The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Joe Buck and the College Football Top 10 | Dual Threat With Ryen Russillo (Ep. 5)

Episode Date: September 26, 2018

Russillo hits on the NFL penalty outrage and college football's top 10 before talking with sportscasting legend Joe Buck about the Cleveland Browns' first win in 635 days, Baker Mayfield's debut, and the perils of national sportscasting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

what's going on dual threat here with ryan rossillo from the ringer we got joe buck from fox who's going to join us a little bit later talk about that night in cleveland which is again it seems crazy because of everything happening sunday with all the upsets but baker's introduction to the nfl world and then we're going to go a little deeper on the Joe Buck. Everybody hates Joe Buck stuff, which I'm going to try to do in a way where it doesn't feel like that everybody's already done, even though everybody's already sort of done that. We're going to get to a few things here. I have a lot of college football that I want to do, but at the very top, I'm going to do this with Hotel Tonight, okay? And I have a couple complaints, which is normally the case when I don't talk for seven days.

But Hotel Tonight, no complaints whatsoever. I use it. I have it on my phone. I can't tell you enough. Look, I even know about the perks, so I really have this app. It works great. Let's talk about Hotel Tonight. By showing you top-rated hotels with unsold rooms, Hotel Tonight makes it easy to book your stay at an amazing rate.

And even though their name's Hotel Tonight, you can book in advance. And that's a new thing they've been doing recently. Perfect for spontaneous weekend getaways, three-day weekends, staycations, road trips, business trips, booking a place with a pool and more. So to start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels, go to hoteltonight.com. That That's hoteltonight.com or download the app now. Get the app, especially if you're a guy like me all over the place. You don't have somebody complaining, but you're like, you know what? Do I want to just kick it in Toledo for an extra night? Sure. Done. Boom. You've got the app. Richard Sherman is just the king of the obvious. If

Richard Sherman were your stockbroker, he would say, you know, the key to investing is making the right decisions. So he's complaining now about the QB rule. Oh, by the way, everybody's complaining about the QB rule. And I get that. And Sherman said, quote, they don't care about the rest of us getting hurt long as the QB is safe. No shit. I'm sorry. I mean, Richard Sherman is also the guy that they did, I think, some players tribune thing where he was all black and white. It was super dramatic. And he goes, you know, the NFL, once they're done with you, they just cut you. Yeah. No, I'm aware. I've been watching this game now 30 years. It's pretty much the way it works. And I know it's super frustrating, and I know it's really frustrating for defensive players,

and I know it's super frustrating for everybody on Twitter, especially with the Monday night game, with all the roughing the passer penalties. I'm not telling you it's the right thing to do, but what I'm telling you is that, look, the league is making this absurd to hopefully implement it this way so everybody's thinking about it. This is not the result they want. The result they expect to have is to have everybody so freaked out about the roughing the passer rule that they're not ever hitting the quarterbacks. I think this is another byproduct of when your alums sue you, okay? And almost every article that's written about concussions is this, is football too dangerous, which would ignore all other sports.

And yes, you know, I always felt this. Danny Cannell, my former partner on radio, he got kind of the shoot the messenger thing, but he was asking real, I think, smart and important questions about what we truly know about CTE and all these different things. And, you know, whenever he delivered the message, maybe he didn't do it the way he needed to do or made it too attacking. And it turned to this whole thing and it became a liberal conservative thing. And then everybody was pissed off. But I think Danny was like, it is the fundamental point that he was asking is like,

are we sure about what is truly being diagnosed and what the minimal level of CTE is to show up? I mean, some of these guys are saying, oh, 95% of people have it, but then you're thinking, okay, well, why are you talking about CTE, Russillo? I honestly think all of this stuff is connected because the NFL is very reactionary, right? The NFL has all these moments where it's like, it's super dangerous. Kids don't want to play it. Hey, guess what? You have sex during the Superbowl. Let's get you with a hoodie Seahawks and your kid who's, you know, born in September, right? Football is family. They were doing that. What's football doing now? Football's doing those ads where it's time to celebrate because the football or the NFL people, Oh, stodgy old, you know, and everybody says, wait, okay, fine.

You know, they don't get it. Well, now they've got like a hokey pokey ad and different guys practicing different celebrations because the NFL is trying to say like, hey, are we not cool now? Well, how do we fix this? Well, let's get Andy Garcia. We'll do a little hokey pokey thing. And then we're going to say NFL, let's celebrate. Done. We're cool again. Great work, Madison Avenue. I don't even know if that's true. I was watching an episode of Mad Men today. So the NFL in their constant perception battle, their PR battle with the public, because so many people are writing about how they feel complicit and as dangerous. And I've mentioned all these themes before. I think the quarterback part of part of it is all connected to this. And others argued, you know, people were arguing last night, like, no, this is only about Aaron Rodgers. It's only about the collarbone thing.

It's only, I think the whole thing is connected that, okay, you guys want to rip us for not being safe in the NFL's own fault for how they handled concussions, how they covered them up in the past. These are real things. So I'm not saying that they're not complicit in part of this.

They certainly are. But when you have this much negative press about the safety, the dangers of your game, then the NFL goes, all right, screw it. You want safe? We're going to make it safe. And then you're going to see a ton of roughing the passer penalties. And the other problem with social media, as we saw with that Monday night game, is that what you are doing is you're sitting by yourself because you think you're sitting by yourself unless you have friends. Maybe there's two people there, a girlfriend, boyfriend, you know the deal. You're sitting there with your phone. You're on Twitter. You see a roughing the passer penalty. That's a joke. You tweet it out.

You get mad because you think you're by yourself, but actually the social media is you sitting with everybody else. You're just not physically in front of each other. So you're all saying the same stuff over and over and over again. So for Richard Sherman to say, oh my gosh, you know, all they care about the QB and Bobby Wagner jumps in and goes, oh, this is a joke. Yeah, oh my gosh, you know, all they care about the QB and Bobby Wagner jumps in and goes, oh, this is a joke. Yeah, I get it sucks to play defense. Okay. I get that it sucks, but there's, there's nothing new about this. This isn't like, hey, you know who made a great point? Richard Sherman. I hadn't thought about this. The quarterbacks are being protected and they're being protected even more so now. So yeah, you can be mad, but this isn't enlightening stuff.

