That's not who he was. He had that

year. That's not who he's been. Since the start of the 2016 season, out of 39 qualified quarterbacks, so minimum 20 starts, Newton ranks 30th in QBR, 30th in touchdown to interceptions, 33rd in completion percentage. And now he's hurt all the time.

Now, if you're arguing that he's always been hurt this whole time and he's playing and those are his numbers and he's actually still really awesome in 2015, then you made your argument for me. Hurt or not, he hasn't been the same guy in 2015 was Fluky. And if you bring him in and you think you're getting an MVP caliber quarterback, you're lying to yourself. So why are we still debating it? Joe Flacco is one of my all-time favorites. Joe Flacco, in his first seven playoff games, six of the seven, he threw for under 190 yards. Now, they were winning a lot of those games.

It was Baltimore. It was defense. It was a different time. And Flacco, because people just do this with one loss record, is like, ah, you know, he's doing some things. He's not doing too much. He just takes what the defense gives him. No, he completed nine passes, 11 passes, 13 passes, four passes,

and then finally 20 passes and a 20-3 loss to the Colts. Those were his first five playoff games. They beat Kansas City. They lost at Pittsburgh in a great game in 2010. He was 16-30 in that game for 125, but people were doing this thing where it's like, oh man, look at this guy. He's four and three. His playoff record, the first part, he was three and one to start the rest of the stream, too, whatever. And then he turns into Patrick Mahomes in 2012,

where he didn't have a great game against the Colts, but lights it up against Denver. That 38-35 win with that catch behind the secondary, 331 yards, three touchdowns, no picks. Three touchdowns, no picks against New England up there, and then three touchdowns, no picks against San Francisco where he throws for 287. That was a mirage.

That's a deal with the devil. And yet the pro Flacco crowd was then felt justified by an absurd run that wasn't who he was. Much like Camps 2015, that's Flacco's year. I remember going on, and I never thought he was that great. The Matt Ryan-Flacco debate is done. It's been done forever as far as I was concerned, but it was still going on.

And after that Super Bowl, we were down in New Orleans, and then, you know, get back. I'm doing the show with Van Pelt on a Monday, and he was very pro-Flacco. And I don't know if it was just because he liked saying Joe Flacco in that accent, but he was like, well, you admit you're wrong. And I went, yeah, I guess that was all you were going to get from me. I go, yeah, I guess I'm wrong. And then he's like, good for you. He goes, nobody ever wants to admit they're wrong in this business. You'll do it every

now and then. And I was like, yeah, I don't really feel like I am admitting I'm wrong. I just, I can't believe this guy turned into this guy. And guess what he's been since then? Nothing. And again, if you want to say it's all because of the injuries, I don't know that that's entirely true. Baltimore said we're good. Carolina said we're good with their MVP. Cincinnati said that they're good. And that brings us to Jameis Winston.

I know he led the league in passing yards per game and passing yards overall. He had 30 picks and 12 fumbles. You can't operate with a quarterback that way. And really, the reason he threw for all of those yards is because he's throwing all those picks. He's making throws. Other guys are like, well, I can't do that throw. I'm going to go back and look at his 2015 scattering report. Nolan Araki, who is really good at this, despite perceptions of his criticisms

for some players versus others. Jameis, weakness. Average overall pocket mobility. Looked heavier and less fleet-footed in 14 than he did in 13. Has a long release. Has led to a very high percentage of balls being batted down at the line of scrimmage.

Stares down receivers. Bird-dogging his primary targets in Notre Dame, makes too many risky decisions, triggering with a riverboat gambler mentality, does not manipulate safeties with his eyes, tends to start games slowly, on and on and on. Winston, for all the positive numbers, it's just, he's almost like a stock that you go, yeah, man, it's so volatile, it takes off and sometimes they make a ton of money, but then there's other times in the pre-market where I've

lost more than my initial investment. And I just sit around and wait the whole time. And you already know what's going to happen. Do you want to be invested in that kind of thing? You don't. Now, Tampa's a little different because they were able to bring in Tom Brady and they feel like this is a culture changing thing. And that's always another part of the equation with these quarterback decisions. It's who have we been for a long time? For Andy Dalton in Cincinnati, he's the leader of all these Cincinnati categories, touchdowns, completions, attempts, yards per game. He was good for a Cincinnati team that needed it. And then finally they're like, all right, now we need something else. So I think it's always a good reminder, whether it's Mark Sanchez, where you go, is he really this good?

Is he really good enough? He played in these two AFC title games. Is that really who he is? And if you keep asking this stuff, it probably means that he isn't. And that just leads me to a group right now. Because if you're going through this and saying, what could Jared Goff really be? Two years ago feels maybe a little fluky. I don't know Josh Allen in my head.

