The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Matt Hasselbeck. Plus Jeff Passan on Nolan Arenado and MLB’s Problems.

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

Russillo shares some NBA thoughts (2:00) before talking with longtime QB and ESPN analyst Matt Hasselbeck about some Super Bowl story lines, playing for Andy Reid on the Packers, stories from Matt’s NFL career, Super Bowl picks, and more (7:00). Then Ryen talks to ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan about the Colorado Rockies trading Nolan Arenado, MLB’s problems with competitiveness, a looming potential players strike, and more (32:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:01:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's pod is going to be a lot of fun we're going to talk with matt hasselbeck on playing for andy reed uh when he was drafted out of bc and in that quarterback room with brett barb and peterson i mean just unbelievable stories out of him. And we got a little Jeff Passan for a little hot stove and what has not been that hot. I like talking that labor stuff about baseball and what the new proposal looks like in an incredible story, both sad and redemption, a feature that he has up on ESPN.com

that has a little documentary piece of it as well. So we'll do that and some life advice. That's the plan. Got a little NBA game that I was thinking of last night when I was watching the Nets and Clippers. Because we're all watching the Nets because we're trying to figure out how this is going to look. And offensively, it was stupid. The shot making from Durant, Harden, and then Kyrie in particular. Just another reminder of what they're capable of.

But we've also seen what they're capable of in a negative way defensively. The numbers in the fourth quarter off the charts on the offense and historically bad defensively, but they were really good, I thought, in moments defensively with just effort alone, and it clogged the Clippers up, and look, the Nets got a nice win against another really good team in the Clippers, but then Paul George, old 30-13, checked in afterwards, and he said, you know, refs, you know, I got to take more free throws. I'm paraphrasing here a little bit, and just led me to be like, man, that's not like Paul George to say something like that. I'm like, oh wait, no, it's exactly what Paul George does. But Paul George, you may not have known this,

is having kind of a career year, not in total points scored, but the assists are up in a way they've never been before. His playmaking has been incredible and he's shooting from three. He's at 45% another career year. So whenever I hear anybody say like, oh, well, Paul George, are you paying attention to what he's doing this year? I'm like, of course I am. Wash a lot of hoops over here at the Casa. But none of it matters because this is the exercise. Which NBA players or which NBA teams?

Because as I was thinking about all the Paul George stuff, none of it's going to matter until we see it actually happen in the playoffs, especially coming off of last year's collapse and other bad Paul George playoff games. And it's the same thing for the Milwaukee Bucks. Milwaukee Bucks are going to have a great record again. They're a better team this year with Drew Holiday. Their offense is even better this year than it was last year. But there are moments we see Giannis doesn't look entirely comfortable because they've changed some of their concepts. And, you know, no one cares. No one cares about what the Bucks look like like other than Bucs fans because of what

happened in the playoffs last year with them. So it's almost the same deal. Paul George doesn't matter until we see it in the playoffs and the Milwaukee Bucs, who I actually think have fallen into this category of being really disappointing the last two years. When I wrote, that's fair. They lost in six games of Toronto Raptors two years ago. Yes, they had a two old lead and they blew the series, but that was the Eastern Conference Finals. It wasn't like this disaster that we saw from them in the second round against the Miami Heat. So what other players remind us of NBA teams?

Norman Powell of the Toronto Raptors. You're like, wait, Russillo, Norman Powell? Yes, Norman Powell. Do you know about this guy? 15, 16 a game the last couple of years. He's about 40% from three the last three years. He makes all of his free throws, not a ton of rebounds and assists, but every time I norman powell i'm like you know what he's pretty

good and i don't feel like anybody ever talks about him and he's doing this usually always off the bench he always seems to be mad about stuff but i like it because you know who else is mad pacers fans who feel like they've never gotten enough respect do you realize the pacers through all of these moving pieces are only a game out of the number two seed in the Eastern Conference? They're doing this without Oladipo, who they traded for Carlos Levert, who hasn't played, and TJ Warren's been hurt all the time. Every year we look at the Pacers and go, eh, whatever. They're probably not going to hold up that seeding. Last year, oh, the Sixers are going to catch him.

Didn't happen. I'm not telling you I'm picking the Pacers to get out of the East. I'm not picking Norman Powell to make an all-star team. All I'm telling you is the Norman Powell Pacer fans have been right more often than they've been wrong. D'Angelo Russell, what's his profile? Well, made an all-star team, scored 20 a game for three different franchises, basically a max contract. All these people seem to want him.

Scoring nights where it's really impressive. Some of the playmaking, and you're like, man, this is great. Look how talented he is. What's our record again? Oh, we have the worst record in the West. What's going on? Well, the problem is that it looks good and some of the stuff looks good, but the real results, the plus minus, Russell's arguably the worst plus minus of anybody who plays real minutes, especially somebody that's supposed to be a star. And that's kind of why they have that bad record. It reminds me of the Wizards

because the Wizards on paper with that backcourt, Beal, 35 a game, Westbrook, a previous All-NBA just last season, which still seems a little weird. And you're like, all right, they can't be that bad, are they?

Yeah, they're just as bad. Trey Young and the Houston Rockets. No, see, you guys thought I was going to do that one. Trey's been better. Atlanta's been much better. And you know what? Houston's actually,

is of the taping of this, a playoff team. Have you been paying attention to what the Rocks has been doing, putting together this roster on the fly? I doubt you have, but they're actually your eight seed today. Let's finish with everyone's favorite late night rookie. That's Tyrese Halliburton of the Sacramento Kings. Now, Halliburton goes a little bit later than maybe we thought he would. And now it's looking like a huge mistake. But when you come into a situation where there's a very dominant, ball-dominant, score-first point guard in De'Aaron Fox, that's not always easy, especially as a rookie. And the great thing about Halliburton is he can do all this stuff. He can play with the ball when Fox is out. He can play off the ball when they close games together. He

hits open shots. He spreads the floor. He can initiate the offense. And that stuff's actually way more impressive than a rookie who's just handed the keys to a franchise and say, hey, look, take 20 shots. Maybe it's like the second or third year, but you get the offense. And that stuff's actually way more impressive than a rookie who's just handed the keys to a franchise and say, Hey, look, take 20 shots. And maybe it's like the second or third year in, but you get the point, but it wasn't always an easy fit, but it's worked out and it's like real. It feels real. And the Memphis Grizzlies feel real. They're the sixth seed. And this hasn't been easy. The toughest schedule so far, John Morant's missed half their games. They had five games postponed. Jaron Jackson hasn't played any games for him whatsoever. But every time I watch the Grizzlies, I go, you know what? I don't think this is going to be this fluctuating thing all the time. Now, I'm not picking the Memphis Grizzlies to win the West, but what I'm telling you is that it's real

and it's better and it's been challenging, but don't be surprised if Halliburton ends up winning rookie of the year. Oh, let's talk with Matt hasselbeck of espn matt hasselbeck joins us super bowl quarterback we'll get to that a little bit later super bowl winning i know i know boston right off the top rope like dude this is matt you know he was there but he was in the super ball i could have won a super bowl almost won a super bowl but did not yeah i don't know why i did that i don't know i didn't mean to do it that way. But, you know, we're already off to that kind of start. It follows you.

It's so funny. You win a Super Bowl, it changes everything. You know, it's just, it's, I want to say it's funny. These are, these are tears though. They're happy tears. I don't know. Okay, we're going to do some stories on that stuff. You seem to be fired up today.