And I'm still not a hundred percent sure. I expect this to be unpopular. Do we know that William Hayes and his, what was it? He was going after Derek Carr, the Raiders. So Hayes is with the Dolphins now. He's a guy that's in Cleveland Dinosaurs. He's saying he tore his ACL because he tried to protect the hit on Carr. I've watched that play a bunch of times. I don't know. Are we sure that that's what happened? And I feel like there's so many people that have ripped the NFL all the time, and you've ripped it for not being safe. You've ripped it for concussions.

You've diagnosed these concussions from your couch watching games, and now you're mad that this roughing the passer penalty is too ridiculous. So I don't know, man. Make up your mind. College football next. I may get tickets this week for a little L.A. football. I didn't go to the L.A. L.A. game last week because I wanted to watch them from home. But I may check it out with SeatGeek.

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You're too young for that. I was in college once. Yeah, but I mean. No, I've heard fish. I like the bumper stickers. You like the bumper stickers. All right. I actually have the SeatGeek app on my phone.

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Bunch of college football stuff I want to run through here, and it's going to focus a little bit on the quarterback. So we'll see how this goes. And it'll likely be the top 10 teams here, except for one sneaky team that I like. And I love that everybody is on board that has paid attention to the podcast, Chris Fowler Trivia, which he answered really quick again on Saturday night's broadcast of Oregon hosting Stanford. And we're going to get to that Ducks game here in a little bit. But Chris Fowler trivia is when I ask you a trivia question, I answer it immediately before you have any chance of even thinking. So which power five team has the worst scoring? It's Rutgers. So there you go. You had no time whatsoever to even listen to the end of the question. And that is this week's Chris Fowler trivia. So top 10 teams. Bama at the top. And it feels a little bit like we know what's going on here with Tua Tongvaloa. He's the guy and Gary Danielson who would know, who, you know, look, I think is terrific on the CBS broadcast, met him a couple times.

terrific on the CBS broadcast, met him a couple times, but he was saying this about the Hurts-Danielson thing because we were wondering, we're like, wait a minute, is Jalen going to transfer? Is he going to get out of there with this new four-game transfer rule, okay? And this is what Danielson said. He goes, I actually think that Dye was cast in game two. He goes, look at Jalen Hurts. He goes, Saban said to him, look, I've got to have a backup quarterback ready, and I want it to be you, and that he needed Jalen to be all in. So this tells me that Danielson knew about this and that Jalen had somehow, you know, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself,

but like Nick and Jalen had some sort of understanding here. And you can understand, too, if you're Jalen, you're like, dude, are you serious? I win all these games. You go to back-to-back national titles. I win one, and like, I'm out. I mean, I'm out on this whole thing. Like, come on.

Now, granted, you know, the one that they won ended up being the one where Tua came in, but as Danielson points out, and this is the most important thing of trying to understand, and we're going to do this with a bunch of different teams here that had to make decisions

with their young quarterbacks, or not necessarily all young guys. He said he watched Thursday's practice. He goes, he's been watching Bama's practice for 10 years. He goes, starters's been watching Bama's practice for 10 years. He goes, starters usually get 75% of the snaps. And with Tua and Jalen now, they're splitting these things, even though Bama put it on A&M and it feels like,

okay, this Jalen thing is over. Now, Bama scoring offense. I've heard this a lot throughout. Be like, okay, Bama has this amazing defense. And now you add in this kind of offense. This isn't even fair. Two things. I actually had more questions about the defense this year. I know that sounds stupid because it's Saban, but seriously with the turnover they had. And if you look at the talent, they've had turnover before in the incoming talent. I know it's just easy to say,

oh no, it's just a million dudes again. And it's kind of true, but I think, you know, going over that roster and I've paid so much attention to it just because it's Bama and that's what you do. Like, who do they have coming in? I think there were still some more question marks defensively than I had for them offensively. And let's not act like Bama has been army shout out to army Sooners OT. We'll mention that game in a little bit later, but Bama now is scoring 54 points per game. All right. That's number three in the country, but it's still before they've gotten to the meat of all their SEC play. So we'll see where

that scoring number is. They're not going to be at 54 points a game, but they're third, and that's a big jump up, but not a massive jump up when you think about full seasons from them.

And by the way, Penn State and Ohio State number one and two in scoring right now for college football, around 55 points per game for each of those squads. But Bama,

last year was 15th in scoring. The year before that, I'm just going to run through all those squads. But Bama, last year was 15th in scoring. The year before that, I'm just going to run through all the Saban years. 16th, 30th, 16th, 17th. In 2012, they were 12th in scoring. They were 20th in 2011, 18th, 22nd, 35th in Saban's first real season in 2008, and then his first actual season in 2007, where they went 7-6. They lost to Louisiana Monroe. People actually made Saban jokes. Can you believe this, too? There were seniors that go, I don't know this Saban guy, how he does things, but around Tuscaloosa, this is the way I like to do it. Oh, okay. You're not going to be on the team anymore. Thank God you graduated. And now he's going to just be a horror show for every other program in the entire country. But that year with

JPW, John Parker Wilson, bottle service, NBD, he led an offense that was 65th in scoring. So he's been really about 20 or better every single year since. And we'll see, he's going to be top five with Tua, with the receivers, with the tight end development that we saw in the A&M game. Yeah, maybe, but it's not like they couldn't really score. So now in this world where we have all the sympathy for the player, even though for years it's kind of funny this way, we didn't like recruiting attention because we didn't like young kids getting attention and putting hats on and dictating all these things.

And now it's even worse with Instagram and Twitter and all that stuff. But there's just something about, even if it's warranted attention, we as adults have a hard time with, but because so many people now, especially in the media, are anti the coach and anti his contract and how much adversity and not transfer. But we hate the fact that the coach can kind of dictate the rule still, despite some of this being lessened recently with the graduate transfer stuff and all that. And the odd thing about the graduate transfer thing was, hey, we want you on campus early. We want you on campus all summer. While you're there, why don't you take some more classes? And if you do graduate, you can transfer and be eligible immediately. But guys are doing it so quickly. It's been going on

now for years that the graduate transfer is going, all right, cool. I do have my degree because I hung out here all summer because I enrolled early and I had college credits that hit over. And you know what? I don't like you. And I want to go play in the Pac-12 for my senior year. It's something you can do. So that actually is something that the coaches thought would be terrific. And now it gives them less control. But are we wrong, or excuse me, I should rephrase it, is the coach wrong for wanting control is the thing? Is Saban at his core an evil human being because he wants to try to convince

Jalen Hurts to stay on campus? Because isn't Saban's job to make sure that he has the best chance to win? Of course it is. That's an easy question. It's a super easy answer. So I would not begrudge Saban for trying to convince both guys to stick around, even if it feels insane, that hurts wood or seems completely unfair. Like what is Saban supposed to do? Hey, Jalen, you should leave. Of course he shouldn't do that. He should, Hey, this is frustrating.