And we were guilty of this, where if I think this of you at the beginning of your career, then I kind of don't want to be wrong. So do I keep defending my initial position? Like, I don't know what's going to happen with Josh Allen. I think he's a guy that I would probably bet against. And he had this incredible game against Dallas on Thanksgiving when everybody was watching. So there's an artificial bump that he got out of that. And then people stopped paying attention because it wasn't the Thanksgiving game and it wasn't against Dallas. And yeah, you get stuff on dig. So let's

see what happens here. But I think I kind of know the ending of that one. I don't think Garoppolo is ever going to be a top 10 guy. I think we know that. Stop debating it. Same thing as Jared Goff. Stop debating it. There's a collection of a few other guys that are too young to be this harsh about, but you know, Kirk Cousins? Yeah, okay, cool. He has some really nice games sometimes. He's not a guy I would put up against 10, 15 maybe other quarterbacks in the league. And I know what his stats are.

Why are we still debating? Because the teams that had these guys stopped debating it. And that's why they're free agents. Okay, guest time. All right, there's really great news for the ringer, Spotify. Yesterday was great news once. I know Simmons and I i were texting and i was like wait a minute we got van and van lathan joins us now uh part of the ringer family and more importantly which mill hill be doing the wire rewatch podcast where i guess the plan is to do an episode for each episode

of the show is that true yeah an episode for each episode of the show a deep dive into what i believe is the best show of all time it's gonna be fantastic uh it's called way down in the hole and whenever anything is like presumed the greatest and there's always all the people like bill and i always talk about the zag where you know there's there's plenty of times where everybody thinks one thing and then then you're like, you know what? Everybody was wrong about that. But there are times where it's like, no, everybody thinks this thing because it's actually true. And it is the best show.

I don't really know. I think people like there's a Breaking Bad cult out there that's like, no, no, this is why Breaking Bad is better than all these different things. And again, it's your own personal thing. But why do you think it's the best show? Because of the immersive nature of the show. And also because there's never been a... So if you take a show like The Sopranos, right, which was the first thing that got me hooked on HBO prestige television.

The Sopranos takes all of these historic and contemporary American things, uh like historic and contemporary american things you know la cosa nostra family uh just regular family dynamics mental health grinds them up into this deal and then spits them out into this really really almost fantastical fantasy type drama when you when you pull back away from it right something that really doesn't or probably didn't exist in the way that it did. The Wire tells a real story, almost blending documentary with drama. And it was done in such a specific way that I think the reason why it's the greatest show ever is because it can't be replicated. You couldn't have another show like that. It's completely authentic. They get the cadence of the people's talk. They get all of the cultural norms and sort of mores and values. They get all of that stuff. And they get the sort of real characters. I'm rewatching the show now, and all of these cops that we love on the show,

like they're bad cops. Like they, they, they, they beat up suspects and they take money and they do, but they're so human that you can't look at them as anything other than that. And I think that's the real thing about the wire is it looks at all of these

things going on in West Baltimore from a really human level that most people can connect with. Yeah. I was watching a David Simon interview about it. And I think the best way to summarize all five seasons, the whole concept of the show is you just listen to the camera and Simon says, we don't lie. And I always think about how creative people work. Sometimes I wonder if

creative people, if they're good, do they only have that one great idea? Then they spend the rest of their lives chasing whatever they were successful at. And people are like, yeah, maybe that guy just had one good idea. With Simon and then Ed Burns, his partner, who's a longtime cop on this. And for those who don't know Simon, a longtime journalist, even though he'd done Homicide and he'd done some of these other things. It's almost like, man, these two guys, Burns and Simon, that they spent their life researching what would be this project that they did much later in life in comparison to other guys at just 25. You're in a writer's room. You're trying to work your way up. Maybe you create something. Maybe you run your own show where they did it in this way where they were outside of that world for such a long time that their background enabled

them to break some rules or maybe not even understand the rules and telling the story as real as it possibly could instead of sitting in a room trying to create a world they didn't know anything about. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like the age-old rule with hip-hop right the like most rappers when they come out their first album is their best album because on every album after the first one they're telling a story on the first one they're telling their life you know i mean it's the first time they you hear from them and so they're giving you what's really in them and when you watch this just every single intricate and intimate detail of the goings on in those communities they nail them and they know all the industry they know what's happening at the port they've covered that they

know what's happening like you if you have a show written by a cop and a guy from the newspaper, a newspaper guy, it's going to have weight to it that other shows might not. So when you look at that, and even, even in, when you watch the show, you know, they're like some of the acting's bad.

Yeah. I think season two, some of the actors I'm like, you know, like watching it again, you're like, Oh wow. But it doesn't matter because it doesn't feel like they're acting. Like it's weird.