So that's, that's great. Well, I'm on the East Coast. You're on on the west coast so i've been outside shoveling snow for two hours already i see your golf clubs in the background of your your picture there so we're living different lives right now so that that's why maybe i'm up and you're yawning no i'm not yeah i see all the snow i mean you got a little robert frost going behind you there right now so i don't i don't know what what the hell that's like overwhelming. Uh, yeah, we had two inches per hour, uh, for the last two days. So we've got a lot of problems here. We lost power a couple of times. I am ready to get to Tampa though. I am ready to go to the Superbowl. I don't care if it's raining, as long as I'm not

shoveling, I'm ready to go. So you guys can be doing countdown from there live. We're doing a, they call it post-season NFL countdown to me. call it sunday nfl countdown i don't know why they changed the name but uh it's a four-hour show 10 a.m to 2 p.m eastern time and um we kind of split the show so it's the kind of the crew of sunday uh countdown and then monday countdown most of the monday people are at the stadium an empty stadium pre-game calm before the storm. And then the Sunday crew, which I like to call the kids table. If you've ever been to a wedding, there's like, you know, the important people. And then there's the kids table. I contend the kids table is a little more fun. But anyway, we're going to be out by the beach. So it'll be Samantha Ponder, Randy Moss, Rex Ryan, Teddy

Bruschi, and myself, which is our normal Sunday crew. And we've got a lot of, I mean, I've got some cool things coming for this show. So I'm excited for our game day to get here so I can kind of break down some of the stuff that people will see in the Super Bowl. Okay, before we get to too much of the breakdown stuff, though, give me your best story going into this one. Like my best storyline? Well, I'll give you a storyline that no one's going to talk about, but they should talk

about. It is absolutely hilarious. So one of my favorite players in this game is Anthony Sherman, the fullback for the Chiefs. Okay. He's kind of a do it all everything guy at the Pro Bowl. A few years ago, I asked Patrick Mahomes, I said, okay, besides Alex Smith, what veteran player meant the most to you, you know, in Kansas city, like, oh, sure. Anthony Sherman, like he's my role model. He's my guy, you know? So it was like a huge compliment. So Anthony Sherman, the fullback, I see on social media,

all these people are tweeting, Anthony Sherman is donating, you know, donating his own personal truck. You can buy raffle tickets to fight human trafficking. I thought, wow, it's amazing. Like I know Anthony Sherman. I know how much he loves his truck. There's a picture of his truck.

It's like a really nice truck. It's like custom, all this stuff. Oh my God, that's great. Well, I find out yesterday, he didn't donate his truck, okay? This was a prank, a locker room prank that Adam LaRoche, the baseball player, got involved with Dustin Colquitt, the punter,

and Matt Light, the patron. And how kind of sorta, and they were like were like yo let's break into his phone let's get his passcode let's break into his twitter and let's put a tweet out there saying hey i'm donating my truck right as he goes to practice so anthony sherman the fullback has no idea about this he's in the training room the trainers are saying like oh hey it's really great what you're doing with your truck human trafficking good for you he's like great what you're doing with your truck, human trafficking. Good for you. He's like, well, I mean, I support, you know, fighting human trafficking. Like, okay. You know, I didn't know out of practice coaches are like, hey man, that's amazing what you're

doing with your truck. We know how much you love your truck. He said, what are you talking about? He gets back into the locker room. He gets on his phone. He's locked out of his phone. They changed the passcode. He can't delete the tweet.

This goes on. All these people are retweeting it. Pat McAfee, Travis Kelsey's quote tweeting it like, hey, what an unselfish guy Anthony Sherman is. I'll give an autographed jersey of mine for everyone that gives $2,500 or more to this, you know, raffle. So anyway, long story short, Anthony Sherman now has two choices. He can either get on Twitter when he gets back into his phone and be like, hey, that was a prank. Sorry, it's my truck. Or like, I mean, this is a great cause. I'm going to put my money where my mouth is and give away my prized possession, my truck. So that all just went down yesterday. And I mean, it's just hilarious. I hope he scores

a touchdown. I hope Nance and Romo tell the story. It's really, really a great story. Great prank. I mean, you know, locker room pranks are amazing. But to do it during the Super Bowl, how relaxed is your locker room? And then I guess there's footage. I talked to the equipment guy for the Kansas City Chiefs who's been there forever. And I guess there's footage of when he comes into the locker room and, like, finally gets onto his phone and finally sees what's happening.

They had, like, hidden cameras and stuff. So, anyway, that's my favorite They had like hidden cameras and stuff. So anyway, that that's my favorite storyline so far, the Superbowl. That's nasty though. That's like straight up now, because now you have to do something or the rest of the guys have to kick in.

Cause now you know how everything is now. Like people are listening to this right now being like, what is human trafficking a joke? And you're like, all right, let's, let's get to the end first. Very serious.

Very serious. And so like, there's a lot of great stuff that's come out of this. It's a, it's kind of funny. Anthony Sherman played at Yukon. The tailback at the time was Donald Brown who rushed for over 2000 yards in college. You know, he's actually, that's actually his career. He worked for an organization called IJM, International Justice Mission. And he's like dedicating his life to fighting human trafficking. We've been involved with Donald Brown and IJM for a long time. So there's a lot of people that, you know, ironically, this prank was played on Anthony Sherman.

But I think it's actually getting more attention on a very serious issue because of it was a prank instead of it just being like a normal a normal you know charitable raffle or something like that but i will say part of the fun part of this story is that this was actually payback because once upon a time uh anthony sherman put 12 000 oreos on the inside of adam laroche's truck as a prank which is kind of ridiculous but uh so this was actually the payback to that prank yeah that that's probably not good for the interior who uh who was the best vet for you when uh when you came into the league you know my rookie year the quarterback room was so andy reed was actually my quarterback's coach in green bay the starting quarterback was brett farve the backup quarterback was doug peterson

and then our third guy was Rick Meyer. And then it was me on the practice squad who basically was allowed to be in the room while Andy Reid and Mike Holmgren were coaching Brett Favre. And so I wasn't really allowed to ask Brett a lot of questions. I wasn't really supposed to talk in those meetings. So when the meeting was over, I would have a list of notes of things

that they said in the meeting that I didn't understand what they were saying. And so when the meeting was over from the walk in Green Bay, quarterbacks met upstairs, locker room was downstairs. From the walk, from the second floor to the first floor, I would try to get my questions in to Doug Peterson or Rick Meyer. So if I had to pick one, I would say Doug Peterson was probably the guy that taught me the most X's and O's,

that answered the questions that I wasn't allowed to ask. And so like, how lucky was I? Like they were paying me. I mean, I was on the practice squad. I made $62,000 that rookie year. I felt like I should have been paying them $62,000. I mean, it felt like Harvard business school for a young quarterback for me, just being allowed to be in those meetings. What was the first moment where you went, okay, you know, you're expecting it to be harder. You're expecting it to be more complicated. It's the NFL, but the Andy Reid factor in that room, what was the first moment you were like, this is ridiculous? Yeah. I mean, the whole thing was ridiculous. My first mini camp, they get their NFC championship

rings, which was like the most gorgeous ring you've ever seen. Packers logo all in diamonds. And literally, you know, they had just lost the Super Bowl to the Broncos and literally these guys would like open it up and be like put it down like that disgusts me and I was like are you kidding me this is like amazing and it wasn't until I got my own NFC championship ring from losing a Super Bowl that you know I probably gave off that same vibe because for some unknown reason instead of it feeling like it's celebrating the journey of, Hey, you were the best team in the entire NFC that year. You know, you guys had whatever it was, seven pro bowlers. You feel like, Hmm,

we lost that super bowl game. And so that was the first moment where I was like, dude, this is weird. But as a quarterback on the field, I remember my first play, it was two jet X dagger, Y shallow cross, fake 40 at a double wing, right? And I dropped back and I throw this pass and I'm so excited. Seven step drop, quick flash fake. I throw the ball and I'm like, Oh dang it. I overthrow this thing so much like high heater, you know, just way high. The receiver comes out of his break, way high. The receiver comes out of his break, catches it. No problem. Like didn't change his gate, hit him in stride, caught it. And everyone's like, Whoa, who's this guy? Six round pick. But Whoa, that was impressive. I promise you, I overthrew this guy, but the guys I was playing

with all of a sudden were so stinking good. Like the receiver was six foot four, ran a four, stinking good like the receiver was six foot four ran a 4 4 40 215 pounds just it was almost easier because it was faster everyone around me was better um i i was like wait a sec i might have a chance if these guys are that good what can you tell us about the andy reed um part of this where you know like a lot of us again be like, oh, he's so good. He's so innovative. He's done all these things. I'm just glad he got one at least last year too because I don't like when somebody's considered

one of the best in their field and they're like, yeah, he sucks with a clock and all these Philly things. And it's like, wait, is he great or is he terrible? I can't figure out what you're trying to say because there's Eagles fans for years that are like, all right, enough of this guy. And you're like, wait, did you just get rid of one of the said that who said that Eagles fans but it would have been the

same thing look it would have been the same thing with Pat's fans if you were gotten to all these NFC champ or on the other side of the NFC championship games and never gotten through we know the fan bases that would be like that but help me understand the Andy part that separates him from the guys at his level yeah it's funny that people think that about him because when I think of Andy Reid, the first thing I think of is, well, this was Brett Favre's quarterback coach when he won his Super Bowl against the Patriots in New Orleans. And then when he played the Broncos tough in the next Super Bowl when John Elway won it.