I'm going to get asked about it all the time. I get annoyed about everything, traffic, whether or not my little Debbie coffee cake is stale or not. I don't, I can't get mad at the coach for saying I need to do everything I can to keep these two guys around. And I think, you know, I think that's okay. I know people don't like that anymore, but I think it's okay if you're a coach going, you know what I want to do? Keep all the talent I can on this team. Because that's my responsibility. I can say it's to the player. I can say it's recruiting. And every single kid who's actually at this level thinks he's getting screwed over recruiting. I mean, I'm going to go through some of these transfers and the numbers are going to blow your mind. But you even have the same thing at Clemson.

Trevor Lawrence, the freshman that we all know is this anointed kid. Now he's the starter over senior Kelly Bryant, who I actually thought played pretty good against A&M. And then Lawrence comes in against Georgia Tech. Bryant doesn't really get it going. And then Lawrence in five possession, four touchdowns. He had a throw to his left about 20 yards down.

David Pollock was breaking it down on Twitter. It's just an insane throw through a couple defenders to the left pylon. He's on the run, like total rollout to his left and gets himself square and just zings it in there. He's a special, special kid. But if you're Dabo and you knew that it was going to be Hunter, which is what everybody thought it was going to be, did you play Kelly Bryant at the beginning of the year to just keep him around? Did you screw over Kelly Bryant? Does Kelly Bryant think he got screwed over?

Does Jalen Hurts think he got screwed over? Or is the coach maybe going, all right, you know, maybe I'm not 100% truthful with this whole deal, but I just want to make sure I have a plan here. And this is a Clemson team that's lost more quarterbacks this offseason, including Hunter Johnson, who's another five-star kid that ended up at Northwestern because that guy's going, you know what? I'm out of here. Like, forget I can't beat out Kelly Bryant, maybe the senior who was a starter last year, but now this other dude comes in after me out of Georgia and he's supposed to be the best thing ever. I'm a five-star dude, but guess what? I'm headed back to Indiana. And as the player and anybody that's

played with anybody that are athletes and I'm not really, but you know, pick up hoops constantly, guys being like, Hey, you're pretty good. You get a look, you'd ask some kid and the guy not really, but, you know, pick up hoops constantly. Guys being like, hey, you're pretty good. You get a look, you ask some kid and the guy be like, yeah, high school coach screwed me. I watched Last Chance U and there's guys in there that aren't getting reps. You know, there'll be multiple running backs and the running backs that don't play are like,

oh, the coach screwed me. Well, like, what do you mean? Did he screw you or did he just say a lot of nice things about you to try to make sure that he could bring you into his program? What was he supposed to do, insult you? Tell you there's a chance you weren't going to play? I can understand recruiting can be really dirty and disingenuous, but at the same time, what's the coach supposed

to do? Have one running back on his roster? And a lot of times when the guy's sitting there saying he got screwed over, some of these guys are writing down cat on their test under where it says name. So it's like, was it you or was it the coach? So whose fault is it really? So when I looked through some of the transfer numbers, and this is from, I think it's 247's recruiting database. And I went through this sports illustrated piece, but Johnson who transferred for Clemson, he's the fifth of the eight total five-star quarterbacks from 15, 16, and 17. So we're looking at three different recruiting classes. There were eight total five-star QBs based on this recruiting ranking system. Okay. The other five-star guys. So Johnson moves on. Blake Barnett moved on. He moved on twice. He's

at USF. Kyler Murray, who he now is at Oklahoma after letting it up at A&M, but he was a five-star guy. Shea Patterson, he transferred out of Ole Miss and that was a little bit more on Ole Miss, but I think Ole Miss is okay with it. And now Michigan's got this thing going, even though, you know, look, let's look at the schedule here. And then Jacob Eason, who was ahead of Fromm, and then he gets hurt. Fromm comes in, and then there's another kid behind Fromm that we think maybe can challenge Fromm, Justin, and that's another transfer. So the only guys that stayed out of that three-year window were Rosen, Stanford's Davis Mills, who's still there and actually not playing, and then Tua Tongavaloa.

So five of the eight kids from a three-year stretch bailed. And if you take that back even deeper and you want to go, it's almost more than 50% of the five-star kids transfer. So is it up to the coach to make sure the kid has all the information that maybe hurts his chances of keeping the kid or these kids transfer to the point where it's like, you know what, if they want to bail, they can bail, but I'm going to do whatever I can to make this kid stick around. And I do know that a lot of the guys that I worked with that were former athletes thought it was awful that these guys are transferring. So I don't,

I guess I'm, what I'm saying is I'm sympathetic to the coach going, I can do whatever I got to do to keep the depth here. And if the kid's like, I want to bounce, I'm not going to get on his case either. Like what's Hunter Johnson supposed to do when we're looking at a kid in Trevor Lawrence who's already going to be the guy there

and is going to be the guy there for three years? I mean, Brett Bielema at one point when he brought in Russell Wilson tried to actually say that Russell Wilson was coming in to compete. I remember laughing at him on the air being like, come on, you'd be kidding me. Because I think it was John Budmeier, and I don't even know if I'm saying his name right anymore. And I don't think it matters. I think people listening that know how to pronounce it right are going, you know what, Ursula, we're going to give you a pass on that. Joe Brennan and then Stave who didn't play that one year. And then Bielema's like, no, no, everybody's in play here.

Like, really? Everybody's in play? Like, I don't think everybody's in play, Bielema. And guess what? Russell Wilson was terrific. So the rest of the top 10 stuff, as I said, I'm going to the Penn State game out there in Happy Valley. I was there actually, yeah, just last year.

