The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Annual NFL QB-NBA Player Comp With Ceruti. Plus, the Transfer Portal Explained With Max Olson, and Life Advice With TV Writer Bill Callahan

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Russillo is joined by Ceruti to make their annual NFL QB–NBA player comp list (0:43). Then Ryen talks with Max Olson of The Athletic about the current version of the NCAA transfer portal, why and how it changed, its affect on team-building and staffing, how it ties in with NIL and boosters, its impact on high school players, and more (22:16). Finally Ryen is joined by writer-producer Bill Callahan to discuss his origins in show business before answering some listener-submitted writing Life Advice questions (56:54). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Steve Ceruti, Max Olson, and Bill Callahan Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast is going to be fun we do our annual nfl qbs as nba players saru and i so he's going to stop i do that max olson works for the athletic he covers the college football transfer portal do you not understand it, you will now and everything else that goes into it. It's a lot of fun there. And we're doing life advice with a real writer, producer, my longtime friend, Bill Callahan, incredible resume out here in Los Angeles. So some life advice emails on that career path. Enjoy the podcast. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything?

Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no. A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets

product availability may vary by region see app for details we're to start today's podcast with the 17th annual nba players nfl qb comps saruti is here hanging out um what's up all right so here's the here's the premise We've done this for years. We're going to take an NBA player and compare them to an NFL quarterback. So Serena and I have worked on this for a little bit. We've run through it.

You're going to toss them to me. There could be some surprises in there, and then we're going to work out whether or not we think the comp is like right on, unfair, but still unfair, but right on or totally off. But for the most part, the premise is to

try to get these as right as we can, right? Yeah, they're not exact. Some of them have off-field things involved. Some of them are just purely on-field like, hey, I watched you two guys and they're similar. So, you know, it's a fun exercise. Try not to get too mad at us. Exactly. Or get wicked mad.

Okay. All right. The first one. This one you'll love. Your boy, Russell Wilson. I think his comp is James Harden. Here we go. Once great, both basically forced trades away from their team and left the team who traded for them probably having buyer's remorse. I don't want to say

they're washed, but they're definitely past their prime. So Russell Wilson is James Harden. I'm not ready to go washed on either one of these guys right now. Okay. Harden just got back for the first time in a while. The Houston game was pretty ugly. Not a big deal. Personality-wise, I would rather hang out with James Harden. I would live with James Harden before I would.

If Grant Williams were better, like a lot better, you could do Grant, Russell Wilson. There's massive buyer's remorse off of Hall of Fame resumes although now people are starting to go wait is Russell Wilson going to get in a lot I still can't believe that Russell Wilson will be this bad the rest of his career I cannot believe it

and on the other side Harden he is going to be good again it's just he's never they're both diminished they're both diminished and the new city is saying are you serious like what happened and Harden's also forced his way out of two places they're both diminished they're both diminished and the new city is saying are you serious like what what happened and hardens also forced his way out of two places um and who knows about that i you know i don't wilson's not exactly the same track over that and wilson has the ring so it's

close it's close because of the new city remorse right yeah i think it's like wait we got this guy i thought we were supposed to i thought this guy was gonna be like changing our franchise and that's that's where the buyer's remorse comes in again not washed but i think you're you probably would want to redo on both of those trades both the hardened trades maybe and even the uh the rust i don't think the sixers would because their guy wasn't even playing yeah but the the rockets i mean the rockets fleece the nets like the nets don't look good in that situation at all no No. All right, next one. All right, this one, pretty easy, mostly just physical attributes.

Zion is Justin Herbert. Probably the two biggest freaks in the league. Now, you can give me Josh Allen, but I actually like the Herbert comp better. But there are still kind of some question marks

around both these guys, but they're just fun to watch. Physically insane, agree. There's a massive amount of hope on like, is this the person? They do things that all of us freak out about

to be fair to Herbert he plays all the time Zion it's been good this year but the track record isn't great there so I like it Herbert is is Luca is Herbert

actually Luca or is Herbert actually Luca? Or is that not enough for Luca? No, I think that's enough for Luca. Because, I mean, some people think Herbert's the best quarterback in the league. I mean, there's people at the ring who believe that. But at least, I mean, Luca, who put last year's Mavs in kind of that fluky Western Conference Finals appearance thing with like five other teams the last few years. It's still something, right?

Because if you didn't like Luka and he lost in the first round three straight years, you'd go, oh, I've never been out of the first round. So when you actually get to the third round, you got to get credit for that. And that's not happening with the Chargers at all. So I think it kind of goes from Zion's almost unfair for Herbert, but then Herbert's unfair for Luka.

All right, next one. This is absolute layup slam dunk. KD is Aaron Rodgers. They're both really good kind of at the twilight of their career, but they're both perpetually unhappy. This is so good, I don't like it.

I'm a much bigger KD guy than I am an Aaron Rodgers guy. I actually hate this one, but it's kind of right. They create their own problems, too. That's the other thing. They both have created the situations that make them unhappy.

It's too good to me. They wanted to burn the ships when it came to their front office. I mean, Katie literally was like, Fire everyone. Rogers was like, All of you suck. And then he never said what they actually sucked at.

It was just like a breakdown of communication. No, it was like, you let Randall Cobb go. It's like, yeah, but Randall Cobb was old. Like, I don't know. Yeah. If you go through the names of the guys that Rodgers was upset left, you were like, I don't know.

Like, they're good. That's the other thing, too, is that other than this year, they've always perpetually been a good team. And by the way, too, is that, like, other than this year, they've always perpetually, like, been a good team. And by the way, Watson, the receiver, looks like another stud. And he's basically saying these guys are incompetent, can't do their jobs. And then it's like, actually, I think they're pretty good at their jobs. The only difference I'll say is I would say KD is better right now than Rodgers is.

Rodgers has not been good, really. I think KD's still pretty good. now than Rodgers is. Rodgers has not been good, really. I think KD's still pretty good. I'm going to hold off on thinking Rodgers is really heading in the wrong direction because he had a couple years not that long ago where it was like, wait, is he getting worse? And then he ends up

winning an MVP and it was fine. They're no doubt, not just Hall of Famers, they are no doubters when it comes to being the best of their era. Not to say KD is the number one guy the whole time, but I think you understand what I'm saying. But the war on their organizations, very similar. KD, as far as the full resume, going to Golden State,

Rodgers doesn't have something like that where he's going to the Pats, although he wanted to get out of there. But there's no Golden State comp there because, obviously, only one guy can play the position. I still like KD. I think they're both very real. I think we know exactly where their head's at on a lot of stuff a lot of the time.

And as more of a KD fan, I kind of hated this summer because it was really tough to defend, so I'm not even going to bother defending it. But I think that similarity is pretty good there. All right, next one. Trevor Lawrence is Lomelo Ball. Talent, hype, all there.

Is the production winning going to come? This is one of those at first you're like, no way. It kind of plays, though. High picks. The stuff they do at times, you're like, oh, my God. And yet you probably have no idea like are you are you certain do you have a definitive prediction

for either one of them I feel way better about Lawrence than I do about Lamello I actually think Lamello's I still believe in Trevor Lawrence I think I think Lamello you know, it's not like I don't like the guy, but I'll probably be the last

on that bandwagon. LaMelo being hurt. Yeah, I don't know. Because we had another one where it was Zach Wilson, James Wiseman. I have that one. Yeah, that's the one I'm next.

Both high picks who just look completely lost. One gets drafted to an incredible organization and one gets drafted to arguably the worst in the entire league. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. You can say that about the Jets still? Well, now, yeah.

Listen, I'm a Mike White believer, by the way. I love Mike White. You've always been a big Mike White guy. Okay, give me the next one. All right, this is a stupid one that I just threw at you. Taylor Heineke is Jose Alvarado. If he gets there. They're both fun.

It's kind of chaotic at times. And they both play for good teams. They're not really the reason that their team ever wins. But I just kind of think they bring this chaotic energy to both of their teams that I like. I think it's a good one. I like it. I endorse this one. They're both a little mascot-y, which sounds like the ultimate diss. I'm not trying to do that. It just feels like, yeah, that's our guy. I just feel like both of them, when people walk by them in the hallway at the facility, want to just mess up their hair.

Hey, what's going on? And the other cop, the other thing I think is similar is deep down, this may seem more unfair to Alvarado than it is Heineke, but if either one were your starter,

you'd say, yeah, this is cool, but eventually shouldn't we have somebody else starting? That's the issue where you get to not comparing quarterbacks to stars. Alvarado's not a star player. Alvarado's not asked to do what Taylor Heineke can do. I will say, Heineke's the best

because he could be awful for three and a half quarters. He could be no touchdowns, four picks, and have a chance to lead a touchdown drive at the end of the game, and I'll believe that he could be awful for three and a half quarters. He could be no touchdowns, four picks, and have a chance to lead a touchdown drive at the end of the game, and I'll believe that he could do it. I love that energy about him. Yeah, if Heineke were not a pro athlete, right? He was just a dude. He would

hit on everyone at the gym. Just firing left and right. He's the guy who does buy the cleats. He buys the Jordans for every color team that he beats. I don't know if I love that. Update on the guy who was hitting on

the 11 that showed up at Equinox. He was hitting on somebody else the other day. This guy just doesn't care. He shows up double holstered. He just doesn't care. It'sly an isolated incident for guys like that. Yeah. And you know what? The rest of us who don't do it, looking at him, being like fuck that guy, guess who's going out every Friday night.

So who's wrong? And that one. Okay. Alright. Next one. Couple good ones here. This one I love. Carson Wentz is Russell Westbrook. MVP level players who fell off, keep getting traded, and they just refuse to adapt and learn new things. And they're probably

just going to be bad, I think, for the rest of their careers. Is it almost unfair to Westbrook? I watched that Laker game last night, man. I was not impressed with Westbrook at all. No, he was bad last night. He changed. LeBron, by the way, just like, what did he take? One shot in the fourth quarter? It was just a weird LeBron game, I thought. He was just kind of out of it. No, LeB bad last night. He changed. LeBron, by the way, just like, what did he take? One shot in the fourth quarter. It was just a weird LeBron game, I thought.

