The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Sports Scandals, Plus NFLPA President J.C. Tretter | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

Russillo talks about scandals in sports after watching the HBO documentary 'The Scheme' (2:05) before he is joined by Cleveland Browns center and NFLPA president J.C. Tretter to discuss the election process for president of the players association, the recent CBA, the 2020 NFL season, and more (20:43). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up? Ryan Russillo podcast here, part of the Ringer Network. And as you know, today's episode of the Ryan Russillo podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Just like sports, the game of life is unpredictable. Talk to a State Farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected you know what's unexpected kyle a pair of power block dumbbells showed up in my house oh wow you finally got something i paid for them so you don't have to get all in your feelings you said you couldn't get them anywhere no i ordered them and i thought

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Today's plan, we're going to have J.C. Tretter of the Cleveland Browns. He is now the new NFLPA president, and they have a new CBA. So I want to go over that with him. We'll have a little fun with the fact that being an Ivy Leaguer in an NFL locker room probably isn't always the coolest thing, but it's great to be an Ivy leaguer. If you want to be president of the NFL PA, which he is now replacing Eric Winston, who's no longer in the league. We'll talk about the CBA. And then of course, uh, what they know, again, it's very limited information here, what we know about the future of what it could be. So I'll ask all those questions. I don't know what kind of answers we're going to get. But before we do that, this week's open

is about scandals and scandals in sports. And whenever we read the initial headlines, the final conclusion is usually always very underwhelming. Now, there's a bunch of different scandals that we can go through, and I'll get to those a little bit later. But the reason I bring this one up is because of HBO's new documentary called The Scheme that has to do with the FBI investigating pay-for-play scenarios with big-time college basketball programs. Now, at the center of this story is Christian Dawkins. Christian Dawkins is a kid who grows up in Saginaw, Michigan.

His father's a legendary high school basketball coach. He wants to play basketball. It's not going to work out for him as he very bluntly puts it Draymond Green was an upperclassman and he was like oh wait maybe I'm not going to be great and I'm not going to play in the NBA but he's a smart kid and he put together these scattering report websites at a very young age and started shouting actually charging people to get the information for the website so like he had this side business that he was doing on his own while he was going through school. We're not even talking college because he was like, I don't really think I even need to go to college, but he was making these connections.

And he was relating to kids that were going to be going through the hoops pipeline, whether it was AAU and then ultimately college, and then maybe even the rare cases of them selecting an agent. So he's now connected. He becomes this connected guy. And this stuff happens. And as I've said numerous times on this show, that I am not an NCAA anarchist. I do not want it to be blown up. I do believe that the players can be compensated more, strictly the revenue generating players, college football, college basketball. If you're telling me the women's tournament makes enough money so that the women's players could get paid a little bit more i'm all for it if you're telling me the college baseball world series brings in enough revenue that you can start paying some

of the baseball players that are strictly in that tournament i don't know look depending on what side of the argument on some of you will argue oh everybody deserves a half a million dollars that's stupid the other side of it where you say oh well there's no way any of these players could be paid any money because the money generated by football and basketball pays for all of the other programs. And if you take money away from that, you're going to have to take away programs. Lacks will be out. You've got Title IX issues and all this different stuff. And I'm like, okay, maybe, maybe, maybe that's the case. I've looked at some of the stuff that's floated around. I'm like, oh, that looks pretty convincing. But why are teams, why are programs losing money? Well,

I'll tell you a reason why. It's because they're paying coaches so much more now. Nebraska actually leads the country. I saw this number the other day. They're at almost like $20 million. They're still paying out to people that aren't working in the football program, just the football program. That's crazy. Okay, so wait a minute. So who's accountable for that one? Well, the AD is already fired, and the coach is is already fired and we already got rid of two other coaches. So that's the way these contracts work. And the other part of this is every time we see a brand new football facility

and all the bells and whistles, it's like, man, look how exciting that is. And we're like, yeah, it's really cool. But you know what else it is? It's another way to spend more and more money to continually upgrade your facilities that probably don't always need these upgrades so that you can find a way to spend all the money

so you can make a justification for not paying any of the players. I think the players that generate money should be paid. I'm okay with that. But I also think when the NCAA decides to let players that declare for the NBA draft to go back to school if they're not drafted, which is a rule change they did, I think, two years ago when I was on GetUp. And the guys on GetUp looked at me like I was an idiot because I was like, hey, that's good. Good good for the NCAA that was smart good good for the players like that's a nice concession they're like how dare you how dare you sir how can you sit there and say the NCAA did something actually good what is wrong with you I'm like all right whatever is that what we're doing and I think that's actually what most people are doing so that gets back to the documentary the scheme Christian Dawkins ends

up being hooked up with Andy Miller who's a big-time NBA agent and a guy like Christian Dawkins who has these relationships as a young black kid who is speaking the same language. It's somebody that generally most of the basketball players we're talking about here are young black kids, and they're going to connect with him instead of an older white guy. All of this makes sense. It would make sense to you if you were a young black kid. It would make sense to you if you're an old white banker who has only dealt with people that went to the same prep schools, colleges, and the same country clubs as you. Hey, I know this guy. He's speaking my language. To me, this isn't necessarily even about prejudice. A lot of times, it's just comfort level with who you're comfortable with.