So that's back-to-back years. I expect Ohio State to win. I know Bosa's hurt. He's going to be out for a little while. Haskins was incredible, again, against Tulane in the first just last year. So that's back-to-back years. I expect Ohio State to win. I know Bosa's hurt. He's going to be out for a little while. Haskins was incredible, again, against Tulane in the first half last week. 21-24, 304 yards, five touchdowns. Again, I don't want to run through box scores for you

other than that was nuts. But then it brings me back to Penn State and the problems I have with Penn State. And it's always me accepting that McSorley's so much better than I originally thought he would be because even though, and I was reading Bruce Feldman's piece in The Athletic, what's special about McSorley? And he actually talked to the D coordinator at Washington, Jimmy Lake. And he said, you know, look, we knew how good Saquon Barkley was, but we were always afraid of McSorley.

And they point out that McSorley last year in that bowl game against Washington, he converted 13 third down conversions. He was like, he killed us on third down conversions. And eight of those 13 third down conversions were third and seven or longer. And in that game, McSorley was 32 of 41, 342 yards and 60 yards rushing. And that was against the number three defense, the Washington Huskies. So McSorley can take a little while to wind it up. His own offensive coordinator in the film in pieces like, Hey, you morons that don't understand, watch our tape. He throws to everywhere on the field. And I would agree that they throw to everywhere on the field. I just don't know that it gets there the same way it gets there with other guys that are better pro prospects and have the physical skills. But this is me spending too much time and not giving McSorley more credit because he's tough.

He makes these reads. And even though I think Ohio State goes in there with Haskins and all their talent, and I guess I'm still a little worried about where Penn State is, whether it was the start of the season or that weird Illinois game where all of a sudden, you know, they were down in the third quarter, Illinois, and then they put up like a million points straight on him. But that's that's me being habitual doubter, even though I've come around now on McSorley. All right. The Georgia game was weird. A from wasn't great in the first half to non-offensive touchdowns against Mizzou,

who had some really funky outfits. It's weird to have a funky outfit now in 2018. Like you're going to be doing something. So wrongs half shirts. I wonder if anybody will do that. Probably not. Oklahoma didn't really get to them. That game was on pay-per-view the army game. The numbers, at least for Murray passing, weren't great. Look how many plays Oklahoma didn't really get to them. That game was on pay-per-view, the Army game. The numbers, at least for Murray, passing weren't great. Look how many plays Oklahoma didn't run in that game. And look at Hollywood Brown's numbers. Like, he didn't do anything in that game because they didn't run any plays because Army had the, I think, the football for like 47 minutes. It was nuts. But Oklahoma pulls that one out. And, you know, for all the Clemsoning stuff that I reference and always say it's unfair because we're starting to hear this, oh, it's going to be Bama, Georgia, Clemson and Ohio State.

Do you really like is this your first year watching college football? Do you really think that's all that's going to happen, that it's just going to be these four teams and that's going to be the playoff and none of this is going to get weird at any point? And now we're already writing off Oklahoma because we don't like that they yeah, you shouldn't have to go to overtime to beat Army at home, but a weird Army game in kind of the middle of the season with a shorter amount of time to prepare. It's not the most unheard of thing that's ever happened.

And I'm not ready to write off Oklahoma, but for all the Clemsoning talk, Oklahoming would be a term if Clemson's other title hadn't been 30 years ago, where Oklahoma's is more recent because Oklahoma, despite all the Big 12 love, has plenty of inexplicable losses, which again, almost all of these teams end up having. LSU, they're at five. They could lose two more games. I wouldn't be totally shocked about it. Their defense wasn't great last week against Tech, and I'm curious to see how they do against

Ole Miss, big receivers, their passing game. Ta'amu's been really good, but they gave up 418 yards total to La Tech, and I don't know if that's just because it's Louisiana Tech and they weren't taking them seriously. Notre Dame makes their switch at quarterback, which actually, you know, a little bit of my McSorley thing with Wimbush. I never really got the Wimbush passing. I just didn't. I didn't think it was crisp. It worked against Michigan. I didn't think it should have worked, but it did, and them making a change there did not surprise me. In book, they hadn't scored more than 24 points in any of the previous three wins. I remember reading a Notre Dame preseason thing, and it said, oh, you know, expect all quarterbacks to play.

And I thought, wait a minute, is that just a Brian Kelly joke? Because that's going to happen. And I think it was just because as great as Wimbush was running the football last year, especially with Josh Adams, and it was awesome. I mean, those guys are incredible running the football. You know, they put up a big, big number on Wake. And the final game that I want to get to is Stanford. Despite not being able to run the football hero Bryce Love, their comeback, and Costello was the big reason, a quarterback.

He's been terrific for them. But Oregon was the better football team. And Oregon has to be kicking themselves all week long because if you were asking me after this week to go, hey, give me an outside the top 10, maybe sneaky team that might be really good. I would have gone with Oregon because one, it looks like Herbert could be the number one overall pick at quarterback. He was outstanding and he tied a completion percentage record. It was a 35-year-old Pac-12 record for completion percentage in regulation at 92.6%.

And now, you know, look, people watching that game on Saturday are going, oh man, this guy looks filthy. 6'6". He can run a little bit, which, you know, doesn't mean a ton in the NFL, but at least we know he's athletic. And more surprisingly than Herbert looking terrific, I thought Oregon dominated both lines of scrimmage. And that doesn't happen against Stanford. It doesn't happen. I think there's like only one other game. I think it was that Washington game a couple of years ago where I was like, man, this is weird. Washington just pushed them all over the field, and that's what happened.

And then Oregon couldn't stop fumbling, and now Stanford's a top-ten team, and Oregon's on the outside, and I would tell you I think Oregon's a better football team. So let's talk with Joe Buck right after this. Hey, I just got a box of these, and I am pumped about it because I can tell it's good. You know it's good right away when you bite into it.

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Yeah. It's hard to mess up. Thank you. Thank you for turning your mic up. Is that me being too comfortable with myself four weeks in saying, thanks for turning your mic up? No, I like where this is going. Right. I should have done that earlier and be like, hey, I'm going to get you in this RX bar thing. RX bars are gluten-free, soy-free, gluten-free so in right now, by the way, especially living out here in LA and free of artificial flavors and preservatives. They're great for a number of occasions like breakfast on the go, a pre-workout snack or a 3 p.m. pick me up at the office. RX bar just debuted a new RX nut butter. Each single serve packet contains delicious, creamy nut butter with nine grams of high quality protein and comes in three flavors.