He was just kind of out of it. No, LeBron was doing the parent is upset at you and won't say anything to you on the ride home. That's what his game was in the fourth quarter last night. I'm upset with you because they kept screwing up everything defensively. And by the way, they're just not as good. Anthony Davis goes out. Last night was like a really weird vibes game.

And it was Westbrook deserved credit for what he did on Friday. It still feels a little dismissive of Westbrook to compare him to Wentz career-wise, but I think the best part of this is where is this going? How is this going to end? No, we're good. The Westbrook end is more interesting

because I think we know that Wentz, he's going to be a backup on a few more teams. He's going to get a handful of starts. If you said Wentz over or under 20 starts the rest of his career, 30, that's actually a fun game to do. I think we did that on the radio show one year. I'd take the under.

You'd take under 20 starts for Wentz the rest of his career? I really hope people have learned. He's not good. And this is a thing. I remember the Will Kane debate of Dak versus Wentz. I was like starts for Wentz the rest of his career? I really hope people have learned. He's not good. And this is like a thing. I remember the Will Kane debate of Dak versus Wentz. And I was like, team Wentz. I'm like, how could you possibly think Dak is better than Wentz?

And now, I'm like, that guy's bad. He's a bad quarterback. I'd rather have Heineken. That's fine. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'd rather have Alvarado than Westbrook. Okay. Agree.

Give me your next one. Next one. Derek Carrs, Bradley Be beal they're both good but you're kind of just you're kind of looking for the next guy ultimately you know or it's like are you ever really going anywhere with them no i think they're you look at the numbers and go wow did you say like every now and then i'll look through where car's at statistically and like that's incredible and the same could be said of be, but it's don't get too excited. Like the numbers are awesome, but don't get too.

Even though I feel like I'm, I don't know. I feel like I kind of came around on Carr a little bit more this year. I was like, he's actually pretty good. Yeah, I like Carr. After years of feeling like he's going to be replaced. I just don't think Beal is even close to being like a one. I think he just puts up sick numbers. I think he's really talented.

And I actually can't get like some of those, some of those games they were losing where he was just such a malcontent about it the whole time. Kind of, but whatever, maybe just going through a bad phase. Okay. How many more do we have?

Two. And we got some bonus ones too, if you want, but I'll give you the two here. First one is Lamar is jaw. They're arguably the most fun guys in the league. Question is like, can you win it all at that guy?

I think that's more fair for Lamar than it is for Ja, because Ja is still, what is it, year four? But at the end of the day, it's more about watchability for these guys. You put on games to watch these two players. And I'm always worried that there's going to be the hit or landing. Yes. I think that's a really good one there.

But I wouldn't be... I don't look at Ja as having if you were going to make the argument against lamar the lamar postseason thing which can be fixed with one run right um i don't really have any of that with jaw at this point i think this is kind of like the rapid fire one like people want to do steph mahomes lebron brady's a layup for this one i don't think there is a yannis at all i just don't if josh allen had a ring fine but even then I don't think there is a Giannis at all. I just don't. If Josh Allen had a ring, fine. But even then, I don't think Josh Allen physically

as impressive as it is, is what Giannis is physically. What Giannis is physically in comparison to everybody else that's in that league, it's unfair. I just don't think there's a Giannis. When you rip this segment off, don't force one in there. Could I throw one that's going to be really controversial out there?

Love it. Let's do Tua. This is a really hard one to figure out. And you didn't endorse this one, so this is me just going rogue. I had Jordan Poole. And I know the Tua and I are going to get really mad at me.

I don't dislike Tua. But from a perspective of, I think they're both on really good teams with a really good coach, and they're in great positions right now. And yeah, I'd want both of them on my team, but I think there's also a system element to this a little bit, and I know that

two of people are going to throw stats at me and tell me, oh, look at his, you know, what is he, number one in yards per attempt? He's number one in like everything. Yeah, he's unbelievable. But he also has two of the most ridiculous weapons in the entire league, and I think McDaniels is like an awesome offensive mind. So I'm admitting it's probably not fair to Tua, but I think that's kind of like the range

where like Poole, if Poole was on the Magic, is Jordan Poole as good as he is on the Warriors right now? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question. I kind of lean maybe not because I just think they're both in really good spots. All right. I'm a little more interested. i'm not endorsing it yet though because i feel like pool status is too low yeah compared to uh and what to a status is at this point but i like you i was very dismissive of it i didn't want it in it when we ran through these but now i'm glad

it happened even though i didn't endorse it okay we had a Baker Mayfield Ben Simmons one in there I didn't love that I mean I guess the argument would be like two number one picks who are just like kind of a mess physically and mentally that's you know yeah there you go and then the other one I had everybody else's fault yeah that also well I don't

is Baker does is he a blame other people guy I don't know I feel like he kind of owns it. Maybe I'm wrong. Last one I had was Kirk Cousins, Zach Levine. Empty stats, guys. Maybe. Maybe.

Okay, we don't have the two headliners here. Because we have two headliners that we haven't even done yet. These are my two favorite ones. Okay. How about this? Laurie Markkinen, Geno Smith. Oh, no. Multiple teams had high hopes, higher hopes for Markkinen

who goes in the lottery than Geno's draft slot. And I think the whole time you're like, are they actually going to be this good now? Although if you look at Markkinen's career numbers, that second year with the Bulls, you can make an argument he's kind of just doing the same thing again. I just don't remember any team ever playing.

I don't remember Cleveland. Granted, they were getting Mitchell. And I don't know. Chicago's fans are doing this retroactive, bummed-out Laurie Markkinen thing. No. Where it was like, did you care then? So, all right.

Last one. This is my favorite one. This is my favorite one. This is yours. This is what started basically the entire, last one. This is my favorite one. This is my favorite one. This is yours. This is what started basically the entire segment. Trey Young is Kyler Murray. This is the most perfect comparison of anyone that we've made so far. They are both undersized, incredible players who have limitations both on the court, on the field.

And also, I just think their attitudes are kind of the same. I almost feel like they just think that they're... This is same. I almost feel like they just think that they're, this is going to sound disrespectful, but they just think that they're above everything else. And I think we've seen it with the Trey thing recently. We saw it with Kyler yelling at Cliff and it's everybody else's fault on the sideline. I think these two guys are the exact same guy.

It's perfect. It's perfect. Now, to get the counters to it out of the way immediately, if Kyler were consistently as productive as Trey, then you'd feel way better about Kyler, right? Because whatever you think about Trey, and I covered it again on Tuesday because this whole thing from the last week was one of the least surprising things ever.

And by the way, when players are asked stuff, they think they're answering things and they're not. Draymond Green talked about the punch with Marcus Spears. And he was like, yeah, it was a lesson, a learning experience. And the perfect follow-up at that point, Spears goes, what did you learn? And Draymond's like, I learned a lot about myself. And then what the fuck does that mean give us something all right and then people can argue well because i remember seeing with the trey thing which i didn't know the video if you

haven't seen the video yet reporter really goes out wait look why weren't you at the game friday it's very clear that trey and nate got into it and then trey decided to like go i'm not even going to show up to the arena and sit there with my team when other players who were hurt that were out. Some of these guys, I think, like being hurt and being out, dressing up and then fucking around on the bench the whole time, by the way. And Trey decided to stay at home. It's not a good look. You're not supposed to do it. Things happen. But then Trey's answering the questions, but he's not. He's like, oh, it was a private matter. Not really. You play for an NBA team. You weren't there. It's not really private. It's like, okay, give me a little bit more. But I don't know the history with that reporter. I don't know. One version of it, it felt like the reporter was in the shot. So I was like, is he trying to do this for himself? couple years ago where the writer got into it with a player and then he posted like 700 times

about it and i'm like okay well now you've lost me like i actually wish the player told you to fuck off because if this is what your deal is so back to the whole thing with this you're you're absolutely right there is a i don't know if it's an age thing because sometimes guys you'd be like oh well he's young yeah well sometimes that guy's the same guy when he's older. There's a very dismissive, like, I'm good vibe with both of these players. And to see the Kyler stuff with Cliff was awful. But people are still, like, so anti-Cliff. They didn't want to admit what that really was.

And then Patrick Peterson, who's one of the most respected guys in the league comes out and says kyler only cares about himself and then kyler tweets to him saying like you're on some weird shit bro and it's like that's the answer that a guy who like that that was the perfect way of like you confirmed it yeah yeah you just confirmed it like so both incredibly talented both incredible trey's far more established because of what he's done but i think there is a very connected concern if you're comparing both personalities to be like can this actually be the number one guy that his teammates will respond to and i would say for ky, it's even a bigger challenge right now from what I've seen.

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See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. We're in the first week of the transfer portal for college football. Max Olson, the athletic. He also spent some time at ESPN. He's awesome on this. I've read his stuff for years. So what's up, man? Let's try to figure this out. All right. Hey, big fan of the pod. I'm probably going to try and act a little too familiar with you. So I'm just going to try and level that out here as we go. Okay. No problem. I'm not intimidated either. So we're good to go. Okay. Uh, let's just start with this for anyone that doesn't understand how this has all evolved and

where we're at. What is it? What actually is it? What does this week mean? And what are the, like the new versions of what the transfer portal now is? Yeah, this is just like kind of chaos in college football. The transfer portal has become really hot over the last few years and just way more popular for kids because now there's the one-time transfer rule. You can go jump to a different school without sitting out a year. You don't have to wait until you're a grad transfer. And so there's just way more kids switching schools every year. And last year,

that was at the FPS level in terms of scholarship players, like 2000 players. And, you know, this year, probably we'll surpass that. And so it's, it's very popular, it's kind of become an even more popular way to build your roster. And obviously, when you see the success of schools like USC, obviously, and TCU, and the ones that have really broke out this year, it is becoming more and more of like a proven way to upgrade your roster and really kind of flip your team. And so more players want to go in, more coaches want to go get transfers. And now like the NCAA doesn't really have a way to kind of adjust for all this and set guardrails and stuff. And so this year they're trying a few things. They have set transfer windows.

