The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Kevin Clark on NFL Free Agency | Dual Threat With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: March 21, 2019

Russillo talks with Kevin Clark of 'The Ringer NFL Show' about the Giants trading Odell Beckham Jr. to the Browns, Antonio Brown to the Raiders, dead money, why players rarely make it to free agency, NFL draft rumors, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

dual threat free agency trade season recap this almost feels a little nba-ish from the ringer one of uh guys i've really enjoyed working with here kevin clark great on football you can read all this stuff i was reading it last night and we going to just spend some time breaking all this stuff down. We may not even have enough time. Starting off with, they call it a pre-roll. Yahoo Daily Fantasy is coming out of All-Star Weekend. Hot every day. They're running a zero management fee fantasy basketball contest. That means Yahoo is making nothing on this contest.

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Yes. Yes, it did. Enjoy a delicious cocktail with Belvedere Vodka today, and remember to always drink responsibly. Okay, Kevin, a lot of stuff here. A lot of stuff to get to. And I'm going to try to do this while I'm also watching Vermont, Florida State. A little annoyed that this UVM thing, nobody mentions that I'm there.

I don't get this kind of love. You know, it really sucks. You don't feel like, are you mentioned on the Wikipedia page? Yeah, I am. Notable alumni. Okay, so you're almost there. But they put Dierks Bentley in there, who is a good friend, name drop.

But he was there for a year. Yeah. I'm surprised they even knew that. What are you looking for as far as recognition from Vermont? ESPN, when they did Notable Alums, not have it be Ben Affleck who left after a semester. Sure.

He was there a semester. And he said, you know what? It's freezing. I'm going to go to LA. We'll see how that goes. That's a W for Ben. It is. Okay.

John Dewey, the philosopher. Do you remember him? Yeah, sure. You do? No, you don't. So he got mentioned. So on the ESPN one, although I don't know, maybe ESPN did this thing where they didn't put anybody that worked there as alums. There's a rumor that that's the way they went.

So that's okay. I can accept that. But get it right. The only test of that is to look at when Northwestern's in the tournament or one of those big places. That might be why they don't do media members because if they had to do it for Northwestern, if they got in. Yeah. They did a couple years ago. No. I think they were good last year. Yeah. They did a couple years ago. No.

I think they were good last year. I'd heard something about it. I don't know. So, yeah, the Northwestern alone thing would have been brutal. I need you to know that John Dewey, according to Wikipedia,

is the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century. So, step up your game a little bit. Okay, but, if I'm being honest, it feels like back then, philosophy in general, it was a weaker field. He's never even been invited to the Heisman House.

Right. I've stood out more. You know what I know? Is that Ben Affleck has probably never been to the Last Chance Saloon. Certainly can't even go now. I don't think Ben Affleck ever was part of a raid by the police of Burlington for an 18-0 overnight for Alpha Chi. That was the last night of the Blarney Stone. I was running the place.

I'm like, fire permit? What are you, guys, serious? Occupancy? You guys have never enforced this before. Okay, so now we're going to go down. I'm sure that he's never... I don't think John Dewey ever went to Country Car. I know Dierks Bentley did.

He's a big... I'm reading this more. He's a big democracy guy. His big thing was belief in democracy. That makes him a conservative of Vermont back then. Well, at least in the Burlington area. There's really two Vermonts. But you know what? That's not why people downloaded this one today. Let's talk free agency in the trade season. Let's do it. If there's an overriding theme in this, I'm going to suggest that you're just anti these trades.

You're anti this. You have almost a mission statement, and that is that good football players usually mean what? They're good. They're really, really good, and you want them on your team. I was reminded of something that I did not remember writing. Happens in this industry

all the time. I sat down with John Dorsey, the GM of the Browns, last season. Not Dewey. John Dorsey. I'm down with John Dorsey, the GM of the Browns last season. Not Dewey. Not Dewey, John Dorsey. I'm sure Dorsey loves democracy. But I sat down with him and he was talking about how trades have become more valuable than free agency. And the reason, and obviously that foreshadowed what happened these last couple of weeks with them getting Odell Beckham. And the reason is because, A, every trade you have is a guy who's under contract. And by definition of a star's contract in the NFL, it's going to be a manageable one. Because as soon as a star signs a contract, it becomes a bargain. The cap keeps rising. We talk

about it all the time, probably talk about it too much. But it's just a situation where if you can get any good player in a trade for reasonable value, it's usually going to work out. And that's why I think what the Giants did and what the Steelers did is a massive mistake. Let's start with the Giants just because I think that one's harder to understand. Because if you had these reservations about Odell last summer, which they did, because I remember working in studio, I happened to be back in Bristol and New York doing some of those shows. And it was right when all this stuff was coming out.

I do remember this too. Like in new money, the agent was suggesting like they didn't want to include the existing year. So they're trying to get the average. They were like, there's a lot of these debates that become public. And with football, it's more complicated maybe to really pay attention

to what they're actually saying. So you actually give in, okay? You don't just ride them out on the last year. You give in. You give them the money in that first year. And then six months later, you change your mind. So what happened in those six months? Did the little Wayne sit down?

Okay, I can understand the front office not liking that. But he already did the boat thing. I mean, you know what I'm saying? They knew that he would push the boundaries a little bit. Was it 21 million? Total in 2018. How do you do that for a year of him? That's what I don't understand. 12 games. Not even 16 games.

12 games. It is mind-boggling. Dave Gettleman comes out and says, just a football decision. That makes even less sense. If I was a Giants fan, I'd walk off a cliff if I was hearing that. Dave Gettleman is the same guy who renounced the rights to Josh Norman a couple years ago for no reason other than that he didn't think that Josh Norman wanted to be a member of the team. That seems to be the case with Odell Beckham. On the other hand, Odell Beckham comes out and says,

oh, well, Eli can't throw the ball down the field. Literally, Odell threw the ball down the field on his reverse pass longer than Eli had during that season. That pass was longer than any Eli pass in the air. For a year. Right. For a year. Eli Manning could not throw the ball 23 yards down the field. Does that make it right, though, to say it? Does it make it right to say it?

Yes, it does. Okay, all right. Because I think that you need to do anything you can to get the Giants to realize that Eli Manning is not the answer. Eli Manning, they paid his bonus. You have to figure out a way to not have Eli Manning be your quarterback. Is there an anti-Gettleman thing because he sounds like a popcorn salesman at a Lowell Spinners game? I feel like there's some voice prejudice with Gettleman.

I've sat down with Dave Gettleman. I actually quite like our interaction. I think he's very smart. I think he does some things. I think one of the most innovative things, I know this sounds crazy, that he did in Carolina was he didn't fire anybody. He didn't fire anybody.