That's just a belief that I have. In this case, Dawkins because incredibly valuable. You can't put a number on what Christian Dawkinskins value would be to Andy Miller's agency because he is at the grassroots level of this, knows everybody's deal. Okay. Here's what that family's like. Here's the situation here. Here's a challenge here. Here's where I think this kid is leaning.

And the unfortunate part of this is underworld. That isn't really an underworld because anybody connected to sports, the amount of stories that I have, and I don't even know that they're all true. And I wouldn't really share really any of them other than in super vague terms. But you just go, hey, if you're a kid that has this ability that a bunch of people want, it's not necessarily the free market, but it is kind of the free market because somebody is going to be there willing to pay you some money. It's not every single school that's out of control. Not every single player has a handler. Not every guy is getting a bag of cash, but it happens, and we know this. And the scheme, this documentary tells us more how this all goes down. So Dawkins is working

for Andy Miller. And the other part of this that's fascinating is the agent risk. If you want to get in the agent game, like I thought at some point when I was younger, because I wanted to work in sports, I wanted to be an agent. My God, look, if you work for the big agency, you're never going to make as much because you're getting them clients and they're taking the commission and maybe you make a nice salary, but you're never going to make that serious bleep you kind of money we all want. Maybe some of you don't. I do. The other part of that is if you're a guy trying to break into it with your own agency, then you got to just start putting money out there all over the place. And you might be paying 10, 20 different players, helping out the family a little bit here and there. You're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars of payments across all these different

players because you're not necessarily doing anything wrong. You're just breaking an NCAA rule. Well, all of those players could decide, you know what? I'm out. I'm going to go sign with the big agent. You're just this new guy. Thanks for the cash and the hoodies, but I'm out and you can't really do anything about it. There's nothing really you can do. Now, I've heard stories about agents trying to go at people legally and all these different things, but that's a massive risk because you're not really representing the kid as an agent because you can't do that because of the NCAA, but you can be helping them the

whole way. So Dawkins is in this world. He admits to all of it, okay? And along comes this character named Marty Blazer, who was repping specifically, in this case, Lamar Woodley and some other athletes, where he was taking money from them because he wanted to finance a movie. And the movie they referenced in there is Mafia, this movie that was a bomb. And so the SEC starts investigating Marty Blazer as this financial guy that's stealing from his clients. And Blazer's like, well, look, I can hook you up with this

Christian Dawkins kid who had lost his job with andy miller over this uber scandal i'm not going to go through the entire timeline of this whole show because just watch the show and so christian wants to get his own agency going and he needs money behind him and so what happens is blazer to try to get himself out of jail goes to the FBI. And it's like, I can, I can, and I'm being a little loose with all of this. So it doesn't be too much detail, but it's basically like, look, I can help you set up some of these big name coaches in this whole college basketball world. Like, here's what I know.

So now the FBI is like, well, wait a minute. Nobody even knows who this Marty Blazer guy is. You know what we want? We want those big names. Cause that's what happens in all of this stuff. That's what happens with the Southern district. This is what happens with lawyers that want to make a name for themselves. This is what happens with investigators.

They're like, how can I get some big name people out there to get some recognition? I mean, these guys have egos too. And we've all watched movies or read the books about the investigator that loved the headlines and loved the spotlight. And a lot of these guys want that. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but we're just understanding the motivation. So as soon as the FBI hears that, wait a minute, we can go after like a Rick Pitino. We can go after a Sean Miller. We can go after all of these other coaches. Like, let's go ahead and do that. Like, this is going to be awesome. So

how do we do it? Like, all right, what's the, what we're going to do? We're going to have an FBI agent pose as a money guy. The money guy is going to give Christian Dawkins money. And then we're going to get Dawkins to bribe these coaches. Now, the funniest part of this whole thing is that Dawkins is telling the FBI undercover who he thinks is just this rich guy named Jeff on a yacht that has a bunch of clubs and wears fancy watches. And again, he's an FBI guy. He's like, why do you want me to bribe? If I give a coach a certain amount of money, it doesn't mean anything. That's stupid. And then Dawkins starts talking to the assistant coaches. He's like, yo, this Jeff guy wants me to give all this cash to these coaches.

He's like, this guy's stupid. And it's funny because Dawkins doesn't hold back. He's like, this guy's a fucking idiot. So the Dawkins angle on it is like, I'm just going to keep the money that the FBI is giving me, even though he's being wiretapped, even though he's being filmed and all these different things. So the first thing that jumps out at you, you watch this, you'll be like, OK, let me get this straight. The FBI was more interested in setting up Christian Dawkins to set up these bigger coaches, even though Dawkins was giving money to players, again, but the FBI didn't care about him because nobody knew who he was. So they were going big game hunting. And that's what happens. And that's kind of where I'm at with it, where every time there is this massive scandal and there are all these headlines. And let's go through this. Yahoo Sports, and I'm not knocking Yahoo at the time, but Yahoo two years ago, along with ESPN, started talking about what was going to happen with the NCAA tournament. It was

happening right as the tournament field was being announced. I'm going to read from this piece. Nearly half of the top programs in the nation this season could be named along with notable coaches and elite prospects. An unnamed source in the Yahoo Sports report said, quote, when this all comes out, Hall of Fame coaches should be scared. Lottery picks won't be eligible to play, and almost half of the 16 teams that the NCAA showed in its initial NCAA tournament show this weekend should worry about their appearance being vacated.