So there's a 45 day window that started December 5th after the conference title games. There's going to be another, you know, 15 or a two week window in May after spring ball where, okay, this is the only chance for you to put your name in the portal and go make a move.

You don't have to make a commitment in these 45 days, but you've got to put your name in so that people know who's out there. The exception being grad transfers or if your coach just got fired. So grad transfers can pop up at any time of the year, but regular transfers, they, they are all kind of going in on December 5th. And we kind of,

you know, from talking to recruiting coordinators and stuff, you knew that was going to be like a pretty crazy day just because there's not really been in the past one day when they all went in. And that's what they were trying to correct a little bit is the coaches had that fear that 365 days of the year, some guy could just leave. And then how do we replace them? And so we're trying to kind of narrow this to a window of time so that you know when

guys are leaving, guys, you know, try and hopefully stay through the season and stuff like that. And what it leads to is on Monday, you know know 450 scholarship players hit the portal all at once in one day which is and then you look at the totals in terms of fcs and all that it's over 700 all-time record and uh so it's just going to be the next few weeks gonna be really crazy in terms of just where is everyone going and then who else is going to continue to pop up okay all right so you brought up one of my favorite things and that is anytime something is changed then everybody tells you why it should be something else signing day is a classic example the proposals of what signing

day should or shouldn't be and then if they change it to the things we think people would want then you'd have as many other college football people telling reporters well the real problem is this my favorite example which i brought up numerous times is that there's a lot of people that think the NFL draft should be before free agency. So then you draft and you fill it in through free agency. The NBA does the inverse. And then there's people that say, you know, really should have free agency first in the NBA. And then that way, whoever we don't go, we could go maybe based on need more in the NBA draft, which the draft doesn't really do in the NBA as much as the NFL. So whatever the solution is, people are going to be pissed about it.

It is more power towards kids, which I'm a big fan of. The graduate transfer thing was kind of funny for years because it was like, hey, if you graduate, then you don't have to wait out, sit out the entire year. And it was like, yeah, okay, this is actually probably not what the coaches wanted. It sounded good, rewarding kids for completing their education, getting their degree. But the thing is, is like when you're asking the guy to be on campus all summer, all of these years, get in early, you know, leave high school early, it was actually easier to get your degree sooner. And then you could be at campus for three years and go, you know what? I actually have graduated. So now I don't have to wait out a year. I think older people, I would admit to like as a fan when I was younger and I was probably a little more selfish about it. I liked the one year transfer waiting period because it discouraged a guy from your team wanting to leave. And the more you thought about it, you're like, it's it's screwed up. And if a kid's going to transfer a million times, okay, fine. Maybe his value goes down.

It's not that big of a deal. It's felt like the NCAA now, between the NIL and this, have done things that make it look like they're more pro student-athlete than ever before. But to me, these are all distractions from them ever having to cut a real check and share some of that revenue. So how did we get to this point where it wasn't just the graduate transfers? It's, hey, anybody goes during these two windows now a one time, don't have to sit out a year,

and you're good to go. How did the NCAA allow that to happen? Because that's what it feels like to me. And I'm sure like probably to your audience, like if you describe like the way this goes, they're probably wondering like, well, how's that different than the NFL and free agency? The difference is that right now, like in the NFL, you know, okay, start of the league year, these guys are going to be free agents. We all know whose contracts are up

and all that. We know when they become available. Right now, you have no idea when a guy's going to leave. You have like, everyone's kind of on one-year deals in college football right now. You don't know when they're going to leave.

You don't know when your own players are going to leave. You don't know when your own players are going to leave. And so it just, it's really random and kind of unpredictable in terms of who it's not just, these are all malcontents that are going in the portal. There's really good players that are popping up now and how we got here in some ways. So like I,

the difference, they don't want to call it free agency and they don't, you know, they still, the academics matter and all that kind of stuff. But we got here in part because we have a one-time transfer rule because players, you know, didn't want to wait until they were a grad transfer.

So you have Justin Fields and all these kind of high-profile cases where a guy wants to leave after one year. And so what they did is they submit a waiver, and they make their case for why they think they should get to go and play right away at their next school. And eventually, the NCAA became so overwhelmed by the number of waivers that they were receiving, right? Waiver requests. And you kind of just end up approving all of them that they said, okay, this is a big burden on us. Let's just make this easier and say,

you can transfer one time. And at first they, when they came out with that, it was kind of like, all right, we're going to let you do it one time. We're going to make it harder for you on the second time. They haven't really made it harder for anybody on the second transfer either. And so it is, we've created kind of this system now where everyone kind of feels like they can go in and yeah, technically it's a one-time transfer. Technically it's not free agency.

They don't want to go all the way and say unlimited transfers, but this is kind of a situation where everyone's kind of going over the speed limit because they know they're not going to get pulled over. And that includes the tampering stuff, too. Like they just know nobody's really looking out for this. Nobody's really in charge here of this sport. And so it's going to keep kind of evolving in this direction. And yeah, it's pro player, but it still kind of tilts in favor of the coaches, too.

Yeah. And we're going to get to all that. But it's a really good point because you're like, well. You know, now it's a really good point because you're like, well, now it's this free for all. And I remember when I was again younger about it and it would be like, now you have to, you talk to a coach, right? And be like, okay, cool. So I'm recruiting high school kids and I'm re-recruiting the guys that I recruited to bring in here to keep them around. And I used to have sympathy for that. And then like Don Draper once

said, that's what the money is for. Okay. When you look at 43 coaches this year, based on the number I have making 5 million more a year, that number in 2015 was seven, seven coaches to 43. That's what the money's for. I'm sorry. It sucks. But like you said, it's also kind of awesome because if you're a good coach with a big time program, now you can start picking them off from everybody else. So how has this changed? Like you said, it's NFL. This is college football free agency. How has this changed staffing, prioritizing things like the world of building out your 85 scholarship athletes?

How dramatically has this impacted it yeah it's funny you make a point like i've talked to coaches over the years who would say like man if this ever turns into free agency like i'm getting out of here like they're all still coaching like you just get used to it and like there's no we've kind of we're kind of past the point now bitching about it and everyone just kind of understanding like all right we just need to get better at this and so a a big part of it is obviously retention and what are you doing to try to get guys to stay and the collectives and all that play into that.

But from a staffing standpoint, yeah, this is really trending more in a direction like the NFL where you are doing advanced scout. I mean, you talk to the staffs that are some of the best in the country in terms of evaluating transfers and you ask them what what are they doing? They are staffing up, and they are spending their fall

watching everybody else's players and making their list of, hey, if this guy goes in, or in specific cases, you could say, like, I talked to one in August who was like, you know, we think they're going to get fired at Georgia Tech. We think they're going to get fired at Auburn. Like, you're already kind of looking at those players saying, you know, let's look ahead here a little bit and who are their best players because the day that coach gets fired, those guys could pop up in the portal

and we want to be right on them. We want to get them on the phone as soon as possible. And so it's a really fast-moving deal. We talk to coaches, the comparison they make is like usually high school recruiting, you get two years to invest in a kid. And with this, it's like two weeks. It moves really fast. You're trying to get them on campus as fast as humanly possible. You're trying to get them on the phone within basically two hours of them

jumping in the portal and trying to offer them and all that stuff. And so these recruitments are really crazy. And so you have to be as a staff prepared and kind of have your list of guys that if they came in and you know, like at the Texas schools, you're looking at, okay, what kind of kids maybe would want to come home that went somewhere else. Obviously you could do it kind of regionally, but you know, some people literally are just scouting the whole country and just saying, all right, if this guy, if this name pops up, we are calling that guy right away.

Because if you wait until they hit the portal or you don't have good intel that they're going to hit the portal, you know, you got to break down a lot of tape and get your position coach to look at it and go through the offer process and all that like these guys want this to happen as fast as possible okay now we're talking this gray area though uh what does that mean having good info what does that mean like what's what's supposed to happen max and what is actually happening when you're maybe sending out some feelers before the official portal entry point? Yeah. I mean, look, there's been enough talk out there about, oh, you don't want to go in there and have nowhere to go and go move down to G5 or FCS or whatever.

Right. So if it was your own kid, you would probably kind of do it that way. You'd say, hey, you probably call these coaches that recruited you back in the day or find some way to contact them and see if you've got a spot somewhere before you go in the portal because you don't want to end up empty handed. And so we see a lot of that. And I think it's really not hard to do when you talk about the people who are doing it. You just go through a third party, whether it's the high school coach, it's the trainer, it's obviously now some of these guys actually do have agents and stuff. the trainer. It's obviously now some of these guys actually do have agents and stuff. You know, they have handlers and stuff like that. And that that, you know, interest gets communicated both ways, you know, oftentimes during the season of, hey, don't know if you're

going in the portal, but, you know, we'd be interested if you do. And that, you know, again, nobody is really living in fear here of the NCAA coming down and cracking down on them. I mean, we haven't seen even if they wanted to make an example of like a Miami or Texas A&M who has the means to go out and get guys, especially in the portal and stuff, how long does it actually take to investigate them if you're the NCAA? So I heard lots of stories of tampering last year, where you had them dead to rights. We know they did this. We turned them in, nothing happens. Right. So it's, it's that stuff's going on. And in a lot of cases, like the really top shelf guys that go in the portal, um, yeah, maybe they are going to go on visits and stuff like that. But like a lot of times there are guys that know where they're going before they go in last

year, Bo Nix, when he went in, he marked it on his portal entry. Do not contact me because he knew he was going to work. And so sometimes these battles are over before the kid even goes in and so everyone's trying to kind of like get the inside uh information you know the the inside information on that kind of stuff and and who's going where and uh it there's kind of yeah that a lot of that stuff kind of goes on behind the scenes okay you mentioned the nil um i love the term collectives i just love it so vague we all know what the real big but very powerful yes yes uh i always felt like with the nil you were going to have a bunch of dudes with a lot of money in a couple years going how much money did i spend on this i always felt like there would be a market correction. But this version of the NIL is different because now you feel like you're paying for something a little proven.