He kept the existing structure. And he explained it to me. He said, if you fire people, you lose a year because you just have to get everybody acclimated and all that. You lose a season. And so I think he has some good ideas. I think that he obviously built a good team in Carolina.

He didn't draft Cam Newton. That was Herney. A couple of the other guys league he's playing in as far as a running back second overall training odell not necessarily understanding the cap going all in on eli manning which again is just totally my you haven't even brought up landon collins yeah well the land landon collins was defensible until you you insist on trading for jabil peppers who's just worse landon collins that's that's the strange thing there But he's also been just sort of aggressively, aggressively anti, not just analytics,

but modern football. I mean, he's made fun of people who even suggested they should trade down. I mean, the whole, his- I thought everybody was on the same page on trading down. That's why it's so hard to trade down now. Not Dave Gettleman.

Maybe he'll trade up. He was trying to go from two to one last year to get Barkley at 1. Lock it in. No suspense that way. Yeah. Gettleman, I do think we've probably swung too far. Dave Gettleman is not the worst GM in the NFL. But he's being portrayed that way right now.

He's trending towards it. Because there's so many things that I want to get to there. So you and I, just the finances alone, if you liked him enough six months ago to finally go, hey, we know what we're dealing with. We know the stuff that we put up with. Why do you do that and then get off of it a year? At least keep him a second year or something. You know what I mean?

Like at least make the money from the first year. And then people can say, well, that gets this money off and the cap goes up, all these different things. You're like, yeah, but that's almost in a weird – it's not two years of money, but it's one plus year worth of money for the full season. It doesn't – I don't know. Also, I mean, Jimmy Grapple made $41 million in cash last year. And the reason you give him $41 million even though he played, what, a game and a half is because you're going to keep him around for six years

and that's going to lower the cap number going forward. That's how this works. So to pay the money and then not keep him around for his bargain years is absolutely ridiculous. Okay. So that's an L there for the Giants. Now the Antonio Brown one, you also are, I think there's a similar philosophy, even if the transactions are different here from you, from me, which is that I would have, I think he is such a bargain at that contract and that now with the raiders contract is a little bit different i wouldn't necessarily and that's the reason by the way that teams are basically out on him is because he insisted on all that new money and he did it

late too by the way it was almost like antonio brown's like wait a minute what can i do yeah yeah he's like i can just tell people i don't want to go to the Bills. Right, exactly. And like, oh, wait, by the way, Mr. Big Chest, I'd like some new cash. Because that wasn't part of the original message. I'd like to be the highest paid wide receiver. Remember, he wanted it all guaranteed, too. He wanted it all guaranteed. He wanted to be the new Kirk Cousins. So it's strange to me when we start kind of thinking about the superstars,

and we've talked about it before, how the middle class basically sets the agenda for contracts in the NFL because J.J. Watt never reaches free agency. Antonio Brown never reaches free agency. So the middle class sets the agenda, the C.J. Mosleys and the Trey Flowers, and then a guy will get a little bit more if they're a superstar in restructuring the next year. So Antonio Brown is going to make less against the captain C.J. Mosley this year. And I think that if you're an NFL team, you do everything you can to get Antonio Brown on your team.

I understand that he carries with him risk. I understand that the situation in Pittsburgh was too far gone. I understand that he pegged his quarterback with a football. But if I was the Philadelphia Eagles, I would try to take Antonio Brown. If I was the Kansas City Chiefs, I'd try to take Antonio Brown. I just think that there's value there. So what it sounds like, though, from you, and you might be right, is that there's no such thing as a true distraction or distraction that actually prevents

you from winning games. Like whatever, a thing can be a distraction, but you seem to challenge the idea of the distraction. The math is ever enough that you think it's worthwhile moving on from good players. I think that. Is that right? Is that fair? Because it was in a couple different articles. I sensed the theme. Okay. I think the distraction culture is way overblown. I think that distraction, first of all, the phrase distraction is sort of a catch-all for anything that a coach doesn't like. It could be anything. It could be, you know, Josh Rosen liking books or whatever was a distraction last year, if you remember that debate.

Fucking guy. I mean, so many of these things are branded distractions. I don't know what a distraction is. if you remember that debate. Fucking guy. I mean, so many of these things are branded distractions. I don't know what a distraction is. Antonio Brown pegging his quarterback with football and leaving practice and then showing up on Sunday and assuming he was going to play, I guess that's as big of a distraction as you can get. That one felt a little bad.

You know what I mean? That's distracting. So whenever I hear somebody say, and there's this big, and I've been over it before, this support for players, like, by all means necessary now. Just do whatever you can do.

Do your thing. And Antonio Brown ended up getting a win out of this, right? Because the most important thing was to get out of Pittsburgh and get the money guaranteed. And he got both those things. And, by the way,

not have your new team overpay. So the Raiders are going to be better because they only got rid of a third and fifth round pick if they traded one of their first the raiders would be worse off so antonio brown won in basically every situation here but i feel like if you're all the way in in full support of antonio brown you're also in favor of quitting like he bailed on his team when he says that tomlin sent him home, that's so technically yes, but nobody goes to Antonio Brown and be like, man, everything's been great.

We love having you around. Great week of prep, but we just don't want to play you for no specific reason. So he's selling that. Like, he can get what he wants, and he still could have been wrong in going about it. Yeah, so that is an extreme example. I would have serious questions about that week, okay? But backing up

on the whole distraction thing, there's 53 guys on an NFL team. There's 90 in training camp. And I think we overrate how much anybody cares what another person is doing. I mean, I just think unless the person is just like,

you know, has a chainsaw and they're chopping wood in the middle of the locker room and then they're going around with the chainsaw, threatening people. Like most people, guys just don't notice what anybody else is doing. Some players, I remember, you know, I remember talking, I think it was Brandon LaFell. And he was like, you know, the amazing thing about Tom Brady is he knows everybody's name.