So I'm thinking he has a Super Bowl ring and he was a huge part of it. I know he was the quarterback's coach, but I remember when he got hired as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, he had never been a coordinator. So every time I see these like coaching hires in the NFL, everyone's like, well, how long has he been calling plays? Was he the offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator? Bruce Arian said it well, he was kind of pumping up some of his coaches that should be considered for head coaching opportunities. And I completely agree with him. And he was talking about his assistant head coach, who's never been a play caller, or I should say he isn't a play caller now. And Bruce Arians was saying, it's because people are looking at the wrong things. You need to look for like a leader of men. Who's going to

be the head coach? Just because you're a coordinator, it's almost like if you're a great teacher, it doesn't mean you're going to be a great principal or a great guidance counselor. And so sometimes you get promoted because you're really good at, say, sales, but you're a terrible manager. And so I think that's sometimes what happens with these like coordinators that become head coaches. So getting back to Andy Reid, Andy Reid was the tight ends coach in Green Bay. Okay. And then after a couple of years of that, he was the quarterback's coach in Green Bay. Then before you know it, he's the head coach. And then eventually the head coach

and essentially like head coach in GM in Philly and never was a coordinator. So am I surprised that he's had so much success as a head coach? Not at all. But when he got hired, so here's what happened in Green Bay at the time. Mike Colmgren went to Seattle and took a bunch of people with him. Andy Reid split and went to Philly, tried to offer the job to everyone like in Green Bay. Hey, anybody want to come with me? No, everyone went with Mike Colmgren because at the time, there was like this storyline like, well, Andy Reid, head coach, like he's never even been an offensive coordinator. How's he going to be a head coach? And, you know, so like, I've always thought he was a great coach. Didn't really care so much about the titles or how many, how many Superbowl rings people said that he had, because to me,

I watched how he coached Brett Favre. I saw how he coached me. He just was incredible. You just knew right away, like, this guy has been training his whole coaching career for the day that he gets the chance to be the head coach. And he'll do really well. Like, you just knew he would. When you're in that room, and I'm only going to understand this, you know, in a simple way, but like, okay, you're going up against an opponent here and you're getting ready. And you can even use, you know, something with Andy or maybe even prepping with home grin for that steelers super bowl but where you're like

hey look you know um in their cover too this is something they'll do here and this is going to beat this all the time like is that an eye-opening thing for even you as a quarterback a few years in when a coach can actually explain like this is what you're going to look for we've taken a look we're going to show you the tape now let's roll it and all this stuff and here's what you're going to attack and then what actually happens on Sunday, like what is that whole process like? Yeah, I remember we were playing Tampa. They had this incredible defense, Hardy Nickerson, Derek Brooks, John Lynch, you know, Warren Sapp, all these guys. And they were so good at Tampa too. And we designed a play to beat Tampa too. And I remember being in the room, being like

saying to Andy in my head, not like saying to Andy in my head, not out loud, but in my head, like, Hmm, I don't think it's going to work. Like, I don't think it's going to work. What was, what was the concept? What were you guys doing? Basically it was like taking the number two and number three receiver and switching them and just trying to get Hardy Nickerson to flatten his feet a little bit. Like it just wasn't going to work. Like I was sure of it. They drew it up. It's in my book. I'm like, well, that's not going to work. It's going to take too long, all this stuff.

And I don't know how Andy knew, like I had like body language, maybe. I was kind of like, you know, I highlight every play. I had like, they get to that play and I don't even touch it. I'm like, I take my Sharpie and I my Sharpie or my highlighter, and I'm like, eh, that play's not going to make it to game day. That'll be out by Thursday or Friday. And he says to me, you think this play's going to work? And I was like, probably not.

And I forget what he said. He might have said, I'll bet you a Coke or something like that, or maybe he didn't. Something along those lines. Sure enough, we run this stinking play. And it just, right down the middle of the field, Antonio Freeman, literally right down, untouched, stand-up touchdown. The whole stadium and Lambeau's like, MVP, MVP.

Like, this is the mighty Tampa defense. And Andy Reid, like, turns back at little me, practice squad quarterback, not even in uniform. And I kind of like points at me, gives me like a little wink. Like told you, I'm just like, I know nothing. These guys are next level. I know nothing. As you started to tell that one,

I forgot that we were back to practice squad, Matt. So I'm like, wait, you're sitting there in the room going. Yeah, man. I don't know. I don't know, don't know man i mean that's the northeast in you i love it no that's it and listen i had those i had those same experiences with mike holmgren like we we had this one play that mike holmgren was absolutely 100 positive sure like this is going to be a touchdown and i'm sitting there like i don't

know how's this play any different than like i I don't see how it's different. And, you know, he basically stopped the meeting and it was just like, you just need to trust me. You just need to trust me. Do it my way. If it works, it'll work. If it doesn't work, it's not your fault. It's my fault. And sure enough, like it became one of our like go-to red zone plays. It was called 50, you seem fake 40. And it was just like, um, like the, the, the receiver's covered, but the DB is just kind of like chilling, relaxing, like, oh, there's no way they're going to throw it. And you throw it and the court, the, the receiver catches it. And like it became one of our go-to red zone plays. So, you know, I just think like there's,

there's something about obviously quarterbacks, you always want your input, but there's really something about being coachable and taking a kind of a beginner's mindset and saying, hey, you know what? I respect the years and years and years of wisdom and experience and the time on task, studying film that these coaches put in. And it really is a partnership and you got to trust each other. and you got to trust each other. What was your week like for you then? Because, you know, you're almost this, you know how like famous people that become famous a lot later in life that are, they're almost more grounded. You know, it's the Jon Hamm theory where, you know, he didn't blow up until later on.

So when people know him, they're like, he's normal and he's great. You know, you're a sixth rounder and now you've had your own team. You've got the relationship there with Holmgren. So what was that prep like for you knowing that that wasn't something that was necessarily supposed to happen in your career? Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I learned right away in my rookie year is that Brett Favre, even though he was coming off

of his second consecutive Superbowl and third MVP in a row, he was blue collar hard worker. You know, when I would come in, I would come in early. He was already in the squat rack lifting with chains on the bars and all this stuff with the strength coach. He was a grinder. He worked, he worked hard. It wasn't about like, there's nothing Hollywood about his approach. And really that was the whole quarterback room. And it was like that in my entire time in Green Bay. So that just was what was normal to me. So normal to me was get to work.

You know, it's not about, you know, we didn't have social media then, but I giggle with like all these players now that every workout's on social media and all this kind of stuff. It's almost like, does the workout count if you don't post about it? You know, like it's kind of like, it's just sort of funny because I think to the guys that I really looked up to, um, far of obviously being the first guy, you know, it wasn't about that necessarily, but, um, you know, to answer your question, it just was like, it just was work. You're just going to work. And how do you work? You know, you just take notes and you study film and, and you just do everything right we had a

saying in seattle and it carried through true and i think it helped me in my super bowl even preparation instead of like getting too caught up in like how big the moment is or how big the game is or anything like that my my thing i would write in my notes a lot a lot of the time was just do everything right and the score will take care of itself and you know essentially sometimes the score doesn't take care of itself like essentially like and the score will take care of itself. And, you know, essentially, sometimes the score doesn't take care of itself. Like, essentially, like, sometimes the scoreboard, you run out of time or you lose the game. But, like, if you do everything in your power, you do everything that you can do, what you can control, going into the game, preparation, practice, all those types of things. Then win, lose, or draw, you look in the mirror at the end of the game the next day or whatever, and you're like, I did everything that I could.