This is really signing a draft pick with the old NBA Glenn Robinson rules versus the salary slot now, which makes it relevant, where this is straight up free agency. What can you tell us about that element and how powerful it is and also how how there are some schools from what i've heard that are like so far behind this already like they all knew what it was even though i should i should be fair it's kind of like everybody knew what it was but nobody knew what it meant and yeah and yet some schools are not fucking around and others are like already getting lapped. Yeah. The haves and have nots thing is like already separated in a huge way. There's just some schools that are capable of raising that money and being competitive in that space in terms of recruits and transfers and stuff. And there's some schools that bless their hearts,

they're trying, they're getting people together. They cannot raise that much money. It's just not possible. And honestly, Ryan, I think we people together. They cannot raise that much money. It's just not possible. And honestly, Ryan, I think we've seen that influence the way that this coaching carousel has gone, too. I think you have guys that are sitting in places saying, man, I feel like we're six months behind on this stuff. Can we even raise this kind of money? Maybe I do need to be, you know, pursuing some of these jobs, you know, in the Big Ten

or the SEC or some of these places where like, yeah, they've got the money. We don't have to worry about that. And so, yeah, the collective piece of it, when you think about like, and you're totally right, like the ROI piece of it is like really messed up, right? Like we're going to see over the next few years, like, okay, you spent how much on this guy? And what did he do over the first two, three years?

And then he transferred obviously at some point. Like the thing with the portal is you do feel like it's a better investment. And in some ways those guys are like potentially like cheaper years and then he then he transferred obviously at some point like the thing with the portal is you do feel like it's a better investment and in some ways those guys are like potentially like cheaper because maybe it's just a one-year buy as opposed to investing you know a four-year deal in a quarterback who may or may not end up being your starter like at least you know okay this guy has got tape against power five or fbs teams we know what we think he can do. He's going to come in and solve this direct need we have and start right away.

Probably a better use of your money if you're a collective and at least a little bit less risk because maybe you were just trying to get a guy for one season. Which teams are considered the most like, well, let me phrase this the right way. Which teams, which programs have the most powerful collectives? Oh, I, that, that would be like, can we get like a SPO track or something like that over time here where we can, can Forbes kind of do that? Like once a year update, I would love to see that. It's all, but the thing that's like hard with it too, when from talking to

coaches, like a lot of it is just bogus, right? of the money stuff you hear about, oh, they paid $500,000 for this guy. Maybe they did. Quite possibly they didn't. And there are certainly cases where collectives are making promises to guys. And then they get there. And that collective is maybe not quite as good at delivering on that promise too.

So some of it is kind of... You hear all these wild tales of this guy got this much or whatever. And some of it's true. And some of it you can go verify. No, absolutely not. That's not the case. So right now we're in kind of like a crazy like the next iterations of this stuff, I think, are going to get a lot smarter and maybe move in house someday. in-house someday. I don't know. That probably makes more sense than having

some guy sitting in some booster making actual personnel decisions for your football coach. If I know colleges and universities, they'll figure out a way to staff it with way too many people and then give them awesome salaries and then find a way to justify keeping more of the TV money away from

the kids that are playing in the games. So it could be in-house. To me, this is just labeling the same thing over and over again. Back to the first years on the road of like, hey, how did you lose that guy? It'd be an in-state guy that went to a rival and then they'd be like, oh, they gave him a bag. And you're like, okay, right. But that means you've never done it. Everyone you ever talked to was always the program that was the one that was doing it right. Not that they were in a hurry to tell me about paying somebody. Go ahead. Well, let me say like, so, so something that like is going on right now is there are some like very good players in college football who are like

threatening to transfer and going to the collective and they are like renegotiating. And now they did not pop up in the portal on Monday because they got a better deal. And, and, you know, you'd say again, well, how's that different from the NFL? In the NFL, it's transparent. You come out and you announce your deals and you know who's staying for how long and all that. This stuff is all just kind of going on behind the scenes. And we're kind of just making it up as we go here. Yeah. Like I heard a story from somebody who was like, they were worried about a kid going in the portal.

And then he showed up to practice in like a sick car and they were like did any was that anyone here well and they were like no like they were like i guess we're losing that guy because they rates are just really good right now i mean yeah right yeah yeah uh i'll hear a price tag on a player and it was funny because like i'm with you on, is there some sort of element of where the boosters, the collectives, whatever we want to label this stuff, where they're like, how much money did we spend on all this stuff?

We're six and six and we're on a second coach and all that. I'm not going to keep doing this because when it's new, everybody thinks like, hey, here's the solution. I'll throw more money at it. We don't have to do it in the background. We can make these more legitimate. And now that it's a little bit more out in the open there's more competition so maybe it means the numbers are going up um depending on what you believe

about the numbers and everything that i've ever heard over you know years and years of of doing this but i'll hear a price tag on like a big time guy and i'll go well wait if if it's say a quarterback who's that much of a difference maker, is eight figures too low? You know, is this the beginning? And then you're thinking, no, like, what's Cam Newton worth in today's money for one year? It's more than $10 million. But there's this, you have to kind of go through the desensitizing

of this new world of hearing a number where you're like, wait, is that right? And then I'll always come back to like, there's just the NCAA for so many years told us all these things they couldn't do. And then they did all of them every single time. They don't seem to investigate anything anymore because I think they kept losing. I think the Shapiro thing had a real like like we had this guy dead to rights in Miami and then we screwed that up. So we don't really have the power we think.

So we're just going to keep all of our money as long as we possibly can. We'll let you NIL. We'll let you transfer. We're not really going to enforce anything, even though there was a hinting i think it was like last year where they were like oh by the way there's some rules about this and i yeah then they're like well what are they like when it first started a lot of the programs were like we don't even really know what's going on so that's what it feels like it's not a it's not a a stare down it's that one party's not even interested in looking that's tell me if i'm wrong because

we're gonna like take all these little steps that feel like progress and that like probably placate the players because we don't want to give on the big thing that's kind of like that's kind of the progress that we're making here a little bit and uh you know i think that like there's like back to you said like with the waivers the waivers thing became a joke it's like if you don't have the right like if you can't get a waiver just get the right lawyer write a letter and you're not gonna have to sit out a year so then you don't need a sick relative you can just make up a story and the other side says yeah that's fine just give it to him yeah and that's what was happening like i remember there was somebody not that long ago who's declined a waiver i remember us being like what like he didn't get cleared like how did that

happen like that was weirder than the guy getting the waiver for sure yeah yeah it's and so they they part of part of these things like they change um and look there's there's the other piece of this too that is like kind of fed this and that's, you know, you know that in college football, they love the term unintended consequences and that all these progress lead to something else we've got to fix. And part of what's kind of feeding the portal right now is you've got, in 2020, they weren't sure they're going to have a season. They set this rule that 2020 doesn't count for anybody, which at the time, I'm like, great, great.

That's the fair thing, because we didn't know. You know, obviously, a kid in the Pac-12 gets to play four games. A kid in the SEC gets to play 10. It's not fair. You didn't know if you can even make it through a season. But because we froze eligibility in 2020, there's now a lot of guys that hit the portal and they've played four years somewhere, like Spencer Sanders at Oklahoma State. They've played four years somewhere, but they've got an extra year. So, hey, may as well go do that somewhere else. And so you've kind of got this over time that will cycle out, but you've just got a lot of players now who are either kind of being pushed out the door or just feel like, well, I got an extra year. May as well go do it somewhere else.

And so it's just kind of feeds the attrition of this too. Okay. That's another great point. The extra year when it happened, it was, I think the NCAA was trying to do something good. They're like, all right, we're not even going to count this whole thing. It's a mess. I would even add this to the NCAA. When the NCAA actually does something that I think is a really good decision, when they were doing stuff with basketball and then bringing it, nobody can ever go like,

hey, the NCAA did it. That's how bad it is for them right now. They'll do something really good that's not even motivated by finances whatsoever. It's like no one will ever give them credit for anything. There you go. A little credit for anything. So there you go. A little credit for you. What does this mean for high school kids? Because I've read reaction to this that it really screws them up. You can make an argument.

It's actually not that significant because it's not a max signing thing, but it's still the max 85 scholarships. Yeah, it's so there was an adjustment this year, and it leads to a lot of kind of interesting adjustments here where you were getting to a point where, OK, these schools are taking too many transfers and not enough high schoolers because they were capped at taking 25, basically with some wiggle room, but basically 25. They kind of came to the conclusion, okay, well, we want more high schoolers to get opportunities. And it's important that these schools, you know, stay at 85 scholarships, because you saw Ryan, like at LSU, at the end of Orgeron, like, they're down to like 50 players. And so we're like, what are we doing here? Like, it's it, you can't have enough injuries and attrition that then you end up in really bad shape. So we changed the rule here where you just need to keep it at 85, you can sign as many as you want. And so what that leads to is you would hope more opportunities for high school recruits out here right now that some of these guys are ending up at G5 schools or junior colleges or whatever because how invested these schools are in taking transfers. But what it's really going to lead to in terms of the roster management piece is you've got schools that are going to run off their 10 worst players out of their 85 and say, hey, can't play here it is what it is you obviously

you saw Dion come out and say like and I got no problem with it but Dion coming out and saying that's how it's going to be at Colorado you're going to run off your worst players because that now because of the way the rules change that's freeze up spots for us to go replace you with somebody better yeah like there's a really good example because when you look at some of the total numbers here, right, you'll go, okay, well, bam, I had the most players under the transfer portal and I could see somebody being like, hey, the decline of the Nick Saban era.