They get people in there and they don't. You can tell these people really don't know too much about carrying scenes or building dramatic tension or whatever. The tension is all around them. It's just it's a really unique way. I think the reason why people say it's the best show that they ever saw is because they connect to the characters so much and they don't feel that in a lot of the other shows that they might be watching. What's your favorite storyline of,

of all the episodes, my favorite storyline or my favorite character arc. No, pick one. I don't care. Okay. Bodie. I'll tell you why um i like to me my favorite thing about the the wire is watching what happened to bode and because you start off with bode when he's basically just working the pit right he's working the courtyard

the pit, right? He's working the courtyard. Bodie is the example of how, to me, the everyday American that just tries to do everything that he's told, how that person normally ends up losing in the system that we're in. Bodie never, ever, ever failed to do exactly what he was supposed to do. When it was time for him to carry it away, he carried it away. When it was time for him to put in work, he put in work. When it was time for him, he never, ever messed up, never did anything, and it just wasn't enough. The guys who were on top of him always exploited him, and the guys that were behind him never respected him enough

to back him up when he wanted to make a move. So it's just like when I look at that character, I think about all the guys that I know, all the dudes that I knew that thought that that game, that that lifestyle would give something back to them. And it just doesn't reward you with anything. It doesn't give you anything, you know,

like no one wins. Um, and when he, when he caught it in the end, it went the only way that it could go. But when he caught it in the end, I was like, like damn you know we weren't going to see a story where he was going to end up having his own block or going to college or that's not the way that it goes we watched the character get to

a man and before his 30th birthday they laid him out and like everything he had done killing his friend all of that stuff it was all for nothing so i think the realism of that story how you follow that character from season to season it so mirrors something that we see so much that i had never seen it depicted um on television like that and i haven't seen it since yeah that's what i loved about the end and the whole thing and and you just figure it out like this is not cops and robbers this is real and sometimes the cops lose and you just figure it out. This is not cops and robbers. This is real and sometimes the cops lose and sometimes the person you're rooting for doesn't. I love that it does things that you weren't really doing in television before that.

And Brett Martin writes this great book, The Difficult Man, about all of these shows that you're talking about, prestige television, HBO giving David Simon this opportunity where Simon's like, yeah, I sold the show. He starts going after these incredible writers, all of these guys that have massive resumes, and they're like, what's the show?

And he's like, ah, you know, it's a drug deal. Baltimore figured it out. HBO's not giving him notes. And Simon even says when they gave us notes, I was like, you know what? Don't worry about it. You'll figure it out. And they were like, okay.

Like the leash that they gave Simon. And then when you go through that book, which I can't recommend enough. And obviously too, as well, Jonathan Abrams, who's a guy we know, all the pieces matter, the oral history of The Wire, the story of The Wire. But HBO was constantly trying to cancel this thing. And Simon would write, not only was he a great writer for television apparently he's the most convincing guy ever as we saw in the writers agents battle where he just he would write these letters to hbo saying the social importance of the development of the show and the story and hbo would just be like okay fine fine like we'll give you another season even though i don't think anybody's watching it which is just so absurd that it's turned out to be most people's favorite show

that like this kind of stuff and yet there was always this feeling that it wasn't anything close to a success no for me you know the interesting thing is so like um i was so into the sopranos that at louisiana tech university like i went and lobbied for us to be able to have hbo in the dorms like student government type stuff yeah like you know what i mean like you like you add like you like you could pay a little money and add hbo in the dorms like i was watching this i've watched i watched every episode of this program the reason why i watched the wire is because right after the sopranos would go off it would come on and and the the lead the beginning credits of the show don't really show you anything. It doesn't really tell you what it's about. You don't really know what it's about when The Sopranos was coming through. It was this whole big thing. It was, hey, and I remember it was like this because The Sopranos was out and it was a mobster seeing a psychiatrist and then Analyze. This was out and it was a mobster seeing a psychiatrist. I'm like, wow, what was this thing? seeing a psychiatrist i'm like wow what was this thing what's going on like let me check this shit out

so i watched it uh but with the why i didn't know anything and it took me a long time to get on it and when i got on it i had trouble telling people to watch it and converting them to it because i had trouble describing what it was about i'll just tell people to come to the crib and be like, yo, you got to see this. And it took a little bit, like the show doesn't give you, doesn't do you any favors. It starts off and you got to know how these people are talking. You got to know that, like, you got to really invest into it. So it was a hard sell to people, but it was kind of this thing where when everybody started to get on it, it was the first case of television FOMO that I could remember. Because a lot of

the people I was trying to get to watch the show, I was trying to convince them to watch it. Once they started hearing about it in hip-hop, they started hearing about it in the culture, we started talking about it on the basketball court and stuff like that. They're like, yo, what is this? Who is this Omar guy? Like, I'll say, carries the shotgun around and robs the drug dealers. And then after that, everybody was on it. I didn't know anyone who

didn't watch it. So, and now, you know, it's good that the show wasn't like a runaway hit in a way because you get to look back on it, uh, in its totality. And it's really talked about amongst the people who loved it most, like diehard fans of the wire. They don't, there are no casual wire fans. Either you love it or it's not for you. Or you just didn't watch it yet. Still. Um, let's, let's talk about your background a little bit. You, you and I have met once we met at what was probably as real a Hollywood type party that I've ever been to. Um, and that was Kimmel's Crib. And you and I were easily the least famous people at that thing. It was cool. I mean, it was really laid back. It was Betty White's old house, I believe. It was part of Kimmel's production company. There was definitely