And I was kind of laughing. I was like, that seems normal. He's like, no, it's not normal. It's not normal to know everybody's name. Like sometimes you just have no idea. I was in an NFL facility during the fall and I saw a linebackers coach. And a couple of players walked by and the linebackers coach looked back and says, I have no idea who those players are. And he was kind of screwing with me, but I truly believe that. And so I feel like, and obviously I think they were probably just guys who would just sign or maybe they're even workout guys, but he, you know, it goes to the larger

point that NFL teams are much more disconnected than we think. Okay. This is, this is a great point that I do. Had you finished? I mean, that's the general gist is that it is really hard for like, you know, a, a defensive back to go, I'm not going to play my best because Antonio Brown is really upset. Okay, this is a really good point. And ultimately where I wanted this conversation to go, because I feel like you can be a distraction in football and it isn't as big of a deal. If you're the worst and it's a baseball team,

it's just a different dynamic. It's kind of one of your roommates. For basketball, it's not the 162. It's not as long calendar-wise, but it's still this traveling band of guys. It's only 15 guys. And with football, you travel eight times. You know, even when you're home, it's almost like a nine to five in a way. And for a lot of the guys, they're in, they're out, they when you're home, it's almost like a nine to five in a way. And for a lot of the guys,

they're in, they're out, they get the workout in, stay in the hotel, what, Friday, even if it's a home game, right? Yep. And is it Friday and Saturday or is it just Saturday? So, home, it depends on the team.

So, teams travel on Saturday in the NFL. But if it's a home game, it's usually just Saturday. Yeah. All right. And it's usually just a hotel by the airport or something. Right. So that I,

what I'm saying is, is even though there's things about some of the things that you wrote, where it felt like it felt like reading it, where it's, well, look, Antonio Brown, like,

how can you get mad at him? Yeah. Okay. Well, there's things I can not like about it, but he got his money and that's fine. Or why would you move on from Antonio Brown? I think sometimes this stuff, over the years,

it becomes untenable at times. It felt that way with the Giants. But you got me to think about what does a distraction really mean? And it's not really saying is what's the value of distraction. I think it's what's the negative? Is the negative, have we, and that's kind of your point, and I'm starting to look at it a little differently because football's different.

It's different. Like, there can be four or five guys that are total assholes, and it may not really matter. So are you saying if you're a team moving forward, Kevin Clark's team would be full of bad dudes? No, I'm not saying that because I think that can really easily go in the wrong direction. It's a Edwards thing. Herm used to always look at us and he'd go, give me four. I can handle four.

Usually on different sides of the ball. Unless he said five. Usually on different sides of the ball. And you also don't want them hanging out together too much. And as long as they're showing up to meetings and practice. Again, the Antonio Brown Week 17 thing is a massive problem that I would have a lot of reservations about.

But I think generally, I would rather be a distracted, talented team than a very undistracted, untalented team. And I think you have to take the go with the bad, especially the receiver position. We've seen that for the last 20 years. It pays off to take a flyer on those guys. Make it low risk.

Again, I have serious reservations about giving Antonio Brown that much money, especially guaranteed. But it's an NFL contract. In two years, it won't be worth anything. And so I do think that there is real, real value in some of these quote-unquote distractions. Remember, the Seahawks pasted the Broncos in the Super Bowl a couple days after two of their best players literally punched each other in the face of practice. What's that story again? It was Percy Harvin, Doug Baldwin. They don't like each other.

Percy Harvin's a good one, though, because every team would be like, don't worry, we got this. Yeah, and then he had a kick return in the Super Bowl. Yeah, but he—oh, that was right, because it was that they gave him all that money, they traded for him, too, and people tried to justify that because of that kick return after he'd done almost nothing that it was actually worth it. Yeah, he punched a guy. That's interesting. Yeah, but that was not a good transaction. He kept it light.

No, that was another one of those teams that was like, we know how to use Percy Harvin. Right. And then they traded for Jim McGram. The Seahawks sort of figured out the modern NFL really quickly, but then went too far. Well, this sounds, I feel like there needs to be a follow-up. I just think they understood that there were inefficiencies in the trade market.

They understood that. Yeah, but the Harvin deal was wrong. No, no, no, no. That's what I'm saying. So was the Jimmy Graham deal. They lost both those trades. They had the right idea in both instances with the wrong vehicle,

Harvin and Graham. Max Unger was in that trade. Love Max Unger. Yeah, the Max Unger. I saw the other day because Max Unger retired because of injuries. Someone dubbed it the Max Unger trade because he ended up being the best player at that deal. The Saints won that deal.

So the Seahawks obviously won a Super Bowl. They built one of the best teams in the history of football relative to their era. But some of the moves they madeks, obviously, won a Super Bowl. They built one of the best teams in the history of football relative to their era. But some of the moves they made were, again, the right idea with the wrong execution. They understood the cap better than anybody. They understood the Russell Wilson thing. I've always heard that there was always a theory that maybe they were going to be the team that tried to do the discount quarterback thing forever. But then Russell just got so good they couldn't even consider it.

They actually went a year earlier than they had to, too, didn't they, on the Russell Wilson thing? Because I remember when I looked at that. Well, he hired his baseball agent. He was trying to sort of – I think Russell was trying to think about maybe kind of changing the structure of contracts. He was the first guy to try to be like, maybe we should change the structure of contracts.

Didn't necessarily change the game, but he did get some good money. He got paid, and I think I remember that because when the news happened, I go, wait, they didn't have to do this. But that's, quarterbacks are different in that there seems to be a baseline understanding of, like, this is the least we could pay you, meaning it's a lot of money. And the Nick Foles thing,

I think the justification for it is absurd, but I also get, like, that's what's going to happen. I know that Dak's going to end up making a lot of money. Right. I mean, you get in this situation where, like, you know, the Seahawks signed Matt Flynn, for instance, but I think it was what, $8 million or something like that, which is in the grand scheme. Was that the money that was guaranteed?

Because I think it was 13. Yeah. Was it? On paper, though, not fake money. Yeah. I think it may have paid him $8 million that one year they paid for him. The first year, the year that Russell Wilson started. And that, in the grand scheme of things, is a discount quarterback.

And when I talked to Kevin Demoff, the Rams president, a couple weeks ago during the Super Bowl, he was saying the Nick Foles idea, the first Nick Foles to the Rams idea, was that they would pay him, what, eight or nine or ten, and that would be a discount quarterback. And so I think that everyone has different definitions of a discount quarterback. I think the Nick Foles is a huge overpay because they weren't really negotiating against anybody but I understand that in a in a vacuum when these next wave of quarterback contracts come up Nick Foles will be seen as a discount quarterback uh that was 10 million for Flynn guaranteed 26 for the fake headline how much cat he's 10 so he made how much in the first year do we know

you're probably look I'm not I'm not I just remember I thought it was double figures that for the fake headline. How much, 10 or so he made, how much in the first year? Do we know? You're probably, look, I'm not, I'm not trying, I just remember, I thought it was double figures that he made because I remember when they were like,

oh, this competition's wide open and they spent this money on Flynn and they drafted Russell. We're like, oh, whatever, dude. And then you're like, oh, wait, Russell Wilson's going to be awesome.