And so, you know, that's my thing. You know, that has been my thing. Just do everything right, and the score will take care of itself. I believe it's a Bill Walsh quote. I was told it's a Bill Walsh quote. So whether it was or not, that's who I give the credit to. I've always liked the Walsh quotes better than the Parcells quotes. Because Parcells –

Those are two contrasting – like, that was the East Coast, West Coast. Funny thing about those guys, sorry to cut you off, but like the whole West Coast offense thing, that's never anything that you would ever hear Bill Walsh, Mike Holmgren, Andy Reid, none of those guys will ever use that term. That term was a derogatory term that Bill Parcells used in a press conference after the Giants beat the 49ers. I think my dad was even on that Giants team. Maybe, maybe not, but they beat the 49ers and he comes into the

press conference and he says, how do you like that West Coast offense? And really that's, you know, I think where that phrase really became so popular. Bill doesn't own, he has the, you are what your record says you are which i always am like yeah the bears are five and one and none of us thought that was real so uh there's examples for it and against it the quarterback if you take the wrong one it sets the franchise back 10 years that's 100 not true and especially now um i don't think he said that he i don't whoever said the well when you passed three things can happen and two of them are bad and you're like okay but when you run you could also fumble and not gain any yards too like that's

stupid and like people have repeated that like oh man that's pretty clever no one says it anymore no but i don't know cliches you know like things that say you know oh you must be living right like that has nothing to do with me making the putt. I'm sorry. Like, you know, or the getting a good balance on the golf course, you know, like there's one that defensive coaches say sometimes to offensive coaches and you're on the sideline, you hear it, you just roll your eyes. The defensive coach will say to the offensive coach, Hey, what's your worst run? You know, like what's the worst run on your call sheet there? And the coach will be like oh you know this play and i'll be like good call that because it's better than your best pass

it's just like you know like no it's not true but you know it never was trying to send a message like hey run the ball you know no i'm glad you brought up the golf thing because like do you golf much but like no like oh why like the say, the sayings are starting to get to me. Just guys, just random guys. You'd be like, Oh, Hey,

what's going on? And be like, all right, I've got like 18 of these prepped. Like, Oh, you know, all right.

Uh, two different things that do you have a read on this game? Yeah, yeah, I do. Um, but you never know. It's NFL football.

I think that's, what's so cool about it is that these teams know the weaknesses also. These teams know what should happen based on what's happened in the past. And, you know, they take advantage. A good example of that would be the Raiders versus the Chiefs game early in the year this year. Chiefs were like, oh, Derek Carr is not throwing the ball downfield. He's just throwing it short. Like, if they're going to beat us, we're going to make Derek Carr beat us over the top. Guess what?

He did. You know, like, he answered the bell. Like, oh, really? You want me to throw it over the top? Okay, I will. And then they also went into that game saying, hey, nobody's better against the Blitz than Patrick Wilhelm. Like, nobody.

So guess what? We're going to rush four or three. We're never going to rush five or more. Never. And what happened in that game? He turned the ball over a couple of times. You know, so like, that's the cool thing about the NFL

is that these coaches really are so important. These coaching staffs, they can come and do a game with a game plan and you don't really know what the game plan is until you get in the game. And that's why so many great upsets can happen. Do you think if it weren't for Brady and the New England roots that your family would be a bigger deal historically? Listen, nothing is a big deal here in Boston besides world championships.

You know, and it wasn't that way when I was growing up. Like when I was growing up, it was the Celtics, obviously, were winning finals. You know, the Bruins were really good, but like it was 1918, like 1918 and 1986 were like the Red Sox, like years that as a kid in Boston, you heard over and over and over and over again. And then really the Patriots weren't, weren't a great team. You know, they were a good team. We had squished the fish. We had buried the Bears. And then that Super Bowl against the Bears in 85 was like,

yeah, we're not up there yet. And that has all changed since 2001, obviously. So this is really incredible, the dynasty that the Patriots have here. Hey, this was a lot of fun. And enjoy Tampa. I know it's not going to be normal, but it'd be great to see you guys again. Make sure you check out ESPN's Countdown Show with Matt and everybody else. So thanks again for the time.

Yeah, Ryan. Always good to be with you, man. Okay, thanks again to Matt Hasselbeck. Coming up here shortly, we're going to have Jeff Passan talking a little baseball. Jeff Passan, ESPN, joins us. Senior baseball writer. I used to love the Hot Stove League. It has cooled off a bit

the last couple of years. So let's update that. And then, of course, we'll end this with an incredible story that you've told and that's up on ESPN.com as well. All right. I think the Aaron Otto piece of this

is at least the headliner because we know he signs a big deal with Colorado. Eight years, $260 million. And now they're already ready to move off of it and eat about $50 million to send him to St. Louis.

So this is not new, but this one is staggering for a bunch of different levels. So how do you see this deal and what it means for the economics of baseball? Ryan, this is an NBA deal coming to Major League Baseball. This is a player who is unhappy forcing his way out. And I suppose in that regard, it's something of an NFL deal too. We're seeing it with Deshaun Watson playing out right now and

how the leverage was in the Colorado Rockies hands. They could have said, you know what? could have said, you know what? You signed here. You took the money. You're not going to tell us what to do. Either be happy or leave. But they did not want to run the risk that he was going to poison the clubhouse. That was just something that they were unwilling to do. And furthermore, they didn't want to run the risk that the situation was going to be similar to the Giancarlo Stanton one a few years ago when the Marlins decided to trade him. If you recall, the Marlins tried to trade Stanton to the Giants. He used his no trade clause and rejected it. They tried to trade Stanton to the Cardinals. He used his no trade clause and rejected it. So all of this time, all of this capital they had put into

dealing Stanton, if the player's not going to accept it, then it's just wasteful. And I think that's the tack that the Rockies took here with Nolan Arenado. We could try to trade him to another organization, but if he wants to be in St. Louis, that's going to be the path of least resistance. And yet taking the path of least resistance also got them the return of least consequence. Because if you ask anyone in baseball, it's like, Nolan Arenado for these guys? Really? And what that says about the game, you saw it with the Lindor trade. You saw it with Stanton being traded for next to nothing. Superstars in baseball do not fetch the packages that they have in other sports.

And Mookie Betts was almost anomalous in getting Alex Verdugo and Jeter Downs back to the Red Sox. You know, that deal got panned at the time. But compared to other superstars, they actually did pretty well i think yeah the arenado part of this that like how many years into this deal was he two years in two years yeah and so with i'm looking at what another well st louis tacked on an extra year here for 15 million which actually kind of seems insane considering he still had six years to go. This isn't even an NBA deal. An NBA player hasn't had the balls to go, I'm pretty unhappy. I got six years left. Now, granted, there's no six-year deals in the NBA anymore. This part has not gotten enough attention because a lot of the NBA stuff that we've talked about over the last couple of years is that I can be on the player's side.

I would never root against them in a CBA negotiation, but it doesn't mean that I have to back every single player decision, which is, I think, what too many people are doing. And if you have two plus years left on your deal, and you've done, and the team, the Harden deal is a really good example of it. I'm supposed to be on your side as you mail it in and put zero into the team here in Houston. I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to hope you get what you want.

So who was rooting for Aaron Otto to be happy with six years remaining on an eight-year extension he had just signed? I think the people rooting for him are the ones who have seen the Colorado Rockies systematically screw up just about everything they've done. Like this is a bad organization. And Mark Carrigg wrote something on The Athletic, just absolutely lighting him on fire for it. And I would recommend you go take a look at that because I thought it was pretty spot on in its analysis. Right., I mean, we're looking at a farm system that's a disaster. We're looking at the overall, if you look just,

I was looking at some of their stuff last night. They project to be like one of the three worst teams in baseball anyway. I think it was even with him in some of the projections. Yeah, I mean, the issue with the Rockies has been just the complete abject disaster that they've been in free agency. If you go look at some of the free agent contracts that they've signed, whether it's Ian Desmond for $80 million or that offseason where they spent more than $100 million on Wade Davis, Jake McGee, and Brian Shaw, three relief pitchers in Colorado who actually combined for negative war,

I believe, in their time there, meaning they spent $100 million and actually weren't even replacement level. So the personnel decisions there have been catastrophically bad. And when Arnauto signed that extension, he did so with a promise from Dick Moffat, the owner, we are going to build around you and we are going to be aggressive and make this team better. Then they didn't. And it was almost immediately that they didn't, which started the souring of this relationship, feeling like the other side was being duplicitous. And I suppose duplicity can be part of the process if you have $260 million,

but the fact that he felt like he did was not going away and there was nothing that was going to salvage that. So Lindor, we could talk about Mookie. I mean, look, Aaron Otto, somebody, eight gold gloves. He, I think, is third in war behind Trout and Mookie as a position player here since we go back to the beginning

of his run. But, you know, Blake Snell with Tampa, I guess you could just say, hey, that's Tampa specific. The Pirates and some of the stuff they've done now for two plus years. What is going on in this league where it feels like half the teams

don't, is it expanded? Is it, is it fear or are they using, you know, we always have that rule. Like if you give somebody an excuse, they're going to use it. And if you give owners the excuse of,

Hey, we're not sure what the finances are going to be for a good reason, because of everything that's going on here, it's going to impact at least two seasons with baseball and the pandemic. It, it, it's sad. Is there any argument to understand this other than it just feels like baseball has a lot of partners that don't care about the product?