some big names there. And I was just sort of wandering around. And we started talking. We started talking Louisiana. So you're from Baton Rouge. You know that I've been down there a bunch, the LSU. How'd you end up at a Louisiana tech? Did you, did you not, what was the LSU deal with you? Well, um, I only say a tech for two years, but you know, it was a thing to where, uh, my best friend was going to Louisiana tech, but really Ryan, my girlfriend was going to tech and, uh, she was the same year. Yeah. Every like everyone,

like the three of us, we all graduated class in 98 and she was going up and there were some things that me or her were getting into that I really wasn't ready to give up at that point. So it was really the first time I was kind of in that situation And I wasn't ready to go ahead and give up on that. So I was like, who cares? So I go up there for two years. Tech was cool. I didn't really dig it. But I came back and kind of did dual duty at Southern University, HBCU and LSU as well.

But, you know, for me being in Baton Rouge, you know, my mom had gone to LSU. I have been in and out of the stadium my entire life. So, you know, if you're from Baton Rouge, LSU is a way of life. Yeah, that's for certain. And I, you know, the first time I've been there in 2008, which is still after Katrina. And just a side note, thinking of the people down there, they're getting hit real hard with this thing, man. You know, New Orleans and the numbers and the test numbers and checking in with friends there. It's really scary stuff.

But how different was it being in Baton Rouge and then seeing what Baton Rouge was post-Katrina? Because it's really never gone back. Like that town is just still not big enough for what it's become, as far as I can tell, when I go back and visit. No, it was different almost immediately. First of all, being there a while, i was at home when hurricane katrina hit and sort of being down there all of this stuff that we're going through right now is eerily similar like it it feels familiar like i remember I remember being in a Walmart during the time right after Katrina and looking around and seeing no food on the shelves. And I was thinking to myself, what do we do if you go to Walmart and there's no food? Then what happens?

It was weird. I saw people stealing out of each other's grocery baskets and stuff like that. I remember having a conversation like, is that stealing? Like, can you be? I remember it was just a whole deal. And you just saw how quickly that society and civilization and all these institutions that we put so much faith and really rely on for our survival, you just see how quickly they can be ripped to shreds. And I told myself then I would never forget that lesson. I would never forget the lesson of just how easily the things that keep us alive can be like taken away from us and kind of what that means, like as a person, you know, kind of growing up. But as far as Baton Rouge, yeah, Like we immediately got hit with a bunch of things that we could not in any way sort of tolerate or sustain or whatever, however you want to put it. It was just too much. But I will tell you this, not very many people complained about it as far as people that I was around because these people coming from New Orleans, they were, you know, kin.

They were cultural cousins. Like we were, I don't remember ever hearing anyone from home talking about, you know, how bad things were. It definitely put a strain on what we always knew, but there weren't just very many people that were tripping about it. But the city expanded. A lot of the green, Baton Rouge was a very green place. You drive down Blue Bonnet or you drive down Burbank and you'd see all of these trees and places that me and my

dad used to go hunting and explore all that's gone all that was replaced with you know things that they had to do to expand the infrastructure of the city and so people could live and shop and work and eat and entertain so um almost overnight you took a medium-sized city with a small town mentality and it had to grow up really quick it was like it didn't have an adolescent so they're still dealing with that and really even now with stuff like this i'm my parents are still back there i'm wondering uh with the the population that it has and kind of the resources that it has if baton rouge is too significantly hit if we're going to have what we need to kind of go through it yeah it's just so densely populated you You know, that's, that's what scares you,

especially, you know, that's what we're seeing in new Orleans right now. So how do you go from that to, and I know a little bit of your LA story, I'm just researching and everything, but what, what made a guy, you know, Baton Rouge going through school, finishing up and then going, all right, I'm headed to LA. And then ultimately something where you're doing stuff. You're doing real things. And years later, I don't know what that gap is. So take us through that. Nah, I met some people, man.

I was doing this. I was on this movie, right? And the movie actually has a wire connection. This movie in Baton Rouge we were doing called The Reaping. And The Reaping was with Hilary Swank. And it's a terrible movie. Everybody knew that it was terrible while you're doing it yeah you're so funny bro i'm fascinated no i'm fascinated with asking people

about like like a week on the set going oh man this is going to be bad i i just i don't know it's not that i'm negative but it was like it was like it was kind of a because that was it was kind of like an era where there were a lot of movies that were being made. And it was crazy because everybody had come off All the King's Men, and they thought All the King's Men was going to go win eight Oscars. It ended up being terrible. And then there was Failure to Launch. All of these movies people had done, they were being shot in and around Baton Rouge. And then this one comes.