Here are the 16 teams the source refers to. Virginia, Villanova, Xavier, Purdue, Auburn, Kansas, Duke, Cincinnati, Clemson, Texas Tech, Michigan State, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, Ohio State, Oklahoma. That isn't even mentioned that Creighton's mentioned in the documentary. Louisville isn't even on this list. And Louisville was hooked up with the whole Brian Bowen situation, who was a player that ended up getting paid. The father wanted money.

Adidas and the Louisville connection and all these different deals with the sneaker part of it all connected. So I remember reading that going, oh my God. In the documentary, they show people reacting to this report saying this could be the biggest scandal in the history of sports. Not just college basketball, but the history of sports. And it just reminded me of all the other times I've heard that before. Remember Balco and Victor Conti and Barry Bonds and an IRS agent that just didn't like bonds. And there's some backstory that like, he didn't give him an autograph. And then he started diving through his dumpster and he put together this

massive case that costs millions and millions of dollars. I was reading through it again. I read the book on it. And Victor Conte ended up in jail for four months. And Bonds ended up with an obstruction of justice charge while his trainer did push-ups in jail. All of that for Victor Conte, who he said once he was in jail, when he got out, he was like, yeah, I talked to other inmates about how to use steroids. That's what I did. Remember the FIFA scandal? I went

through that disaster last night. That went on forever. Wait a minute. The World Cup's in, remember we all found out it wasn't Qatar, it was Qatar. That was huge news on the time. Like, wait a minute. The World Cup's in Qatar and it's hot and now we've got to change the date of it. And wait a minute, it's going to be after Russia, but now Russia isn't allowed to happen. I mean, FIFA being crooked is the least surprising sports story of my lifetime. A lot of people resigned. People were fined. I think I found one guy from Portugal that actually went to jail. Do you remember in the late nineties when the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation against the Olympic Committee with the Salt Lake City deal with the Olympics being there? Okay. The investigation had 15 counts of fraud,

conspiracy, racketeering against bid leaders, and charges that were thrown out by the federal government midway through their trial in 2003, ending the case. That was supposed to rock the Olympic world. And then we realized like, wait a minute. So what happens? The Olympics are kind of decided based on bribes, just like FIFA. Wait a minute. The Olympics, honestly, some of the countries that host it, it's so stupid. It's like, okay, we're going to build all of this infrastructure and then it's all going to rot afterwards. We're going to spend all this money to pretend that we have our shit together financially as a nation and everybody's going to come here. We're going to wave. I mean, you want to talk about the shortest term SEC luncheon coach introduction where it's like,

you won the press conference. Are you going to win any games? When I read about these aftermath things, and I am about these aftermath things, and I am sympathetic about some things, but when I read this story and be like, oh my gosh, the pools are rotting, the facade is falling. What'd you think was going to happen? Did you think archery was just going to blow up and you were going to need all of these places to shoot arrows? No. So you've got the Olympic thing that led to, after Salt Lake, zero convictions. The case was thrown out. Connie, four months in jail. The FIFA thing, one guy that I could find.

That could be wrong, but it's not the number you would think it would be. The Mitchell report, which I remember when it came out, I was sitting next to somebody on a television desk that said, this is the biggest day in the history of baseball. I'm like, or it isn't. I don't know what the biggest day of history for baseball was. I was thinking about it today. Is it Jackie Robinson? Is it Babe Ruth going to the Yankees?

Is it Lou Gehrig's speech? Is it something bigger than that? Is it Hank Aaron's home run? Because it's not Bonds. But what is it? We know what it isn't. It isn't the Mitchell Report where it's like, hey, a bunch of guys did steroids. We dragged Roger Clemens.

We dragged some trainers. We had a weird conversation where Gagne was referred to as maybe a steroid guy. And after Bud Seely got done reading it, he was like, okay, I'm going to take some action here. And the players finally actually gave him more testing because the players who actually were taking the steroids to me are far more to blame than the owners who didn't install any device to prevent this ahead of time. So that kind of leads me back to the conclusion of this whole thing. It's really our fault in the media, right? Because we can't help ourselves. We cannot, no matter what we do, nobody can come on. No one would ever book me as a guest and be like,

hey, do you want to talk about this college basketball scandal? But what's your take? Eh, probably be underwhelming. Okay, could we book somebody else? I remember they used to screen me sometimes on stuff. They'd be like, hey, do you want to stop by SportsCenter? Do you want to stop by First Take? Want to do this? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, what do you got? And then I would just see the producer's eyes roll. Can't you just come on and say it's going to be the biggest fucking disaster in the history of the world? Can't you just please say that? No, I can't. Because it never is. And that's my point. And it is our fault because i saw guys in this documentary going on saying this is going to be the biggest thing ever like i said before

because nobody's going to say ah probably blow over i don't know if he's going to do any real jail time i guess that bosh guy in the a-rod thing he went to jail for a little bit but then his sentence was reduced but patino had his issues at louisville i don't believe Patino when it comes to anything. Patino could point to me and say, my name's Ryan. And I would be like, now I'm not sure. So he was done. Christian got charges of up to 200 years. That didn't happen. People lost their jobs. But my bigger point is it's not the end of college basketball. It's not ineligible teams in the tournament. It's not players ineligible for games. It's not lottery guys having their careers derailed. It's not the end of Sean Miller or anything that's going on at LSU. It just isn't. It just isn't. It isn't the end. We love saying it's the end. We love saying

it's going to be the most significant thing ever. And it almost never, ever is. And you just need to remind yourself the next time you hear about the biggest scandal in sports. All right, let's talk some football. Let's talk some CBA. During this time of social distancing, connecting with friends over a beer today looks pretty different. As the original Light Beer, Miller Lite has always been there to bring people together in real life through Miller Time. Miller Time is a moment for people to come together in real life to connect over a few beers, but having Miller Time is tough when you can't be with your people. Everyone is in the same boat. Our favorite local bars are temporarily closed, events have been canceled, and social distancing is in full effect. Although getting together with a few friends in real life currently isn't an option, Miller Lite can still be enjoyed with your people, just not in bars or at gatherings. Right now, having a Miller Lite with friends in real life isn't possible, but staying connected is still important. Look, if you're stuck in the house with roommates, there you go.