And you're like, okay, wait, wait, it's four backup offensive linemen who to what your point just was are probably sitting around now for a little while going, I'm never playing here. So what am I doing? Let me know if there's more to that. Like, do you look at that? Is it anything more than just these? It's more of a player decision or excuse me. It's more of a numbers decision that it is

a player going, you know what? I'm going to get off this Saban ship here before it really goes down. There's usually two sides to it. I mean, the thing that's become really popular is just exit meetings at the end of the season where the coach is telling you, hey, we don't think you're going to play here. Maybe we'll help you go find your next place, but we don't think you can play here because they've got to create room. Or on the other side, yeah, it's guys at Alabama who get there and get processed out because they just feel like they can't. It sounded great in theory going to Alabama and going competing with all these blue chip guys, but the dream run can come true for everybody that signs with Alabama.

OK, so the quarterback number that you pointed out numerous times this year, which I thought was really good. I think it's what 56 quarterbacks were starters. To start this season. Yeah, that were transfer portal guys. So let's talk about the quarterbacks. What do you think happens with DJ? We don't go like, yeah, he's, he's, I mean, I think you could, you could make the argument like he's just the most interesting guy in this whole, this whole cycle, because you, you know, you look at the performance over the last two seasons here. And if you combine 21 and 22,

he ranks 50th in the country and passing yards. And if you go passing yards per attempt, out of the guys that have played 20 games, he's 80th out of 87. He's right ahead of Spencer Petras from Iowa. But obviously, he's also 21 and 5 in that time. So he's been successful. And obviously, it was a long journey for Dabo to get to the point of saying, okay, we're going to go with Cade Klobnik

finally here. I think probably heading back out to the West Coast, I think probably it's a good thing for DJ to kind of just clear his head, kind of drop that baggage, kind of you know, I think these fresh starts can be really good for these guys, and you just hope he kind of finds

the right OC, whether that's I don't know, UCLA, Arizona State, some of these schools out in the Pac-12 that are searching. I think he's going to end up better off, but certainly he's got to work his ass off here over these next nine months to really improve and learn a new offense

and try to kind of clean up the stuff that was not good enough this year. Is Devin Leary the second best or arguably the best option at quarterback? Yeah, I'd say arguably the best for sure. He was awesome last year. ACC preseason player of the year this year. Big expectations there.

I think their 13th in the preseason poll felt like they could go in the ACC. What happens with him is season-ending injury, torn pec. He's got to rehab and get right and stuff, but you really can make the case he's the best guy out there. I think one that you plug in and feel like he can be really be really productive and um you know ryan that's just how this is now too like these players like i wouldn't have guessed at the start of the year devon leary's going the portal but like one thing goes wrong and then you're making a move that's just kind of the norm now for this this position group

yeah that would surprise me and look to be fair to nc state too if he's healthy all season long they're definitely right i mean they They hung on. Didn't they finish 24th actually? It was kind of one of those weird deals. It wasn't a horrible year, but not yet to the expectations. Yeah, they were 23rd in the playoff, 25th in the AP. But if

he plays the full season, it's a different story there because they were a good football team. Is there a name? You know what i thought was funny is mccullough the edge kid from indiana whose dad is on staff at nd yet it's pretty much assumed he's not gonna go there yeah he there's a lot of like a lot of oklahoma smoke there and oklahoma's trying to flip his brother who's in the 23 class too so yeah he's really talented edge rusher that um i think was committed to oh State at one point in time. Like, that kid can play, and Oklahoma certainly needs D-line men and guys off the edge right now.

What's going on at A&M? What is going on at A&M? I think we're all kind of sitting back here waiting to see what direction Jimbo's going with the OC hire. You knew that there was going to be off-season attrition there, and and there's been a lot there's been a lot of guys going in not a ton of guys that you would say like are starters or potential maybe like all SEC guys certainly you had the guys like Denver Harris they got in trouble during the season and had to move on but like I don't think this week has been as bad as maybe you'd expect we haven't seen Evan Stewart and some of those guys go in Connor Wigman obviously super important to hold on to him I think a lot of guys are probably kind of just waiting to see what happens with this coaching staff and kind of those guys go in. Connor Wigman, obviously super important to hold on to him. I think a lot of guys are probably

kind of just waiting to see what happens with this coaching staff and kind of what changes are being made there. But, you know, it's funny, like probably the LSU game probably does something for people around there. Like, imagine just how dark it would be if you're finishing four and eight there and everyone's just sort of like, I'm getting the hell out of there. I think the way

that they finish that probably helps a little bit, but that OC hire is certainly going to affect the way people view this thing. Yeah, Wigman, I think, shows you why he was such a big recruit in that game. And I know no one outside of the SEC ever wants to hear this, but if you were to watch that game, you're like, oh, what a disaster for A&M this year, considering, wait wait who's that dude right towards the end of this so stewart has a lack of talent there that's for sure no

so stewart hasn't like the expectation was that the receiver stewart was going to go in and he hasn't yet because it's the second most googled thing if you type in his name and then the second thing is did he transfer um So he's not technically in yet, despite expectation over the weekend that he would be in. He is not technically in, no. And I think that was the big thing at A&M is like everyone knew they're like, it's not really, this offseason is not about the 23 class. It's about holding on to the 22 class. And that's where again, like that's where you would probably tell your collective, here's where we're going to be spending is to hold on to these freshmen because we've already got them here.

That's way more valuable than going out and getting the next guys. I can't wait for trades. Maybe two, three years from now, we'll just start trading guys. Week eight deadline, trade deadline show makes the job more interesting for you. For me, I have zero sympathy for the staffs. Like I said before, I got one thing for the staffs, like I said before. I got one thing for you here I think you appreciate. I was looking at Max Duggan's quarterback class of 2019,

which is the class Spencer Rattler, Bo Nix, Jane Daniels, all those guys. Max Duggan obviously didn't transfer, and look how it worked out for him. If you go through that class, the top 50 quarterbacks in that class, the guys that didn't transfer, Max Duggan, Sam Howell, KJ Jefferson, Dylan Morris, who's the backup at Washington because they took a guy out of the portal, and then Roshan Johnson, who turned into a running back at Texas.

Five guys out of 50 did not transfer in a quarterback class. That's where it's going. Before I, okay, I was going to let you go, but you hit on something that I like here. Older people have a hard time with talented younger people they just do and so for all the times I would hear about the guy like I stuck it out like I've heard that Max Duggan thing and I love Duggan season I don't have a bad word to say about the kid sure but it it was a very normal thing to think it was awesome when a guy stuck it out.

Because if he stuck it out and then performed later, it was some lesson about sticking it out. Where if I'm a father, if I'm the high school coach, if I'm the kid and I come in and I'm a big recruit, but like Ohio State who just loads the room up and be like, Oh, you're a five star. You get it. Like, I love what Ohio state does. Like, we're not screwing around. We'll just take all of you. And then you get here and we'll sort it out later. Um, there's NFL teams that would love to do that. Right. Right. And so if I'm the number seven guy in my class and the number two guy beats me out like i'm really supposed to sit around for three years to prove to adults how hardened i am like fuck that i'm gone and yeah no but when it doesn't work out right then it's like oh we should have known like the keaton slovis story like he's in

the portal again and jt daniel's in the portal again you you very you could get on these guys case and i guess after three or four stops you might might think, like, maybe it's you, okay? I don't know enough about the Slovis or JT thing, a part of it, other than maybe, you know, look, like a lot of high school guys that stay, the original evaluation was too positive. We have this thing where we want to reward the kid for not doing something that we would probably all do if it were our kid, if it was you. And the Max Duggan story is awesome. It's great. But when I see all the quarterback numbers, like 56 that we referenced before, for the quarterback, I just don't think it's realistic. And I don't think it's actually some sign on his character, his lack of mental toughness.

When somebody just looks at the numbers going, hey, there was another school that was really interested in me and I'm going to move on. Quinn Ewers might not be a great quarterback because of some of the mechanics or something else. I don't think it's like, oh, we knew when he left Ohio State because C.J. Stroud was there that he wasn't the guy. And I think that storyline is assumed.

It's very played out. It is. Honestly, I asked Sonny Dyches this summer, and this is probably a weird question to ask somebody, but I asked him, why didn't Max leave? Because the guy he's competing with, Chandler Morris, has already transferred before. He's already used his one-time transfer.

You brought in a new staff. Garrett Riley's bringing in an offense that Chandler Morris basically played in a little bit at Oklahoma, right? And coming out of spring ball, it was 50-50, but they kind of felt like Chandler Morris had the right tools for the offense to try to run.

And Sonny was like, well, you know, he really likes it here. He wants to see it through. He probably did think about leaving, but had a good time in spring and felt like he's got a shot here, and he does, so why not see it through? But those guys are just

they're kind of the outliers now and it's like good for him for staying but anecdotally you'd say like people want to point to that and say like man that's that's how it should be done but I mean should Joe Burrow sit on the bench at Ohio State his whole career like of course not this was fun man

you're great at this keep up the great work I think you're better looking than your avatar on twitter at max underscore olsen you can read all of his work on the athletic it is worth it if you're a college football fan keep you up to date on the rules and the transfer stuff that's happening thanks man thanks You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork.