It was like a Hilary Swank vehicle. And it was a horror film. And so everyone was talking about just how bad it was like a hillary swank vehicle um and it was a it was a horror film and so everyone was talking about just how bad it was but they hadn't cast it one of the roles and then the guy they ended up casting the role in uh casting the role with was uh each other and when he walks in i go oh stringer bell And then he spoke and I was devastated because I wasn't expecting him to be like TN Crumpets. I thought this was a hard ass dude

from Jersey or West Baltimore or something like that. I didn't really know. But anyway, I met some people on that. I met some people on that. It's like 2005. This production was going on

while the hurricane was happening. Like, we started in July. The hurricane came in August. So once I saw what happened in Baton Rouge, I was looking for a way to get out. I was looking for a place to go. And I met a producer there who had told me that some of the stuff I was sending him writing wise that he liked it. And he was like, come on out to L.A. I can get you some meetings and stuff like that. I went out for like a week, stayed with my boy Tommy, who's also from Baton Rouge and had been living in Los Angeles since we had done a show.

And I never came back. I was supposed to come out and just meet with some people and do some stuff. And I just never I never came back. I stayed. I got a job at a small production company. And then I worked there for a little while and I found my way to TMZ maybe like five years later. But it really wasn't a move. I didn't have a job. I didn't have anything to cure. It really just, things were so depressing and so bad at home that I had to kind of stretch my legs somewhere else in LA with that place. So the TMZ part of it, because I know that it was, I don't know if it's the, I doubt it's the ending you want. I don't know how much of the story that you want to tell, but I know that that's going to be frustrating because it was such a popular thing

I also think the arc of TMZ is kind of interesting and that people are like oh TMZ those guys and then it's like wait a minute TMZ gets all this stuff right and they get it early and you're on the show and it's a combative thing um I I don't know I I guess I didn't really watch the show all that much I think honestly all of us were just horrified of the idea of ever being on it. And so, you know, and, um, you know, what was, what was that like? Cause I know the beginning part of it, you were kind of on these TMZ tours and then you end up on this show and now you've got this thing and people are watching you and it kind of changes who you are, or at least not changes who you are, but the perception of you. So that had to feel like kind of one of these things where i'm grinding i'm grinding i'm

grinding then you're like oh shit like this is real now yeah you know what it really never felt like anything i think that when you when you get there uh to your point i didn't feel that was happening but i didn't feel it like you i didn't feel it till after the kanye thing after the kanye thing is really after the only time i felt anything of kind of what you're talking about. How many years how you were seven years on the show? And for those that may not have seen this, you know, Van and Kanye got into a big argument really after Kanye felt like he was just going on to say ridiculous shit just because he had an album coming out. I mean, this was kind of Kardashian Kanye one on one. He said

slavery basically was a choice. I don't care who you are. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure everybody was filled in on this whole thing. And if I get any of this stuff wrong, feel free to correct me, but I know not maybe everybody knows all the stories. No, you got it. No. So for me, I started off doing the tours. i was doing the tours harvey came and took one of the tours that i was given right and after uh he took the tour um uh he decided that he wanted me on the show he's like i gotta have you on the show so i'm like now like i'm gonna be on television which is weird um so i'm like okay well i go from being a i remember the having to be a tour guide at 31 years of age um until i got on the tours and

realized how much fun i was having interacting with people and being up there and being a ham and entertaining people and stuff like that having to be a tour guide was a tough pill for me uh with what I wanted to do and what I thought I was going to be in life um but I'm glad that I didn't have uh too much pride and ego to go ahead and have the experience because it was integral in so many ways to me getting where I wanted to go but anyway anyway, he puts me on the show. And then after that, things just start happening, right? It goes from, I hope that I get a chance to say one thing on the show once a day.

You know what I mean? Yeah, like being a main guy. Yeah, till literally something gets said or pitched and the whole room turns and looks at you and but once you get to that point you don't even like you don't even it's it's you're on automatic thing the cameras don't you know how this is the cameras don't bother you you don't even see them you're in the moment every single time that you're talking so you don't even realize what's happening like it takes me leaving and going on a street to be like oh yo man I really enjoy what you say and all of this stuff like that. And then after the thing with Kanye went so super viral, that changed everything.

Then it became a situation to where a lot of other people that didn't trust me because they didn't trust the brand. What, what do you mean by that? What I mean is that, especially in, um, my community and there is a, what I didn't understand about TMZ when I got there is I thought that TMZ was, um, more akin to access Hollywood,

ET, uh, all of those places. It's not. It's a place not just about content, but also about ideas. And some of the ideas that come out from TMZ aren't always accurate or reflective. The stories are always accurate, always, always accurate. But some of the ideas and some of the cultural conversations that come out of TMZ

aren't accurate, aren't accurately reflective of Black culture, aren't accurate in terms of of other groups. And that strains them, that pains them. Some of the depictions of people, people have problems with, they don't think that they're fair. Now inside the office, what I will say is all of those things are talked about, right? But the reality is whatever organization that you're at,

wherever you are, the person that can hit publish is the most important person in the building. They have final say on the headline. It really flows through kind of their worldview and things like that. So there are a lot of, just to be honest with that when I learned it. At first, I really didn't know, but I struggled with that when I learned it. And a lot of times you saw me on the show always making sure that I represented a voice that could sort of translate culture for people out there that might be feeling frustrated with some of the things that they were hearing. And I took them very, very seriously, but I was still for a lot of people on the outside looking