I think that there is a fundamental question about competitiveness in baseball that has been leaking into the game since the Houston Astros did the original tank job there. And the Chicago Cubs followed with it. And other teams have taken that same tack. And I looked last week. I think that there were something like 10 teams right now that have sub $80 million payrolls in Major League Baseball, which is a ridiculous figure, considering we haven't seen that in 10 years.

And the revenue growth over the industry in that time has gone from $6.5 billion to $10.5 billion annually. I mean, we're talking like more than 50% growth, and yet teams are sporting payrolls like it's back in the 2000s or the very early 2010s. And so the consequence of that is that players are pissed, that labor animus is as high as it's been since 1994, and that we are barreling our way toward a lockout where the main point of contention from the Players Association is going to be that Major League Baseball has turned into a fundamentally anti-competitive outlet and that that is a problem for the product,

that that's a problem for the sport and that there need to be new levers put into place to ensure that teams go out and not only spend, but try to win. Yeah, it always gets back to some of that fan graph stuff I would look at, where the percentage of actual revenue being paid to players was declining, declining, declining.

And I know I brought it up with you, so I'm repeating myself, but we had Manford on set in San Diego All-Star weekend. And I was like, hey, what's going on with that? And you would have thought I asked them to play with two baseballs. manford on set in san diego all-star weekend and i was like hey what's going on with that and you would have thought i asked them to play with two baseballs you know he was like what and then like one of his guys apparently was like motherfucking me to somebody at espn being like why would he ask that why i was like i asked it because it's true right it's because the players know what's

happening and so like and i actually again i'm not some massive anti-manford guy believe it or not which i know is rare these days because i think some of this stuff is impossible, close to impossible to navigate through. I'm not saying he's without mistakes, but this is, this is coming to a head. Like when you have the Red Sox who are like, if I got to read another Garrett Richards spin rate article, you know, 10 million for him, 14 million for Kiki Hernandez after you just get rid of Mookie and you're the Red Sox. And so, you know, again, I still think the tanking part of baseball is a little overrated because you just don't have the same kind of impactful guy where you go, hey, we just grabbed a LeBron, you know, or we just grabbed hell, even a Joel Embiid. And now this is who we're going to be. I don't think it's the same relationship at all. Yeah. But you want to jump in. So go ahead. No, I think the Red Sox are actually a very interesting team to look at right

now, because a lot of, a lot of the issues I think stem from the principles that have been espoused. Oh my God, that's an enormous water bottle. I'm sorry. I had to.

No, thank you. My goodness. I saw that. It looked like a giant can of like special monster energy. Like what would be the big bang energy over here? What would be the, what would be the Rosillo monster energy flavor? Anger.

Okay. So, so the Red Sox, let's go back and look at what the Tampa Bay Rays did when Andrew Friedman was there. They signed two types of deals. They signed their own players to long-term under-market contracts. And they signed free agents, not normally high profile, but you remember Rafael Soriano. They would sign free agents to one of your deals. And that's worked really,

really well for them. And you saw Friedman take that model to Los Angeles and replicate it only with a jolt of Rosillo energy drink. And they got a ring out of it. They got a ring. And look at who's running the Boston Red Sox now. It's Higham Bloom. He learned under Andrew Friedman. And those very same principles are being applied there right now. And I think that Mookie Betts was the consequence of Dave Dombrowski chasing a ring. I'm not absolving the Red Sox for doing what they did here.

But if you are going to bring High and Bloom in, and if you're going to commit to this vision of trying to do what the Rays have done and try to do what the Dodgers have done, then you almost need to restart. And I think that's what they have been trying to do, to get as close to a restart as you can. Now, was trading Mookie Betts the right thing to do? No, of course not. Even though I think Verdue goes good,

even though I think Downs is going to be good, it's a trade that if you're ownership, you cannot allow them to make. But I think that in the end, the Red Sox, these little deals that you see here are going to make them better and they're going to be back sooner than people think. Yeah. And it always is worth bringing up because I always felt like Lou Maloney, who's on the air in Boston, who was one of my favorite all-time Red Sox, and I'm not being sarcastic. He's always been really

good on the Mookie thing. Like he had the contract, he had the trade and he's always said, look, he didn't want to stay here. He didn't want to stay here. He didn't want to stay here. So if that's a hundred percent true, and I would, I would tend to believe he's been so good on that stuff. Um, and you know, like, I also think there's a devil's advocate part of this. Cause then I was going through the free agent signings and I think we have three deals that are guaranteed north of 50 million in in one off season now you can understand i think there might be one there could be a fourth one there but that's that's basically what we're talking about there's like a hundred and then there's a 90 and then there's a 60 and then i think there's a 54 million dollar total package and i don't know what the guarantees are on that there's there's a the springers 150 rio muto 115 5 uh le mayhew 90 and after that i think james mccann

is it 60 or james no james mccann is at 40.6 okay there's a 54 in there for somebody. Oh, Liam Hendricks, of course, is 54. Okay, all right. So that on its own, I'm like, whoa, when I look that up and all the other stuff that we're talking about. And yes, this stuff is always really interesting to me. But we also know the pandemic part of it, the excuse for where we mentioned that. But then there's another part where I have to kind of say, all right, what if I'm on the other side? I'd be like, hey, weren't all of you idiots ripping us for almost two decades talking about how terrible long-term position contracts have been? I mean, if you go all the way back to Todd Helton, to Prince Fielder, to even Miguel Cabrera, you could, you know, like, look, I could go through more of these, but it was almost like a 90% miss rate.

So I'm wondering if it isn't just, look, part of it is not spending. Part of it is the competitive stuff. I don't like any of that. I would never defend any look, part of it is not spending. Part of it is the competitive stuff. I don't like any of that. I would never defend any of that part of it. But I can't also be critical of how bad they've been on positional contracts and they get mad because they're not giving out positional contracts again. The entire system needs an overhaul. I mean, that's just the reality.

What do you think should happen then? Give me your whole mission statement if you were in charge of this. I think free agencies should start earlier because if you're going to be giving out long-term contracts, it is better to do it to young players. I think there needs to be something in place that either greatly compensates teams that lose high- free agents, uh, or, uh, gives them leverage or leeway to sign. I think there, uh, needs to be significantly higher pay for younger

players because, uh, that higher pay, uh, will compensate them for their best years. You know, I look at the years that guys who are making $500,000 when they're producing $100 million in value. That may be a little bit of an exaggeration. But if you've got a five-win player, he's worth $50 million or so marginally, especially when Chris Bryant's winning the MVP in his second season. When Juan Soto, and I say this not exaggerating, Juan Soto is Ted Williams, man.

He is that good, and he's being paid near the minimum this year. I don't think that should be the case. I think there should be levers in place where guys get compensated based on their production in those early years. And that just is not there right now. And there are a million different things that you can do to disincentivize losing, to reward winning. I actually don't mind the idea of winning teams

getting better draft positions than they do right now, or there being a losing penalty, where if you lose 90 games, three consecutive seasons, I don't know, you lose a first round pick. Your first round pick moves down 15 spots. It's just everything needs to be in place with the idea that we want to promote Major League Baseball as a place where teams are trying to win. You just have to come to terms,

Ryan, with the fact that the numbers say when guys hit 30 years old, they tend to go downhill. If you're fighting against that, then you are fighting a losing battle. That is not a hill that you can die on. And that's the existential crisis of the Major League Baseball Players Association, that most free agents are 30 years old. And most people who do reach free agency are looking for paydays when teams right now know that those contracts are like the ones you said, they're just not going to be great by and large.