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NA member FDIC. Life Advice. The email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC. Life advice. The email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. I've talked in the past about wanting to get a little bit more specific, get people that are far more accomplished in their field than me just reading all these emails and trying to guess some

answers. So Bill Callahan, writer, producer, a guy I've known since my teenage years is going to join us. We have questions ahead of time. Callie's resume is extensive. He started out in Spin City. We were so fired up. We're like, Callie's on Spin City. Eight simple rules. I think Scrubs is what he's most known for, Psych. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff I didn't even know about. The Goldbergs on top of everything else. It's good to catch up with you Callie

how are you doing? You're great man thanks for having me this is fun. Okay just so everybody understands our background I'm a year round Martha's Jr. guy Callie was a little bit older come down college quarterback at Union starts lifeguarding

all the girls like him we're like who's this fucking guy? Get him out of here. And then we all became friends. And then Callie moves to L.A. after he was a professional quarterback in Spain, American football, and was, I believe, led to having to make the decision of continuing to play

American football in Spain as a young dude or move to LA to pursue writing. Once he got into the writing thing, I annoyed him. I would check in once a year. I'm sure it was annoying for him. I sent him a Speck Simpson script that I wrote on Word and he called me immediately and said, this is horrible. Don't ever show anyone this again. It's the most unprofessional thing ever by a writing program. Callie's a huge sports fan. So because when I got into ESPN, I think he started taking my calls a little bit more seriously then. And then I was like, look, I'm finally going to make the move out to LA. There's other stuff

that I want to do. He's been gracious enough to spend his time reading everything that I've written. So that's my friendship with Callie, which means a lot because most writers hate reading anything, especially if it's from somebody that's completely unestablished. But he was nice enough to play along some 20 years ago when i first started picking his brain about it so thanks for that um well thanks man for that intro um you know i did uh i got must confess i don't think i even read that simpson so the fact that it was on word i just think in principle i couldn't keep reading but I'm sure it's fantastic knowing what type of writer you are and how funny you are so um I'm I'm still gonna get to it it's on my to-do list I was devastated because I was like oh wait and it was like it was this lesson where you said

hey man I don't know how serious you want to take this and you know that's that's in fairness to what's going on with you you hit spin city City. You're on Scrubs with Bill. You were running it there for a while, right? Yes, for co-running it with Bill, I think in like season four and five, yeah. Yeah, and I think what happens is that any acquaintance you've ever had, because there's so many people that want to do it,

want to think about doing it, think they can do it, then you kind of become the gateway to their dreams. And it's, it's a really tough spot to be in because you want to be respectful, but you also want to be realistic. And, uh, I just, I just getting to know you and knowing you over the years that that's not the easiest thing. So let's go back to the beginning. Um, American football in Spain. What was that like for you in your early 20s? Well, you know what? I did not have my college career didn't finish the way I wanted it to. So I had this big itch of wanting to play football, not ready to move on unless I played. So I kind of manifested it. My brother had played at Harvard with this guy who was playing in this league in

Spain. And he was like, all right, I'll get in touch with him. And he knows you can play. And then nothing became of it. And then a month later, I get a call saying their quarterback of his team in Barcelona just got hurt. And could I get on a plane the next day? And so it got to a week later, I'm playing in Olympic Stadium. So psyched to keep playing sports. And it's just amazing. It's just kind of this league in Spain made up of all Spanish players and they bring over two Americans to coach and play. So I did that for six months and I did well and I kind of scratched that itch. So I did that for six months and I did well and I kind of scratched that itch. And yeah, as you referenced, I could have done the same thing in Palermo, Sicily, which apparently was a step up.

But at that point, I was God, I was mid 20s, didn't know what I wanted to do. Had a sister who was working in the biz out here. And so that I came out and just started to write and got lucky. I kind of broke in at the right time. One last football question. It's perfect that it's Palermo with the second season, the White Lotus, everything tying together here perfectly. Were you good?

Were you lighting it up 20-some years ago? Because I don't know how popular American football was to actually be played at that point in Spain. I'm a 6'5", kind of slow white guy who can throw. I got strong arms. That was enough. Again, it was like

it's all Spanish players who have never were paying to play. And there were some people who were literally like chicken farmers like catching balls from me um so yes i i did pretty well there was like some a lot of like former nfl wash-ups there as well and i kind of competed so um so yes in that setting at that time, I killed it. Okay.

All right. So you mentioned the biz part of it going, okay, I can't do this forever, which I'm sure the rest of your family was very thrilled that you got out of there. What was it that you knew you kind of had inside of you where you'd watch TV shows, you'd watch movies? And I think anybody that enters your world, you start consuming things a little differently. What was that for you that you were like, I think I could actually do this. I have an interest to do this. At that time, it's so naive.

You start thinking about what do you want to do? And that just seemed like a very cool job. I remember growing up and watching some of my favorite shows, like Cheers and just like cackling on the couch. And I just remember thinking, whosever job that is to come up with that just has the best job. And so off the Spain experience, I was maybe kind of feeling it. I'm like, all right, I'll go do that, especially since my sister was out here as a movie executive. So she got me a job working for an agent who represented these incredible writers. And so then I'm like, you know, I really enjoyed doing creative things.

And so I actually had a partner at the time was my best buddy from high school. So we just started coming in on weekends and just writing and making each other laugh and writing the stuff that we wanted to watch. And yeah, to the one day, I just took these spec scripts and then I handed them to the person I was working for who was terrified because she had no idea. That actually was Sue Nagel, who went on to be the head of HBO. And she said, okay, these are good. I'll get you a few meetings. So I didn't know what I did. I didn't know what I didn't know. It felt fun. It felt cool.

And I was lucky to have enough early success to stay at it. Were you not supposed to be doing that? Because you were working for an agency that was repping all these people. And weren't you like reading the scripts? And then the way the story has been kind of conveyed to me is that you were reading stuff going, wait, I might not be that far off. Like I might be able to actually do this. Right. So when you work in an agency, the good advice that I got was don't tell them that you don't want to be an agent.

So I told them I wanted to be an agent. So you go through the mailroom, you answer the phones, you do all that stuff. room to answer the phones to do all that stuff and then you know um she the agent i was working for soon ago represented like four academy award um winners literally on her list and so um and all these amazing simpsons writers and friends and um and seinfeld and so i'd read their stuff um and i'd be like you know this is really Like, can I give it a shot? And so, yeah, we started doing it and you don't know if it's good, you know, and luckily, um, but it felt good and it, you know, people responded. And so that's all I needed. What was the first interview like getting into a room for spin City? It was with Bill Lawrence.

It was Bill Lawrence, right? Yeah. It was cool. We were just like young and energetic and we made him laugh and he was super cool. He was running Spin City. He was 26. You know, he was kind of jockey and played hoops and we had that in common. Now, he was kind of jockey and played hoops, and we had that in common.

But, you know, in any writer's meeting, the rule is just make them like you. Make them envision being in a room with you and not wanting to kill themselves, you know? So it would just, you know, we just kind of sparked. And at the time, we had a bunch of other meetings as well. And it was, again, it was a very, very different time. I think we had like, we were staff writers with no credits who immediately had three offers on three shows. That would never in a million years happen now. It's just much tougher. There's much less content.

But again, it was a good time to break in. So when you say much less content, I think somebody would listen and be like, what are you talking about? Streaming all these different, all these places. But what do you mean by, are you talking specific to the nature of what you were writing? So I don't know what the numbers are, but I think, so this is late nineties. Um, there was probably almost 30 half hours on network television. Now, I don't know what the number is.

I'm sure it's less than 10. You know, there was much bigger staff. Staffs had anywhere from 12 to 18 writers. Now it's around 10, maybe, depending on what the order is. Orders were 26 episodes. So you needed a ton of people to work on these shows and much different rules about who got hired and et cetera, et cetera.

So basically, it was just a lot more jobs, a lot more opportunity. Other than being a gladiator in Roman times, I'm not sure there's a bigger gap between this is the best to this is the fucking worst in the writer's room based on friends that have told me about the experience the variance between the best version of it and the worst version of it oh yeah what is it like like really explain to us what that dynamic is like? Oh, man. Well, I mean, look, it starts at the top. If you have a showrunner who's a good person, who has a vision, who knows what they're doing,

they can make life really easy for everyone. And that includes hiring people that are normal and cool. And when you get in those situations, and I've been on a few of them, it's fantastic. You know, it feels fun. It feels collaborative. The hours are decent. But I've been on a bunch

where that's not the case, whether it's the personality of the showrunner. I've worked for great showrunners on shows that just weren't clicking, that you just had to constantly rewrite and rewrite. You'd be getting endless amount of notes. And next thing you know, you're there till two in the morning, and then you have a terrible table read. And then you come in and everyone's cranky, and you are pissed at one person in the

room, and it can really snowball snowball so i've been doing this long enough where you get in rooms that are they're going well with great people um where the writing is relatively easy you um you want to really appreciate that um because um again the wheels can come off very fast i actors don't answering this. I've tried a few times where you're like, what's it like? I remember when I was in a film class at school, this was a long time ago, and it was that Ready to Wear movie. And the only reason why we studied that film is that the producer was a UVM guy and he had done a bunch of Spike Lee movies as well. He was an awesome producer, but it was just a movie that didn't click.

The Prince of Porte, it just didn't happen. And we were like, why did that? I think I even asked. I was like, hey, when you're on day whatever filming, and you're like, this is not working, what's that like? What is it like? What is it like trying to, I mean, I guess the reward is unlocking those moments where you

have a couple days you're like we can't finish this scene we can't this isn't funny it's not working this character's going in the wrong direction what is it like trying to get through that oh man um again so you do a table read on monday and let's say you shoot on Friday. So you have two rewrites and two run-throughs to get it right before they lock it. So if the Monday table read is terrible, okay, you come back. That's with the actors and actresses, right? Yes.