in with that because I was there and they're thinking, you know, how with this can you really be if that's where you're at? And I get that. Yeah. Look, I can only jump in from a perspective that is completely different than yours, but working with guys in sports, guys that I've known a long time, former athletes, opinion guys, black guys that I worked with at ESPN, and sometimes something would be said and then I'd be off the air. I'd be like, hey, why did you say that? And I've had a few guys go, hey, if I don't stick up for that guy, then I get trashed. I get absolutely trashed, and it's just not worth it. And it is something that I've definitely learned, which I don't know that I

would have. I know I would have never learned it had I not worked with a bunch of different people, but there's sympathy that I could have for very in-your-face stuff when it comes to race. But that one is one I have a lot of sympathy for, for any black person that has a position where they're on air, where it's like, I'm trying to be true to myself, but I'm also getting judged in this way that if I'm not down, like I never get judged that way. If I don't stick up for a white guy, nobody gives a shit. No white guy would be like, how come you didn't stick up for this athlete in this debate? And I'd be like, that didn't even enter my mind. And it's something that I didn't understand until

I was doing it for over a decade where I get exactly what you're saying, where it's like, wait a minute, if I have an opinion and this is what I'm doing, but if the standard that you're held to is a really challenging one. And I do think that that's true unless you disagree with anything I said there. No, I do. I think for me, I've never been disingenuous about it. I think that, and I'm not saying that those guys were either, but what I'm saying is that if there are things that I legitimately might understand about a particular story that you might not, right? And if you have a room full of white people and I'm the only black voice, everybody's talking about the way they, about the way they see something, how stupid it

might be, how crazy it might be, how, whatever it might be. But remember I'm from there and I can explain that to you. I can explain it to you. I mean, there might be people who think, stepping back from it, that an LSU tailgate is stupid, that it's stupid to set up at 5 30 a.m., drink all day long, never even go inside of the stadium, or to spend your whole life doing that, or spend your whole fall doing that. For me, I can tell people just how important that tradition, just how important the team is, not just to who we are from a sports fan perspective, but to our national identity. Like how important college football is in the South, right? How it helped integration, how just ingrained it is with us, how we simply care more, which is the reason why we'll always be the best at it because we simply care more. I can articulate that to you. And so it's the same thing culturally,

right? It doesn't have to do necessarily sometimes with me defending someone that I might not otherwise defend. What somebody did might be indefensible, but explain to you the environment, the situations, or how that person might've come to that decision. I think that's important to humanize people. Because a lot of times when you're at an organization that deals with scandal or deals in celebrity stories, like in the way that TMZ does, it's very easy to kind of sum people up by the things that they've done and not who they are. And so a lot of times in the room, it was kind of my deal to kind of be that, like say that and be there. And it still seemed like for a lot of people who didn't even know me that would associate me

with TMZ, that prior to me being, uh, the, the back and forth I had with Kanye, they still were kind of on the outside looking in. But after that, they said, okay, this guy seems like, you know, he's down. And that's not for me to say that, that, uh, that that was my goal. It wasn't like what you saw between me and him, because I couldn't care less about the perception of me. I am who I am. What you saw between me and him was an honest frustration in me expressing how crazy I felt what he was in a respectful way. But I think that that moment did a lot to elevate me to a different plane in my career. Uh, especially building that trust with, with, with people who might've looked at me a certain way because I worked at TMZ.

What happened at the end then? Cause I know you want, like, you, you're probably so sick of talking about them. Um, I know like you just, that's it. You've moved on the next chapter and, and let's go. I mean, what happened at the end is, I mean, there's not really a lot to, to that. That's not out there. I mean, what happened at the end was there was a, uh, a back and forth between me and literally my best friend in the office, my best friend in the office, the best friends I've ever had at TMZ easily. I mean, we would go to lunch together.

We would talk like after it was all over, his girlfriend hit me up. Talked to him. I recently talked to him last week. Then they fired me. Anything else about that situation, people can go and check it out. As far as that goes, there's a lot of things that was going on. Like for example, my contract was up in about a month.

So everyone that worked there, all the higher ups knew that I was not going back. And because of that, and because of some other things that obviously I can't really get into because I don't want to start off this new year by being quarantined and getting sued. There was a lot of reasons that it was just time for everybody to go their separate ways. But I will tell you this, and I'm a religious man. I am. And I swear on the blood of Jesus, what happened in the office just wasn't that big of a deal. I'm not laughing because it's just what happened in the office just wasn't that big of a deal. That wasn't going to be the thing that really was going to put the nail in the coffin. I think the whole thing kind of backfired on him a little bit, but it just wasn't that big of a deal.