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Yeah, that's my deal. I'm all about the pouched almond butter stuff now. I'm just walking around town with just, hey, Rosillo, you get a pouch of almond butter? Yeah, bro, you know I got three on me. For 20% off your first order, visit rxbar.com forward slash dual, that's D-U-A-L, and enter the promo code dual at checkout. D-U-A-L and enter the promo code DUAL at checkout. I'm a fan and he knows I'm a fan, so I'm excited to talk with Fox number one guy, Joe Buck. There's a bunch of stuff that I want to get to, but I didn't think I would start with asking you how awesome was Cleveland the other night? Because that was a spectacle watching it at home. I can't imagine what it was like to be

in the building for that. Well, I mean, I've had a chance to be a part of a lot of cool moments in the regular season. You know, postseason kind of sits over in a different category. But when you take stock of what happened, first of all, there was this incredible swell of emotion for the guy to come in the game, Baker Mayfield, and then for him to come off the bench and change the feel of that game entirely

by changing one position and one guy affecting both sides of the ball. Man, it was awesome. Those fans have been through so much. They came so close to the Indians winning a couple years ago, and they haven't been. They had their football team taken away, and they come come back and they haven't been in the postseason since 2002 and all those bad draft picks and quarterbacks coming and going. And this guy, you know, they're pinning it all on Baker Mayfield.

He can't whiff on the overall number one pick. And at least after a half of football, it looks like they got the right guy. We'll see where it goes from here, but he changed the entire feel and tenor of an NFL game. Okay. You've been around this game a long time and for all the years of trying to figure out how these guys work, it's really easy to look at Hugh and go like, what the hell did you see in Tyrod? And why would you start with him? But we know that that's kind of how these football guys are wired. The same way Bill O'Brien went with Tom Savage instead of Deshaun Watson, who, you know, Watson was the guy last year. And it feels like we've already been through three guys this year between Donald Mahomes and Baker. And Mahomes is still there. Like when you are sitting

and you get to know these guys and you sit next to a Hall of Famer or Troy, is it that the NFL's finally becoming less stubborn? Or is there something that maybe those of us from the outside don't understand how important it is to maybe go with the vet in that locker room? Because it seems like so many of these coaches make the same predictable mistake, but I don't want to just dump on them and call them all dumb. I imagine there are things that I don't understand, almost like a manager in baseball messing with his bullpen. There's things that we don't know from the outside, but it just seems like, wait a minute,

how could you even play with the other guy for two games when Baker comes in and does this? Yeah, no, I actually agree with you a lot more than you would think. I'm more of a kind of roll-the-dice guy, but I think when it's you and you're the one sitting there and you're not hosting a podcast in this case and I'm not sitting in the booth and it's really not on our head. I think it's a lot tougher to make that call and to pull that string, because if you if you pull it too soon, you could ruin a guy. I mean, that happens all the time in baseball. You see a guy just tearing up the minor leagues. The name that pops to mind is Justice Sheffield of the Yankees. And I know he had an okay year this year, but you think, man, let's see, the Yankees need pitching,

and Justice Sheffield is their top guy. He's an electric left-hander. Bring him up. But you can also ruin a guy. And I think those organizations and the ones that are in charge of making that call ultimately are really scared to pull that lever. And because once they do, they can't really go back. And I think that's what factors in. You talk about managers that always like the veterans, head coaches like the veterans. It's a known quantity. He may not

be as dynamic on one end, but he's also not going to make a lot of the rookie mistakes. And one thing about Tyrod Taylor is he doesn't throw interceptions. So you don't have to worry about that. And maybe that goes into the thinking. But to me, if you're Hugh Jackson and you've gone, what, 1-31 your first two years, what do you have to lose? Let's see what he can do. And you've obviously seen this stuff in practice that you and I haven't seen. And you see how these guys react around him, that would be a tough lever not to pull.

And then to come out of that game and go, well, I got to see the video, I got to watch the film to determine who the next game starter is, that's like just pull the white string out of your chest and do the coach speak. That makes no sense. It kind of puts a damper over the whole thing. So I'm with you. It's easy for us though. It's not our jobs. And I think they tend to go the safe route. But I do think there's a similarity here with, you know,

a sport that I started in and that you've, you know, become the biggest name with and that's baseball and that there's nothing that's been more valuable to me than not even a full season in double-A baseball calling games, because I started to understand the grind of it. I started to understand that emotionally, these guys had to be almost less interested than I would be as a fan, you know, of say a major league team. Like, well, why could that guy just go 0 for 4 and not care? And it's like, well, because he can't care as much as you care, because if he does, he's going to be burnt out. But one of the things that I think we've seen with baseball,

and I wonder if this is happening with football, but for years it was like, okay, we'll get you single A, and then we'll see how you do a full season double A, and then we'll give you some seasoning in triple A, and then maybe four years in we call you up. And we've seen a complete overhaul of teams going, well, screw this. Like, why are we wasting a season where the guy could be at the major league level? And I understand arbitration and all that stuff. But it feels like sports in general have started to accept that maybe we were outdated in babying these guys

and realizing if you're talented, you're talented. And let's just get this over with and bring guys up. Because it definitely happened more in baseball, I'd say, the last, I don't know, seven to eight years. Yeah, I agree with that. I think these guys come up maybe in a weird way, a little bit more mature. I don't know if it's because of social media or whatever it is, but I know talking to Hugh Jackson and different guys in the Browns organization, just to stay with them for a minute, they

said, you know, you would think having the hard-knocked cameras around all day, every day would be unnerving to a young team, but they're so used to taking pictures and putting stuff out there and kind of already being in the public eye from being stars at their various colleges that they handled it well. They weren't really thrown off by the presence of microphones. You know, those guys are all mic'd up before their day starts, and then they've got cameras everywhere in the corner of the room or in their face. And they were more ready for the spotlight.

And maybe some of that filters into the actual on-field performance, too. I mean, I've got daughters. I see their Instagrams. I mean, I've got daughters. I see their Instagrams. I see friends of theirs' Instagrams. They all think they're, like, important because of how many follows they got. So if that's the case, these guys are ready. It'll be a junior at Gainesville, and it says public figure, and you go, what? Yeah, I mean, you know, what's the definition of an influencer in some ways all these guys come into the nfl or major league baseball to some degree if they were a

star high school college as influencers and i think they're a little bit ready for it that actually you talking about you being a double a is what my dad said to friends of his when he watched me go off to do AAA baseball. He's like, this is where Joe's going to figure out if he really loves it. This is where he's going to see the grind, the day-to-day. And if at the end of this year he loves it as much as he did going in, then I know this is going to be the right career for him, and he will. But if not, you know, you find out real fast when you're getting on bus trips, and this

was AAA, so there were plenty of plane rides, but you find out real fast how much you love being the announcer when you're up all night on a bus or arriving at 2 o'clock in the morning and then going right back to the park seemingly and doing a game.