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Eric Winston was the president of the NFL Union, and the new president is J.C. Tretter, part of the Cleveland Browns as well, and now a vet, and now in charge of this whole thing. So how does it feel to be president of the NFL Players Association? It's first and honor. It's something you want to do to give back and help the guys that you're playing with now, the guys that came before you, and the guys that are going to come after you. You want to do everything you can to leave a legacy and do as much work to help promote the player side of this and get the benefits and all the rules shaped as well as you can and just try to do that for the guys. So it's a huge honor. And it's been a great experience so far.

Now, what did you think of the deal? I mean, I know how much you spent on this. I'm going to go backwards here a little bit. But now that the deal is done, and I'm not going to go over it with you, but we've talked about it before on this podcast. But how do you feel about it now that it's done? Yeah, obviously, as a group, it was a close vote. We know that. We've seen the numbers. It's a 60-vote margin. And we knew going into it after having a rep meeting that it was going to be a tight, tight vote, both sides. There were people who loved it, people who didn't like it. Both sides were extremely vocal. So we kind of understood what we were going into when the vote went out. And then kind of with the elections, that was the

kind of understanding was we didn't know, this wasn't a slam dunk either way. We didn't know whether it was going to pass or whether it was going to fail. So through the elections, that was kind of part of the conversation is knowing that whoever the next leader is has to be willing to step into both of those realities of going back to a renegotiation or trying to move us forward. So now, of course, hindsight, we get it all figured out that it's about moving forward and trying to bring us all together. And it was going to be a bringing together whether the vote went yes or no.

But now it's about trying to get everybody on the same page and understand the reasons guys were against the deal. Those critiques or those concerns don't fall on deaf ears. There are still some things we can fight for, some changes we can fight to make this deal continually get better. But it's about kind of coming together and keep the passion and energy that guys were putting in that last kind of two months when this kind of all got ratcheted up, continuing that interest and continuing that passion because that's how we're going to get something done by having everybody bought in, everybody involved in the process. always trying to remind fans remember it's 32 owners that are very much aligned um as far as their upbringing uh where they're at financially the long play knowing that hey i'm you're if you own a team you're going to win because the appreciation of value and the new tv deal that's coming and that it's 2 000 plus voices with completely different backgrounds all over the map when it comes to what kind of earnings they're going to have throughout their entire career. How hard is it to try to get 2000 plus people going in the same? Because as you said,

it's like 60 votes and this could have gone the other way. I can't imagine how challenging that is to a lot of people that, you know, you're at the top of your field, but it doesn't mean you see the deal the same way and you don't see the future the same way. Yeah. I mean, what we set out a few years back was really focusing on the core players. And we felt like that was something we could really improve from the previous deal. And the core players are the minimum salary guys, the back of the roster guys that had not been passed by, but we felt their benefits, their salaries that kind of lagged behind in the previous deal. So that was something we kind of set out to make sure we fix.

And obviously, we've raised minimum salaries substantially in this deal, trying to reach back. Those guys make up 60% to 65% of the voting block. So obviously, that's a group that we targeted because we felt we needed to do better by them in this deal. And you said it right. There are so many different outlooks, not only where you fall financially, but where you fall in your career, back end, just diving into your career, being a rookie in what you're looking for in a deal and what you think benefits you. There are a lot of

different opinions. So trying to find something that benefits everybody and kind of provides safety and security for everybody is the difficult process. But that's kind of the process we have to try to figure out. The 17th game, what was the real sense that you got on what the divide was? 50-50, 70-30, 80-50? Because in the media, it felt like, oh, everybody's against the 17th game. What did you see as far as these players, the numbers, how many were actually opposed to the idea of a 17th game once they knew they were going to get paid for it?

Yeah, it's tough to tell because obviously, as in anything, you never know whether the vocal group is a vocal minority or that's an accurate depiction of the voices in the room. So I think a lot of guys, again, I think for the most part, it didn't come down to the 17th game. I think we understand the risks of playing football and the wear and tear on our bodies. And it wasn't about, well, we've added one more game

and a potential game for the playoffs. It was, how do we try to limit the amount of exposure to risk that we have and i think that was a lot of guys um interest or or worry is you know are we opening ourselves up to more exposure more risk and a lot of that came with trying to find ways to decrease the load in training camp and now we've limited padded practices uh substantially in training camp and now we've limited padded practices substantially in training camp we've added a five-day acclimation period in training camp trying to find ways to decrease that risk on the on the front end of the season with this addition of the 17th game so I think it was in everybody's mind in the end it came down to is what's being put out there as the other side of the deal worth it to you to play that additional game?

And for the majority, the answer was yes. But I think everybody had to weigh in understanding what the risk of playing more football brings, even in the short term, as well as the long term. How varied was the science on your research? How varied was the science on your research? And I'm not saying the research that you conducted yourself, but the people in medicine that the players trust, which I know is tough to find. Yeah.