And then Matt Flynn just went right back to the, right back to the Packers. I think Matt Flynn, Wait a minute, are we doing a regretful Matt Flynn take right now? No, we're not doing it.

We're doing... I think Matt Flynn lived his best life. Yeah, I mean, nobody's better than my man Kevin Cobb. Nobody. And everybody in West Texas

knows how I feel about Kevin Cobb. So, I've run into guys. I've run into his friends. Matt Flynn made $8 million flat in 2012. Ah!

Look at you. But that was guaranteed if it's8 million flat in 2012. Ah, look at you. Yeah. But that was guaranteed if it's 10. Yeah. Right. So they got out of there pretty easily. All I remember. Well, especially when your other quarterback's 300 grand. Well, the Seahawks, the long snapper in Seattle made more money than Russell Wilson.

The other one, the Super Bowl. Yeah. It was the greatest thing because, you know, you could sit there and go, oh, we need to do that. Well, yeah, your first rounder is still 5 million more than than that is i mean that's one of the most tavares jackson made a lot more than maybe the greatest value in the history of modern sports russell wilson's rookie contract oh great question or did somebody volunteer that i'm missing chris long every college chris long gave his money away player ever was the greatest value

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CLR, making the world a little cleaner. Okay, more with Kevin Clark from The Ringer. Where's the money going then? If we started this offseason with all of this cap space, and we know there's a cap floor, and we know that things get creative, and I need to make sure I ask the most important follow-up to this after you give us your philosophy. Because there's one thing that you said there where it's, wait a minute, why is J.J. Watt making less of some of these other guys? Well, if you never get to free agency, there's some cost control.

It's up to the player to go ahead and do that, even though they all love bitching on Twitter all the time, which is kind of like when football players bitch on Twitter about contracts for baseball and basketball players. One, it's basic math. And two, it's like having beachfront property on one Hawaiian Island, looking at beachfront property on another Hawaiian Island saying, man, they have more square footage. So it's kind of a bad look from all the NFL guys. Cause if you really want to change it, go ahead, fight it. But none of you guys are going to. And I also understand why you're not going to, because you don't want to miss out the three to four year cycle of payment and all that kind of stuff. Shout out to Dominic Foxworth, who spent a lot of time with me on that topic. So as I ranted way too long into this question, where, if we knew all these teams had this cap space,

historical cap space, where's all the money going? Two places. Mediocre players and nowhere. Those are two separate things. That sounds like a bad answer. So, the Colts still have $75 million in cap space. And what I don't understand, maybe Chris Ballard can call me up and tell me this. What I don't understand is why the Colts didn't just sign a lot of guys to super front-loaded contracts with more guaranteed money than they make elsewhere

and just use that money this year and then have total either have some sort of kind of really value bargain-y second-year option or one-year flexibility and let them go, almost kind of like what the Rams do with the Dominicans do this year where they or one-year flexibility and let them go. Almost kind of like what the Rams do with Ndamukong Su this year where they pay him 14 and then let him go. That didn't work out necessarily, but I feel like there's some lessons

to be learned from what the Rams do. Wait, it's the Percy Harvin thing. I thought Ndamukong Su could just not play the entire year, not try, and then get a couple sacks against the Cowboys and then it's a good deal. That's what I read. So I just think that going in,

you can't take it with you. You can't take $74 million not going to help you win a game this year. The Colts are on the cusp of something really great. They have Andrew Luck, Darius Leonard, Quentin Nelson. They have some really great pieces. I just don't understand why they don't go a little more in. So, where does the money go? It goes into wildly inconsistent free agent deals.

Wildly inconsistent. CJ Mosley should not be making that much more than Anthony Barr. I understand why Anthony Barr took that deal, but it took a lot. Anthony Barr got $33 million guaranteed from the Vikings. He took a discount.

But Anthony Barr, Mike Zimmer said that this year, every single offense except one this year, game planned, built their entire game plan around avoiding Anthony Barr that's an impact player Earl Thomas is the same way I think there's a they're doing like uh heat charts now with with football players and it shows the passing charts heat charts that when Earl Thomas on the field no one throws deep no one throws deep. No one throws deep. It reminds me of that Dwight Howard sort of shot chart, right?

There are guys who really, really impact games. I understand why Earl Thomas is cheap, because he's been injured. But C.J. Moser should not be getting $51 million guaranteed. You know, Kwon Alexander is on a $54 million contract. Is Kwon Alexander good?

I don't necessarily know. And then there's huge values. The Packers got two guys for, I think, some pretty good money. Preston Smith, four-year, 27. Z'Darrius Smith only got $34 million guaranteed. I think those can be okay deals. So the money is going to middle, middle-tier guys.

I think if you're a casual NFL fan, I just named a bunch of guys. Preston Smith, Z'Darrius, Quan Alexander. You're going to lose track of those guys. You're going to be like, who are these people? I have no idea who they are. Why are they making $34 million? That's a problem. Yeah, that's a problem. JJ Watt makes

$15 million a year. Okay, but sometimes though with this, I have no note off the top of my head and I don't want to put you in a bad spot, but is that $15 million on the average? Like when the player bitches, oh, there's seven guys that are making more than me. And we're like, you're conveniently forgetting out your first year money, which a lot of guys do all the time. But there's a constant to this, and you're right to point this out.

Because as I was reading what you're putting out there, even with that first year money, the gap between the premier players at their position that don't get to free agency because of the things that are in place that are team friendly, it's created this thing where there's not much of a gap in the money for the guys that aren't even close in the same level of talent that actually get to free agency. Right. Almost none. There's nothing you can do except reach free agency. I talked to Eric Winston, who, like Dominique Foxworth, ran the Players Union, currently runs the Players Union. And one of the things, we're talking about Kirk Cousins, and what he wanted to impart was there is no such,

NFL contracts are not unguaranteed. They just negotiate them to be unguaranteed, right? The guaranteed money is out there. Just go get it. Go be Kirk Cousins and change the game. Aaron Rodgers tried. He couldn't do it because he started negotiating two years early. He'd rather take the discount and negotiate two years early and lock that in than get to free agency and try to change the game. He asked for non-guaranteed or, sorry, excuse me, non-traditional

methods of contracts, and they would not broach a subject because he had no leverage. And I just feel like more players need to just find a way to reach free agency and get all of the money. J.J. Watt, just do it. If you don't love,

unless you love Houston and you want to take a lower cap number to help the team, whatever, there has to be a handful of guys who wait out the franchise tag and just figure it out. Maybe it's Russell Wilson. JJ's the wrong guy.