There was something to kind of the sure step across the stream. But I think these guys are just leaping across it for the most part now. I go back and I'll look at like baseball players that I loved as a kid and I always look like the Wade Boggs stuff. And I think I don't want to lose everybody here with a Carney Lansford reference. But why would Wade Boggs after in single A El Elmira, 57 games, then single-A

Winston-Salem, 100-plus games, Bristol, so he's in double-A for 109, 113 games, then he hits 306 in Pawtucket at 22 years old, and he plays another 137 games in Pawtucket and hits 335, and guess what? He hits 350 his rookie year. So, you know, like what that wouldn't happen anymore. And I, and I know I'm using an example that I remember specifically, cause that's kind of when I first started getting into baseball, but I don't, I don't think that would happen anymore. And, and as much as everybody's protective of, you know, the basketball stuff, which I'm probably closer to with a draft than anything else, but I'm always kind of laughing at people like, so wait a minute. So what's going on with like,

anytime somebody leaves after a year and then he flames out, it's all, you know, he should have stuck around. And then you go, well, I guess it's all four year guys that are success stories. No, those are the second rounders that don't play. So I, you know, I guess I'm, I'm enjoying the fact that, you know, some of it's done because a coach is trying to save his ass too. Right. Where you go, Hey, let me just play the young guy here because now... It buys them time.

Sure, right. It buys Hugh Jackson time. Now that he's playing him, everything is sped up. You can always say, well, I've always got this waiting on the bench and let's really evaluate me or us as an organization when the guy comes in until then the clock doesn't really start but the minute he walked out on the field with whatever was a minute 52 to go in the first half the clock started ticking on Hugh Jackson and the Cleveland Browns and we'll see how good he and they Baker Mayfield and the Browns, can be. And if they do have a strong season, then it goes the other way.

Then you're Hugh Jackson getting a contract extension. But if it goes down, well, they're not getting rid of Baker Mayfield. They're going to get rid of the guy that is coaching him and try somebody else. I'm going to put you on the spot here a little bit, but who do you enjoy the most when it comes to those production meetings? And for those that may not all follow this, and I think it kind of blows some people's minds that don't know this, but you know,

the announcing crew will go and meet with the coaching staffs and they reveal some really interesting stuff. And if the relationship is great with the staff, they may be even more revealing than people can imagine. And, you know, it's just understood that you would use it at the right time during the broadcast. You know, you hear football guys all the time be like, oh, that was something they were going to try to do.

And he's not going to say it before it happens, but of all the years of doing it, what's, what's been the best experience in those pre-production meetings with the staff with regard to head coach alone? Yeah. Um, you know, it's funny. I used to have a long list of the ones we liked and a short list of the guys we didn't. And on the guys that we got nothing from was Bill Belichick. And I know that doesn't surprise you, but Bill Belichick has gone from the bottom of, really, I think, a list of 32 guys to one of the most interesting guys that we talked to. And I don't know if that comes from trust, or I don't know if that comes from, who knows? The planets have aligned on certain days, and he's willing to talk. Now, he's not going to give you a lot on his team, which is really why we're there.

But if you start talking about NFL history, you start talking about philosophy, or Troy brings up something about the passing game, you could sit there for hours and listen to Bill Belichick, and you walk out of there, and I don't spend a lot of time with him. I don't do a lot of Patriots games. You walk out of there, you go, yep, I get it. Now I know why this is the guy's life. But the ones that you think would be the toughest, Mike Zimmer is a no BS guy, but he will sit

there and he will tell you everything about every player on his roster and be brutally honest. Because for some reason he likes me and he was on the same team with Troy as a young coach and he trusts Troy. And he knows that whatever information he gives us, we're going to use his background and not say, hey, everybody, you know, before the kickoff, you can't believe what Mike Zimmer said about Stacey Coley. I mean, they know that they know we're going to protect the information. And I think for some guys, and I don't think he cares, but for some guys, they use it smartly as an opportunity to kind of go, hey, I'll give these guys something. is an opportunity to kind of go, hey, I'll give these guys something, and if something happens over the course of the next few weeks and they're asked about me,

I'm going to get the benefit of their doubt because they know that I'm open with them. I think there's a little gamesmanship going on there. Mike McCarthy is fantastic with us. No kidding. You're naming all the guys. And Coughlin? I mean, you went three for three on guys I would think would be difficult.

Coughlin was unbelievable. Like what? three for three on guys I would think would be difficult. Tom Coughlin was unbelievable. Like what? What specifically, like, do you remember going, wow? Well, most of it, like when I started, I remember one of the, I had a Rams game, and Chuck Knox was still coaching. Are we talking you starting, starting like at 25 calling NFL games? Yeah. And, you know, you meet with some guys and it's like, well, what are you looking at this week, Coach? Well, we're going to try to run the ball and we're going to try and stop the run.

And you're like, you put the pencil down. This is the biggest waste of time of all time. And Coughlin will say, you know, here's who's playing good on my team, and I realize he's no longer coaching. But I'm telling you this because you would think he would be the tightest guy. He would say, here's what we're going to try to do. Here's where they're vulnerable.

Here's, you know, why I think this corner struggles, because he can't bail on receivers. He gets beat on press coverage. We can go right around him. I mean, there are certain guys that you would think would be so tight-lipped that are so open, and if you use their information wisely and almost make it your own, you've got the keys to the kingdom. If you burn them on one of those, you'll never get anything from that guy again

or anybody else, so you have to be careful with what you do with the information. Yeah, you're right. And you're in it long enough. And I think you're standing in the game and doing it this long. It is a reason why a Belichick probably comes around. You know, Troy was Zimmer doesn't surprise me at all. Cause all the former Cowboys that I've worked with at ESPN love Zimmer, love them.