Was it definitive? Was it all over the place? What kind of conclusions did you feel comfortable with about the science and dangers of a 17th game? Yeah, again, I think it comes down to the more football and trying to decrease those impactful hits. And you're going to see those a lot more in two parts of your season, one during games and the other one during training. During the season practices, you're rarely seeing those high impact hits that can cause significant damage through different parts of your body.

So with the addition of the game, it was about, okay, well, if we're going to add the impact hits in that game and these games in the back end of the season, then we have to find the other part of the schedule and protect us from significant hits then. So that was kind of the trade-off was, okay, well, in training camp, camps, the only time that we're going to see significant damage to our bodies when it comes to impact hits. So let's try to limit the time we're in pads. That way we take those out of the equation, limit the amount of time on the field during practice. We've cut down a half hour, but we used to be able to be on the field. So looking at it that way of, okay, well, we're going to try to even this out of the risk

and how we're going to be playing the game of football. So what did happen then with the delay? Because once again, those of us in the outside, it's like, well, wait a minute, the executive committee is voting on this and now they voted against this proposal. And now there's a delay for 48 hours. And now can you go back and help us further understand what that timeline was? Because I mentioned that had to be incredibly stressful for you, but now it seems like the executive committee that's the players are telling its entire constituency to actually vote against the deal you agreed to. Yeah. So I wasn't a part of the EC or the president at the time that all that went down. So as a rep at the time- You're just one of 32 team reps, right? At that point,

prior to officially becoming president, right? Yeah. So I became president at the back half of the voting once the voting opened. So for me, it came down to a vote that all the reps had to make and that passed it down to the players. And that needed to come from a simple majority. And that ended up, again, similar to the voting from the players was very tight, ended up, I think 17, 14, one abstain.

And again, was very close where one or two votes then flips it. And the players would have never seen the, the offer would never have voted on the offer. So that, that was kind of how the rules of the voting went, where the EC either votes yes or no, but it comes down to the reps whether they pass it on to the players or not.

And the reps voted to pass it on to the players and let the players make the final decision whether they liked it or whether they wanted us to go to renegotiation. And then when we extended the two days, we just felt we wanted, there's a lot of guys who said, I just need more time to read through this document and feel comfortable with my vote. So we decided to give them an extra two days to give them that time to try to read through the document and feel comfortable. And that was the main thing. That was our main focus was how do we educate the guys to understand what's in this deal and give them enough time to make an educated vote. And that was what a lot of reps were preaching was, you know, we're not going to tell you to vote yes, we're not going to tell you to vote no, but just make an educated vote and understand the positives, the negatives,

and the impact it's going to have, and then make your vote that you feel confident in. And when Guy said, I need a little more time, we thought that was best to give them that more time. Yeah. Talking to a couple of different people about it, like, I don't think people understand how, I don't know if high school is the best analogy here, but you're the player rep. You have to is how you should vote. And then it kind of gets carried away because you don't want to be the younger guy telling the older guy, hey, I disagree with you. And it's up to you to do all that work. But there's a very basic kind of human nature

pattern of this thing of how complicated it is to make sure that everybody's voting with their own best interests instead of maybe voting the way the cool guy on the team wants you to vote. Yeah, and that's kind of the way even football at itself works, where you come into the locker room and you kind of go, I've got to do what this older guy who I look up to does to try to make it in this league. So even from the get-go, Justin, when it comes to your football career, you're thinking,

I need to emulate what this guy does and do what he does to try to make it as long as he has. And then you forget that he's in kind of a different part of his career than you are. When you're looking at a CBA and an agreement that determines our work rules, our pay, our benefits, you kind of have to look out for your own and make your own best decision and not rely on somebody who's not exactly looking through the same lens as you are. And that's kind of the balance. And that's why we try to get as much information to the players individually. We held a phone call that everybody could get on to, again, answer any questions people had. And you're just trying to make sure everybody's educated and making sure they understand everything that's in the deal before they cast their ballot. By the way, when

you're running for president, and I know there was a couple other players that are up for it, do you have to make a speech? Do you have to say like, hey, I know offensive linemen aren't the coolest. I know I'm not SEC guy and I went to Cornell, but is it just like election where you have to get up there and make these speeches? Yeah, no, it's a significant process.

So everybody gave a five to 10 minute speech in front of the group. And then we break out into about, I think, six separate rooms with about five or six teams in each room. And you do a 20 minute Q&A with each of those rooms. So you're going there and everybody can ask you questions about what's your stance on this part of the CBA? What's your plan if this goes good? What's your plan if this goes bad? CBA? What's your plan? If this goes good, what's your plan?

If this goes bad and they can, um, they can just ask you whatever you want and you just go through each room and make sure everybody understands kind of where you stand on each issue. And then that's when you come back as a group and make your votes. So it's a, it's a full, it's a full election. Did you,

all right. So I didn't mean to get sidetracked by this, but I am kind of like, did you rehearse it in front of anybody? Did you, did you call a parent? Did you? I mean, is there we talking about a significant other that you had to go over? Like, what was your theme of your you're trying to be the president of the NFLPA?