And it often is terrible. You come back, you make a plan, you throw it on the board. You know, often you rewrite everything from page one. You stay up super late. Then you come back the next day. It's another horrible table read. At this point, you're exhausted.

You're not sure what works, but you give it a shot. I mean, there's one famous story from Spin City where what we would often do is when we would do these page one rewrites, like whatever, like if a run through ends at four, you basically have, you know, that night to finish an entire script, which is a ton of writing.

So often you will be like, all right, this room of eight writers will take the first half. We'll take the second half. It happens all the time. I think one week we were so delirious that both rooms took the first half. And then at like 10 o'clock, it's like, how are you guys doing? We're just like, we're finishing this joke. We're like, we wrote that joke. You're like, oh, God. Then I don't even know what version we picked. But yeah, that was probably a son.

The son came up, rewrite. And there was many of them. Is it important to win or lose as a writer when you're arguing over something? Oh man, I mean, look, that is so subjective, right? You know, you want

things, if you really are believing in something, you make your case, ultimately, the showrunner will decide which way you're going. And that doesn't mean it's their right or your wrong. All you can do is kind of pitch what you passionately feel. Because what you often find in those situations is there's not enough people pitching passionately. You know, if you're seeing it, explain it, articulate it.

And because people who can do that, Bill is certainly, Bill Lawrence is certainly one of them. It saves you a lot of time. It makes things a lot easier. Because look, there's so many ways to go when you're writing television. So those that can like pitch that joke or, or lay out that story and people can follow them. That is insanely valuable in a writer's room.

Yeah. Maybe I should have framed that a little differently, but I just think like if somebody's always fighting about their joke or their line or this turn and the showrunner is going to break the tie at some point or maybe the showrunner is just going to overrule you because they're thinking like when i first learned about like you submit your script and then the showrunner rewrites especially in some of the more of the dramas where they're rewriting so much of it you know yeah and then if you don't know any better, you're like, wait, you just hacked away at my entire script. Oh my God. I mean, yeah, but that's the gig. I mean,

look, it's, um, there also is a line between being passionate and being annoying. I mean, I'm sure particularly as a young writer, I've like, I'm sure pitched the same joke over and over. I remember literally saying, how is that not funny? And if you have to ask that question, you're kind of screwed. Usually the lack of laughter explains why something is not funny. So even if you love it, you learn to move off of it

or you won't be working very long. I know. I know why we're friends because it's so perfect. It's so perfect to be like, how are the rest of you not funny enough to understand how funny I am? Okay, let's get to some of the emails here. I'll read them out. I already had sent them to Callie. All right, here we go.

All right, hey guys, 67260. Callie's probably like, it just happened. I don't know. Dan Patrick used to have people do it. Now people are giving us lifting stats. We'll try to cut through some of that. Two questions for Callie, if that's all right. First question, I'm pretty good at coming up with episode plots or TV shows I like.

At least I think we are, but we all know how it goes. So I was wondering if you have any advice about trying to submit spec scripts for shows or try to build up a resume and possibly get an opportunity to write for a show. Second question. I have about 10 ideas for movie scripts and seeking advice where to even begin with these stories turns into a presentable screenplay. Do you start with an outline, then treatment, or do you have different process altogether? I realize there are hundreds of how-to

writer screenplay books, but I definitely value any advice, basics, writing, submitting spec scripts and screenplays. Appreciate anything you can provide, even if the advice is, quote, if you don't live in LA, New York, and don't have a legitimate background in script writing, then don't even bother. Thanks. So two different things there.

Yeah, lots to unpack. First of all, if you have 10 really great movie ideas, like stop hoarding them. Send them this way. You can't possibly write all those. But in terms of, you know, how do you get a spec script, you know, kind of made or whatever,

I would say, you know know the big step is getting representation you know getting an agent is always um or manager is always a good first step um you know how do you get one of those you really you know blindly submitting doesn't work um based on my experience um so i would say just like anyone you know who works on a show anyone who works in an agency or whatever just um try to get like an in like a personal connection what if you don't have that what if you have nothing you live in the middle of nowhere you you're writing these scripts like how do you start the would you just start hounding the agencies? Hmm. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, look, if you are not living in New York or in LA and you have no connections, to be honest with you, it's going to be really hard. Everyone knows someone. What I always tell people is move out to LA or New York if you you're serious about it, you know, you get out here, you get a job. Um, things move a lot faster. You know, you, the only way to get in is really to know people. And if you don't know people, um, it's really tough. It's really tough when you do know people.

So, um, you know, um, yeah. um yeah okay all right the other part of this is format like everybody has kind of their own process and for you writing episodes of an already mapped out season is different than you just sitting in your spare time like in your spare time are you still writing for yourself yeah yeah okay so your process? Like, how do you start from the beginning of the thought to actually putting it on paper? How do you do it? Yeah, everyone's different. Um, I'm a big believer in a detailed outline. Um, there's been many times where I've had an idea where I'm just, you know, I'm just going to write this for me. Um, that never goes well, this. For me, that never goes well. You know, I need to know the story I'm telling. I need to know what the story points are in each scene. I need to know where I'm going. Because once you've

got a detailed outline and a fleshed out story, it just gets a lot easier to write. You know, just going scene by scene i generally end up like throwing away scenes that i've written you know so um as painful as it can be sometimes you just kind of like throw it on a board write a little blurb for each scene so the very least you know what the story point is um but you know everyone's process is different but like i would feel i feel like that is um and the writers i talk to generally the way people go about it okay next one here um the perfectionist fallacy in writing okay unrepped unproduced looked out three completed features after writing multiple shorts handful of competition competition placements, use Writer Duet as my software of choice.

I share a couple of traits with Hemingway. I use periods frequently in my prose, and I think I'm a better fighter than I probably am. Okay. I'm currently on my eighth draft of my fourth feature, which is what brings me here today. The perfectionist fallacy is crippling my ability to write and be productive. This is something that's slowly poisoned me and gotten worse over the past year, leaving me second-guessing every single word I write. Welcome to writing. This leads an endless cycle of editing, re-editing, outlining and re-outlining, staring blankly at my laptop, self-loathing, and chronic masturbation.

I must admit, I am probably too results-focused, and this ultimately puts more pressure on the next thing i write to be the thing that gets my foot in the door place is better in competitions gets red etc for what it's worth i love and enjoy writing and don't subscribe to the tortured artist trope the mornings when i'm in the zone are fun and challenging rewarding but i just haven't been able to find that zone for a while now how do i free myself from this paralysis what is the best way to conquer your inner critic and just write thanks in advance okay so this guy's doing something and i'll just jump in here a little bit which is you know a little dangerous when i first started writing i couldn't wait to show everybody everything and now when i write i never want to show anything to anybody it's the op it's like i was so happy that i accomplished

something the first time i actually finished the 60 pages i was like look at me i'm fucking awesome and it's like now the script sucks um now i'm constantly going back and like there comes a point where it's like either it's good and somebody else finally needs to see it then it's like, no, the script sucks. Um, now I'm constantly going back and like, there comes a point where it's like, either it's good and somebody else finally needs to see it or it's bad and somebody else needs to finally see it. So he seems to be kind of stuck in this paralysis, not based on a writer's block, but this, this version that may not even exist for what it is that he's writing. So how do you do that? You know, it's, um, set yourself a deadline. You know, it's set yourself a deadline. You know, I'm one of those people who knows something is done when I have no choice, when I have to send it to somebody.

You know, eight rewrites is a lot of rewriting. My question would be, is why? Is who's giving you those notes? is why. Who's giving you those notes? Because if you keep rewriting and rewriting, often it's just going to get worse. So set yourself a deadline. Just be like, at this point,

I have to send it to so-and-so. At this point, I need to just put it away and not look at it. Because yes, striving for perfection is going to be a little bit of a, a futile task. So put it away, go work on something else and then revisit.

And a lot of the stuff that you were thinking that you, you had to make perfect may have been fantastic, or all of a sudden you may be thinking like of another way to go on a certain scene. But try to avoid over-focusing and trying to meet some kind of high standard

that you've set for yourself. And often, again, for me, that helps just working with the deadline. I love telling somebody I can have something done in. I'd be like, oh, I can have that for you in a month. And then it's like haunting you.

And then you're going to go, if I don't get this done by then, or it's a month after I said, at least I still get it done, which I think people understand with writers a lot. But it's great. It's great because you put this pressure on yourself where somebody's expecting something from you. So I think what you said there is perfect just start like start telling the person that matters it'll be done yes and if it isn't then you're the asshole and you're going to hold yourself to the standard so i actually think that's a great way to motivate getting stuff finished okay this one's a little longer but it's a little more specific okay um i have questions about tv film writing that hopefully you can all weigh in on.

I'm 27, part of a sketch comedy group in a major city, a couple of friends. Self-produced a couple of feature films in the past three years, along with some direct-to-Twitter sketch videos. We also do live performance on occasion. We basically do pro wrestling without a mat. Badass.

Our style is pretty odd. No kidding. And essentially unknown outside of our small alt comedy sphere. Okay. Obviously, it was cool to have a bunch of people.

We had a few million people watch this video, but we're not really into making this kind of stuff that hits a mass audience. We're pretty realistic about this whole thing and aren't banking on

getting cast on SNL. We all have good nine-to-five jobs that allow us flexibility to fuck around on the side with comedy for the past five years has been a creative outlet for us a way to meet funny people to drink beer with. While back,

we were hit up by a producer from a seemingly well-established independent studio. We'll leave that out, who had seen our work and wanted to work with us. They seem legit. And the person we met with was willing to meet and help us develop any kind of show or movie we wanted. The first couple of zoom meetings with the producer went well.