Cause he's just, you know, no nonsense and knew where they stood with them. Right. And I know that, you know, we didn't do it when i did college game day radio but we would be around when it would be the tv production meeting and then i would get each coach individually but it wasn't trust me for for our purposes it wasn't like hey rossillo we're gonna really try to you know beat them on the edges you know it wasn't that kind of stuff um but there would be especially in the sec there'd be certain coaches that would be really wary of like an ex-SEC quarterback.

So like if it was a Jesse Palmer type, that guy would think, well, I don't want to tell him anything because Jesse's going to tell Spurrier when Spurrier was a South Carolina. And it's like, which is crazy. It's crazy. And that's happened a couple of times with us. And I don't think I'm speaking out of school by my, you know, Mike Tomlin one time was,

was really guarded when the Steelers were about to play the Cowboys. And the reason being their head coach was Jason Garrett, who was Troy's backup for, you know, years in Dallas. And all you have to do is know Troy Aikman for five minutes and you go, this guy's got more integrity in his little finger than 95% of the people you're going to meet in our business. And you just know he's not taking information he's getting from a head coach and turning around as if he's still somehow connected to the team's fortunes and telling the Dallas Cowboys what's coming their way. I mean, you would have absolutely zero integrity and you would be found out. I think that stuff gets out. No, I think you're right because it's, it's not that many guys. And if

you kept burning people, um, you know, really screw up your whole thing. I, you know what I always think is funny. And I know that you and I, I think we talked about this in Houston when you came on with Danny and I, and, you know, I was going through some stuff last night, um, and getting ready for this. And I can't, it's almost so overdone now about the, Oh, I don't like Joe Buck article that I, I like it's, it's swung too far. Like at first it was kind of funny. And then I noticed that Esquire did two articles on it, one this year and then one, two years ago, like they did two and three years. And I don't want to turn this into like, Hey, what's it like to, but can, can we collectively get over this and realize how good you are at your job? And

then everybody that knows you actually really likes you. Like it's, it's such, there's other guys that I'm like, eh, that guy's kind of a bad guy or that guy's kind of a hack. I find it fascinating that you've become sort of the poster child for the, I'm mad at the national announcer thing. And now I think it's almost too played out and I'm almost ashamed to bring it up other than 90% of what came up on Google was all about this crap again. Yeah, it gets old. Um, have I annoyed you already with going down that road? No, no, not at all. In fact, I think there's value in talking about it because the office that set that interview up for me, and I spent two hours on the phone with that guy,

and he was great. He was fine. I have no problem with it. But I called the publicist afterward, and I said, I know what this article is going to be. And it's been written 54 freaking times. By them two years ago. I couldn't believe it. It's so old and it's so dated and it's, you know, a lot of it. And,

and it's, it's almost like the coach speak thing, like pull a string on my chest and I'll tell you the story. I mean, it comes from baseball. You hear your local guys. I show up, I'm excited for both teams.

People hate the announcer. That's about the summary, the quickest summary I can give. I don't get sad when one team hits a home run, and I don't pull a groin when the other team hits a home run because I'm not paid by either team. And people aren't used to hearing that.

But consequently, they think that, you know, I'm then rooting against their team. And I think that seeps kind of into the perception. I actually said to the guy that set that up. I'm like, you know, I'm just so tired of this, this topic that I think the more I talk about it, and I'm not saying this with regard to you, I'm happy to talk about it. But the more I do these articles, the more you just give weight to stuff that kind of lives on Twitter. I mean, I don't think Twitter's a bad thing. I really don't. But if... Well, you quit it for a while, right? You quit it for a while, though.

I go in and out, and I enjoy it when I'm on it. but when lazy writers in the postseason write about, oh, Twitter's enraged because Joe Buck's rooting against the Yankees, it's just such an easy, dumb article. And so simply explained, but I'm to the point now where it's like, the more I talk about it, the more weight it gets and it just doesn't, it doesn't matter to me anymore. And I think that's kind of been a good part of my life is, um, I, I just don't care. Like I used to care, not, not, not that I don't care about the important stuff, but I don't care about the,

the irrelevant, you know, ha ha, you hate my team, you suck, you're your dad's son stuff. It just gets, I've done it for almost 30 years now at Fox. I mean, this is, what, year 25. I'm signed for five years. By the end of this thing, it will have been a great run, whatever the end is. Tonight, five years, I don't know when the end is coming. But whatever it is, it wasn't because my dad was the Cardinals announcer and it wasn't because he worked at CBS in 1990. If I sucked,

truly sucked, I wouldn't be doing this for as long as I'm doing it. And so I have to be able to put my head on my pillow and remember that. Sometimes it's hard, especially in October. My wife, who I've been married to for four years now, is like, God, you are just a beast in October. And the reason is because I'm walking into Wrigley Field and people are MFing me on my way in because they think I'm rooting against the Cubs. And it pisses me off because I'm not. And it gets old.

And I don't know, when you get hit over the head enough times with something, uh, either you, you just kind of give up or you fight back. And, and I think I've kind of just given up. Uh, you know what I think? And I, you know, I, I know some of what it's like, but certainly not, Hey, the NFL game of the week or, you know, the, the Saturday baseball game. Cause I think I've told you this before, but certainly not, Hey, the NFL game of the week or, you know, the, the Saturday baseball game. Cause I think I've told you this before, but I remember, you know, in the early two thousands, when I was still dickhead from Boston guy who just thought that you and McCarver hated the Red Sox. And then I do my local radio show and we take calls and we complain about you all the time. And then guess what? Like I, I did some national stuff. I did some play by play. I had some more

perspective and I go, man, what an immature punk I was to even have that thought process. But I would have never, I don't think I ever would have been somebody like, oh, you know, a good call in the eighth inning, Buck, and tweeted you or something like that, because I don't, you know, when you're doing it, I always think it's a little weird when people in professions start going at each other that way. And that's not really what that medium

is for. That's just like, you know, I've likened it to the complaint box at Nordstrom. You're not going to pop that open and goed it to the complaint box at nordstrom you're not going to pop that open and go hey my service was really great you're not going to read that little right but you know the the nepotism thing at the beginning you're right like if it were and i'm not just saying this because you know i like you and i think you're great and we have some mutual friends but in the beginning that's that's always a as much as it's an advantage it's also the thing that everybody's going to hold against you but then you're like okay well now i've been doing a couple decades and everybody that does it that's in the business is like's always, as much as it's an advantage, it's also the thing that everybody's going to hold against you. But then you're like, okay, well, now I've been doing it a couple

decades. And everybody that does it that's in the business is like, you know, Joe's so good that you kind of don't realize how good he is. Like, he's so smooth in any situation that it almost seems like he doesn't have to give as much effort as somebody else because he's just so natural. And I think that's where your talent stands out the most. And I do think that there are times when, you know, maybe, you know, again, I don't know you that well, but I think everybody in this business, once they do kind of get to this moment where they go, it's not the Zen thing, or maybe it is, who knows, where you just go, hey, you know what? Fuck it.