So the Q&A, you don't really know what's coming at you. So you can't really prepare for that. You just kind of have to go off kind of what you understand and what your knowledge is and answer people's questions. The speech I definitely prepared definitely was up late into the early hours of the morning, writing the speech out and trying to kind of put your best foot forward and try to, you know, sell yourself on why you'd be best for,

for the job and made sure to read it a few times to my wife and make sure it sounded right. Did she give you any feedback? Did she say like, no, leave that part out or talk about your hobbies more? Yeah, she was very helpful. She was very helpful. And she's a tough grader. So she made sure not to patronize me at all or tell me I'm doing well if I'm not. She made sure to give me the straightforward truth. But no, it was a really unique kind of program of going through the election process. And it was, I feel like everybody felt like they could make an informed vote for that. They felt like they had enough time to talk to each candidate and figure out,

you know, who they wanted to vote for. Is that the first time you think Cornell's helped you in the NFL? I think so. I, it definitely, that was one of those things where you want to bring it up, but also you don't want to be like, uh, where it's like this guy just throws around the ivy league diploma all the time uh so that was kind of a unique balance of like making sure it was known but not being the uh the potential guy so you tried not to do like an andy bernard right yeah where you were like uh ever heard of it it's's in the Ivy League. Yeah, I made sure not to wear khaki pants with boats on them or anything like that. Made sure to try to blend in. That's smart.

Because I always try to not to... It sucked at ESPN because I went to Vermont. And so everybody that were making all these bets on football stuff, like we didn't even have a football team. And you had a nice little basketball run. Shout out to the UVM cat amounts. But when you're in a NFL locker room and it's, it's getting ready for those big Saturday games.

Right. Like it's just, I imagine you don't have a lot of guys that you can bet with. It just, it's, you probably feel a little left out when you're an Ivy leaguer, maybe a random guy every now and then, but you know,

yeah, you get, you get your once in a while, you get another Ivy league guy to kind of filter into your locker room and uh i honestly think people when people hear us talk about the ivy league it's almost like we're from another planet where it's just like what like what do you mean like there's 2 000 people at your game what would you did you never play college like would you just stay in high school it's like no you guys don't understand like it's it's not the sec like there's no you no – I remember when I first got to Green Bay

and we started talking about crowd noise. It was like, I've never played in crowd noise before. There was never a silent count in the Ivy League. You could hear everything going on. There was no risk. I couldn't hear the snap count in those stadiums. That's amazing. I never really thought about that.

Maybe the next Ivy League quarterback prospect, you know, we could be a while, but the next time it comes along, it would just be, I would love to be on a radio show the next day going, well, you know, I don't know if I trust this guy on a Sunday, you know, on a third down inside Atlanta's dome. That's, that's good. All right. So here's, here's another thing that I find kind of, you know, you had said it earlier, is it what's real? Like what's, what's the actual majority of players? What's the vocal minority? Because you'll have, you know, Russell Okun, who obviously had a major problem with this entire process

and filed a labor board deal against it. You had Eric Reid who was like, we need a recount. And Eric Reid seems to want to fight with a lot of different stuff. And then you've got Pouncey doing his drive-by video and his Jeep losing his mind. And then Aaron Rodgers, who apparently just doesn't want to practice, he's like, I would like six months off if I could.

We consume that not only in media as fans going, wow, I guess this deal is terrible. And I guess like how much of it is balancing, hey, what's good for the group versus your individual concerns. And I imagine, JC, that's going to be, like, I know these are your players and all that kind of stuff, and it's a brotherhood, but I have to imagine that becomes incredibly frustrating

when you see this stuff pop up and then you guys talk about it later. Yeah, honestly, I think there's a balance. And there was a lot of passionate debate and debate is not a bad thing. Division is a bad thing. And I think we were we were fine with guys voicing their opinions and being very vocal about where they stand, because it's the best way probably for guys to understand everything that's in the CBA for to hear multiple perspectives. everything that's in the CBA for to hear multiple perspectives. What we don't want is a division within the union. And that's something that as we come together now and continue to fight for what guys are asking for, you know, you hope we,

we mend the fences that have kind of broken down. But, but that's really the thing. I'm, I'm all for guys voicing their opinions on what they agree and what they disagree with. And then, like I said, don't let that passion get extinguished now that the deal is done because we can still fight for things and we can still fight for changes, even within a CBA's terms. So if you're still passionate about those issues and you're still interested in those issues, don't kind of fall back into the distance.

You know, stay vocal and stay interested and stay involved because that's the only way we're going to get things done is if we stand together, you know, 2,500 players strong and fight for things. That was a really good answer. Now I know why you're president. That was tactful. We got more from JC, including the plan,

if there is any plan for the rest of the football calendar. But today's podcast is sponsored by ADT Commercial for Business. ADT Commercial serves businesses ranging from midsize organizations to large-scale enterprises. Think of them as a special team who has one focus, your business security, that provide a comprehensive line of security, fire, life safety, and risk management solutions. Professional-grade systems for commercial-grade businesses with ADT Commercial. Every day is game day. Fortune 1000 companies rely on ADT Commercial for highly complex, scalable, integrated solutions that help solve their unique business challenges. And if you're looking for a partner to upgrade or to take over the monitoring and service of your current system, ADT Commercial can help to

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I think that was the number. What happened? You know, I don't know. There's part of it. You want a 100% return on the ballots. But you look at it, I think that's more of a cultural issue. I think we see that in any election. People don't vote.