It wasn't. But, you know, you move on. Okay, let's move on to kind of going back, because this is the part that I love. I love success stories. I love being naive when you first get to LA and all the stuff. I've gone on pitches, but it was five years ago and the pitch wasn't really my pitch, even though it was originally my idea. I think I changed around, which motivated me to come out here because I hated how bad it went. And I had really nothing to do with it. So I was like, if I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail on my own. I've done meetings now where I've been out here where I've gone, oh my God, they may give me a

security badge at the end of this meeting. That's how into me they are. And then you'll email and go, okay, this guy hasn't gotten back to an email in a year. So maybe that meeting didn't go as well as I thought it did. That's a really hard thing to navigate. So how was that with you? You're coming from Louisiana, you're staying at your buddy's place, but you think you have these ends in these contexts and eventually it always leads to everything. There's like a thousand no's before there's the yes. But what was that like for you not understanding how LA worked as your first, time trying to understand this business? Well, I think my countryness helped me in that though, Well, I think my countryness helped me in that, though, because.

Oh, no kidding. My dad would always say stuff. My dad would be my dad. My dad is both the simplest and the most brilliant man I've ever known. You know what I mean? Like, like my dad would say stuff that was really, really like just be on the nose. You'd be like, I like I'd be. I want something for my girlfriend. Right.

And my dad would say something like, well, anybody who cares about you, you don't have to ask them to feed you. And I'd be like, what? He's like, if somebody cares about you, they're going to know you hungry. And if they don't know that you need something, they don't really care. And I'll be like, all right. So whether that's true or not, that's really the way that I started to live my life. So I would come out to LA with all of these things, thinking that I was going to be Shane Black and all of this kind of stuff like that. And I would reach out to these people and they wouldn't reach back. And I'd be like, whatever. Literally, I would think about, I don't, I'm not going to get on the internet and blast you. I'm not going to get on the internet.

I'm not going to go crazy and speak bad on your name. That's how it is. Cool. cool. Like it, it, it, it, I've started learning quickly that everybody in the town has their own thing. They're trying to get off and really they're talking to you because they think that you can help them get their thing off. But if their thing gets off before they need you, that's that. That like, that's that, like if their thing gets off before they need you, you got to figure it out. So what I started to do in L.A. is figuring it out. I had an air mattress and a laptop. That was it. Didn't knew one guy. Then that guy moved back to Baton Rouge.

For me, I didn't have time to sit around and cry about how fake people are or write long Hemingway-esque novels about the fallacy of man and stuff like that. I had to go and feed myself and get in to make sure my people back home were okay. So I went there. I went and found the jobs. I lived in the hot-ass places in Van Nuys with no AC. I just did all of that. I lived in the hot ass places in Van Nuys with no AC. I just did all of that. And after a while of just processing and doing stuff and getting up and going, I found my place. I found myself in a place which was TMZ Like it's one thing to be back home. Right. And they'd be talking to somebody and then to have them stop talking to you. That's not how it was in L.A. It was you were talking to someone and then they changed their phone number. And you're like, what the hell? Like this person that you knew, you know, like this person that you knew, it's not that you don't know them anymore.

It's like you never knew them. And it was like, I'm like, all right, well, cool. But I just had to keep moving on because the one thing I didn't want to do was go back home. So I had to keep figuring it out. Yeah, that's what people say when you come out here. You only succeed if you have no choice. Like if your only choice is to succeed, then, then you'll do it. Um, yeah. And so that's, that's kind of what the deal was. And you know, I didn't need much. Uh, and I, I got it done. Did you ever feel like, because of the position on team Z that you had celebrities that all of a sudden were reaching out to you

because they were afraid if anything ever went sideways they wanted like an ally in the room yeah that i had it was both ways so funny it was both ways it was number one it was like uh you would see people out in places like that hey man come over here bro like i just really need somebody to kind of speak for me dog because i don't have nobody to speak for me do you have a story that you can share i mean i know the names thing is tough here because that's what i'd always think is it like if you were a guy that was sort of notorious and you see you out of the spot i'd be like oh shit van's here like i have one i can't really name the names but i have one right okay i have a friend of mine who is uh like a semi-big i can say this guy's name like i met tay diggs on the basketball court tay diggs great man great

guy is my first friend right my first celebrity friend like tay diggs i think he follows me yeah go ahead he follows. It's a joke. Somebody tweeted once that Taye Diggs is the new verified. And I thought it was like the most brilliant tweet ever, but go ahead. You know what the crazy thing is? I don't think he follows me and I feel a certain way about it. Like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm feeling a certain way about it. Right. I'm like, Tay. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, Tay, I'm feeling a certain way about it, right? So, you know, Tay had had a movie premiere some time ago.