I used to push back on the money for the guys with like a year in, you know, but you're right. I mean, the low scale of what they make is so absurd that there can be some kind of, I don't know if it's a rookie scale similar to the NBA, but I mean, even the NBA, which had to overhaul its entire thing. And then every time they do new a CBA, they'll reset the rookie scale. You know, they don't want it to keep growing off of some number that was set 20 years ago. So they'll reset it. And if you come out that year, it sucks. But it's still like Anthony Edwards, number one pick.

He's going to make close to $10 million. He'll make $44 guaranteed the first four years. Wiseman's at $8. I mean, it does drop off significantly. You go to the seventh pick, he's going to make five guaranteed 24 million, but this is significant money. I mean, even the 15th pick is going to make about 15, 16 million guaranteed unless the team doesn't pick up his third and fourth year options. So you're right. Like, I don't know if it's like, I'm okay with a team having some control over the guy that they picked and they were right about.

As you mentioned before, the resources put into talking about a trade that doesn't even happen, think of the resources of scouting somebody, building that relationship over and over again. You shouldn't just be losing them a year later, and no one's suggesting that. But there has to be a way to better compensate the early productive players. And then maybe there's some sort of reward and less risk on the back side of that like you're talking about. Yeah, and I almost look at it like there's some sort of fixed pool for, God, I cannot

get over that giant water bottle. You keep going back to it. I'm just thirsty, this topic. You're like 6'6", too, right? No, I'm not 6'6". How tall are you? I'm 6'2". You're 6'2"? You have 6'6", too, right? No, no, I'm not 6'6". How tall are you? I'm 6'2". You're 6'2"?

You have 6'6 presence. Yeah, I'm definitely not 6'6". You have like 6'6 voice, too. I'm sorry. You need to stop drinking. You got me on tilt now. Okay. I don't know if it's a pool of money that gets distributed to younger players based on their performance.

If every team has to kick in a fixed amount. I don't know if it's like, let's just look at it this way. If you are an organization and you have a player who is performing, you want to pay him, right? Like you want him to somehow be rewarded for that. And I understand arbitration kind of tries to do that, but that's not until a player's third year at earliest, typically fourth, fifth, and sixth years. And it's on such a sliding scale that Juan Soto, as great as he is, is going to make eight and a half million in his first year of arbitration this year. When, if you look at his

numbers, he's made a million and a half over his first three years. And you look at his numbers, they are historically good, Brian, like historically good. And he just, you know, if you had gone to the nationals and said, hey, you got to give Soto like 5 million extra dollars because he carried you to a World Series, I think the Nationals would have been like, no, okay, I'm cool with that. And if the fact that 30-something-year-old free agents aren't getting paid as much is what allows that to be funded. Well, look at where we are right now already. 30-something free agents really aren't being paid a whole lot now.

So the system doesn't have to change much in order to make it that way. Yeah, I wish we could have solved this today, but I'm not sure that we're going to get there. Yeah, I wish I could. I wish we could have solved this today, but I'm not sure that we're going to get there. I was going to say, let's, you know, let's solve the last 25 years of Major League Baseball chipping away at the will of the Players Association and subverting the bargaining dynamic

that for so long existed in this sport. I wish, listen, like one of my goals has been to write the new CBA and I just have never gotten around to it, but I want to, I want to take a crack at what a functional basic agreement in baseball would look like. I think it's a great piece to just, you know, put it in the back of your head, pull out that folder every now and then don't give yourself a deadline on it. And if you did like a 10 part thing, and then you could ask agents and front office people and players, just add it all together, and then you become the person that's in charge of the final proposal and put it on.com, that would be unbelievable.

All right, there's two things I got to get to here, and I don't want to rush one. But this part of it, at least the latest on what the new proposal is, we know the latest was rejected by the Players Association. We went through this last year. Where are we at with it? We know the latest was rejected by the Players Association. We went through this last year. Where are we at with it? Spring training report date is February 17th, and that's that.

I mean, if you want the 30,000-foot view, this is two consecutive messes for Major League Baseball. The first when last year after the March agreement, they couldn't agree upon what they had agreed upon and ended up being a 60-game season when there could have been 100 games very easily. This time, the back and forth has been stilted, and Major League Baseball wanted to push back the season. And the players said, well, don't talk to us until you're willing to give us full pay. And MLB finally went back to him two weeks before spring training start and says, we'll do full pay.

And the players said, no, thank you. We're going to report to spring training. And that's that. And I think any reasonable person would say that if you move things back and try to wait out the pandemic, it's not a bad thing, but the players, I think the players look at it like MLB wants something. They need to give us something to get it. And not only were they not willing to give us something to get it,

they tried to take something from us in the form of the expanded playoffs. So the strategy from MLB from the start there was uh suboptimal and and was not the kind of thing that was going to put them in line to get a deal done okay there's no way than other just to tell the audience that this is a hard left turn here um but jeff and i spoke earlier this week maybe you've seen his feature up on espn.com uh story of drew robinson who's with the Giants organization. And when I talked to Jeff, he's like, this story's going to blow you away.

Right out of the first jump, the first paragraph, you're like, okay, you know, sit down and lock in here. And you've described this as the most important story that you've ever written. So why don't you tell us the story? It's, I say the most important story that I've ever written because it's not just a

sports story. It's not just a baseball story. It is just a life story and about the struggles every single human being goes through. And for Drew Robinson, they were just simply more acute than others. And he didn't understand how to, uh, how to deal with them in a healthy fashion. Uh, you know, he, he didn't talk about them with family and friends. Uh, he didn't seek professional help or treatment. He looked at medication as weakness as opposed to something that's vital. And in the end, on April 16th, he shot himself in the head. And the miraculous part of the story, I think, on the top line is that he lived through that. on the top line is that he lived through that. But to me, the great miracle of Drew Robinson is who he is becoming day after day and the effect that he's having on other people's lives.

And when we spoke for the first time, he said, I want to help people. And the most amazing part of this story, I think, has been seeing during the reporting process the people who he has helped, his mom, his dad, his sister, his brother, the woman who he still loves and who he was engaged to at one point, his coaches, his, you know, the random people in his life. And Brian, like this story, when we're recording this, this story has been out for about 24 hours. He's helping a lot of people that he doesn't know already. And like, this is day two. So to know what Drew has ahead of him is exciting and daunting and scary and intimidating. And the fact that he's trying to come back and play baseball with one eye,

even if that doesn't work, even if that doesn't work, even if that doesn't happen, and I will never doubt that man to do anything, but if it doesn't, I know for a fact that for the rest of his life, he's going to be an inspiration to people just like he's been to me for a while now. Please check that piece out from Jeff.

It is right away because I didn't know what it was about at all. And then you click on it and you're a couple of lines in and you go, oh, okay. And the way you take us through the entire thing, and then you jump back and forth in the timeline of the event of where he actually tries to take his life and then going back and studying his history and then kind of moving it forward. It's really, really well done. And I'm not surprised

he did a great job on it. So thanks, man. Thank you. And if I may, uh, I'm sorry to do this, but there's an accompanying documentary on ESPN plus, uh, that is directed by Martin Khodabashian, who is a brilliant filmmaker. And I urge you to go take a look at that. Bring the tissues. It is one of those stories that will stick with you for a really long time. Thanks, Joe. You want details? Bye.

I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

We've got one I'm really excited about here. LifeAdviceRR at gmail.com. Let's start with a simple one. Hey Ryan and Kyle, 37, work for a small company in the Midwest. Six employees. I've worked there about a year and a half, and I'm by far

the most recent hire. I'm decent at my job. Boys afraid. How often are we all telling the truth? So if you're like, I'm decent at my job, does that mean you actually aren't? But you're saying you're decent at your job, so we'll take your word for it. Easy to get along with, good sense of humor, albeit dry, have a good working relationship with everyone in the office. My problem is that I'm a volume joke guy. I feel like I hit on about 30% of the jokes I tell around the office.