It's younger guys? You don't vote younger guys you don't know guys so we don't see we don't see who voted or get the the numbers on any of you know who was the yeses who were the no's that was a third party who collected the votes uh verified them and sent us the results so we can't even look back and see well okay who who did we miss out on who did we not touch? And that's the thing. I don't think it's an NFL PA issue. I think we see this in the presidential elections. There is a segment of the population that doesn't vote. And you'd hope, especially in this, that you know these are going to be the rules you play under, the benefit structure, the pay structure. You'd hope people would be

under, the benefit structure, the pay structure. You'd hope people would be interested in making sure that their voice was heard, but some guys didn't. And that's something we're always going to continue to fight for, try to get systems in place to get a 100% return on the ballots. But I think that's more of a cultural thing and a nationwide thing than a NFL PA issue. So just basically the voting body representing kind of what we have as far as voting habits for everybody in a presidential election. You had mentioned, you know, the bump, which I think is great for the minimum players is going to be over 500,000 at the start of the new CBA. By the end of it, it'll be about a million dollars on the minimum if I have those numbers right. And I had said on a podcast after the deal came out, I go, you know, there's a lot of things in

here that I think you would like for the players, which means that's how bad the owners wanted the extra playoff game and how badly they wanted that 17th game. It's like, hey, some of the other stuff that you guys are worried about, we're going to concede on it. Now, the other argument could be, hey, these things shouldn't be concessions. These are things that should have happened before, whether it's the punishment and the way that's ruled on and some of the testing for marijuana and all those different stuff that seem to be going in the player's direction.

A lot of this stuff becomes philosophical. I had said, you know, the best way to try to get a group to vote for you is to appease to the numbers. And as you mentioned, the minimum numbers cover like 60 to 65% of the players. I was like, I think that strategically was right by the owners.

And a player did reach out to me and said, no, that's actually something the players union wanted more. And the owners agreed. So did you think, so I'm asking you admitting that maybe I made a mistake on that. Was it something the owners are more agreeable to because they know they'd get more votes for that? Was it, they were doing, or was that just part of a, I guess, a proposal by your side that they then agreed to that became part of the final print? I can't speak to 100% what the owners were thinking. I'm sure it was definitely a priority of ours. So that was something we went into it and we've been talking about it for years at meetings about how do we go about helping our

minimum salary players. So that was a huge priority of ours. Maybe they're interested in that for multiple reasons. But I think they were also interested in trying to help out the minimum salary players too. I think that was something they were agreeable to. And then it was about finding out, how do we do this? But it was one of our priorities. It was something that we set out to do. And I don't think it makes it any less of a win or any less of a benefit. Either way, that was something that we wanted and we got. Yeah. And I really do think that's a big deal. But then again, it becomes part of this thing. If I'm a guy that's all pro, if I'm making a lot of money, I mean, it's the same thing that happens in the NBA with the max salaries where it's like, look, I get that there's 450 players

playing in the NBA, but there's 10 of us that really matter. And we want to make sure we get paid and more than 10 get paid. So that's always something like we talked about. That's kind of hard, especially when that number is over 2000. All right. So the scary thing through all of this, uh, with everything that the country's facing, the world is facing here with the coronavirus, if this vote swings the other way by 30 something votes, you could be sitting here without a deal. Have you let yourself even think about what that would be like now facing a new challenge here with the uncertainty of when you're even coming back to play, what's going to happen with compensation, knowing that you were that close to not having

a new deal? Yeah, it's one of those things. Usually hindsight comes about like six years down the road and hindsight came about four days down the road after kind of the boat went. You kind of see how the world looks so different, just economically, just kind of being in a state where we don't know what's going to happen a week from now or how the situation is going to break. what's going to kind of how the situation is going to break. So it's definitely something that you look back and think, you know, this, there are a lot of different lenses to kind of look at this deal. But maybe the lens of we're locked into a deal that our guys felt or a majority of our guys felt was a good deal as is. And now we have the safety and security of being locked in, and really, you in really tough economic times as well as a lot of uncertainty, that's another lens to look through it

and kind of think maybe it even looks better to the guys who were against it now looking at how things could have shaken out if the vote went the other way. So it's a unique situation because there's so much going on, but it's definitely a lens you have to look at the new CBA.

Yeah, because it would be, I think it'd be real, uncertainty is scary, right? Eventually you would get a new deal. You would figure it out with a new TV deal coming, whatever your cut is now, below 50%, which is, I know what you guys want, but that cut, everybody's going to get a nice hit. But now with this loss of revenue,

what are they telling you about the plan? Because there's a lot of different things you can talk about, like the start date. So let me just do that. Do you want to play week one if the NFL is saying, hey, we're good to go, but it's going to be an empty stadium. It's going to be, well, I don't want to make an Ivy League joke here because this is science, but what do you't want to make an ivy league joke here because this is what what do you personally

want to do as far as you know getting through this knowing that we always kind of have to preface everything with look the safety and people's health and all those things like we get those things you're smart enough that all of us understand those things but like what do you want to do as a football player like what would you be willing to do to get out there for week one yeah again i think you got you got to always lead with it. It comes down to what's the safest thing for the players and the fans and everybody, including the staff. You know, football is a giant operation, a lot of people involved. Right now, we know the risks of a lot of people getting together in a tight space. So it's really tough to kind of dive into that far