I'm pretty good at this. And life can be simpler. I didn't know you could, I didn't know I was allowed to say fuck it on this thing. So that's good. This is the ringer pot. Yeah. I didn't know I was allowed to say fuck it on this thing. So that's good.

This is the ringer pod, yeah. So I contend that the only guy who truly does not give a rat's ass what people think about him is Barkley. And I admire it so much, even when they're on location. It's one thing to hide in a studio and say whatever you want to say because you're really not ever out there. But when Barkley's, you know, they're doing their post-game pregame or post-season pregame and they're amongst the fans and he's getting ridden and all that, he's genuinely able to laugh at it. And I admire that so much. And I'm to the point where I think I can kind of laugh at it more than it bothers me.

But I think, you know, if you were to talk to my therapist, a lot of this stems from, you know, how I came onto the earth as kind of a surprise kid. And I was the fat kid in the playground that I was picked on. I mean, you can go back as far as you want. And I think I've always tried to make people like me. And the hard thing for me has always been not everybody likes me. And then when you read it or it comes onto your phone and it's some guy, it doesn't matter who it is. And I'm not going to go to the common refrain of, you know, guy living in his grandma's basement thing. It could be anybody.

But when you read that and it comes onto your phone, it feels really personal. And I think it takes me back in my fragile ego. So I'm like, well, you know what I do wrong? I just call the home run and I'm doing the best job I can, but I've done this my whole life. And I think, like you said, I'm, I'm as comfortable calling a game as I am ordering Starbucks. And sometimes that works for me. And sometimes that works against me. And if I screw something up, I think I can finagle my way out of it. So when you feel like you can get out of whatever trouble your dumb brain gets you into, it can create a little bit of, you know, it sounds like I'm not trying. It's the opposite.

I love what I do so much, and I love the games and the excitement of the crowd being loud and crazy. It's not about me. Nobody's tuning in. Nobody's at home going, oh, hey, honey, what game is Joe Buck doing tonight? You know, they want to know, they want to know what their teams when their team's playing and where it's on and then just don't get in the way.

And that's kind of how I like to do my career. I want to close with, um, and even though this isn't a late July talk show topic, um, because it always is, but every, every now and then something comes along in baseball where baseball is desperate to have more than just the home audience interested in the storyline. And this has gone on for a little while. I think Aaron Judge was that for the Yankees. They're like, can Judge save baseball? And he's this big charismatic guy, this home run hero in New York City.

And I remember just doing the show going, I can't do a ton of air judge topics that are going to connect with 300 affiliates. We have the Japanese Babe Ruth here and doesn't have the personality of maybe some gregarious guy or whatever. Like that's still, I think, would have been a national storyline that would have been topical throughout an entire season. And yeah, maybe it's him being healthy. I'm starting to come to the point where it feels like the baseball, the daily consciousness of baseball, at least nationally, evaporated so quickly, which isn't to say it's not still an amazing product regionally, because it is if you look at all the numbers everywhere. But you can't concede anything if you're a business.

You can't concede something. If you're a business, you can't concede something. If you're Rob Manford, but I don't know that that storyline even exists that then changes the course of where baseball is in the day to day. Yeah. I, I think I'm not, I don't disagree with that.

I think we find that out in October when we show up to do these world series and you have to get six or seven games before it becomes water cooler conversation. Maybe seven games. But I think we've been really lucky the last couple of years. Certainly at Fox, we had... The playoffs have been incredible. Think how great these playoffs have been, but now it's the blip, right? It's the moment more than it's, you know, not to

interrupt. I just, I don't think you're right to bring that up and remind everybody we've been so lucky. These have been so entertaining, these playoff games. Anyway. Yeah. And they've been the right scripts. You know, you've got the Cubs winning for the first time since 1908. Then you've got the Astros, but in this incredible series against the Dodgers, it does feel like baseball is stronger than ever on a regional basis, but the national stories are hard to sell. And it goes back to what we talked about with regard to my career. I know talking to directors that direct both a local package and a national package, that when they're doing a local package, it's all about that one team.

They don't even show the other team's bullpen unless somebody's up. Nobody cares in the Cardinal audience who the Mets manager really is or what they've got going on in their minor league system. It's all about my team, and if my team's out of it, give me a reason to watch. And, you know, I don't know that that's certainly not good for the national stories. The local stories are really good. And then you just have to hope to get lucky in the postseason. And thankfully, like I said, the last couple of seasons we've gotten lucky.

But Otani gets hurt because he's playing in Southern California, and by the time their games are on and over everybody's asleep on the east coast and and nobody's really talking about it uh mike trout's the best player almost maybe in any sport that i cover and you know banford talked about him not marketing himself i just think he's never seen and and that's a shame because this guy's an incredible person and player and whatever. But I agree with you. The national stories are

few and far between. You know, I could keep going all day. I know you're busy, Joe, so I really appreciate it. And I've always enjoyed the weekends and as we gear up for the playoffs and everything. And if Esquire calls again, you can ask him in advance, like gear up for the playoffs and everything. And, um, if Esquire calls again, you can ask him in advance, like, are we going to do this again in 2019?

Yeah, we'll just do it every two years. Uh, Joe Buck understands why you hate him. There's nothing, there's nothing when you're Joe Buck that, that says, God, there's an article I want to read. Then when you click on that and you see the word hate in your name. So, yeah, I think I'm done with those. Sounds good, man. Hopefully we'll talk to you again soon, all right? All right, Ryan. Thanks, John.

That's Dual Threat for this week, and I hope you enjoyed it. A little more college football balancing it out. And make sure you keep rating, reviewing, and subscribing. We were number one in the sports category all of last week. So, good stuff. Good start to one in the sports category all of last week. So good stuff. Good start to dual threat here at The Ringer.