He's the wrong guy. But I do think that the concern about injuries as much I'm sympathetic to it, I also think it's overblown. I don't think there's as many guys just blowing out their careers with injuries. Really good players. Not really good players.

Errol Thomas and Le'Veon Bell have the same guaranteed money. Right. So what does that tell you? So people can go like, oh, that doesn't happen in football. Look at Paul George. He didn't lose a dime and he broke his leg. If Jimmy Garoppolo didn't sign that extension and he missed last year and he hit the free agent market this year,

Jimmy Garoppolo gets a massive deal. Yeah, he'd be north of 20. He'd be a massive deal. Because he'd played just as little to give you real hope. This guy's amazing. By the way, J.J. Watt never made more than $20

in cash. Okay, so not even in the first year? No. He made $19.9. He's under contract through the 2021 season when he'll make 17.5. So let me throw this at you because this is something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

What if we just went ahead and said, okay, you know what, everybody? Because I don't like it when players rip like, oh, I was signed for four years and I only got two. I bet I could have looked at it as a non-agent, non-front office guy in the NFL and told you the money you were or weren't going to make. Right. So I think there's too many NFL players out there that don't understand how their contracts work or their agents aren't doing a good enough job. Like I had Cannell on with the backup QB stories, and that's in the mid-90s,

and he signed a $12 million deal, which was really two for eight, but there was a way that they could cut him after one. And he looked at the deal and realized, okay, well, I'm not going to make the 12. I'll probably make the eight. And then he made the one. But he got it.

So how are we 25 years later? And we still have these guys still complaining about all this stuff. So I say, I don't know what the answer is. That's why I'm going to ask you. What if we just said, okay, fine, here's the deal. A lot of these deals are kind of guaranteed deals. The money up front, the cash, the guarantees, what is the deal in the first three years? So we'll just make them all guaranteed. We'll make every year we sign you. That's a, that's a guaranteed year in there. We don't have to have dead cap. It's just your contract is on the books or

it isn't. Is there a way it could be better but it actually might be very similar to what you have right now that it wouldn't really be that different if the NFL just said, no, let's just guarantee this stuff but we're not going to give you fake years so that we can manipulate the cap or maybe the front office and the teams like the fake years because they can manipulate

all the numbers. Not only can they manipulate it, but then they get these bargains like Zach Ertz, where it's, okay, we're going to sign you and we're going to give you this upfront cash. But by the way, eventually we're going to lock you down. And in year four and year five, you're going to be a huge, huge undervalued bargain. Longer contracts are better for teams. Shorter contracts are better for players. This goes back to the Kirk Cousins thing. Mike McCartney, his agent said, the lesson isn't hold out and try to get a fully guaranteed contract. The lesson is that when you're negotiating for three years, it's different

than negotiating for five years. And that is one of the things I don't think players look at enough. Sign a two-year deal. Sign a three-year deal. Sign a one-year deal. Bet on yourself. And I just think that that's the most important thing because when you sign the five-year deal and you outperform it, teams will destroy you. Look at J.J. Watt. The problem with J.J. Watt is not that he took a bunch of, you know, he took an undervalued contract. The problem is he signed a six-year deal. Don't sign a six-year deal, J.J. Watt. Resign every three years and make way more money. Look at Darrell Rivas. Rivas was

going year to year there at the end. Oh, yeah. He's one of these boxers now. Deontay Wilder, just going from network to network every fight. I don't have a counter to it because I agree with you. I just agree, but I find it so annoying sometimes. I wish it was just, hey, all right, fine, we just guarantee it.

Because I don't know that it would be that different. Because you still, if you had the vehicles of franchise tagging, negotiating extensions earlier. Because in the NBA, you have real hard built-in extension rules. You can only do certain extensions with certain guys at the right time. I of wish that nfl had that i wish there was more of a structure because then you'd also have no antonio brown situation like no we traded your contract it was a four or five year deal it's 17 five a year or whatever you know i'm just kind of making it up ballparking it and in the nba when you get traded the the team actually always wants to resign you for the most part. I'm talking about the marquee piece in that trade, but you wouldn't have, oh, I'm not going to show up.

It just wouldn't. It's not that way. So I don't know. For all the benefits, it sounds like it's still too beneficial for the teams to have all kind of these fake years so they can move pieces around and the cap going up as much as it does. Dead money doesn't mean nearly as much as it used to mean or it shouldn't. I remember the NBA used to have these proposals where they had this thing where they wanted to do a My Bad or whatever. You have a contract. Every five years, you get a My Bad chip. Yeah. So if you had a Gilbert Arenas on the books, you go My Bad and you still had to pay it,

but it just was magically waived from your books. So the dolphins are paying $17 million for Rashad Jones this year. He'd be a my bad. I thought he was good for a while there. He was good, but he's not worth $17 million. That's a lot for a defensive back or a safety, right? Yeah. Safety. Yeah. It's interesting to me because I think that there needs to be, I think in a weird way would help competition. It's interesting to me because I think that there needs to be, I think in a weird way, it would help competition if the NFL had more NBA rules and the NBA had more NFL rules. In the sense that I'm talking about no cap on, no max on player salaries in the NBA. Because then it would come down to, okay, if Kevin Durant asked for 75% of the cap, how do you build a team around that?

And all of a sudden, I think there's a flattening of competition because you cannot build super teams. The max created super teams. In my opinion. Yeah, but also the jump the jump in cap space is the Golden State thing and then Miami just, you know, they had a bunch of guys that all wanted to go there at the same time and that isn't really about the front office. They took slightly less money, yeah. Yeah, a little bit less. It's not like they were making

$3 million. I remember because they ended up actually getting some of that money back because then they technically were in sign and trades with Bosch and LeBron. So Wade was the one that gave up a little bit of money, and I think he only reminded people that 700 times that season. He's also getting it back with his 17-hour documentary, The Rights to That. I can't wait to see that one. So I remember Cliff Lee took a little bit less in the contract,

and it really wasn't even that much less. And it was one of those things where it wasn't LeBron's fault, but LeBron had to kind of go into awesome mode. And they go, you know, you guys on the Heat took a little bit less. But again, they got a lot of it back because it ended up technically being signing trades. And they go, you know, do you think Cliff Lee was inspired by you guys? And LeBron was actually like, okay, I better take this seriously. Like, well, you know, if we end up being, you know,

guys that clear a path for other athletes and other sports to find a way to, you know, and then we were like, what are you talking? And the thing is, if you looked at the way the Cliff Lee contract was structured, it wasn't even what they were trying to say that it was. So anyway, there's a little baseball history for you on the lefty Cliff Lee. Two other things I want to get to. Just give me,

because I feel like we've done so much contract stuff, and it sounds like you like every trade for the team that got the player. I'm pro trade. You are. And almost every... This is more fun now. Yes.