in advance of what it's going to look like. I mean, you go back, whatever it's really tough to kind of dive into that far in advance of what it's going to look like. I mean, you, you go back, whatever it is, three, four weeks from now, we thought we'd be, you know, right at the tail end of March Madness going into the masters. And this would be a totally different world we're living. Sports have changed. Um, so it's kind of tough that it changes every two weeks and we get new information and that's something we, we meet and have phone calls constantly with our medical director, getting the most up-to-date information on what's going on with this virus across the country, across the world. And it's going to come down to kind of consistently making the right small

decisions that move us in a path forward. And you can't get stuck at looking at all the variables that could lead you to a position in September. You kind of have to take each two-week segment making the right decisions to keep everybody safe, not just can't think that we're above the general population when it comes to making sure we're doing everything we can to bring this all under control. So say they say, hey, it's safe, it's clear,

but it's going to be without fans because we want to save the TV revenue. Would you be for that? I think we have to look into it. We haven't even gotten that far to kind of dive into all the scenarios of what it would look like. We're right now focused on the offseason, trying to figure out how we're best to handle that. We haven't really gotten that deep down the calendar just because we don't know what it's going to look like. We don't know what the outlook of this virus is going to look like two weeks from now. Um, so we've really been trying to focus on staying, um, in really tight two week windows before we dive into what it would look like in September or even August at this point.

Um, we're trying to make, make sure we make the best decisions for the guys, uh, make sure we keep them safe. Look at that. Look how smart already weeks on the job. And you won't give me the quote that says, I'm ready to go. Let's wait.'s uh all right well let me uh let me let you go with with just a couple more things though had has there been any because i know i think i know what you've been told from you know you're right like a lot of this you can you can be anti the owners they could be whatever like everybody i mean i'm doing a hit

in chicago for an nba thing a little bit later i know they're gonna ask me like what are you hearing it's like you're asking me to answer a question i don't i can't tell you like it'd be like asking somebody the ending of a movie they've never seen before we can guess but we don't know but is there any preliminary discussion that gives you any sense of you know revenue what's going to happen there because it would it would would be, here you are, granted the new deal is a start right away, but I know that it's going to get weird because it's all connected where if there's no TV money and there's no stadium money, then the players are going to feel that just like the owners are. Yeah. I think the best way to explain it is

when people say, oh, I don't know, I'm not sure, people automatically think, oh, they're hiding something. They know. The best way to describe it is there's really no way to tell. That's the best way to lay it out for somebody. This is ever-changing, and there's so many variables in it. There is no way to tell how this all shakes out months in advance. You really have to stay dialed into the moment in these short windows. Because we don't have the information, we don't have a crystal ball of what things are going to look like. And there's so many things and variables that can impact

decisions that there's really just no reason to try to guess or put out preliminary plans, that you just don't know how much time you're wasting with these when we could be looking at a totally different world weeks from now that we are now. So I think that's kind of been the best way to explain it is there's just really, truly no way to tell that far in advance. No, you're right. You're right. I mean, that really is the best answer. I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't something that I wasn't asking. I'll leave you on this. Is there some relief though, knowing that we're not talking about the Browns every day on talk shows all

off season, because we just, we're just not as locked in in the Browns roster as we were maybe a year ago. Yeah, no, it was obviously a different, different life we're living now, but last year it was the top of the town. I think we're just looking forward to as a team, just, just coming back and working where we're excited about what Coach Stefanski and Andrew Berry are going to do together and kind of their outlook. But it's nice.

I think we've been talking about it. I think one of the selling points, for me at least, with the 17th game, is now there's a chance a team goes 0-17 and no longer, I'm not part of the worst record of all time. So we're looking through kind of the glass half full here. But I've opened myself up now to potentially not have the worst record under my belt with this new schedule. That's good.

I like that you still have a small streak of selfishness in there. Even as a leader, you're smart enough to know how to protect yourself i would you know i know baker's young but would he maybe a few years from now make a good nflpa president uh baker is kind of a a leader of of people i think uh he has he has greatly improved um when it comes to demeanor and saying this offseason he's done awesome. Hey, by the way, that's not a cheap shot at Baker. I had dinner with him at the Super Bowl. I'm just saying, like, I could see Baker looking at 2,000 guys, Jimmy Hoffa style, being like, we're getting 70%.

Let's go. You know, and everybody be fired up. That's the thing about Baker is from the day he walked into that locker room, I mean, he is like a magnet where people just flock to him. I mean, he is truly a leader and just has that personality that guys want to be around him. Guys want to mix it up with him and try to get under his skin and he gets under their skin. And that's just his personality all the time. And he truly is, you know, the leader of our team.

And he keeps us all going. And he's the same guy, whether it's coming off, you know, a Tuesday off and you're walking in early morning on a Wednesday, or it's two-minute drive to win the game on Sunday. He is the same guy, the same personality, the same mentality all the time. And that's one thing football players love. Football players love consistency. So, you know, we don't mind whatever it looks like as long as it's consistent and he truly is consistent.

JC, congrats on the new deal. Congrats on the position. And like a lot of football fans, we can't wait to see you out there when we get settled and through all this. So stay safe. All right. Absolutely. Appreciate it. Right back at you. Okay. I hope you enjoyed today. Please subscribe. please subscribe rate review we'll keep pumping these things out and i gotta do a mailbag thing i i have to i've talked about this i have to come up with an email i'll give kyle access to it as well well we'll just start doing some mailbag stuff which i think someone has done before so if somebody wants to get mad at me about stealing that idea that's been in a million times well that wouldn't be the first time i've heard that this week would it seriously man all right um we'll talk to you thursday Thank you.