At first, I was fine with a higher usage rate because I was feeling things out and expected my percentage to go up over time. Instead, I feel like the jokes that aren't landing are making it increasingly more difficult to relate to my coworkers, and I feel like they've started distancing from me. I've never been in this position before, and I'm not sure where to go from here. At this point, is it better to drastically cut my joke telling

or should I continue to refine it to get my stats up? Have you ever dealt with a volume joke guy? Any advice is appreciated. Wow. Not long, but a lot going on. So let's start with a couple of the obvious ones. If you're saying you feel like you hit on 30%, but you're noticing that employees are distancing themselves from you, that number is probably like 10%. All right? So if you're the one telling all the jokes and you think they're hitting and you're giving yourself a 30, it's lower, man. It's lower. And if you're self-aware enough, I mean, unless you're the most self-aware volume joke guy, but I would think if you're the most self-aware guy, you wouldn't be a volume joke guy.

But now you're sort of both. But then I'm thinking, like, are are you partially aware and you've noticed that people have just distanced themselves from you you got a real problem here and on top of that you're in a midwest city la new york boston i'd be really worried about you but you're hitting only 30 in a midwest city because the same thing when people on the coast will see some of the network lineup shows where I'll go, who laughs at this shit? And you go, oh, the Midwest.

So if they're not laughing at your jokes right now, and by the way, I love people from the Midwest. You know what I'm saying? I just think that there's we'll just leave it at that. I just think there's certain levels of sitcoms over the years where I've gone, who's this for? So, um, I'm worried about you big time. I am because this isn't baseball where 30% is hall of fame. This is, this is low. It's really low. I would almost

apologize. I would, I would make the joke on you and go, hey, look, I've been volume joke guy. Just call yourself out. I need to tighten that up. Maybe people will get a kick out of that. Some real humble, not Instagram humble. I don't know. Don't send a memo out or maybe just rehearse some of this stuff a little bit better. Do you have anybody you could bounce your material off of? Because this is bad. Because the bad joke joke guy it sucks because nobody knows what to do we had a guy and look i don't really like him to begin with but we had a guy who would come into the studio and he would no matter what there was always a joke it was always always a comment. It was always something. And so you'd be sitting there with your staff or you'd be sitting around doing your thing.

And then this guy would come in and he'd open it up and he'd be like, oh, is that your shirt you're wearing? And in the beginning, you're like, okay. I'm like, yeah, you know, last year. And I'll admit too, like I had a weird phase post-college where all I could think of was an insult. As soon as somebody said something, the only thing I could think of was an insult. And finally I had to be like, hey, you're not a dick. You're not a bully.

Like, why are you doing this? It's like, oh, that's because that's all we did was insult each other for like four years. And then a couple of years after that, like it was just a massive insult fest. So you had to learn how to be quick enough to insult the other guys so that you could just keep up and then when you sort of kind of move out of that phase where you know it wouldn't be fun to just be insulting

people all the time or having somebody insult you uh you're like hey stop doing this but my mind was wired to immediately think of an insult all the time because it was just again iron sharpening iron i just love saying that i love saying man sharpened man because i saw it at a football immediately think of an insult all the time because it was just, again, iron sharpening iron. I just love saying that. I love saying man sharpened man because I saw it at a football facility once and I thought it was like the funniest thing I've ever seen. So you have to figure out a way to like self edit. You have to figure out. So as soon as that joke pops up into your head, you got to go, okay, is this a really good one or not? And I don't know if you're capable of that because you're 37 and you're writing this email. So I'm really worried. Like I'm legit worried about this. Um, and like I said, back to that story, we had this guy, he would come in and in the beginning, you're like, okay, you made a bad

joke. You made a dumb observation. That was his sort of odd, like ice breaking way. And then it just became insufferable. Like nobody could do anything with it anymore. So the guy would come in and he would say his, his thing, he'd be like, Oh, you know, and you just be like, and then I would stare and I would look and he would be like, okay, Ryan. And I go, okay, we're done. I'm like, all right, now can we start the conversation? Cause that's how I was that sick of it. And at that point I could kind of just be like, look, you feel this way about me. I feel this way about you. We're not kidding each other here. We both know we don't like each other.

So. All right, cool. And it was just unbelievably awkward because everybody was uncomfortable around it all the time. Like people in the office, everybody like, oh, so-and-so came in and he just would, you know, he makes these jokes and they're never funny. And it's just this weird observation. And I think it's almost like a weird, insecure,

hey, I'm being one of the guys thing. So you didn't take it. It wasn't like nasty. It wasn't, but it just made everybody awkward. And then everybody starts talking about you. So the problem with this is, is probably everybody is talking about you. So I hope this helps you feel better

about your day at work. No, you there for me bud yeah that's oh yeah i'm there i just kept thinking of the uh the seinfeld episode with um kramer's girlfriend who's uh heckling jerry before she heckles him she just like makes makes and laughs at her own terrible jokes and it's not even a joke it's like observations like you said like she doesn't even come up with one in the chamber she's just like oh i'm so excited you know all that stuff you know that what the episode i'm talking about ruins this whole set sherry gets all mad god i haven't watched that show in a while i'm gonna start swing back on it all right okay uh this is a three two and one, and one. Okay. This is a big one. This is a big email for us. All right. Let's go here. Ryan moved to LA a year ago to pursue

screenwriting. I went to college in an unrelated field, but a script I wrote at a school got some interest by agencies in LA. And since writing was my passion, I figured it was best to make the move to LA. Not a big move just from San diego to la when i graduated i moved into an airstream with no power and no water in the valley at a friend's house this guy's a real real troubadour over here um kyle would you ever want to live in an airstream no i can confidently say no okay all right our guy's just like he's writing so he's in the valley he's like you'd be surprised how cold it gets in the valley at night trust me i was i wouldn't be at all um there's they leave that out of the california part of it but when it does actually get cold at night here um and people want to act like it's tijuana on the east coast you're like oh what is it like 80 like no it's

it's like 51 what What are you talking about? I know it gets even colder out there. All right. A couple months go by. I take a couple meetings with agents and producers, but then all of a sudden, all the people who wanted to work with me are nowhere to be found. No way. Welcome to screenwriting. All right.

Around the same time I meet this girl, we hit it off. She's amazing. She's got a nice place down in San Diego where I went to college. So I'm down there writing by the beach all the time. Life's decent, living situation improved, but the work stuff was hitting a wall. Then COVID hits and our lease runs out. We can't really go back and stay at my trailer. So she says, why don't we go stay at my brother's? Her brother is none other than a world famous musician, uh, making eight figures a year. I can't say the name of the musician, but just trying to paint the picture. We lived there for about five months. And by the way, um, I was able to figure out, I think who it was. And, and this guy is, uh, very serious. Like he's not exaggerating. Okay.

This is very serious. So our emailer says. This is very serious. Our emailer says he lives there about five minutes with the sister. The whole time I'm writing, living in this sick house, it's great. He's asking me about my work. I'm asking him about his. We're homies. He would always tell me he didn't really know people in the film industry, but he would always try and help with my scripts. Unlike my dad, when I told him whose house I was living in, he said I should ask for a job. I would never cross that line and ask for something like that. But when he offered help with my scripts, I filed it away. A couple months go by after we lived there and I have my own apartment now. I have a new script trending. But again, everyone takes a meeting, then nothing. Again, welcome to screenwriting.

Like anyone, after things like this in subjective industries, you start to doubt yourself. Just dead end after dead end. I'm really down on my luck. Then one night we go to his house for a small party. At the end of the night, we're all drunk. And he starts telling me about his new short film he's making, how amazing it is because he's making it with real all caps writers and how I wouldn't understand because I'm not a real writer. Keep in mind, this is the guy who said he didn't know any of the writers or people like that. He's borderline blacked out, so I brushed it off. But it hurt.

And my girlfriend could tell it hurt. She knew the situation. She said he does it to her all the time. She's also unemployed right now and in marketing, but he'll talk about marketing positions on his team all the time in front of her. She says she has so many people to do things for him that he doesn't think about these things. By no means do I feel entitled to his help or anyone's help. I'm a hard worker, and I'm willing to put in the time to get where I want to be. I know my place in the pecking order of the industry right now. Hell, I'm 23. I know you still have a lot more

of my dues to pay. But going back to what he said, it wasn't the fact that I didn't get the job to work on a short film. I just wanted to sit in the room and get coffee for the writers, do bitch work. I want to work. It's just so fucking defeating to be passed over so many times for people who say they want to help you. And then when it comes, they ghost you, especially in an industry where it's a business in which people have to help you break in. You can't just make a script and then have a movie. So I'm writing to ask, since I know you talk about your grind to get where you are, do you have any advice for someone trying to get in the industry like this or anything for any kind of peace of mind? This is not unique, unfortunately. And I know that, look, I'll get a lot of emails through the Kyle machine here. And a lot of you guys are asking me about help.