Remember how stupid this league used to be? Like, ugh, a receiver, week four. It was also just like... He can't just run around in our offense. Also, first round picks became so overvalued that it got to be like, you know,

any superstar would be on the market and they're like, well, he's probably worth a late second. And it's like, how are you going to get... That part's never

made any sense to me. Like a 28-year-old guy who's like made a couple of Pro Bowls and then you go, maybe a fourth. Yeah, yeah. It was like a third,

maybe a third and a pick swap. It's going to hurt our D-line depth. Yeah, yeah. We go, maybe a fourth. Yeah, yeah. It was like a third, maybe. Third and a pick swap. It's going to hurt our D-line depth. Yeah, yeah. We can't move a third. It's just kind of funny. Yeah, I do think positionally, I wonder if Josh Norman came up with this in an interview we did, and then he got mad about it.

Sorry, Josh. I love Josh Norman. He got mad at me. He did? Yeah. All right, well. I accurately quoted him. You're both my good friends. I like Josh Norman a lot, and I Norman. He got mad at me. He did? Yeah. All right. Well, I accurately quoted him. You're both my good friends.

I like Josh Norman a lot. And I wish he wasn't mad at me. I'll work it out. You know what? I'll say something to him. Okay. So in that interview, which it was 100%. You guys are acting like I didn't hang out with him.

That's fine. I saw him at Fox a couple months ago. You guys cannot see. People just underestimate me all the time. They just go. Can we have a summit? Can we have like one of those, a summit where we just talk it out? Maybe Napa, wine country?

He loves horses. Yeah, let's do it. He loves acting. That's why he loves Hollywood. I was introduced by a mutual friend, and the friend said, he doesn't look the part, but we're still in school. Wow. I went, wait a minute.

Now we have a problem. So Josh replaced that guy in your friend circle? All right, so Josh said that there should be a cap on quarterback salaries, and that would solve a lot of problems. He thinks that the system set up right now is way too unfair to defensive players because not only do they get paid less because quarterbacks take all the money, but the fine system is set up to where defensive players get fined significantly more than offensive players. So not only are you underpaid because the offense is taking the money, but you're losing money by being a good defensive player because every three weeks you stick your helmet in there accidentally and you lose 50,000 bucks. He's right,

but that to me is a... What are you going to do? I mean, no... That's why Josh is diversifying into horses and stuff. That's why no one has ever picked a Super Bowl because of a safety or a corner.

I mean, it's just... It's just not the way it works. All right, two things that I need to get to here because I feel like... I feel like I've done a good job here watching UVM and Florida State in the first half, too, and staying on my phone. Have you felt ignored?

Once or twice, maybe. I feel weird without my phone. Well, I don't know who this pick is from, but it looks great. So, two things. I have a Kyler Murray theory, and it's kind of in relation to Josh Rosen.

Dorsey and the Browns deserve all the credit in the world for doing what they did because they could have taken Darnold. They could have taken one of the other guys and gone, if it's close with Baker, we'll take the tall guy because when you're taking Baker, there's still this doubt, right? And a lot of times front office guys would be like, if it's close, I'll take the guy that makes it less of a talking point or you can be less critical of me. Like if you took Darnold and it didn't work out and Baker didn't work out, it's like, oh, okay. We understand why you took Darnold. But because of that, I wonder how much that influences Kyler.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Baker helps Kyler Murray. Same coach, variations of the same system, but it's not two completely different things. It's just Kyler's going to play a little bit differently than Baker is in the way they do it.

I was talking to a couple scouts this week that were in town for the pro days for LA, and they were raving about the transition of Oklahoma and what Lincoln does with the NFL. Like what he does, and it can look different and all these different variations of what people are doing in college football, what they do actually can apply to some of the stuff that we're trying to do on Sunday. So it helps Kyler a lot. Whereas Baylor, Baylor's always the default. Whatever those guys

are doing, it's like watching a completely different sport, trying to figure out what their quarterbacks look at. One half of the field reads, just single, like just... Counting helmets. Absolutely. Now the Baylor guys are like, screw you. We put up a ton of points, but I don't know.

I can only tell you what numerous NFL people have said all of the time about what they're doing. So is this Kyler thing real? And it can be, yes. But how much of it do you think is a product of what's happened with Baker here and this Kingsbury thing? And can it really be this obvious? Can it be 50 plus days out? When we first heard, this is a lot like of all the stuff that you hear about this. Is it really this simple?

Do we really already know the answer to this thing? Um, I was walking through the hotel in Indianapolis, not even a hotel I was staying at, but it was going to meet someone. And I, between the door of the hotel and the restaurant I was going to, I maybe heard the Kyler to Arizona rumor three times. It was everywhere and people were talking

about it constantly to the point it was suspicious. Like, why does everybody know that Kyler's going to Arizona? This sounds insane. And I don't know whether or not to believe it. There's so much smoke that there's probably almost too much. So is it real? Yeah, I think it's real. I had a conversation with Steve Kime, and he's told a lot of people this. It wasn't exclusive to me, but one of the things – I think he's one of the 50 people who claimed they were about to draft Russell Wilson. It's a very large group of people who are just about to draft Russell Wilson.

Hugh Jackson liked Russell Wilson, I believe. One of the Jets executives, Terry Bradway, was pounding the table for Russell Wilson. Basically, if you're a team that's not Seahawks, you have a, we were almost about to draft Russell Wilson theory. I like when I hear that one about Brady, because it's like, you know, the first five rounds, we liked him so much that we passed on him. It's kind of like the Baltimore thing, but like, man, we loved Lamar. Like, did you? You had like four swings at it. Yeah.

Someone recently told me that the Redskins were going to draft Russell Wilson to be RG3's backup. the Redskins were going to draft Russell Wilson to be RG3's backup. So Kime's whole thing was that he looked at Russell Wilson and he thought he was too short. And obviously that turned out to not be true. And so I think the next year he drafted the Honey Badger because of that. Because there was a situation where he realized it wasn't a measurables guy. Maybe there were some, some question marks there,

but just take them and cause talent wins. And I think that that is, but the weird thing with him is he's never been a great cover guy. Honeybag. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah,

but I, I measurables and he actually doesn't cover that well, but he's better than most third round picks. Yeah. Right. But I mean, it was third round pick for not even the things we're mentioning. Oh, right, right.

Exactly. And so I think that there's some of that. I think everybody learns that measurables are overrated over the course of your career. And I think that the Cardinals were there. By the way, if you've seen these, I mean, you watch more college football than I do, but like Kyler is really good at not getting hit.