And we'd gone to the premiere, and it was so great. And once I said, this was not a Hollywood thing. Like, he met me pre-TMZ. Like, this was like 08 or 09 just on the basketball court and we just became friends. And so we're going so we go to the

premiere. It's amazing seeing all these great people. It's a big time premiere set in Chinese theater or something like that. We go there. We cool. I meet him after we go we go across the street to Roosevelt to the after party and um we're we're gonna go to the after party and have a great time and then it's good it's time for the after after party right now it's time for where we headed what we're gonna do nobody was

doing anything crazy it wasn't anything illicit but now this is where the fellas are going to go have some fun. There was another guy, right? And he's a semi-big-time star, too. Great-looking guy. He's cool with me. Probably doesn't even remember this. And he comes walking out of the place like,

yo, it's time to go get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he looks at me and he was like you know what guys you know what guys i i you know i have to i have a i have a big shoot with the ford motor company in in the morning and i i really need to go get the right amount of sleep for it and then and even tay was like yo did you just say the Ford Motor Company, nigga? What's wrong with you? And we were all looking around.

We all like, what are you? And he leaves, right? He goes. And we're on our way to the spot. And Tay goes, yo, what was that about? And he's thinking about it in his mind. And he was like, bang, that was you. And I was like, what? He was like, bro,

you're like celebrity kryptonite. And I was like, I felt so bad. I was like, yo, you want me to go home? He was like, nah, nah, nah, you my man. He was like, I will just let you know that as long as you

work there nobody famous is ever going to want to have any fun around you and i was like man i hadn't even thought of that because i don't he was the only famous guy that i knew um so that like that's the main time but other than that you would just walk in places or sometimes if they saw you doing something like if you walk in the club and and and somebody hands you like some weed and then you smoke the weed and oh my god well i'm gonna take pictures of you and put you on tmz and i'll be like ah dummy it's legal why don't you relax you know i'm saying so it's like it's just it's just weird but um i don't really like hang uh i'm not really in those circles that much so those would be the only

times and stuff like that would happen but it was just funny when it did. Is there anybody who just hates you? Ashton Kutcher. No kidding? Mm-hmm. Backstory? Just hates TMZ. Hates TMZ.

You know that you've made it on television, on TMZ when ashton kutcher blocks you on all social media was there nothing was were you just like collective shrapnel or is it something specific with you well ashton kutcher had done this thing before uh ashton kutcher had done this thing before right where he had made like his own little fake tmz and he was tmzing the tmz people like he had people that were outside of the office over when it was in Hollywood and they were coming around and like, you know, doing like the fake TMZ thing. Um, I was like, put the, put the,

put the camera in your face and ask you questions. Ha ha ha ha ha. And then he put it on the internet or whatever. Um, but he had a huge problem with it. I don't know what they had reported on him or what they had done with him. I wasn't a part of it. A lot of that stuff might've happened before I was there or whatever. But I remember being in the office one time and, and a friend of mine at the office, a great guy named Eric, he goes, yo, you're blocked by Ashton Kutcher. And I was like, how would you know that? He was like, we all are. And I was like, there's no way Ashton Kutcher and I was like how would you know that he was like we all are and I was like there's no

way Ashton Kutcher would block me I've never said anything wrong about Ashton Kutcher I like Ashton Kutcher I love that 70s show I even like that stupid movie what happens in Vegas nobody liked that but guess what I did so I was like there's no way that he would block I went on there blocked

and recently since it was a big deal and a big story covered on page six everywhere, that I was no longer working at TMZ and everybody knows, right? I went to see if I was still blocked by Ashton Kutcher. Guess what? Still blocked. And now that I'm on this podcast, I would just like to say, and now that I'm on this podcast, I would just like to say, actually, there's no reason to block me anymore.

Like, let me off the block list. I didn't do anything, but that's the only guy though. As far as celebrities, the only celebrity beef I've ever actually had, um, uh,

was actually cushion. It wasn't really a beef. It was like, he bought me for no reason, but I wasn't also wasn't on the show kicking people's back saying I never did that. I'm worried. I don't know if this is going to help you being on the pod and making that

statement or if I'm going to end up getting blocked just to have you on, you know? So I'm, I'm worried now I'm not going to get to see that content. So who knows? Who knows? Story developing. It might happen.

You never know. Hey, uh, I'm really excited that you're part of The Ringer. I know Bill's excited. And it is my favorite show as well. And again, the podcast with Jamel Hill is going to be way down in the hole. Van Lathan.

And go Tigers, man. Thanks a lot for this. No problem, brother. Stay healthy. Wash your hands. And if you can, everybody, stay at home. Don't listen to government officials. Everyone, listen to doctors.

If you listen to doctors in this entire thing, you'll be okay. Everyone's trying to sell you something. Doctors are trying to save your life. That's all I'm going to say about that. Sounds good, man. All right, brother. Simmons and I are working on this draft thing that we're going to do.

We're not going to give away too much of it, but we have that coming up. I think I'm taping that with him Sunday when we tape our normal pod. So yeah, check us out. And then make sure you check out the rewatchables. He and I did the Karate Kid. And when you think you're only going to probably do

an hour on the Karate Kid and you do two, that's when you know you're quarantined. Stay safe out there, everybody. And please tell your friends, subscribe, rate, and review to the Ryan Russo Podcast and Ring of Network. Thank you.