I can't help you. And I know this is not what this email is. It's hard for me, man. I've moved out here a couple of years ago. I've had meetings where I went, oh my God, I'm going to do something with this person. Or this guy just gave me the best feedback ever on my script. And this was the best meeting I've ever had. I had one meeting at a place where it was scheduled for 30 minutes. We were there two and a half hours. We were making plans for that weekend. And we had all these mutual friends. And he was saying like, I can't wait to read this or this. And he's like, that's incredible. I've never heard from that guy again. It's been two years. Okay. Never heard from him again. Um, I've had meetings at every place you would ever want to have. And all of them,

except for like one, when incredible where you leave and you go back to your car and you're driving back down the coast, you're like, I'm really doing it. I'm really doing it. And you never hear from that person ever again. I think that's what the industry, I think the industry is I've learned is that you never want to close the door on anyone. So you let them think there's always a possibility so that if ever comes back around and it's like, oh wow, this person was really interested in me, or I always believed in you, or I told you I always liked your script or, you know, I always knew we'd work on something down the road. That's what I've learned about the industry is that that's that's just how it works. It's ridiculous, but that's that's how it goes.

And as far as like getting something made, if you're not already a guy, you know, a real person with a big time production deal and a history of stuff. And when you factor in the movies that are and aren't being made, and then some of the stuff that you're going to have to pull off to even get a TV show made, it's really hard. Now, let's go back to your specific situation. So you can't, first of all, you can't feel bad. You're 23 and meetings aren't going better. People aren't following up. That's not unique to you. So you can't get down on yourself. You can't use that to be bummed out like nobody's following up with you. People aren't following up with people all over the place.

And you factor in COVID and everything else. And a lot of places don't want to buy something because it's like, wait a minute, I already bought all these other things that I haven't been able to make for a year and now I'm going to buy more stuff and I don't know when I'm going to be able to make it. So the timing is actually pretty terrible too. So we got all that out of the way. I can tell you this. Um, and I think I say this with a great, as we were talking about self-awareness before with a great sense of self-awareness, whatever my level of, of, I don't even want to call it famous, but whatever the level of this is and being on ESPN a bunch of years and having a podcast, like, I think I have

good perspective of what it's like to be really famous because I'm around the people that are really famous and know that I'm not that. All right? But what I've always noticed about some of the people that are really, really fucking killing it, and whether it's an actor or a musician, is that they've had to be so single-minded to get to this point

that they can become incredibly selfish in a way they don't even realize they're being selfish. Like this feels a little selfish, but this guy, this musician, I don't even know that he realizes that he's basically bumming you out like this. And it's weird. You're dating a sister. You don't know if you're going to be part of the family. It's been what, six months or something like that. And I'm with you. Like I have people that I could probably ask for bigger favors, but I don't really want to. And, and there's a couple of people I've had stuff read that are big deals and it's great when I get amazing feedback on it, but then I just kind of go

like, all right, fine. They read it. They gave me all this great feedback. Maybe it's true, but that's kind of where I'm going to leave it. There's other people that I'll notice where I'm like, Oh, I'm getting an eye roll from this guy. Like this guy doesn't think I'm ever going to get anything done. Cause this is really hard. And I can already sense like this guy has no poker face and he's just going to like doubt me the whole time. And so fuck you. Let's go.

Right. I don't even think any of that stuff is happening here. I think what we're talking about here is a musician that is a big deal who is in his own world so much that he doesn't even understand that he's bumming you out. So it's actually, I know this sounds messed up, but his selfishness makes this better because none of it's malicious.

Now, when he said real writers, did he say that as like a dig on you? Or was he just drunk, like getting real creative? Like people will be up late at night and be like, no, but then we're going to shoot it with like real people. So I don't know if that's, you took it personally. I don't even know that he would have meant that. So it sounds weird to want to give a pass to a guy making eight figures a year, but

you have to one, understand that the times where he's selfish and the times it's all about him is that at this point of his life, literally everything is about him. Every time he gets off a plane, every time he shows up to a venue, every time he interacts with anyone, it's always about him. He is now the center of attention forever for as long as he's still successful. And that can make you weird in a way that you don't understand how much you're detached from the reality around you. And I think that's all that's really happening here. So I don't think it's nasty, but would it be the worst thing for you to just go, hey, look, or maybe you talk to the sister.

I mean, the fact that he doesn't want to put his sister on a marketing gig, I don't know. Some guys are weird about, and it's not nepotism, but the family part of this. I mean, look, I've tried to get my brother a couple of gigs here and there. I haven't been able to get him a job. You know, he's 30. He's a great music producer. He's DJed. I mean, he's not just playing other people's music. He's put together great music. I mean, he's the same deal. He has all these meetings. They don't go anywhere. I've tried to find him some jobs, but I don't know how much I want to push it because then I don't want people to think that my brother only got a job because of me. And it certainly wouldn't be an on air thing or something like that.

So you could, if the sister says, Hey, this is kind of his deal again, too, you're living there. So maybe he is a total asshole. And I don't know that, but you didn't say any of that stuff before. It's this one part where like, did you want him to pick you as an unproven writer to write this? You're already saying no, that you just want to be around it. Like what's the harm in you just saying, Hey, you know what I want to do? We've gotten along. I'm not even asking to write or anything like that. I don't have any credits, but can I just be around it? Because that'd be a really weird thing for him to say no to. And if he says no, then you know where you stand. And if he says yes, then guess what? Things change.

And now you're going to start connecting with people that are actually pulling this stuff off and you don't know. So I don't think you should be this pissed about it, even though I understand why. But you can't just stay pissed without ever asking him. Even if you feel like, Hey, I shouldn't do this. You're not asking him for a job. All right. And dads can be weird like that. My dad's still sometimes like, how come you can't get your brother a job? I can like, I can't just show up and go, Hey, make this guy, your music producer. He's my brother. Thank you. And subscribe. Um, it doesn't, you know, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be pushy like that, but there there there is a part of this where I think there's a really soft you know intro into the

conversation where you could just say hey man you know like just while I'm around if you guys are going to do any of this stuff I'll go get coffee I mean who's going to say no to you and as a young age you're not as threatening so it sounds like you all get along enough other than that blip. You know, if you're sitting there saying, I will do all the shit no one else wants to do just to be around it. I don't know that that many people would ever say no to that kind of thing. So I think you kind of need to do that and ask in a very non-parasitic way. non you know uh parasitic way yeah because like you're thinking about this all the time but he's only ever thinking about it when you bring it up which sounds like it's never so right yeah right like i think it's cool the emailer here is like hey i don't want to be that guy well that's great

and i think it's something you want to but for this industry sometimes you kind't want to be that guy. Well, that's great. And I think it's something you want to, but for this industry, sometimes you kind of have to be that guy a little bit. Look, I did it a couple of times with big time movie producers where I was like, Hey, look, I know we have kind of just like a sort of a casual friend in the relationship, but Hey, you know, would you ever want to read anything? And then one guy was like, holy shit, really? He's like, I didn't know that's what you were doing. I was like, okay, thanks for listening to the podcast.

I'm sorry. And I sent it to him, and it was unbelievable that a guy hit me up and was like, holy shit, this is amazing. He's like, I thought you were kind of like just one of those full of shit guys that moved out here and said he was going to write. He's like, you actually did this. I'm like, yeah. And guess what? Then you just sort of wait. So, um, uh, none of it, none of it goes according to your plan, you know, because you've got to wait on so many other people. And, you know, if you keep grinding, it's almost like a volume joke guy, you know, you don't want to be

a volume joke guy, but if you have enough lines out there eventually and you just keep at it, unless you're writing completely sucks and you're just terrible at it, then maybe you pivot to something else. But you're 23. You can't get discouraged about it because your experience is not all that different from people that are a lot older

than you're trying to do it. That'll do it for the podcast. This was a fun one today make sure you check us out on Friday Teddy Bruschi Aaron Donald as we'll get you ready for the Super Bowl so we'll keep grinding here ringer Spotify please subscribe Ryan Masula podcast

you Thank you.