And then you go to the NFL where they basically legislate quarterbacks not to get hit. That's a pretty good setup for him. But I think that Baker, Russell, Drew Brees, I mean, those guys have paved the way for Kyler to the point that I think that GMs, I think that it's swung so far that it's now conventional wisdom that a guy like Kyler can play, and it's remarkable how quickly that changed. But I also think that at some point, there's going to be one a guy like Kyler can play, and it's remarkable how quickly that changed. But I also think that at some point there's going to be one guy

who just can't do it, can't see over the line and fucks it up, and the conventional wisdom will swing right back. They're like, well, Baker and Russell were special. Yeah, that's what I feel like is going to happen. I don't know if it's going to be Kyler because I've talked to scouts that have watched him work out who noticed him when he was down there before and he stood out. The arm is spectacular. His movement on a field

when he was the backup at A&M, I remember the first game I watched, I'm like, oh my god. This guy's the backup? And then Sumlin lost every one of those quarterbacks all kind of at the same time when he was still there and then he wasn't. But I kind of I've never been less confident about evaluating the position now as I am today.

I've watched this sport so much and now at 2019, I have less an idea of what an NFL quarterback looks like now than I ever have. Not to say that I was nailing it all the time in the past either, but nobody else was either. Well, I think the NFL teams got so in love with the traditional quarterback and the traditional quarterback kept screwing them over and over and over again to the point there is no traditional quarterback anymore.

Yeah, I don't know if this means now that they're going to have a better hit rate than what's basically been for 20 years, 50% busts in the first round. I think it's going to be the same. It's just going to be different types of quarterbacks. Like, hey, maybe this will work out. I don't know. Yeah, I still think we'll have 50% busts. It'll be the same exact thing. It'll just be different reasons for busting. Like, hey, maybe this will work out. I don't know. Yeah, I still think we'll have 50% bust. It'll be the same exact thing.

It'll just be different reasons for busting. And I know that people like to do this. And I was trying to explain this to these guys I was talking about. I was like, look, man, the front office is the male reality show, okay? And men and women both love all the stuff, like the stuff that you'd say, oh, that's a trending

female like if you're saying keep it up with the kardashians like when i come home my sisters will be watching okay my father's losing his mind so i don't think this is like god god 2019 just messed me up where i'm actually like phrasing this is there's certain reality shows you to expect more women to watch than men okay i like below deck i deck. I don't care. I said it. I ordered a hoodie, but the GM role is kind of that thing for guys with sports. Yeah. The reason reality shows are so popular is because people want to see other people screw up.

Life is hard. You come home, you watch them, you yell at them. You're like, Oh, this loser, she's a clown.

This guy can't hold his liquor, all these different things. And then you go, all right, I watched this disaster show for an hour and now I feel better because they're going through the same crap that I'm dealing with. And I think that those of us that are obsessed with sports and there's guys listening to this right now, deep down, you think you can be a GM or you think you know stuff. Right. And they're going, I like it when the front office screws up with the quarterback because it proves that they're just like me. It's easy. It's easy.

Right. I think it's kind of funny because it's much more, you know this, I know this, it's much more of an administrative position than we think. Like being a GM, it's like 50% of the job is just weird like stadium operations questions and stuff like I was talking to someone like it's just weird it's such a I'm an ops guy it's just such a huge job and you're putting out random fires no one thinks about so I agree I think I would I think I know a lot about the inner workings of how a football team should work and I think that I would be really good at drafting a handful of really good players a year and I think I know a lot about the inner workings of how a football team should work. And I think that I would be really good at drafting a handful of really good players a year. And I think my teams would never win more than four games.

No, that's not a great resume. You ready to go rapid fire? Yes. Did we leave anything out? I don't think so. Okay, Le'Veon Bell, rapid fire. Here we go, five. Is this an L or a W for him?

For him, it's an L. He's spinning it as a W. He is. The Jets, it's a W. Did you see part of his sit down? I did. Sometimes I'll watch a guy talk and I go, you know what?

I'm not going to try to figure this guy out anymore. He's confirmed everything I kind of thought about. It could be a decent value for the Jets. I think Le'Veon Bell wishes he had that $14.5 million back. Yeah, how do people not understand that? I can't believe how many guys in the media are like, no, no, actually. What do you mean, no, actually?

It's kind of like my theory that having good players is good. Having $14.5 million is better than not having $14.5 million for the 2018 season. I love the, well, no, he preserved himself.

Or he would have signed the exact same contract as a free agent. Or he could have just taken the Steelers deal like two years ago. And then the thing's like, no, that was only

$10 million guaranteed. You're like, but not really. Yeah. Because over the calendar year, you wouldn't have done a deal with somebody like that.

I don't know, man. It's just some of this stuff. It's like, no, no, no. You're sticking up for Le'Veon Bell, and you stuck up for him the entire time, and then he just took a worse deal, and you're just going to keep sticking up for him. Cool. Got it. Yeah.

If you're going to die on a player advocacy hill, it's not that one. Pick a different one. Pick a different player who was a little better. I mean, I think even Antonio Brown is a better sort of avatar for that because he got out of a situation he didn't want to be in more effectively and made a ton of money. If the outcome is, you know, if you're rooting for someone to make money and be in a situation they want to be in, Antonio Brown did it.

Le'Veon Bell did not necessarily do it. Funny you use that word. Second question, avatar, have you seen it a second time? Absolutely not. Exactly. Funny you use that word. Second question, Avatar, have you seen it a second time? Absolutely not. Exactly. All right, third question. Give me the pick and team, other than the number one pick overall,

that you, like this is the stuff you're hearing the most. This player assigned to this team in the first round. Oh my God. Did I put you on the spot? You did. Kyle, you have to get rid of this. No, keep it. No, keep the tension.

Keep the tension? I'll play some music. It's like the Budweiser hot seat. Remember when they used to do that with Clayton Salisbury? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was intense. Old school, new school. Yeah.

Because Salisbury was new school because he was younger. He was like 50. Wasn't there kind of like aggressive name calling? Oh, yeah, yeah. Basically, the producer's like, hey calling oh yeah yeah basically the producers like hey shit on each other the entire time and it was so weird then they had a mark may one where he and craig james went back and forth and they thought it would be hysterical where he would call him pony and that was craig james nickname and then mayday for mark may and so they just it might be out there on the internet where they tried to see how many times

he could say it. And they were like, I don't know about that one. Mayday. Oh, tell me about a pony. And they both said it like 20, 30 times.