She seemed normal and nice. We were excited about the prospect of making or movie we wanted. The first couple Zoom meetings with the producer went well. She seemed normal and nice. We were excited about the prospect of making something with a budget. Then as our weekly meetings went on, they turned into hour-long lectures on writing mechanics and structure, which was okay because none of us had come from film school background

and we definitely weren't up to speed on some fundamental crap. But when she started giving us homework assignments, like reading two books in one week, we recoiled a little. Then she began talking about her own writing as a reference point for what we wanted to make. These were

scripts she had written, but never sold. Her writing style and sense of humor could have been more different from our own. She seemed more interested in having a little brother to dish out with about the biz than hearing our ideas. With that on the table, we decided to pause our meetings with her and reconsider. She was receptive and said she wants to start Bad Up again

next year. We hadn't discussed it, but we're leaning towards ditching her. However, a little part of me wonders if we're letting a golden opportunity slip. Is this what producers are like? Could she work for the studio unofficially because they looked her up on LinkedIn and saw that she wasn't currently employed with the studio?

Or could she at least know the right people to get the script in front of? Or is she just some weird lady who saw my viral vid and wanted some new friends? The larger question we have is how do we make this jump from a fun side project to try to break into showbiz? We take our craft seriously. So, look, it sounds like they kind of want to do this, but they may have met the wrong person and because they don't have a lot of access to these people cali that it's like hey we have this great opportunity and honestly i mean i kind of know where you're going to go with this i imagine we probably agree it sounds like a waste of time but go ahead what do you think it sounds like um this person is not who they say they are.

You know, it's do your research on people because it's not hard for people to say they're producers. You know, but I get it. You want to break in. I would say, you know, look, I actually saw, you sent me the link of that video. It was really funny. And I know you don't want to do things for mass audiences i think was your quote but why not if a lot of people are watching it um you know and and you believe in the stuff keep doing that and someone legit may find it you know um i wouldn't jump at the first person who shows enthusiasm because, you know, you can waste your time.

But my advice is just keep doing cool, funny stuff and you have to decide how badly you want it. You know, if you really want it, then move to New York, move to L.A. It's tough to do living in Chicago. it's tough to do living in Chicago. But like, look, if this is also, if this gives you a lot of joy, then just keep doing that, you know, and, and, and someone if it's truly great may come knocking on your door, but, and when that happens, just be very careful that they're legit. Yeah. I think bad meetings are important figuring this career out because then you start to realize like wait this was a good meeting or this is a real person and it's unavoidable and again correct me at any point through all this mine is very you know entry-level stuff but there was one show we

did take out to pitch and then looking back at that whole process i'm like oh my god like we had no chance like why did they even let me do this like this was oh this was an agent thing and it was it was we just decided to go on like a seven-day tour of wasting everybody's time because we weren't really doing this but now i know oh well that was all the things we did wrong and you're going to meet people you're going to meet people that are so full of shit but so is every industry that has any value to it. Because there's just going to be people hovering around. People were like, why would you want to go out there and do all that stuff? I'm like, I was at ESPN for 15 years. You don't think I'm a little conditioned to handle the bullshit element of a business that matters? And I remember one of

the first meetings I took when I was out here, major network, could have been more fired up, scheduled for 30 minutes, went two and a half hours. We were supposed to meet up for drinks that weekend. Have never heard from the guy since. It was four years ago. I haven't heard from him since. And in the beginning, I was like, is that normal? Yes, it is.

Okay. This one's funny. I think there's a quick answer to this one. 29, six foot. Basically, my brother is writing a sitcom and i have no idea how to help him he's asking for a five thousand dollar loan to invest in his writing he's 26 years old plans to pitch a sitcom to nbc when he turns 30 all right well just a heads up to nbc four years this guy's coming for you he lives in new york city so

he's plenty of ideas but whenever I ask him for episode ideas, he sends me a notepad with episode of ideas that are brief and nonsensical. See attached photo. Let's give you some examples. This is the iPhone Notes app. I think I'm going to read all of them because it's too good.

Goes to cooking class, cooks pasta sauce to perfection, keeps doing tasting spoons until eventually all gone and no more sauce left. Group of four. That's an episode. Bulls offer free item at Dunkin' Donuts for every home game. Race between coffee, donuts, bagel. Someone

abuses the system, creates 30 accounts. They get 10 free items every home Bulls game. Owner of local Dunkin' calls the GM of the Bulls to discuss this man and how to stop him. There's an episode. Slowly friend everyone at Barstool Sports

until they all think I work there. Start commenting on their posts. Eventually show up to work. Create own job. Season 2. Last one. Matt. Man badly injures himself while cooking lunch, hurries and drives himself to hospital.

Ends up finding another car with bumper sticker that says, quote, my husband is an MD. Man convinces driver to pull over to assist his injury. Driver ends up saying the sticker belonged to the old owner episode okay uh whenever someone mentions something funny to him he just simply says quote that's an episode and then adds it to the notepad my question is how can i help him take this sitcom to the next level and is it insane to invest five grand in his writing career i mean i think there's an obvious answer here i think my brother is writing a sitcom is the sitcom i think every episode this little meta is him pitching an idea your character kind of like

shooting it down, and then basically the episode plays out the way he pitched it, and then the final moment is your brother looking to camera and saying, that's an episode. Just Jim from the office going, that's an episode.

It could be your catchphrase. Start bringing catchphrases back in sitcoms. Has anyone tried to pitch you an idea that somebody needs a catchphrase in 2022? Are those done forever? I hope not. Yeah. We need a new Kiss My Grits.

That would be amazing. It'd be so funny if somebody tried to do it seriously. What you talking about, Willis, for 2022? Oh, my God. I mean, how you doing was probably the last huge one. I'm trying to think. Think how dumb we were. That we would wait around for 30 minutes for the guy to say,

what you talking about, Will or kiss my grits. And then everybody at home would be howling. It's still funny. It's, it still holds up. Yeah. It's incredible. Okay.

Last one. And I'll stop wasting your day here. My brother 22 and I 27 have a feature script that we've been working on since 2020. Okay. This is good. Good one to finish on. It's very serious.

We know it's good and we are over the moon about it. been working on since 2020. Okay, this is good. Good one to finish on. It's very serious. We know it's good and we are over the moon about it. We plan on producing it small budget, less than a million dollars come fall 2023. A little background. I'm on the crew of a show that rhymes with with Jell-O Stone. So these guys are legit guys, right? My brother

studied directing the NYU. We've done a couple short films together, but rather than continue down the path, we want to grab... I don't know if I was supposed to say Yellowstone or not. I don't think... These guys can't get in. Like, hey, you guys are making a movie on top of something else? I think they're fine, right? Okay.

We want to continue that path. We want to grab the bull by the horns with this script that is both a good idea and very doable. Not trying to brag. I just don't want to y'all from Texas think we were totally delusional, have zero experience in this realm. Look, we're all on board. We're all on the same page.

Very simple question. A professor of my brother's has agreed to shepherd us in and get us along with our pitch deck into rooms with potential backers. Could you please talk about the best approaches when we're in this meeting? So if this is financial backers, i obviously have nothing to offer you here i don't know if this is different or as general as any of these types of meetings but what do you got yeah you know um i don't have a lot of experience on the future side and i've never really pitched to um money people um but generally if, if you're a writer and you've written a script,

I would imagine usually work with a director and that's where these pitch decks become very important. But if you're just a writer looking for money, the best thing you could do, I would imagine, is to make your script as great as

possible. I don't know if you're going to sway them based on any type of major presentation. Now, if you had a director who was presenting this incredible visual pitch deck and what the movie's going to look like, and et cetera, et cetera, I think that maybe moves the needle a little bit. But I will also say that's a little bit, but, um,

I will also say that's a little bit out of my depth. I don't have a lot of experience with that specific part of the movie business. I feel like you made though, Ryan, right? Um, I, I don't know. I don't, I don't really feel like, uh, I'm, I'm qualified to answer that one either. So maybe I shouldn't have ended on that one. Before we let you go then, is there

something, it is different, but when you were pitching your own stuff, is that a lot like writing where you look back and how you initially pitched yourself? It sounds like in the beginning you were just so naive. You were the best at pitching yourself because you didn't know any better, which is the great thing about being young.

But as you've gotten older and you think about stuff that you've tried to pitch, have you refined that moment, whether you're selling yourself or selling an idea? Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. It's different, right?

If you're meeting on a show, a lot of it is them determining whether they want to be in a room with you, right? So therefore, you are pitching yourself, you're letting them know you're normal, you're funny, you know, it's specific as you can be the better. Some people are great, just kind of wing it and going off the cuff. I, and a lot of writers I know, treat each pitch, they prepare for it like they're writing

a script, right? Like you're basically getting into detail about characters and future stories and themes. And then, you know, often when you're on Zoom, you're basically just selling it based on how you wrote it, you know. So, you know, obviously, if you are pitching a show where you're going to be the showrunner. They want to see that you're engaging and smart and you have a basic handle on what you're pitching. But so much of the work in my experience has to be on the page before you even get in those meetings.

Yeah, no, it's you're right. I mean, if there's one thing that anyone should learn, like organizing your thoughts, knowing where your thoughts are going, whether you're talking to somebody about where your story is or if you're sitting in front of your computer

and you're writing it out like if you don't know where it's going eventually at some point like how are you like why would you ever you know it's not like you're going for a ride to blow off some steam right there has to be an actual destination when you're trying to figure this stuff out thank you as always for your time you've've been an incredibly supportive friend, man, and it goes back a long ways and I appreciate it. Of course, man. It's great to see you. Talk soon. Today's life advice is presented by Chase Freedom Unlimited. Unlimited 1.5% cash back is just beginning. Earn 5% on travel purchased through Chase, 3% on dining, including takeout, 3% at drugstores, and 1.5% on everything

else. How do you cash back? Learn more at ChaseFreedom.com. Restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Saruti and my good friend Bill Callahan for stopping by today's podcast. It's Ryan Russell Podcast. We're here. Spotify. you