Old sports center segments were just my wheelhouse. Like 2004, just like great. I just really enjoyed those. They were. Is David Givens a number one? I tell you what, Clayton, you idiot. David Givens.

Look at his first down numbers. You fucking asshole. Hey, well, shit for brains. David Givens isn't a number one. It was very contentious. I don't know if they swore like that, but it was close. Do you remember Brian Kenney's show, The Hot List? Yeah, I remember it.

That was an amazing show. Yeah, I love that show. And it was amazing. Because it was all Kenney. Kenney was like, this is what we're doing. It was all Kenney, but he was like, we're doing baseball analytics. We're doing boxing. Right.

That was like my favorite show in two days. Live event as well. The best bantamweight in juniors boxing. I thought they'd have Floyd Mayweather on. That was like one of the first times people realized how contentious Floyd could make it. They should have put Floyd on the Budweiser hot seat with Clayton. Floyd would just be complaining about the attention he wasn't getting. Brian would name like seven fights that he was getting attention for.

I'd never heard of any of the opponents. It was like the best show on television for like three years. I was just talking about Brian Kenney the other night with somebody. This is really weird. This is like twice in two weeks. Brian Kenney used to hit the heavy bag at the gym

at ESPN. Oh, wow. The Bristol gym situation back there was really incredible. I wouldn't call it my home gym because there was stuff. They took out the flat bench

like four or five years ago and it just caught her and I absolutely... More room for heavy bags? No, they put in a million squat racks and I felt like they took the flat bench out to prove some kind of point. This is old content

for real hardcore Russillo fans. Sorry for the third person, but you understand what I'm trying to do. Chris Cotter and I were like, wait, they took the flat bench out and left the incline one in? They're just doing that. They're just doing that to be those guys. But Kenny would get over there, and he'd work the one and two. He would.

Was it impressive? Yeah yeah you can throw a punch absolutely great base pop i box every day and i wouldn't do it in public when's uh when did you start uh about a year and a half ago two years ago that's tough i got hit by a car and i couldn't run anymore and so i had to i had to figure out another way to work both my wife and i got hit by a car and so we couldn't work out anymore in the traditional way so I had to figure out another way to work. Both my wife and I got hit by a car. And so we couldn't work out anymore in a traditional way. So we had to figure out a way to just not get fat. So we just started boxing. This took a turn.

I just wanted to. You guys get hit by a car? Yeah. Where? On Sunset Boulevard. That's terrible. It wasn't good. How bad was it for both of you?

I had to go to the trauma ward. She didn't. We both went to the emergency room I went to the trauma ward, I got a room She got a bed in the hallway, I think she was a little bit upset about that How many nights were you in there? I got out at like 4 in the morning Broken bones or anything?

I got a nice cool scar here Is that how you lost all the weight? No, I lost the weight before that Oh, what did you think? If I was bigger in mass Is that how you lost all the weight? No, I lost the weight before that. Oh. Yeah. Well, just think if you... If I was bigger in mass, who knows what the car would have done to me. Or what you would have done to the car. Oh, that's a great point. Now, I feel like questions four and five, we're just going to have to table them.

I think Joey... I'm sorry. Nick Bosa to the 49ers makes a ton of sense. I think... That was very weird. Or Quinn and Williams or Quinn and Williams. I think that they are one nasty defensive lineman away

from being really freaking good. Bill is high on the Rams regressing next year. I think the Seahawks are going to be better. And I think that NFC West is going to be really fun. I'm looking forward to seeing a full season of Garoppolo. Yes. Are we going to get that?

I think we are Kyle says that What is Kyle a Niners fan? He is now He says if Garoppolo plays two games He's getting a jersey Better than a tattoo Well I mean it's time for that

Is there anything else we didn't do here? No Okay I mean we got to the hot list Which is the only reason i've been potting because that's an underrated show that everyone should have watched kenny was awesome man awesome it was great just a pros pro he just like he was he was doing exactly what you should do which is introduce the audience to things they've never heard about before i would say ratings decision

makers would argue against Well, no, you just have like Rob Nyer on to talk about Yeah, Rob Nyer. Rob Nyer just talking about Warren Spahn, you know,

Warren Spahn's Warp and it's like, yeah. No, I know. The Warp segments were big, big around Bristol. Because I remember Kenny came over to me

and he's like, so do you like Warp? I'm like, well, I get it. Yeah, I mean, I've spent some time. I used to have a subscription to Baseball Prospectus, Gary Huckabee, back in the day. I used to read all that stuff. Like, bunts suck, do they? Oh my god, they

do. Bunting sucks. And it does. It still sucks. That was one of the great things about analytic baseball is that bunting's just so stupid. Well, if football's going through that right now, we're punting as stupid. Are we going to have this in five years? No punts? No, they figured out that essentially, because I kept asking, when did the analytics start?

I'm like, guys, what are we going to be looking back on that is just not going to make any sense in 10 years? And every analytics person I talked to said a handful of things, but one of them was like, the giving up possession for no reason is going to be considered ridiculous.

Like fourth and eight at the opponent's 40? Yeah, like fourth and five. Giving up the ball. The ball is the most important. Having the ball is the most important thing, and giving it up for no reason is very stupid. Jim Trestle's just listening right now and be like, you idiots. But look, it worked out for Trestle.

I feel like now we had one of the thing we needed to do oh yeah brian kenny came up to me so we started talking analytics the whole thing and then he's like well adam dunn he goes is he hall of famer yeah i was like no because he is like look at his home run look at the obp look at the slugging look at the isolated power look at all this stuff he goes and compare to the other guys adam dunn's a hall of famer i was like he isn't though he just isn't like that's how I look at stuff. I go, okay, yeah. He just, at no point was I like, Adam Dunn.

Can we unpack this for a second? Brian Kennedy just walked up to you in the hall. Yeah, back in the day, Bristol was a little different because it was all still sports nerds. Yeah. Instead of like, hey, do you want to come on and criticize Muhammad Ali, Russillo? I'm like, no, I don't.

Like, I love Muhammad Ali. Like, we can want to come on and criticize Muhammad Ali, Russillo? I'm like, no, I don't. Like, I love Muhammad Ali. Like, we can't find anybody here to criticize Muhammad Ali. Go find Russillo. He's from Boston. All right, that'll do it for the podcast. Thank you. We'll be back next week and continuing. I don't know if I want to tease out part three and part four of the backup QB stories

because I just don't know if we're going to get to in the limited taping schedule that I have. So if we don't do that, maybe I'll play a best of, of this podcast. It's only six months old. I wouldn't do that to you. Most likely.

See you next week. Outro Music